Further sign of Microsoft's disarray with XB1.

http://www.destructoid.com/microsoft-boss-don-mattrick-leaving-to-head-up-zynga-257335.phtml

The head of the entertainment division is going to Zynga.

First off, it's a sign that things are bad, this close to a console's release.

And in a bit of a fnny note, geez, going from Microsoft to Zynga? Don Mattrick's next career step on this time line is apparently to devolve into pond slime

Australia: The Nanny Nation.

Man. Don't get me wrong. I love Australia. They play some of the greatest sports around (Two codes of Rugby, which are like American Football, except played by people in better shape and without pads, Australian Rules Football... you don't know Aussie Rules? It's the one when they score a goal the goal judge sticks both his fingers out like he's a Old West gunfighter? Yeah, that one)... they are one of the more "Macho" nations out there

But they sure don't like video games.

They just had a decade long fight over releasing games there, that was supposed to end when they added the equivalent of an R rating. (Before, if a game had violence or whatever, the game would be "refused classification", which meant it could not be sold in the country).

Well, the Nanny Nation is at it again, even with the new classification, two new games ran into the Brick Wall that is Australian censorship, with State of Decay being denied classification yesterday, and then today, the news that Saints Row 4 was denied classification today, for amongst other things, the Alien Anus Probe.

Which is just funny, if you ask me.

Australia, you're made up of some awesome folks, you're way ahead of us on some political things (I heard some conservative friends suggest they should move to Australia due to some recent decisions. When I explained Australia's views on these issues, they quickly changed their minds).. but seriously? Come on. I don't have a problem with saying that minors shouldn't play it.. which should be the reason for such ratings. But to say that it would inherently warp adults minds?

Come on. Give your countrymen more credit than that.

((and Aussies, if you need help on Steam, let me know))

Why Sports Games always fall short of the real thing...

This post is going to reopen some barely healed wounds on my Boston fan's sports psyche, but what we saw  Monday night is something that can never be duplicated in video games.

We actively seek out the improbable in real life, and actively abhor the improbable in video games.

Two goals in 17 seconds to win the Stanley Cup.

Ugh.

That hurts so much to type right now, but what would have happened let's say in NHL 13.. you're playing the computer in Game Six of a Stanley Cup finals, up one, and you give up two goals in seventeen seconds to lose the cup, after you've played out all the previous games. Do you shake your head and realize the magnitude of what just happened?

The Hell You Do.

One or more of the following happens:

A) The controller's un-aerodynamic properties are confirmed as it's thrown aside (in rare cases, into a wall, or bounce off the cushions of the couch at high speed). 
B) You hit the reset button on the console.
C) You mutter (either to yourself, to your friends or online) about "comeback code" or the game having it in for you.
D) The game never gets played again.

I have a friend, who will remain nameless, who loves the Football Manager series almost as much as I do, but he has a rule. Should he get screwed over too badly by injuries or freak incidents (either glitches in the game engine, or just things like getting a bunch of red cards in a game), it's time for the "Three Finger Salute" (ie, closing the game without saving, force closing, and then possibly reload).

That's why no matter how much developers try, video games will never cause the same depth of feeling as the real thing. There's no way to cause the joy of the Blackhawks fan who saw the improbable comeback, no way to simulate the pain caused to Bruin fans who had the metaphorical roof fall on their heads (or the joy about something like what they did to the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier in the playoffs.

Aft er all, we see how many bounces, and crazy things happen in a single season, and in the life of a console game, millions of seasons are played. Given enough time and game play, even the most wildly improbable thing is nearly certain to happen, after all.

But maybe it's a good thing that it's at best a pale echo of the real thing. After all, there's enough sports junkies out there without finding a way to give them an artificial fix of the same quality after all.

(XB ONE DRM) Gears of War creator blames Sony, not "Internet Whining" for reversal.

Cliff Bleszinski, the creator of the Gears of War series, is crying big crocodile tears today about Microsoft's reversal. He warns that without locking out used games, that we'll all regret it. More developers will flee to mobile games and PC Games, that we'll see more DLC and multiplayer modes tacked on to games, and that the current market cannot sustain continued expansion of budgets for big titles.

You see, that's the thing right there. The market cannot continue to expand in such a manner. Gears Of War 3 was rumored to be the first "nine-figure" development budget console game (between actual development and media campaign). At such budgets, you are literally betting the company on every release. That is unhealthy, because EVERY company will eventually roll snake eyes, and crap out.

Bleszinski goes on to say the reason that Microsoft reversed course wasn't the result of "Internet Whining" but because Sony didn't go along with the plan. I also have to disagree here to a point. Sure, if Sony went along with it, gamers would have had two options. Accept it, or sit the console generation out. I think at least a percentage of gamers would have sat the generation out, but we had to like it or lump it.

But Sony saw Microsoft's plans and played them like an absolute fiddle. They managed to do something found in both martial arts and smart business. Use your opponents force against them. Sony actually TIGHTENED their procedures (requiring PS+ to play online).. and still got cheered for it, because they were so far ahead of Microsoft.

So, folks on the internet may not have caused Microsoft's reversal (seriously though, wouldn't you love to have been a fly on the wall during the meetings during the time between E3 and now?).. but that's because Sony actually decided to listen to their owners, instead of the publishers dream list.

So, Mr. Bleszinski, with all due respect.. we do not have a problem. YOU have a problem. If you can't find a way to deal with it, do what happens to every dinosaur who can't evolve.

Go extinct.

How Video Games imitate Peanuts...

Here's a bit of a complicated equation for you.

Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the Football, is equal to gamers, EA and realistic game play.

That's right, gamers are Charlie Brown, and every year we get suckered in by EA/Lucy..

"This year's NCAA is more realistic than ever! You'll swear you're watching a game on ESPN on Saturday".

We buy into it warily and approach it, and at first blush, it seems that yes, this is the time we'll kick that football and have a realistic game! The first reviews come in, and talk about how smooth the players move, and how realistic it is..

and you want to believe it. Oh, do you EVER want to believe it. This is the year that NCAA will play true to life, and give us something worth playing over and over and over.

And then you start finding the small things, the glitches, the money plays, the vacumn blocking that makes no sense.

And it ends up, with us, just like Charlie Brown, staring at the sky, and wondering how we didn't kick the football. Yet again.

But we keep coming back. We want to believe.

The demo's out, and I'm trying hard not to play it. Because I know I'll get sucked in, buy the full game, and end up going "AUUUUUGHHH!" and landing flat on my back, wondering how EA managed to pull the football away this time.

Interview with Josh Allen of Gamenikki in Exile: Sexism, Independents and Xbox One DRM Reversal

8 Bit Mind: I'm here with Josh Allen, who is the Editor-in-chief of gaming blog "Gamenikki In Exile"... and we're just having a chat on the news of the week. We're saving the big one for the last question, so hold on for that.


Question One: Feminism, Sexism and Video Games:

8bitmind: Anita Sarkessian, a blogger who writes on issues of feminism and the like in the tech industry, went on twitter during E3 to strike a note of concern about the fact that there was very little positive information for women in video games. Not only were there no real female leads to be found, during a demo of Killer Instinct, a joke was made that the female developer should just "close their eyes, it would be over soon". These alone, were worthy of comment, but then the assorted masses of Twitter attacked her with some of the most misogynist, hateful, sexist posts I've ever seen. Did Anita have a point with her comments, and considering the response to the comments she made, and does the twitter response to it show that the video game public have a problem with sexism and misogny?

Josh Allen: That's...a landmine of a question.

She had a point with her comments. The industry has come a long way - witness Tiger Woods 14 including the LPGA for the first time ever - but it has a long way to go.

8bitmind: Agreed, and for a current view of the industry,, look at the history of the game "Remember Me", where according to the developer, several publishers turned it down because it had a female lead.

Josh Allen: It's still very much a "boys' club," and comments like that in what are effectively public venues don't do anything to make the industry female-friendly for young women who might be considering a career in game design.

On the other hand, I don't think the reaction to Anita's comment is necessarily illustrative of sexism and misogyny so much as complementary of other examples which have been around forever. Many of the same people slamming her in the Twitterverse will be people engaging in sexually loaded trash talk on Xbox Live and comparable services. This isn't something that's coming out of nowhere, in other words; it's just a much higher-profile example of the behavior.

8bitmind: How does the industry fight this kind of thing.. it seems like it's locked into a cycle where people buy "dudebro" games, so companies make "dudebro games", and it's forever perpetuating this view?

Josh Allen:I think the biggest way is with a focus on youth games. Nintendo has historically had the most success with female gamers, and that's because they don't target their core games at specifically male or specifically female audiences. Mario is a brand that has resonated with both boys and girls over the years, and that leads to a situation where 60% of Wii owners are/were female. You can't change the culture overnight with games aimed at older audiences.

"Dudebro" sells because the Tuesday game buyers are dudebros.

What you need to do is start building a gaming culture with the younger gamers who will be your future customers and perhaps your future employees and make games that both can enjoy, rather than dudebro-lite for little boys and Barbie Horse Adventures for little girls. That's not to say there isn't a place for the latter in the market, but up to now, games designed with girls in mind have almost exclusively occupied the horses-makeup-and-boys space.

Basically, it's not an overnight change. They need to start policing themselves better in terms of what they say and do in public, and if there's a desire to get women greater involvement in the industry going forward, that foundation has to be laid with the games that are made today.

