February 2007 - Posts
Yes, said tongue in cheek, of course! But I had to share a picture sent to me by InformationHigh:
According to this thread, some guy's window is warped in such a way that at a certain time of day it reflects the light to create the above image. Not going to pretend there's any meaning beyond that, but it's pretty cool. Check out the thread if you want to see images of the window itself.
Just wanted to point you all to this interview Phil Harrison of Sony did with gamedaily.biz. My personal favorite quote is around the "unprecedented demand" for the PS3:
BIZ: That actually leads into my next question, because a lot of the analysts have been making a big deal out of the fact that retailers seem to continue to sell out of the Wii while PS3s are found in stock at more stores. What do you make of that?
PH: I think you should talk to the people who are running those stores. Talk to the people who run GameStop, talk to the people who run BestBuy, and they'll tell you that the demand is unprecedented and that they give us kudos for managing to keep a very sophisticated supply chain moving. What our competitors are doing I can't speak to but I know we are achieving our goals of keeping the market supplied and working closely with retailers to make sure they get informed about when supplies are coming in so that they can match their internal and external communications to store managers and consumers about when to buy a PS3. If that means that for Wednesday through Friday there were a few machines on a shelf in a store in Milwaukee, great!
There are just so many things one could poke holes into in this interview that it's basically not worth it. I'll just suggest you go read for yourself and make up your own opinion.
Actually, here's an interesting angle. Take a read and see what statements he makes that you might actually agree with, and post a question about it in the comments to this post. I'm happy to give my opinions on specific questions you might have, especially if you think a point is credible. Should be a fun conversation.
Feel free to try and ask the hard questions - I'll answer as best I can as long as it's not confidential.
Yes, oddly enough they're related. 
I wrote some thoughts earlier on Crackdown that were super-positive. Having played through and "finished" the main storyline as well as received quite a few of the achievements, I thought I'd give you a few more thoughts.
First, the game really is just that fun. It reminds me of the old days when you could hop into a quick shooter on the 2600 and just play for an hour or so. The sandbox world is wonderfully realized, and even as you head off and chase down different bosses you'll find yourself distracted by a missed orb, a great place to put a ramp truck, a huge collection of explodable things just begging to go bang... the list goes on and on.
That said, the game is not perfect. As you attack bosses you quickly realize they're really nothing more than a differently-named henchman with buffed-up health. It's still lots of fun finding different ways to get to them, but the actual end-fight is pretty anticlimactic. A couple of rockets or kicks and you're done. Targeting can be finicky, and sometimes you stay locked on a target that you just don't want anymore. And the majority of the music is disappointing; I like a few of the rave/ambient tracks in the Volk territory, but that's about it.
It would be unfair to say that co-op is the saving grace for the game because even if it hadn't been included you'd still have a ton of fun. The good news is that co-op does add yet another layer of replayability, and I just can't stress enough how much fun it is. But even there one wishes there were more cooperative requirements or objectives. While you can attack bosses together, there aren't any "co-op only" bosses or puzzles that would require you to coordinate and solve the problem. Some might consider that a strength (in that you can individually attack the world independently), but I'd love to be a little more closely-connected to my partner. There was a social intimacy when playing Splinter Cell cooperatively that Crackdown is missing.
But here's the funny thing - even though I can highlight areas I'd like to see Crackdown (or hopefully, a future sequel) improve, it's sort of crass to criticize the game. In the end it really does deliver an incredibly fun experience. I saw a blog post somewhere (which I can't find again unfortunately - please send if you know it!) where someone compared Crackdown to watching a Ninja jump a flaming motorcycle over the pit of death but being disappointed because the Ninja wasn't juggling. (Note that I'm not remembering the description correctly either, but you get the gist.) It's still an amazing experience, built on an firm base, and being able to experience it with a friend (game-design flaws and all) is a blast.
So how does this all relate to Zelda: Twilight Princess? Simply put, I think I'm done with it. I'm about half-way through Zelda and enjoyed what I've played of it. But when Crackdown came out it won over my time and I didn't even think about Zelda for weeks. Now that I'm "done" with Crackdown I could return to Zelda at any point - but I just don't have the urge. And when I try to analyze why, I realize it's for two reasons.
