The other shoe has fallen. In my earlier "what price cut!?" post I stated that 60 GB drives were likely to go away in the future; I just didn't think it would be so soon. It appears the "price cut" is only applicable to the 60 GB PS3s in inventory, meaning only the $599 PS3 (with 80 GB hard drive and bundled Motorstorm) will be available in the future. To quote a GameIndustry.biz article:

SCEE president David Reeves has told GamesIndustry.biz that the 60GB PlayStation 3 will no longer be available in the US after stock sells out - which he predicts will occur by the end of the month.

Reeves was speaking at an E3 event to announce the introduction of a new PS3 bundle in Europe. When asked about possible criticisms over whether SCEE should have given consumers the option to pay a lower price, as SCEA has done, he replied, "Well, they're not really are they, because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game.

"All they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July."

When asked to clarify if this will mean the end of the 60GB model, Reeves answered, "In America, yes."

SCEA announced a USD 100 price cut for PlayStation 3 earlier this week. A new 80GB model will come bundled with a copy of Motorstorm and will retail for USD 599.

So we're going backward here. First we had a price cut that wasn't a price cut (because the price of entry to play a PS3 game remained the same as it was at launch). Now the lower-end $499 option appears to be of limited duration, leaving only a $599 option. Yes, there's more value to that $599 option, but the price of entry to play a PS3 game still appears to be $599 (once stock of the 60 GB PS3 sells out).

You're drinking the Sony Kool-aid if you believe a price cut occurred at E3 this year. (I need to swing over to NeoGAF later and watch the implosion. ) In all seriousness, this does set up an interesting holiday season. I guarantee we'll see a real PS3 price cut before Thanksgiving; the current sales spike is going to die very, very quickly as people realize the console is no cheaper than it was before.

[Edit: Now Sony is backpedaling and claiming the 60 GB unit will be available for the "foreseeable future". True - but since they're likely only building 80 GB units going forward (due to 60 GB hard drive availability dropping), this basically reinforces that they're just selling through their old inventory before the Holiday (and a price cut). I don't see anything that contradicts the earlier comments.]

[Edit: Oh, this is a fun one! From a reader's comment:

Even though they are backpedaling this interview has Kaz saying it clearly.  http://atvs.vg.no/player/index.php?id=10235 Go to about 1:50 and he clearly says the 60 GB is no longer in production and there will be a single $599 SKU again shortly.

Right hand, meet left. <sigh>]

Just hit the web. Wanted to highlight it as it's a great, non-technical summary of the current console war that really boils the current state down quite succintly (and accurately, in my opinion). Couple of quick quotes:

If you or your loved ones are even halfway-serious gamers who want to experience world-class high-definition graphics and an online gaming service populated with millions of other players, go buy the top version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 ($399). On the other hand, if you do not really care about the latest graphics and want instead a riotously fun experience that can be shared by the entire family, including the nongamers who usually flee from a joystick, try to get your hands on Nintendo’s new Wii ($249).

And what about Sony, and the Playstation 3?

No problem. In fact, if you are anything other than a complete Sony fanboy (that’s Internet lingo for an obsessed, myopic groupie) go ahead and forget about the PlayStation 3 this year. Even if you find one, the overhyped PS3 does not deliver an entertainment experience commensurate with its cost ($599 for the top version, not including special cables to connect to a high-definition TV), and falls short of its main competition in important ways.

The big picture is that Microsoft and Sony are duking it out for dominance at the top end of the video game business while Nintendo has essentially carved out the less hard-core, more budget-sensitive swath of the market for itself. The Wii (pronounced “we”) is a mass-market entertainment device. The 360 and PS3, by contrast, are each trying to be the world’s best top-end video game system and also high-powered living room media hubs.

The big problem for Sony is that the 360 performs those functions better right now, and for less money, than the PS3. Sony may get the PS3’s act together in the future, but right now there is basically no rational reason to buy a PlayStation 3 instead of an Xbox 360.

I'm personally amazed to see mainstream press writing articles like this. Last generation it was painfully obvious many writers weren't gamers themselves, and didn't really understand the topic they were writing about. As such, you'd see a lot of regurgitation of press releases and PR speak. This time around people are obviously using and playing the systems themselves, and writing what comes of that experience. Very cool!

At least according to Michael Pachter, in this interview on Gamesindustry.biz. Pretty interesting if true - there was a lot of angst about this year being the trough of the console cycle, and to end the year +5-10% year-over-year (versus predictions of -6% or so) is pretty significant. To quote:

 "In a nutshell, the publishers all based their forecasts on industry sales that would be flat to down 5 per cent this year," Pachter told GI.biz.

"We're at almost 6 per cent year-to-date growth, and all signs point to the next three months being up 8 to 10 per cent. That would cause the year to end up 8 per cent, and so most of the publishers were too conservative in their modelling.

"We've all been caught by surprise," he continued. "I think that the current generation consumer is not slowing purchases as drastically as most of us predicted, likely because he or she knows that they will not be getting a new console for Christmas."

Looks like the major game stocks have potential of doing well this holiday... but next holiday will be where the magic happens, and all hardware vendors are unconstrained in retail. Should be a fun time!

Just learned how to embed YouTube videos, and so wanted to post the Daily Show clip I mentioned in the previous article. Enjoy!

[YouTube:0LenbSKbn-U]

Back from Peru, and digging out through a ton of email. You don't want to know how much, but I'll give you a hint and say it was in the middle four digits. Yep, all in two weeks.

Anyway, saw a post on Evil Avatar linking to Game Politics. It discusses a proposal from Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) to improve the ESRB rating system. In particular, the concept is that reviewers would have to play through the entire game before assigning a rating. To quote: 

Brownback’s Truth in Video Game Rating Act (S.3935) would appear to be the Senate version of a House bill of the same name proposed by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL).

“The current video game ratings system needs improvement,” Brownback said, “because reviewers do not see the full content of games and don’t even play the games they are supposed to rate. For video game ratings to be meaningful and worthy of a parent’s trust, the game ratings must be more objective and accurate.”

Brownback’s measure would mandate the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to administer the requirement for a complete play-through before rating.

“Game reviewers must have access to the entire game for their ratings to accurately reflect a game’s content,” Brownback added.

I actually think this is a good step in the right direction. There's certainly value to reviewers having experienced the entire game and not having to depend on selected (and potentially targeted) assets to make their decision. I've actually believed for a while that government regulation of the game rating system is coming and could actually be beneficial. Unfortunately, it also appears that the current proposed bill has the usual "don't get the games industry" flaws that would need to be addressed.

(I should say that this isn't a ding against Mr. Brownback - I actually think he's on the right track here. It's more a comment on the fact that the current generation of politicians didn't grow up with games and just don't get them - in many ways, video games are seen as the new Rock & Roll, corrupting American youth and contributing to the general downfall of society. This is self-correcting as "our generation" gets older and becomes those same politicians... in the meanwhile, we just need to help educate them. Kudos to John Stewart for helping fight that battle!)

It's worth stating that we don't have the complete text of the bill yet - so keep that in mind as you read the possible holes I see.

The first is simply that a video game isn't necessarily the same, linear experience as a movie. As such, it's just not reasonable to expect an MMO or even a huge RPG such as Oblivion to be completely played through (ie, all content experienced) before being given a rating. This is just a simple reality, and the bill's text will obviously need to take this into account. My hope is that this is sufficiently obvious such that it's already being considered - but we shall see.

The second is that it appears the bill doesn't understand the difference between content available to players in game vs. "debug" content that may never be accessible in any way to a player other than via game modification devices. There's nothing wrong with having a "nude" avatar model in the game engine if the game always clothes that avatar before displaying it. Users (and reviewers) would never see the corrupt evil that is nudity (note sarcasm), and the world would continue to turn. However, it appears the bill doesn't understand that it's possible for "hackers" (call them what you will) to do all sorts of things to game code once it's outside the hands of the developer and publisher. That's a huge gaping hole that needs to be addressed.

I look forward to seeing the final bill text - here's hoping it goes in the right direction! If not, I'm sure the Daily Show will have a blast with it.

... at least for Nintendo. Yes, I'm still in Peru (Arequipa, to be exact) on vacation, but we're killing a half-day hiding inside a coffee shop from the beating sun. (The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu were amazing, by the way!) Anyway, so I have a chance to ramble on a bit about Nintendo's pricing announcement.