Otherwise you'll continue to have a male-dominated space that insists that women who intrude have to "close their eyes and let it happen."

8bitmind: Agreed. The video game industry has a problem, they KNOW they have a problem, and now it comes down to how they deal with the problem.

Question Two: Sony, Microsoft and Independent Games

8bitmind: Independent games (that is, games without a publisher) were already a part of both systems, but with the next generation of consoles months away, it was interesting to see how the two consoles deal with Independent game makers.

Microsoft requires independent publishers to either use the Xbox authoring engine for their game (and to be stuck in the little-used Indie Games sub-area), or to acquire a publisher to be listed in the Xbox Live Arcade.
Sony seems to be more embracing of independent games, featuring them heavily in their E3 presentation, and in more than a few cases, waiving the requirement of $20,000 to release a patch.

How do you see the two behemoths of this generation of consoles handing independent games, and does it supply an advantage due to one or the other?

Josh Allen: I don't think there's a huge advantage inherent. I think Sony featured indies more heavily in their E3 presentation because they didn't have as much in the way of exclusive AAA titles to tout. It's a matter of if you can't have the one you love, love the one you're with.

I think Microsoft will probably continue the approach they've used on Xbox 360, and it may hurt their ability to attract indie developers - which is quite a change from where they were just five years ago - but I think their focus right now is on the AAA titles. Games like Journey on PSN are fantastic games, but how many people walk into Best Buy to purchase a PS3 so they can play Journey? I think Microsoft is banking that if they shift units on the strength of AAA titles, indie developers will come to them because that's where the market is.

I think Sony realizes that having indie developers means having things for their users to play - and the PlayStation Vita has shown them the importance of that so far - but isn't necessarily married to indie games as the lifeblood of the console. Just a way to paper over the cracks in the library.

8bitmind: It's still more than a bit unusual to see Sony to be the one embracing the little guy.

Josh Allen: It is. But remember that Sony hasn't been willing to pony up for DLC exclusives the way Microsoft has in the last five years. So where Microsoft's differentiator is getting DLC first on a time-limited exclusive, Sony's differentiator is having a diverse library of independent games that may not be on other platforms.

Question Three: Xbox One changes their DRM

8bitmind: And finally, the big one.. news today that Microsoft is doing a complete and total 180 on the Xbox One. Gone is the every 24 hour DRM check, and limitations on the sharing of games. It's not all good news, as this means you will need to have the disc in the system to play.

First off, have you ever seen such a radical reconfiguration of a system's requirements in the months before release?

Josh Allen: Never.

8bitmind: Microsoft put their hand in the cookie jar, and when it closed upon them like a steel trap, they decided that they didn't want the cookie after all,

Did they think that they could ride out the gamers dislike of the controversial system requirements, and only when it was revealed in the mainstream press, did they realize "No, NOONE thinks this is a good idea?"

Josh Allen: Without trying to get TOO political about this, I think there's a parallel here between Xbox One and "Obamacare." The White House strategy on "Obamacare" has clearly been that whatever the controversy, once things started kicking in and people see what those changes mean, they'd embrace the changes. Likewise, I think Microsoft felt, at least initially, that they could ride out the backlash and once people saw what was being enabled by the restrictions, that the public would drop its objections.

I think what ultimately happened here is the difference between government policy and trying to run a business. The former can say "This is how it is; deal with it," and wait for people to come around, while the latter is still in the business of making and selling widgets, and you generally can't sell widgets to people who don't want to be sold to.

Microsoft realized that they'd be fighting an uphill battle for the next 3-4 months that would completely overshadow everything else they're trying to accomplish with the console, and decided that discretion was the better part of not getting their ass shot off by Sony in the marketplace.

8bitmind: This probably has to annoy developers who designed their games for an always on connection (I've seen mentions elsewhere that to use the cloud properly to enhance graphics, you need a constant 1.5 Mps stream, which many but not all people have).. is this going to have a knock on effect for games that were designed to use the benefits of the console that just aren't there any more?

Josh Allen: I think to a certain extent what's going to happen is that those games are going to be sold as "Xbox Live required" titles. Future development will probably assess the likelihood that the userbase will be part of the "always on" community. The other possibility is that while Xbox One won't require a connection in order to play, we'll start seeing "Better with Live" branding to communicate to people that, hey, if you connect to Live, this game gets even better.

8bitmind: And the important question: How much damage does the recent few weeks do to Microsoft for this console generation? I said when I saw it, "They finally applied rule 1 of getting out of a hole... stop digging!" That being said, they're still in a hole... aren't they?

Josh Allen: In the long term, I think making this change is going to mitigate a lot of the damage that might otherwise have been done. There's a tendency to believe that those of us who read gaming sites and blogs on a regular basis make up the majority of the game-buying public, but that probably isn't true. There's an echo chamber effect, where we're making a big deal about the DRM and everything else, and a large segment of the population is simply unaware of the changes Microsoft had in mind. Had these policies persisted until launch, I think that could have been critically damaging to the business. Making the change now ensures another news cycle or two of bad PR, but by the time launch rolls around, it's going to be largely forgotten - except by families who buy an Xbox One and don't have a broadband connection to download the patch that removes the 24-hour check-in. That's gonna be an interesting Christmas morning.

You can check out more of Josh's work at gamenikkiinexile.com

Microsoft reverses course on DRM

I'm arranging for a back and forth with Josh Allen, the Editor In Chief of Gamenikki In Exile, and this will be on the burner for it, (look for it tonight or tommorrow) but I just had to comment on it now, while the news is fresh.
'
Xbox One DRM has been scrapped. Completely and totally. It's going to function like the 360 did (disc required, no Every 24 hour DRM check)..

That's running the white flag up.. but how much damage has been done?

The Return of an 8BitMInd

One of the problems with running a blog solo, is what we call a single point of failure. I was in the hospital over the weekend, and still not quite 100%, which is why you didn't get any goodness from me over the last week or so.

But man, I'm looking at the variety of news that I missed, and I feel like I missed a month. I'm scrambling to try to get stories up on everything, so for those of you who have returned after the silent running, stay tuned. It's about to get busy.

The reason for the silent running..

sorry for the slow updates, I'm in the hospital for dehydration and leg issues.. I just got my laptop, so we'll see if I can wrap up E3 and some of the other news in the video game world tommorrow.

XB1 to completely ignore the Asia Market for up to a year after release

There's been many moves that I can't understand by Microsoft but this ranks high upon this list.

Xbox One will not be available in Asia at all until the end of 2014, and there are no current plans to release the console in Japan.

Let that sink in. One of the biggest countries in spending money and console use, and they're not going to play at all.

Does that make sense?

I mean, it's not like the previous consoles have done particularly well in Japan to start with, but I mean, if you don't play, you can't improve at all. And you'd think nations with the highest density of ultra-fast Internet connections would be more ok with the "Nearly Always On" nature of the Xbox One.

But, Microsoft has decided they can't win, so they're not going to even try to make Sony spend resources to defend their home market.

How would you like to be in Xbox PR Department right now? It's been nearly a month of agony, punctuated by Sony absolutely owning Microsoft with the low price and relaxed used games announcements at E3.

Nintendo goes the EA route and Sony steps back slightly, continued E3 Coverage

Unfortunately, Sony doesn't have a DRM platform, but it will allow publishers to set rules, we'll see how that goes.. disappointing..

Then we get to Nintendo, which basically stepped away from the E3 hoopla, and went the EA route, sequels.. new Mario Brothers, new Mario Kart, etcetera etcetera. That was enough for a second place finish (Microsoft got buried), but so far, it's Sony.

Sony E3 Press Conference Recap

I was going to say Sony did everything but spike the football on Microsoft....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kWSIFh8ICaA

Nope. That football is thoroughly spiked.

They are going to write business school classes on how Microsoft screwed this up.

New Kingdom Hearts game.
New Final Fantasy (Ok, a revamped Final Fantasy Versus game as a new Final Fantasy game)
Drive Club, Kill Zone, Knack as launch titles
Exclusive items for Diablo 3 (rolls eyes)
The Order: 1866
Bastion follow up..

But the two biggest items coming out of it:

Price $399
No Used Games restrictions.

As my friend John put it: "You know when someone just lays a verbal smackdown of epic proportions that they just stop, drop the microphone and walk away, and the other person can't even pick the mic up to get back at them? Sony just dropped the mic, walked away and had the gamers chanting "Sony! Sony! Sony!"

Was it perfect? No, it looks like PS+ will be necessary to play games online.

But when it comes to who the victor at E3 was? Or who is likely to win the first 18-24 months of the next-gen war? No doubt about it. Sony just blitzkrieged Microsoft.

The EA Press Conference at E3

Or: SEQUELS, SEQUELS, SEQUEL??!?!?! SEQUEL!!!!!!!

Nice to see one of the most under-appreciated games of all time, Mirror's Edge is going to get a sequel.

Plants vs Zombies... as an action shooter... oooooookkkk..

Dragon Age Inquisitor, Fall 2014.. so if they showed this and not the next Mass Effect, does this mean we're looking at 2015 for Mass Effect?


NBA Live is returning.. so we're going to show you a lot of dribbling, because that's what our developers were doing when they made the last two cancelled versions.. thankfully they had drool bibs on at the time.

UFC only on next gen? Boohiss. Although they did make me laugh, with the new feature "Full Body Deformation".. I'd make a joke about the folks making it, but I think I've already hit my quota on those comments above.

