Xir Easy Completes the Circle
12-May-07
Popularity: 36% [?]
E3 was destroyed by bloggers.
01-Aug-06
Well, I’m exaggerating a little, but not much. This year’s E3 was a disaster for everyone- too many people, too many exhibitors, million dollar exhibits etc. Time was that trade shows were about delivering a controlled message along with some very nice booze, food and free shit to a handful of industry reps that would then get the message out. In the games industry this meant toy stores, video game sellers and the small video game press.
These days, the video game press is literally everyone with a blog, and most of them went to E3. The resulting dissemination and deconstruction of every single tidbit of information that could possibly be squeezed out of the show was something the industry was simply not prepared for and does not know how to handle. I’m wagering that E3 is changing not because of the cost, but because Sony got their asses handed to them by a competitive, noisy gaming press who was setting up E3 as a fight between winners and losers- and gave the E3 organizers an ultimatum.
So there you go, the blogosphere has destroyed E3, and possibly other trade shows, for the forseeable future. I for one welcome our new blogging overlords.
Games,E3
Popularity: 10% [?]
Tube crazy
17-Jul-06
Microsoft is setting the stage for the collapse of the home console industry, or at least its investment in it. Think about it. They are building in tons of gaming features into Vista. They are bridging Xbox live into vista. They are branding PC games like console games. They have xbox controllers that work perfectly with PCs. They’ve even created an SDK for building and compiling games for both the 360 and Windows.
Why? The xbox lost Microsoft 4 billion dollars. The 360 is going to be a money loser for years to come, if it ever turns a profit. Everyone talks about the innovation of Xbox live but how is Microsoft paying for it? Let alone profiting from it. The 360 is a complete failure in gaming’s most important market- Japan. Even if they do have one million paying subscribers they still have to build and maintain a huge infrastructure, the development costs alone probably haven’t even been recouped by paying subscribers. So you have the Xbox as a money loser for a decade. Couple that with the kinds of innovation they want to accomplish that will inevitably be stifled by the 360’s aging hardware.
On top of that, they are driving Sony out of the console business as well. Probably a lot of mainstream developers too. Suddenly consumers expect $1500 hardware and games with incredible graphics and gameplay, games that provide you new content FREE! Of course theMarketplace does exist and some people are buying it, but will it cover the cost of developing and maintaining games far beyond their going “gold”?
So five years from now, Nintendo will be the king of video games in the living room. By innovating, by making games fun again, and by reducing the mental barrier to entry back to a place where young kids and old folks can actually pick it up and play. Microsoft will still be in the game, but they’ll be licensing dev kits and the right to publish games for Windows and have access to Microsoft Live, which at this point will by its all encompassing gaming and communication service.
Think about it.
Oh yeah, anyone who *really* thinks sony is crazy for releasing the ps3 for $600 bucks is forgetting how much everyone paid for 360’s: $800 or more from December through February.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Roger Ebert versus Videogames
05-Dec-05
Picked this up on Joystiq: Next-gen blogs in response to Roger Ebert’s ongoing battle with gamers over the artfulness of video games. I’ll leave you to read Ebert’s article and Keiser’s response, but I would like to point out a few things:
Strict narrative does not good art make. Who says video games should ultimately compete with movies or books or opera or whatever as a storytelling medium? Video games succeed because they are interactive, and a successful videogame may not have or even need an intricate, intelligent storyline. Look at games like Katamari Damacy and Shadow of theColossus. They may not be movies, but they are most certainly artful- I dare say they are the first steps into medium of video gaming as art.
In my humble opinion, games like Metal Gear fail because they try to hard to be like films. They can certainly pick and choose from other media as they wish, and they often do with varying degrees of success. Max Payne is a great example of a video game that is firmly entrenched in its”gameness” but manages to pay homage to other media and integrate a decent, if not entirely original story.
Ebert’s problem here is that he is limiting the definition of art to an extreme. Of course people felt the same way about movies as they were becoming popular so I guess this is simply an issue of changing the guard, but it’s alarming to see such short sightedness from such a well known critic. I suppose in his eyes there is no place at all for non-narrative art? Surely he would laugh at the thought- why then would he place such a demand on a medium that was not designed for narrative and whose most shining examples of the form have very little to do with telling a story.