As I mentioned, I'm not at all surprised at the price. I know legions of Nintendo fans feel as though the console is priced too high, and that Nintendo betrayed them. I'm not quite sure I understand the logic as this is a business, and Nintendo A) needs to make money, and B) will sell every unit of Wii they can manufacture this holiday at $249. Put yourself in their shoes - why would you do anything different?

I think Nintendo's done quite well so far. They've positioned themselves cleverly and avoided the financially bruising battle of the "high-end" console gorillas. The new controller has a lot of potential, and using what's basically spruced-up Gamecube hardware should allow them to keep the lowest-cost console edge for quite a while (perhaps even the entire generation). All that said, there are three risks I see for Nintendo in the future.

The first is simply that their new controller doesn't live up to expectations, both for end-users and for publishers and developers. I've already mentioned some of my concerns around latency with the controller (especially for FPS/aiming sorts of games), and if the controller doesn't end up being "tight" and feeling just right for gamers Nintendo could see a huge backlash. This also applies to Wii title development from 3rd parties. There's a lot of publisher support right now due to uprising of Nintendo/Wii fever... but all it'll take is a few titles not selling well for that support to be revectored back to other more successful platforms (that don't need unique controller work).

The second risk is that Nintendo is unable to deliver a modern online gaming network with the basics, bells, and whistles everyone expects. Early indications are pretty negative, with the confirmed rumors of the frustrating Nintendo DS Friend Code system also being used for Wii. If Nintendo can't even deliver the basics of a unique ID, Friends List, and Presence, I'm concerned they won't be anywhere near delivering more advanced features down the road. (I'll give kudos for the virtual console at least - though I do have concerns about the pricing for playing old school titles.)

The final risk I see is how competitive the Wii will be two or three holidays from now. Today Nintendo gets a lot of slack thanks to all the positive and new aspects of Wii - unique controller, low pricing, innovative games, etc. A couple of holidays from now I wonder how compelling a souped-up Gamecube will be to  gamers, especially when compared to 3rd and 4th generations PS3 and Xbox 360 titles. Add in uncertainties around their online network, and that the controller won't be so new and exciting anymore, and I worry that we might be facing another Gamecube in a few years. To some extent, Nintendo will be able to counter some of this with a low price, but at some point the delta between the "high-end" consoles and the Wii will shrink to maybe $50-100, and at that point I could see a lot of people tipping toward whatever the more successful "pro" console happens to be.

Officially back in less than a week, look forward to your comments and thoughts!

Title pretty much says it all, but I'm heading off to Peru with some friends to hike the Inca Trail and see the Machu Picchu ruins.

We will be gone for a few weeks (first multi-week vacation in years!), and that means I likely won't be posting often. However, we should have plenty of transit time and I may get a chance to write up some offline posts here and there. In addition, Loraan may chose to grace these pages with his wry yet witty pontifications. Be gentle, as he hasn't had the fun of being seared by comments of competitive console fans (nor does he even work in the industry).

Oh, and a last prediction since the announcement will be while I'm gone: Wii will price at $249 in the US. $149 is too low (puts into weird competition with DS), $199 is still too close to $149/originally-released DS price, and even at $249 they'll sell every unit they can make this holiday. Yes, I know this would price a "Wii60" ($400 Xbox 360/$249 Wii) at above the $599 Sony SKU, but that's not Nintendo's problem.

Have a great month! If you need me, I will be here:

Just saw a quick post by Gabe on Penny Arcade talking about our favorite anti-violence crusader Jack Thompson. I'm personally no fan of Mr. Thompson, and definitely think he's misguided on the issue of violence in games. In fact, I wouldn't even draw attention to him except I think that Gabe summarized quite well how we as game consumers and an industry should think about dealing with misguided folks like Jack. To quote:

"So how do you fight Jack? Well first off all you don’t fight him directly. He’s like the fucking Candy Man. Mention his name and you give him power. Arguing with him is a waste of time. Jack or someone like him will always be there beating their chest and begging for air time. You’ll never change his mind. What you can change is the validity of his arguments and we don’t do that during a televised debate. We do it through our actions as a community. Last year we took some of the money that came in for Child’s Play and we helped to fund a project called HOPE. What is HOPE? Well, here is their mission statement:

HOPE gives chronically ill children the opportunity to escape stresses inherent in their conditions by providing distraction through gaming and comfort via peer contact. Through our virtual world we are able to ameliorate depression, reduce perceived pain, and improve the quality of our patients’ lives.

Arguing on TV with someone like Jack Thompson seems kind of stupid now don’t you think?

All we have to do, is not be who he says we are."

Bolding my emphasis.

You really can't argue with that. From my personal perspective, it's simple. Let the game ratings do their jobs and inform parents of potentially adult material in games. And ask parents to step up and actually consider the ratings before buying a game for their kids.

My biggest issue with the ratings system today is that most parents don't seem to consider it. There's lots of (often conflicting) data about the effect violence in games may or may not have on children. What gets me riled up, though, are quotes like this: "90% of teenagers say that their parents never check the video game ratings before allowing them to rent or buy computer or video games. (Walsh, et al.)"

<sigh>

No rating system, be it voluntary or governmentally enforced, is going to work if the gatekeepers are asleep at the gates. That said, before I start getting angry emails, let me be clear that I know there are plenty of parents who do take these ratings seriously - and we collectively commend you! Unfortunately there have been way too many studies that show you're in the minority. While some great technical steps have been taken with concepts like console parental controls (and parental controls in Vista), it's still up to the parents to choose to enforce them as they personally see fit. It may well be that some parents are fine with Mature content for their children, and that's totally fine in my opinion. My fear is many parents haven't made that explicit decision.

Personally, I'd be in support of a rating system that legally required retailers to verify proof of age before being able to sell [M]ature titles to someone. We do this for film, alcohol, cigarettes, and other forms of "adult" entertainment, right? While I'm not generally a big fan of regulation, some content may well be inappropriate for children. And the logical person to make the decision as to appropriateness (at least until a child is of age) is the parent. Seems reasonable to me... but I'm sure that's not generally a popular viewpoint. Younger gamers (call them <18) wouldn't like the requirement of bringing in an older person to purchase the content (and invite inquiry into why their role was required), and I suspect a lot of folks in the industry would disagree with me since it could negatively impact sales. That said, my gut is that's the direction we as an industry are going to have to go if rating systems are to have any teeth.

It's been interesting watching the growth of casual games, and the pointing to that growth (and extensions such as Yahoo Games, Live Arcade, and others) as being the potential savior of a gaming industry struggling with rising costs of development and a deficit of creativity. While I'm a big fan of casual gaming, I don't think the cost of creating these games is going to stay low for long. There's already intense competition in the space, and just as we saw 10-15 years ago, the smaller players are beginning to be bought up by the bigger. Pogo was bought long ago by EA, and according to this Next Generation post, MTV just bought Atom for $200 M. To quote the article:

"The deal puts the popular casual gaming site Shockwave.com under the MTV umbrella, along with AddictingGames.com. Two film and video outlets are also included in the deal, in the form of AtomFilms.com and AddictingClips.com."

You can imagine other larger publishers are going to be looking to acquire similar studios. I can see companies such as BigFish, Popcap, and maybe even Real Networks (for Real Arcade) being snatched up in the coming year or two. The good news is that the funding and quality of games will be going up; the bad news is that as game budgets go up, it'll be more difficult for smaller guys to use casual gaming as a way to enter the industry and we may not see as many original concepts.

I do think there are ways to help address that (more on that later), but no matter how you spin it, the halcyon days of casual game development as a "new and infinite" frontier seem to be at an end. Doesn't mean we won't see great games and continue to enjoy them, but it's going to be tougher to be an independent and compete.

Saw a link on Gamerscoreblog.com to a recent presentation Peter Moore gave entitled "The Elite 8: Eight Ways to Confront Elitism and Open Doors for Our Industry". You can hit the link to get the actual slides, but the summary John gave sums it up quite well:

The theme of the conference was "Gaming to the 10th," a tribute to the exponential power of technological development that drives the rapidly expanding global videogames market.  Attendees examined the state of the industry at all levels - from the very smallest statistics and micro tactics to the very largest macro trends and strategic thinking.

In his speech, Peter explained that our industry is becoming a little too elitist, saying we need to do key structural work to "open our doors."  He presented our “Elite Eight,” eight ways we can shake up our industry, to make it more responsive, more in tune, open our doors, and lay the best foundation to grow the number of console gaming households.