Need For Speed Rivals: I'm waiting for them to run out of witty things to put after Need for Speed and make Need For Speed: We're Not Fast and Furious but We're Kinda Cool Anyway.

Star Wars Battlefield? Heck yes. Even if it was just acquired, and wasn't anything more than 20 seconds of snow and ice.

Again, It's rewarmed leftovers, but damn good rewarmed leftovers. a Meh Plus, but only because the overreliance of SEQUELS are disappointing.

Release Date and Price For Xbox One

$499 in November.

Sorry Microsoft, you lose. good Game, no rematch.

Microsoft E3 Press Conference

Or: Foz watches press conferences so you don't have to.

Quick review: Nothing here made me change my mind to stay away from Xbox One. The flaws in the system and the hoopla surrounding it are too much.

Notes:

Free Xbox 360 games for Live Subscribers.. more of a free rental, but it looks like they'll include Halo and Assassin's Creed games, but this hints of damage control.

Dark Souls II: Meh.

Yet another redesign of the Xbox 360. probably known as the Long Tail edition (IE the cheap box to get people into gaming where you can spam them into upgrading to a "real" console.. who knows, it might outsell the Xbox One...

World of Tanks comes to 360. That's semi-interesting.. now get Mechwarrior Online and I'll be really interested.

New Killer Instinct game exclusive for Xbox One. Because the revival of the fighting game craze hasn't quite petered out yet.

Forza 5 to feature "Driveatar" system, where the system will capture your driving habits and upload it to the cloud to be opponents for other people. Because having just the normal AI run you off the road and ruin your race isn't realistic enough.

Quantum Break is being described as "24 meets Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time". Um, interesting... a little at least.

Dead Rising 3 to Xbox One exclusive: Interesting, it's not quite the seller that you would expect such an exclusive to be, but still, interesting.

In short: Meh, to a meh minus.

At least they finally focused on the games, and turned off the automatic footgun. But still, there just isn't enough there to get the bad taste out of the mouth from the last few weeks.

Expect a weekend funspot tommorrow..

I have come down with a more virulent form of montezuma's revenge, andtyping this on a cell phone. We'll have a weekly update tommorrow.

The Monday Blues for June 3rd.

Hey all, Don't worry, the Monday Blues aren't sticking around, but if Friday is the Funspot, Monday is definitely the blues.

Just some quick hits on the video game world:

Fuse seems to have gotten fair to middling reviews and the consensus view is that it has a lot of successful things to it that work well for other titles, yet the game lacks something that would tie them all together in a cohesive package. Sad to see, was looking forward to that one.

Lot going on in the crowdfunding bandwagon, as Double Fine is at it again... this time with a game with a unique hook called MASSIVE CHALICE. What is it, you might ask?

The line is "If turn-based tactics and feudal fantasy had a love child, and that offspring founded a mighty century-spanning dynasty, it would be MASSIVE CHALICE."

Ok, consider my interest piqued. Kinda like Record of Agarest War, with out the very arcane game system, or the anime boobs. That's fine by me. Some will chide Double Fine for launching a new kickstarter, while the previous one hasn't come out, but apparently one third of Double Fine is working on the previous game, which allows this. So, I've pledged, and if you want to as well, the Kickstarter is here:

On the somewhat negative side, looks like the F2P Mech Arena games market is tapped out, as Heavy Gear Assault's kickstarter hasn't gotten out of first gear. Two weeks into a 40 day fundraising campaign hoping to raise $800,000, and they haven't even gotten $40,000. Sad to see...

And finally on the kickstarting side, if no one sees me for a month or so, that's because Shadowrun Returns is on the verge of being released and I'll be playing and/or creating adventures for a month or so. The editor is now out to high money kickstarter backers, prior to general release, and from what I've been reading from folks who've tried it out is that it's very powerful, a bit kludgey, but very useable. How interested am I in this game? I signed up for a contest at GenCon, which gives the 16 competitors four hours to build a campaign using the editor, with prizes to the winner. Kinda like Iron Chef with Trolls and Cyberware.

Let's see.. what else..

Remember Me.. no I'm not asking you to remember me, I'm talking about the game Remember Me, which comes out tommorrow. I've seen a couple places that just LOVE the environment and feeling the game evokes, but the lack of interactivity with the environment is a negative. The best comparison I've gotten is from a friend of mine who got a review copy, and told me "This game won't sell well now, but will be the cult classic of its generation". I guess kinda like Alpha Protocol.. (and yes, I still get into arguments when I defend Alpha Protocol.)

Oh, just a gaming mention that's not quite a video game mention, looks like ESPN has started the six week gambling fest that is the World Series of Poker with a bang, as they will be airing 35 final tables on their video streaming site, espn3.com. Trust me, if you're a poker fan, this time of the year is a bonanza. If the phrase "Well, I had a pocket pair of fours, moved up to trips on the flop, fell behind when the fish pulled a bigger set out of his ass on the turn, but got saved with a one-outer to have quads on the river and scoop the pot" confuses you and or disgusts you.. well.. I'd say you have no poker soul

Taking a week off from the Funspot..

But don't worry, I'll have some thoughts on the Week That Was on Monday.

Rough day for next-gen MMOs

Well, we knew that Blizzard were working on their next-generation MMO Titan since 2006... and they're going to be working a bit longer as they basically did the "shake an etch-a-sketch" with the product, reassigning 70% of the group that was assigned to the product, leaving a core to make "large design and technnology changes" to the game, and now, the game is likely to have been a decade in development before it sees release... in 2016. Looks like we'll have a couple more "milk the base" expansions of World of Warcraft before then.

And in closer release news, Marvel Heroes was supposed to hit early release Tuesday, but unfortunately, they've discovered serious issues which meant the game wouldn't be ready today, and that's despite "96 straight hours of work" from its developers. They're hoping to open soon, but we'll see if this affects the game when it eventually comes out.

And in not so MM-Online games, looks like Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep will hit next month, and it will be the best game of Bunkers and Badasses (the BL version of D&D) EVAH.. well thebest game of B&B ever run by a foul mouthed, quite possible insane tweenaer with a fondness for high explosive. But nice to see the folks at Gearbox try something so different/silly with their final campaign DLC for Borderlands 2.

Microsoft has 99 problems, and the Xbox One.

Yes, one more Xbox One post.

But don't worry, it's the last one until at least E3, mostly because you're probably as tired of reading them as I am of writing them.

When noted non-Video Games site Forbes.Com writes a story about the "five biggest problems with your box", you know you have issues. It means that you can no longer dismiss the issues with the new Microsoft product as just propaganda and misunderstandings that a few killer games could fix.

It's obvious to all and sundry that either Microsoft were not ready for the reaction they got when they unveiled the Xbox One. They are constantly backtracking statements made by Microsoft spokesmen, and offering a bunch of nebulous "Plans haven't been finalized" bovine excrement when being quizzed about things like how lending games to a friend will be handled.

So one of two things are going on here.

Either they didn't have core protocols in place for how the whole system will work (for Used Games, etcetera) prior to the big reveal SIX MONTHS before we're expected to be purchasing this system... or they did, and completely misread the reaction they would get.

Considering how instantly polarizing these things are, I don't know what bothers me more, that they would be spending the last few months of a development lifecycle frantically throwing together such expansive plans.. or that they misread their customers and blithely expected that there would be a positive reaction to a games box that does everything but play games, (and those games look for new and innovative ways to change the way game players play games, all for the negative..)

Can Microsoft recover from this to be the winner (or even competitive) in this generation? Sure. It's a years long race, and things can change. However, Microsoft has not started well. It's a two person race (Nintendo is out of it in this generation, probably), and while Sony's car is still pretty much stuck in neutral, Microsoft is pointing in the wrong direction, and putting the pedal to the metal.

The Friday Funspot for 5/24

Let's see.. nothing much happened this week right.. er.. right?

Oh, Right.

Anyway, let's hit the Friday Funspot:

Xbox One: The first ever FBI-approved Console

I know, I know it seems like every day I'm finding new things to hate about the next Xbox console from Microsoft.

Well, that's because I am finding new things to hate.

Here's the latest bit of insanity:

"In one scenario, Kinect used its facial recognition software to scan a room full of people and determine there are people there it didn't recognize. It then told the console owner that there is someone in the room that it didn't recognize and asked the new person to identify themselves. Once the person said their name, Kinect welcomed them and saved their information to the console."

I'm sure that there is no way that this information could be hacked and used for nefarious purposes. Nope. No siree bob. What's next? Scan the room and prevent a R rated movie from playing if there are people under 17 in the room? Xbox One is a walking, talking (it is supposed to have a Siri like talking interface sometime during launch or shortly thereafter) privacy violation. I don't understand how Microsoft could get it this wrong.

It's a standing-eight count for the Fight Night Series

With EA Sports acquiring the UFC license, it was a natural to wonder what was going to happen with EA's OTHER Combat Sports series, Fight Night. It stood to reason that they likely didn't have enough backing, or an audience to release BOTH a Boxing game and a UFC game in the same year.. so one of them had to step back, and it looks like Fight Night's going to be the one standing in the corner for the forseeable future.

