|
|
|
|
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
|
Permalink
|
Is Casual Hardcore's Enemy?
|
|
There is no doubt video games are becoming more and more of an mainstream business these days. Even though video gaming was already a successful business in the past, the clientel was mostly male at a certain age. Far away from John Doe and the typical mass market. Even though this was a great success in general, both console makers as well as development studios and producers are looking for a continous growth of the business. This is how the economy works. 
What I can see nowadays really scares me to a certain extend, as the industry as a whole is clearly targeted towards more digestable and easy games or like some people call them casual games. Well, the term casual might not really hit the spot here as I personally like casual games as well. But the difference between a real casual game and a crappy, cheap video game are really simple: the first being a little snack that is good for 30-45 minutes of quick entertainment for both hardcore gamers as well as beginners, where the latter is just something that is clearly targeted towards people who just started playing video games with no clear idea what's good ad what's bad. Just take at your preferred video game dealer. Walk around the DS and Wii aisle and you know what I am talking about: loads of loads of mediocre games that have been cranked out just to satisfy the demands of the all new video gamers. The recipe is pretty simple: take a known movie or comic character, make a game around it and boom here is your new video game that sells as a full price game with minimal production costs. Add to that all kinds of brain teasers and animal games and you have all you need to make money these days. Even though some of these games might not be too successful, due to the very low production costs, the risk is minimal. Compare to that the effort that it takes to develop a typical state of the art next generation game for PS3 or 360 and you see the big difference. Not only does it require 2-3 years (sometimes even more) to finish such a high profile production, it also takes sometimes more than 100 people all together to actually create the final product. The only problem is, they sell at the same price as the aforementioned crap games. Ok, one could argue that this is ok, as those crappy games will actually sponsor the more expensive games in the end. Well, this is true as long as it is the case. The trend in the industry looks actually different: take a look at the Wii or DS again. It's really hard to find a decent gam on these platforms and if there is one, it comes for sure from nintendo itself. The rest of the industry is using this platforms to sell those high profit games instead of those what a hardcore gamer would consider a good game. Due to that observation I am scared by those latest market trends. The new popularity of video games is good, but what if this means that the industry as a whole is focused more or less on the easy money instead of dealing both customer groups. Sure, there is room for both customer segments, but it is so seductive for producers to go the low risk path instead of staring an unclear multi-million development endeavor. Personally I think it is critical that companies like Sony and Microsoft need to make sure that cistomers understand the value of the both online platform, PSN and Xbox Live. Both companies need to offer easy to approach but nevertheless good games in order to get those new customers slowly to point where they are able to enjoy more complex games. In that respect games like Super Rub'a'Dub or Sudoku are key for those customer. But it's not just enough to develop those games, they obviously need to be advertised at the same time. How can you as a new gamer know about a game like Super Rub'a'Dub that's available on PSN only without having a PS3 in the first place. Coming back to my original point though I can see the day coming (especially in these tough financial conditions) when a lot of the hardcore productions have been replaced by those aforementioned "casual" games. Let's just hope that this is not going to happen, as console platforms like PS3 or the 360 are nothing without the right content. On the other side it is critical for both companies that customers re becoming more mature and demanding in terms of new games, instead of buying Wii Sports 25. In that respect I'll do what I can to bring the PS3 to my family and friends. It just takes a few demos to get them hooked. Happy demoing ;-)
|
|
by Mutsch at 8:29 | 1 Comments
|
Categories: Games
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, December 29, 2008
|
Permalink
|
... and then there was only one left
|
|
 With the Wii finally being breachedand folks have successfully hacked the 360, the Playstation 3 is the only next gen console not yet being "deflowered".
Could it be that the official support for Linux is one of the reasons that this hasn't happened yet? Or Sony just learned it's lessons from the PSP which was an open door right from the start and not really a challenge for the community. The PS3 on the other side has a few special security features that are based on the Cell's capabilities which are of course pure speculations at this time, as Sony wouldn't be stupid enough to tell anybody about it. Let's see how long it will actually take.
|
|
by Mutsch at 19:54 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Development | Linux
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday, December 28, 2008
|
Permalink
|
Xtrem Holiday Gaming Session
|
|
 I am on the way to meet with 4 other folks to celebrate the end of the year with an extended PS3 gaming session. Taking all the DualShocks I can find, grabing all the good multiplayer titles (their are definitely not enouh of those) and collecting all the other required gear (I hope I didn't miss anything) I am looking forward to this event. Open end, of course.
