Down the memory hole

So there are reportedly leaked maps of GTA4's Liberty City. Neat.

I guess it should have been obvious to me, but I'd just assumed they'd build detail into the "existing" Liberty City that we all knew from GTA3 and GTA:LCS. So much for all that.

I know Liberty City about as well as any fictional world I've played, and I am a little disappointed that I won't have that leg-up when GTA4 hits next month. It would have been neat to have some of that memory helping me get out of tight spots on the run...

I'm guessing that this is essentially what happened to Liberty City from the original GTA when GTA3 came out...

Labels: culture, gta, ps3, xbox360

--jvm at 16:25

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Conan demo

The only redeeming feature of the demo of THQ's Conan is the saucy lady with the bow. She flirts with Conan in the opening cinema and manages to seem alluring despite being a poorly lip-synced assembly of textured polygons. Then she disappears and Conan is left to the business of chopping the limbs off waves of bad guy clones.

At one point, no kidding, the floor was littered with more than a dozen detached arms. With each step, Conan kicked at least one with his feet. If it were at least fun to cut the limbs off, I could perhaps see past the gross detail, but it just isn't. Conan feels like a lumbering Kratos with only two attacks, detach-head and detach-arms. Worst of all, the demo doesn't even reward you with one last shot of saucy bow-woman. You just get to hear her congratulate you at the end.

That said, the game is yet another in the ongoing global war on pottery. Hooray for red and green glowing icons popping out of broken pottery, crates, and armless men!

This demo is currently on Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store.

Labels: demo, pottery, ps3, psn, xblm, xbox360

--jvm at 10:00

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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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Rock Band, PS3...same thing

I just read yet another gush about EA's upcoming Rock Band:

You thought Guitar Hero was a breakout hit? This thing is going to be like Brain Age in Japan. Rock Band is a watershed for the games industry. It'll be a watershed for the music industry, too.

Let me put it out there: I think Rock Band will fail miserably.

I'll be happy to say I'm wrong when the time comes, but I just don't see it. A few points:

• Millions of people have dropped $80+ on Guitar Hero and its products since November 2005. That brand recognition and familiarity presents a significant barrier to entry for EA's product, even if it's comparable.
  
  
• While Guitar Hero controllers will apparently work with Rock Band, that can't make EA happy one bit. You just know they want you to buy their controllers. I'm surprised they're even offering the game separately, to be honest. (Maybe they expect to make the real profits by offering track downloads after the initial sale -- that'd certainly make up for people buying just the game.)
  
  
• Regardless, people simply aren't going to drop $100-$200 on a game and these crazy controllers. Not in droves, and certainly not enough to warrant the kind of gushing that's going on in the press. Not when they can have a brand new Wii for $250 (provided they can find one).
  

It certainly isn't going to be like Brain Age in the sense that every system owner will have to buy a copy. That outrageous analogy simply floors me.

Look, Guitar Hero and its sequel(s) got out first, have brand recognition, and cost less (for existing and returning customers). Rock Band is going to come out with more-more-more at an accordingly higher price. To me, it's a lot like the Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 situation. The Xbox 360 offers a lot of value for $400. While the PS3 gives you more hardware out of the box (decent sized hard drive, wireless, and the Blu-Ray player, for example), the price puts it out of mass-market contention.

Won't Rock Band be essentially the same thing?

Labels: ea, ps3, xbox360

--jvm at 01:19

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The Race to Cut

Sony has announced a price drop. Other than "Do I buy in August or November?", my question is this:

Is Sony beginning the same kind or price war they started (and won) with Sega?

For context, see the text of this comment by MonkeyKing1969 on my post documenting price drops for the original PlayStation.

The blue laser diodes have reportedly dropped in cost. The Emotion Engine hardware has been dropped from the new 80Gb PlayStation 3. Sony has reported that they have nearly full capacity production of the PlayStation 3 systems. Ideally they should be able to drop prices as their costs change, and this $100 price drop seems to be part of that.

So what's different? Whereas I suspect that Sony controlled the production of almost everything in the original PlayStation and in the PlayStation 2 (except perhaps the RamBus stuff), they have a partnership with NVIDIA for the PlayStation 3's graphics chip, the RSX. That's an entanglement I bet they wish they didn't have. As I recall, NVIDIA and Microsoft didn't part on the best of terms from a similar relationship on the original Xbox.

Microsoft doesn't own everything in the Xbox 360, but it does own more than the original Xbox. Still, it does depend on IBM and ATI/AMD for parts. The Xbox 360 ain't no Saturn, so to speak, but I'd like to hear a professional's opinion on how quickly and deeply Sony and Microsoft will be able to reduce costs of their respective systems.

If Sony drops the price again in a year by another $100, I do wonder if Microsoft will be able to keep up. Perhaps at that point, Nintendo's Harrison will want to reconsider his bravado.

Labels: business, ps2, ps3, psone, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 23:53

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Chopping a game into pieces (or Tomb Raider Anniversary on Xbox 360)

Via this post at NeoGAF, you can now find Tomb Raider: Anniversary rated for the Xbox 360. Try this link to see for yourself.

What's interesting about this is that the game comes in five separate pieces. It appears that the game has been chopped into episodes and will arrive on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Marketplace.

This will be interesting to watch and raises some interesting questions:

• Will the pieces cost more than the $30 for the physical product on Windows, PlayStation 2, PSP, or Wii? My guess is that they'll cost more for the whole thing, justified by offering improved graphics and online achievements.


