Been doing a lot of work on future platform planning and was having a conversation with a co-worker about our "Live Anywhere" initiative. Although there are a lot of different aspects of Live Anywhere that excite me, one of the areas I've been doing a lot of thinking around is the "life gets in the way" aspect of gaming. You get older, get into relationships, get married, have kids - the list goes on and on. And every one of those layers makes it challenging to continue playing.

Anyway, I was telling that co-worker about a great video we did back in the early days of Xbox Live that really captured this aspect. Amusingly, it was easier for me to go find on YouTube rather than internally, so I figured I'd share it with you while I had the link. Hope you like it!

[YouTube:IVm0JSjma6g]

It's been a while since I've written about Sony... mostly because there hasn't been anything really of interest to write about. The corporate puppy has been thoroughly kicked, and it appears the consumer message is finally getting through.

Next-gen just put up an interview with Eric Lempel, the Director of Playstation Network operations. Lots of interesting quotes in here. They're not terribly surprising (at least to those who have been reading this blog for a while), but interesting nonetheless.

“Microsoft had a year jump on us for the launch and essentially we’re offering a lot of the same stuff. I don’t think there’s a big difference in exactly what we’re offering when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of what’s actually there for the consumer… We’re not charging money for our service. That’s a key differentiating factor.”

Obviously I'd disagree here. Right now Sony is trying to follow a "checkbox strategy." If you looked at a list of network features side-by-side, it's quite obvious Sony is trying to go down the list and check off missing items. Friends list? Check. Presence? Check. Online Marketplace? Check. What's not said here is that there's no integration among those features... I wrote about this a long time ago, but simply put, the online network wasn't even being designed when the console came together and there are fundamental holes in the experience that are either very difficult or impossible to fix.

More interesting is that you're beginning to see the cracks in the "free is better" mantra we've been hearing for the past five years. Believe me, I get that free is good... but you've all seen that you get what you pay for when it comes to an online service. As Next-gen says, however:

...that could be open to change in the future.

“Right now that’s our model. In time anything can change but right now we’re happy with it.”

I've got to swing over to NeoGAF later and see the tizzy that's spun up from this. The reality shoe is finally dropping.

[Edit: added a link to the NeoGAF forum post - it's already started.]

There's also a quote highlighting the, shall we say, "inspired emulation" of Xbox Live features:

Lempel did concede that Sony was working to replicate a number of Xbox Live’s most successful features including cross-game invites, the ability to access the cross-media bar in-game, and an achievements system.

“I like how their marketplace is integrated directly into their user interface….Talking across games is fantastic. That definitely builds momentum for games and actually migrate users to other games and keeps you in touch with your gaming community.

Again, due to the lack of planning and huge amounts of memory the system UI takes, much of what he's talking about will be difficult to impossible to do well on the PS3. But it's good to hear some steps will be taken in this direction, and it lays the groundwork for a better online framework next generation. I'm not kidding when I say I really want the PS3 experience to be better. I'm a gamer, too, and I know there will be some first-party games out of Sony that I can only play on the PS3... and I'd like to not suffer while doing so. More importantly, you can never understate the importance of competition to driving this industry forward.

Finally, an Achievements clone is coming... most of folks here have known the likelihood of this for a long time, but it's good to hear a commitment:

“We’re working on an achievements system... I can’t say if it’s definitely tied to a gamerscore or something like Xbox does but that is an important feature.

I'll be curious to see if there's any innovation here. Not a snide remark, just honestly curious if there will be more than a "here's a 3D trophy instead of a bitmap" achievement. Time will tell!

A friend send along a link to a great post on Wired by Clive Thompson discussing what "cheating" really means when playing video games. It highlights the differences between "cheating" when playing alone versus playing online, and particularly interesting to me, it also discusses the different types of cheaters:

A small hardcore group are die-hard purists, like my friend. They don't use any cheats or guides, because they consider it "cheating yourself" of the subtle pleasure of getting stuck in a game -- then suddenly spying the way out.

The next group is the walkthrough folks, like me. We regard guides as a form of travel literature; I'd never have located all the cool, secret areas in Final Fantasy XII without a FAQ. (In contrast, the hardcore crowd seems to relish the idea that they'll miss out on stuff, because it's part of the mystery of game.) But I almost never use cheats or manipulations of code to grant myself "unearned" power. I like the idea that if I'm born into this virtual world, I'll abide by the fictions that govern its reality.

Then there's the final group of gamers -- the "by any means necessary" crowd, as it were. Like the ancient gnostics, or like Morpheus in The Matrix, they know the world around them is just code -- and the fun is not in obeying it but mucking with it. Single-player worlds are toys, to be hacked with any available Easter eggs, exploits or hardware mods; you can't have the truly l33t experiences if you're not tricked out with sick amounts of weaponry and skillz.

I'm definitely more of a walkthrough guy, with a bit of a purist streak. Meaning I'll play the game without hints or guides until I get reasonably stuck, but then I'll look up how to get past the chokepoint and continue on without guides. Don't have enough time to beat my head on a locked door for hours - and frankly, I play games to be entertained, and not frustrated.

I also had a slew of people looking for my thoughts on the whole Sony God of War II/goat fiasco. I'm actually not going to comment on it simply because I'm personally highly offended by the whole thing. Anything I might say would end up looking like an anti-Sony rant from a "Microsoft shill" (as some like to believe). Suffice it to say it should have never happened, and that's the end of it.

There's an interesting series of articles over at innerbits discussing rumored improvements to the PS3 online interface - aka the 1.60 firmware upgrade. It's a good read, and if real, will help the PS3 quite a bit toward being a gaming system capable of supporting an online community. That said (and you knew this was coming), it should also be pretty obvious that Sony made a fundamental mistake when designing the PS3 that is going to impact their plans this entire generation.

Simply put, the mistake is that Sony did not chose to reserve sufficient resources of both memory and CPU time to run their XMB bar (aka community interface) over any application. Instead, it appears Sony permanently reserved some memory (64 MB if I recall correctly), and 1 SPU. In addition, they notified developers that they could take over another SPU at any time if needed.

What this effectively does is cause developers to have to make decisions whether or not to support a feature (and allocate memory to it). And unfortunately, memory is pretty tight on consoles (all consoles) in the first place. Add to that the fact that memory requirements for some of these features are pretty high, and I struggle to believe we'll see some of these features in many games at all, much less consistently across the platform. Here are some examples (with comments on each):

Background Downloading:

On the PS3, when you enter a game, your downloads will be paused and queued up, to be restarted later when you exit back to the XMB. The reason for this is that the PS3 needs extra system resources (primarily memory) to do background downloading, and as such could affect game play.

New APIs were discussed which allow background downloading during less resource intensive sections of a game (such as the front end menu), but such functionality will only be considered once the 1.60 update is out the door. Even so, games would have to allocate extra memory need to be able to support this.

[The Xbox is able to do this because we can use reserved memory/CPU time. From the game's perspective, it never existed in the first place, so it's never lost.]

In-game Purchases:

This new API will offer developers a greater flexibility for marketing their own downloadable content from within their own game. The only downside to this new API is that it will require approximately an extra 60 MB of memory to be made available to the OS. The memory requirement seems quite hefty, but we should also remember that such an interface would be integrated into the front-end menus of a game, which should use up less memory anyways and therefore pose less of a challenge to developers.

