Author Archive | Jared Newman

Yes, Sony, You Are Competing With the iPhone

Posted by Jared Newman on August 19, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Sony continues to insist that it’s not competing with the iPhone on gaming, even though the opposite is increasingly becoming true.

Tucked into Sony’s impressively newsworthy GamesCom press conference yesterday was an announcement for “PSP Minis,” a line of low-price, small-scale video games aimed at the upcoming PSP Go handheld. The list of planned games, including Air Hockey, Bowling and Pac-Man Championship Edition, sound a lot like what you’d find in the iPhone’s App Store.

This is a major about-face for Sony. In March, the company’s marketing VP Peter Dille derided the iPhone as a “separate business” that hosts “largely diversionary” games. He further explained that Sony is a gaming company that makes handheld games with 20-hour experiences. I guess Sony realized there’s also room for cheap and simple.

Still, the company won’t admit that it’s taking Apple on with PSP Minis. Here’s Gamasutra’s Leigh Alexander on follow-up with Playstation Network operations director Eric Lempel, who says Sony isn’t after Apple’s market share.

“It’s totally different,” Lempel told Gamasutra. “… It’s not open to users; these are professional developers, it’s not like what you’re seeing on that other platform.”

Someone needs to remind Sony’s handlers that “competition” doesn’t mean “approaching the market in the exact same way, warts and all.” This should be an opportunity for Sony to say “Yes, we are competing with Apple for handheld gamers’ money, and here’s how we’re going to take it.” Instead, Lempel seems unwilling to confront the truth head-on.

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Five Questions About the PS3 Slim

Posted by Jared Newman on August 18, 2009 at 12:10 pm

ps3slim I’m taking a page from Harry here, as I know he likes prodding on upcoming products when their makers intentionally ignore salient questions. With Sony finally revealing a 36 percent lighter, 33 percent smaller, 40 GB roomier and $100 cheaper Playstation 3 today, I’m left with a few queries of my own.

What will become of the Playstation 3 Big?

Yes, I think it should be called the Playstation 3 Big, for as long as it exists. For now, the existing 80 GB model will be sold for $300, and the 160 GB model is reportedly going for $400. If the Slim is slated for an August 24 launch, as expected, will we eventually be able to scoop up the remaining Bigs for a discount? How about as a bundle with some software?

Will Sony send out more value comparisons?

Sony lost the early gamble on releasing a powerful but pricey gaming console, ultimately forcing the PR machine into action. It must feel good to finally be competitive on pricing, so I’m interested to see how Sony will flaunt it going into the holiday season. Finally, fresh ammunition for the console wars.

What are we looking at for bundles?

Right now, you can get an 80 GB Playstation 3 with LittleBigPlanet (a $60 value) and Wall-E on Blu-ray (a $20 value) for $400. That’s not a bad deal if you’re interested in the game and the movie (I am). When the Slim hits stores, will buyers get any discounts on pack-in games?

Why hate on Linux?

For most users, the PS3 slim will have the same functionality as the old model, but homebrew developers and Linux Lovers will be disappointed to see the removal of the “Install Other OS” feature. This allowed users to run other operating systems on the console, turning the PS3 into a personal computer or hub for homemade applications. I wonder what the harm was in leaving this feature on board.

The PSP Go is only $50 Cheaper?

Okay, that’s not really a question, and it doesn’t pertain to the PS3 Slim, but it’s a puzzler in light of Playstation’s rebirth as the value brand. Since I’m all about bundles, how about enticing consumers to buy both the slimmer console and the tinier handheld? I hear they work wonderfully together, after all.

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Gaming follows in Sega Genesis’ Footsteps

Posted by Jared Newman on August 15, 2009 at 3:35 pm

I owe a belated happy anniversary to the Sega Genesis, which turned 20 years old yesterday.

Most people will remember the Genesis as the console that went toe-to-toe with Nintendo, finding in Sonic the Hedgehog a mascot worth rallying behind. While that’s certainly a legacy worth celebrating, something more important is happening these days that the Genesis also pursued in its early years: It brought the arcade experience home.