1. Beyond The Boys In Their Bedrooms.  Appeal to a much wider audience.
2. Don’t Pass The Buck On Rising Development Costs.  We need to find ways to reduce costs and restructure our revenue models.
3. Rebel Without A Platform:  Bring Aspiring Developers Into The Fold.  For too long we’ve expected the developers of the future to claw their way up to us … we have to start coming to them and proactively develop a farm team of future stars.
4. It’s A YouTube World:  Embrace Community Created Content.  We’re control freaks when it comes to how games are delivered to consumers.  We need more spaces where garage designers can get noticed.
5. Set Us Free.  We should look at delivering new IP in new ways that recognize how powerful a concept shaping your own gaming experience is.
6. We’re Too Cool For School:  Make Ourselves More Approachable.  Games are more powerful, but less approachable.  We need to make more games for more people.  Expand demographics, online gameplay, strong family settings. 
7. Lower The Total Cost Of Ownership With Choice.  Consumer should have choices, starting at entry level, purchases should be upgradable, don’t lock consumers in.
8. Treat Windows Like A Gaming Platform.  Windows as a platform reaches more people than any console ever will.

What I love about this list is the insight it gives into the executive thinking and direction for the games division at Microsoft. Take a read - I think it's fair to say no gaming fan would be able to argue with this as a direction for any video game console or software company to take. You can already see some of this direction in Xbox 360 today, and you'll see a lot more in the future.

Sure, some might argue that #8 (Treat Windows Like A Gaming Platform) is self-serving, but you can't argue the simple fact that Windows has touched more people than any console ever will. I'll try to dig up some sharable numbers (I don't know what's public, what's not) since I suspect some of you will be interested.

Some of you may recall Peter Moore's comment earlier this year when he described what he saw in the future of game regarding Electronic Software Distribution, or ESD for short. To quote:

"Years from now, the concept of driving to the store to buy a plastic disc with data on it and driving back and popping it in the drive will be ridiculous... We’ll tell our grandchildren we did that, and they’ll laugh at us.”

Appears Sony is jumping on the bandwagon as well, with this Wired story in which Phil Harrison of Sony is quoted as saying "I’d be amazed if the PlayStation 4 has a physical disc drive." (There's a bit of irony there since a disc-less future seems to be a bit at odds with the "future proof" messaging we've heard lately around Blu-ray and the PS3, but let's ignore that for the moment.)

What strikes me about all this is that the future is indeed coming, and I think it may well be here sooner than people expect. For what it's worth, I agree with both statements above... mostly. I do believe ESD is going to be a huge component of the gaming industry in the next few years. That said, I don't think retail is going anywhere anytime soon... nor do I think it's likely the next generation of consoles will drop physical disc drives. Here's why.

You hear a lot of theory and excitement about ESD "cutting out the middleman" (also known as retail) and "allowing developers direct access to the consumer." The problem is retail stores play a huge part in this business of getting both hardware and software into consumers' hands, and I don't see a future where retail won't be involved. First, retailers play a big part in aggregating, marketing, and promoting content. Simply put, they're a one-stop shop for the sort of content you as a gamer are looking for. Second, I just don't see ubiquitous broadband access into all of the homes this business wants to sell to five years from now. It's just not going to happen, and no console manufacturer is going to abandon a huge chunk of the market by removing a physical drive that allows offline customers to buy and play games. (Sure, there might be a huge focus on the online aspects of gaming and community... but totally abandoning those poor souls with fat wallets but no broadband? Unlikely.)Finally, and perhaps most obviously, retailers sell the hardware you play on, right?  We're a long ways away from you being able to get a physical console delivered digitally (though those new 3D printers are a pretty cool step in that direction!)

That said, don't think I'm down on ESD. I do think it's the future - but I think it's further off than Phil might promote with his disc-less PS4 quote. We all see Steam's success for Valve, and imagine Xbox Live's Marketplace and Arcade as harbingers of the future. But we still need someone to aggregate and market content and be that one-stop shop for the majority of what you might want to buy. Valve is cool technology, but has a limited selection. Same with Marketplace, and Arcade. While some might buy a game directly from the publisher (especially in cases where the game is more of a service, such as MMOs), I think it's more likely that we'll see the equivalent of electronic storefronts on the web and online services that sell the majority of titles. In other words, instead of you walking into a physical store to buy Halo 4, you might just visit the EB Games or Walmart blade in Marketplace and buy it based on price.

We're a ways away from the grand vision. We need broadband penetration to become so ubiquitous it's just a "duh" that everyone's connected. And we need more consumers to try out digital ways of getting content. I think it'll happen... but it's going to take time. That said, don't be surprised if you see some pretty big steps in that direction this generation. It's going to be a fun five years.

Some of you probably remember I'm a big fan of Dead Rising, and so I'm pleased to pass on some great news for those of you who live in the Seattle area. Keiji Inafune, the Executive Producer of Dead Rising will be at the EB Games in Redmond Town Center tomorrow for the launch. He'll also be signing copies of the game!

Details are below, but he'll be there from 4-6 PM, tomorrow only. Swing by if you get a chance!

Press release details:

CAPCOM KICKS OFF LAUNCH OF DEAD RISING™

FOR XBOX 360™ VIDEO GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

FROM MICROSOFT

Dead Rising, the highly anticipated, non-stop, pulse-pounding zombie extravaganza for Xbox 360 is heading to stores this Tuesday.  The game redefines “retail hell” as you’re trapped in a shopping center for 72 hours, using anything and everything possible to survive against a swarm of flesh hungry zombies.  What better way to celebrate the release than to head to the mall?  Capcom and Microsoft invite you to EB Games at Redmond Town Center to pick up your copy AND get it signed by executive producer, Keiji Inafune! 

WHAT:           Dead Rising Game Signing Event

Get your copy of Dead Rising and have it signed by executive producer, Keiji Inafune!

WHEN:           Tuesday, August 8, 2006

                        4:00pm – 6:00pm 

WHERE:         EB Games at Redmond Town Center

16495 NE 74th Street
Redmond, Washington 98052

                        425-895-8331

WHO:              You and Keiji Inafune, executive producer for Dead Rising

WHY:              To celebrate the launch of Dead Rising for Xbox 360

For more information on Dead Rising, please visit http://ww2.capcom.com/deadrising/

Just wanted to share a quick post to share this link about Transgaming's Cider from Red Herring. Not a lot of information, but it appears Cider allows game developers to basically wrap their Windows game such that it can run on an Intel Mac. The key appears to be that a developer can use their existing source code base without a lot of changes. I'm sort of thinking of Cider as Parallels for gaming... which sort of leads me back to possible Apple strategies for gaming.

There are a few plays I can imagine, but I only have time to write up one now. That theory, in short, is that I can imagine Apple creating a Cider equivalent, but tied to OS X. I personally believe Boot Camp is a step on that continuum. As you probably know, Boot Camp allows you to dual-boot between different OSes. The next logical step has already been taken by Parallels, which enables virtualization (or allowing both Windows and Windows applications to run inside of OS X). Many people believe virtualization belongs in the OS directly, so it's not hard to imagine Apple working hard to enable this in the next version of OS X. And at that point, it's not that much more of a step to create an "Intel Mac Gaming SDK" that enables game developers to optimize what's basically their Windows game codebase and simply run on the Mac, just as Cider appears to allow. Heck, I could even see Apple shortcutting the whole process and just acquiring Transgaming and putting those guys to work on the OS directly.

This would be a huge step forward for Apple as it could resolve that nagging problem of not having enough games on the platform. It's probably of smaller benefit to the game industry as a whole since the total number of games being sold may not go up dramatically (after all, people are likely to buy only one copy for whichever system they want to play on). What it doesn't address is Apple's desire to expand iTunes reach into the living room and other devices... which I think leads to Apple's other potential gaming strategy. More on that later.

Rumors have been going around the web for years that Apple might get into the mobile phone market. Engadget just posted an article highlighting some interesting finds:

"Anyhow, in the June 28th iPod updater package, apparently if one were to analyza few particular files with a hex editor, one would produce some very peculiar and anomalous commands, like t_feature_app_PHONE_APP, kPhoneSignalStrength, clPhoneCallModel, clPhoneCallHistoryModel, prPhoneSettingsMenu, and so on. They're confirmed to have absolutely nothing to do with the Moto iTunes phone line, which makes sense, and we will concede that such a find seems highly unusual."