[60 MB is pretty brutal. Remember, the PS3 has 256 MB of main system RAM. It's true this shouldn't be a problem to find at a game menu, but if you want to enable any sort of interesting in-game, instant gratification purchases developers will need to figure out what, if anything, you can temporarily dump out of memory. I expect we'll see a lot of main menu stores.]

In-game Friends List:

In other good news, which might mean increased adoption of this feature from developers, the extra memory needed to support the friends list system utility has been cut down from 16 MB to a more manageable 9 MB.

Unfortunately, cross-game invites will still not work as of 1.60. While players will be able to message each other from within games from 1.60 (in the games that support it), the issue of booting up a different game and then passing on the invitation has not not been resolved. Sony will essentially need to create a new TRC guideline for games to support this. Sony is working on several potential solutions, but in the meantime, this new feature is unlikely to show up for quite a while, and certainly not in the 1.60 update.

[The size reduction is good news - it means some games may support the Friends List in games. What will be interesting to see is if Sony mandates this via their TRCs (or Technical Requirements for Certification). If they do, every PS3 game going forward just lost almost 10 MB of system RAM that can't be used for game purposes. For what it's worth, I think the cross-game invite problem is solvable, even with their current architecture.]

Cross-game Voice Chat:

Cross-game voice chat (or game-agnostic voice chat) is another feature now in jeopardy due to lack of planning. As of now, there isn’t even a scheduled time plan for implementation, meaning this feature is unlikely to appear before the summer, and potentially never. The issue again is that it places significant requirements on both processor and memory, which would have to be requisitioned from the game currently being played.

[I'm not surprised as universal voice chat was one of our bigger challenges to fit into reserved system resources. Not having planned ahead makes it that much harder - I don't expect we'll ever see this unless Sony mandates another TRC... which will also impact every game hard.]

This quote summarizes the issues listed quite well:

The only way such functionality is going to get implemented is if Sony puts their foot down, provides the functionality and makes it a requirement for each game to support these features. Sony needs to do this because developers have no vested interest in creating a uniform experience for the end user across all the games on the platform. Sony would be the only one primarily profiting from this as the users would be sure to welcome a consistent interface of fundamental OS features across all games.

Another rock and a hard spot to be in. And yes, I still see a price cut coming this year.

<rant>

You want to know the absolutely most frustrating thing about this? This could have all been avoided had the PS3 not been rushed to market. I can tell you from personal experience all of these traps were things the Live and Platform teams thought about and planned ahead for... which is why we're able to deliver the experience we are now. There's no reason Sony could not have done the same - and as a gamer (and not a Microsoft employee), it frustrates the living hell out of me. Right... enough said.

</rant>

I'm doing some thinking around the future of "Xbox Live". I put Xbox Live in quotes only because Live will be stretching beyond the console this year with the release of Live on Windows, and we're looking at a future where multiple devices will all be able to connect into the same service. My question to you is what big features would you want to see out of Live in the future?

Imagine a world in which your account can work with different devices, each with different capabilities. Some might have a keyboard, some might not. Some might connect to your TV, some might be mobile and fit in your pocket. Some might be built from the ground up for gaming, some might have gaming as an ancillary function. The common thread across all of these devices is internet connectivity and Live, with your single login (Gamertag), your single friends list, and the ability communicate and share with those friends and the community.

What do you want to see? Think big here - ideally, think about what you want to see over a five-year period, and how your ideas evolve over that time. What's the crawl step for your idea? The walk? The run?

It's important to say that I'm just one of many people who will be working on this, and I will not be able to commit to anything being done, or even confirm that many ideas might even be considered. On top of that, you should assume that any ideas discussed publicly here are just that - public. Microsoft may use them in product ideas, and for that matter, anyone might use them. If you have some ideas that you want to keep private because you think you might do something with them yourself one day, you should not post them here.

That said, if you're ok with the above, we'd love to hear your thoughts... and remember, think big, think long-term, and think stages to get there. That's how we can get this sort of thing done.

[Edit: you'd think I'd know how to spell "publicly" by now. <sigh> Fixed.]

That's definitely my opinion after evaluating the system a great deal. Spent several hours last night trying to make sense of the current online implementation; as I said before, Sony's online system is busted, plain and simple. And Xfire isn't the magic answer.

I could write a lot on this, but frankly, at this point I'm not telling you anything you don't know. What may be more interesting to you are what other non-Microsoft folks are saying. You can find plenty of opinions out there, but I found a couple worth sharing.

First is a Gamesindustry.biz article by Tom Bramwell, where he gives a fair opinion on what he thinks of the PS3 so far. He has a couple of digs at 360 as well, so fear not, it's reasonably balanced. (I'm actually looking forward to his thoughts on the 360 tomorrow.) My favorite quote captures perfectly my greatest frustration with Sony at this point:

"The thing that sticks with me most, though, is Sony's annoying failure to get all the onboard software ready. Instead, we have the same mentality as the PSP - a mentality that's seen 23 whole months elapse before the handheld received a menu option to not automatically load up games when it's turned on, something rather handy to anyone who prefers to use handhelds to watch films and listen to music."

The other article worth sharing is a 1UP article called "Rage Against the Machines: PS3 Edition." This one is definitely a bit of Sony hating, so fair warning. However, there are just some funny as hell quotes in here. My current favorite:

"The sucker has eight freaking processors and is apparently capable of flinging eggs around with its mind, but it can't do more than one thing at a time. What's up with that? We have to quit out of a game to access the Cross Media Bar? Downloading something means your entertainment options are confined to the load-bar watching minigame. The 360 got this wrong at first too, and it was fixed with a firmware update. Hopefully we'll see the same happen on PS3, and quickly."

I'm probably done posting on the PS3 for now - at least until something changes for the better, or there's something positive to say. Currently I'm spending all my time with the Wii, especially playing through Zelda. I'll write up some thoughts on the Wii when I get a chance, but for now I can definitely recommend it, at least for first-party games. (And for what it's worth, if you play Zelda you have to play for literally two hours to get out of the initial "let's train you to use the new controller" mode. But when the game finally begins, it's pure Zelda magic.)

Had an opportunity to spend the long weekend with a Japanese Playstation 3 (60 GB Pro SKU), and wanted to share some of my hands-on thoughts. Bit late, I know, but I've been traveling. For what it’s worth, the Japanese PS3 is basically identical to the PS3 being shipped in other regions. Most games aren’t region-locked, so it can play everything I’ve thrown at it (with the exception of original Playstation games – since those are region-locked for backwards-compatibility, I can’t use US Playstation games to test that functionality.) Blu-Ray works fine as Japan and the US are both Region 1 this time around (thank god!), and the dash can be set to English so had no problems there.

Below are some of the positive and negative aspects I found.

HARDWARE:

Console itself is a heavy, hot-running beast. Not “melt the TV” hot, but not as cool as some folks might have you believe. The heat coming off the vents was similar to the heat you feel coming from tabletop projectors. Ths box is, however, very silent – definitely beats the 360 there. It weighs a ton, and the curved surface makes it difficult to integrate into the home theater rack – almost feels as though it was designed to be on top. I still don’t like the look, but I have to admit reactions from friends are mixed – about half think it looks like old-school Bang & Olufsen equipment, and the other half see a George Foreman Grill.

