2006 / 2007 / 2008 Rants

11th July 2008 - The Waiting Game

So, the PS3 is now outselling the 360 by two to one in some territories. Who those new customers are is an interesting prospect. It could be the gaming mass market, finally realising Sony had their latest Playstation iteration on the market, buying it primarily because of the name. Certainly, the recent price drops will have helped this sudden boost to the format. It could be all those Wii owners realising their machine doesn’t play proper games. In my opinion it’s most likely to be the drop out of HD-DVD, moving Blu-Ray into pole position as the only Hi-Def movie format.

In a way, Sony is brilliant at business strategy. They’re making huge losses on the PS3, as it still costs over $100 less to buy than it costs to produce. However, by using it as a trojan horse for Blu-Ray, they’ve created a whole new business for themselves – and one they will totally dominate. Recent reports say the adoption to Blu-Ray has actually been around four times faster than from VHS to DVD. If Blu-Ray grows to cater for even half the demand for DVD home movies, with Sony owning all the manufacturing rights, and producing all the players, their sales will grow exponentially. It will certainly make the PS3 losses look insignificant.

However, we’re in quite a different situation to when the PS2 included a DVD drive. Back then it was true that the PS2 did drive DVD sales on release, but there were hundreds of for-the-purpose DVD players available for less money than a PS2. This time round, bespoke Blu-Ray players are considerably more expensive than a PS3. Sony are in control of the pricing for both, and while this situation is great for boosting PS3 sales, they are severely diluting their audience. Millions of non-gamers are buying PS3 just to play Blu-Ray movies on their 42” Plasmas. They don’t care for games at all, they’ll probably never even play one. These suspicions can be confirmed when you look at the attach rate for PS3, less than two games per machine, while the 360 is at nearly ten.

You’d think that the best way to get these non-gamer owners into games would be to make the PS3 easy to use, fun to play, and make plenty of brilliant games available. The opposite is true. Before I go into full rant mode, I should say I was also un-impressed with the first year or so of PS2 releases, but compared to the PS3, we were in gaming heaven.

I don’t recall a new console having so few first party games, the PS3 is relying on third parties to make a PS3 version of their 360 games, which is frankly not good enough. Ask anyone who owns both machines what they think of the PS3-only output, and they’ll probably say, What-PS3-Only output? From memory I can’t think of a bespoke PS3 game since Drake’s Fortune before Christmas. I’m not counting Gran Turismo, as it’s still not finished!

In actuality though, it’s not the lack of first party software which makes me dislike the PS3, it is the operating system. In fact, i’ll go as far as saying, it’s the most infuriating games console i’ve ever experienced.

Because the PS3 isn’t the home of countless arcade games worth playing, I maybe only turn mine on around once a month. I’m sure there are many owners of a PS3 who use it even less, but let me talk about when I did play that newly unfinished game, Gran Turismo five.

I put it in the drive, oops, need to update the system. That triggers the download screen, watching that irritating counter crawl at a snails pace up to 66% then just finish in one more second. Of course, with the PS3, there’s no instant restart and away you go, no, then you need to agree to install the update, then you have sit and wait again while it installs it (once you’ve managed to find that silly wire to connect the controller directly to the machine – despite it being fully charged anyway!)

Finally the machine resets and you can load the game, but oh no, ten seconds of loading, and then the game requires an update. Another round of incredibly slow downloading and installing, another reset, and off we go. This time the game loads, but hang on, once it loads, IT NEEDS TO INSTALL ITSELF.. AARRRGGGHH!!!

Finally installed, ready to play, but why does a game which installs itself on the hard drive take so long to load between menus and the game. This is worse than the loading on MSR on the Dreamcast. Oh well, I stick with it until the loading between garage and option screens drives me almost insane. I think i’ll try the online game, hang on, requires an update!!! You can not be serious! Downloaded the update, but it got stuck and aborted itself after thirty five minutes. I decided it might have been my internet connection, i’d give it another go, another thirty five minutes and it aborts again. No update, no online play. Four hours of irritation (I am actually not exaggerating) and I give up, turn it off and go to bed.

A couple of weeks later, I persuade myself it couldn’t have been that bad, must have just been me having a bad day. Turn on the PS3, requires system update!!! Arggggg. Download, find the joystick wire, agree to install, install, restart the PS3, start game, Arrrgggghhhh! Game requires update!!! NOOOoooooooooo! Update game, install update, get to start menu, update for online, aborts again!!!! I’m not wasting another minute on that poorly programmed pile of poo.

Back in the NES/SNES/MD days, games had to be made to work correctly before they went into manufacture. Downloadable updates have made developers lazy. “ Ah, we don’t need to do all our testing now, we can just make them download a patch later ” – NOT GOOD ENOUGH! The 360 already wound me up, but at least the updates seem to be fast on there. When Microsoft announced that they would make their games so they did not depend on the Hard Drive, I thought it was a bad thing. I thought games wouldn’t be as good as they could be. Now having experienced the PS3’s boot then install method, I am thankfull for Microsoft’s decision. Sony seem to have forgotten what console gaming is about, if I wanted all this hassle i’d be fragging morons in my PC. I want to turn on my console, and have instant escape, instant fun.

