Good thing Microsoft had a packed line-up of Kinect games to show at its E3 press conference, because last week’s big rumor about live TV on the Xbox 360 turned out to be kind of a dud.
Kinect, the motion-sensing, audio-detecting Xbox 360 camera that launched last year, dominated the discussion at Microsoft’s press conference. I counted 15 announcements for games that will either support or require Kinect, plus a revamped console menu designed for gestures and voice.
Let’s get something out of the way: I cannot justify buying Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play. For as much as I love video games, I’m 28. And that seems a bit old to be carrying around a smartphone with its own set of game controls.
But that didn’t stop me from cracking a huge grin when I slid out the Xperia Play’s set of buttons and touch pads for the first time. This Android handset is the mythical “Playstation Phone.” If only it existed 10 or 15 years ago.
At a pre-E3 press event Thursday night, Konami announced a couple of game compilations that will be playable on both the Sony PSP and the Playstation 3, with the ability to transfer your progress between both systems. And unfortunately, Konami is calling this gimmick “Transfarring.”
Strange name aside, Transfarring is a neat idea. You connect the PSP to the PS3, and your saved game transfers from one to the other. The first games to include this capability will be Metal Gear Solid HD Collection and Zone of Enders HD Collection. Eventually, Konami wants to expand Transfarring to Sony’s next-generation portable.
If this all sounds kind of familiar, it’s because Sony announced a similar PSP-to-PS3 feature a couple of weeks ago. Konami stressed that Transfarring is a separate creation, although it’s not clear why the publisher has decided to go it alone. I suppose it doesn’t make a difference as long as both systems work well.
For now, I’m wondering whether people will have to buy two versions of each game to use Transfarring or otherwise pay extra for the privilege. I’m also curious how Konami will deal with the control differences on Sony’s large and small devices. The PSP, after all, lacks a second analog stick and has only one pair of trigger buttons. (Sony has said it will rework the controls for its own PSP-to-PS3 remakes.) As with most video game news that’s trickling out ahead of next week’s E3 expo, I’m hoping to get some answers soon.
OnLive made a couple announcements today that might help people discover and use the streaming video game service.
The biggest news is a partnership with Intel that will enable OnLive on all connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes that use Intel’s CE4100 embedded processor. OnLive expects to land on 25 million TVs by the end of this year, according to GigaOM. A new universal controller will work on any OnLive-enabled device.
This fits nicely with the idea of video games coming directly to televisions without the help of game consoles. OnLive processes and streams high-end video games from its own servers, so it doesn’t need fancy hardware on the user’s end to play modern games like Borderlands and Bioshock.
Sony just can’t get back on track. On Wednesday evening, the Playstation Store came back online, finally making the Playstation Network whole again after April’s devastating security breach.
But now, a group of hackers known as Lulz Security claims to have breached Sony Pictures’ website, stealing e-mails, passwords, addresses, birth dates and opt-in information for more than a million users. All of this information is now posted to the Internet.
To be clear, we’re talking about two different divisions of Sony. The hacking of Sony Pictures has no effect on the Playstation Network. Still, this is another embarrassing security breach for Sony, and a sign that the company isn’t finished fending off hackers. It’s not even the first attack since the breaches of PSN and Sony Online Entertainment in April. Other smaller attacks have included a leaked database in Japan and a phishing scam site on Sony’s Thai web domain.
On the bright side, the Playstation Network has remained relatively stable since online play resumed in mid-May. That’s the best way Sony Computer Entertainment can redeem itself, along with the “welcome back” package of free games and other benefits that’s reportedly in its final testing stages.
But as a whole, Sony needs to show its customers that it’s taking security more seriously. Obviously, the entire company is now a target, and customers are the innocent bystanders. Perhaps it’s time for CEO Howard Stringer to change his tone.
There once was a time when if you wanted to play video games on a TV, you’d hook up a video game console. But as televisions and set-top boxes become powerful enough to stream video and host their own app stores, they’re also becoming capable gaming devices.
The latest example is Roku’s announcement that it’ll get Angry Birds, among other games, on a new set-top box unit this summer. Angry Birds will get its own channel, with all the games plus animated shorts and merchandise for sale.
Yes, it’s Angry Birds overload, but that’s beside the point. What matters here is that game developers — particularly those who aren’t part of the traditional console business — are making their way to televisions without the help of Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo. Instead, they’re just going straight to the source. A month ago, I was at a Panasonic press event where the company demonstrated Asphalt 5, a racing game that’s already popular on smartphones and tablets. It’s available on Panasonic TVs as part of a big partnership with developer Gameloft.
Of course, TVs and set-tops still need to solve the controller issue before they can become genuine game machines. No one wants to use a TV remote to play a racing game or a shooter (I chuckled when someone tried to do it at the aforementioned Panasonic event), and Roku hasn’t explained how it will approach this issue with its new hardware.
But that’s not an unsolvable problem. Already, smartphones and tablets provide a more natural input method for televisions, either through infrared or connected apps from TV makers. It’s not a stretch to imagine phones and tablets controlling video games as well. Once that happens, game console makers can really start worrying.
Intel’s plan to revitalize the thin-and-light laptop has been out in the open for over a week, but now the company’s going a step further and giving this product category a new name: Ultrabooks. These computers will measure less than 0.8 inches thick and cost less than $1,000 when they hit the market later this year.
For now, I just want to talk about the name. It’s snappy, as far as jargon goes, but it also leaves me feeling cold. The tech industry is littered with marketing buzzwords for new kinds of computers, but not all of them stick, and as history shows, you just can’t force this kind of thing.
In April, I reported on a rumor that GameStop was no longer getting shipments of the Nintendo DS Lite. Turns out, Nintendo’s still selling the handhelds, and they’ll drop to $100 on June 5.
Inevitably, Activision is creating a subscription service for its Call of Duty games, called Call of Duty: Elite. Also inevitably, some people are upset about that.
I fail to see the problem. Call of Duty: Elite is an added service, on top of the multiplayer action that Activision includes for free with its popular first-person shooters. It will let players create groups with other like-minded players . It will host tournaments, in which players can compete for real-world or in-game prizes. It will offer a stat-tracker for studying strategies. Users will be able to access Call of Duty: Elite through their web browsers and smartphones, and they’ll get a career record that tracks their progress from game to game.
Some of this stuff might cost money — Activision won’t specify which parts, or say how much premium membership will cost — and some will be free. Premium members will also get exclusive content and all-inclusive access to downloadable content that non-members must pay for.
Just a few months ago, the Playstation 4 was not even a thought on Sony’s collective mind — at least according to Sony Computer Entertainment head Kaz Hirai.
But now, a different executive has fessed up. Work on a future Playstation platform is already underway, says Masaru Kato, Sony’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. His comments came up when asked to explain higher research and development costs to investors, Eurogamer reports.
Sony’s next video console, which at this point has no name or release date, won’t require the kind of huge investment that made the Playstation 3 unprofitable for years, Kato said. With the Playstation 3, Sony invested in its own semiconductor facilities, but that seems unlikely this time around.
(UPDATE: Kato tells the Wall Street Journal that his remarks on research and development costs were actually in reference to Sony’s next-generation portable system, and that his other comments were a “general statement,” rather than an acknowledgement that the PS4 is in development. Sounds like spin to me, but whatever.)
