Author Archive | Jared Newman

EA Axes Online Play for Old Games, Including Madden

Posted by Jared Newman on January 4, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Fair warning to those who like sweeping through Gamestop’s bargain rack to pick up old sports titles: In a month, you won’t be able to play many of them online anymore.

On February 2 and February 9, Electronic Arts will shut down servers for more than two dozen of its past sports titles. This isn’t the first time EA has done this, but the list of titles on the chopping block are shockingly recent. Here are some highlights:

–Madden 2008 was the last game in the series to be released for Windows. When the lights go down on this game’s multiplayer, PC gamers will have nowhere to go.

–Madden 2009 was released in August 2008, so it’ll be a year and a half old when its multiplayer servers shut down for all consoles. Do you upgrade to Madden 2010, or wait six months for Madden 2011, whose online play will then have a longer shelf life?

–Facebreaker, a cartoon-style boxing game, received some good and some very bad reviews, but it’ll be just a year and three months old when its online component gets cut.

–NBA Street Homecourt, released in 2007, was the last game in the Street series. No more trash talk for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 street ballers, I guess.

I wouldn’t be surprised if activity was null for many of the games on the list, but certainly the latest round of cuts will spark outrage among these games’ devotees. Even if you don’t own or play any of the games being cut, this is a salient reminder that while online multiplayer is an attractive bullet point on the back of a game box, it’s not a guarantee.

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Technologizer’s Second Annual Game Awards

Posted by Jared Newman on December 23, 2009 at 12:20 am

Tail between its legs, the video games industry tried to retreat from 2009. Heavy hitters like Splinter Cell: Conviction, Bioshock 2, Bayonetta and Heavy Rain were pushed back to next year, ostensibly to allow more development time, but more likely to avoid competition from Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3: ODST during a time of frugal gaming. Despite it all, there were plenty of games to love no matter what genre you’re into. I’ve got my favorites, upon which I’ve continued the tradition of bestowing arbitrary superlatives instead of arbitrary numerical rankings. Read on to find out what games were Technologizer’s best of 2010.

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iPhone App Store Flirts With an NES Emulator, Briefly

Posted by Jared Newman on December 22, 2009 at 5:15 pm

For a brief period last night, iPhone owners without jailbroken phones had access to a fully-functional Nintendo emulator. I’m kicking myself for not spotting 9 to 5 Mac’s story sooner, but it looks like the app got pulled very shortly, maybe a couple hours, after the news broke.

The app was called Nescaline, and its creator is Jonathan Zdziarski, who wrote iPhone Forensics. The $7 app included several homebrew games, but also allowed users to download more games by pointing the app to the URLs of ROM files. On his Web site, Zdziarski says an Apple rep told him the app was removed because it was an emulator. “Ironically, Apple currently has several emulators in the AppStore, so I am going with the belief that someone (likely Nintendo) probably pressured them about this particular application,” he wrote.

He’s right about the App Store having other emulators, but it’s more complicated than that. Currently, it’s possible to purchase C64, which lets you play classic Commodore 64 games, but it only found permanent footing on the iPhone after some drama involving the app’s BASIC interpreter and the ability to hack into it. More importantly, C64 maker Manomio has the rights to the games it sells. Nescaline, by contrast, opened the door to illegal game downloads.

It’s certainly possible that Apple’s trying to avoid legal hot water — Nokia attracted some unwanted attention by advertising that capability on the N900 — but I also think Apple is inclined to reject NES emulators in order to protect the App Store’s business model. When you have games that can make $1 million per month, why give people a bountiful source of free, classic games?

Given that Apple and Nintendo are now competing, I think an official NES iPhone app is unlikely. As for why Nescaline was approved in the first place, I’m thinking it was a simple blunder. I doubt Zdziarski was the first developer to submit a Nintendo emulator.

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The End of Music Games As We Know It?

Posted by Jared Newman on December 21, 2009 at 6:50 pm

Reuters dipped into the well of knowledge that is Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter and came up with a conclusion: Music games, such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, aren’t the cash cows they used to be.