Check out one of the early Genesis commercials from 1989. Before Sonic was born, Sega pushed the Genesis as a faithful emulator of arcade hits, such as Golden Axe and Ghouls ‘N Ghosts. Back then, arcades were a gamer’s paradise. Titles like Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had sharper details and crisper sounds (sometimes with real voices!) in the arcades. Nothing else came close.

Eventually, home consoles caught up. Not only are the graphics on today’s consoles better than the arcades, the games themselves are more advanced, with sophisticated plots and much more replay value.

As a result, arcades — if you can find them — have fundamentally changed. Instead of competing with home consoles on graphics and sound, many offer a physical experience. Dance Dance Revolution makes you move your body, and racing simulators put you behind a steering wheel.

The only problem is, home consoles are starting to do this, too. The Wii remote has made steering wheel racing affordable, and the Wii Fit’s balance board has players working their legs, while Wii Sports is letting people act silly with game controllers in the comfort of their own homes. When the Xbox 360’s Project Natal arrives, it’ll let people use their entire bodies to control video games.

All of this spells more trouble for arcades, which try to provide something different as home gaming becomes more popular. It’s true that nothing matches the elaborate rig of an arcade racing simulator, but that’s exactly the point. Even the Genesis wasn’t quite as good as playing in an arcade, but its “good enough” approach marked the beginning of arcade gamings’ demise.

Now, we’re starting to see the end of it.

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GamesCom, Where All Your Console Rumors Come True

Posted by Jared Newman on August 12, 2009 at 6:36 pm

So, E3 didn’t really pan out as the place to announce price cuts for video game consoles. The rumored PS3 Slim/$100 price cut remains a rumor, and the Xbox 360 is holding steady at $200 for the Arcade model, $300 for the Pro and $400 for the Elite.

Things will reportedly change at GamesCom, a conference in Cologne, Germany, which starts a week from today. While nothing matches the pre-conference hype of E3, we’ve got two rumors that could shake up the holiday gaming season if they come true.

First, Hong Kong gaming magazine GameWave brings word (via Joystiq) that the PS3 Slim will be announced at Sony’s press conference on Tuesday. An earlier report from French media outlet JVN said the same thing, quoting a “dealer specializing in video games” who said a price cut would accompany the announcement. Additionally, MCV wrote that PS3 stocks are drying up in the U.K., signaling a price cut.

We also heard from Kotaku today that Microsoft will discontinue the Xbox 360 Pro, replacing it with the Elite model at the Pro’s old price of $300. The Elite console has double the hard drive capacity (120 GB) and includes an HDMI cable. This rumor also comes from two places: a Meijer catalog due on August 30 and photos sent by Gamestop employees.

Neither rumor comes out of the blue. In June, a reliable source told Ars Technica that the Pro would be discontinued, and said some killer game and console bundles would help move the console off shelves. As for the PS3 Slim, there are simply too many rumors to mention here. Check out Joystiq’s PS3 Slim category tag to see them all.

What does all of this chatter leave us with? Nothing, of course, but I like the idea of GamesCom as the launching point for lower-priced game consoles. The holiday game rush gets its first legs in September, making an end-of-August price cut attractive to fence-sitters, especially if they’re tempted by the latest blockbusters. I’m generally not a fan of these price cut rumors, because they mostly just inflate our expectations with hot air, but this seems like the best possible time to expect things to happen.

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How Long Can the Xbox 360 Hold Netflix?

Posted by Jared Newman on August 11, 2009 at 6:23 pm

A big hoopla was made in the games and tech blogosphere today when Microsoft bragged about its exclusive partnership with Netflix. The agreement brings streaming Netflix movies to the Xbox 360, and not to competing consoles. (Of course there are still plenty of other non-gaming options.)

As Crispy Gamer’s Kyle Orland points out, this exclusivity has been known about ever since the partnership began last summer. In other words, today’s reports messed up. (And for the record, I previously overlooked the deal when asking if the Playstation 3 would ever get Netflix support.)