Yooooooo, JOE! The Card Game that is

Saw the news that they're making a mobile device card game based on the GI Joe cartoon. And normally, I'd scoff, call it a cash grab, or what have you.. but apparently the folks who make it are really big GI Joe fans.. they even are going so far as to negotiate for the rights for Sgt Slaughter and William "The Refrigerator" Perry. Yes.. if they appeared in the cartoon, or the toy line the cartoon shilled for, they want them in the game.

That's dedication.

Capcom offers 17 arcade games for the price of.. Um...

That's the problem with using Microsoft Points, you can't easily say things like 3 games for the Price of 2 or what have you.

But it's interesting to see Capcom offer all the arcade games it made from 1984 to 1988 in one big bundle (previously they had been available piecemeal)

Unfortunately, no Street Fighter in the list, but they do have some really good ones, like Black Tiger (featured in the novel Ready Player One), 1942 (and its sequel 1943), and hidden game Vulgus (which had no pre-set levels, just threw more difficult waves of enemies at you till you died.

And finally.... Atari dies (again).

Not to surprise anyone, but no one wanted to fork out the bucks for the Atari catalog, so they're going the THQ method and selling off their assets before the bankruptcy court tried to put the stake in the heart AGAIN. (seriously, they've gone through what, five, six, more iterations at this point). The company hopes to earn up to $22 million, so if you have a spare $3.5 million hanging around, you can buy the rights to the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, down to a mere $250,000 for Total Annihlation. That is, the series Total Annihilation, not Atari's Total Annihilation.

Although at this point, I think that folks who owned Atari systems and games WOULD prefer that Atari suffer Total Annihlation, rather than continuing to sully the name of a video game classic. 

The more I hear about Xbox One..

The less I like it.

Apparently, the big deal about the online connection is because Microsoft wants to offload as much of the computing power off the Xbox One as possible, and do it in the "cloud".

Fine, in theory.

Crappy in practice.

Here's a choice section from the New York Times article on the differences between how the PS4 and Xbox One function (I think I'm going to start referring to the Xbox One to as the X1, just as a shorthand.)

[b]So what does that mean? Imagine a typical game: there are characters in the foreground that interact with the player, and a background landscape with trees, hills or an ocean. Don Mattrick, Microsoft's head of interactive entertainment business said Microsoft’s new servers, which the company increased to 300,000 from 15,000 currently used by the Xbox 360, will be able to do some of the work creating images for that background landscape and then stream them back to the console and TV, while the Xbox One focuses on making the characters look as impressive as possible.[/b]

So, if you have a crappy internet connection, (or worse yet, no internet connection at all), your game will not look as shiny as others. That's.. not really a positive in my book, especially in an age where ISP's are always threatening data caps, and in households that might see multiple devices running full speed on an internet connection.

As for Backwards Compatibility.. and why not including it isn't a big deal?

[b]Microsoft’s Mattrick says he doesn’t think compatibility is really a problem. He said only 5% of customers play older games on a new videogame system anyway, so spending time and money to develop technology to allow them to play older games isn’t worth it.

“If you’re backwards compatible, you’re really backwards,” he said.[/b]

Yup, we're backwards for wanting to be able to play a software library we spent a thousand or more on (that sounds like a lot, but that's only 20 games at $50 each, which is less than what most games go for.

You know what the real driver is, at least what I think the real driver is? Microsoft's afraid that with all the restrictions on Xbox One content (no trading games, need a solid internet connection to get the best out of it), folks will play their old games on it.. and that earns Microsoft no money.

Well, that won't likely be a problem for me, as I won't make the step up, unless there's some real killer games..

More info on Xbox One.

And the more I hear, the less I like.

Requires the Kinect to even turn on.

Requires once-a-day online connection.

Full price installs to loan a game to a friend.

Folks, I don't swear on 8 bit mind much, but I suggest that Microsoft go back and look for the place they lost their fucking minds, because this is a drumbeat of stupidity.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.. (Xbox One Revealed)

So the NeXbox is officially Xbox One.

Mixed thoughts trending towards negative.. a lot was the "everything but gaming" stuff I so decried about the PS4 reveal.

With E3 just a couple weeks away, that was pretty much to be expected.

But when you're touting a strategic partnership with EA Sports (nothing exclusive or different) as one of your big reveals, as well as timed exclusives to DLC for Call of Duty Ghost (not the main game, just the DLC).. it's extremely light on games..

Two big negatives here, as expected, Microsoft has a "feature" where if you want to play an Xbox game on more than one account, you have to pay Microsoft for the privilege. This seems to end the used games/rental games market before it starts. That's going to be a big depressor to me, as I like to try games before I buy them.  The second big negative is backwards compatibility.. or lack thereof. Sorry folks, I have about $1200 worth (original purchase price), and you want me to pay $500/$300 (depending on what rumors you believe and what service plan you go with) to lock me out of that content? Pass.

Let's see where it goes, but again, I'm a gamer. If I want to watch TV, I'll watch my cable box. If I want to use Skype, I'll use my PC. Show me next gen games. Show me a reason to purchase it. Xbox One has not done that yet.

Why is EA getting rid of the Online Pass not necessarily a good thing?

We have a company who has been ultra aggressive about monetizing their content. Let's look at the moves they've made to aggressively nickel and dime the paying customer:

Season Pass Content "Pay us $25 now, and play them 72 hours before each one releases! (You'll still have to buy the game). And a free hit towards our Weekly DLC money gravy train!

"Cheats" DLC: Want another extra home recruiting state in NCAA? How about some additional stadiums for FIFA.. or maybe some extra cards for the Ultimate Team mode? Yup.. we can do that for you.. for a price, of course.

Online Pass: You didn't buy new, did you, you dirrrrrrrtttyy pirate. You're playing our game without paying us. We don't care that we already got paid for that copy, we didn't get paid again when you bought it. So, we're locking down about 45% of the game till you kick in at least $10 to make our coffers richer.

Needless to say, EA has been grasping with both hands, so are we to expect they'll suddenly decide, out of the goodness of their hearts, that they'll remove one of the toll bridges, especially one that they hate. EA has been at the forefront of claiming that used game sales hurt the industry.

No.. Instead, I think, they're trying to get someone else to play the heavy for them.

It's long been rumored that Sony and Microsoft have anti-used games features built into their next generation systems (Sony holds a patent on blocking used games, for the next Xbox,, it's rumored that Microsoft has a built in check that can be sent on a game by game basis to require an always on connection, with the requisite checking of disc details._

It's no more than a rumor at this point (and I don't think tomorrow's Xbox reveal will do much of anything to debunk that), but call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think that EA's going for the bump in goodwill now by announcing it, and then hoping Microsoft and Sony take the blame when used games are locked out.

An extra large (and extra late) Friday Funspot for 5/17/13

Sorry about the delay.. but there's a lot to get to, so let's get the Funspot underway.

E3 or not to E3. That is the question....

Interesting bit of news, as low-end Android gaming console Ouya is amongst the companies to diversify AWAY from the E3 show floor (likely to be dominated by the new PS and new Xbox and all that goes with it), by running their floor.. from the parking lot across the street. While that's kinda cool, it does also say low budget to me. Not that's a surprise.. I do think that future versions of the Ouya could be kind of interesting, but the low-end stats (beaten by two generations of Android phones and tablets already, before the console hits full release), and demand that all games be free or freemium (with real money purchased content) means that they have a very long road to relevancy.

Nintendo to hold mini-E3 at... Best Buy???

And speaking of E3, We already knew that Nintendo wasn't going to be a huge presence at the gaming showcase, but this is an interesting way to step around the hoopla, holding 100 "mini-E3" events at Best Buy stores across the US and Canada all during the week of E3, featuring new and games coming to Wii U in the future. It's an interesting bit of synergy, and I'll be interested to see how this goes.. not to mention the fact that if it wasn't for the new systems being demoed, E3 would be more like E1.75

And if you just hit Powerball, you may want this..

UK retailer Costco is offering a replica F1 vehicle set up for racing games... for a mere 90 thousand pounds. I do like the classification as an ultrabook in the Costco system. More like an ultramegasuprultimabook, huh?


Version of Madden 25 to offer free access to Sunday Ticket

Interesting, for those of you who are football junkies, but can't get DirecTV where they are (like I am, our house can't receive the HD signals due to trees), or find the price of the Sunday Ticket Max package to be intimidating, you may want to keep an eye on Amazon. EA will be offering a special 25th anniversary edition of NFL 25 (so named for the length of time the game's been around), for $100, but the extras are huge.

It offers 17 free weeks of extras through Madden Ultimate Team, and a code for free Sunday Ticket. That's about $400 worth of stuff (if you already have DirecTV, you just enter the code, and can watch it on your TV, if you don't, you can watch it on your smartphone, tablet, or computer).

Interesting, and here I was thinking that Madden was a pretty good deal when you got it with a subscription to a certain sports magazine..

Nintendo Up...

Nintendo has an announced a deal with Sega for an exclusive to the next three Sonic titles. Two of them are already known (Sonic: Lost Worlds and Mario and Sonic at the Sochi Winter Olympics), while the third is yet unannounced. While Sonic is nowhere near the system seller that they were in the "good old days", I wish I had a time machine to go back and tell the young me that there'll be a day when Sonic is exclusive to Nintendo.

The young me would probably have the old me committed because I'd obviously be deranged.

And Nintendo Down....

Well, the relationship between EA and Nintendo hasn't been anywhere near good lately, but this is probably icing things over just a wee tiny bit.