All of the other folks just recently converted to PS3 mostly due to my extensive pre-sales activities and I guess I still have to answer some fundamental beginner questions. Check back later for some pictures and an update of what we played. Did I hear LittleBigPlanet? Yeah. Update: The session took roughly 8 hours including a breakfast and a pizza break. Starting with a Motorstorm session that was followed by a few GT5 races. Then we did a little beginner session with Flow and Rub'a Dub. Then I had to show some of the advanced gaming skill with a few Wipeout HD laps and the demo level of Mirror's Edge. To open the gaming session a little we as well watched a few BluRay disc like the intro of Shoot'em Up and the new Police Certifiable concert, which is by the way an amazing piece of music history. Last but not least: littleBigPlanet, which is unadulterated, pure fun playing with 4 players. Something I can't say of Motorstorm which is really difficult to play on a 4-way split screen. Beside all the online gaming hype that's going on, I can only recommend those physical multiplayer sessions a lot. Who actualy said that video games are killing conversations?
|
|
by Mutsch at 7:18 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Events | Fun | Games | PS3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, December 27, 2008
|
Permalink
|
Eye No
|
|
 I have a Playstation Eye sitting here on my TV since it became available. Remember all the great demos we've seen in the past from Sony R&D? Eye was even part of the first PS3 tech demo at E305. The demo with the water glass, remember? And yes, the camera is really a nice piece of hardware with a great sensitivity. The only problem with it, there are not so many decent games that actually use the camera beyond the obvious use: taking pictures.
Shortly after Sony release Eye a few fresh games came out on PSN. Trails of Topoq is an easy to learn, intriguing game which shows some of the potential of Eye and what you could do with the right ideas. The second game, Feature Creature, is kind of nice too but not so unique and rather a mini game. Beside that there are a couple of visual tech demos that are nothing more than that, nice demos. There is only one other famous exception here: Eye of Judgment. A great game, but not a chart breaker I guess. Where are those other Playstation Eye games that Sony promised us? You can even get more PS2 EyeToy games these days than on PS3. For PS2 you could even get EyeToy Hero and Pom Pom that use a special sword and colored pom poms to track your movements in front of the camera. Nothing on PS3. With Eye and the R&D that has been spend so far, Sony has an asset that none of its competitors has at the moment. The only problem is, they are not leveraging it enough. I really wanna see some of the stuff that Sony has already shown us. Maybe 2009?
|
|
by Mutsch at 22:03 | 1 Comments
|
Categories: Development | Games | PS Eye | PS3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, December 27, 2008
|
Permalink
|
Who is SCE WWS?