The first is simply that it's the same game I've played a million times before... it's good, but hasn't advanced in, what, a decade? And much as it pains me to say it, there are enough new experiences out there that I fear I may have outgrown Zelda as it exists today.
The second is that I realized that what would have brought me back to Zelda, as-is, would be the ability to play through with a friend. Just as Crackdown adds a whole layer of replayability thanks to its co-op support, being able to play co-op in Zelda would be absolutely magical. I think it could even hit that magical level of social intimacy Splinter Cell was able to achieve in cooperative play. I can only hope that future versions of Zelda will take that online, connected experience seriously. If so, I'll be back in a heartbeat.
Sounds like that might be the case, according to computerandvideogames.com. Appears that PS1 games will still work, but Sony is back-pedaling on supporting all PS2 games for the European release of the PS3:
"Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology."
Remember the PS3 price cut I predicted back in January? This is likely a step on that path. I believe the PS3 enabled backward compatibility by basically including PS2 silicon in the box. That hardware has likely been removed to reduce costs, and the PS3 is now moving toward software-emulated backward compatibility. Notice the new focus on firmware upgrades for enabling backcompat?
"PS one titles remain backwards compatible and we will continue to assess the compatibility of PS2 titles right up until launch. We will continue to offer firmware upgrades to increase the number of titles that are compatible, but rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology.
All of which means the backcompat story is likely to be very similar between the PS3 and the 360 going forward. I'm looking forward to seeing the teardown reports of the European PS3s and seeing what else has changed.
In the tradition of ongoing random posts upon almost any subject, today I bring you a funny commentary on email management. As you might imagine Microsoft is a very heavily email-driven company - I easily average 400-500 new messages a day (although some are from various distribution lists I'm on). And I'm certainly not the only one. Anyway, every now and then we see tips and tricks on managing your inbox. I just had to share this latest sendup on a proposed 12-step Email Addiction program - beautiful, funny, and so true!
For what it's worth, I'll share the only two tips that ever actually helped me personally:
- Have very broad file folders. I file all my kept mail into monthly buckets and use search tools to find what I need. (This one is at least hit on in the program suggestions below.)
- Touch mail once and only once. Either act on it, delete it, or file it. This is harder to keep up with than it sounds, but it does do wonders keeping your inbox down.
Article begins:
Hi, my name is Paul and I am an e-mail addict.
Reuters this afternoon brings us news that an executive coach named Marsha Egan has devised a 12-step program to treat e-mail addiction.
Let's just say I am unimpressed.
Here's the list:
1. Admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every ten minutes.
Where are those Guinness guys from the TV commercials when you need them? Brilliant! I'll just "let go" of my need to check e-mail every 10 minutes (if only I could wait 10 minutes) and there will be no need at all for the next 11 steps. Brilliant!
2. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
What am I missing? I'm already committed to keeping my inbox empty. I'm so committed to keeping my inbox empty that I'm checking my e-mail more often than hibernating animals breathe. I don't need more commitment. I need to be committed.
3. Create files where you can put inbox material that needs to be acted on.
Oh, that old chestnut. Files, files, files. The only file that might do me any good is the deleted file ... and even then it would have to be set to be automatically emptied every 10 minutes.
4. Make broad headings for your filing system so that you have to spend less time looking for filed material.
Seriously, someone pour me a drink or I'll never get through these 12 steps. The only file that's a problem is my inbox. Does anyone advise an alcoholic to do a better job of filing their booze?
5. Deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.
Again with the files. And two minutes or less? Practically all of my e-mail can be dealt with in two minutes or less. The problem is that I'm checking it every two minutes or less.
6. Set a target date to empty your inbox. Don't spend more than an hour at a time doing it.
Didn't we already empty the inbox in step No. 2? Maybe I just wasn't cut out for this 12-step business.
7. Turn off automatic send/receive.
So you mean I'll have to click an extra button to check my e-mail? Not exactly a straight-jacket, now is it. I'm an addict, I'll click the bloody button. ... Next?
8. Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
I already have regular times, they're just a bit more regular than I would be considered sane. ... C'mon, c'mon, I've e-mail to check.
9. Involve others in conquering your addiction.
Any volunteers? Want to manage my inbox for me? ... No, I was just kidding; hands off.
10. Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
OK, I'll try. ... Would everybody please send me less e-mail? ... (Now I have to go see if that worked.)
11. Save time by using only one subject per e-mail; delete extra comments from forwarded e-mail, and make the subject line detailed.
Personally, I don't even understand the first part of that. And the second and third would seem to require more not less of my time.
12. Celebrate taking a new approach to e-mail.
Can I go check it now?
With full credit to Kim Pallister's blog for pointing it out, I wanted to share a great video that summarizes the evolution of the web and explains quite succinctly what all this "Web 2.0" stuff is about. Web 2.0 is a pretty over-burdened phrase these days, to the point where it's almost assumed to be a buzzword. Spend a minute and watch... I think you'll see there's some substance here.
The big change is just as the video says: we're moving to a world where data is no longer tied to form and structure, and can be used in ways never before intended. You've all seen Google Maps mashups, right? That's just the tip of the iceberg. Think about what starts happening when "Web 2.0" concepts become a part of your gaming world. Imagine a world where tips to the section of the game you're playing are a button-press away, thanks to the game exposing metadata about where you are. What if you as users were creating that content? Or imagine being able to find interesting "content" (purposely using a very general word here) based upon ratings and rankings of your peers? And what happens when you add in the ability to rank and rate the feedback of those peers, and hence get a better sense of the value of the contributors opinion?
There will be some rough spots (as Penny Arcade so aptly captures below), but on the whole I'm super-excited about the next five years as we look ahead at bringing gaming and gaming features to the online community. Live Anywhere is just the tip of the iceberg....
PS3 preorders began in the UK today on both Amazon.co.uk and Play.com. We obviously don't have any idea of what their launch allocations from Sony are, but apparently both sites are still taking pre-orders many hours after opening up shop. As of Thursday morning, Play.com has had their order site up for over eight hours... and both sites state they will take down the pre-order pages once their launch day allocation has been used up.
This seems to be in contradiction with a Digital Spy article stating that the PS3 is enjoying record pre-orders:
Advance orders for Sony's highly anticipated PlayStation 3 console have broken all records, with high street stalwart Woolworths revealing it has been taking one order every 20 seconds during the past week.
The state-of-the-art PlayStation 3 will go head-to-head with Microsoft's Xbox 360 when it hits the shops on March 23 and Woolies, one of the first stores to accept pre-orders, has admitted it has been staggered by the demand.
Gerry Berkley, Woolworths' head of games, said, "It's the hottest gaming system since the PS2 launched in 2000 - demand will outstrip supply."
With a retail price of £425, the 60Gb PlayStation 3 costs £125 more in the UK than in the US, but this has failed to deter those determined to try out Sony's latest dream machine.
Based on the hype of the article above, I'd have expected the online pre-orders to be sold out in minutes, maybe hours max. But based on the reality of the available games, and that a UK PS3 basically costs $800 (not $600 as in the US), I'm not terribly surprised.
I guess we'll have to see. The only verifiable source of data at the moment is whether or not Amazon and Play continue allowing pre-orders. And obviously it's in Sony's best interest to invest heavily and get as many systems as possible to those retailers for this campaign. Will be interesting to see how much longer those pre-orders stay up. If we're still able to order a week from now, I'd see it as another pebble on the scales tipping the PS3 toward a price cut sooner rather than later.
[Edit: Just added the quote below from Gamesindustry.biz (or actually a retailer) stating that pre-orders in the UK are doing really well. I still can't reconcile this statement with the fact that pre-orders are still being taken. Either PS3 supply is really, really good (which could be quite possible due to lack of demand in the US) and UK consumers really want it, or there's some hyping going on as retailers try to fan up a flame. Guess we'll see soon enough.]
Online retailer Play.com is taking six times more pre-orders than it received for PlayStation 3 than Xbox 360 - and 15 times more than the Nintendo Wii.