Pachter says that music games, which earned $1.4 billion last year, will only earn half that amount in 2009. And that’s not for lack of trying, as this year saw the release of Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero, Band Hero, Rock Band Unplugged, Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits, Guitar Hero: Metallica and finally Guitar Hero: Van Halen, which comes out tomorrow.

But it’s important to note that Pachter’s not predicting the demise of music games. He’s merely saying that the boom is over, a bust is happening, and music games are coming back down from super stardom. His theory is that music game makers gave players too much in each release, so they don’t have to keep buying. I also like a theory posed in October by two marketing researchers from Northeastern University: There are just too many darned music games, and game makers didn’t realize they were riding a bubble.

It’s mildly amusing to me that marketing gurus and analysts are sticking with that conclusion now. Take a look at some reader comments at various gaming Web sites when Activision announced three “Hero” games at once and five different companies announced Lego Rock Band. The backlash was obvious, and that was in the spring, before the industry realized a recession was really happening.

Enthusiast gamers aren’t always great bellwethers — these are the folks who turn their noses up at the Wii — but I’m glad they were right this time. It’s insulting to see publishers churn out handfuls of music games in a single year, expecting players to lap them up. Maybe next year we’ll get a chance to forget the overplayed music genre, so we can some day remember how good it sounded the first time.

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What a Paid Playstation Network Might Actually Look Like

Posted by Jared Newman on December 18, 2009 at 4:39 pm

Earlier this week, I pondered the ways in which I might pay for the Playstation Network, because Sony is considering a premium version of its online service for next year, but hasn’t explained what it will entail.

It appears that Sony’s been asking some of its customers to ponder as well, with a survey conducted by IPSOS Online Research that lists 22 potential features. Not all the features are included in every plan, and survey takers were asked to choose the plan the like best. Kotaku has that entire survey posted here, but I’d still treat it as a rumor because it was sent in by a reader, not officially from IPSOS. And it’s just a survey, so there’s a chance none of these features will make the cut.

It’s important to note that the survey doesn’t mention any existing PSN features. Sony has said that everything you currently get for free will remain free. With that in mind, I’m torn between “Option 1” and “Option 2,” both of which are proposed for $70 per year. Here are some highlights from those plans:

Access to Beta Games: I don’t really enjoy playing part of a game in unfinished form, but I could see some members digging the idea of exclusive early access. That’s what makes E3 such a rush for us press types.

Cross-Game Voice Chat: Oh heck no. This oft-requested feature, which Xbox Live has offered since the Xbox 360’s debut, really ought to be free. But I’d really like to have it either way.

Full Title Trial – First Hour Free: Now we’re talking. If you avoid one game purchase because you hated the trial, the PSN membership pays for itself.

Free Access to PSOne Classics, PSP Minis and PSP/PS3 Themes: At last, a huge perk in the form of actual games to play. This would be a dealmaker for me.

Discounts on Store Content: Technologizer reader ReynaldoRiv had this on his wishlist. Someone at Sony must’ve been listening.

Loyalty Program Rewards: And I had this on mine. It’s only fair to butter up your best customers.

Catch-Up TV: I don’t know enough about this to give a “yay” or “nay,” but I’m intrigued.

The features in this survey are less ambitious than the ones I dreamed up, but they’re also more practical in the short-term. If Sony fused together all the above options in one package, I’d probably pay for that, too.

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Enough With the Wii Fitness Studies

Posted by Jared Newman on December 17, 2009 at 5:48 pm

Every week, it seems like there’s a new study that either praises or decries Nintendo’s Wii as a vehicle for getting into shape.

The most recent comes from the University of Mississippi. The study loaned Wii Fit units to eight families, who spent three months without the console and Balance Board, and three months using it. In conclusion, moderate Wii Fit use “may have provided insufficient stimulus for fitness changes,” said the study.

Nintendo would beg to differ. The company recently funded a study by the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo, which found that a third of the games in Wii Fit and Wii Sports meet the American Health Association’s guidelines for moderate exercise.