This struck me as interesting because there have also been a few rumors of Apple getting back into the gaming market. Apple's done a great job of reinvigorating their PC line with the shift to OS X and Intel Core Duo processors, and today your average consumer can get pretty much anything done on their Mac that they might do on the PC. Yes, there's a smaller selection of applications overall, but there tends to be at least some solution for almost every need... except gaming. No offense to Mac fans out there (of which I am also one), but the Macintosh gaming landscape is a bit of a wasteland. This is the one area Apple really needs to kickstart to be successful over time; after all, gaming is regularly listed as the second or third most important application people want to do with their PCs ("internet", or web-browsing and email being first).

Point is, I can see an Apple cell phone happening, if only because it would be a great extension device for iTunes - think iPod and cell phone combo. I'm sure Apple would have some fun negotiations with the cellular carriers on iTunes revenue sharing, but that's all solveable at the end of the day. Once you have an "iPhone" you've nailed two of the devices people are most likely to carry with them while away from home. What's the third? A portable gaming device like the PSP or DS. My gut is if a cell phone/iPod hybrid is coming down the line, a version that encompasses gaming isn't far behind.

Busy day today so I can't write more, but I'll try to gin up some better-formed thoughts this weekend on what Apple's gaming strategy might be. I don't have any special crystal ball here, but I do have some thoughts on what might be interesting plays for Apple. Hint: the Mac Mini just seems like an odd little device... today.

[Edit: Penny Arcade mentioned a product from Transgaming called Cider that appears to allow Windows games to run on Intel Macs pretty much seamlessly, albeit with some developer work. To quote Tycho:

"Transgaming's Cider product allows Windows games to run on Intel Macs without dual booting or costly and painful waxing. It isn't emulation exactly, and it does require some devloper cooperation. I've been expecting Apple to handle something like this themselves, and they may yet, but perhaps they believe that Boot Camp has it under control. I sometimes, even in our enlightened age, see snark merchants snickering about the dilapidated state of Mac gaming. This was in a post I was reading on my Mac, booted into Windows, right before I played the demo of Prey with no hitches the very day of its release. I don't know if there is this storehouse of tired-ass Mac jokes out there that have no defined use, or what, but we're way past the expiration date on that type of material."

Pretty cool - I'm actually not familiar with Cider directly but will obviously need to look into it.]

I'm always fascinated (and frightened) by how easily the tone of a story can be changed with some selective quoting. Take one of today's stories, variants of which ran on both Joystiq and Next-gen's websites.

Both sites used a Guardian Unlimited story as a source, and both also used the same quote from Phil Harrison:

"It's all going well. We are in full swing, from a developer point of view, and over 10,000 development kits have been shipped. Developers now have final hardware in their hands, though there will be some upgrades to the operating system - there's nothing unusual about that. The new controller is now in developers' hands, so all the pieces of the puzzle are there."

And just as interesting? Both sites ignored the other 99% of the article, which was quite negative. A person who read either of the above articles and never went back to the original source article would most likely have a very skewed perception of what the Guardian had written. I'm actually somewhat surprised that Next-gen didn't go deeper in particular, but perhaps they were having an off day.

I'm not going to quote the Guardian article simply because that's not the intent of this post. You're welcome to go read it, of course, but it doesn't say anything that hasn't been said a million times over the last six months. As I've said before, I might just be hyper-sensitive to this, but in my opinion it's always worth going back to the original source where possible. Unfortunately, in this hyper-competitive world of instant-blog-journalism this sort of thing happens all the time.

Right! Off my high-horse!

Wrote a post earlier discussing an interview with Michael Russell of Ritual Entertainment. In that interview he talked about software piracy and some of the effects it has had upon his company.

I've had some good conversations with Michael recently, and he pointed me to new post he wrote which I thought was worth sharing. In it he discusses some the economics of PC game development and publishing from a developer's perspective, or as he puts it: "why does it take $15 million for a PC game with a $2 million development cost to break even?" While I can't confirm any numbers (which are PC-centric), I will state that console publishing numbers are often worse, and that the overall description of where the money goes is accurate. It's pretty sobering.

As you read, take into account the fact that the vast majority (think 98%+) of games simply don't make money. The only reason the industry continues is that the hits at the top of the pyramid make up for all those losses. This is one of the reasons so many industry folks feel a great deal of angst about the effects of piracy and the rising cost of development. We wonder how many of those edge-case titles that just barely lost money might have been profitable otherwise. It's one of those things we'll never really know since it's pretty much impossible to accurately quantify the effect of piracy, but it does make one wonder.

Makes me think there might be a post about ESD, or Electronic Software Distribution, and what the ramifications of that might be down the road (say 10 years from now). Let me mull it over a bit....

I received an email from “HcC” earlier last week with an interesting topic: console modding. To quote:

“I also wanted to ask your thoughts on piracy and the xbox modding community. How you think it impacts the way games are made, if you think it does, or anything of the sort. It's just a topic I wouldn't expect to see on your blog and would love to know your opinion. Do you think it will change the success of the xbox 360 in a positive or negative way if it is modded beyond the current firmware runaround.”

It’s a great question, and I’m happy to share some of my thoughts and opinions on the topic.

For the uninitiated, a mod chip is simply a device that circumvents some of the protections placed on a video game console. A “modded” console is then one that can run unauthorized content or games and potentially enable new functionality. Modchips (and “softmods” or software exploits) have been around since the beginning of consoles, and have a small but vocal minority who tend to argue vociferously about why they have a “right” to use them. These modchip defenders tend to use one of three arguments to justify their use:

• the ability to copy and play pirated games
• the ability to play import games
• the ability to add new functionality (such as running homebrew software)

Let’s take these on one at a time.

First, the ability to pirate games. I mean, really – what can you say here? We already had a conversation about piracy earlier, and at the end of the day every game not legally purchased is simply stealing money from the creators. Some people attempt to justify piracy by pointing to the perceived high price of their hobby and/or games, but the argument just doesn’t hold up. You don’t steal a Ferrari that you’d love to drive simply because you can’t afford it, right? Same thing.

The desire to play import games is at least a reason I can rationally understand, but cannot condone. Sure, there are games you might want to play that are either released earlier or, quite possibly, not released at all in your region. But sometimes companies have good reasons to either not release a title into a region or release it at different dates. It may be because of the time and cost of localization, marketing plans, ad buys, cultural considerations, or perhaps even because of the impact of piracy in the region. Whatever the case, it’s safe to assume the publisher has thought about it. The good news is that most publishers are developing with multiple platforms, regions, and languages in mind up front, so this is becoming less and less of an argument. (After all, it’s in the publisher’s best interest to sell as many copies as possible, right?)

Finally, let’s talk about the desire to add new functionality to the console. Some folks want to enable new functionality on consoles beyond what was delivered by the manufacturer. Sometimes the desire is to add new hardware capability (say a larger hard drive); other times it’s to add new functionality such as PVR support, web browsing, or to run homebrew applications of whatever sort might be imagined.

This is the one aspect of modding I’ve always struggled with the most myself, but at the end of the day I just can’t condone it. Here’s why.

The console business is a razor/razor blade model. Hardware (the console) is subsidized (meaning Microsoft sells it at below cost) to make it easier for consumers to get it into their homes. The business then makes this up by selling you additional hardware (peripherals), software (games), and services (Xbox Live). The success of this razor/razor blade model is tracked by analysts as the “attach rate,” or how many of these add-ons an average person might have per console. (The most common metric you’ll see tracked is the game attach rate to a console, but some analysts also track the attach rate of peripherals and Xbox Live.)

Over time you buy games (and other peripherals and services). The revenue generated from those purchases helps to make the business a profitable one (which is the reason you see a healthy game industry, and continual investment in new features, games, and hardware). Some folks point to the fact that they bought the hardware and believe they should be able to do anything they wish with it. Unfortunately, this argument ignores the fact that they’re buying that hardware at below cost, and it’s the razor/razor blade model that makes it even possible to buy at that price. The other solution would be to sell the hardware at a price that covers cost and also includes a profit margin so that selling the console alone (with no game/peripheral/service sales) could be a stand-alone business. Problem is A) this model already exists (it’s called a PC), and B) selling a console at PC prices (especially with the capabilities the console has in it) would simply be too expensive and no one would buy it. At the end of the day, the cost difference needs to be made up somewhere, and that’s why we need to you buy those razor blades.
 