That's according to head of games Gian Luzio, who told GamesIndustry.biz that PS3 is "the most pre-ordered console yet" for Play. The retailer is offering a GBP 524.99 bundle which includes first-party titles MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji.
I was lucky enough to get a copy of Crackdown and have been playing pretty religiously. It's the first game in a while that's been able to break my Zelda addiction. I'm probably two-thirds of the way through Zelda (desert region now), so that's a pretty big achievement! Not going to write a review since I'm nowhere near finished, and there will be plenty of official reviews coming out sometime in the near future. But I did want to share some thoughts/impressions.
Overall, love the game. For what it's worth, I was never a Grand Theft Auto fan; there's something about the gangster/crime theme and overly-hip attitude didn't do anything for me personally (though I'll admit I'm obviously in the minority here). The only fun I ever had with GTA was when I ignored the story and just played in the world - and that's what Crackdown has really nailed well. It's pretty apparent that an immense amount of time was spent building out the city you play in. The regions (three islands) feel quite distinct from one another, and many areas just "feel" right - meaning that you could easily imagine places like this existing in the world today.
A few folks have written about the verticality of the game - don't underestimate this aspect. When you first start playing your character's stats are pretty low. You might be able to jump to the eave of a low-hanging roof and pull yourself up. But as you start finding power-up orbs (green candy/so tasty!) you quickly start being able to jump higher and further - and that's when you find that the design of the city I just described extends up as well. You can climb higher and higher over time and there's a great feeling of satisfaction from finding a choice perch to rain death and destruction upon your opponents.
Your character's ability to power-up is pretty impressive. I had a chance to play co-op with Ken Lobb for a few hours, and as you might imagine he'd pretty much maxed-out his character. The result was pretty amusing as I'd start "hopping" my way toward a location and he'd just jump a few city blocks and make it in one leap. There's also something amusing about exploring the world, hearing "You forgot your car!" and then ducking as it sails over you to crash and roll on the beach. The agency vehicles are also fun in that they literally expand and evolve in front of your eyes based upon your skill. Ken would jump in and the SUV would basically beef up in front of you, sort of like a mad Transformer. But if he hopped out and I hopped in our ride quickly toned down. The fully maxed-out vehicles also have some great bonus powers that I won't disclose - the fun is in the finding!
Speaking of fun, obviously there's a game here where you'll go chase down crime lords and their minions. I won't go into tons of details, but I will say that you should listen to the descriptions of what the different bosses enable for their organizations, and the effect your removing them has on the overall crime syndicate. What's described is actually exactly what happens in game terms - if you remove the guy who supplies explosives, you won't have to face those (oh so fun!) rocket launchers at a later point in the game. The effects are subtle when playing on the standard level, but they're key if you play on the harder levels. It's almost a puzzle to figure out the best way to dismantle the organization.
The final aspect I love about Crackdown is its co-op support. I've been evangelizing co-op for many years now and I have to say this title is one of my favorite examples yet. (May god have mercy on my soul the day Nintendo delivers a co-op Zelda Twilight.) Anyway, I spent a few hours playing with Ken and it was a blast. Interesting trivia - when you're playing co-op, each person's game world is actually running on each console, in lockstep. What this enables is that each person sees their world in terms of orbs/power-ups they need to collect, but share in-game experiences such as battles, explosions, etc. You can do some really fun stuff - I think one of my first questions to Ken was why I couldn't shoot stuff when sitting in the passenger seat of the car he was driving. Answer? Why sit inside when you can stand on top? And that's what we did. I think we spent 15 minutes just rampaging around city freeways as he drove. I stood on the roof (feet nailed), picking off cars with the rocket launcher and watching them soar past our heads as we raced by.
What else can you do when playing co-op? I'll just say that things go bang really, really well in this world:
So obviously I've been gushing about the game, which no doubt helps my pro-Microsoft flunkey credentials in the community. Sadly, the game is that good... so be it. Is it a perfect game? No - the auto lock-on controls are sometimes a bit touchy and miss the target I'm looking for. And co-op, while incredible fun, does take a bit of focused attention if you want to stay and play together. It's easy to get a decent distance away from your partner while playing... but then again, the fact that you can attack the problem your own way could be seen as a positive as well.