EA Sports senior Engineer Bob Summerwill responded to a story that said EA had no games at all in the pipeline for the WiiU with a couple tweets that were brutally honest. Emphasis on the word brutal.

"The WiiU is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet. Nintendo is walking dead at this point. Nintendo still thinks its 1990." and went on to say that Nintendo would have been better served by farming their core characters (the Marios/Links/etcetera) out to other gaming systems

Folks, this is like being asked the proverbial question "Honey, does this dress make me look fat", and saying "No, at least not compared to Jabba the Hutt."

Again, it's honest, and probably true, but ow. Though the tweets have since been deleted, if Nintendo DOES pull out of the tailspin, you can imagine some frosty conversations between Nintendo and EA going forward.

Ubisoft creates a game about taking other people's loot.. while trying to prevent other people from taking your loot.

It sounds kinda bizarre, but you can consider The Quest for Mighty Loot a simultaneous tower defense/attack game. You build your castle to protect your loot. You set up traps, monsters and winding paths to prevent others from getting the stuff you stole fair and square. Meanwhile, you're off raiding other people's castles to steal their undeserved loot.

Intriguing. We'll see how it turns out, the game's entering closed beta soon

They called it Loadout.. because Gunporn is too accurate a name

Looks like Uber Entertainment, the folks behimd the endlessly amusing Monday Night Combat series, have their next game out in beta (available in Steam Early Access) called Loadout. Loadout is a Freemium shooter with an insane amount of weapon customization. I'm not talking about a new and better AK-47.. we're talking stuff that would make Borderlands 2 folks go "Bwuh" in sheer overload of options. We're talking a level of customization that would make Team Fortress 2 folks cry into their infinite collection of hats.

Check out the game on Steam (it's pay to access in beta) here

Slight delay on the Funspot..

As I Tweaked my knee, and cellphones aren't exactly great for writing out columns.

Further proof Nintendo has the engine in reverse gear.

One more thing before I run out the door this morning:

Nintendo is using copyright grounds to force their ads on "Let's Play" videos.

Utterly backasswards, is all I can say

next Xbox: "Upload your lets play videos without needing any special software straight from the box!"

Next Playstation: "Upload your lets play videos without needing any special software straight from the box!"

Next (current) WiiU: Screw you. We don't make it easy, and we're going to inject our ads into your stuff. Because we're Nintendo, that's why!

(then again, I guess Ninteno does need the free advertising.. with the current Wii U install base, they'll make what, $50? $100 in free advertising?)

EA to do away with Online Pass feature.

Saw this story on Kotaku about EA discontinuing the Online Pass program. Very interesting. Considering that companies have tried for years to create an incentive to buy new (otherwise known as the buy used, pay us $10 tax), it's interesting to see where EA will be going with this. I'll have further thoughts on this later today.

The Bureau: XCom Declassified makes me do a U-Turn

I will freely admit that when they announced that XCOM (back before the Turn Based Version was revealed) would be remade in the 50's, I grimaced.

The graphics weren't what I was expected.
The time line wasn't what I expected.
The gameplay wasn't what I expected.

THIS WAS NOT XCOM.

Thankfully, they listened and gave us XCOM.

Now, they're giving us XCom again, just in a different manner.

Look at this game play video of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (what used to be XCOM before XCOM)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2aVslpAb17c#!

Wow.

That's.. That's XCom... Not QUITE the XCOM, but a hell of a lot better then what I was led to believe.

Oh, and please, Please, PLEASE give us Mass Effect 3 style Multiplayer.

Another sport goes on EA Lockdown

Saw the recent news that EA Sports has signed an exclusive deal with FIFA extending nearly a decade (through FIFA 22, I believe). FIFA has been one of a few positives for Electronic Arts in past years, consistently and constantly growing by leaps and bounds.

Thankfully, this deal is not as restrictive as say, the NFL/Madden deal.. since the NFL is the only major American Football League, the fact that EA had signed them to an exclusive deal pretty much locked everyone else out of the football market. This move is designed to protect the series against the Pro Evolution series of games.

No Post This Morning..

Let's put it this way:

Local bowling alley (candlepin) offers $9 "all you can bowl" from 8-10PM, shoes included
Friends are out doing other things.
A lane totally to yourself..

yeahhhhhh...

that's 5 and a half strings of bowling (three balls per frame, 10 frames per string.. somewhere tothe north of 170 deliveries. Finally, my body (mostly my shoulder, but also my back and knees) say "No Mas"

This morning?

My shoulder feels like a side of meat, just hanging there.

Ow.

More later, when less ow.

The Friday Funspot for May 10th

Greetings, Programs! (sorry, just rewatched the original Tron..)

Let's see what's going on.

Blizzard's World (of Warcraft) is getting smaller

Latest quarterly subscriber information is in, and the numbers are getting worrying for Blizz.. down another 1.3 million or so subscribers, down to about 8 million. Now, don't get me wrong, that's still the 800 lb gorilla of the MMO world, but it's got to cause some worries for the suits at ActiBlizzard. They've managed to commoditize (spell check says that's not a word, I say whatever) their other games (the Diablos, the Starcrafts) well, although that has it's own set of problems (see Blizzard shutting down the Real Money Auction House for days due to a gold duping bug that was introduced in the latest patch).

It's very hard for "pay" to compete with free, and that's what Blizzard has to do, with the competitors offering little or no initial buy in. It's very hard to convince someone to pay $200 a year or so to play your game while other people are offering the base game for free.

Again, don't cry for Blizz, they've made tons of money, and still will make money (albeit a lower amount), going forward, but at some point, the latest $50 expansion gravy train is going to grind to a halt, and it'll be very interesting to see where they go from there.

Precursor Games rises from the ashes of Silicon Knights

You remember Silicon Knights, right? The company that bought rights to use the Unreal Engine, made a crappy game, sued Epic Games for not sharing the secrets of, you know, not making crappy games, got countersued for misapproriation of trade secrets and misuse of the license, and got taken to the legal cleaners as a result?

Well, the folks from that studio have started a new company (Precursor Games) and are trying to crowdfund  a sequel to their hit Eternal Darkness.

Somehow, I have a feeling they'll have a problem finding someone to license a graphics engine from..


Guess Who's Back, Back Again, Sid Meier's Back. Tell a friend.

Yes, that is a dated reference. So are most of the actual games that Sid Meier actually worked on, as recent versions of the games he's known for (like the Civilization series) have had nothing really to do with him except crediting him as the originator of the series.. is back.. but before you start to salivate, here's the details..

It's a semi-port of a World War I flying game, turn based, for Iphones/pads. Not saying it's a bad thing, but it's a far far way away from making games that "stood the test of time"



Sony's thinking everything will come up roses with PS4 launch

Fresh off making their first profit from their games division in five years (and that mostly because they don't actually, you know have to make the consoles as much anymore), Sony recently said they do not forsee "major losses from the launch of the PS4, unlike the PS3".

Honestly, I'm a cynic here. In this market, releasing a new system at a rumored high price point.. the only way that this doesn't lead to a major loss for Sony is if they sell really well, something I don't see with the high price point in a recovering economy


And Finally... "Rock Not Included"

They announced the goodies that will be in the Rome: Total War Collector's Edition (what I call the Shiny box), retailing for $155. Amongst the items, a Total War Card Game, an ancient Roman Board Game, Ancient Roman Dice (back when the phrase "Rolling the Bones" meant literally that).. and the big seller here.

A kit that allows you to assemble your very own Roman Siege Catapult (called an onager).

If you remember the movie line say it with me now..

"You're going to put someone's eye out with that thing.."

Apparently EA HAS learned from SimCity debacle

They just announced The Sims 4, and the one of the first things they say, even before selling the PR is that Sims 4 will NOT require an always on Internet Connection, and will be playable off line in single player.

They then doubled own on making sure there was NO confusion in the Q&A

[b]Q: Will there be an online component for The Sims 4?
A:There will be additional fun and social gameplay elements for players who choose to go online (more to come on that later on) but the core game is designed to be played offline. It’s up to the player to choose how they want to play.

Q: Will The Sims 4 require a persistent online connection?
A: You will not require a persistent online connection to play The Sims 4.[/b]

 Apparently, EA finally realized that they left their hand on a hot stove and got burned (badly), and now are being very careful not to stick their hand near any hot stoves.








 

Nintendo gets eviscerated in money.cnn.com report.

Here's the review.

While I'm not in agreement with all of the statements in the article (the Wii grabbed the trend of casual interactive games pretty spot on), it's a damning indictment of the Big N at a bad point right now. Between the Wii U disaster, developers fleeing the system, and then the portable market no longer printing (as much) money, Nintendo's in trouble.

If I was at the head of Nintendo? I'd push for more fun/casual third party games. Come up with something new.. aggressively use the rich history of Nintendo for new games, because the Wii U is a decent system, with some nice twists.. but it is getting blown out of the water right now, and it won't take much to sink their hopes in this generation

ESPN starting to count down the 25 greatest sports video games of all time:

EA is running a weeklong story featuring the best 25 sports video games of all time, (5 Per day).


The first five are pretty solid (Bases Loaded, NFL Street, Ice Hockey, Tiger Woods 12, and Bulls vs Blazers and the NBA Playoffs). Interesting fact, EA Sports only came into being because ESPN threatened to sue Electronic Arts for using a similar name for their sports games (EA Sports Network, or EASN).