• Will there be a disc-based version for Xbox 360? Probably not.


• Why wasn't this done for the Windows version which is available as a download from GameTap and Steam? I really don't understand, given that GameTap is already doing episodic games.


• Does this signal how the the story started in Tomb Raider: Legend will be finished -- through downloadable episodes on the platforms that can handle it? I sure hope not. I enjoyed TR:L and would hate to have a virtual product as the only path to seeing its story finished.


• Will the Wii version be handled in the same way? Probably not. The Wii just isnt' designed to handle a full-size game like that (yet).

This looks like a step toward stringing gamers out by parting out a full game in chunks. I hope not.

Labels: gametap, online distribution, steam, tomb raider, xbox360, xboxlive

--jvm at 15:40

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GameDaily: How Microsoft can win (if by win you mean lose)

I think you can rightly accuse me of being an occasional ivory tower pundit, but even I can see that this tripe from GameDaily is, well, tripe. Apparently Microsoft can take five steps to a definitive lead over Sony and Nintendo, and those steps can be summed up as "Lose money on everything."

The steps are:

1. Slash the price (i.e. lose money)
   
2. Bundle Halo 3 for Holiday '07 (i.e. lose money)
   
3. Make Xbox Live free (i.e. lose money)
   
4. Acquire more studios, pay for exclusives (i.e. gamble)
   
5. Enter the kiddie game market (i.e. go up against Nintendo on its own turf)
   

Seriously? Look, Microsoft haven't been at the top of their game lately, but why in the name of all that's good and wholesome would they give up the very advantages they have over the competition, the advantages which will make them huge vats of money over the next few years? It just boggles the mind.

They are not going to give up on making a profit -- I just don't think the company or shareholders are prepared to see another year or two of massive losses in the Xbox venture. They're not going to discount the one game that every owner -- or prospective owner -- will happily pay $60+ for this holiday season. They're not going to kill the Xbox Live goose which keeps laying those golden eggs. So far Microsoft hasn't shown the best judgment when it comes to buying studios (although Bungie turned out well), and the age of buying exclusive games has passed for now. More likely is that Microsoft should pay for exclusive bonuses for their version of a cross-platform game -- and that should be a lot cheaper than buying the whole game outright.

I understand the usual argument is that Microsoft can afford to lose money hand over fist, but does anyone really think that this reckless strategy is sound? Other than GameDaily, of course.

Labels: business, microsoft, nintendo, sony, xbox360, xboxlive

--jvm at 21:27

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360 Elite Has Issues.

In what should be received with little to no surprise by anyone, we're starting to see reports that the Xbox 360 Elite is (allegedly) the same clumsy old accident-prone oaf cheekily stuffed into sexy black casing. I can believe this, for various reasons, but mostly because it conforms to my cynical tendencies and a rather drab and pessimistic view on Microsoft's business practice.

Of course, the Elite is an SKU that has divided opinion since it was announced (a brief perusal of the comments attached to my last post about it should act as a friendly microcosm) and for a while - at least in my mind - there was hope that the hardware revisions were going to cut down on the allegedly extreme failure rates experienced by various poor 360 owners. To be fair, I think it's safe to say that it's far too soon to take these reports as definite, as no launch these days is perfect and various units will inevitably break down within the first few days. As things pan out, we might start to see that the Elite actually fails less then the current Premium. It could really go either way.

Yet, news like this can hardly help matters. I've said it before, but I still breathe a little sigh of relief every time I turn my 360 on and it doesn't break. I think it's safe to say that this isn't damaging to Microsoft's sales figures, or the success of the 360 as a whole, but it would certainly cheer up cynical and fearful owners like myself. First impressions are vital, as Sony will tell you after last years E3, and if the opinion of the internet cronies is that the machine is unreliable then it'll probably stick. The curmudgeons are not a significant part of the sales market, but keeping the fans on your good side can't be a bad idea for an industry that relies, far too often, on hype and fanaticism to get its sales.

Labels: business, microsoft, xbox360

--Martin at 11:58

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Gates: No strategy for a console (in 1996)

While I'm recovering use of my thumb, I've been doing some reading. I ran across this fun bit in a Next Generation interview with Bill Gates from June 1996.

We don't have a strategy to do a $200 game console that is a direct competitor to what Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are doing, and our business model isn't to charge software developers money. So if you compare a Nintendo game, where you've got to have that big ROM that's very expensive and pay a royalty, versus a CD-ROM on the PC, where there's a zero royalty, it's quite different.

Just over a decade later and:

• Microsoft has released two consoles, one of which essentially was a Windows PC.
  
• Microsoft charges to develop for and publish on those consoles.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. I'm just noting how quickly things changed when Microsoft realized just how much money could be made doing those two things. Quite fitting, then, that earlier in the same interview we find this exchange:

NG: So are the games Microsoft is developing primarily designed to showcase Windows 95?

Bill: No, it's to make money.

Labels: history, interviews, microsoft, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 22:42

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Xbox Live compromised? (and a Sony comment)

Updated below.

The reports of hijacked Xbox Live/Windows Live accounts are somewhat ominous. At this point, they haven't been confirmed by Microsoft, so it might as well be a rumor.

Were there reports of this before the Windows Live beta launch recently? Obviously, it's a bit post hoc ergo propter hoc to say the availability of Windows Live is the source of a possible security breach, but the timing is suggestive. Apparently Microsoft has launched a probe. Hopefully Microsoft will issue a press release on the veracity of the reports.