The interesting thing to me is that I think the idea of homebrew/user-created content is looked at with much interest at Microsoft (we are a software company after all), but the challenges caused by the impact to our business model make it very difficult to enable. Interesting tidbit: a friend of mine at Microsoft once demonstrated a modded PSP to Bill Gates and showed off all of the interesting things that enabled. According to my friend Bill was intrigued and asked the audience what we might be able to do to encourage this sort of thing without damaging the business. I love that our top executives think this way – the challenge, of course, is that modchips allow much more than just homebrew software, and so it’s a tough problem to sort out.

To sum up, I think the reason we see a lot of industry angst around modchips is the piracy it enables, and the damage it causes to attach rate (which in turn breaks the fundamental model all consoles are built on). A lower attach rate is bad for the industry as a whole as it impacts game, hardware, and service sales for the entire industry (not just Microsoft). While I imagine there may be a few folks who really do just want to run custom applications on their console and have no intent to pirate games, we have yet to find a way to separate legitimate use from illegitimate. It’s disappointing, but there you go.

I do hope my opinions on the subject help you understand how many in this industry view the subject. At the end of the day piracy is a tough problem that affects us all. I do hope that it one day it won’t be as much of an issue, but I fear that time is still far away.

Looks like Joystiq is reporting that E3 may be cancelled.

Nothing confirmed yet, but I have a feeling this could be true... it fits the general attitude people in the industry have been having toward E3 the last few years. Don't mistake me, it is (or was?) a great show to go to. I've been to every E3 since it launched, ever since it replaced the Comdex (Spring and Fall) of old. E3 has always been the show to go to to see what everyone's doing, and it's the one show you know you'll be able to hook up with industry folks you know.

That said, over the past few years the show has gotten too large for its own good. It's become less about the individual games than about bombastically huge booths staffed by booth babes trying to outshout each other. The games are lost in the din, and I think having a smaller show more focused on supporting the press could well be better for the industry at large. My vote is for anywhere but LA, by the way.

[Edit (thanks to a nudge from Letskilldave): Looks like the E3 of old is definitely gone. To quote him:

Bottom line:

• E3 2007 is moved to July
• There is no longer a trade show floor
• Attendance is by invitation-only

[End edit.]

Been a few rumors on the web about a potential Xbox 360 price drop. John Porcaro over at Gamerscoreblog did a short post to debunk those rumors. Even if I didn't have immediate faith in the accuracy of what John's saying (which I do), common sense tells me the same thing. It's just too early for a price cut, especially in world where console manufacturers lose money on hardware. (Can you point to any other successful console launch where the price was cut less than a year after launch?) I suspect most of you know this, but the console business is a razor and razor blades model where companies take a loss on the cost of the hardware and make it up on software royalties and other revenue streams. I sure hope we'll drop the price one day, but I'd take John's lead on this right now and not hold your breath for this holiday.

P.S. - Please don't point to that accursed Acts of Gord link again. It's wrong. Period. Although I'll admit it's always intrigued me to see how quickly a random website can become a source of "definitive proof". That said, I appreciate that they've finally added a comment at the bottom of the article:

"Edit - 12/17/01 - Nick Maragos over at "Gaming Intelligence Agency"  sent me this link http://www.thegia.com/news/0108/n23r.html that has this in it:

In more general matters, Mr. Main admitted that the GameCube's pricing would not initially follow Nintendo's rule of turning a profit on every console sold. "We expect to incur a small loss on the GameCube hardware initially, and you're right that it hasn't been our habit in the past but we expect it to turn okay early next year."

So it appears that now Nintendo has joined the ranks of console manufacturers that outsource their machine production and takes losses."

Indeed.

I wrote some thoughts last week about problems with game journalism in this industry. In that article I pointed you to a great piece Chris Buffa of Gamedaily.com wrote, and I wanted to highlight that he's since then written a second follow-up article with his thoughts on how to fix some of those issues. I wanted to highlight just one quote that I thought was dead on; one can hope management at these gaming publications and sites read Chris' article and take heed.

"The bottom line is it's better to have ten good writers that require very little editing than ten awful ones. Restaurants don't want chefs that don't know how to cook, NBA basketball teams don't want players who can't play the game, and websites and magazines certainly don't want journalists that require an hour or more of hard editing each and every day. We should want to surround ourselves with the best people. Sadly, that means that some of our colleagues have got to go."

A couple of you also sent me another article from Gamedaily on what game developers think of game reviewers. No stated author (which makes sense as it's mostly a collection of quotes from industry folks), it gives an interesting point of view from game creators on game journalism.

Ok - back from the Gamedaily love-in. In my earlier article I also gave you my opinion on some of the better writers out there today. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I missed a few who I should definitely have included, and wanted to take a moment to give them some kudos to them as well.  (For the record, a kudos and a buck might get you a cup of coffee here in Seattle… so take it for what it’s worth. )

First, let me quickly recap the folks I listed last week (cut and paste):

Penny Arcade - it's impossible to say too many good things about Gabe and Tycho (and the rest of their crew). I've had conversations with them in the past about their attitudes to accepting advertising. Simply put, these guys turn away free money because they don't believe in the product that some people would like to promote on their site. Most importantly, the whole crew are gamers, and when they speak to you it really is just as though it's one of your gaming friends giving you their honest opinion. (Much to our chagrin at times.) They also play a huge role in keeping this industry honest - believe me, a lot more than you might expect.

Evil Avatar - sort of a combination of Slashdot and Digg, but for gamers. I’ve found that the Evil Avatar editors tend to be pretty fair about what they post on their front page, and just as important, readers tend to have reasonably thoughtful comments. You’ll still see fanboy wars, but they’re usually damped down pretty quickly. Also appreciated is that a lot of industry insiders frequent the boards which tends to drive more insightful discussion (albeit with a lot of passion). :)

GameSpot – especially Executive Editor Greg Kasavin’s reviews. Gamespot’s news reporting tends to be slightly more objective than some of the other large sites, but they do fall prey to the PR hype machines almost as much as the rest. (Sony’s infamous PS3 video renders from E3 2005 are a great example.) However, GameSpot does have a few excellent writers, Greg Kasavin being one of the best. He scores fairly, and it’s obvious from the history of his reviews that he’s played the games enough to write about them intelligently. It doesn’t hurt that he can string a decent sentence together, as well.

IGN – specifically Douglass Perry’s reviews. I know a bunch of you are rubbing your eyes in amazement as we speak with my inclusion of IGN. Yes, the site is notorious for rumor-mongering and just bad writing overall, but I have to point out one of the exceptions with Doug. Just as with Greg Kasavin above, Doug’s writing is definitely far above par, and more importantly, his reviews are tightly written and don’t wander off into the strange padded verboseness you often see from other writers on the site. A good example of his writing can be found in his Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II review for Xbox 360. It’s three pages long, but hits all the major areas you care to know about, including the key question of how a RTS controls have made the transition to console.

To that let me add a couple of the folks I missed. I somehow doubt these guys have trouble sleeping at night due to my omission, but I’m hoping some other readers might appreciate knowing who to keep an eye out for.

Gamedaily.com - especially Chris Buffa for writing the series of articles referred to above. Yes, back to the Gamedaily love-in; so sue me. I'll admit I wasn't aware of Chris before the whole video game journalism issue flared up again, but I'm glad I do now. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some more of his work; the boy can string a mean sentence together and I've really appreciated his insight on the matter.

Next-gen.biz – especially their editor-in-chief, Colin Campbell. It’s great to see a publication stamped with the “Next Generation” imprimatur again as it’s been sorely missed since shutting down in the 90’s. Next Generation was one of the few gaming magazines to take both the business and art of games seriously, and Next-gen.biz has adroitly taken up that mantle so sadly dropped.  You’ll generally find tight, to the point reporting on events on the industry and significantly better than average “analysis” than most other sites are capable of. Also highly recommended is their Daily News Bulletin, which you can sign up for here.

Edge-online.co.uk – the online arm of the British Edge magazine. Edge was the only other significant competitor to Next Generation back in the day (this was before Games(tm), now sadly defunct), and thankfully has managed to survive to this day. Both Edge and Edge-online are characterized by thoughtful writing that treat both games and the game industry with a great deal of respect. A great example is Edge’s “Time Extend” retrospective on the original Prince of Persia (at least, the original revitalizing of the series in the last generation). To quote, “Time Extend is a series of retrospectives examining the accomplishments of significant games and assessing their impact. In this Time Extend, we consider Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time and discover how it broke the mould, and why the sequel broke our hearts.” Both the magazine and website are highly recommended, though I’ll warn you the magazine will cost you a pretty penny if you live outside of the UK. And you have to put up with the occasional wonky use of the King’s English.