Things I expect to see:

Double Dribble
Tecmo (Super) Bowl
RBI Baseball
MLB The Show
Hardball
NBA 2K
EA Sports NHL

I could go on, but it's going to be interesting to see where they go.

The Unholy Alliance: Disney/EA (Star Wars)

Apparently, I am the last to know about today's announcment of the Star Wars/EA Hookup.

As my friend SackAttack (who I am still trying to get to write a guest column or two every so often for 8bitmind) put it, "Welcome to 12 hours ago".

These are the things that I think I'm thinking.

If you think that this means there's going to be a new KOTOR game, you're probably right.

Battlefield Star Wars? Probably.

A Star Wars-ish Dead Space game? Yeah, that too.

Too bad this probably means  the end of the smallbies (yes, that's a word, I don't care what spell check says), use of the Star Wars license. The Star Wars pinball tables were something different and interesting.. but Star Wars is a great license for EA to land, and it fits right in with their idea to have a foundation that multiple titles can be released in.

When I first saw the headline, I thought that EA was going to be Borg'ed by Disney. That would be scary. Disney owns so much of our video memories, our comic memories, and they'd take a big step to enter the full fledged video game market. Thankfully, this is an alliance, not the House Of Mouse taking over.

Ubisoft pulls a SimCity with new release, Marvel Heroes open beta weekend, Aliens developer Bankrupt..

Let's see.. what is there to see this weekend..

Nice to see Ubisoft learned absolutely NOTHING from the SimCity debacle, they released the latest game in the Heroes of Might and Magic series recently.. except no one can play it. Why? They botched the release, filling the Steam forums and the official forums with complaints about freezing, corrupt files, missing music, and more. Although it's not confirmed, it's believed to have something to do with their near-always on DRM. How many of these debacles do we need to go through before folks release that restrictive DRM punishes real customers, not the folks who download it illegally?

Marvel Heroes hit open beta this weekend (a special weekend celebrating the latest release of the Iron Man money machine, excuse me, movie series). And.. the crowd goes mild. I'm not like hearing the scuttlebutt I'm hearing about this. It's a shame, as with City of Heroes gone, there's room for a good superhero MMO to go with Champions Online.

And finally, how broke is Aliens developer Timegate Studios, who recently filed for bankruptcy protection? They owed money to the local pizza place. When you can't pay for two pizzas, that's broke.

The Friday Funspot for 5/3

Planning on doing some traveling on Friday, so you get an early Friday Funspot.. Lucky you!

Well, well, well, an interesting week in the news, so let's get to it.

Lawsuit filed against Gearbox/Sega on Colonial Marines

Saw the story that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Gearbox Software and Sega about the release of recent stinkbomb Aliens:Colonial Marines. According to the lawsuit, the demos shown at E3 and elsewhere gave a misleading picture of the final product, and that Sega embargoed reviews of the game past release date so that gamers wouldn't know that it's a stinkbomb.

While I personally think that Gearbox and Sega took a well-deserved kicking for a bad game, I'm going to say that this is the very picture of a nuisance class-action lawsuit. Basically, they (and by they, I mean the plaintiff's lawyers) are hoping that the companies would rather accept a quick payout (with most of it going to the plaintiff's lawyers, natch), rather then fight a losing PR Battle. 

What Gearbox and Sega did was wrong, but newsflash: Two wrongs don't make a right.

Kickstarter moves inexorably forward

Two bits of information this week, as the Chris Roberts game Star Citizen hit 9 million in pre-release fan funding. This, along with private funding, is going to be funding an ambitious effort that promises over 100 star systems, a tablet companion app, and a free mission pack for every player. It looks like the backer-alpha will be this winter.

Also, 8bitmind favorite Shadowrun Returns is oh so close to release, they ended their backer order phase, and moved to Steam for the remainder of the pre-release phase (which is scheduled to end in June with the game's release).

Nice to see the crowd funding bandwagon is proceeding further.

EA/Wii U spat means no Madden, or NCAA

Man, it's not easy to find a side to like in this little spat, is there? EA Sports titles don't sell well on Nintendo,which is sad, because you have to think the Wii U controller would be ACE for this kind of thing, but if rumors are true, the reason why EA is not releasing their sports games on Nintendo is that EA wants Nintendo to rely heavily on their Steam-competitor service, Origin (with preferred product placement, etcetera), and Nintendo, who never wants to give anyone else a single bit of control over their hardware or software, said no dice, so EA turned around and said "Fine, no EA Sports sellers for you"

As I said, it's not easy to pick a side in this battle.

New Engine for New Release of Call of Duty: Ghosts

Call of Duty had been using the same game engine (with some tweaks each year) for the Call of Duty series since 2005.. so it's no surprise that the next Call of Duty game (which will release on current gen systems on November 5th, and next-generation systems at an undisclosed date), will have a new engine. But I have to call out Activision for a bit of tomfoolery (there's a great word, isn't it?) in their announcement:

This new engine is "coming from the developer who started it all, Infinity Ward".

They're counting on short gamer memories.. sorry, I still remember.

You mean the developer that you bought, and then immediately started looking for ways to withold earned bonuses? The developer that you bought and then sued? The developer you bought and then tried to illegaly break into their computers? The developer you bought that then saw all the main talent leave for a new startup after the above?

Activision may have the name Infinity Ward, but that's all they have, and shame on Activision for trying to pass off the shell of IW as the real thing.

And Finally, Rogue Employee installs BitCoin software on eSports client.

Saw this story about how a rogue employee at ESEA, one of the larger eSports Leagues out there.. enabled a BitCoin client on the eSports software, causing a spike in CPU and GPU usage, as temperatures soared to nearly 90 degrees Celsius. (here's a hint, the boiling point of WATER is 100). He made off with about $3,300 in the digital currency before this was discovered, the employee was found and disciplinary action is forthcoming. The disciplinary action should be two words. "You're fired" and three more words "Referred for prosecution)

Neverwinter opens (officially in soft beta)...

And I'd love to tell you how it plays, but there's currently several thousand people ahead of me waiting to get in.

Funny moment, there's a glitch in the counter that tells you how many people are ahead of you in line.. earlier today it went from 3200 (and counting down slowly), to 6366, back and forth. I even joked

"Go home, queue counter, you're drunk"

It's like a Microsoft install right now, you never know how long it's going to take.

WATCH_DOGS given a release date, Game Dev Tycoon chastises pirates in a ironic way..

WATCH_DOGS is one of the more interesting games out there, and it looks to be a bridge title between current generation, next generation and PC systems. It raised a lot of interest with it's open-world hacker mythos where the game's antiheroes can actively hack electronic devices, learn details about people they meet on the street, and even more.

I've been waiting for this one a while, and I'll be waiting a bit longer, but at least there's a release date, today it was announced that the title would release on PC, Xbox360 and PS3 on November 19th. It also will be a PS4 launch title, and is scheduled for the NeXbox).

And I have to admit, that while I'm pretty anti-DRM, I have to give a thumbs up to the folks who made Game Dev Tycoon (now, admittedly, no points for originality, it's a PC ripoff of the iOS/Android game Game Dev Story from Kairosoft), but they released the game with no DRM, except for a very specific version they placed on a pirate site.

This version had a message where after a good amount of time, a message pops up:

"Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked copy instead of buying it legally. If players don't buy the games we like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt"

From that point on, the company sales go down due to pirate copies, and the company's funds dwindle.

Now, I have a problem with the contents of the message, as no less then the Supreme Court has held that copyright infringement is NOT stealing/theft.. but at least they have a sense of humor about it.

Why Steam is dangerous to my wallet...

This just happened:

"Hmmm.. wonder what's up on Steam "

*loads steam home page*

"Hey, Ticket to Ride is a Steam deal.. I'd never play that in board game form, too much buy in, not to mention I know nobody here who plays it... but for $6.00 with all the DLC.... sure."

(adds)

"Oh, another weekly deal, Defense Grid, the Awakening? With all the DLC for $5? Sure, why not."

"Oh, hey a couple new games, a new 4X game and it's 10% off because it's a new release.. *adds StarDrive for $30*" (See Footnote)

"And hey, Mars War Logs.. any sci-fi RPG that's $20 and gets compared to Mass Effect (the original) and doesn't get completely crushed in the comparison.. that's a must get right?"

All of a sudden, I'm $60 in the hole. That's the insidious nature of Steam. It pulls you in, and pushes the impulse buy button hard.

Footnote: I really wish I had read the community hub page for StarDrive before I had added it in. As a new game, MetaCritic and other such sites didn't have much on it when I looked. However, when I was installing the game, I went to the community hub page, and the consensus there seems to be "There may or may not be a good game in here, but there's so many bugs in the way we can't tell yet." Eek.

The Friday Funspot for 4/26

Well, things have picked up this week, and not always in good news, either.

1) EA enters the "Game of Knives" phase

What's the Game of Knives phase? It's where a company has started to go downhill, and folks realize that sadly, layoffs and restructurings are going to be the normal way of life going forward, so the rules are simple. Plant YOUR knife in their back before they plant theirs in yours.

Earlier this month, it was announced that EA was "refocusing" its mobile efforts, shutting down the Sims Social, and other such underperforming mobile games. This goes further. They're shutting down the "EA Partners" label, which was responsible for Rock Band. Two studios (PopCap Vancouver and Quicklime Studio were shut down entirely).

This is definitely a period of retrenchment and it will be interesting to see how (or even perhaps IF) the company pulls themselves out of this one.