Nonetheless, I think the question of how long Microsoft will hang on to this partnership is perfectly valid. Microsoft has stayed quiet on that matter, fitting with consumer tech companies’ natural secretiveness about exclusive deals. Understandably, the company doesn’t want people glancing at their watches. If you’re on the fence about which console to buy, and Netflix support is a major consideration, you’d obviously be less concerned if you knew when, if ever, the service would migrate to all consoles.

So you have to wonder who stands to gain the most from the partnership. The advantage for Microsoft is intangible. It’s essentially a selling point for the console, but there’s no way to tell exactly how well this is working. For Netflix, the Xbox 360 is another set-top delivery box, but it’s a big one. In February, Netflix and Microsoft said 1 million people had signed up for a free Netflix trial over the Xbox 360, potentially translating to a lot of new customers.

On the other hand, Netflix is missing out on the opportunity to be on the Wii and the Playstation 3. I’m not privy to the details of the agreement, but as all the consoles get bigger install bases, Microsoft will find it harder to keep Netflix by its side unless it threatens to pull support, which I doubt will happen.

We don’t know specifically how long the deal between Netflix and Microsoft will last, but when the contract expires, I expect Netflix to cozy up to the Xbox 360’s competition.

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Video Games Are Dead, Long Live Video Games

Posted by Jared Newman on August 10, 2009 at 3:29 pm

DigitalTrends’ Scott Steinberg is trying his best to be provocative today, releasing the first part of a video documentary entitled “Video Games Are Dead.”

Of course, they’re not. The online video is a clip reel of talking heads — analysts Michael Pachter and Jesse Divnich, Epic President Mike Capps, Wired GameLife editor Chris Kohler, among others — jockeying for the best sound bite on why video games could be, but mostly aren’t, headed for disaster.

It’s familiar ground to industry watchers. There’s too much risk and not enough innovation, the interviewees say; publishers got too ambitious, but they’re still making money; developers aren’t getting paid properly, but that’s changing; the dedicated gaming console will be replaced by cloud gaming, or gaming through cable, or it won’t be replaced at all.

What the documentary leaves us with is a lot of ideas, but no big picture. I have a feeling Steinberg and his crew will try to tie it all together as the documentary continues, but I’ll take a stab at it now:

Video games will stick around even if the industry crumbles. By sheer coincidence, I got a press release today from Nielsen Games stating that console gaming increased by 21 percent in June, compared to June 2008, even as sales figures took a historic dive. For this entire year, it seems gaming is bigger than ever.

But we are starting to see a shift. The time is quickly approaching when development costs escalate beyond viability. This was foretold by veterans like Greg Costikyan, whose four year-old essay “Death to the Games Industry, Long Live Games” inspired my headline. That’s why every console maker is shooting for the 10-year cycle, backed by new peripherals with games that are cheap to make and fun to play. In this economy, there’s not too much room for blockbusters to thrive.

This isn’t a gloomy scenario, though. It’s actually a good thing, because we’re seeing a resurgence of smaller-scale downloadable games that are just as enjoyable as their big, boxed counterparts, with less overhead. Shadow Complex, a downloadable Xbox 360 game due out next week, is being marketed as such.

The future of the games industry is too sprawling a topic to cover with sound bites (or with a short-form blog post, for that matter), but am I worried that my favorite pastime will die? No.

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Want Xbox Games On Demand? It’ll Cost You

Posted by Jared Newman on August 7, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Come Tuesday, Microsoft will begin selling major Xbox 360 games for download through its Xbox Live service, but from the prices we’ve seen so far, it’s not a sound investment.

Endsights got a hold of the pricing for nine of the 24 games that will be available initially. Using the online retailer Newegg as a comparison (because of its consistent pricing and free shipping), it’s clear that in some cases you’ll pay $10 or even $15 more to download the game than you would to order a boxed copy over the Internet.

A chart, and some more thoughts on Microsoft’s bold venture away from retail, after the jump.

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Settled: Activision’s War on Brütal Legend

Posted by Jared Newman on August 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm

Cooler heads prevailed today, as mega game publisher Activision and settled a lawsuit that could’ve halted one of this year’s most promising games, the AP reports.