IGN.com – yes again, this time for Matt Casamassina’s writing. Matt is an unapologetic Nintendo fan and doesn’t hide it (nor should he). However, his reviews are in-depth, well-written, and complete. Also appreciated is that Matt is very thoughtful about his journalism role. A great example is this recent blog entry of his where he ponders reviewing launch titles on the Nintendo Wii, and the challenges that reviewers will face both with the graphical differences between platforms and Wii’s new controller.

As before, I’m sure I’m missing folks, and you guys have been great with suggesting some of the people you really respect and appreciate. Please feel free to send them my way so I might be able to add them as well in the future. And as always, appreciate your thoughts!

[Edit: fixed up some paragraph spacing issues.]

[Edit: added link to Prince of Perisa "Time Extend" article from Edge. Thanks to BrokenSymmetry for reminding me!]

Shacknews has a great interview with Michael Russell of Ritual Entertainment (creators of SiN Episodes: Emergence) about piracy and the effect it has on his company and the industry. It's a good read, and really humanizes the problem that we all face. And believe me, we do all face it even if it's not immediately obvious. The industry is littered with bankrupt studios and cancelled games that we'll never get to play; the financial impact of piracy is often a huge aspect of why.

[With thanks to Evil Avatar]

Been meaning to write some thoughts about Live Anywhere, the initiative we announced at E3 this year to bring the Xbox Live online gaming service to Windows and other devices such as cell phones. Several sites had articles on the topic, including Arstechnica who I’ll quote as they had a good summary:

"In a presentation at E3, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked up the Xbox 360's success while unveiling an extension of the company's increasingly popular Xbox Live service. "Live Anywhere" will allow gamers to take their tags, stats, and online profiles with them wherever they go online, whether it's on the Xbox, a PC, or even a Pocket PC or mobile phone. Microsoft is expecting to have over 6 million gamers signed on to Xbox Live by this time next year. When combined with the 25 million "casual gamers" on MSN Messenger and MSN Games, Microsoft believes this represents a huge opportunity.

Gamers will be able to log onto Live Anywhere from their PCs and go head-to-head with Xbox 360 gamers on cross-platform titles. Want some multiplayer Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter action from your PC against an Xbox-owning friend? You've got it.

Microsoft is also extending the service to mobile devices. While you won't be able to play a Halo 3 deathmatch on your mobile phone while riding the bus home from work, you will be able to access your Live Anywhere user data, send messages to friends on your Live friends list, and download "exclusive" mobile gaming content along with favorites such as Bejeweled. The mobile version of Live Anywhere will run on any Java-based, BREW-based, or Windows Mobile phones and Pocket PCs."

One thing that struck me from the E3 press at the time was that there wasn’t as much excitement around the announcement as I might have expected. I can only assume that’s because this is one of those things that’s bigger than people can easily wrap their heads around, so I thought I’d talk about some of the aspects that excite me personally.

One of the first is simply that this is the first step in expanding the “Xbox Live” community to a much wider world of platforms and people. (I put “Xbox Live” in quotes only because the Live Anywhere team is doing a lot of great work to take into account the differences of the PC as a gaming platform, and not just doing a straight port.) You’ll be able to keep your Gamertag and login to either your Xbox 360 or Windows machine, and that in turn will enable you to access all of the goodness you associate with your account: presence, viewing Achievements, Gamerscore, people’s Gamercards, sending and receiving messages, etc.

So far so good. Now let’s add in mobile devices. We also announced that Live Anywhere will be available on mobile devices such as your cell phone. And in a telling indication of how serious Microsoft is about this, we’ll be doing work to bring Live Anywhere to non-Microsoft cell phone platforms including Java and Brew-based devices. As this Engadget article shows, you’ll be able to try out (and purchase) casual games, download content for other devices (for example, to your Xbox 360 at home while you’re on the road), see rankings, Gamercards, and presence of friends, and of course communicate with them as well. So now we’re at a total universe (at least as currently announced) of millions of potential devices you’ll be able to sign into (between Xbox 360s, Windows machines, and cell phones). The potential network effect of the community growing is super-exciting to me here.

So let’s think about the cross-platform ramifications of all this. With Live Anywhere, I’ll be able to log into any of these platforms and be connected to my friends, community, and gaming world no matter where I am. With all due respect to Penny Arcade’s strip (warning, language may offend), there are aspects of the community that I want to stay in touch with whenever possible. While I doubt I’d be all that worried about a friend’s Gamerscore while at the store, I’d sure love to be able to drop him or her a message if I saw them online. And remember, “online” could include being signed in on their cell phone, or being logged into MSN Messenger, or just being on their Xbox. Now it gets interesting... what if I can send a text or voice message from my 360 to my friend who’s working on his PC? What if he can respond right back in real-time with text, voice, or even video? What if they see a third friend is showing as available on their cell phone? What if we’re able to have a three-way conversation to coordinate a game later? Heck, what if we're all able to start playing an ad-hoc game right then, in spite of the fact we're on different platforms?

One of the really cool scenarios described at E3 was the ability to continue a game no matter where you are. Let’s say you download a trial of Zuma on your 360 at home, play it, and decide to purchase it. Later on you have to go to work, and find yourself on the bus with a half-hour to kill. Remembering Zuma, you log into Live Anywhere with your cell phone and download it – but since you’ve already purchased it with your Live Anywhere account, the service recognizes this and allows you to download the unlocked version. You play for a while and receive an Achievement. You see your stop coming up, so you quickly save your game. That game save (and the fact that you unlocked the Achievement) is stored on the Live Anywhere service, so that when you get to your desk and log in to My Xbox (god forbid you do any real work, after all) you can see your new Achievement (and maybe even continue playing on a Windows version of Zuma). Seeing a friend online, you might select that Achievement you just got and send him or her a challenge to beat it. The really interesting thing? Although you can find out if you wish, you don’t even need to know what platform your friend is logged in on – it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you know his or her Gamertag, which allows you to quickly pop off a message to them.

Now some folks might not want to be always connected, and that’s understandable. So there will be features to allow you to control your online presence just as we have on the Xbox 360 and MSN Messenger today (where you can show yourself as being Available, Busy, Offline, etc.) (This might also help address Penny Arcade’s concerns on the subject.

A final aspect of Live Anywhere that has me excited is the potential for making online gaming on the PC dramatically easier. Although I’d be the first to highlight that online gaming originated on the PC, the overall quality of the online gaming experience hasn’t evolved or improved all that much since then. Xbox Live was actually designed with the goal of solving a lot of the issues that plague online gaming. Those solutions were brought to Xbox and Xbox 360, and now, Live Anywhere is bringing it to Windows (and of course, other platforms).

Think about the challenges you often face when trying to get a PC game online session going. First you need to make sure your game is up to date, and often have to hunt down patches and apply them. Sometimes you need to upgrade video or sound drivers. Your router can block connections, forcing you to open ports and occasionally sacrifice a chicken (be really afraid if you want to try and host a game!) Once you’re in the game, you might want to communicate with other players – but everyone’s using a different voice solution. It’s hard to find people of the appropriate level to play against, and even when you find people on a server you don’t have any context to see what sort of player they are, or what sort of reputation they have. The list goes on and on, but the point I’m trying to make is it’s not as simple as the “tray and play” model Xbox Live has been able to enable. Live Anywhere aims to solve all of the above, and enable cross-platform gaming and communication to boot. All this across what could be the largest online gaming community in the world. Pretty amazing, no?

For the record, I recognize this all probably comes off as very pro-Microsoft and as a bit of a “yay us!” post. But I did want to try and share my opinions, and why I’m so passionate about Live Anywhere. Simply put, I truely believe Live Anywhere has potential to change the gaming industry in huge and positive ways in the years ahead. How? Well, here's just one (probably controversial) thought:

What if Live Anywhere did take off, and became the place to be because one of your preferred platforms (be it cell phone, Xbox 360, or PC) happened to be where you spent all your gaming time? This is all my opinion, of course, but it’s not hard for me to squint ahead at the future and imagine a time where Live Anywhere might be the online service for platforms from Sony, or Nintendo, or others. After all, running this sort of service takes a massive investment of time and money, and at the end of the day all these companies really want is a way to communicate with their customers and make money from selling games. We’ve been able to enable that desire for publishers on Xbox Live today; why not these hardware providers tomorrow?