Yet another recent study from the American Council on Exercise found that the Wii Fit provides “underwhelming” health benefits. However, ACE conceded that Wii Sports is more strenuous, and could help people meet minimum intensity guidelines for exercise.

Do we really need all these studies to declare whether the Wii is an exercise machine? Of course not. If you’re sweating a little after a round of Wii Sports Boxing, chances are you got some exercise. You also probably understand that it’s less of a work out than actual boxing, but it’s better than sitting on the couch. Duh.

The bigger problem with trying to quantify the Wii’s fitness value is that there are too many variables. You can play Wii Sports Tennis from your couch, or you can flail around like maniac. You can play Wii Fit every day for two months, and then never touch it again. Like any exercise, the Wii is totally dependent on what you put into it.

Indeed, the most important point in the University of Mississippi study is glossed over as an afterthought: After three months, the amount of time families spent playing Wii Fit dropped by 82 percent. Sounds a lot like my gym-going habits.

I can’t say it better than Kotaku editor Brian Crecente did in a Forbes feature on the matter: “What Nintendo did is they tapped into that desire people have to be healthier… Everyone wants to work out, but nobody really wants to put the effort into it.”

No amount of scientific fitness measurements can account for that.

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3 in 5 Homes Have Game Consoles

Posted by Jared Newman on December 15, 2009 at 5:19 pm

With Nintendo’s Wii worming its way into the homes of unlikely gamers, the number of U.S. households with video game consoles has spiked dramatically.

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi has the details on the State of Media Democracy report from consultancy Deloitte, which found that game console ownership jumped from 44 percent of homes three years ago to 60 percent this year.

That’s probably because Generation X and Baby Boomers have either rekindled a lost love for video games or discovered it anew thanks to the Wii. Roughly 70 percent of Gen Xers now own a game console, compared to 53 percent in 2006, and 44 percent of Boomers own a console, up 13 percent from three years ago.

There are certainly other contributing factors besides the Wii. The recession may have caused people to seek video games, which provide more hours of entertainment on the dollar than a vacation or even a movie. I’m also hesitant to pin the entire rise in game console ownership on the Nintendo. Though the Wii has dominated sales charts since its debut, the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 have appealed to broader audiences by functioning as Blu-ray and DVD players, respectively, and by offering videos on demand. But the Wii’s success shows that people don’t necessarily need those extra multimedia features in a game console. They want to play games, and in that regard, the Wii still reigns.

As I read back over this information, a lot of it seems pretty obvious, but when you realize that the majority of households have a game console — not just a PC for playing casual browser games — it’s pretty remarkable.

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How I’d Pay for the Playstation Network

Posted by Jared Newman on December 14, 2009 at 4:24 pm

Sony’s been grumbling a bit lately about how it’d like to charge monthly fees for the Playstation Network, not for the online gaming and video downloads that Playstation 3 and PSP owners already enjoy, but for additional services.

The first mention came a few weeks ago in a Sony investors’ conference slide, and re-emerged in a Nikkei interview with Sony’s Masayuki Chatani. The company has avoided specifics, which makes me think Sony is still toying with ideas. Seems like a good opportunity to toss out a few ideas of my own. Here are some ways I could be persuaded to pay for PSN:

Help me replace cable: Instead of forking over $200 for a Boxee Box, I’d consider a monthly payment — say $20 — to Sony, especially if the service went above and beyond existing free Web TV offerings. Throw in live sports, and the deal is sealed. Licensing TV content is a sticky mess, so I’m calling this one unlikely in the near future.

Give me game rentals: I’m somewhat happy paying $25 per month for GameFly, but I’d be happier if Sony let me skip GameFly’s occasionally unbearable wait times by offering full game rentals for download. Because the service would only include Sony consoles, pricing would have to be less than GameFly, or more creative. Maybe a certain dollar figure for a limited number of play hours every month. I’d say this is unlikely, but Sony reportedly surveyed PSP owners about a game rental program in May, so it’s not absurd.