The hell of PS3 doesn’t end there either, if I play a game from last year, Sing Star for example, I still have to install a lengthy update. Possibly you may think that my attitude is partly down to being a life long gamer, spoilt by all those years of cartridge games, but after using the PS3 I can now load the 12 minute C64 cassette marathon which is’ Tales of the Arabian Knights’ with a smile on my face.

So, Sony have made a big mistake. To convert all these new owners into using the ‘gaming’ heart of their PS3 console, they needed to keep things simple. They’ve failed miserably, and they know it. They think their new ‘HOME’ operating system will resolve the situation, but it is no remedy for the constant updating of the games themselves, and i’m sure this new O/S is going to need as much updating as the current one. (despite the delays)

The Wii front end may be a bit clunky, but it’s quick, the 360 may have irritating downloads, but they are also quick and install themselves. Both look incredibly good in comparison. Perhaps it’s actually our fault, nobody told Sony how crap the PSP updating system was, so they thought they could get away with it on a bigger scale.

Grrrrrrr, well, I think i’ve got it out of my system. Sorry there’s been a long long gap between rants, i’ve been brewing that one up for months! If you’re still reading, and wondering what is actually worth playing, I have to say I was recently thrilled by New Track & Field on the Nintendo DS. One of the all time greats, truly updated in amazing style. It’s an absolute triumph and an essential game to anyone who hankers after those hyper button-bashing sports days of yore.

 28th February 2008 : Slim and light my *rse

Is it only me who’s disappointed with the latest update of the PSP. Slim and light made me think it would be exactly that, but put side by side, the new version isn’t much different at all. Hand them to someone unfamiliar with the machines, and they can barely tell the difference.

Back in the early 1980s, when Sinclair found a way to improve the Spectrum, either adjusting the chip lay out for reliability, or re-designing the circuit board, you didn’t get to hear about it. There may have been an odd comment in a magazine, but what usually happened is the machine just slipped into the production run, replacing the older version.

The upgrading of current hardware is something which has become part of a console’s life cycle. You release the original version, get a user base, then two years later update the hardware and try and sell it again to exactly the same customers.Back when Commodore released the ‘C’ version of the 64, or when Spectrum added the plus, you felt that these improvements were justified. They also usually included a price reduction.

In comparison, the Megadrive 2 is worse than the original machine. Sure, it’s smaller and lighter, but it’s not as stylish, loses the volume control, and introduces the port specific RF cable, whose fragile multi-pin layout has forced me to throw many consoles away. If ever there was a console ripe for improvement, it was the Nintendo NES. A straight top loading machine is still something many NES users ache for, but Nintendo shot themselves in the foot when they made the cartridges so big. Third party NES compatibles like the Game Axe highlight how badly the games stick out in non-front-slot style consoles. And why are NES cartridges so big compared to the Famicom? Because Nintendo thought they would look better value for money that way.

Strangely, while Nintendo love to update their handheld range, they’ve left their home consoles alone. There was a Famicom Jr in Japan, but in the West we’ve just had different colours rather than different versions of the N64 and Gamecube. (Ok, forget about the Pokemon N64)

Sony are in love with the concept of redesigning their consoles, with a new version of the PS3 imminent. The slim version of the PS2 was awful, it may be smaller, but its flappy lid just made it seem cheap and nasty.

It’s the handheld market which really loves to update itself most regularly. We’ve had two versions of the Atari Lynx, seven versions of the Gameboy (Original, Pocket, Light, Color, Advance, SP, Micro) as well as literally hundreds of different colours and special edition versions. It seems the public’s love of Nintendo means we’re prepared to buy multiple versions of the same hardware, so who can blame them for cashing in. Nintendo have now officially announced that the third version of the DS, a super slim version with wide screens, is ready to go into production, but sales of the DS Lite are so high, they just don’t need to launch it yet.

While this constant updating certainly makes the games industry more exciting, it does lead to confusion for new customers. Apparently new gamers are actually being put off of the Xbox 360 because of the different versions available. In the Amiga days there were different versions of the hardware, but they were specifically aimed at different kinds of markets. For example the A4000 was specifically advertised for video and graphics for television production.

It’s obvious that Sony were killing two birds with one stone with the PSP Slim and light. They can see how this upgrading culture works for Nintendo, 80% of people who bought an original DS have now also bought a DS Lite. The difference is, the original DS was rushed to retail before the PSP, so it could maintain a good foothold in a market they’d pretty much created.. The original PSP is still a beautiful machine, the original DS is not. The DS lite improves the DS in pretty much every way, it’s a cleaner design with an IPOD inspired finish, the screens are bigger and brighter, the battery lasts longer, it’s lighter, it’s stronger, it’s smaller, and the stylus is bigger. You are getting a much better machine by upgrading your DS.