Just wanted to introduce you guys to a good friend of mine, Loraan, who I used to work with years back. Loraan came up to Seattle this weekend to hang out, and as we often do, we ended up chatting about games and the game industry. The interesting thing about Loraan is that I've used him for years as a touchstone for the "lost" or alienated gamers in the industry. In my mind these lost gamers are people who love games, used to play at least somewhat regularly, but have gotten frustrated with clichés and inevitable problems in game designs. One example might simply be called "approachability," or making the game easy to pick up, play, and eventually, finish (which doesn't necessarily mean dumbing it down). Another might be the repeated use of difficult or repetitive Boss Creatures, and the frustration (and game-quitting) mentality they engender. Another might just be poor story design, clichéd plots, or just bad writing overall.

These (and many other issues) all cause people to lose interest in playing games. This isn't a good thing for you and the industry. Ever gamer we lose means fewer sales for the industry, which in turn reduces the amount of money available to invest in game quality, technology, and properties. In addition, there's the personal aspect in that every one of those gamers who drops out who is a personal friend reduces the number of people you might want to spend time playing games with. That's a drag on online communities as well.

What I've found interesting over the years is that Loraan is the sort of person who wants to play, starts many of the games we all love (on multiple platforms), but ends up getting frustrated and never finishing... and it's often for the same reasons each and every time. I'll state that I finish more games than Loraan only because my pain threshold is probably higher (as you might expect, as it's also part of my job). However, I completely agree with a lot of the reasons he's highlighted in the past that are issues to him, and I thought his thoughts on the topic might drive some good conversation and perhaps might even spark a few ideas in the industry.

Think of Loraan as a guest writer. We're not sure how often he'll be able to post, but I'm hoping we'll see something once or twice a week, and I'm sure we'll see his thoughts in comments as well. Please feel free to jump in and give your thoughts. My hope is to drive some constructive conversations to drive us forward. We look forward to hearing from you!

I posted a bit earlier on the good news for Sony regarding the PS3 beginning manufacturing. In the same vein, it appears Gamesindustry.biz just sent out their weekly email news update with some balanced commentary on what this means for Sony. I thought it was a really good perspective and so I wanted to share some excerpts. Note that I'd usually link to the full article but can't find it on their website; if anyone has an URL I'm happy to include it as well.

The article starts as follows:

"Depending on who you choose to believe, the production process for PlayStation 3 is either running smoothly with plenty of redundancy built into the plan to ensure that sufficient units are ready for the market in November - or is the greatest nightmare in Sony's history as an electronics manufacturer, with low yields threatening to make the company's expensive albatross about as rare as rocking horse faeces come Christmas.

The two points of view - and let's not pretend that either of them is actually a fact at this point in time - don't reconcile terribly well with one another. Media reports supporting both of them are well distributed around the Internet; on the one hand, we have comments from IBM a few months ago indicating that yields of the Cell processor were great, whereas a directly contradictory article more recently cited an anonymous source saying that yields were far lower than expected. Some sources have reported that PS3 chipsets are already being shipped; others seem to believe that they won't ship until late August. And so on, and so forth.

In other words, nobody outside of Sony and its closest manufacturing partners actually knows what on earth is going on with the PS3 right now - but one very strong pointer in favour of the "everything on track" camp came this week from Chinese manufacturing firm Asustek, one of the companies which has been contracted to build the console."

All-in-all I think this is a fair assessment. There's a distinct lack of knowledge around the reality of Sony's manufacturing plans, and the rumors out there could point either way. While I have definite opinions on certain rumors (and attempt to bolster those opinions with a clear analysis of how and why I'm reading the tea leaves as I am), on something like this there's really not too much to say at this point. Sony needs to be manufacturing now if they want to make their November street date. If they indeed are, that's all goodness for them. If not, it's a problem. We'll find out for sure in the coming months.

On a general sidenote, while I don't shy away from pointing out inconsistences in Sony's (or others) messaging, strategy, and tactics, it is important to remember that there are very few facts out there that we can all point to. This is why it's important to be clear on what's a theory, what's factual, and what supporting evidence you're using to bolster your argument(s). Remember, at the end of the day it's all opinion until proven one way or another. I'd love to see discussions on this site using more support material when possible.

Anyway, to sum up on a positive note:

"Manufacturing units well in advance and engaging with retail to discuss pre-order schemes isn't the kind of thing we'd have expected from "old" Sony - these actions, if true, are the actions of a company that has learned some very hard lessons from its own mistakes (with PSP and PS2) and indeed from the mistakes of its rivals (such as Xbox 360's under-supplied launch last winter). Of course, none of this changes the fact that PS3 will still have to compete with a lower-priced Xbox 360 with a wider catalogue of games, and with Nintendo's fascinating and bargain priced Wii - but if the firm can sort out the problems which have traditionally dogged Sony hardware launches, this Christmas' retail battle suddenly becomes much more interesting."

And again, it's a fair point. We used to say "never count out Nintendo" because they tend to be very good at coming up with original, innovative concepts that somehow reignite that old gaming magic. Although I'm down on a lot of what Sony has done with the Playstation 3 (E3 renders, changing system specs, pricing, etc.), I think I need to state for the record that I personally am not counting Sony out of the game. This holiday will be key, but if Sony can ship 4-6 million units as promised and have at least 1-2 "must have" titles, they'll remain in the game in my opinion.

Some positive news for Sony for once (if the reports prove true). Next Generation reports that a factory in China has begun production of the Playstation 3 with a goal of delivering as many as 200,000 units a month (with more manufacturers coming online in August.) Timing feels right - they need to start now if they're to have a hope of having suffficient units to launch this November.  Still, if you want one for Christmas be sure to put in a pre-order as soon as they're available. There's no doubt that every unit Sony can produce this year will be sold.

Remember my earlier post dissecting an alleged PS3 Rude Q&A? There’s just something about a finely honed - yet evasive - turn of phrase that sets the Spidey-sense tingling, and I’m getting that feeling all over again around the rumor of the Playstation 3’s main CPU speed being downgraded.

First a bit of history. Back in June Kotaku posted an IM conversation with an alleged PS3 developer. That developer stated that CELL yields were low, and that the already reduced 3.2 GHz CPU speed (from a promised 3.5 GHz) could end up being as low as 2.8 GHz. (He also stated that there would likely be an external power supply, which I 100% believe to be the case.) Anyway, at the time I found the conversation a fascinating read because it struck me as very credible.

I don’t know how much you know about the CPU manufacturing process, but a good summary can be found here. The key aspect I want to highlight is that any new manufacturing process has a ramp-up period where a lot of sub-par or dud units are made. This is why new CPUs from AMD, Intel, and IBM are always more expensive and hard to find early on. It’s simply a matter of supply and demand, and the supply tends to be a lot less early on because yields haven’t been perfected yet. Every silicon manufacturer faces this issue, and IBM (and hence Sony) also faced this issue when manufacturing the CELL processor. The majority of CPUs off the line were likely subpar or duds, and fewer than desired would run at the target speed. (What that target speed was is a matter of debate, but if you look back over the last few years of Sony announcements the CELL was originally targeted to run at 4 GHz+, dropped to 3.5 GHz, and then dropped to 3.2 GHz.) Because of this, it’s extremely likely early Sony development kits didn’t run at full speed. Any game developer will tell you that this is very common in console development, so it’s not necessarily a negative. The key is to accurately tell developers what the final silicon would run at so they can target their games appropriately. Anyway, to wrap up this little bit of history, Gamesradar also picked up on the rumor a few days later, and the web’s message boards were set aflame.

Several days later Sony’s PR team swung into action, and stated the following:

"Developers have been working with PS3 dev kits for anywhere between eight and 12 months, and to suggest that we'd now take the decision to downgrade the hardware at such a late stage, is, well, ridiculous.”

Remember my spidey-sense? Read the above statement carefully, and notice the finely-crafted wording. In particular, notice that the response specifically discusses PS3 dev kits, and doesn’t mention final retail hardware – this is key, as we’ll see later. Summarized, it states that the suggestion Sony would “downgrade the hardware [PS3 dev kits] at such a late stage” is ridiculous.