2)The hottest MMO of the year 2025 will be...

Well, that release date may be a bit pessimistic, but honestly, when you announce a game in 2006, and it's still in pre-alpha in 2013.. Duke Nukem is looking at you and going "Dayumn.". This dubious accomplishment belongs to CCP Studios (who I think I'm legally obligated to remind you makes EVE Online), and the World Of Darkness MMO. This year, they're apparently working on "working on out-of-game web-based social tools, clothing systems, and PvE game environments. There are also plans to work on item creation, but direct crafting is probably not on the cards"

(pause)

Yeah. Don't hold your breath for this one to come out any time soon.

3) The board game based on the comic game based on the movie based on the comic book..

Wow. That's a mouthful. But that's what Cryptozoic's Arkham City: Escape board game is. One player controls all of the Bat's close friends and confidants (or in otherwords, all the loonies locked up in Arkham Asylum).. and the other player of course plays Batman. Low, scratchy growly voice hopefully optional. The baddies try to escape, Batman tries to beat people up, well you know how it goes. Batman is always trying to beat people up.

4) The XCOM Game that was XCOM then wasn't XCOM is now XCOM again as a prequel to XCOM

(Note to self: FIRE my Funspot headline writer. Wait, that's me? Nevermind).

Well once again, it is what it is. The XCOM game that gamers hated because you know, it wasn't XCOM, then was shelved because another XCOM came out that was actually XCOM, is now renamed as prequel to XCOM. It's going to be called The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and serve as the origin story for the modern XCOM initiative in the XCOM TBS game. Apparently you'll have a squad of agents who slowly find out that the biggest problem of the Kennedy Administration isn't the Reds, it's the Greys.

5) Don't expect huge news out of Nintendo at E3

One of the traditional post-E3 press games is "Who had the best press conference" This year, probably wisely, Nintendo is staying OUT of this race, as they will not have the big press debuts that Sony and Microsoft will have (instead focusing more on small directed playable gettogethers). Let's put it this way, the Wii U has some distance to go until it is just merely disappointing, and with the behemoths both having new shiny consoles with ubergraphics and wow moments galore, there's probably no way that Nintendo wouldn't be blown out of the water.

If you listen very carefully...

You can hear it, hissing through the series of tubes and trucks that is the internet (yes, that's a joke folks)

What is it?

People on the Internet, picking up torches and pitchforks, and prepared to rabble rouse, threaten boycotts, etcetera.

Why?

Because Mac Walters, the head writer of Mass Effect 3, announced that he will be taking the same role with Mass Effect 4.

Walters earned the emnity of a large group of Mass Effect fans by defending the game's controversial ending, stating that "he didn't think the majority of Mass Effect fans had an issue with Mass Effect 3's ending and that it was just a very vocal minority."

Of course, telling such a group that their opinion didn't really count for much, is probably not a great idea, especially when they're very vocal about it.

So, even though we're quite a ways off from Mass Effect's next release (he stated they're not going to call it Mass Effect 4), it's reopening some very painful wounds upon some of the game's most fervent fans.

I won't sugar coat it, I thought the ending sucked. I still do. I think they did a decent job in trying to fix it, but there are those that are upset, with pretty good reason too. I can't say this pitchfork and torches effort will go far (remember the group of fans who swore they'd boycott Left 4 Dead 2 because they felt that more free stuff should be in the original Left 4 Dead 1.. that group was actually more likely to purchase L4D2 then not)... but in the game of PR, it's probably not a great way to start.

(By the way, how much do you want to bet that the next Mass Effect game will be on the NeXbox as an anchor game to sell systems?)

You know, this would explain a lot why she's being kidnapped all the time...

Well, it DOES....

Xbox announcement coming on May 21st, plus further thoughts

Here's what we know.

The next Xbox will be officially announced 5/21, likely for a US Release in the holiday season 2013. We know some of the base specs. But there's so much we don't know. The price. A lot of the features. Whether it requires an always on Internet connection.

And the more I think about it, what may not be right now, may be right for the console long term.

Look, new consoles are going to be pricy. They are using relatively new tech, and the economy of scale means that until they can produce in such numbers to bring the individual pricedown, that it will be pricy. Even at the rumored price point for a full fledged box of $500, it's likely going to be a loss on sale for Microsoft.

And as for the Always-Online version, I still don't like it, but I'm understanding it more and more. Look, we're on the verge of revolutions when it comes to internet connections, even in rural areas, as well as a change in the way we consume content.

Stuff like Google Fiber has the capability to make the current speeds we get look like chump change. They are making the current Internet companies sweat.. not to mention uber-free wifi which is being pushed in some areas. Again, it's not here yet, so it may be onerous requirements now but it may not be at the future midpoint of the next-xbox (NeXBox?) lifespan.

And the media capability, well, you're definitely going to be needing an online connection for that, anyway.. and that seems to be the focus of the leaks so far, it certainly isn't games/gameplay, right now. I saw an article in a pop culture/sports website today that posits the theory that the way we consume media is changing. We used to buy physical items (CD's, audio/video tapes, DVD's), etcetera. Now, we buy a stream of bits and bytes (Netflix, Pandora, ITunes, Hulu, etcetera). And even now, the way we consume music is transitioning again, as streaming audio (where you don't even get a seperate file on your computer) is the fastest growing area in the music industry.

Who's to say at some point, you won't cut the cable cord, and buy channels "a-la-carte".. what if you just want HBO, Showtime, ESPN and don't want things like the Tennis Channel, Esquire TV, or the Fishing Network? If Microsoft is willing to torque off the cable TV companies, would you see such things being available through the Xbox Media Center? Who knows.

But I'll say this. I'm a Gamer. That's a capital G. PS4 talked about all the stuff besides games, which was relegated to a "Oh, here's Diablo III" sideshow in their presentation. All this extra stuff, to me, is nice, but it's definitely not going to affect the console I buy. I buy consoles to play games.

As the line from Jerry Maguire goes:

Show me the money.

And by that, I mean, show me a reason that I'll want to play games on the Nexbox. You only get one chance to make a first impression, Microsoft. Don't blow it.

There's no business like..

Slow business.

We're in a slow period right now, and I'm working on a follow up to my DRM article, trying out all the different sports sims that are out, and generally falling flat on my face when I'm not working.

But I have a couple ideas for columns, expect to see them in the coming days.

It's cheaper to add bells and whistles..

Then it is to fix or improve gameplay.

That's the thought I'm getting after seeing a ton of stories on what's new in NCAA 14 this year.

When you're stuck talking about halftime marching bands, and the "Oh, oh oh oh oh.." chant from Seven Nation Army.. yeah, you've run out of things to talk about.

We need competition in the video game market, and we're just not getting it.

Friday "Fun"spot for 4/19

Sheesh, another crazy day, as my city is basically locked down. But hopefully it's all over soon. The Fun must flow!

Next-Gen Xbox Kinect to be integrated, feature face tracking?

Saw several stories that the next generation xbox (Durango, Xbox 720, or just plain xbox) will have built in Kinect 2.0, and will possibly have a feature to use facial recognition technology, for example, to pause the video when you look away. Maybe I'm getting old, but this sounds incredibly creepy to me.

Free Xbox Live weekend begins...

Well, I'll be a cynic and say they're doing this so people realize that being online is a cool thing and that it's a good thing that it's always on for next-gener.. nah I can't pull that off. Cool thing. Xbox Live will be free through Monday.

Patent Troll gets "edged" out..

I hate patent trolls. Look, I understand that we must defend the right to innovation, but we have a subclass of businesses that does not innovate, they patent wild-ass stuff and do nothing with it then squat on it like a spider and wait for future iterations to come up with something similar, and then extorts money out of them. So cheers to Electronic Arts, the so-called Worst Company In America (which just proves that video game geeks can complain very vociferously online repeatedly) for smacking down a magazine publisher who named his magazine Edge, and then decided to sue EA for making's Mirror Edge, and a couple independent video game companies for having the word Edge in their titles.

The good news is they lost, completely and utterly.
The bad newes is, it took six years to complete.


And finally..

As hopefully the last bits of the week dribble out, my thoughts are with people in Boston, my home city, as at the time I'm writing this, we look to be in the closing stages of the whole thing. Hopefully it's over, and at some point in  the near future, we will reopen the Boston Marathon course, from the town I work in (Hopkinton), to Boston, and we show those who attempted to terrorize it that we will not cower in fear. God bless.

Further proof that the current console market for games is unsustainable..

Capcom knows what they need to do to make the money they are used to rolling in. No, not make better games that sell more (although that would be nice). No, it's pulling more stuff away from the customer and making them pay again if they want it. And this is from a company that already locking stuff away on the DISC that you buy, to make you pay for it!

As the destructoid article says.. the plan is to aggressively increase the amount of DLC sold for a game.

Honestly, at this point, why not go all the way and say "Upgrade Ryu's Hadoken to unlock its full potential! Only 400 Microsoft Points".

Ridiculous.

Resuming normal service...

Just a bit of dribs and drabs, as we resume normal service here at 8 bit mind:

Another strike against the Ouya was released recently.. they tested the Ouya console against other devices (such as tablets and smartphones), and the Ouya was listed as the 49th most powerful device. This falls well short of devices currently in the hands of the public such as the Galaxy Note S III, the HTC  One XL, and Google's Nexus 4. And the upcoming generation of devices, coming out later this year, are benchmarked at twice as fast as the current ones that the Ouya was tested against. This probably means the Ouya, at least in its first generation, will be a proof of concept, with a limited market aimed at homebrewers, emulator enthusiasts and the like.