Controller is better than expected. It’s very light, which threw me off at first, but it’s also quite rigid. Doesn’t flex or squeak, and as it’s based on the classic PS2 design, is comfortable to hold. The analog triggers feel very cheap, though, and the lack of rumble just sucks. The motion sensing capability still feels like a gimmick to me, and the lack of rumble is very noticeable in games like Resistance. In fact, a friend asked me for the “other controller” because he thought his was broken. Sony just needs to get over this Immersion lawsuit and pay up – they’ve definitely taken a step backwards here in my opinion.

The wireless aspect of the controller definitely needs some work. You have to bind the controller to the console using the charge cable, which seems pretty gimpy. What’s worse, if you buy another first-party controller, you don’t get another charge cable – only the controller is in the package. I don’t know if Sony is selling the cable separately, but if so, seems pretty miserly of them. I just hope I don’t lose the original cable in the meanwhile!

Guide button functionality is basic, but works. Allows you to quit games, turn off the console or controller, and see battery status. One can hope they’ll eventually add community-enabling features in the future, but for now it’s pretty bare-bones.

Blu-Ray movie playback is as expected. Using the controller to control playback is less than ideal, but it works. (The same can be said of using the Xbox 360’s controller to control movie playback.) Movie quality (over HDMI) was ok, not great. However, the only movie I had a chance to check out was The House of Flying Daggers, and it appears it’s not a great transfer. Even the “True HD” clip you can download from the online store has a lot of noise and compression artifacts. I fully expect other movies to look better, but for now I’m still more impressed with HD-DVD’s quality. One really poor decision on Sony’s part regarding movie playback on the PS3 is that they did not include an IR port. This means there won’t be any add-on remote controls made available that you can integrate into your home theater’s universal remote. That alone pretty much kills Blu-Ray’s use as a high-definition DVD player in my home as I refuse to have more than one remote out (you should see the drawer where all of the original remotes live!)

I liked the inclusion of the media card reader more than expected. As I had just returned from Asia with a bunch of pictures, I was able to pull several different card formats from different cameras and quickly show them to friends. Sure, I could have done the same on the 360 or the PC with a variety of card readers, but it was nice not having to go dig them up or plug them in. That said, when you consider these readers are also pretty much a requirement (with the lack of PC connectivity in the PS3), I’m not sure I’m all that happy about having to pay for them in the total price of the box. I did have some surprising problems trying to listen to MP3s on a CD-R, as well as listen to WMA files and view JPEGs off of a USB memory stick. The PS3 recognized the CD-R and memory stick in both cases, but claimed there were no pictures or audio files on either. I can believe the system might not want to play WMA files (for obvious political, though retarded, reasons), but MP3s and JPEGs? Really? Note that I did test both the CD-R and memory stick on a 360 and PC as well where they worked fine - so it's not a physical problem. Anyone else seen this? I really struggle to believe this can be the case, and am wondering if there's some gotcha here using a Japanese PS3 (though I can't imagine what).

Integrated WiFi was a nice bonus, and other than an incredibly painful WPA password entry experience (thanks to the obnoxious predictive text entry support - more on that in a second), worked as well as one might expect. Frankly, it was quite nice to find that the PS3 does support WPA. Although one might assume this to be a reasonable standard these days (with WEP being pretty well written-off as being insecure), the Nintendo DS doesn’t support it as of yet, and I believe the Wii has the same issue. Kudos to Sony here!

[Edit: Apparently the Wii does support WPA.]

For all of the “True HD” Ultimate High Definition hype Sony has promised, there are some significant problems. The first is that even the high-end SKU doesn’t include any sort of high-definition cable connection, either component or HDMI. I can understand not bundling an HDMI cable as there’s a perception that these are expensive (not necessarily true), and hence can be a great margin-driving peripheral for Sony to sell. But if you’re trying to push HD as a differentiator, you’d think you’d at least include component cables out of the box. Lack thereof necessitated a quick trip to Magnolia to pick up an HDMI cable (and for the record, feel free to pick these up at Radio Shack as well – it’s a digital connection, so unless the cable is completely broken you’re just not going to see a difference. Sadly, my local Radio Shack was out.)

Even worse, it appears there’s no internal hardware scaler in the PS3. As reported, it appears the PS3 is unable to output a consistent signal to your TV based upon your desired selection (ie, what your TV supports). This means that while I might want to play Resistance in 1080i, if the game doesn’t support it the console drops down to a lower-common denominator of 480p. The game then tells me that if I want to play in the best quality, I need to quit out, go to the dashboard, change the PS3’s resolution to 720p, and then relaunch the game. Oh, and when I return from the game, I’m obviously still at 720p, and not the 1080i I’d prefer to navigate the dash with. I experienced this myself and I can tell you it’s hugely frustrating. This issue also affects people who have older HDTVs that only support 480i/480p and 1080i (not 720p – this was pretty common with earlier CRT HDTVs). These folks have no way to scale the game’s output to 1080i, and are thus forced to play in 480i/p. This smells of the console being rushed to market, and I’m not holding out any hopes for any significant fix. It’s bad, and feels like something Sony would have fixed if possible. My guess is the “fix” they’re working on is going to be a bit of streamlining in the dashboard (perhaps a switch to automatically change back to 1080i/p when returning from a game), but the core issue isn’t going to be fixed. I hope I’m wrong, though, for the sake of all those folks having problems.

Note that I did not try to use the PSP with the PS3 as of yet. I also wasn’t able to try out backwards compatibility as I do not have any Japanese PS1 games around at the moment.

SOFTWARE (CONSOLE):

The dashboard is elegant, and I like the XMB interface. There are times when you can get lost for a minute, but in general it’s quite clean and easy to get around. I do wish that a few more of the functions were more intuitive – it took me a moment to figure out that Triangle was often a hidden command I could use to pull up options. I suppose that’s not that different than learning how the 360 Guide works, though.

Music ripping/playback works well, and I really like the music visualizer – it’s a bit more peaceful than the 360’s visual chaos. Couple of friends preferred having it onscreen rather than the 360’s, though they were annoyed that they couldn’t connect to my music server via the network, and would have to rip CDs or insert memory cards to listen to tunes. (Note that this was in theory at the time - the later discovery of the CD-R and memory stick not working really had at least one friend wondering what the heck Sony was thinking here.) One disappointment is that I cannot play my own soundtrack over games or other experiences. Sort of makes sense considering the rudimentary state of the PS3 guide, but it’s definitely a weakness versus the 360 (at least to those people who use the feature).

I also really like the photo browser, especially the photo slideshow mode. You see your pictures flutter down and land on the ground as they scroll slowly by. It’s hard to describe (and I can't find a video link right now), but it's very elegant and, well... “Apple”. My friends thought it would be a great way to have pictures from a trip displayed in the background during a party. I generally agree, though I think there needs to be some additional capability allowing someone with a controller to select one of those images and zoom in on it. Rotating images is also slick as you see the image actually rotate into place instead of just appearing as it does on the 360. Minor stuff, but very nice. If only the rest of the PS3 OS had this sort of polish!

