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Sunday, November 23, 2008
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PSP Reloaded
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The PSP is already in its 5th year and has seen already some major technology shifts. When the PSP came out in December 2004, MemorySticks where rather expensive and UMDs were the only media big enough that could actually hold the respective games. At that time Sony tried to establish this new storage format UMD (Universal Media Disc) with the introduction of the PSP. In addition to the respective games Sony published various UMD Videos together with other studios. 
But what seemed to be a successful launch in the beginning became more and more of an issue for Sony. UMD Videos were simply to expensive to be used only on a portable device and meanwhile solid state storage became more and more affordable. But it wasn't Sony who actually lead the gamers into a new century of downloadable content, no, it was Apple with its iPhone who demonstrated the world what how easy it could be to download games, music and videos to a portable device. With UMD videos almost gone and UMD based games becoming a rare species these days, Sony finally launched a device based online store that shares the user account with your PS3. Remember, this is 4 years after the PSP launch and 2 years after the PSN launch. Is this going to save the PSP against devices like the iPhone or mobile phones in general. We can only hope, but Sony needs to extend its lineup pretty fast. What's needed are cheaper and smaller games that are more digestable, music and movies. Nevertheless, I still want to see those bigger PSP games as well, as this is what separates the PSP from other mobile devices like the iPhone or the DS. Btw, Nintendo is going to develop its market into the same direction. The new DSi gets its own online store as well.
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by Mutsch at 18:10 | 3 Comments
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Categories: Games | PSN Store | PSP
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
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Weekend Plays
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As you know, last weekend I started to play Mirror's Edge and I was positively surprised by the game. Not having fully finished the game yet I can only repeat myself here: this is a great new game that feels kind of fresh. Even though the game has it hard parts it is never really unfair or based on pure luck. The game play has its variations and the various locations feel kind of different. I am pretty sure that I will replay the game after I have finished it the first time. This weekend I had two other surprises, positive surprises. The first one is Tomb Raider Underworld, which I had a chance to try out during this years Games Convention in August. Being a Lara fan since PS1 I was kind of frustrated after playing the demo in Leibzig. Awkward controls, not so great look and I couldn't even make it to the end of the demo without screwing up completely. I was pretty sure not buying this one as it seemed to be a very bad sequel. It's kind of good that I was wrong with this one. The final game is really nothing like the demo I played three month ago. The overall game feels a lot like Uncarted due to its great look and the controls are back to what we are all used to since the last two games. Beside Legends that was already available on the 360, the is the first real next generation Tomb Raider and based on what i have seen so far, its worth another sequel. The second surprise was probably to your surprise Resitance 2. Having got the US version which is all localized and contains all the various languages, I am able to play the game 2 weeks before the offical European release. At Games Convention I basically had the same kind of experience as with Tomb Raider. Maybe not as dramatic but I was kind of disaffected as the games graphics looked anything but a 3rd generation PS3 game. It looked actually not even as good as the first part. Can this actually be? Is Resistance coming out too soon? Is Insomniac games simply trying to develop/release too many games at the same time? Well, you might have read the reviews already, but just to make sure that you get the right impression here, Resitance 2 is a worthy successor of Fall of Man. Nice 50th style levels, great weapons, enemies that are larger than anything you've seen before (except the monsters in Shadow of the Colossus), great controls and a few surprises. How could I actually expect anyhing else than that. What is the lesson to learn here: first looks not always turn out to be correct. Good to know.
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by Mutsch at 15:33 | 3 Comments
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Categories: Games | Reviews
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
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It's about time
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 Well, it's not always about just having the better product. In the world of gaming consoles, it's a lot about the price point. Just remember a few years back when the PS2 was already a couple of years on the market. Most of the 130 million units sold since the launch were actually sold after Sony reduced the console price to 199 Euro resp. Dollar.
This is typically the price when someone considers to buy a product even though he or she didn't think about it before. In other words while shopping at Walmart you are not just buying what's one your shopping list, you also consider to buy a console. Spontaneous buys. That's what it's all about. In this console generation things turn out to look not so good for Sony as the 360 is constantly leading the famous price point race. So far the situation wasn't to bad for Sony as the 199 wasn't really meet, but since the latest price cut, Microsoft is selling the 360 Arcade for less than that, namely EUR 179. Consequently, the 360 currently sells 2:1 in the US and 3:2 in Europe. With Sony keeping the EUR 399 since quite some time now, it is nevertheless about time now to do something about it. Unfortunately this didn't happen before the holiday season, which basically means that Sony missed the most important season of the year. But there is no question that this is going to happen soon as Sony can not just sit there and wait. Technology wise Sony is now in a pretty good position to lower the console price as the current hardware revision is considerably cheaper then the first units. Nevertheless, Sony is hardly making money with the hardware right now. Anyway, there is no choice right now to make the next move and this is going to be something below EUR 300, namely EUR 299. Keep in mind that the current bundles already sell ´the console for more or less EUR 350.