|
|
 On my usual periodic update of all the Playstation related websites I was asking myself what the Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios are actually doing on the web. To my surprise there is no single website that reflects the SCE WWS organization. And even worse, who actually is SCE Worldwide Studios? In other words, which studios do belong to that unit? On my research I came across the following list that actually had a few surprises to me:
Europe Japan - SCE Japan Studio - Tokyo, Japan - e.g. LocoRoco
- Polyphony Digital - Tokyo, Japan - e.g. Gran Turismo Series
USA - SCE Bend Studio - Bend, OR - Syphon Filter
- SCE Foster City Studio - Foster City, CA - e.g. Jet Li: Rise to Honor
- Incognito - Salt Lake City, UT - e.g. Warhawk
- Naughty Dog - Santa Monica, CA - e.g. Uncharted
- Sony Online Entertainment - San Diego, CA - e.g. EverQuest
- SCE San Diego Studio - San Diego, CA - e.g. NBA & MLB series
- SCE Santa Monica Studio - Santa Monica, CA - e.g. God of War series
- Zipper Interactive - Redmond, WA - e.g. SOCOM Series
So, all together SCE Worldwide Studios comprises 15 different development studios all scross he world, with three different gravity centers in the UK, Tokyo and California in US. A few of those studios I didn't even know that Sony actually owns some of those studios. So, did you know that Bigbig Studios is owned by SCE? I even thought that Naughty Dog is still a privately owned company. Nope, it isn't anymore. Or did you know about the SCE Bend Studio, which is in charge of Syphon Filter on PSP. Even though this is a recent listing from an official SCE website, I am not so sure if some of those studios are still in operations. There are especially three studios which are highly questionable: SCE Cambridge Studio, SCE Foster City Studio and last but not least Incognito. Anyway, with or without those studios still on board, this is still a quite impressive list of studios, responsible for some of the greatest games on Playstation. None of the other competitors, i.e. Nintendo and Microsoft, can draw from such a pool of talented developers and artists. Unfortunatly, this doesn't mean that those studios are the most successful yet. Good games don't automatically mean great sales figures. But that's not all yet. There are a couple of second party developers that are closely related to Sony which means that they are currently only developing for Sony. Highlights here are of course Insomniac Games with their franchise Ratchet & Clank as well as Sucker Punch with their Sly Racoon franchise and now inFamous. What are really like about all software titles coming from SCE Worldwide Studios is the fact that those titles all share the same level of quality in terms of usability of menus and the overall visual quality of the games. It even starts with the all so familiar Sony Computer Entertainment
presents intro screen. When I see that screen I know I am on the save side when it comes to configuring your controls and so forth. So, let's hope that the financial crisis and its collateral damages will not impact the SCE studios too much. We need more of those hardware selling titles for PS3.
|
|
by Mutsch at 11:55 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Features | Products | Sony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
|
Permalink
|
From Eye of Judgment to ordinary paper ads
|
|
 Remember my post on the CyberCode or Matrix technology that drives Eye of Judgment? Well, it actually arrives in our ordinary world. I just stumbled over this paper ad in one of my car magazines. Believe it or not but this ad actually uses the same kind of technology in a totally different way.
What that Mini ad says, just face the ad to an ordinary webcam when starting up the respective web page and you can hold the new Mini Cabrio right in your hands, on top of the ad. Even though the ad doesn't use the typical CyberCode, it uses three very specific black and white icons that basically tell you what to do. Those icons are obviously used to track the page in the room and determine its position, subsequently augumenting the image taken with the webcam with a 3d model of the Mini. It's kind of funny that it almost took 10 years for this invention to finally arrive in our normal life. Eye of Judgment was just the beginning. Now this is used for marketing any many more use cases. The company behind this is Metaio, specialized in Augumented Reality applications. In order to test this yourself, check out the Mini website (sorry German only) and watch either the Making-of video or download the respective ad as a PDF and do a test drive. At the moment this requires an Windows IE for the required plug-in to be loaded. P.S. Are we going to see another game like Eye of Judgment in the near future? Is Eye of Judgment the only game concept that Sony had in works?
|
|
by Mutsch at 21:01 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Development | Fun | Games | Off Topic
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
|
Permalink
|
What's up 2009?
|
|
 With new years eve just around the corner I guess it's the right time to talk about next year and what the Playstation business looks like a year from now. To begin with, lets look at the market share first.