I should also mention that in the storytelling department there are a number of games that have elicited a great deal of emotion from their players, so again I say the industry is well on its way.
My point is this- video games are art; they may look and act quite differently than what we’re used to, but they are a form of human expression just like any other art. The rules of this form are not the rules of film and such rules should not be applied. Comparing them is a great way to drum up controversy but it really isn’t a useful critique. It’s time to reframe this argument- video games need not adhere to old forms for legitimacy, the culture is already well on its way to recognizing them for their own inherent artistic qualities.
technorati tags: video games, games, ebert, movies,
Popularity: 9% [?]
ICKs box 360
15-Nov-05
So I played with the new xbox today at EB, the controller is HORRIBLE! They even did something I’d been wishing for- moved the black and white buttons to the shoulder. HOWEVER, they somehow managed to make it feel awful. The playstation controller has two shoulder buttons on either side of the controller, which are easily manipulated by the middle and ring fingers. The trigger design is really meant for the index finger, which means you either have to use the middle for the trigger and the index for the shoulder, or switch between the buttons with the single index. Suddenly the black and white buttons below the colored “jewels” seems pretty nice, not to mention the “<<” and start buttons have now been relocated as well, on either side of the “X” in the middle, which now launches xbox live. When you’re launching a new console based on one your audience is just getting adapted to, whose backwards compatibility is being touted as a major feature, you’d think they’d try to normalize the controller configuration a bit.
Popularity: 13% [?]
I appreciate this
14-Jul-05
So I’ve been playing Half Life 2. Having never played the first one, but being well aware of its reputation, I expected a fun, slightly better than average first person shooter. I’m not a huge FPS fan, though I’ve been playing a lot of Halo on my xbox lately. Prior to this, my biggest FPS-style game was Jedi Knight II, which for the most part wasn’t really even an FPS. Anyway, Half-Life 2 is pretty amazing. I’m playing on my new Athlon64 with an ATI All-In-Wonder 9700, which is a pretty good, if somewhat old card.
Two things about this game really make it stand out to me:
(more…)
Popularity: 13% [?]
Xbox 360 “Compatibility”
19-May-05
The other day I wrote a message to the xbox-scene folks outlining my idea of what was in store for xbox 360 “backwards compatibility”. The text of my message follows:
I just wanted to mention something that *everyone* seems to be overlooking. Everyone mentions the quote from Microsoft that says 360 users will be able to play against Xbox owners on Live, and then infers that backwards compatibility is implied.
Could it not be that while they are leaving the community to guess what it really means, maybe they are planning on releasing 360 compatible versions of current gen xbox games, that have backwards compatible versions recompiled for ppc. That is to say, buy Halo 2 for 360 and it comes with a bunch of 360 only graphics and maps and such, but you can still play Halo 2 against Live folks on xboxes by using this “backwards compatible version” that ships with the game.
Or possibly they will offer a trade-in program for the same version of the game, recompiled for the 360- with maybe enhanced graphics or something. There is nothing in Microsoft’s statements that promises backwards compatibility, thats for sure.
Though I received no response, the industry seems to have woken up to the smoke screen- xbox-scene.com linked to this article today: Xbox 360 “Backwards compatibility” explained.
This should have been obvious to anyone who’d read they were developing on G5s.
Popularity: 11% [?]
So sweet- Milkdrop on my XBMC
16-May-05
What more can be said- the amazing folks at XBMC have added the Winamp Visualization plugin Milkdrop to XBMC visualization. Milkdrop was created by Ryan Geiss and was always my favorite visualization for any player. I’m dl’ing it as we speak.
The above image does not do it justice.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Showstopper
12-May-05
Today I was going to write an in depth review of God of War. Instead I’m going to talk about my first encounter with what is known in the “industry” as a showstopper bug. This bug indeed caused me to turn off my PS2- without being able to save- at the absolute final second before I finished the game.
Here’s what happened:
(more…)
Popularity: 11% [?]