Author Archive | Jared Newman

Hey, What Happened to Video Game Company Rivalries?

Posted by Jared Newman on August 22, 2011 at 1:46 pm

Over the last few months, Electronic Arts and Activision have been fighting a war of words over their respective shooters, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which are set for a showdown this holiday season.

A small sampling: EA CEO John Riccitiello said he wants Call of Duty to “rot from the core.” Activision’s publishing boss Eric Hirschberg responded by saying EA’s negativity was “bad for the industry.” Most recently, EA spokesman Jeff Brown fired back: “Welcome to the big leagues Eric — I know you’re new in the job but someone should have told you this is a competitive industry.”

The bad blood has been good publicity for both games, I think (although EA’s Battlefield 3 probably needs it more, hence the harsher attacks). But it makes me wonder, where have the good old game console rivalries gone?

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Cross-Game Voice Chat on the PS3? Never.

Posted by Jared Newman on August 21, 2011 at 8:13 am

Five years after launching the Playstation 3, Sony has admitted that the system is not technically capable of cross-game voice chat.

Cross-game voice chat is the ability to speak with multiple players at the same time, regardless of what they’re doing on the console. On Xbox Live, it’s one of my favorite features, because allows you to coordinate a play session with a friend with ease or have a conversation while playing different games.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said memory restrictions preclude the PS3 from ever having cross-game voice chat. Games gobble up all of system’s available RAM, leaving none for voice chat at the OS level.

“Once a game gets RAM we never give it back,” Yoshida said. “It’s not possible to retrofit something like that after the fact.”

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“Nexus Prime” Rumored for October, Just in Time for iPhone 5

Posted by Jared Newman on August 19, 2011 at 10:41 am

Get ready for a big smartphone battle in October, when Google’s Nexus Prime Android phone is rumored to lock horns with Apple’s iPhone 5.

The Nexus Prime will reportedly run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which will merge Google’s smartphone and tablet operating systems into a single version of software. Like previous “Nexus” phones, we can assume that the Nexus Prime will run a pure version of Android with no custom user interfaces from the phone maker and no bloatware from wireless service providers.

And the hardware, according to the Korean-language Electronic Times (via Boy Genius Report), will be beastly. Rumored specs include a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and a 4.5-inch display with 1280-by-720 resolution. Samsung is reportedly the manufacturer, although Nexus phones are Google-branded.

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Hey Ubisoft, Stop Messing With PC Gamers

Posted by Jared Newman on August 18, 2011 at 2:41 pm

Ubisoft already uses some of the worst digital rights management for its PC games, at times requiring a steady Internet connection to play, but this week the publisher made things worse with mixed messages to players.

PC gamers are upset with Ubisoft over its treatment of From Dust, a strategy game that launched last month for the Xbox 360 and this week for PC. On its forums, Ubisoft first said that the game wouldn’t require an online connection for each play session, as long as players signed in once after installing the game. But then, Ubisoft removed that forum post, and instead said players would have to connect to Ubisoft servers every time they fired up the game.

From Dust players are also reporting crashes, a lack of graphical customization settings and a limited frame rate of 30 frames per second, Rock Paper Shotgun reports. A Ubisoft forum moderator is telling players that they can pursue refunds.

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Slim Wii Not Planned for U.S. (Phew)

Posted by Jared Newman on August 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm

Nintendo plans to launch a slimmer Wii console in Europe that drops compatibility for Gamecube games and accessories, but it’s not coming to the United States — at least for now.

The Wii redesign will arrive this holiday season, bundled with Wii Sports, Wii Party, a Wii Remote Plus controller and a Nunchuk attachment. The console is designed to sit horizontally, and trims away the controller ports and memory card slots that supported Nintendo’s old Gamecube console. Nintendo will discontinue the old console design in Europe.

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Windows Phone Gaming Gets Some Stuff, Still Needs Some Stuff

Posted by Jared Newman on August 17, 2011 at 9:19 am

Xbox Live is supposed to be a big hook for Windows Phone, but until now Microsoft hasn’t fully described what the platform’s upcoming “Mango” update will do for gamers. We now have a better idea thanks to a blog post by Microsoft’s Michael Stroh.

Unlike Mango in general, Windows Phone’s fall Xbox Live update isn’t a major overhaul. Instead, Microsoft is filling in a couple of key omissions — in-app purchases and parental controls — and adding wearable avatar badges to reward in-game achievements. Xbox Live will also get “Fast Async,” which is supposed to improve turn-by-turn multiplayer games.

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Playstation 3 Price Cut to $249

Posted by Jared Newman on August 16, 2011 at 1:19 pm

Effective immediately, Sony’s Playstation 3 is $50 cheaper. The home game system now costs $249 for a 160 GB model, or $299 for a 320 GB model.

As far as price cuts go, the PS3’s is pretty straightforward. Sony is offering a limited edition 320 GB console with Infamous 2 for $299, but otherwise there’s no additional effort to pack in a Playstation Move or to hook people into 3D gaming. (Sony will, however, offer a standalone Move and game bundle later this year, and plans to bundle a PS3, a game and small 3D TV with Playstation branding this fall, as announced at E3 in June.)

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Google+ Games Has Potential, Just Like the Rest of Google+

Posted by Jared Newman on August 15, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Last week, Google launched its long-awaited online gaming portal as part of its budding social network, Google+.

Like Google+ itself, the big selling point for Games on Google+ is that it respects personal boundaries more than Facebook. Instead of dumping everyone’s game-related status updates into your main timeline, Google+ games are relegated to a separate tab, so your main timeline remains uncluttered.

The less intrusive approach to status updates may be a big lure for some people, but it’s not the hook Google+ games need. And with only 16 titles at launch (albeit with some big names like Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz and Zynga Poker), Google’s social gaming service isn’t catching up to Facebook anytime soon.

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See Ya, Streak 5

Posted by Jared Newman on August 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Dell’s first Android tablet, the Streak 5, is officially discontinued. A strange farewell message now appears on Dell’s Streak 5 web page (“Goodbye, Streak 5. It’s been a great ride.”), with an image of a pretty woman who is not holding a Streak 5.

The general consensus is that the Streak 5 was too big to be a good phone and too small to be a good tablet, but I’m not convinced of that argument. Phone makers have successfully made 4.3-inch screens desirable, and are now pushing toward 4.5 inches with the Samsung Infuse 4G and rumored HTC Holiday. And whenever I write about 7-inch tablets, I’m shocked by the number of commenters who want to use them as phones. I think there’s a niche for oversized handsets. Dell just failed to capture it. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why.

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Is a New Kindle Around the Corner?

Posted by Jared Newman on August 5, 2011 at 3:43 pm

Slashed prices for refurbished Kindles could be the latest sign that a new version of Amazon’s popular e-reader is imminent.

This week, Amazon dropped the price of refurbished, third-generation Kindles to $99 for a Wi-Fi model and $139 for a model with 3G and Wi-Fi. If purchased new, the same Kindles cost $139 and $189, respectively. Amazon has also slashed prices on Kindle accessories.

Reading the tea leaves, SlashGear’s Chris Davies thinks new Kindles are about to land, because the last time Amazon cut prices for refurbished e-readers and accessories, it launched the Kindle 3 a month later.

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