Tag Archives | Gaming

It’s On! Nintendo Prez Knocks iPod Touch

Posted by Jared Newman on October 12, 2009 at 4:29 pm

As the iPhone and iPod Touch look more like portable gaming platforms, I haven’t tired of watching Sony and Nintendo flail. They’re like two incumbent political parties having identity crises in the face of a new competitor who’s hogging the spotlight.

The latest round of this partisan bickering comes from Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who in an interview with the Washington Post argued that the Nintendo DS does things the iPod Touch does not. As proof, he pointed to the DS’s two screens, Nintendo’s franchise titles such as Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros and innovative games like the recent Scribblenauts, which lets players type out virtually any PG-13 noun and have the object literally appear on the screen.

“All of these experiences are very unique and very different and what you cannot find on their App Store,” Fils-Aime said.

It’s a weak argument. Half the games Fils-Aime mentions use the DS’s second screen to provide superfluous information, and there’s nothing in Apple’s technology that precludes a title like Scribblenauts. But the major problem here is Fils-Aime’s “our console is different” mentality.

Guess what? Every console is unique in some way. Check out Dan Terdiman’s CNet article today on a new breed of iPhone games that integrate your phone and contacts. That’s unique. Or just visit the App Store and pick up a free chess app, a free tower defense game and the entirety of Wolfenstein 3D for $2. That user experience is unique.

The real question is whether one console’s unique experience is better than the competition’s. I’ll concede that Nintendo has powerful franchises in Mario and Zelda, et al, but that doesn’t make up for how Apple is capturing the casual gaming market that Nintendo covets. Nintendo needs to find a solution to that problem, and Fils-Aime needs better talking points.

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Browser-Based Wii Fun

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 8, 2009 at 8:21 am

Wii Game Cloud-based services are changing everything about computing–and they’re having an impact in some pretty unexpected places. Such as the Nintendo Wii, where some clever folks are utilizing the console’s Opera browser to deliver nifty little free games that even take advantage of the Wii Remote and provide online play. Jared Newman has rounded up ten of his favorites–try ’em all!

View Free Wii Browser Games slideshow.

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10 Awesome Free Wii Browser Games

Posted by Jared Newman on October 7, 2009 at 11:59 pm

Free Wii Games Nintendo recently made the Wii’s Opera Web browser free to all, perhaps realizing that only a fool would pay $5 for it. But even with the Internet at the command of your Wii Remote, it’s not clear what to do, especially with no support for Hulu and premium content withheld from YouTube.

Why not play some Wii browser-based video games? The Wii’s browser may only support Flash Lite, but that hasn’t hampered a handful of games designed specifically for the console’s Web browser. I’ve picked 10 of the best, including two-player Tetris, a working Galaxian clone and a full MMORPG, all of which can be bookmarked to play again at any time (To do so, click on the star icon in the browser, then click the icon with the plus sign to bookmark the page you’re on).

So grab a pen and write some of these URLs down, or even better, head to Technologizer through your console, and enjoy some Wii browser games that won’t cost you a dime.

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Xbox 360 Achievements’ Icy Grip Needn’t Get Colder

Posted by Jared Newman on October 7, 2009 at 4:27 pm

I can’t recall my reaction when Microsoft introduced Achievements alongside the Xbox 360, but I definitely didn’t expect them to have such a profound impact on the games industry. Now, one game developer says that Achievements, particularly the easy ones, can drive game sales.

Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine, Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford said there’s a subset of gamers who base their purchasing decisions on a game’s Achievement per minute ratio. “He’s playing a lot,” Pitchford said. “So he’s a very frequent customer, and you want to be in that pile. That’s just business.”

Achievements are the new-age embodiment of the high score, rewarding players for their in-game accomplishments with a universal point system. Having a lot of points, or a high Gamerscore, as it’s called, means you play a lot of games with at least a modicum of skill.

After Microsoft popularized the idea, Sony duplicated it with Playstation 3 trophies, and so did Valve on its Steam PC gaming platform. Entire sites exist for the purpose of documenting achievements, and at least one person is building a reputation for hunting down the most points. There’s a game that mocks the obsession, and heck, at times my inner Atari gamer prods me to play on a harder difficulty, just to get the most points.

I’m skeptical of Pitchford’s claim that Achievement hunters are a lucrative demographic, because they’re probably more inclined to rent a game and mine its points than to buy it outright. But I’m uncomfortable with his suggestion that game designers are “the worst” (emphasis his) at coming up with Achievement criteria — and therefore driving sales. I’m not sure who else he has in mind, but the last thing game design needs is more influence from the business side.

After all, one of my greatest Achievement-related pleasures was playing through Mirror’s Edge without ever shooting an enemy, and I wouldn’t have been compelled to do so without the “Test of Faith” Achievement. I’m guessing the developers were behind that one, as it emphasized the game’s flight-over-fight mechanics. That achievement felt good, and I wouldn’t want it compromised just to pawn off a few more sales on people who care about nothing but easy points.