If there was (or perhaps is) a problem, it hasn't been handled well. I'd rather Microsoft have been more forward if they knew of problems. Even if it was just cover for deficiencies in the Xbox 360's original design, extending the Xbox 360 warranties was a good PR move. In keeping with that, Microsoft perhaps should have stepped up to say there was a problem, that they'd fix it, and that they'd take care of anyone who was bitten by a security breach. If there are no problems, they should be out in front as soon as possible telling everyone as much.

This raises a possible explanation for why Sony is hesitant to give the PSP access to the PlayStation store. The PSP is a compromised platform. People can, and are, writing software for it, and Sony cannot control them. A user can run homebrew code on a lot of PSPs, including a program that will brick the system.

So the combination of hacked firmware and a networked application which handles a user's financial information raises the possibility of malware that phones home with that information.

Update: Kotaku has a response from Microsoft. The official word isn't informative: it just says they take security seriously and they're investigating all reports. A representative apparently conveyed to Crecente that they haven't found any security breaches. Why wasn't that in the official statement?

[Originally I wrote about Windows Live as if it were launched. It isn't, but is in public beta. Obviously, I made a mistake. More info here.]

Labels: psp, sony, xbox360, xboxlive

--jvm at 11:28

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Shivering Isles on Xbox Marketplace

The quick two month wait for Oblivion expansion Shivering Isles is over. The game will be released on March 27th for download through the 360's Xbox Live Marketplace, or as a physical, retail product on Windows. Gamespot says:

Shivering Isles will be available "everywhere" for the PC and downloadable through Xbox Live on March 27, according to executive producer Todd Howard. The PC edition of the expansion can be purchased at retailers for $30, while Xbox 360 players will have to download it from the Xbox Live Marketplace for 2400 Microsoft Points ($30).

I've been sceptical about Shivering Isles for a while, since it was announced that it was going download-only for the 360. This makes sense on some levels, but my assumption was that a digital product would cost less than a retail one. The PC gamers get to experience the joy of owning an actual product, complete with shiny, enticing jewel case, manual and disc and 360 owners get to pay the same price to spend extra time downloading it?

Then, to add insult to injury, the PC version will be reduced to $15 within a year and the 360 version will still be $30. Bethesda are infamous for squeezing every last cent of profit out of Oblivion, so this comes as no surprise. But, still, they could have at least knocked $5 off. Other than "because people will pay", Bethesda have no justification for the equal prices.

I disagree with Greg Costikyan's notion that the fixed price of online distribution is justifiable because games don't spoil, as it's counter-intuitive to the joy of trawling through rows of games and the sense of sheer euphoria when you do a bit of bargain hunting. Online distribution never has a sale, and is loathe to knocking a few bucks off its prices. These long-term issues will develop over time. The problem right now is that is that 360 owners are expected to pay the same for a delivery system that adds more hassle. Every megabyte of bandwidth, at least with the system of imposed monthly limits which proliferate almost all UK ISP's, costs the customer. There's an extra cost in time from downloading the game and, while I could probably get the game a few hours sooner if I obtained it through the Marketplace, I might just as easily spend those hours in luxury, waiting for the postman to deliver the game whilst using that precious bandwidth to play Worms online. Bethesda is, once again, using 360 owners. And we're all just going to sit back and let them do it.

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--Martin at 21:42

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Microsoft's XNA Dream-Build-Play Contest

A week after flash-gamed-turned-real-game Alien Hominid HD was released on XBLA, Microsoft announce that they're running an XNA game design competition for budding developers. Coincidental? Probably not.

The way I see it, Alien Hominid HD has set a precedent. It's living proof that independent games developers can get ahead with Microsoft. While the game has been around since its Flash game prototype in 2002, the original console release in 2005 was virtually impossible to acquire in stores (I certainly didn't spot one) and this re-release on XBLA gives it the potential to reach a very significant audience, many of whom are more than likely prepared to drop 800 Microsoft points for it.

This ties in well with XBLA itself; it really needs more indie games. Josh over at Cathode Tan has an article up about what the XNA competition might mean for developers, and that's well worth a read, but this should also affect gamers. People are going on the record stating how digital distribution is becoming the only real way for independent developers and Microsoft should really be listening to this. Seriously listening, not just running a little competition for good PR.

Microsoft have people eating out of their hands right now when it comes to XBLA: a mere mention of the notion of porting some classic game over (no matter how much of an April Fools it's likely to turn out to be) is enough to satiate our lust for speculation. Clever independent games would be a godsend, certainly beating seemingly endless reams of arguably lousy retro titles, hastily updated with HD graphics. The mistake Microsoft are making with the XNA competition is saying how only one game will get released on XBLA. They should be more accommodating: it should be many games.

Imagine a year where something unique is released every other week. It would be incredible. Alien Hominid is a start, but it's an update of a game that's already been released twice. Original, new, independent games would be a great way forward. Quality isn't exactly an issue: if people are prepared to pay for Time Pilot and Root Beer Tapper they're probably willing to buy whatever Microsoft decide to sell. It would turn XBLA into a varied, interesting distribution platform instead of a retro dumping ground with the occasional decent title.

Labels: microsoft, xbla, xbox360

--Martin at 20:52

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Xbox is the new PlayStation

By now most of the videogame industry has realized that the Xbox 360 is the new PlayStation 2. What many have yet to comprehend, however, is that Sony is perfectly happy to let that happen.

