Microsoft has a messaging issue when it comes to their rumored next-gen Xbox. They don’t have any messages, which is the issue.
After the break, let’s look at how Microsoft is losing the PR battle. Continue reading →
After Greg Zeschuk left BioWare, he created quite the stir by saying he’d probably never create another game again and instead devoted his retirement to beer. Not just drinking them, but the process of brewing and selling them. Recently, both he and Ray Muzyka were honored at GDC with a Lifetime Achievement Award and Greg sat down with GamesIndustry International to discuss his game-making days, what it was like working for EA, and why he thinks the next-gen may be at a crossroads.
Also, right now, there is this sort of classic innovator’s dilemma where we see a new market emerging, but it’s not really that great – with the mobile business, certain people make a lot of money but on the whole it’s not generating as much revenue as the console business. Everyone’s kind of holding out hope for the new consoles, but I honestly don’t think they’re going to be that big a deal. I worry a lot that unless Microsoft or Sony pull something magically out of a hat, it’s pretty much the same old, same old repackaged and I don’t think they’re going to change the dynamic of the retail market. I don’t see how they can – the market is what it is.
I don’t get sports. I just don’t. Why do people care so much about teams of dudes who aren’t even from the city they’re representing engaging in excessively formalized, heavily regulated, and ridiculously overpaid contests of athleticism? And why do people who watch sports care so much when most of them certainly don’t play the game they’re watching? Is it just for the cheerleaders? That I could understand.
I do, however, get e-sports because I actually play the games I’m watching. I know the rules, I understand completely how the players feel and the dilemmas they face, and I enjoy the tension and drama of a game without necessarily being inside it. But I feel like a prerequisite for enjoying e-sports is knowing the game at hand.
For instance, Netrunner, a masterfully designed card game of bluffing and asymmetry, with a superlative sense of theming. Listening to a cast of the game really plays up the theming. Experiential Data, Datasuckers, Account Siphons, and Heimdall ICE! “That is a rather mighty server!”, “I’ve seen this before, the old ‘don’t care about tags’ strategy”, and “He has not been lucky running the centrals!” are all proclamations in the above Netrunner cast.
These casts for Netrunner’s clunky but serviceable OCTGN module are narrated by a friend of mine with an actual British accent. He goes by the name Mr. Skinny as he Britishly commentates on the cyberpunk proceedings. A generically bitchin’ techno soundtrack plays discreetly in the background. I don’t know if folks who aren’t hip to Netrunner would get these, but if you’re going to watch a bunch of dudes kick a pigskin around, wouldn’t you just as easily enjoy this weird cocktail of Hugh Grant-a-like, William Gibsonism, and faux Daft Punk?
SimCity has Cheetah Speed again! Woo! Now you can watch traffic jams build up even faster.
Yes, it’s true – we’ve recently brought back Cheetah Speed. We’re also working on Update 2.0, so stay tuned for more info.
Nintendo has a problem with getting third-party next-gen games for their Wii U console. Over the past few weeks, developers and publishers have one by one confirmed that this game or that will not be coming to the Wii U. Is it a crippling issue? Not yet, but let’s look at some of the things that have gone wrong.
Denial after denial after the break! Continue reading →
Timegate is a fantastic developer when it comes to the hard work of actual game design. Kohan was one of the boldest innovations in the history of RTS innovation and Section 8 was one of the cleverest Tribes variations I’ve played. But both games had a tough time creating any sense of identity, starting with Kohan’s weird word soup mythology (Give yourself ten Timegate fanboy points if you can tell me what a Kohan is and 20 Timegate fanboy points if you can tell me the difference between a gauri and a haroun!) and going up through Section 8’s generic space marines with their usual arsenal.
But based on the announcement trailer, if there’s one thing you can’t say about Minimum, Timegate’s newly announced shooter, it’s that it lacks personality.
Defiance is almost entirely about shooting stuff, and therefore the gear grind is almost entirely about the guns. So why then does it get gun progression so horribly wrong?
After the jump, this was my gun Continue reading →
Microsoft’s unlikely high-definition remaster of Age of Kings II is available today on Steam. It’s an interesting historical relic, but some genres stand the test of time better than others. I’m not sure I’d ever choose to play this over more recent RTSs. In theory, I love that there are walls. In practice, walls are always a tough balance to strike. I don’t get the sense that Age II fussed much with striking that balance. I also love the relic victory condition, whereby your monks can set out to collect all the relics on the map and ensconce them in a monastery for 200 years. I was particularly delighted when the AI did this, which meant I had to go kick over his monastery. It’s nice to have a compelling reason to do that sort of thing.
But the interface is killing me. For instance, is there really no attack move? Lord knows, I complained bitterly about the lack of attack move in Age III during the time that it was cut. If I’d known it was a tradition, I might have been a little more understanding. And can I not shift queue certain orders in Age II? If it’s an option, I haven’t figured it out yet. Once my villagers are done building a lumber yard, they then stand around it instead of going to chop trees like I thought I told them to do. And I don’t miss having to replant farms one whit.
But what really kills it for me is the pacing. So little happens for so long. Modern RTSs have worked wonders at dropping you into important decisions early on (Starcraft II) or at least giving you some engaging busywork before the important decisions come along (Age of Empires III). If I wanted a drawn-out build up, I’d play a turn-based game! I love that Microsoft has made this game available again for hardcore retro RTS fans. But I’m afraid I’m not a hardcore retro RTS fan.