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by Mutsch at 11:39 | 0 Comments
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Categories: Charts | PS3 | Xbox
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
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Searching the flow
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 It's not happening too often these days: someone launches a game that follows completely new game mechanics. No, I am not talking about LittleBigPlanet which falls for sure in this category. It's Mirror's Edge, the new game from the guys behind the Battlefield series. What makes this game even more surprising is the fact that it is EA that is the publisher.
Mirror's Edge is innovative to the extend that it is a first person running game if you will. Following the trend sport Le Parcour, you basically run through a futuristic city always in search for the Flow, the most intuative, non-interuptive route. Yes, there is story that drives that game and yes, there might have been better stories in the past, but the game is very successful in putting the player into a situation wher he or better she need to run for her life always a little faster than those enemy tugs. What makes Mirror's Edge even better is the fact that there are already similar games out there that tried to do the same, but simply failed due to their awkward controls and the 3rd person view, which simply didn't work: Free Running and Marc Eco's Getting Up. Beside its great game mechanics the game has some great visuals due to its always present HDR effects that create this clean but also very frightening atmosphere. Did you know that DICE actually used the PS3 as a lead development platform for this game? Actually, when it comes to the graphics I have seen already better games, though, as the game shows a lot of aliasing which in combination with the bright HDR effects creates a lot of flicker which we all hoped is gone since this generation. What was kind of standard on PS2 seems to be back on PS3 ;-) Would be interesting to know if the 360 version of the game has the same issue. But beside that, the graphics runs at a constant framerate. Just finished the 3rd chapter, I can still feel this rare appetite for more. Yes, you sometimes have to try a section 3 or 4 times, but the longer you play the more you have that eye for the flow and know what works and what doesn't. That's really fascinating.
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by Mutsch at 18:28 | 0 Comments
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Categories: Games | Reviews
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
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Behind the scenes
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What fascinates me while playing video games is not only the game as such, but the technology that drives those games. Just remember the PS2 that was kind of limited on paper when you compare it with the old Xbox, programmers finally cranked out some amazing games and graphics that nobody expected to be achievable with this kind of hardware. The same will take place with the PS3 that's still in its infancy and developers are just starting to understand what kind of powerful hardware they are confronted with.  Interested in what takes to develop on a console hardware? Do you wanna know how a GPU actually works and what the different techniques are to generate those HD images? For a long time I was looking for a good and comprehensive compendium, covering all you wan to know about computer graphics: Real-Time Rendering by Tomas Akenine-Möller, Eric Haines, and Naty Hoffman.
This 1000 pager in its 3rd edition covers almost everything up to the latest trends, including hardware architectures of consoles like the 360 and our PLAYSTATION 3. Even though this book requires a basic understanding of linear algebra and a trigonometry, all chapters are very well written and understandable. Even though this book might take away some of the mystery behind those games after reading about the internals of a GPU, shading methods and image effects, but believe me, there is so much more about games than just playing them. I havn't found a better source of information yet. P.S. Great that the authors decided for such a great cover art ;-) P.P.S. Check out the book's website as it has some great links and additional material
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by Mutsch at 17:55 | 0 Comments
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Categories: Development | Games
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Sunday, November 9, 2008
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Playing in a sandbox
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Gaming weekend ;-) After several busy weekends in a row I finally found the time and attitude to play some of my latest game buys. I put aside at least three games I wanna to try, namely LBP (of course ;-), Silent Hill: Home Coming and finally Fallout 3. Yes, I know, a very diverse selection. 
