Nevermind the “hip and cool” (read idiotically stupid) spelling of sector, this is a being touted as the next big thing in games playing.

BBC Video

One thing I don’t understand is why are they making such a big thing about it? I’ve never understood these things to be honest, its encouraging you to go out and pay money for something you can do at home. Fair enough if you won’t own, say a 360 and you want to have a proper sample of whats on offer, its a great idea, but thats all I can see it being used for. It’s hardly a return of the arcade scene now is it (I’ll be posting something about the arcades a little later!).

Yes it has the latest tech, but with how fast PC technology moves, how long is that going to last? Will it make enough money to keep them up to date? I very much doubt it, I’ve seen LAN arena’s pop up everywhere, from MegaBowl, to backstreets in Nottingham, to being shoehorned into smaller Internet Cafe’s where your shoved in a corner with a set of headphones and left to it.

Theres a place on Midland road in Bedford that offers online gaming via 360 and PC, its not very big, and its not in the best placed area (its a little out of the town centre amongst aload of backwater stores and kebab shops!) and it always looks dingy and not well looked after from the outside, I’ve not ventured in as its not for me.

I will admit I used to go to a place in Nottingham during lunch breaks at college for games of Team Fortress Classic with a friend, but that stopped after about 3 weeks when the novelty had worn off, and we went to the local Amusements where there was a small amount of machiens tucked away that were worth playing on if there weren’t too many people surrounding the pool tables in the centre of the room.

In all honesty, this works wonders in other countries, we’ve all heard stories about Koreans visiting Internet Cafe’s to play MMORPG’s but I don’t think theres a big enough following in this country for anything this big to take place. The fact their touting as a great place to meet like minded folk makes me laugh, have they not seen how people are in Internet Cafe’s and the like? Its very much “headphones on, leave me alone and fuck off”, its not like the arcades of old where you’d gather round and admire someone playing a game give each other tips on where your going wrong and that kind of thing, the world just isn’t like that anymore. There will be chatty people there, but they’ll be people who go regularly and they’ll stick to their own little groups.