343 Industries Executive Producer Dan Ayoub told DigitalSpy that the team is looking at offering cosmetic microtransactions in Halo.
I think Halo certainly has the potiental for those kinds of things. We don’t have too much to talk about in terms of our plans down that line, but it’s certainly something… we’ve seen what the fans of Gears are enjoying, and if it’s something we think our community is going to enjoy, it’s something we’ll seriously talk about.
While the Halo series has sold map packs and cosmetic avatar items, they have not offered in-game microtransactions like the numerous weapon and character skins that Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment sell to players. Halo 4 currently has weapon skins as in-game unlockables.
Activision’s Dan Amrich spoke about the various complicated licensing issues surrounding the iconic 1960’s spy shooter No One Lives Forever, revealing that he doesn’t know who currently owns the license. In fact, no one at Activision or Monolith seems to know.
“The person who I normally talk to about that stuff does not believe that we currently have the rights,” said Amrich. “They’ve never seen it. They’ve never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. They basically said, ‘if we had it, I would love to have been able to reissue those games.'”
Fans of the hard to find shooter have asked for it to be made available again in digital form for years.
Blizzard has purchased the IGN Pro League and will be bringing IPL staff onboard to bring web and mobile content in support of Blizzard games.
“This new team will help us to further develop the rich media experiences that extend the fun and engagement of our games online,” said Itzik Ben-Bassat, Blizzard’s executive vice president of publishing. “This is a team of passionate gamers with a proven track record, and we’re looking forward to now leveraging their expertise and technology to support a variety of online efforts.”
Blizzard had denied any intent to purchase the IPL after IGN announced that they would cancel the IPL 6 tournament that was previously scheduled for Mar 28th.
Paul Thurrott, technology blogger and media analyst for everything Windows, has a few things to say about the next Microsoft console. Following the Twitter incident with Adam Orth, Thurrott confirmed that he’s been told by his sources that the next Xbox will require an always-on internet connection.
More to the point, I think that an always-on Xbox is directly in keeping with Microsoft’s strategy for all next-generation platforms, including Windows Phone (all versions) and Windows 8/RT, which are designed to work as if you are simply connected all the time. Yes, they do work offline, of course. But the apps platform on these systems – which will be replicated on the Windows 8-based next Xbox – assumes a connection. Microsoft’s new platforms are integrated conduits for online services.
He also addressed this issue in his latest What the Tech podcast and talked about pricing strategies he believes Microsoft will use.
The next Xbox is code-named Durango. And we have talked for a while about this notion that there might be another version of the Xbox that was just aimed at entertainment – a non-gaming device. That device was code-named Yumo and they’re not making it. They may make one in the future, but it’s not happening this year.
So the new Xbox that comes out this year will just be the Xbox. I mentioned before that they’re also going to sell a new Xbox 360 code-named Stingray that will be $99. And you might look at that as two things: backwards compatibility, obviously, suggesting – I don’t actually know this for a fact, but based on the fact that they’re making one – I don’t think that the new Xbox will play 360 games. But that I don’t actually know. That I’m guessing. But, the other one is that, $99, that’s a real cool price. And so we know that the Xbox 360 does Netflix, Hulu Plus… and you can make the argument that it’s kind of a low cost entertainment device, too.
Durango is going to be expensive, you know $500, $300 for the subscription, that kind of thing.
Microsoft announced that it has sold its Mediaroom IPTV platform to Ericsson allowing Microsoft to refocus its consumer TV strategy on Xbox.
With the sale of Mediaroom, Microsoft is dedicating all TV resources to Xbox in a continued mission to make it the premium entertainment service that delivers all the games and entertainment consumers want – whether on a console, phone, PC or tablet. And with 76 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world with 46 million Xbox LIVE members, it is a mission that gets us out of bed in the morning.
It is not a mission that we can achieve alone. We want to partner with the industry to deliver the next wave of innovation in games and consumer entertainment. We will partner with content creators, studios, labels, networks, content aggregators, operators and distributors to make this happen. We believe the future of home entertainment is one where TV becomes more simple, tailored and intelligent. We believe the best is yet to come for this industry.
Our vision and energy for the future of entertainment is more focused than ever. Stay tuned.
Two highly publicized role-playing game Kickstarter campaigns were recently funded. Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar raised $1.9 million which allowed backers to hit stretch goals including pets, seasonal weather, and a prequel novel written by Tracy Hickman. InXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera raised over $4 million dollars, becoming the most funded game Kickstarter ever. Stretch goals reached for Torment included the ability to create male or female player characters and writing contributions from Monte Cook and Chris Avellone.
Both games are tentatively scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014.
I remember hearing an odd sound in the wind at certain points in Tomb Raider, as if the wind was blowing over broken glass pipes, as if someone was running a wetted finger along the rim of a wineglass. It sounded almost like stringed instruments playing a single keening note, but very faintly. It was off somehow, unresolved, eerie. It didn’t belong. It might have even been a music cue. So much of Tomb Raider’s music is subtle.
And what I most remember about that sound is that I’d heard it before. It was from some other movie or game. Where did I hear that? I couldn’t figure it out. Until today.
After the jump, mystery solved Continue reading →
