My Two Cents
As we’ve been promising you Jeff Kleist’s follow-up report on Microsoft’s Xbox One announcement for a couple days now, we thought we’d give it to you in its own post to separate it from all of today’s other news. So here’s Jeff to fill you in on the details and to offer a little informed opinion (though his own and not necessarily that of The Bits as a whole)…
“With the Xbox One announcement yesterday there has been a huge amount of traffic in the Twitter-verse and not all of it is excitement. The elephant in the room, at least for gamers, has been the supposed blocking of used games by Microsoft’s console, a technology that is also part of Sony’s forthcoming PS4. There is truth to this, but many fans online have blown it entirely out of proportion. PC gaming, especially the hugely popular Steam service, has been blocking resale of games, tying them to one account for all of eternity via some kind of serial number. This feature is completely optional and up to the manufacturer of the game in question.
All right, I’ve got a lot of family stuff going on here today – what with Memorial Day weekend impending – so today’s post is going to be a quick one. BUT…
We’ve got a GREAT new View from the Cheap Seats column for you today. Our very own Bud Elder has offered up a true classic for you guys today! Turns out, in his many twists and turns through the film industry over the years, Bud became good friends with the immortal Gary Busey. Yeah… that Gary Busey. And Bud’s got stories! Enough said. So run – do not walk – to read his new column today: On the Immortal Gary Busey (& Other Musings)…
Guten Tag, dear readers! We’ve got some good stuff for you here today...
As it happens, it’s officially Doogan Day here at The Digital Bits. Our very own Todd Doogan is kicking off a new regular column here at The Bits called Gripe Soda, where he’ll chime in about Blu-ray, DVD, film, TV, comic books and pretty much anything else that catches his fancy or gets his goat. Doogan is also serving as the official curator for another new section we’re launching on The Bits today called The Criterion Spines Project, where we’re going to be compiling as many of our reviews of Criterion titles on Blu-ray and DVD as we can in the months and years ahead. And he’s christening the section today with his own new review of Criterion’s terrific Blu-ray special edition of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. So we hope you enjoy it all... and stay tuned for Doogan’s future exploits around here!
All right, we’re kicking things off today here at The Bits with a review from our own Jeff Kleist of Universal’s new Battlestar Galactica (1978) on Blu-ray Disc. The title is currently a Best Buy exclusive, but should go wide in a few weeks.
Also this afternoon, Russell Hammond has posted the weekly update of the Release Dates and Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD and Video Game cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links. As always, a portion of anything you order from Amazon after clicking through our links goes to help support our work here at The Bits and we surely do appreciate it.
Now then… in Blu-ray/DVD release news today…
All right, we’ve got a couple more quick updates for you this afternoon, in addition to yesterday’s Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray pre-order post (which now includes UPDATED details about the exclusive QMx Phaser replica included in the Limited Edition Gift Set, so do check it out.)…
Universal has set The Office: Season Nine for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 8/13, along with The Mindy Project: Season One on DVD only. Also coming on DVD only from Universal on 7/16 is Alphas: Season Two.
Disney has set a Peter Pan: Return to Neverland – Special Edition for Blu-ray Combo release on 8/20.
Sony has set Dead Man Down for Blu-ray and DVD on 7/9 (SRP $35.99 and $26.99). Extras will include a trio of featurettes (Revenge and Redemption: Crafting Dead Man Down, Revenge Technique: The Cinematography and Staging the Action: The Firefights).