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Note to Rude Gamers: You Don’t Have the Right

Posted by Jared Newman on October 2, 2009 at 3:36 pm

I got a chuckle today reading about the failed lawsuit of Playstation 3 owner Erik Estavillo, who tried to sue Sony after getting banned from the Playstation Network for bad behavior.

If you’ve ever played a competitive online game, you know the type: Loud-mouthed, cussing, insulting, maybe even racist, sexist or homophobic. It’s not clear which of those offenses Estavillo committed while playing Resistance: Fall of Man, but it was apparently bad enough that Sony kicked him off the entire Playstation Network.

A few months ago, Estavillo sued Sony for $55,000 and asked that the company be enjoined from banning other players, on grounds that his right to free speech in a public forum was violated. He added that his agoraphobia (social anxiety) precludes him from socializing in public, so PSN was his only outlet. Estavillo further claimed that Sony effectively stole his pre-paid Playstation Store points.

Too bad. Game Politics reports that a judge has dismissed the case, ruling that a First Amendment claim isn’t plausible. After all, it’s Sony’s private network, and when you sign on, you agree to Sony’s rules. If there’s any question that PSN is like a public place, the tech law blog of Eric Goldman further notes that Sony’s network wasn’t considered a “company town,” because it doesn’t take on any functions of a municipality, virtual or otherwise. PSN is an entertainment venue, not a public service.

The bottom line is, you don’t have First Amendment rights in online gaming. You do have a responsibility to be courteous to those around you. For all the times that people ignore those principles in Resistance, Halo or Gears of War, I’ve got to pump my fist for the minor victories.

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Sony’s PSP Go is Go

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 1, 2009 at 9:53 am

PSP Go

Sony’s new $250 PSP Go gaming handheld debuts today. With its slide-out control pad, it’s the first PSP that’s truly pocketable (closed, it looks and feels a little like a BlackBerry Storm). It’s also dumped the tiny UMD optical disc drive of early PSP models, making it the first digital gaming portable from Sony or anyone else. It’s got 16GB of built-in memory for games, movies, and music, plus an M2 Micro slot (yes, another proprietary Sony format) for additional storage. Simultaneous with its release, Sony is introducing PSP Minis–cheaper, simpler, more casual games not unlike much of the stuff on Apple’s App Store. In short, it’s still a PSP, but one which reflects some of the trends in pocket-sized devices set off by the iPhone and ipod Touch.

I got a little hands-on time with a PSP Go earlier this week (there it is in the photo hanging out with my iPhone). Sony has a hundred games ready for launch, but the PSP isn’t a full-blown platform for third-party apps of all sorts. Still, it’s a pretty versatile device for a handheld gaming console: It provides access to movie and music downloads and even comes with Skype preinstalled.

Even though the PSP Go makes no pretenses to be a direct competitor to the iPhone and iPod Touch, it’s impossible–for me, at least–to think about it without thinking about how it compares. It remains gaming-centric (even though almost all of Apple’s marketing for the iPod Touch plays up games, it’s really a general-purpose computing device). And its single biggest asset is probably that it has the luxury of being designed to play games well, with a full complement of traditional gamepad buttons and an analog joystick.

Apple’s a company who only grudgingly puts even a single button on its handhelds, so it’s never going to pack a device with special-purpose controls in the way Sony has done. And as good as the best games for the iPhone/Touch are, there are plenty of titles–ones as mundane as Ms. Pac-Man–for which touch is not the most satisfactory means of input.

Apple certainly sees the PSP (and Nintendo DS) as competing with the Touch: As my colleague Jared Newman pointed out, Phil Schiller spent a sizable portion of the company’s recent music-themed event snarking at Sony and Nintendo for everything from the size of their libraries to the cost of their games. On a higher level, we’re going to see a battle play out between specialized devices like the PSP Go and Swiss Army Knives like the iPod Touch. It’s going to be fun to watch–and even though the PSP Go’s improvements are all evolutionary, they help to gird Sony for the war.

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Gaming in Theaters Sounds Cool, Won’t Be Easy

Posted by Jared Newman on September 30, 2009 at 11:51 am

As a gamer, I’m enamored with the idea of playing a shoot-em-up on a 50-foot screen, surrounded by Dolby audio. And I can’t be the only one.

Unfortunately, these incidents are rare, but on Monday and Tuesday, the stars will align, and Sony will let people in four U.S. theaters try the upcoming (and universally lauded) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the Playstation 3.

If you don’t happen to live in Rosemont, Ill., Bellvue, Wash., San Francisco or Thousand Oaks, Calif., there’s good news: In a Reuters interview, Mike Fidler, Sony’s senior vice president of Digital Cinema Solutions and Services, suggests that this isn’t a one-off thing. In explaining that he wants more theaters to go digital, Fidler said that gaming “will be an important part of that equation.”

From Fidler’s remarks, it’s easy to dream up gaming nights, or perhaps the ability to rent out a theater for an evening of Killzone 2. A Canadian chain already does this during off-peak times, for the totally reasonable price of $169 for two hours and up to 12 people (a movie ticket doesn’t cost that much less at that rate).