Seeds of this Generation

Go back to the launch of the Xbox and GameCube back in 2001. The first console generation of the 21st century had completely launched and Sony was building its commanding lead. The seeds of our current generation -- Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 -- were sown then and are just now beginning to bear fruit.

• The original Xbox attracted developers with its easy-to-use tools and integrated online services. Despite the change in machine architecture and continuing subscription costs for consumers, the Xbox 360 is lauded for improving on the gold standard its predecessor set for developers and online consumers.
  
  
• The GameCube played host to Nintendo's first party games, nontraditional games like Animal Crossing, and experimental controls like the Donkey Konga bongos and the Odama microphone. The Wii got a Zelda game at launch, packed in the crowd favorite Wii Sports, and would be nothing without its remarkable Wii controller.
  
  
• The PlayStation 2 puzzled developers with its non-standard architecture and primitive toolchain, leaving them to make of it what they could. The PlayStation 3 and its Cell architecture are even more unusual than the PS2, and developers are striving to understand its strengths and limitations.
  

Sony's PlayStation 2 dominated that last generation, perhaps on the power of the PlayStation brand and its one year headstart. The PlayStation 2 was the console everyone owned, offering thousands of games, from dreck to art, from cross-platform million-sellers to unique third-party exclusives.

Microsoft covets that role for its Xbox 360, and it will have it. Sony is willingly giving up. Like the PlayStation 2 before, it will offer thousands of games, from dreck to art, from cross-platform million-sellers to unique third-party exclusives. Only, there won't be as many of that last group -- the unique third-party exclusives -- much to Microsoft's dismay.

Sony's Gambit: First-Party Power

This is Sony's vision for the PlayStation 3: a powerful multi-use system headlined by huge first-party exclusives, bolstered by big-name cross-platform titles. They want their first-party games to be to their console what the Spider-man movies have been to their movie business. They want to diminish the role of the cheaper, lesser games that plagued its PSOne and PlayStation 2. They want you to think premium cable, only for videogames.

From that perspective Sony's apparent indifference to exclusivity for games like Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin's Creed, Virtua Fighter 5 makes a lot more sense. Sony expects publishers and developers to feel obligated to make those big games for PlayStation 3, along with other platforms. Indeed, to maximize profits, publishers will need to bring those games to several platforms, and the Wii isn't even in the running. Eventually developers will tame the Cell, out of necessity, and Sony will have its sufficient software base.

As the importance of third-party exclusives diminishes, and cross-platform games become the norm, the first-party offerings will be the key to attracting consumers. And that is Sony's ace.

Phil Harrison recently explained exactly this to The Guardian: "[Developing new titles in-house is] absolutely the strategy. When we launched the PlayStation, there were no accompanying games developed by Sony. When we launched the PlayStation 2, there was one: Fantavision, which, beautiful game though it was, was no game on which to launch a platform. But the PS3 will launch with more exclusive, high-quality games from our studios than we've ever done before."

As reported by Screen Digest in late February, Sony's internal studios have more than 2.5 times the manpower of Microsoft's studios. In fact, Sony has more studio staff than Nintendo and Microsoft combined. If cross-platform exclusives are taken for granted, then Sony is in a far stronger position than Microsoft to define its platform with unique software. Killzone 2, Warhawk, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune -- these are but the beginning for Sony and their stable of developers. Microsoft had its year to set the standard for next-generation games with the likes of Gears of War, but from this point forward Sony intends to define the standard for which everyone else strives. It is the quality Sony hopes to achieve with software, the exceptional experience that they intend to offer, that justifies the high price of entry that the PlayStation 3 commands.

Incidentally, Sony isn't shutting out smaller games on the PlayStation 3 altogether. Lesser games, by developers big and small, will find room not on store shelves but on Sony's PlayStation Network as low-cost downloads. Think of it as one more step toward Phil Harrison's dream of disc-less PlayStation 4. And as can happen on Xbox Live Arcade, developers will perform an end run around the big publishers, something they all want to do.

The Stakes

In about a year's time we should have an idea of whether Sony's plans are going to pay off. Sony's initial crop of big-budget first-party games should have had a chance with reviewers and consumers. Europe's reception of the PlayStation 3 will have been assessed, and the viability of a $600 console will have been determined. This has to be the year of the PlayStation 3, or Sony will have a grim five years burning money to support a product few people wanted.

The greatest risk right now is that frustrated third parties could balk at the abstruse Cell architecture and the Blu-Ray data transfer issues and start handing exclusives to Microsoft. The added Xbox 360 momentum could create the positive feedback loop that sold more than 100 million PlayStation 2 consoles. If that happens, Sony would have handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter.

Labels: business, microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 05:39

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Where is GNU/Viva Pinata when you need it?

On Sunday while out shopping with the family, my four-year-old son and I stopped in a nearby GameStop. I skimmed through the used PlayStation 2 and PSP games and he found his way to the Xbox 360 kiosk which was running a demo of Viva Pinata. He stayed glued to that for about five minutes, and as I was finishing up a peek at the GameCube games he came over to ask me to start "the pinata demo" again for him. We fired it up, to his visible elation, but he was soon bored with the series of chatty cinemas that run before you can play.

I looked at the time and realized we would need to leave soon, so after a few more minutes I prompted him that we needed to head next door and find his mother and brother. He dropped the controller and off we went.

As I was leaving, I realized I had glimpsed a bit of my future.

I don't provide rigid rules about which books he can get when we go to a bookstore, which movie we can watch together on Friday nights, or which friends he plays with at school. I do make suggestions, and the books and movies are for kids his age, but within reason he has mostly been free to pursue his interests.