In June, Activision sued game developer Double Fine to stop the release of Brütal Legend, a metal-inspired action-adventure game starring the voice of Jack Black and directed by Tim Schafer, designer of The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Activision filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles on June 4, just as Brütal Legend was receiving accolades down the road at E3.

At issue was the $15 million Activision claims it invested in the game before merging with World of Warcraft maker Blizzard Entertainment and subsequently dropping the project. After the merger, Electronic Arts took over as publisher, but Activision said that it still held rights to the game and that Double Fine didn’t deliver it on time.

Before the lawsuit, EA expressed doubt that there’d be a court battle. “That would be like a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy,” the company told Variety in a statement.

Activision did sue, but when it came time for the publisher to argue today why the game shouldn’t be released, Activision instead told the court that the lawsuit was settled. Attorneys didn’t return the AP’s calls, so I don’t think we’ll ever learn the settlement details.

This is great news. I’m no metal fan, but I still appreciated Brütal Legend’s wry humor during the lengthy playable demo at E3. Combine that with its 3D/cartoon art style, puzzle-solving, driving and button-mashing, and Brütal Legend at least looks like a break from the usual generic shooters and beat-em-ups. I’m looking forward to playing it in October.

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Hands-On With GameFly’s G-Box Kiosk

Posted by Jared Newman on August 5, 2009 at 5:49 pm

Apparently I missed the news that Gamefly is trying to pull a Redbox with video game rental kiosks, because the first I heard of it was this morning, when an e-mail alerted me to their existence.

The e-mail — sent to me as a Gamefly subscriber, not a journalist — included an offer for a free, one-night rental, normally valued at $2. For gaming, one night is essentially nothing unless you don’t plan to sleep, but nonetheless I headed to one of the two 7-Elevens listed in the e-mail to take a look. (Strangely, Gamefly’s G-Box landing page doesn’t say where else you can find the kiosks.)

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Nintendo’s Wii Vitality Sensor: Vaporware?

Posted by Jared Newman on August 4, 2009 at 5:33 pm

Okay, so it’s becoming clear that Nintendo doesn’t know exactly what to do with the Wii Vitality Sensor. The gadget, which supposedly measures pulse and other vitals from a player’s finger, was briefly introduced at E3 to a curious, if not bewildered press. Two months later, Nintendo brainchild Shigeru Miyamoto still won’t say how, exactly, the peripheral will be used.

“Ideally we would have been able to talk about this in terms of the software implementation rather than just the sensor itself,” Miyamoto told Mercury News. “I don’t have any indication for you (of what we have in the works) other than to say that we have lots of very creative ideas.”

Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera calls the sensor’s unveiling a misstep, because Nintendo failed to furnish any software that makes the hardware seem irresistible. I’ll take this a step further and say the Wii Vitality Sensor is headed towards Nintendo’s small but historically significant pile of video gaming vaporware.

The most notable of these half-baked failures is the Nintendo 64DD. This hardware expansion had considerable clout among my neighborhood friends, promising what seemed like infinite gaming muscle and endless possibilities. We read about it in Nintendo Power, waiting for a North American release that never came. Long after we had forgotten it, the Nintendo 64DD was released mainly as a subscription service in Japan, where it flopped.

There are other examples, like the Sony-developed SNES CD that ultimately evolved into the Playstation, along with “Project Atlantis,” a powerful successor to the Game Boy that was never officially confirmed, though it surfaced from obscurity this year. Though not exactly vaporware, there was also an unnamed, unexplained Nintendo handheld that was completed a few years ago and then scrapped.

It’s said that when Nintendo shelves an idea, the company tends to recycle it into future projects. This happened with a touch screen peripheral for the Game Boy Advance that eventually became the Nintendo DS, and I can see it happening again with the Wii Vitality Sensor. It’s not a flat-out bad idea, but it’ll have a tough time standing on its own. If we ever start hearing about the sensor in any significant detail, I’m guessing it will have already morphed into a different product altogether.

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