Not to be a party pooper, but I see a major roadblock here. The best big-screen games — shooters and racing games — can at most be enjoyed by four people at a time, and even splitting the screen reduces the coolness factor. Given that a movie theater is designed to entertain lots of people, you’d be looking at minimal playing time with any more than a dozen participants. And let’s face it, most games aren’t that fun to watch from the sidelines.

If Sony does get the Playstation 3 into more theaters, I’m sure the Uncharted 2 event won’t be the last of its kind, but for most of us, I have a feeling that any significant gaming time in a theater will remain a fantasy.

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The Video Game Bundle Wars of 2009

Posted by Jared Newman on September 23, 2009 at 10:26 am

Evidence that the Wii will become a $200 console is piling up, with the latest rumor coming from Best Buy management. Engadget scored a screen grab of a company letter, warning that the price drop will happen on Sunday, following an official announcement this Friday.

Alongside price cuts for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 Elite, this is great news for anyone looking to buy a gaming console this holiday season. But even if you’ve got the itch now, consider holding out for the inevitable software bundles that will follow.

The Best Buy letter notes that stores should “use bundle bands to create bundles that tell a story and truly meet customers’ needs.” I’m not exactly sure what it means to tell a story with products, but I’ll bet Best Buy will try tacking on games and extra controllers to get you spending a little more. Those deals can work out in your favor if you are, in fact, buying the same things you planned to purchase a la carte.

Another thing to watch for are official bundles from the console maker. Ars Technica has a rumor that Xbox 360 Elites will include two games, Pure and Lego Batman, for the same $300 starting in mid-October. Sure, those wouldn’t be the first two games I’d choose, but for the same price tag they do sweeten the pot. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony and Nintendo started offering their own added incentives.

Just remember that your brand new gaming console is worthless without at least one game, and it’s not as fun without two controllers. As the holiday shopping season approaches, keep an eye out for bundles that will save you from spending too much beyond the console’s initial price tag.

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Are Game Downloads Successful? We’ll Soon Know

Posted by Jared Newman on September 21, 2009 at 6:38 pm

Addressing what increasingly seems like a glaring omission in its sales charts, The NPD Group says it will start tracking sales of downloadable video and computer games.

That’s important if you’re at all interested in how gaming is changing. NPD finds itself in headlines every month, when it releases sales figures for games and consoles. When we want to know if games are in a recession or whether an experimental game idea worked out commercially, NPD is usually a good resource.

But lately, it seems like the group’s sales figures don’t provide the whole picture, and NPD itself knows it. NPD’s corporate marketing director David Riley told MCV that tracking game downloads will reduce “the spin, and in some cases, misleading information that often appears on the internet.”

It’s not clear who Riley was pointing that comment at, but I think game publishers shoulder at least some of the blame. We usually only hear about the performance of downloadable content when it’s wildly successful (see the popularity of Shadow Complex for the Xbox 360). Even then, the news is just a flash in the pan, and we have no way to track the performance of a downloadable game over time. I’d definitely like to see, for instance, how the shelf life of a downloadable game compares to a boxed retail title.

NPD was short on details for this plan, which seems awfully ambitious. The group plans to track console, PC and mobile games, which, as Joystiq points out, would comprise a lot of distribution channels, including small, independent outlets. No start date has been announced, and NPD didn’t say whether it will track downloadable add-ons for existing games, or just full games.

Still, I look forward to whatever NPD puts together. For understanding how digital distribution is changing video games, anything’s better than nothing.

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The Problem With Musicians and Music Games

Posted by Jared Newman on September 17, 2009 at 2:52 pm

With The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 released earlier this month, several musicians have spoken their minds about music games. And I wish they hadn’t.

To recap: Last week, singer Courtney Love decided to sue Activision when she realized how her late husband, ex-Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, was being used in Guitar Hero 5. When letting Activision use Cobain’s likeness, Love didn’t realize that in-game characters can perform in any song, resulting in a rather troubling video of Cobain rapping and singing 80s metal. The rest of Nirvana then added their disapproval, and so did, of all people, Bon Jovi.

Earlier, former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason expressed their disdain for music games, based on the tired belief that these games kill the motivation to learn a real instrument (Mason said he was open to a game based on Pink Floyd, simply to make money).

Topping it all off, Paul McCartney admitted that he hadn’t yet played The Beatles: Rock Band. His rationale? The former Beatle can play an actual concert any time he wants.

McCartney’s dismissal, however justified, is disheartening, and I’m saying that as a fellow musician. Having played guitar and drums since childhood, I initially pooh-poohed Guitar Hero as well. But then I tried it, with people who aren’t musicians, and everything clicked.

What Guitar Hero offers musicians is the ability to enjoy music with everyone, not just for the words and beat, but for the musicality and the intricacies that become most apparent when you’re performing. It’s too bad McCartney, Mason and Wyman can’t see that.

Courtney Love’s case is a bit different, but the underlying issue, that she obviously hasn’t spent time with the game, is the same. Instead of experiencing why Guitar Hero and Rock Band are special, these musicians only see two potential rewards: relevance and money. Ideally, music should be about neither.

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