So what happens in the next five years when he asks for a game console of his own? And what if he asks for an Xbox 360, hardware that I don't intend to own for myself until it has ceased production, at the earliest? Or Microsoft's next system? Or some future Microsoft handheld system?

In short, what if he wants to play Viva Pinata, or some other game that can only be had on a system that I refuse to buy for myself?

Labels: microsoft, parenting, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 09:05

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Exclusives for the new generation

Platform exclusive features will be the replacement for platform exclusive games. The latest case is Spider-Man 3 for the PlayStation 3 which will have a special New Goblin mini-game.

We saw the beginnings of this trend last generation: Splinter Cell (exclusives map on PS2, GBA connection on GameCube), Soul Calibur II (platform-exclusive characters), and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (original Prince of Persia emulated on the PlayStation 2, the sequel Prince of Persia 2 on the Xbox). It will only get worse this generation.

It used to be that you could buy all three platforms and the exclusive games for each. Now, to get access to everything you not only need all three platforms but also all three versions of a particular game. Lovely.

And, yes, I did buy both versions of Pinball Hall of Fame, one for my PlayStation 2 and one for my PSP.

Labels: business, gamecube, ps2, ps3, wii, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 21:28

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Valve's console trojan horse

I'm very pleased to see official word on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Half-life 2. The package will include the original Half-life 2, Episodes 1 & 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The real question now becomes how will networking be handled, and will all platforms be able to play against each other.

I'd like to put two quotes together that I think indicate that we'll see the Steam service on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 relatively soon. First, GameSpot's report from yesterday:

The Orange Box will be released for the PC, 360, and PS3, but EA confirmed to GameSpot that it will be the only Half-Life 2 product offered for the two consoles at retail.

That's my emphasis. Maybe it's just extra verbiage from the GameSpot writer, but I bet that means what it implies: there will be other offerings through network downloads.

But it's more than just downloadable extras, it's the entire Steam platform. I think that's the implication of the above report and the "no comment" in a recent CVG interview (found via Steam Review):

CVG: One question on our mind is whether your forthcoming Half-Life 2 releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 will be tied in with Steam - what's the score here?

Lombardi: Nothing to report today.

Together I think those indicate the real news behind the Half-life 2 packages: they're Valve's trojan horse to get Steam's storefront out on the big consoles.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Valve try it. Like the rest of us, they like money, and actually have the means to make this kind of thing happen.

Labels: business, hl2, ps3, valve, xbox360

--jvm at 10:05

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Why Manhunt 2 may not appear on PS3 and Xbox 360

Today Rockstar announced that Manhunt 2, sequel to the sadistic original game from 2003, will be published for the PlayStation 2, Sony PSP, and Nintendo Wii. While I am dismayed that another sadistic piece of garbage will be published, the choice of platforms is very interesting. If Rockstar were to simply port the version from the PlayStation 2 to the more powerful Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, they would be skewered for the lazy effort. They may avoid a full version of Manhunt 2 for those newer platforms, one that takes full advantage of the next generation hardware, because the end result would tread a little too close to real not just for the likes of Jack Thompson or even the ESRB but for the general public.

The passing generation of console hardware can do some amazing things. One has merely to look at Halo 2 and God of War 2 to see what the hardware can accomplish in capable hands. Yet those games fall measurably short of photorealistic. Most average people can still tell that the images on the screen aren't real.

For the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, however, the gap has narrowed. Moreover, this is Rockstar, creators of Table Tennis for the Xbox 360, a game lauded for its realism. On these newer platforms, the expectation of photorealism -- or some close approximation -- will be intense. Were Rockstar to make a photorealistic Manhunt, they'd need to show all the gore that had previously been chunky and blurry in the lower polygon, muddy textured PlayStation 2 game.

Manhunt is the kind of game that celebrates the image of a man's vain attempt to stuff his entrails back into his lacerated gut. No doubt there is a segment of the market that not only wants to see such sights, but in fact to cause them to happen. But the segment that stomached low resolution approximations of that scene on a PlayStation 2 is probably a good bit larger than the segment that wants to see a high resolution version, complete with pulsing, steaming, veiny intestines.

And Rockstar aren't alone in avoiding the bleeding edge of graphics. One of the most savvy moves I saw in the market last year was Valve's re-invention of Team Fortress. Imagine applying today's graphics to this original vision of TF2:
You would not come up with the form of TF2 that Valve has settled on:

So Rockstar has chosen to hit the platforms on which it can get away with this kind of game without crossing a virtual boundary. Beyond that boundary lies a whole new reality, the likes of which we have only begun to understand. I don't begrudge Rockstar's decision to avoid applying the full power of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to the kind of game that would force us to ask some uncomfortable questions. I wish them luck and I'll be watching as always, an interested observer. However, the questions are still there: How real is too real? Which virtual activity will we, as a society, be willing to tolerate?

Labels: ps2, ps3, psp, violence, wii, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 18:53

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Comment [ 9 ]

A tiny defense of EB Games employees

I'll play against expectations for a bit and say that my one experience with Xbox-on-Xbox-360 compatibility in an EB Games was pretty good. Apparently the guy in this short story about an EB Games visit wasn't so lucky.

