Madden 08, 360 Price Drops, and Selling Next Gen Down the River

Help.

Here, via a URL at ign.com, is a Microsoft press release. It's full of less than clever rhetoric, like, "Xbox 360 is the only console on which consumers will be able to play all of this year's biggest titles: [game 1], "Halo 3" (Bungie Studios), [game 2], [game 3]." That it's straight from MS makes it more interesting that a link is made between the Xbox 360 price drop and Madden's release. Microsoft, not controversially, thinks Madden pushes "next gen" console sales.

Microsoft Corp. today kicked off the greatest holiday lineup in video game history by announcing it will reduce the estimated retail price (ERP) of Xbox 360 by $50 (U.S.) beginning Aug. 8. Soon to follow, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) will release its blockbuster video game title "Madden NFL 08" on Aug. 14. "Madden NFL Football," one of the most important mass-appeal franchises in video games, was the top-selling game of 2006 and is the top-selling franchise of the past 10 years.

So now we have at least one good explanation why an EA Madden developer blog, here hosted by ign.com (conflict of interest, anyone?) says that the WinPC version of Madden matches the features of the "Current Gen" Madden engine instead of that of the "Next Gen" code. We wouldn't want to compete with next gen console sales, would we?

Strangely, the Windows Madden developer doing the blogging is trying to sell the Next Gen version down the proverbial river. Check this quote.

The first question that is going to come up from all the PC fans is about Next Gen vs. Current Gen. So rather then bore you with the details let me say that we are still closer to the Current Gen version of the game. Personally I've been a fan of this choice given the way the game plays.... This really is the great Madden PC debate for the last couple of years: Speed and Game play of Current Gen versus the Look and Graphics of Next Gen (FYI - it just has not been technically possible to do both to date, even though I've been trying).

... I hate looking at screen shots of a game, reading the features, and going "Wow, that is going to be amazing," only to get it home and have it be nothing more then eye candy. Now don't get me wrong I love to push my system at home (why else put two video cards in one PC right?), but really I want a game that will keep me entertained for 60 hours not 60 minutes.

(emph mine)

Two things occur to me:
1.) In the first bolded quote, it's impossible to have Madden on PC match "next gen" consoles' eye candy? Seriously? How many times have we seen engines start on the PC and have to be ramped down for consoles?

I've got to call bull on this one. The only out I can think of for Mr. Kiniry here is that if you have to start from a console engine and port it to the PC, EA's internal deadlines and resources allocated for the Windows version of Madden have created a situation where it would be impossible to port the Next Gen engine in time.

This tells us the PC version is [duh] downstream of the console versions. The issue is that Kiniry is [I assume] wrong to pass this off as a technical issue; it's all 0s, 1s, dollars, and cents.

2.) With the second quote, seriously, the Next Gen versions don't play as well? There's an eye candy vs. gameplay either-or here by definition? The hardware, programming libraries, etc. say that you can either have a game that plays great or looks great but not both? When and how did that happen? Even if you could port Next Gen in time, it'd be a boring game to play on WinPC and is a boring game on the 360 and PS3?

I'm not sure I'm buying that. In fact, I'm not buying it at all. I'll be eager to see how the Xbox 360 version plays (the 360's NCAA '08 is little different than the PS2's, imo, though here that's a sign for the worse).

In any event, if it's an advantage to be Current Gen, why wouldn't I buy the PS2 version over the Windows one and skip boot-up times, driver issues, etc? Ah yes, the Windows version is $10 less. So folks who have Windows boxes and Current Gen consoles get the option to pull in a discount?

I'm confused. If I hypothetically own three Madden-ready platforms, a Next Gen console, a Current Gen console, and a Windows PC, and I'm only buying one version of Madden, which does EA want me to buy and why again?

PS -- Where am I supposed to buy the Mac version again? It's not on ebstore.com, nor even on MacGameStore.com's "Coming Soon" list. What gives? A Google of "Madden 08" Mac gives me nuttin' useful.

Labels: ea, madden, ps3, windows, xbox360

--ruffin at 18:31

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Carmack's jumped the shark

id Software is working on a brand new game with a brand new engine, and I don't care:

"We are working on an all-new franchise: it's not Doom, it's not Quake, it's not Wolfenstein, it's not Enemy Territory, it's not even Commander Keen!

"It is a new id brand with an all-new John Carmack engine and I think that when we show it to people, once again they'll see, just like they saw when we first showed Doom 3, that John Carmack still has a lot of magic left."

A decade ago the words "all-new John Carmack engine" would have had me poring for hours over Anandtech video card, motherboard, and CPU reviews. Now I wonder why I ever cared so much. Maybe id really will have something novel and fun this time, but I wouldn't even bet my milk money on it.

I'm going to hazard that I've changed and id Software fundamentally hasn't.

Edit: Removed link to Kotaku junk post and linked to original source. Idiots.