Whoever designed the predictive text entry functionality of the PS3 should be summarily drawn and quartered. It’s the same system as used on the PSP, and similar to T9 where it attempts to predict what they next character you’ll need is. However, it’s confusing as all heck and incredibly frustrating to use. Sometimes you get just one character with a single button press, sometimes you get two – and there’s just no obvious pattern. Even worse, imagine the above behavior when you’re trying to enter in a secret password that’s being blanked out with asterisks – it took me forever to enter in the WPA password. Think you can plug in a USB keyboard? Well, that’s only sort of true. Yes, you can plug it in and it’ll send text to the PS3. However, the interface appears to locked to use the predictive text entry, even if you’re using the USB keyboard. This means my trying to type “Ozymandias” comes out something like “Oz9ma4nd7i5s”. About threw the keyboard through the Plasma! (Note that this was one of the areas where being on a Japanese PS3 might have thrown me off. I could not find a way to turn off this behavior, and the documentation was obviously of no help. Does anyone know if there’s a way for a USB keyboard to work normally?)

[Edit: I've spoken to other people who have not had this problem. Unsure why I did, but wanted to clarify that it may not be a real issue, or might be something to do with this Japanese PS3.]

Sony’s focus on the PS3 being the center of the home means there isn’t any way to connect the console to a PC network. WiFi/Wired Ethernet allows you to get an IP address and connect to the internet, but you cannot find or browse file shares. This just sucks – whether Sony likes it or not, I have thousands of pictures and music tracks on servers in the basement, and I’m not going to copy them to memory cards or portable hard drives just to use my media on the PS3 (if that route even works!) And most consumers are in the same boat – they have a PC or two in the house, and their digital media is stored there. My prediction is that Sony eventually starts enabling PC connectivity – they just have to if they want to be successful in the long run. For now, you should just expect a fragmented experience.

I liked the web browser more than I thought. Ignoring the pain of entering in website URLs (via the predictive text interface I so love to despise), I found the ability to zip over to Gamefaqs.com or Gameratings.com to check on something pretty handy. YouTube and other Flash sites seemed to work as well. I also think the web browser will prove to be a boon to Sony down the road as it gives games and the console a very flexible interface that can be used to deliver menus, content, etc (just as we see it being used in the Playstation Store today).

SOFTWARE (GAMES):

I was able to check out four retail games: Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Resistance, Genji, and Call of Duty 3. Of these, Resistance was easily the best launch title – good story, fun shooter, and looked decent. It’s not a Gears of War, but to be fair, it’s a launch title. (For what it’s worth, I expected better after seeing some footage on PS3 kiosks in Japan; it appears, as is often the case, that the footage was carefully selected. Most of the game is pretty grey, probably due to limited texture memory. And there are plenty of low-poly items in the world – perfectly square bolts being one that caught my eye.) Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Call of Duty 3 were competent, but seemed pretty much identical to the 360 versions (with COD 3 having some framerate issues, but nothing unplayable). Genji surprised me as being a really good looking title – frankly, it’s one of the best-looking (if not playing) launch titles I’ve ever seen. This title alone gives me hope that future PS3 games will have potential.

I downloaded a few game demos and arcade titles as well. Motorstorm was a lot of fun and looked pretty good. It doesn’t look like the infamous E3 rendered trailer (no surprise), but the physics are pretty impressive. World geometry is pretty basic, though – if you pause and look around you see some pretty simplistic rocks. NBA 07 is hyped as being a “True HD” 1080p title – and yes, it does technically support that mode. However, the game just doesn’t look good. Sweat dripping down a face may get some people excited, but the rest of the environment is boringly basic. I suspect this game alone may deflate a lot of the 1080p hype once people see the sacrifices needed to hit this resolution on the new round of consoles. I can’t recall the names of the arcade titles, but they were what you’d expect – one was a Smash TV clone, the other was a Geometry Wars clone. Both fun, looked good, but nothing that you couldn’t see on almost any other platform. I did notice there didn’t seem to be a way to download a trial and then unlock it – you could download a demo, but if you wanted to purchase the full game, it appears you need to download the full game all over again.

SERVICES:

As expected, Sony’s online network really isn’t there yet. You can sign up and get a screenname, and associate that with an email address and password – that all works. And thankfully, it appears you can use the single login to log into games. But once you have that, there’s really not a lot of value at this point. Basic messaging is enabled, but no one I know was ever online or using it, and there’s no way to communicate across games. Games have seperate friends lists, and those lists aren't integrated into your PS3 friends list. Won't harp on any more - you can read these two posts for a lot more detail. One positive aspect that I liked, however, is that you can sign-in via your email address/password on any PS3 without having to move your account to a memory unit. This roaming is very cool, and feels more flexible than the 360’s current model.

The Playstation Store is pretty empty at the moment. Some game demos, arcade games, and trailers are available, but you run out of things to explore pretty quickly. Not a criticism here, though – 360 had the same problem at launch, and I’m sure more content will start flowing. It was disappointing that I couldn’t download any music however. Store is web-based, which should pay off in flexibility down the line. It’s easy enough to navigate, though using the controller as a mouse seemed a bit odd. I think I like the 360’s Marketplace UI better for navigating with a controller – mostly because it feels like you can “snap” to locations more deterministically.

SUMMARY:

In general, I didn’t find any real surprises. The system has some potential, and I fully expect there to be interesting games that will make it eventually worthy of purchase if you're a core gamer - but even then, I think we're probably talking next holiday before there's enough of a value proposition (as well as sufficient debugging time). We're probably waiting for a killer app and a price drop before we see these things really take off. It'll be interesting to see how well the PS3 sells when supply isn't constrained (before the price drop). As always, appreciate your thoughts!

I wrote earlier about Sony's online network being broken; not surprisingly, some took umbrage at my statement. Now that the PS3 is out in Japan the reality of the situation is becoming more public, and others are finding the same. A blog called Inner Bits did a good overall summary of Sony's online network, and I'll point you to it here. Note that this summary highlights both positive and negative aspects.

On the positive side, Inner Bits had good things to say about the XMB bar:

Even a cursory look at the XMB reveals that Sony has put a lot of thought into the design. The interface is sleek and simple to use. The XMB lays out all of PS3’s most anticipated features the PS3 in easily accessible buttons: Videos, Music, Photos, Games, etc. The media bar also provides all the standard functionality of a friends list, allowing you to send messages, add friends, and so on. Unfortunately, the media bar cannot currently be accessed from within any game.

The PlayStation Store has been designed with the same level of care as the XMB. A consistent interface makes for easy store navigation; many would consider this is an improvement over MS’s hectic Marketplace environment. It is also obvious that the site is designed to take on the iTunes Store.

I also like the simplicity of the XMB bar, though I'm disappointed (but not surprised) at the lack of availability of friends list from games. On the negative side, Inner Bits goes on to say:

The fact is, in its quest to surpass Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, Sony may have overlooked the most fundamental reason for online connectivity: playing online games with others.

Sony has carefully avoided all discussion on this topic, save for mentioning that Resistance: Fall of Man will support 40 players. The developers themselves are the only ones to have made any comments on the service provided. Resistance will offer up a full suite of online support, including “its own buddy list, clan registry, in-game messaging and chat services”. This is unfortunately damning for Sony as none of the PlayStation Network’s functionality is integrated into the game. The game’s buddy list, and Sony’s are two completely distinct entities.

The developers explain that Sony did not deliver the online libraries in a timely fashion. However, the author suggests that Sony never planned on providing a fully featured online system. He implies that Sony has only recently realized their mistakes and attempted to correct it. As we’ll see tomorrow, this assessment is actually closer to the truth than one might expect.