I was looking over the GameCube games when I heard an employee helping a woman standing in front of the Xbox games. I heard him say something about backward compatibility and how you could tell from looking at the boxes. That seemed strange, so I walked over and asked if he could tell me what he told the lady. He pointed to a BC printed on the price stickers for some Xbox games. According to him, that BC means that the Xbox game is compatible on the Xbox 360 according to Microsoft's official list. He further explained that if the compatibility list were updated, the price tags were not reprinted, so if I had a question about a particular game I could always ask or check Microsoft's site.

So, no, they're not all bad. But still, the story linked above is entirely believable because I've seen employees with a similarly loose understanding of reality.

Labels: game stores, xbox, xbox360

--jvm at 08:50

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Homer Simpson comments on Bioshock multiplayer

On the Next-Gen.biz podcast this week, Ken Levine of Irrational Games comments on how the multiplayer modes are neglected in most games, not by developers but by players:

[Bioshock] is our first game that hasn't had multipayer. [...] And I don't think anyone has ever spent any real time playing our multiplayer in our games. So System Shock 2, Freedom Force, they've all had multiplayer. And maybe SWAT, some people have spent some time playing SWAT multiplayer. But if you go and you look on Xbox Live, and you go look in GameSpy -- people are still paying SWAT on GameSpy -- it's really kind of interesting that the people who play Halo, who play Counterstrike, there are huge numbers of players playing those games. And then you think about all the work people have spent building multiplayer for these other games and then you go look on who's playing, say, Brothers in Arms, even when it just came out multiplayer, in the world, you're talking about in the world, playing on Xbox Live, I remember we looked right after the game came out, and there were six people playing it. And you think about the effort that went into that, and the effort that didn't go into single-player and you just want to cry like a little girl.

In response, Homer Simpson had this to say:

Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

Of course, it really hasn't ever gotten any better than 2fort5 on QuakeWorld TF, so I don't really know why people keep trying.

Labels: bioshock, nextgen, xbox360, xboxlive

--jvm at 12:32

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Sony losing exclusives; what about Microsoft?

Every day for the past month someone in my RSS reader is writing about how Sony's losing the war because its PlayStation 3 exclusives from third parties are just time-limited exclusives and will also appear on the Xbox 360. Discussions branch out from there to whether third party exclusives are becoming extinct, a question I'll leave for another post. (Short answer: See how Splinter Cell was handled on Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.)

What's troubling is that we've heard precious little about how Microsoft's exclusives are getting a ride on Sony's console. As far as I know, no Dead or Alive (fighting or ogling by Tecmo) games have been announced for the PlayStation 3. And Microsoft still has a lock on Bioshock (by Irrational Games) and Lost Planet (by Capcom) and Dead Rising (also by Capcom) and Gears of War (by Epic) and Eternal Sonta (aka Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream by Namco Bandai). At least three of those are by Japanese companies, two of which (Capcom and Namco Bandai) have benefited greatly from Sony's systems in the past. Resident Evil and Ridge Racer, anyone? Maybe a little Devil May Cry or Tekken?

If I see any one of those Xbox 360 exclusives flip, then I'll be more inclined to believe that Sony's going to benefit from this death of exclusives. Until then, count me among the skeptics.

Labels: business, microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 10:34

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Videogame gaffes and blunders of the year, director's cut

Next-gen.biz kindly asked me to reprise my curmudgeon role for an end-of-year post, and I obliged. The result has now been posted here.

To all who offered editorial comments on various topics this year -- Ruffin, John H., Michael, Dustin, and Kyle -- thanks for the help! Hopefully I remembered everyone.

Some bits ended up on the cutting room floor and I thought they'd be worth sharing. I should emphasize, perhaps, that everything past this point is mine, not Next-Gen.biz's, so if you want to yell at someone (or sue someone, if that's your thing), I'm your guy. In fact, if you just want to yell at someone, the comments are always open.

• The name - Originally I called the list "The 2006 Nelsons" after Nelson Muntz and his immortal "ha-ha" laugh. That got nixed (as I half-expected, but I held out hope until the end). My second choice was to award #1 the prestigious 2006 Foo Cup (say it out loud) and the others could be the 9 runners up. Apparently that didn't make it either. Gaffes and blunders it is!
  
  
• Linkification - The original version had well over fifty links (all internal to next-gen.biz, incidentally) which were changed to just standard text. I'd rather hoped they'd make it, because they provide the documentation for everything I wrote, and for the sake of business didn't go off-site. Ah well.
  
  
• The text went through several revisions. This bit about Nintendo never made it into any final drafts, but is pretty high on my list of flubs this year.
  

  Wii was region-free before it wasn't - What's worse than a region-locked console? Announcing a console is region-free and then correcting yourself to make it to region-locked. That's what Perrin Kaplan and Nintendo did to us with the Wii this year. I'm still angry about that one.
  

• The following was one of the entries, but got edited out. Along with this, I also considered putting in the big brouhaha over the Neverwinter Nights 2 review on 1UP and this bit by Simon Carless on how Xbox 360 sales were reported (poorly). Anyway, here's what got cut:
  

  Blogger Ethics Panel to Convene Soon - In September the popular videogame blog, Joystiq, posted about "a scoop for some important news with one of the next-generation consoles." Leaving details to the overactive imaginations of an army of commenters and forum fanboys, post author Robert Summa assured everyone that "this announcement is something worth waiting for." Was it a secret, unannounced feature of the Nintendo Wii? Was Microsoft going to announce that Halo 3 would be on shelves this holiday season? Maybe Sony would relent, drop the price, and put the PlayStation 3 within reach of upper middle class Americans with spotless credit ratings. Not to be left out, rival blog Kotaku's Brian Crecente posted about the upcoming announcement, saying "expect to hear some kinda interesting news about a very interesting upcoming console", but similarly gave away no details.
  
