The title actually refers to two different subjects. First, I've jumped on the band wagon and I'm blogging. Second, the morning email brought information that the Consumer Electronics Association is increasing game exhibit space by 65% at their Consumer Electronics Show, Jan 7 - 10, 2008.

The CES is held the 2nd week of January in Las Vegas each year and it's already a zoo. Spread over several hotels as well as the Convention Center, they announced last week that they are collaborating with the Parent's Choice Foundation - a group that reviews Children's Media to produce the Sandbox Summit.

It used to be that software vendors would only be there to support the hardware guys. SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) would be there to take advantage of the media presence by taking a private suite in a hotel. Other software companies often took a room for the same reason - "Hey... come see the games after you look at the hardware!"

This year was the first year they had games other than console games actually on exhibit. Microsoft had a large presence in the Sands Convention Center with their Games for Windows Exhibit, showing games that ran on Vista and made use of DirectX 10. I saw some really bodacious looking graphics there, met up with several different hardware companies scattered throughout the Sands, traveled to too many different hotels for appointments, never made it to the Las Vegas Convention Center and didn't want to.

Next year... some advice for first timers, take the monorail between the venues. Don't even think of driving or taking a taxi between the Sands and the Las Vegas Convention centers. Or better yet, plan do do only one venue a day, so you don't have to move between them.