One of the most anticipated events of 2009 is obviously the next price cut for the PS3. Currently the PS3 is the most expensive consoles of the next generation and compared to the direct competition at least EUR 200 more expensive that the respective entry model. Let's not argue here about the value that's being delivered by the 80GB model. This is not going to actually convince price sensitive customers in the end. Given that and the financial crisis it's surprising that so many customers are actually willing to spend this considerable add on. As we just had to learn Sony so far was able to reduce the manufacturing costsof the PS3 by almost 50%, which is btw. an amazing achievement. During that time 30% of the monted parts have been reduced as well which tells you that the PS3 as you see it today is a totally different beast compared to the once launched 2 years ago. What does that mean? So, basically with a current price of about $450 Sony is still loosing money with every unit sold, but this is compensated by the software sales which are very good for the PS3 compared to the absolute number of units out there. What does that mean for 2009? Well, I suppose that despite all recent dementies (which Sony has to do at that time) Sony is lowering the price point with the next iteration of the hardware design. We will most likely see another optimization of the current design with smaler chips and a total overhaul of the design end of next year which brings us a totally new form factor. Target price would be at least $299. Ok, so far regarding the hardware. What about the software though? Well, I am not talking about the already known 2009 releases here. Just lookup some of the other major websites. Let's actually focus a little more on the services here. And when talking about services we should talk about Home. Yes I know, a lot of you are disappointed by what Home currently offers as a service compared to what we've been told 2 years ago. Mayb Sony was once again too ambitious when they talked about what Home could eventually be and forgot about what it takes to actually launch a large scale service like this. Right now we are just scratching the surface of what Home will be in my opinion. I guess it's fair to say that Home will eventually become the alternative XMB for the PS3 in a sense that you will be launching most of your multiplayer games from Home while meeting in a club or your personal appartment. You'll be watching films or listen to music together with your friends. Home is out there to make online gaming as easy to use for people as possible. Having that in mind what we see from Home right now is just the shell to host all of those services and features nothing more. Sony is currently testing the basic infrastructure before moving some real business onto the platform. So what can we expect from Sony in 2009? After a couple more month of beta testing we can expect some considerable content coming up on Home next year. We'll see most likely special themed rooms that will accompany certain blockbuster games, stores in the mall will most likely explode, offering more and more stuff that's no longer just virtual, like the apparel and furniture you can buy right now. Just imagine to enter your music store or video rental within the mall or what about a bookstore to get the latest news or electronic magazines? Can you imagine that companies like Fleurope would eventually open stores in Home to order flowers almost worldwide? I can even see those car makers having their own showrooms with an optional test drive within Gran Turismo. Ok, ok, given 2009 scope this seems to be a little unrealistic, but what I wanna to say here, having the Home shell right now, the ideas are almost endless and it's now time for the partners to provide the right content. With that, Sony has for sure a killer application with Home that becomes more and more important as we go. Last but not least lets talk about the firmware for a minute. Looking at what we have now on the XMB I actually feel kind of satisfied after several updates that added more and more of the missing functions and features. If you ask me what I would like to see for 2009 I have 3 feature candidates: cross game voice chat would be number one, mandatory custom soundtracks on all game titles where it makes sense as number rwo and finally ... give us PS2 compatibility back please. I know that this has been discussed all over already and there are people ignoring that feature completly, but don't underestimate the number of PS2 users out there for whom this is a unique feature to stick with Playstation instead of moving to the competition. I would even go as far a do a specific marketing that focuses on that very feature, saying that this is the obvious next step for these people that otherwise wouldn't even know about this. Even though I said I am not going to talk about 2009 games here, I wanna make one exception here: Killzone 2. We all know how the press talked about the early game trailer that obviously were prerendered at the time. Having seens demos and various trailers of the game already I guess it's fair to say that Killzone 2 will look even better than the 2005 trailer. I guess that's why they call this target render, meaning that the target game will look like this 4 years down the road. In that respect the guys from Guerilla Games did a pretty good forcast of the future. So, let me conclude here by wishing all of you some great, relaxing holidays and a wonderful 2009. Take care and use those few days off wisely ;-)
|
|
by Mutsch at 8:44 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Events | Fun
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, December 22, 2008
|
Permalink
|
Everything will be alright ...
|
|
 ... at least if you believe in David Reeves latest statements he made in this recent interview on MCV. Yes, it's been a tough holiday season for Sony (Sony sold half the consoles compared to Microsoft), but Reeves seems all ok with the current situation. Why is that?