  What was that burning scoop? Here it is: "IBM announced that their Broadway chip custom-designed for Nintendo's Wii console has been shipping to Nintendo's since July."
  
  Oh, the humanity!
  
  Predictably, the firestorm sparked by this little stunt was ferocious. Robert Summa was summarily fired (yes, bloggers sometimes get paid) and Joystiq editor Chris Grant posted an apology. Summa shortly appeared on another site, Destructoid, and penned what amounted to a "f--k you" farewell to Joystiq, tastefully incorporating Martin Luther King Jr's famous "Free at last" speech and a picture of Mel Gibson in a battle skirt.
  
  And they wonder why we think the videogame press is less than professional sometimes...

• Hurricane Jack - When I wrote about Jack Thompson, I used the term Hurricane Jack to refer to him, since he hit the Gulf states of Louisiana and Florida. That term got nixed in the editing.
  
  
• Core Design and the Tomb Raider trailer - I wanted to include the mess surrounding the Tomb Raider PSP trailer that showed up this summer. I wrote a two long posts about: original post and the update. Unfortunately, one of the ground rules for the article was that I had to stick to facts, and unfortunately neither Core nor SCi/Eidos have provided a definitive version of just what did happen. We will probably never know exactly what it was, but you can at least read my take on it.
  
  
• Other ideas that didn't make the cut - Capcom's ongoing struggle to use larger fonts (in Dead Rising and Lost Planet), Nintendo DS absolutely destroying the PSP month after month, the coming rush of ridiculous MMOGs (Romero, Cartoon Network, James Cameron, and Dave Perry).
  

I'm sure there were other deserving screwups that I missed. Feel free to leave them in the comments.

Labels: microsoft, nintendo, ps3, sony, wii, xbox360

--jvm at 06:00

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Sony stupid about PSP demos (revisited)

I've written before about my frustration with PSP demos, but the appearance this week of yet another Loco Roco demo just brought home how braindead Sony appears to be. As a North American PSP owner, I have access to five demos* directly from Sony** and three of them are variations on Loco Roco. I realize I've got a bias, because I just don't enjoy the little yellow blobs like some people apparently do, but I don't think most PSP owners are wetting themselves with glee over holiday-themed demos.

Let's compare with the other major system that's designed to grab data, like demos and movies, off the internets, the Xbox 360. You know how many games have demos on Xbox Live? FIFTY FIVE. That's right, 50 and then 5 more. There are even multiple demos for some games, for the demo-downloading completist.

I realize Sony's been a little busy screwing up its PlayStation 3 launch, but surely they can put some dedicated people on the PSP side of things and leave them there with resources to help the system live up to its potential. Right?

I will give Sony this, however: the ability to connect to your PlayStation 3 via your PSP from anywhere you have a network connection is pretty awesome. I haven't seen it in practice yet, but the idea is really quite intriguing. It is precisely the kind of feature Sony needs to one-up Xbox Live. Since Sony has the dedicated handheld platform to built upon, it is playing to a strength that Microsoft doesn't have (yet).

* I should note that I think there are five demos. I can't get my PSP online in my current location to double check. Corrections in the comments, por favor.
** Yes, I can download some unofficially and install them. Most are in Japanese.

Labels: microsoft, ps3, psp, sony, xbox360, xboxlive

--jvm at 10:04

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Analyst analyzes analysts' analyses

Michael Pachter makes a good guest in this week's Next-gen.biz podcast. He comes across as "a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk" and goes on at length about various aspects of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. In particular, I was intrigued by this bit:

I think that where most analysts are going to be not only proven wrong but are actually going to backtrack and change their opinions to the extreme is that the cost of the Wii at $249 is so dramatically much lower than the cost of the [Xbox] 360 or of a PS3 that many households are going to opt for a Wii first and wait for the others to come down in price before they buy a 360 or a PS3. [...]

I think what's going to happen is analysts are going to see the Wii selling at a much more rapid pace mid-year next year than anybody expected and they're actually going to call Nintendo the winner of this cycle.

And in fact, what I think is going to happen is, over time, Nintendo's sales are going to slow -- over time as in 2009, 2010 -- and Sony's sales are going to pick up as the PS3 comes down in price.

So I think Sony's going to look like the clear loser this cycle, come summer. I think Nintendo's going to look like the clear winner this cycle this coming summer, and that's going to be wrong. And it will reverse in 2009, 2010 when there are 5000 Blu-Ray movies available to rent at Blockbuster and when all the households who already have a Wii get their HD monitors and PS3 sales will pick up.

The part about choosing the Wii first is certainly plausible -- especially because of standard TV and the prices of HDTVs -- and it's a prediction I think we could easily check up on in 10-12 months. Will we be reading about Nintendo winning the war less than a year after their launch? That'd be fun, especially if you read videogame web forums. Then in two years we can see if Sony's made up ground and beating the competition, as he further predicts, making all those other analysts who declared a Nintendo victory for the generation wrong. Good times ahead, either way.

I've still got 15 minutes of the podcast to listen to, but that won't happen until tomorrow morning on the way to work. Perhaps there are some more interesting bits later on. I certainly enjoyed the first 30 minutes.

One question that hadn't been asked of Pachter that I'd like an answer to: Does he play games? It's pretty apparent he's got a feel for the business of games, but does he actually play them or is he just a detached observer watching numbers and analyzing technology trends in the abstract?