Check out the reviews when they hit to get more detail. I'll be curious to see if GTA-loving fans like the game, especially as I know three people (not including myself) who didn't like GTA but really do like Crackdown. And download the demo from Marketplace! It's how the video above was made, and you'll get a really good sense of whether you like the game or not. Look forward to your thoughts when you get your hands on it!
All games have bugs - that's pretty much the reality of things. But sometimes people take those bugs and create something that's pretty darned funny. A guy named Cabel posted a mashup he did of some Saints Row bugs he experienced and a musical that he wrote and performed. You have to see this even if you're not a gaming fan - really funny stuff! (And be sure to listen to the lyrics!)
Here's hoping we see more quality spoofs like this!
I had a couple of folks ping me asking my thoughts about this article over at highdefdigest.com. Specifically, they were curious on my thoughts on the data that seems to show Blu-ray disc sales catching up to HD-DVD disc sales.
The charts in question are below:
I considered writing something earlier, but didn't because unfortunately there's just not enough data to show a trend. All we really can see here are two weeks of sales that seem to show Blu-ray beginning to close the gap in sales. What we really need to see is at least a few months of sales so we can look for trends - and I doubt we'll really get a sense of things until toward the end of the year.
The problem is that there are so many wildcards and unknowns in the equation. Are the increasing Blu-ray sales due to PS3 finally having gone on sale? It's quite possible - certainly some percentage of PS3 owners are interesting and willing in using the system to play Blu-ray discs. What's impossible to measure is how many of those people are buying discs to play because there aren't games, or because they're just curious about Blu-ray? Imagine a hypothetical world where 4-5 AAA PS3 exclusive titles were available at retail. How much would that impact the Blu-ray sales above? My gut is that it would, and significantly... but it's hard to measure.
Another possibility is that the quality of HD-DVD releases just sucked in the period above (I haven't seen any particularly compelling releases lately myself). It's such a short timeframe that it's quite possible that sales dropped to a lack of compelling content. That's another reason we'll need to look over the long haul.
What'll really be telling is what happens over this next year and through holiday. It's certainly possible we'll be seeing price cuts on a variety of high-definition playback devices: stand-alone players, add-ons to consoles, or game consoles themselves. That should help spark disc sales as well, and hopefully help the trendline to be a bit clearer.
The funniest thing? This whole disc-based "battle" is pretty much irrelevent. Five years from now we'll have plenty of options to get high-definition video content over the net, and physical disc-based media will be dead. The real battle is getting the distribution pipelines into place that can deliver high-quality content quickly to consumers, enabling scenarios they both want and can easily use. That's probably a whole other article for the future, but I'll give you a hint - it's one of the reasons I'm so high on Live, and Microsoft's work with IPTV and video distribution on the Xbox. We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now. Heck, even my favorite DVD rental provider Netflix is enabling streaming downloads of movies to your home. Whether or not streaming to a PC connected to a TV is the right answer or not (probably not, in my opinion), it's a great experiment. It will be interesting to see where this all evolves to.
You can read all the details over at GamePolitics.com. To quote:
GamePolitics has learned that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces a disciplinary hearing before a referee appointed by the Florida Supreme Court.
The pending judicial review follows a recent recommendation by the Florida Bar that five counts of professional misconduct against Thompson should proceed to the state’s high court for action. If the charges are eventually upheld, Thompson could face disciplinary action up to and including disbarment.
Won't go into all the sordid details - frankly, I dislike writing anything about this guy at all. However, thought it was worth sharing because it may be that we're finally beginning to see the shifting of the needle of attacks on the video game industry. Over the last few years we've seen a variety of suits attempting to ban/bar the sale of video games as being dangerous to youth or immoral. They keep getting batted down, and Jack's usually around to try and pick up the pieces. Should he be disbarred, you have to wonder who would try to keep up such a useless fight? Crossing my fingers on this.