The reality is that the friend’s list support that Sony have provided in their libraries is terrible. From within a game, you are notified when your friends sign on and sign off (with a nice translucent overlay)…and that’s about it. Developers have no way of interfacing with this list in any useful manner. You can’t find out if your friends are watching a movie, surfing the net or playing another game. If you send them an invite, you have to hope they sign on to the same game you’re playing before they’ll even see it. Furthermore, there is currently no functionality to even “accept” the invite. It’s just a message to come join a game; it won’t actually take you to the game. Developers have to deal with that problem themselves.

Ugh. Those of you who have been reading for a while know this isn't a surprise, but man... what a mess. Frankly, the fact that I can't even see a game invite when in another game is worse than expected. I had thought you'd at least be able to know when someone sends you a message (if not act on it). It appears if you're expecting a game invite, you'll actually need to quit out of the game you're currently playing on a regular basis to go check for the message in the "dash." Sure blows that whole immersive experience concept all to hell. <sigh>

Note that there are a lot of good observations (both positive and negative) in the three part article. I won't quote them all here, but it's worth reading. Part three of the article, discussing PS3 developer experiences, is also pretty insightful (and accurate, as far as I can tell).

News on the web today is that Xfire is suing GameSpy for how their GameSpy Comrade "Buddy Sync" feature creates friends lists. To quote:

Now Battlefield 2142 is caught up in a legal tangle between rival in-game instant messaging programs Xfire and GameSpy Comrade. On October 16, Viacom-owned Xfire filed suit against News Corp subsidiary IGN Entertainment over its GameSpy Comrade program, which comes on the Battlefield 2142 disc. IGN Entertainment also owns IGN.com, a GameSpot competitor.

Xfire is claiming that GameSpy Comrade's "Buddy Sync" feature illegally infringes on its copyrights. Buddy Sync retrieves users' friends lists from other instant messaging programs like AOL Instant Messenger and Xfire, and gives players the option of automatically inviting those friends who have GameSpy accounts to join the users' friends lists on Comrade.

If you read a bit deeper you find that what's basically being challenged is GameSpy's use of information (friends lists) that has been publicly published by Xfire on their website. Xfire claims that GameSpy's reading of that data is to enable GameSpy to bolster their own friends lists:

In a filing in support of the restraining order, Xfire CEO Michael Cassidy specified how his company believes the Comrade program works. First, Cassidy said it reads the user's Xfire handle from the XfireUser.ini file, then visits a formulaic URL on the Xfire site to get a list of the user's friends (for instance, to find the friends list of Xfire user Aragorn, Comrade would go to http://www.xfire.com/friends/aragorn). The names on that friends list are then compared with a central IGN database of Comrade users' Xfire handles, and if any matches turn up, the user is asked if they want to invite those people to their Comrade buddy lists.

I am not a lawyer, and can't definitively comment on whether information that's made public in this fashion can or cannot be harvested. My gut is that it's probably kosher - we have plenty of website scraping applications in the wild today that do just this, including best price searching sites. What does fascinate me is how this suit highlights how busted Sony's PS3 online network is, and how companies are fighting to position themselves to take advantage of this financially. Bet that seemed to come out of right field. But here's where I'm coming from.

I wrote earlier about why Sony's enabling of Xfire for PS3 games wasn't as exciting as it might seem. Take a read, and then let's talk about just what the experience of being an online user on PS3 is likely to be like.

So I buy my PS3, bring it home, and go online. The first thing I'm going to be asked to do is create some sort of Sony Network ID. That "Sony ID" will apparently bring basic presence and communication features via the crossbar interface. So far so good. Now I decide to play Insomniac's Resistance, which recently stated the following:

Insomniac's Ted Price: "The buddy list is specific to Resistance. And we decided not to bother people in-game with messages. If you have a new message sent to you while you're in a game, you'll see your "buddy list" tab flashing when you re-enter the lobby after playing a game. The buddy list tab is where you can access your friends, ignore list, messages, etc."

1Up (to reader): "Does this mean there's a system-wide friend's list, but you have to compile game-specific friends lists for each online game you participate in? That doesn't make much sense, and hopefully today's event will clear up the situation."

Yes Virginia, that's exactly what this means. Even though I already have a "Sony ID", I may have to create a new "Resistance ID" to play. And then start thinking about just how broken the experience is when you try to invite someone to a game. Do you send it via the Resistance UI? What screenname do I send it to? If I want to add you to my "Sony ID" friends list, do I need to send you an in-game message to ask you what your real "Sony ID" name is? What about game invites? How does that work across even just these two IDs?

You think that's bad? Now let's open up a few more games from different publishers. Each of these publishers had to make a choice of what online interface to use - again, because Sony's online network just isn't ready. So they'll choose between writing their own (as did Insomniac for Resistance), or perhaps licensing Xfire, or GameSpy, or Quazal, or Demonware. So now we have five potential networks with different namespaces, and an inherent  lack of ability to communicate (chatting, voice, invites, finding friends, etc.) between them, and even across to just the "Sony ID" namespace. Think we're done? Nope... what happens if each publisher doesn't stick with the same online solution for all of their games? This is very likely as most publishers use different developers - so even across a single publisher, you may find fragmented communities.

The only consistent tie all of these different community fragments has is that a user should always have their Sony ID. That gives you a lifeline to be see friends when they are online... but only in the crossbar UI. Will you even be able to see what game they're playing? What about what network that game uses, and whether that friend is logged into it? How will you get messages in a timely manner? Remember Ted Price's quote above? "And we decided not to bother people in-game with messages. If you have a new message sent to you while you're in a game, you'll see your "buddy list" tab flashing when you re-enter the lobby after playing a game." Doesn't sound like a user-centric design decision to me.

So... back to Xfire and GameSpy. I said earlier this suit is a direct result of how busted Sony's online network appears to be, and I just described some of the issues you'll likely be facing later this month. Yes, it's targeted at a PC title right now (Battlefield 2142), but that's just noise. What we're really seeing with this suit are online middleware companies trying to position themselves to become the eventual defacto solution that publishers will use. Just as with web search and instant messaging, these companies are trying to get momentum and user base that will cause them to be the "PS3 online" solution of choice. And this suit is simply one of many battles we'll see in this space, especially as PC and console crossplatform connectivity becomes more important in the coming years.

[Update: Today it was announced that all PS3 online titles would use a single login (the "Sony ID") to login to games. I wanted to highlight that to be fair, but unfortunately it still doesn't address the majority of my concerns below. If I log in with my Sony ID, I still don't understand how I'll communicate (defined as invites, messages, chatting, etc) with friends whose IDs are on different buddy lists that are enabled by middleware companies such as Gamespy, Demonware, etc. Simply put, the value of a single login is the seamless ability to do all of the above - and that feels like a mess.

Still, I have to give some credit to Sony for beginning to move in the right direction. With this announcement, you can look ahead to PS4 and imagine a world of a single login with consistent communication via a single interface. It's unlikely to happen in this generation because Sony can't cut the legs out from under existing titles and supporting middleware companies. But this will be a good backbone to build from next time around (and hopefully keep existing IDs).]

Apologies for the lack of posts recently - it's been a rather busy time at work as I caught up from my Peru trip, and I've been traveling all over the place for a variety of work reasons. I'm actually returning from San Francisco even as we speak, and writing thanks to a recent beta of Microsoft's Live Writer offline blogging tool. Although not the subject of this post, I did want to mention it as it's a fantastic tool. Check it out if you do any blogging. It appears to work with most sites, and it's definitely made my blogging "job" a whole lot easier!