Update: Answer is that Pachter does play games and even plays them at work. In addition to what sounds like playing as part of his job, he mentions a Guitar Hero party they're having at his workplace. I should get Guitar Hero at some point, since I keep hearing such good things about it.

Update 2: Interesting to note that Pachter basically doesn't mention any specific way that the Xbox 360 wins. If Blu-Ray takes off (or HD-DVD doesn't succeed, take your pick) or the Sony PlayStation brand remains strong, then the PlayStation 3 wins. And Guitar Hero is the proof that the Wii's new control mechanism will be a hit with consumers. For Microsoft to win, I'm guessing he thinks that the other two have to fail, which isn't necessarily the same as Microsoft succeeding on its own strengths.

Labels: microsoft, nintendo, ps3, sony, wii, xbox360

--jvm at 20:08

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Halo 3 vs. PS3 (almost called it)

I predicted that Microsoft would release a Halo 3 demo on Xbox Live in time for the PlayStation 3 launch. I was wrong on the timing, it appears. This week's announcement of a Halo 3 multiplayer test available in Spring 2007 along with a new trailer is just one more example of how Microsoft is hitting its stride in the console market: they'll suck lots of headline space away from the North American debut of the PlayStation 3 with some well-chosen bits of information. They didn't even have to put the demo itself out -- they just needed to announce the future demo. As I said back then:

See, it's one thing to get the big magazines and websites talking about Halo 3 in previews. It will be another thing altogether when over a million Xbox 360 owners download a Halo 3 demo, invite friends over to play, and set online forums afire with post after post of gushing praise. [...] What's going to be louder? A dozen well-paid articles on the coming of the PlayStation 3 or literally millions of monkeys banging away on their keyboards about the most important demo since shareware Quake?

And, while Bill Gates was wrong about some of the specifics -- he had Halo 3 coming out Spring 2006 -- he did promise this would happen, in his own creepy way:

'It's perfect,' Gates says, radiant with bloodlust. 'The day Sony launches [the new PlayStation], and they walk right into Halo 3.'

The image of Gates radiant with bloodlust is a bit disturbing, no?

Anyway, I continue to be impressed with the swiftness with which Microsoft has learned to play to the crowd. If they do come out with the higher sales this generation (and that may happen in terms of software, even if it's not true of hardware) then they'll have earned it.

Labels: microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox360

--jvm at 15:29

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I hate "original IP"

This week's Next-Gen.biz podcast has Jeremy Williams, a guy I normally appreciate hearing from, utter this (my emphasis):

One thing that we're not talking about here is that [Gears of War] is an original IP [intellectual property]. So for a game that is not a sequel to receive so much industry promotion and to have this kind of hype behind it is very, very uncommon.

I know that jmro and other Microsoft-lovers are going to say I'm just being hypercritical of an Xbox 360 game (and here an especially well-reviewed Xbox 360 game). That's fine -- I'm used to it now. But is anyone else galled by the ever growing use of "original IP"? I'm told that this means "new story and characters" and, perhaps more appropriately, as a synonym for "not based on an existing license".

The problem with calling things like this "original IP" is that most new stories and characters are really quite poor. If your story and characters could be made up with a modern version of Mad Libs, then the distinction is meaningless. Assuming the GameSpot review of Gears of War is accurate, the story was an afterthought: "The game's story isn't very deep, and aside from a very brief mention in the front of the manual, it doesn't really bother to fill you in on the details behind the conflict or the main character's incarceration." That's not original -- it's lazy.

So then what does "original IP" mean in this context? A brand new first-person shooter? New guns? New "I'm going to make you my b-tch!" voiceovers? That's hardly original. While it might be a very, very polished first-person shooter with awesome weapons and brilliant multiplayer and the snappiest one-liners since the original Die Hard, it's still not horribly original. Moreover, while you can't technically call it a sequel (a point that Jeremy raises), if you threw the name Unreal Championship 2007 on the front I doubt most people would notice. It's not like Epic walked away from everything they knew about first-person shooters and created something brand new from the ground up.

I'm sure I'm stepping on someone's Gears-of-War-loving toes, so as always leave your all original IP (gripes) in the comments below.

[Removed references to "first-person". See comment below. -jvm]

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--jvm at 12:39

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Gears of War reloading: this is fun?

Ok, I'm not an Xbox 360 owner (and won't be one for many years yet, if ever) so I can't test for myself, but perhaps a reader somewhere has picked up Gears of War and can give some context. From the GameSpot review of Gears of War:

Another really cool facet of the gameplay is that there's a trick to reloading your weapon. By default, reloads take a set amount of time and aren't anything flashy. But if you look just below the gun indicator on the screen, you'll see a line sweeping across a bar with a couple of different colors on it. That's the trick. A button press stops the meter. If you stop it in the gray area, the weapon reloads faster. If you stop it in the tiny white zone, you'll reload and all the bullets you just fed into your weapon will do more damage. But if you miss and hit it in the black, the gun jams and takes even longer to reload. It's a fascinating risk-versus-reward scenario that isn't difficult to master, but when you're under fire in a tense situation, you're still likely to screw it up now and then.

As Mike put it earlier, this is basically God of War-style button mashing applied to reloading weapons. On paper, it sounds terrible. I'd like to hear from someone else playing on whether it's really "a really cool facet of the gameplay".

Labels: microsoft, xbox360

--jvm at 21:48

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Ridge Racer series revealed: a sequence of tech demos

Today Gamasutra ran an in