Let me start with Fallout 3. Facinated by the look and feel of the game I actually bought the Collectors Edition that comes as a nice little tin box incl. a Making-of Bluray, an art book and the famous PIP boy. Nice, really nice. After playing the game for less than 5 minutes, Fallout seems to be Oblivion just with a different skin. Not that this is a bad thing, but you can see it in every aspect that Bethesda used the Oblivion engine and to a large extend. The game setting is kind of interesting as you lived for your whole life in an atomic shelter, Vault 101, just to find out that there is a possibility to get outside. This is where the actual game starts and you are basically on your own to conduct an almost endless list of quests. That was the time when I decided for myself to stop here as I really have a motivation problem with those kind of sandbox games. Sandbox games are those GTA like games that pretty much follow an open world approach, which gives almost a freedom to do what you want. The more sandbox games I have played over the years it really feels boring to me and as much as I like the idea of being aable to do what I want, that's not what I am looking for while playing games. During my limited gaming hours I like to be guided through a game which is kind of relaxing as you don't have to check out what's up next. The idea of simulating reality is kind of techically challenging, but I don't think that anyone wants to play in a model that is of scale 1:1. Enough of Fallout 3, at least for now, let's switch gears. LittleBigPlanet is next. i don't think that I have to say anything about LBP here, as it is most probably the first defining game for the PS3. Anyway, despite the hype that surounded the game since its announcement in 2007, LBP is a milestone for HD gaming. Never before a game looked as high definition as LBP. No, its not the resolution, no its the overall HD feeling that defines the game. And the game plays like you haven't played anything else yet. What a difference compared to a sandbox game like Fallout. There is no question what to do next and what a satisfaction when you've finished one of those challenging levels or found another object or sticker. Sony has promised and delivered . No question about that. Last but not least, the first HD Silent Hill, which hasn't been released yet in Europe. I ordered my version on ebay and even though it is the US version of the game, it has localized text and English audio. Perfect. Ever since the first Silent Hill I really liked the series for its atmosphere and its soundtrack, but also true, I never finished one of the games yet. This was more or less due to the game mechanics. Silent Hill 5 on PS3 is the first Silent Hill that wasn't done by Konami directly, but by a 2nd party. Being into the game for 3 hours, I must admit that Silent Hill 5 is actually the first sequel that I might actually finish. The game has all the good incredience of a Silent Hill game but a much better combat control, which was one of the major issues of the old games. Sure, there is nothing new you can expect from Silent Hill, but Konami delivered a nicely made horror games which finally arrived in the HD era.
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by Mutsch at 20:50 | 0 Comments
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Categories: Games | PS3 | Reviews
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
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Entering the next lifecycle phase
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 Being already in its 9th production year, the PS2 is still breaking record after record. With nearly 140 million units sold worldwide and over 1 billion games sold, the PS2 is by all standards the most successful gaming console ever.
Just think for a minute that Sony is still selling this console in a market that has already been entered by Microsoft with the Arcade version of the 360 that gets already sold for less than EUR 150 here in Europe. Being just EUR 50 cheaper, the PS2 is still selling in considerable amounts. And as we just had to learn, this is not going to end soon, as Sony just decided to open up the PS2 platform for developers in a sense that Sony is no longer required to approve the actual game for a release and the publisher or developer does no longer have to pay any license fees to Sony, which is the current business model for all consoles. In other words, you as a developer can decide to publish games for the PS2 platform pretty much in the same way as it is done on the PC platform. All you need is an official development kit for the PS2, which comes in various flavors today. Either you go for the expensive, full fledged SDK which is in the area of $10k or you simply get a much cheaper DebugStation from Sony, which doesn't offer you all the tooling, but simply provides the execution environment for you game. Meanwhile, there are a lot of tools available for the PS2 that circle around the GNU tool chain and which basically allow you to develop your own stuff on a PC and run it on a DebugStation. There is actually a third possibility which was once officially released by Sony: the PS2 Linux Kit which comes with special Linux distribution for the PS2 and all the development docs that are also bundled with the official SDK. If you had a chance to grab one of those, you'll get all you need in order to start your first experiments up to the level of creating final code. Now would be the right time to actually make the whole documentation public for free, which would be perfect in line with the opening of the platform. Personally I think it is a great idea to keep the PS2 alive by making the platform this open as it is right now. I am pretty sure that this way, the PS2 will still contribute to the units bottomline in some way and if it is only by getting customers that will eventually move to the PS3. Btw, there is one other decision that is targeted to smaller developers with no official publisher: Sony has streamlined the certification process for PSN titles as well. It is no longer required to do that separately for all 3 regions. This is a one time certification now for all regions at the same time. Means, less effort and faster releases in the regions. Great news. Source More Links
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by Mutsch at 13:49 | 0 Comments
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Categories: Development | Games | PS2
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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Seasonal overload
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It's the same story every year: we just switched back from DST, leaves are falling off the trees and I finally got my winter tires mounted, in other words - its fall. In many ways, fall and winter are very relaxed seasons due to the fact that it's getting cold outside and the days are becoming shorter. It just feels so natural to slow down a little bit. Well, it could be a relaxing season if there were not so many games just to be released over this period of time. It almost seems like that development schedules are synchronized somehow. It is kind of amazing how everybody in this industry wants to get a piece - a hugh piece - of this cake which obviously can not be large enough for everyone. Instead of spreading release dates across the whole year, the holiday season seems to be the video gaming season. Sure, people are most likely buying consoles at this time of the year like many other things as well. But why does that necessarily mean that games have to come out in heavy dosis in the same period? As much as I like the idea of buying fresh and brand new games its such a waste of attention when it comes to those games. Personally I have a hard time to actually concentrate on one game only as there are so many great games I wanna try at the same time. I really have focus myself in order not to switch back and forth between those games, forgetting almost everything while going from one to the other game. Well, I guess I can't do much about this situation, but I am not even sure if this pays off for the industry in the end or if it wouldn't be better for everyone to have a more even distribution across the year, which could eventually fuel some of the hardware sales even during the summer season, which is suppose to be not a gaming season in the first place. What's your opinion about this? Are you buying all of those games like Bioshock, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Dead Space, Resistance 2, LTB, Motorstorm 2, to name just a few of those games?