Stream me some indie games: The Playstation Network is home to some great small-scale games, such as Flower, Noby Noby Boy and the PixelJunk series. I’d think Sony has more control over these titles than big-budget releases, so why not let PSN subscribers play an unlimited amount of them every month?

All of This, Plus: If Sony could roll my entire wishlist into one attractive package, I could be persuaded to pay as much as $60 a month for it all (after all, I’d be relying on the service for television and a lot of gaming), but I’d like some perks in return. Maybe a monthly discount on a particular retail game, or a free movie download. Incentives go a long way towards keeping the customer roped in; GameFly’s discounts on used games are one of the reasons I’ve never canceled my subscription.

Am I asking for too much?

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Gaming’s Flop of the Year is Tony Hawk: Ride

Posted by Jared Newman on December 10, 2009 at 5:47 pm

Even as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk mechanically read from the teleprompter during Microsoft’s E3 press conference in June, I got the sense that he was genuinely excited for Tony Hawk: Ride, which uses a motion-sensing, skateboard-shaped peripheral instead of a traditional controller.

Turns out, gamers didn’t share his enthusiasm, as Tony Hawk: Ride sold only 114,000 units across all three current-generation consoles in its November debut, according to IndustryGamers.

It’s actually surprising that the game performed so well. On the review aggregation site Metacritic, the game has an average score of 48, and aside from a few glowing reviews, the general opinion is below average or downright negative. The controls didn’t work, critics said, and the game itself felt sloppy and rehashed from a dozen other Tony Hawk skating games.

But I like Patrick Klepek’s theory over at G4: Ride was doomed from the start, he argues, because it doesn’t offer the easy fantasy that makes games like Guitar Hero or Wii Sports so compelling. At worst, it only frustrates the player into understanding the difficulty of real skating, but you get none of the thrill in the process.

This reminds me of what I’ve previously written about music games: Even to musicians, they’re fun because they encourage a shared obsession over the nuances of music, even among people who aren’t aficionados or fellow musicians. In other words, Guitar Hero and Rock Band offer an experience that even real instruments can’t duplicate. The same can’t be said for Tony Hawk: Ride. If you can ride a skateboard, you’ll get very little out of the game, and if you can’t, you’ll get even less.

I should’ve known Tony Hawk: Ride would flop when I saw the game’s E3 Trailer. “If you’ve had an interest in skating, but maybe didn’t want to put yourself in a position of getting injured, here’s your chance,” said pro skater Paul Rodriguez. When a game’s primary reason for existence is avoiding injury, that’s a bad sign.

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EA is All About the Pirates

Posted by Jared Newman on December 9, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello is no hard-liner when it comes to software piracy, and in an interview with Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo, he’s back on the stump for pirate-as-potential-sale.

“They can steal the disc, but they can’t steal the DLC,” he said, referring to downloadable content that’s often sold after a game’s release.

Riccitiello’s tone is less extreme than it was in June, when he told IndustryGamers that “if there are any pirates you’re writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes…” but the idea is the same: If you don’t demonize the bootleggers and illegal downloaders, there’s a chance they’ll purchase some extra content, and that’s better than nothing. They may even go legit as a way of showing support for developers.

Minus that last part, it’s essentially the same view Riccitiello — and much of the games industry — takes towards buyers of used games, from GameStop or other second-hand sources. Even if EA didn’t make any money off you for the base purchase, they can still get you on the optional extras.

I like Riccitiello’s dovish stance, but there’s a dark side in just how much DLC has become available, to the point where it seems like legitimate buyers are eating some of the costs of piracy and used games. Where extra content was once an afterthought that came months down the road from release, it’s not uncommon now to see additional content available on the day of purchase. Dragon Age: Origins, published by EA, is a recent example, where some of content was free, but some cost money. At least the publisher rewarded buyers with some free content as well, which pirates or second-hand purchasers would have to pay for.

Still, it’s hard to argue that you’re not getting your money’s worth from a game like Dragon Age, which boasts over 100 hours of play. And Riccitiello says that when customers are offered more DLC, they lap it up. He may be on to something.

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