Labels: PC, windows

--jvm at 15:54

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Tomb Raider Anniversary comparison shots

I am busy finishing up a couple of games (on which I hope to have short posts soon), so I've not been posting much. I have been keeping tabs on the Tomb Raider Anniversary news, and I think the images in this NeoGAF forum post (which in turn took images from this Tomb Raider Forums post) demonstrate the possibility that Crystal Dynamics has done a decent job of recreating the original game. I'm especially impressed with the shot from the Colosseum.In less than two weeks, I'll be playing the full game -- the PlayStation 2 version. I've made up my mind that playing the game on an HDTV at 480p is probably a better experience than on the little PSP screen, especially if the translation diminishes the quality as happened with Tomb Raider: Legend. I'll do my best to give the game a thorough curmudgeoning. I know Ruffin will tell me if I'm slacking.

In the meantime, Windows users with a sufficiently strong machine can download a demo here. My one Windows machine has a 1.2GHz AMD processor without SSE instructions, so I'm out of luck.

Labels: ps2, tomb raider, windows

--jvm at 21:12

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Devil May Cry Kills WinPC Gaming

I'll admit I was surprised to find a version of Devil May Cry that Matt hadn't mentioned, and one that includes an extra boss to boot. Yes, you guessed correctly; it's the WinPC version, and I saw one line in the PC Gamer magazine review for DMC3: Special Edition that tells me PC gaming really is going the way of the dodo.

But DMC3:DASE nonetheless reveals the big advantage of being a PC gamer who enjoys the occasional console port: We let console gamers sift through the interminable catalog of crappy console games, and enjoy the cream of the crop in budget-priced, spectacularly generous special editions later.

Wasn't that the Mac gaming line? (Sadly, the only reason it's not the Mac gaming line any more is because now Mac gamers use Windows to game.) And all this after our buddy, Logan Decker, said that the game "feels like a cheap-a$$ port," with cruddy controls, "textures [that] look like they've been through too many washer-dryer cycles, audio [that] drops out occasionally, and the in-game camera seems to be controlled by a demonic force that's rooting for your enemies."

Why is it better to play console ports on PCs again?

Labels: PC, ports, windows

--ruffin at 17:05

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Typing of the Dead...2

So Sega has announced that The Typing of the Dead 2 is coming out this summer, which is exciting news (if you speak/type Japanese). Regrettably, there is no news about an English version, nor is there any report that it will play on anything but a Windows XP or Vista machine. But, with USB standard on every current console, I'm going to hold out hope that it will show up on a PlayStation 3 at some point. If it were on the PlayStation 3, in English, sometime this year I'd start planning my PS3 purchase as soon as possible...

Just for kicks, here's one of my favorite moments from the original The Typing of the Dead, where you get to see the absurd keyboard and Dreamcast-backpack gear that the protagonists are using to type down the zombies.

Labels: dreamcast, sega, windows

--jvm at 22:57

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Who won when Ritual lost? Valve.

Scott Miller made an interesting point in Next-Gen.biz Podcast #6: Why would anyone in the business of making first-person shooters want to partner with Valve and sell their game over Steam? Valve gets access to all your sales data, access to your player stats, and knows your business plans months ahead of anyone else.

So I think it's worth pointing out the big winner in the failure of Ritual's SiN Episodes: Valve and its own episodic shooter, Half-Life 2. They know more now about what works and what doesn't, and you can bet they'll be using it.

Not only does Valve now know how many sales Ritual got for the price they asked, but they probably also have access to the raw numbers behind this page of public statistics collected by Ritual's game after the 1.4 patch. (For more on the stats, read the 22 June 2006 entry on the SiN Episodes blog.) They know which maps were played most in online matches Arena Mode. It's at least possible that they even have access to information about how players actually play the game, if the data used to tune difficulty is also being sent back:

[W]e have a number of so-called Advisors tracking a ton of parameters, including obvious things like your health and your accuracy, but also seemingly outlandish stuff, like how much you jump during combat.

Ritual paid for the Source engine, paid for the Steam distribution, developed their game, failed, and now they probably won't be able to make real use of everything they learned. Valve, on the other hand, has all their money, no risk, and a pile of opposition research.

No wonder Scott Miller was wary of Valve and Steam.

Labels: business, windows

--jvm at 16:08

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Episodic SiN: failure

Almost a year ago I wrote:

Look, maybe just maybe this new SiN will set the world afire, but odds are against it. [...] Someone remind me after SiN launches to see whether it measured up to this hype.

A few days ago, I heard that Ritual (developer of SiN) was undergoing upheaval and would be focusing on games far different from SiN. This seems to confirm that information:

Jeff: Sin Episode 2...

Shawn: ...is likely not happening now. A lot of the people from the dev team have left.

Jeff: At Ritual?

Shawn: Yeah, they've gone elsewhere. They now work for other people. Some of the key people. One of the lead programmers. That's not a good sign.

Jeff: That seems like a real world thing that's going to be constantly a problem with any episodic game. How can you possibly ensure to fans or gamers that there are going to be future episodes? At any given point the team might dissolve.

Shawn: And the jury's out on why that's happening, I've personally been trying to contact the head there, Tom Mustaine, and haven't been able to get too much information. What it seems to imply, obviously, is that Sin Episode 1 didn't do well.

The transcript appears to have been made by Kotaku from the Games for Windows podcast at 1UP.com.

Let's just remember what was being said about SiN and episodic gaming back in January:

Everyone wants episodic games.

Uh. Yeah.

Labels: windows

--jvm at 20:22

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