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by Mutsch at 10:02 | 1 Comments
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Categories: Development | Games | PS3
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Sunday, October 26, 2008
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Hibernate Off - Welcome car2go
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Well, I can't actually believe it myself, but after almost 2 month I finally found the way back to my blog. And what should I say, those were 2 tough month, with almost no PS3 at all. But let me start from the beginning. July 1st, I started a new position within my company in a department that is concerned with the development of new business ideas. One of them is focused around the development of a new mobiliy concept best described as a more flexible form of car sharing. Car sharing has been around for quite some time now starting in the old world during the 80th. The basic idea is pretty simple: a small fleet of cars is shared between a much larger group of people that reserve cars when need and no longer fully own a single car. So far, car sharing had a few practical limitations that most people didn't want to accept. By this car sharing has been and still is a small niche most likely adopted by all sorts of green supporters and typically people who are not really car fanatics. This is were we decided to make a change, to move car sharing out of this niche into everybodys perception. This is car2go. When a jointed the project in July, the project was still in its infancy from an implementation point of view. The project leader was looking for an IT guy to take car of the various aspects of the IT which is as you can guess a very big part of the project. Basically from that on I wa more or less maried with my new job all day long. So, what's different with car2go compared to other car sharing models? car2go has a free-floating fleet
While a typical car sharing fleet has some fixed lots where you can pick-up and return cars, car2go has no such parking lots. Even though we have rented hotspots at train stations and major spots within the city, you can pick-up and return your car at any location, even in front of your flat car2go supports spontaneous rentals
You are walking by a car2go and you recognize a green light blinking at the card reader. This is your signal to pick-up that specific car without a reservation upfront. You need it, you take it. And you don't have to tell us how long you wanna keep it. It's like driving your own car. You pay by the minute - all inclusive
Almost like your cell phone you pay a car2go by the minute. There are no additional km fees or fuel, it's all inclusive: 19 Cents per minute, EUR 9,90 may an hour, EUR 49 max a day.
Those are just a few of those things that make car2go a new mobility concept of its own. As you can tell, this all requires a lot of IT and we had to build up for now 50 smart cars which will be expanded to a fleet of 200 smarts for our pilot city Ulm, which has around 120.000 people. With the pilot already started last Friday I am trying to get back to my normal life sort of, which means that I finally want to update my blog again on a more regular basis. Let's hope that I am not wrong as I don't want to end this project here just because I am being overworked. Anyway, I can say that those 4 month were most likely the 4 most exciting month in my whole career so far. So, welcome back playstation-disorder.com, I am curious how many of you folks are still around there ;-) Additional links
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by Mutsch at 15:26 | 7 Comments
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Categories: Misc | News
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Monday, August 25, 2008
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A change of mind?
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 You will agree that one of my favorite topics here on the blog is the PS3's backward compatbility or better the missing backward compatibility. Being a big fan of PS2 titles and appreciating the upscaling and smoothing features of the early models, there is no better way to play PS2 games than on a PS3.
Ok, according to Sony this is all history now and forever, but as you should never say never I am looking forward to the day when Sony releases a new firmware with a built-in PS2 emulator, software-only of course. According to a David Reeves interview done by heise.de at the Games Convention last week, Sony is actually working on something like this, even though I can not fully support David Reeves explanation. According to Reeves, the new SingStar PS2-PS3 compatibility is based on a PS2 software emulation that actually runs the PS2 SingStar on a PS3. The starnage thing about this is, so far my understanding of this new features is more like a compatibility within the PS3 SingStar and not a software emulator. Now, David Reeves should know the facts better than I but honestly, the whole thing sounds a little strange to me. Reeves continues saying, that Sony is considering other software titles to be emulated on the PS3. Anyway, however this is going to work in the end, it proofs one thing: opposite to what has been reported in the past, PS2 compatibility is not dead at all and there are still folks at SCE working on such a feature. Good to hear.
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by Mutsch at 21:03 | 1 Comments
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Categories: Firmware | Games | PS2 | PS3
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