So, Injustice, the DC Heroes fighting game by the makers of Mortal Kombat is out. First impressions are pretty much the same as the demo, and it's a bit disappointing, as it could be so much more. Give me an open world super heroes game with recognizable characters and the depth that this fighting game has apparently gone to, to tell a story, and I'd be a happy guy.

Looks like the Divinity series will be getting another game in the series, as the kickstarted game Divinity: Original Sin has more then reached their $400,000 goal with nine days to go. If you want to kickstart the game to reach the stretch goals (they are currently at a bit over, $500,000), you can click here.

Neverwinter's final beta weekend (open to founders) has passed, and the game will be entering open beta, open to backers on the 25th through 27th, depending on level of purchase, and then open to all, free to play on the 30th. We'll see if this staggered start helps the usual server meltdown on opening days.

And finally, a bit of a laugh, someone's suggested a new game mode in Counterstrike with the addition of a joke setup that allows you to play a Mario Knockoff in Counterstrike (yes, a game in the game). One player tries to complete a level of the Mario knockoff, and the rest of the team tries to protect him from the other team, who wins if the player loses all his lives or times out.

Anyway, that's the bit for today, Happy Middle of the Week Day.

Thoughts, hours later

I don't know if I'll ever hit publish on this post.... but it's one of those things I have something in my head, and I need to write it down to get it out of there.

We're now at a point where a lot of the basic facts are known about today's tragic incident. Over a hundred injured, and at least two dead from a senseless, cowardly attack on an international event that celebrates pushing the limit of the human body, will and spirit.

I couldn't take anymore. I turned off the TV, and did what I normally do when I need a distraction from the world. I loaded up my steam game list. And then I realized that I couldn't hit play.

I had tried a new F2P shooter game called Warframe last night that I liked. Couldn't hit play. Binary Domain.  Company of Heroes. X-Com. See a trend there?

It's easy to talk about kill/death ratio in shooters, or how we fought off 100 to 1 odds in some fantasy war games.. or complain about how unrealistic the latest game's weapons are.

For a lot of us, on PC and Xbox, we disappear into video games to insulate us from a world that can be cruel and unfeeling. Tonight, I don't think I can disappear into that alternate world. Because it reminds me too much of the world we live in.

Hug your loved ones tonight. And to the first responders whose response was to run towards disaster to treat those gravely injured, rather than away, as most of us would.. Thank you. You are the best of us.

Needless to say..

Today's horrific events in Boston (my home city) preclude any writing about anything about video games today.

Prayers and thoughts for those affected.

DRM: What do you accept, and what do you expect?

Recently, the Shadowrun Returns team (one of the kickstarter-backed games that I follow) announced their release date, and announced that they had worked a deal out with Steam to allow a central place to download community created content, so you could download and install material created by the editor. This meant the game would be sold through Steam, as one of the conditions that the license from Microsoft (who owns video game rights to the Shadowrun Universe) that the game would at least have to have some DRM attached.

They realized that they had promised their backers that a no-DRM version would be available, so they worked out a compromise. The base game (and the first DLC, additional content and an additional campaign, set in Berlin) would be available to backers via a seperate, DRM-free download, but the deal with Microsoft required that any additional content post-Berlin would only be available through steam. Additionally, if someone used content that was only available through Steam, then of course the resulting content would only be playable through Steam.

A reasonable compromise.

Except then a minority of backers LOST THEIR FREAKING MINDS.

They accused Harebrained Schemes (the creator of Shadowrun Returns) of bait and switch tactics. They angrily demanded refunds, saying that they wouldn't accept any DRM in any case. They even said that the release of a DRM-free game with the backed DLC was a "Gimped, non-supported copy".

Unreal.

That gets me to my question.

Now, maybe it's because I come from the real bad old days of DRM, but I find this stance (that no DRM is acceptable) to be overblown, and ridiculous.

Anyone remember Starforce, the company that attempted to make your DVD or CD writer drive unusable? Or later versions, that demanded core-rootkit access? Or the Sony DRM that WAS a rootkit in disguise? Even the small sellers of sports text sims nearly all rely on an activation key that if you suddenly suffer a machine failure, you need to go back to the developer and ask for a new license! Or if you're looking at the olden days, the days of code wheels and "enter the third word on Page 22 of the manual, line 8?"

At least Steam mitigates its protection and small effect on the paying customer with a plethora of positives (The ability to redownload your software on a new computer), and the ability to keep your game patched and up to date automatically). The fact that it adds on an easy place to manage content and easily add it to your game is an added bonus/

So, that's the question I pose to you, my readers.

What kind of DRM do you expect on games these days, and what kind of DRM do you accept?

Before I forget..

The 8BitMind Forums are now open! Chat video games or whatever...

Click here to go there

Hope to see ya there!

A good week for Sports Sim Fans.. 3 new releases this week

For a while, we were kinda in a rut in  the text sim scene. For a while, all we had was the latest graphical releases from the usual suspects, and trust me, there's nothing sadder then a text sim gamer who gets disappointed by a graphical game not playing the way it should, or producing unrealistic results.

But that sadness has gone away, for text simmers as three newreleases this week have come out, and filled the void.

First off, is the latest game in the Out of the Park series of baseball text sims. The latest version, which shipped today to preorders (with a full release scheduled for Monday), allows the intrepid baseball fan to replay all of baseball history, from the days of Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, and Babe Ruth, to the modern superstars today. Ever wonder what would happened if the trade of Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams (that nearly happened in real life) happened for real? You can do that here. Plus, there's a random start option, that can see all the players in history jumbled up, so your 1975 league could see Cy Young pitching to A-Rod, with stats expected in the era (so you can find out how many homers Hammerin Hank Aaron would have in the early 90's, when anyone could hit 30)

Then we switch to golf.. for those of you who aren't joystick junkies, Action PC Golf is scheduled to release this week offering season replays and a bunch of photo-realistic courses to play on. It's a nice change from Tiger Woods, as you sometimes get the feeling that the game's playing you, not you playing the game (that you can't trust the other results it's generating, because you have no idea how the other golfers scores are being generated).

And finally, also in the vein of "throwing a sport's history into a blender and seeing what happens as a result". comes Fast Break Pro Basketball 2013, the latest game in the very highly regarded Fast Break Basketball series. This too, offers a random start setup if you so choose (Jason Kidd to Magic Johnson, who feeds it inside to Wilt Chamberlain for the jam?), but the series has been known for ultra tight, and realistic game play, and indepth player generation (you can generate a player in the series college games, export it as part of a draft class, and then import it into FBPB13 and it remembers all their college history.

So, for the text simmer, these three games, along with perennial favorite Football Manager (what we Yanks call soccer), the beta of OOTP Developments hockey sim (Franchise Hockey Manager) and rumors of continuing work on the front runner Front Office Football series, it's gaming nirvana.

Early Friday Funspot for 4/12

Since I'm about running on 20% efficiency thanks to this cold, and these things usually get worse before they get better, you're getting a Friday Funspot on Thursday, just to make sure you get one, if I'm up to it, normal service will return tomorrow.

Microsoft executive behind controversial statement resigns

Saw the news that the Adam Oerth, the Microsoft executive who made the controversial #dealwithit comment on Twitter (regarding rumors of an "always-on" connection being needed for the next generation Xbox) has resigned. I'm not sure if this is a good thing (he had already apologized, and it's not necessarily anything that should get one fired), but I do think this. If the next generation Xbox doesn't need an always-on Internet connection, then Microsoft is doing themselves a grave disservice by not saying so now. We'll know more next month, but there's a ton of rumors out there right now, which brings us to our next bit..

Next Gen Forza game to be part of Xbox release

Ran into this story over at the Verge.. which states that a next generation Forza title will be part of the launch window release for the next generation Xbox. Driving games can be a big seller, and the Forza series hasn't disappointed me yet, so I'm looking forward to this. Less so "Ryse", a game that was shown as a demo at E3 in 2011, and didn't really set the world on fire, but apparently has been retooled, and according to the developers, is being positioned as the next-generation Halo or Gears of War. We'll see.

PVP/Assassination a big thing in Pathfinder Online?

Came across a story on Massively, which discusses the upcoming Pathfinder Online, and highlights what's sure to be an interesting mechanic. Players will be able to post a bounty on other characters.. which I'm sure will be used for good, not evil (that's a joke).. but a dedicated assassin class, dedicated to killing other players? Eeek. That sounds like a perfect excuse for every griefer out there. "Sorry about killing your character several times in a row.. I'm just roleplaying my class."

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is so 80's over the top..

The recently released trailer for Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon starts with a retro open, as if it's a VHS tape playing, and then it gets even more 80's from there. Let's put it this way, if you removed some of the foul language from it, I would have told you it was the opening to a 80's cartoon, not a video game. But a $15 stand alone? I like it. I'll have to play it, just to see if it reminds me of the days of eating Sugar Coated Frosted Bombs before Saturday Morning cartoons. You can watch the trailer here.

And Finally...They May not be a Deaf Dumb or Blind kid..

But the contestants at the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association's Circuit Finals are playing a mean pinball right now, you can follow the finals live via GamerGeek streaming at http://www.geekgamer.tv/live/