Anyway, while I was in San Francisco I was able to meet up with Mark Deloura (ex Sony developer relations manager, now with Ubisoft) and Jane Pinckard (she of Gamegirladvance.com) for a couple of drinks. Was great catching up with them of course, but during the course of the conversation we started talking about an interesting area that's not currently being covered by casual games - namely, asynchronous games.

So what are async games? Simply put, imagine a game where you don't have to have a person (or a group of people) playing with you at the same time - you basically take turns. Checkers or Chess is one simple example, and the old play-by-mail wargames are another (albeit with significantly greater delay between turns). Today you see a few games that fall into this mold. Civilization has had a play-by-email mode for a few versions now, and there are X-Com-like clones like Laser Squad Nemesis that also enable it. Although I don't know for sure, I suspect some of the upcoming Live Arcade board games such as Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan will have turn-based play which lend themselves to asynchronous play should the game designers desire, and I'm sure there are plenty of others as well. What's interesting is that we don't see is a lot of these asynchronous games in the casual space yet... and I suspect we'll start seeing more in the future.

Why? Simply put, we're moving into a world of connected gaming devices. Microsoft has announced the Live Anywhere initiative, where we're looking to take the Xbox Live service and enable it on multiple devices such as consoles, the PC, and mobile devices such as phones. Sony has announced connectivity between their (sadly doomed, at least for v1) PSP and the PS3, and Nintendo has enabled wireless connectivity between the Nintendo DS and hinted at wireless connectivity between the DS and the Wii. These platforms are now technically enabling wireless connections between devices and people; what's missing are the games that allow people to play on these platforms at the times and places that best suit them.

Think about it - today when we sit down to play a game we pretty much do exactly that: sit. We have to choose a time and place and tether ourself to the experience on a single device, even if that experience is being played on a portable gaming device. What's missing is the ability to start a game and continue it in some meaningful way. Why can't I start up an Advance Wars game with three other friends, and set the rules such that we each agree to do two moves a day (with automatic moves applied if you don't check in)? Why can't I then continue that game on the bus with my handheld phone? Why can't I review the overall tactical map when I'm at work on my PC?

There's no technical reason blocking this. The platforms I described above allow you to connect and communicate, so that's reasonably easy (although it's obviously my hope that we make Live Anywhere the absolute easiest way to enable this). There is a cost inhibitor, however, in that there's design time needed to take a game and make it best-suited to work on a platform's capabilities. And depending on the platform(s) you're developing for, you may well have to budget 2-3x the development cost of the game to create the different versions (ie, one for console, one for handheld, one for phone, etc.) As a quick aside, it's worth noting that XNA Studio is one attempt to solve this issue, as it comes with the XNA Framework that enables developers to basically "write once, publish many."

My guess is that as these connected platforms take off and gamers demand to be able to stay connected with their friends wherever and whenever they play, we'll see a greater investment into asynchronous games. Just off the top of our heads, Mark, Jane, and I came up with a bunch of great old games we'd love to see redone in this manner. Imagine a new version of The Incredible Machine, but with full 3D and physics, and turn-based gameplay where each player has a bucket of items they can place to either help or hinder the current objective. Or an Advance Wars meets Risk sort of game, with many people battling it out over a world map over the period of a week, with a tactical overview map you can always check in on. Toss in a basic map editor so you can create next week's battlefield while waiting at the doctor's office and you really start seeing the potential.

It may take a while, but I sincerely believe the concept of asynchronous gaming will become just as embedded into the gaming consciousness as a desired feature as co-op has become. It'll be interesting to see which casual games start the trend.

That leads to an interesting question... what casual games would you like to see developed that have asynchronous-friendly designs? Could be old classics that you miss that just need an updated twist, or entirely new game ideas. Maybe it's a classic boardgame that's just begging to be released as a casual game. Would love to hear them, and who knows, it's quite possible some of the casual game developers out there or people exploring XNA Game Studio can take the idea and run with it.

That said, it is very important to state that this is a public blog and I have no control over who might read and use your idea. If you want to share an idea in the hope that someone might comment on it or help make it better, feel free. But if you think you might want to develop it yourself, you should not publish it here as there's nothing keeping anyone from taking it and running with it. Just don't want anyone to get bitten accidentally.

Look forward to the discussion!

Some interesting news today about Xfire providing PS3 games technology to connect to their network. The best interview is from Next Generation (with a couple of key quotes):

Next-Gen: First of all, a lot of gamers are wondering if this Xfire deal will extend beyond SOE and Dark Kingdom…
Mike Cassidy: There are two deals here, really. There’s one deal between us and SOE, and there’s one deal between us and Sony Computer Entertainment. The deal with SCE is a tools and middleware license that lets us basically build a plug-in for any PS3 game. Then we need to work with the publishers, and the publishers use that middleware to enable Xfire functionality in their games.

<snip>

Aside from Xfire being so popular and increasingly established, why is Sony Computer Entertainment going outside to provide online community features for PS3 games?
Xfire is not replacing SCE’s PlayStation Network Platform at all. They have their own network platform that they will describe and roll out. What we’re doing is complementary. Sony itself was interested in working with us because we have such a large PC community and since so many PC gamers also play console games—I think for us, 74 percent of our 5 million users play console games too—they use it as a nice segue to reach into the gamers of the PC world who already have PC Xfire accounts.
…I think what we’re doing is providing some features and what they’re doing is providing some features that we don’t do at all. We don’t do paid digital downloads and we don’t do a lot of things like that. There are also some publishers that have no interest in the Xfire solution, which is fine. But there are some publishers that are like, “Great. We want to plug into the 5 million-user Xfire community.” We will work with Sony's PlayStation Network Platform…

This is actually really good news for PS3 owners as it's the first credible online service technology to raise its head up from the murkiness around launch. Frankly, I expected Sony to purchase XFire a year or so back to jumpstart their efforts - sadly, Viacom beat them to it. The good news is that enabling an Xfire plugin will allow some (not all) PS3 games to be connected to the Xfire network (and hence to their brethren on the PC). Kudos for that!

The bad news? This definitely isn't what Sony would have wanted to do if they had other options. What we end up with is a bit of a mishmash of online accounts, logins, and services. For example, now when I play a PS3 title I simply can't depend on having a single Friends list. Sony will manage the "master" list, which should have presence in every PS3 title, and Xfire will be a plugin that some publishers integrate into some games. This means gamers can't depend on finding their friends in one place (if the game even supports Xfire). The possibility exists that Sony might do a larger deal to integrate Xfire into every PS3 title, but frankly, they should have simply swallowed their pride and purchased Xfire a long time ago and made it their default backend technology.

Another challenge is that Xfire is now effectively middleware - and that's not free. Had Sony purchased and integrated Xfire into their SDK I could see the effective cost of integration being "free" to publishers. Now, unfortunately, each and every publisher has to look at their budget and decide whether adding a second online service/friends list/presence is worth it. I have no idea what Xfire's licensing costs are, but whatever it is, it's not free - Sony lost that opportunity. And that means publishers have to decide whether to spend extra dollars, effort, and time in an era when game costs are already spiraling higher and higher.