First, after 2 years of loosing money with the console business, it seems like SCE is back on track, meaning that they have reached break even again with their operating business, including PS2 and PSP. For PS3 the software business actually takes care of the losses on the hardware side. This is great news as it is the basis of any console business. Does that mean we will see a price cut? Well, Reeves is denying that - we would be surprised if he didn't - but due to the economic circumstances and the competition Sony is going to change this sooner that later. Sure it's fair to say that Sonys strategy with the PS3 is value added, but it requires customer who appreciate this. This is very very difficult in these days Second, the market is still growing and Sony wants its share of this. There are still undeveloped markets like South Amerika, Russia and Middle East, but this is for sure not enough for a sustainable growth. Casual games? Yes, of course, but Sony is already there nothing new. Attach rate? Maybe this is where the truth is. According to Reeves the PSone had about 6 games per unit, the PS2 10 to 12 per unit and for the PS3 they want to go beyond this. Add to this the PSN and we see where he is shooting at. Third, own IPs. Instead of spending money for former-multi-platform-now-being-exclusive games, Sony is investing in own, also exclusive IPs. So far the PS3 is doing pretty good in that respect and this year showed a few of the good reasons why to get a PS3. Unfortunately, those games havn't been real million sellers so far. Don't get me wrong, those sales figures of Motorstorm or LittleBigPlanet were ok, but not outstanding. It's kind of weird that consumers don't really appreciate the creativity of Sonys own studios. One of the prejudice of this hardware generation, the 360 has a better software portfolio. This is btw. a rather stupid statement as it is futile to compare 2 year old game with just recently released titles. So why would I compare a two year 360 lead with what's been released for both consoles now. This is what counts and the PS3 is looking pretty good in that concern. Anyway, beside the typical - we are doing just fine - answers I agree with Reeves in almost all points except the fact that value is enough for selling the PS3. The folks who can appreciate that already got a PS3, now it is time to look for new customers that are more price focused. Sony, get this price point down and while you doing that why not releasing a smaller and model. Happy new 2009.
|
|
by Mutsch at 16:58 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Interview | Playstation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, December 22, 2008
|
Permalink
|
More bang for the buck
|
|
This is what the I like the PSN for: cheap but addictive games. With last weeks update Sony added a new one for onle EUR 3,99 - Astro Tripper from PomPom Games. What sounds like a galactical desease in my native language is a nice little game that does almost everything right. Good, Defender-like controls, nice effects, good sounds and if that wouldn't be enough trophy support and customizable background music. This is actually the first game in my collection that supports the new XMB feature. So far games only allowed to change the music within the game and not via the XMB. Even though the game only has four different worlds, each of those four worlds comprises 3 levels with a boss fight. Due to the many different enemies, it is necessary to use both weapon types and collect every power-up you can get. To make things complete you have a global score board and an alternative challenge mode which gives you a few hours additional game play. With its 47MB Astro Tripper is another example par excellence what makes the PSN successful: games you would never ever buy in a retail version. More of that, please. P.S. Astro Tripper is so far an PS3 exclusive on consoles.
|
|
by Mutsch at 16:35 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Games | PS3 | PSN Store
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday, December 18, 2008
|
Permalink
|
R.I.P. Free Radical
|
|
Yes, Haze wasn't a milestone in video games history and there are for sure better shooters than the TimeSplitters series, but it is nevertheless sad to see a studio like Free Radical going down the drain. What makes this departure even more dramatic is the fact that TimeSplitters 4 was obviously already under development. TimeSplitters was one of if not the first shooter on my PS2. Sure, it didn't redefine the shooter genre but it was a really fast paced shooter par excellence. What TimeSplitters was missing, the good graphics came with TimeSplitters 2. Beside that, TS2 could have been the first online shooter on PS2, if it wouldn't have been a little to early. Sony just wasn't ready yet. As all good things come in threes, TimeSplitters 3 - Future Perfect - even added a kind of story to the game that actually worked. Anyway, even without that TS3 was the best game of the series, with really great levels. What all games had in common was something that just recently became the latest trend in industry - user generated content. TimeSplitters always had a level editor built-in which allowed for some great levels. Last but not least Haze. Haze is most probably the reason for the disappearance of Free Radical. Again, Haze wasn't the milestone in video games history, but I had a lot of fun playing the game which became better the longer you've played it. I have a lot other high praised games that I havn't finished for several reasons. Not Haze. P.S. The same faith seem to have struck Factor 5, the developeers of Lair. Condolences to those guys as well.
|
|
by Mutsch at 21:05 | 0 Comments
|
Categories: Games
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 of 139  
|
|
|
