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This weekend both Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii next generation consoles were launched - and the aftermath’s couldn’t have been more different.

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The Playstation, a $599 power play for the future of electronic devices disguised as a game player, had a number of eye raising launch day happenings. Lots of recap from Endgadget: a PS3 crime spree, people shot, armed robberies, riots, police using pepper spray, and escaped rapists. You know, your normal, every day type of thing in the adrenaline soaked world of consumer electronics. Look for Jerry Bruckheimer to scoop up the movie rights.

In the other line were the polite Nintendo fanboys. Coverage from that event was described as nothing less than friendly, perhaps even genteel. Could it have something to do with the fact that the would-be Wii owners actually planned on playing with their purchases? That the over hyped and under supplied PS3 was nothing more than eBay bait? Is this what happens when geeks stop being nice, and start being entrepreneurs?

Thanks Gizmodo. I’ll never be able to look at the Microsoft Zune mp3 player the same way again. After all, it’s not the size of your hardware that’s important… it’s how you use it… apparently.

Not so long ago in a land called Internet-celebrity-dom, Ze Frank, the maker of a video blog, got fed up with all the glowing download numbers swirling around Rocketboom. Rocketboom is another video blog (or vlog to the kids) and former home of Amanda “My Friends Say I’m Funny” Congdon.

The following roll of charts, stats, and log analysis could only make a mathematician happy. From BusinessWeek, who is trying to get the whole thing sorted out because they believe there’s someone out there that might still care about a retraction:

But, here’s where things get even trickier. Our original 211,000 estimate also included 55,000 downloads from outside services and sites,including Tivo and Rocketboom Japan, that distribute Rocketboom. We got this estimate directly from Andrew and not from the logs. So, based on this correction and the original outside download estimate, Rocketboom would have 133,000 daily downloads.

However, Andrew in his post now says that after a lot of research, he has pinpointed more sources for outside downloads. Instead of 55,000 outside downloads, he’s claiming 129,000 so that overall Rocketboom has 207,000 daily downloads.

And here’s the kicker:

Now the numbers look muddier than ever. And Andrew says that because he’s getting too many similar requests and because of NDAs, he isn’t going to let any third party, including Rob and me, verify these stats. At this point, he says it’s an issue between advertisers and himself.

HA! FOOL! Once you release the hell-hounds of statistical analysis there will be no respite! Or maybe that’s the IRS….

With it being mid-November I do believe that we’ve officially got a front runner in the most overblown tech ‘controversy’ category for this year.

Steve Jobs really likes the word ‘boom’. Kudos to the person who sat through each and every keynote to extract the money moment and splice it together. But the big question - after the rash of exploding laptops is boom really a word you want associated with your computer company?

You may remember Amanda Congdon, the former (only moderately) tolerable host of Rocketboom. Well, she’s moving on to be be moderately tolerable on ABC’s online efforts. However, after seeing her video announcement, we can probably add ‘narcissistic’ to her description.

One has to wonder, is this how bloggers appear to the rest of the world?

We’ve been following the dirt ValleyWag has been releasing on Yahoo with keen interest. As you may remember, we gleefully blogged about Yahoo’s botched laser/pyramid bit a month ago. Then came word that several top Yahoo executives would be in the laser sites of a different sort in short order. That was followed by a cattle call of the usual suspects.

It’s nice to see that Yahoo recognizes the predicament they’ve made for themselves and are willing to shake the rank and file awake with some symbolic firings. But will it be enough to transform a universal ‘also-ran’ into a cover-getter? Even Las Vegas isn’t touching this one. Until they do something noteworthy, however, you can capture their unique position in today’s tech industry with the Militant Geek ‘Yawnn!’ Yahoo parody shirt. They start at $19.99 in the Militant Geek Store.

Every once and awhile we need to step back from scooping the sarcasm and make sure that we’re still on target. It’s easy to be cynical about anything these days. Because of that its important that the Militant Geek crew surveys just where the ire lies. What should our next T-Shirt be about? Who needs to be taken down a peg? Vote in our poll (to the right) and help us decide just who gets their next foible on a Militant Geek Tee.

Nolan Bushnell is one of those odd figures in the geek cannon. On one hand he is revered as the man who created Atari. On the other we cringe at the animatronic monstrosities he unleashed with his follow-up, Chuck-E-Cheese. Despite no longer being at the helm of the since tarnished gaming legend he still keeps close tabs on what he wrought. And he predicts upcoming failure for Sony’s PS3 video game console.

From the Red Herring article:

I think Sony shot themselves in the foot… there is a high probability [they] will fail. The price point is probably unsustainable. For years and years Sony has been a very difficult company to deal with from a developer standpoint. They could get away with their arrogance and capriciousness because they had an installed base. They have also historically had horrible software tools. You compare that to the Xbox 360 with really great authoring tools [and] additional revenue streams from Xbox live… a first party developer would be an idiot to develop for Sony first and not the 360. People don’t buy hardware, they buy software.

What??? Does he not realize all the fanboys that want to spend $599 for….wait. Is the PS3 really selling for six hundred dollars? Ack! Pwnage to ensue!

Oh my, oh my. It’s all ready Thursday and we here at Militant Geek are still recovering from our election night hangover. Back to our usual tech related geekiness in a moment. However, one final bit of politics. According to Boing Boing, the news that Rumsfeld was out wasn’t scooped by CNN or NBC - it was Comedy Central’s Daily Show that broke the story.

Thank goodness for fake news.

Steven Colbert breaks down the Google-YouTube conspiracy-fest as only he can:

Colbert on YouTube and Google