Sadly, this appears to be an artifact of Sony's online service being late to the game and likely underwhelming. Don't take my word for it - just wait a short month or so and see what Sony delivers for their "free online service" (vs. any Xfire capability). I'll bet you a dollar it's underwhelming, and will highlight just how desperately this Xfire deal was needed (even with all the issues around it).

Saw a post over on Joystiq that's talking about power leveling, or the ability pay someone real money to buff up your Gamerscore. To quote:

For years now, companies have offered to level your Everquest and World of Warcraft characters for a fee. By catering to the whims of players who want that level 60 mount but don't really have the time to obtain it on their own, firms that farm rake it in.

Therefore, 'twas only a matter of time before farmers that specialize in taking the grind out of virtual gruntwork made the leap over to the Xbox 360. A site called "Level My 360" has jumped in (har) and now offers 3,000 XBL gamer points for the low, low price of $300.

The thing that struck me as most interesting about this is that Achievements (and the Gamerscore associated with them) have become a currency... one just as valuable as virtual currency in MMOs, and one some people might be willing to pay real dollars for. I certainly don't condone it, but it does support my belief that competitors will need to have their own Achievements/Gamerscore system in the future as it's definitely a tipping aspect for some folks. (For the record, I now believe the rumor of PS3 "Entitlements" to be false; however, I fully expect a similar solution within the next year or so once the online service has launched.)

For what it's worth, I'm not too worried about this sort of thing damaging the Achievement "market." Since games each decide how/when to give out Achievements, there's plenty of slack in the system to help iron out spikes. On top of that, we're seeing developers getting more and more invested in Achievements and thinking harder about how to give them out. With every passing month we have more and more titles with Achievements and Gamerscore to deepen the ocean. Over time I honestly doubt we'll see this as anything more than noise across the entire system.

... 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!

Been some articles on the web recently about an interview Reggie Fils-aime did with USA Today where he implied online gaming with the Wii would be free. To quote the key Q&A:

Q: You're not pursuing a subscription model?

A: We view online gaming as essentially an enhanced way to enjoy the gaming experience and drive more sales of hardware and software.

Q: How do you extend your online strategy to Wii?

A: It's the same premise. We will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for. They'll be able to enjoy that right out of the box. The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you'll be able to plug it in and go. It won't have hidden fees or costs.

It's interesting, because at first glance one might get the strong impression that all online gaming on Wii will be free. But take a close look at what Reggie said - there are some finely-crafted statements here that give a lot of wiggle room.

First, notice that he didn't actually answer the question of "are you pursuing a subscription model?" The answer basically says "online gaming can make games more fun and help sell more hardware and software." Hmm....

Next, notice the wording of his second answer, where he states "We will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for." (Bolding my emphasis.) What he's actually said here is that "Nintendo first-party games will be free to play without a subscription." What he didn't say is A) whether third-party games have the option to charge for play, and B) whether or not there will be some sort of premium tier of online service people can sign up for with additional benefits (perhaps better matchmaking, online communication, nicknames, who knows?)

My guess is that it's up to third-parties as to whether or not they'll choose to charge (and I think the majority won't). But I'll be very curious to see whether there's an option to pay for an improved level of online service. I've previously written about the use of Friend Codes by Wii's online gaming service. It's fair to say many people on the web were disappointed by the lack of ability to personalize your online experience with a nickname. Hence I could easily imagine a premium service where you're able to have a nickname and other functionality, while still having basic, free online play for first-party titles (and not contradicting Reggie's statement).

Before people claim I'm ignoring a key quote, I do want to highlight Reggie's final statement: "The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you'll be able to plug it in and go. It won't have hidden fees or costs." I agree that the "no hidden fees or costs" statement may seem to contradict the above. It all depends on what's eventually disclosed - for example, if the console box states there's a premium tier for a fee, it's certainly not been hidden. <shrug> All that's to say why I'm a definite "maybe" as to whether or not Wii's online gaming will truly be free... I guess time will tell.

Had a couple of emails from folks asking about this post from Shacknews about "Panorama". To quote:

"Shacknews has learned from reputable sources who wish to remain nameless that Microsoft plans to introduce what seems to be a Windows gaming service called "Panorama." Apparently, Panorama will be a part of Windows Vista and will act essentially as Xbox Live Arcade for Windows. PC gamers will be able to not only play Live Arcade games, but will also be able to engage in multiplayer gaming versus gamers playing on the Xbox 360 version of the service. It does not appear that Panorama emulates the Xbox 360 environment, which suggests that developers creating cross-platform compatible Live Arcade games may have to release two versions, one for each platform. However, Microsoft tools such as XNA should expedite this process."

Not sure where this theory came from, but I can tell you that Panorama is simply a codename. As we announced at E3, we're looking to extend the Xbox Live community and services to other platforms; Panorama is simply the first stage of that, where we extend Xbox Live services to Windows. Nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't read too much into this myself.

Somehow I'm not surprised.

According to a post over on Evil Avatar, the latest EGM podcast says Sony will have an Achievement clone called "Entitlements" for the Playstation 3. Bit of a strange name in my opinion. I like the term "Achievements" because it describes awards you earn for doing things in the game. "Entitlements" somehow sounds like something you're, well, entitled to... perhaps even without having to play. <shrug>

Anyway, guess I was right on the prediction, wrong on the name. Time to get cracking on those domain registrations!

Just had to point to a recent post by LetsKillDave on his recent dissatisfaction with World of Warcraft. I'll admit I'm not a WoW player myself - frankly, I just could never justify the time, even with as much fun as I could imagine having with my friends. That said, Dave's always been one of the great defenders of the WoW realm, and I have to admit I found his reasons for cutting back fascinating.

Is this the beginning of the end for WoW?

(Yes, I'm kidding. Yes, I know it's not the beginning of the end. Yes, it's hyperbole. You may now return to your realm of choice. )

Just saw a discussion over on Evil Avatar about some matchmaking updates that Bungie has announced for Halo 2. As you might imagine, people have opinions that are all over the map. Some like Halo's "automagical" matchmaking (an advanced implementation of Xbox Live's OptiMatch concept), while others hate it and want old-school, PC-like server browsing.

We're always looking for feedback to help improve Xbox Live and Live Anywhere - what do you think is the optimal solution? And please, when you answer try to take into account that we're looking at this from the perspective of multiple platforms such as Windows, Xbox 360, and others such as cell phones. With that in mind, what are your thought as to the "perfect" matchmaking system? The product teams do read your comments, and we definitely appreciate your help and feedback!

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?

It sounds like some enterprising folks found a few unreleased pages on Nintendo's website last week. They were quickly pulled, but according to this post from Kotaku (and many others), the WiFi pages stated that Wii would use Friend Codes (likely just as the Nintendo DS does).

To quote Wikipedia:

"Friend codes are "addresses" assigned to every player that uses Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The codes are usually assigned one per player, per game; the codes allow a player to store a list of friends with the same game and play with them when both parties are online. The codes come in different formats for different games. For example, the codes of Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS are six digits followed by another row of six digits, while Animal Crossing: Wild World's codes comprise three groups of four digits separated by hyphens. Friend codes in Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk's American Sk8land allow the player to search for opponents that are in their friend list and are also searching for a match against "friends" with the same game. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, friend codes are absolutely required to visit another’s town via the Wi-Fi connection, perhaps due to Nintendo’s privacy concerns or the potential in-game vandalism that could occur from unauthorized visitors to the player's town. Adding a friend can also allow text and/or voice chat, as in the case of Metroid Prime: Hunters and Animal Crossing: Wild World. In "Animal Crossing Wild World", every Wi-Fi users codes of which you obtain, are stored in your "Friend Roster" so you can keep a record of whose town you visit."