Fair enough. While not necessarily “ridiculous,” it would be an immense PR blow to drop the system’s speed at this late point. That said, think back to the conversation we just had about CPU yields, and how it’s extremely likely early PS3 dev kits were running at a slower speed. What if that slower speed were, say, 2.8 GHz? And what if Sony had intended to upgrade the CPU but found it couldn’t due to poor yields? Then the fine bit of word-mongering above suddenly makes a ton of sense. Sony never technically downgraded the development kits because they were always at this speed… but the end result is a effective downgrade to the final, shipping, retail systems because this is what developers have to target their games to. And once the console ships at a certain clock-speed, it’s fixed for the life of the console – there are no do-overs.

I think I’ve made my disappointment about game journalism abundantly clear, and unfortunately, it appears none of the press picked up on this verbal dodging. In fact, it appears many sites just ran with the Sony party line and promptly forgot about it.

So where does this leave us? Simply put, I believe the primary CPU in the Playstation 3 (the PPE, or PowerPC-based CPU) currently runs at 2.8 GHz in game development kits, and that final retail consoles will also reflect that lowered speed. It’s my hope that some of the gaming press might use their contacts and ask developers the very specific question of how fast the CELL runs – my guess it’s slower than we all might hope. We'll find out in the end, even if it's in Fall when the box will (supposedly) ship. But it would sure be interesting to find out beforehand.

Oh, and the final quote of interest?

“Worse still is the suggestion that we couldn't fit all the technical components into a plastic box."

I think you fit everything into a plastic box, Sir… but then it melted. ;)

[Edit: digg this article if you found it interesting!]

Title pretty much says it all, but Mark DeLoura, Manager of Developer Relations at Sony is leaving after five years at the job. I've met Mark many times and shared some good-natured jibes and drinks with him, and I have to say this is a huge loss for Sony. Mark was one of the best in developer relations, very well respected in the industry, and was instrumental in trying to get Sony Corporate to take developer support seriously. (Although I like to think Mark was following the example our Game Technology Group sets.) ;)

I do have to wonder how much of Sony's flailing was a part of this decision, but I guess we'll never really know since Mark is too much of a professional to kiss and tell. My guess is that it had to be at least part of the decision, though.

Still, best of wishes on your new role Mark!

Been mulling on this for a while (as have many other folks in the industry). Most recently I was reminded of the issue when reading an article from Joystiq where the author asked some tough questions of Sony's Phil Harrison and was allegedly rewarded for his efforts with a sarcastic comment along the lines of "well those were positive questions." Joystiq's comments on the statement are telling:

“This got me to thinking, does that mean Phil was expecting "nice" questions? Has the situation got so bad that executives are surprised when journalists ask questions that are hard to answer? If "the face of the PS3" is surprised when a blogger asks him a question that goes beyond "uh, so what's your game like?", then you have a very large, and worrying indicator that something, somewhere is going wrong in terms of the relationship between the press and video game companies. If anything, Phil should have been surprised if I wasn't asking tough questions!”

I have to agree. The overall quality of videogame journalism is very poor and frankly, depressing. I was going to write a piece about the reasons why, but coincidently Chris Buffa of Gamedaily.com just wrote a better article on the subject than I was planning and so I'll just point you there. Go ahead and take a read. I'll wait right here.

Back?

Excellent.

While I agree with Chris' comments, I think there's a larger overriding issue that drives all these problems: money. You know, root of all evil and all that. I've watched this industry grow over the last twenty years from something associated with eight year-old kids and geeks to becoming as mainstream as the movie and music industries. Games have become a big business, and unfortunately where there's money to be made, there's influence to be bought and sold.

Some of the biggest culprits are magazines and websites that survive on advertising dollars. Simply put, most of these guys have to walk a fine line between having the editorial control to write what they believe but also keep good relationships with the PR folks at publishers who give them access to previews and other magazine sale/page view driving material. To put it another way, imagine your favorite magazine was suddenly dropped from the advertising spend of a major publisher or two (pick whichever one(s) you want). Think about the number of ads you usually see in a magazine from those publishers. Now, take into account that the number of pages of non-advertising content in the magazine (articles, reviews, columns, etc.) is calculated as a ratio of the paying content (advertising). The more ads you get, the more content the magazine can afford to put in (and vice-versa). Finally, imagine the next few issues of your favorite magazine shrinking due to having less ads, hence less editorial content. You can guess what that might do over time to subscriber numbers, reader retention, etc. It’s often a bit of death-spiral, and obviously something these content providers want to avoid at all cost.

In short, a magazine or website’s financial health tends to pivot on two areas: subscriptions and advertising. The need to support one or both of these revenue generators makes pretty obvious the need to cozy up to publishing and development partners, accept press junkets, and work hard to retain early access to games so they can drive magazine sales and/or page views.

Another example? I find it telling that individual editors of major game journalism publishing corporations can have strongly held, well-documented, negative positions on the potential of something like the Playstation 3 (arguably having a tough time right now) in their blogs, yet those same beliefs simply don't make it into print editions of their magazine. Why? Because the business simply cannot take the risk of losing a major funding source, and in this example it’s easy to believe Sony will be spending a lot of money on advertising in the coming months. (There was a recent example of this sort of behavior from a game editor’s blog, but I can't remember where I saw it. It was a long, well-written discussion of some of the challenges the PS3 is facing. If any of you have it, I'd hugely appreciate getting a link as a comment to this article so I can add it here!)

So that's the negative side of the picture. Luckily there are a few things you can do to get good information and believable opinions.

The first is simply to look at sites like gamerankings.com and mediacritic.co.uk. What's nice about these sites is that they aggregate average review scores across many different sites and magazines. This also helps smooth out inconsistent or poor quality reviews. (For what it's worth, my personal bar is around 8+ or around 80% for an average review score. While I'll occasionally play games ranked below that line, it'll mostly be out of curiosity about something new or interesting the game is doing. It's unlikely I'll ever finish it.)

Another thing to look for in these aggregation sites are the "outlier" review scores, or the scores that spike high or low from the average. Those can sometimes highlight an influenced review from what the general opinion of reviewers is, although it's important to watch for a trend of these happening over time. The occasional game having review scores spread wider than average doesn't necessarily point to nefarious dealings. Take Prey, for example. Review scores are a little wide on this one (example is GameSpot giving it a 7.5/10 and IGN giving it 9/10). You need to read the reviews for additional context to see that GameSpot just didn't like some of the game mechanics, especially the way the game handles death. In their opinion, that made the game too easy and it negatively impacted the score.

Another way to get good, reasoned opinions on games is to find independent websites with a strong editorial ethic. Here are a few sites (or specific writers) that I rely on for this sort of content:

• Penny Arcade - it's impossible to say too many good things about Gabe and Tycho (and the rest of their crew). I've had conversations with them in the past about their attitudes to accepting advertising. Simply put, these guys turn away free money because they don't believe in the product that some people would like to promote on their site. Most importantly, the whole crew are gamers, and when they speak to you it really is just as though it's one of your gaming friends giving you their honest opinion. (Much to our chagrin at times.) They also play a huge role in keeping this industry honest - believe me, a lot more than you might expect.
• Evil Avatar - sort of a combination of Slashdot and Digg, but for gamers. I’ve found that the Evil Avatar editors tend to be pretty fair about what they post on their front page, and just as important, readers tend to have reasonably thoughtful comments. You’ll still see fanboy wars, but they’re usually damped down pretty quickly. Also appreciated is that a lot of industry insiders frequent the boards which tends to drive more insightful discussion (albeit with a lot of passion). :)
• GameSpot – especially Executive Editor Greg Kasavin’s reviews. Gamespot’s news reporting tends to be slightly more objective than some of the other large sites, but they do fall prey to the PR hype machines almost as much as the rest. (Sony’s infamous PS3 video renders from E3 2005 are a great example.) However, GameSpot does have a few excellent writers, Greg Kasavin being one of the best. He scores fairly, and it’s obvious from the history of his reviews that he’s played the games enough to write about them intelligently. It doesn’t hurt that he can string a decent sentence together, as well.
• IGN – specifically Douglass Perry’s reviews. I know a bunch of you are rubbing your eyes in amazement as we speak with my inclusion of IGN. Yes, the site is notorious for rumor-mongering and just bad writing overall, but I have to point out one of the exceptions with Doug. Just as with Greg Kasavin above, Doug’s writing is definitely far above par, and more importantly, his reviews are tightly written and don’t wander off into the strange padded verboseness you often see from other writers on the site. A good example of his writing can be found in his Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II review for Xbox 360. It’s three pages long, but hits all the major areas you care to know about, including the key question of how a RTS controls have made the transition to console.

Please note there are other fine writers and websites out there. My inclusion