I'm mildly disappointed by the news because the Friend Code concept doesn't do much to build community. Unless the implementation is changed, you're basically restricted to playing with only people you know who you have exchanged codes with. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the majority of time I choose to play with my friends anyway - I just don't have as much time to play as I might like, and when I do I usually try to spend time with them. So for me (and maybe many others), this may not be a big deal. But with Friend Codes you seem to lose out on the opportunity to meet new random people online (which I also admit may be a benefit at times!) Probably worse in my mind is that I'll miss the ability to personalize myself online. I'm "Ozymandias", not a string of digits. <sigh>

All that said, I also understand why Nintendo is going in this direction. The company has always had a strong history of being family-friendly, and concepts like Friend Codes fit right in this vein. It also makes building an online network a lot simplier, especially one which they want to provide to consumers without additional charge. So while I might personally prefer a more robust online service like Xbox Live, I think this is a great first step for Nintendo as they dip their toe into the online waters for the first time with a home console. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if something like "nicknames" comes along in the near future to allow you to better personalize your online presence. Let the landrush begin!

Pretty interesting timing on this, after my "For what it’s worth, I’d really hate to be the PR/marketing guy trying to come up with the side-by-side comparison checklist at Sony" comment yesterday. Spong published what appears to be a Rude Q&A (or pre-prepared talking points around tough questions that journalists might ask) for the Playstation 3. While there's no way to validate its authenticity, my personal gut is that it feels about right. One of the most telling points? Check out the answers to some of the tougher questions. You'll notice a pattern of either ducking the question or answering vaguely and then trying to redirect to more positive talking points.

Here are some examples that popped for me:

Q9. When will you start manufacturing PS3?
A9. We will start assembly from summer. Manufacturing of the main semiconductors has already started.

A good, basic, but vague answer here. "We'll be building in summer (and a long summer it might be!), but hey - we're building semiconductors now!" In their defense, there are a lot of moving parts involved in trying to make a console, and it's very hard to be definite on dates. However, don't expect this to be clarified until much later, probably with a "we've shipped over X million units to stores" sort of announcement.

Ooh - here's a good one:

Q10. MS's Xbox360 was launched a year ago and has a head start. How do you feel about it?
A10. We have set the best launch timing for PS3.

How do we feel about it? We don't! Nice duck. And really, what could you say here? It's a no-win question, so it's avoided.

Some other fun ones around the PS3 Network service, and its relation to Xbox Live.

Q11. How is the PS3 network service going to be? Will you also start the service from day one? What are the differences between Xbox Live and PS3 network services?
A11. Apart from providing basic features and functions, the most important element is content and services. Downloading music in SingStar, purchasing or exchanging game data as we demonstrated at E3 press conference and many other new ways of enjoyment will be provided.

No real answers here. Notice the questions of A) what the service is about (read: features), B) whether it will be available day 1 of launch, and C) how it's different from Xbox Live are completely ducked. All that's really said is that you'll be able to download music in Singstar (only? interesting question, that...), and that you'll be able to do other things. This one is a great example of a tough question that just can't be answered. Their service is years late (if you buy the argument that there should have been something like it for the Playstation 2), and Sony will be hugely challenged to deliver anything remotely resembling Xbox Live in the short time they have before launch. What's much more likely to happen is that we'll see a very basic authentication/messaging service at launch with basic multiplayer, and then upgrades over time.

Here's another fun one around online play:

Q12. Will the network service be charged?
A12. Basic services available free for current PCs will be free of charge but content and specific services will be charged from the beginning.

Notice the fine, hand-crafted wording here. The question very explictly does not ask whether online play will be charged or free (which is the key question that's been getting ducked since E3). Instead the term "network service" is used, which could be defined (after the fact) as almost anything. What's more, notice the answer to the already softball question? "Basic services available free for current PCs will be free of charge but content and specific services will be charged from the beginning."

Try to define a "basic service" in PC gaming? Is there a standard we can compare to? Could it be Login or Authentication? Messaging? Matchmaking? Content download? Multi-player play? It's likely you can find at least one PC title for each of those that charges for the feature, which leaves a huge loophole allowing potential charges down the road.

Now let's be fair for a second. I think there's a good chance that Sony won't charge for multiplayer online gaming at launch. I believe this for two reasons. The first is simply because it's unlikely they'll be able to get a robust online network together by launch, and hence would struggle to show a value proposition. The second falls out of the first - if you can't charge for the service anyway, why not spin it and make it free to try and challenge your primary competitor (Xbox Live) in the space? I doubt it'll work since in this case, I do believe that you get what you pay for, but I wanted to highlight the possibility.

To sum up the answer: undefined PC services which may have an equivalent service on the PS3 will be free, but Sony reserves the right to charge for content and other undefined specific services to be detailed in the future. Glad we got that cleared up.

Finally, there are some fun ones around Playstation 3 hardware specifications, an area that's changed dramatically over the last year. These are great examples of attempts to redirect the questioning... walk with me as we go through them in order.

First we have the general "what's changed" question...

Q19. Are there any additional or modified features from E3 last year ?
A19. Please refer to the specification sheet for details.

... which is redirected with a "look at the chart and see if you can remember enough from a year ago to see the differences... we're not telling ya."

Then there's the HDMI question. Basically, this is our interviewer asking "After all the fuss you made about having dual-HDMI ports and multiple-display games, where the heck did the second port go?" (Also note how the question itself tries to shift to a "can we play Blu-ray without HDMI" vein, and away from the original two port topic.)

Q20. You had previously announced that there would be two HDMI ports, but why does the PS3 with the 20GB HDD not have a HDMI port ? Can Blu-ray content be enjoyed in high quality graphics without HDMI ?
A20. High quality HD images can be enjoyed equally with the 20GB HDD product via the AV multi port (1080p output is also possible with the TV equipped with the D5 input). Analog output from BD will be supported until 2011 and all software published until they can be enjoyed. Standardization of visual image output via home network (e.g. DLNA) is also currently under way.

Answer: Look! What's that over there! <points at far off corner>

Tenacious interviewer isn't distracted and asks the same question again:

Q21. There were 2 HDMI ports in your original announcement, but why does the 60GB PS3 have only 1 HDMI port?
A21. Because standardization of image output over the network such as DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) is currently under way, it will become possible to transfer images to multiple displays in ways other than using the HDMI port. It is also possible to connect PSP through the network as a secondary display and enjoy PS3 content remotely (although it depends on the software).

Ah - finally some sort of answer. Yes, we admit we took removed the second HDMI port. But instead of admitting it's due to cost, the fact that no-one would ever have used it, and the additional aspect that the console simply can't render the quality of game people expect to two displays simultaneously, we'll redirect your thinking to future, vague technologies. <sigh>

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. Don't get me wrong - I'm still looking forward to the PS3 (and will put a pre-order down the day EB Games lets me). But I do get aggravated by this sort of careful wording and redirection. I might be more sensitive to it thanks to years of English degrees and other training, but it's my hope that by showing you some of this you'll also be better able to parse statements coming out of (any) company out there, including Microsoft and Nintendo.

[digg this article if you found it interesting!]