In contrast, the PSP Slim and Lite is about 15% thinner, and a bit lighter, but it’s just as bulky as the original PSP. The screen is the same, the battery doesn’t seem to last any longer, and instead of a nice button to open the UMD draw on the back, you have to flip it open like a Goodmans personal CD player. This machine is all about reducing the cost of manufacture, I actually prefer my original PSP, it somehow just seems of better quality. The real pity is that Sony chose to re-launch the console as an entirely new version, with huge bluster. If they’d have just slipped it into the production line as a replacement, new customers would have just been pleased it was a little lighter, and that would have been an end to it.

Ok, there’s the rub. The new PSP allows you to connect it to a TV, so you can watch UMDs and play games on the big screen. But this could also have just slipped in as a new feature of the regular PSP, like the HDMI port did on the Xbox 360. They don’t supply the special cable to connect the PSP to a TV in the box anyway, and this was never really highlighted as a key feature at the re-launch.

The bottom line is, Sony, you didn’t do good enough. You are one of the worlds leading technology companies; you made Aibo and Qrio, PS3, and the marvel that was the original PSP itself. It wasn’t worth updating the PSP until it could take people’s breath away. What we wanted was a thin slither of touch sensitive Nano-inspired screen, dumping UMD for memory sticks, and with a battery life that lasts for days. Put either version of the PSP next to an IPhone and they look old and tired.

Oh, and while I’m happy to play handheld Parappa, it’s time the PSP got some really good software. Sadly the downloadable PS1 games for PSP on the PS3 network are more exciting than anything in the shops – and they’re over ten years old. As Nintendo will tell you, you can’t trust third parties to make decent handheld content, and Loco Roco and its sequel aren’t enough when you’ve got millions of customers waiting. Grrrr

21st December 2007: So little time So Many Games

Ok, so there haven’t been many rants this year. Well, if I thought it was a shame I didn’t get time to write for the site, think about what a shame it is I can’t find the time to play games. It’s a common complaint these days, as we’ve got older our lives have got more complicated and time suddenly has more value than ever before. This has turned old-style hardcore gamers into casual gamers, hence the rise of Xbox Live, Nintendo DS, and the Wii. I guess Retrogamers have always been after the quick thrill of playing for points, so possibly the progression is a logical step.

Hold on a minute though, just because we don’t have time to play new games, doesn’t mean we don’t want to see them. Recently there has been some bad press about Call of Duty 4 only taking twelve hours to complete. Personally I think that’s a good thing, harvest your Xbox experience points and get out of there. The last twelve months has been so packed with top releases, that having the time to experience any game fully has become a bit of a bind. We’ve had some incredible games this year, indeed, in the history of gaming, perhaps this has been one for the history books. Two new Zeldas and a new Mario game, Halo 3, PGR4 and Orange box. The only thing we haven’t had is GTA4 which would have been the icing on the cake. The thing all these games have in common is their sprawling size, each one warrants months of play, but there just isnt’ enough time to play them.

I’m not sure if its just me, but I just end up dabbling at the fringes of games. A couple of levels of Halo, clear PGR4 on the easiest level, 25 stars on Mario. No games are earning the time they deserve. The sad thing is, that this constant barrage of exciting new releases usurps the older ones, meaning that in the end these great games get left at the back of the cupboard, unfinished and unloved. It’s so unfair!

At least these top games get a look in though, Assassin’s Creed has barely been in the disc drive, and Guitar Hero 3 just clutters my games room with another new bulky peripheral. Games like Bioshock initially impress, but then the level of commitment required to complete them leaves me bored. Strangely, if I calculated the length of time I play casual or retro games like Peggle or Pac Man CE, I could have finished Halo 3 twice over.

So, which format is going to win the war this time around. Apparently Nintendo are feeling less confident in the year ahead after completely failing to satisfy demand of both Wii and DS in the run up to Christmas. I read a report that said demand was so extraordinary, that Nintendo could have sold 80 Million Wii consoles worldwide this Christmas season. Sales of more than a million per week in the UK could have been a reality if the stock was only available. With this in mind, its little wonder than Nintendo are disappointed despite their success. This week the installed base of Wii consoles overtook the Xbox 360, and Nintendo once again became the market leader in our industry. Despite previous global success with the NES, this is actually the first time Nintendo have had the leading home console in the UK. Despite this the roster of forthcoming software does little to excite, though i’m sure i’ll be in need of Wii Fit after my Christmas indulgences.

It’s not long ago that Microsoft execs were advising people they could buy a 360 and a Wii for the price of a PS3. Perhaps now they’ve been knocked down to second place they’ll be wishing they reccomended something else. During the reign of the Gamecube there were rumours that Microsoft were considering buying Nintendo to bolster their position. Now in 2007 Nintendo has become the second biggest Japanese company, only behind Toyota, and six places higher than Sony. Nintendo also overtook Apple as the creator of the worlds most sought after products. It’s all a long way away from Microsoft, who’s main Xbox achievement this year was to finally post a profit, the first time in the lifetime of the Xbox business.

That’s not to say the Xbox isn’t a brilliant machine. And i’m saying that despite having to send mine back for repair twice now. It’s got a phenomenal range of games, the online service is rock solid, and now you can even download (old) movies. Live arcade is growing in stature all the time, with some phenomenally good original games, and some great old ones too. (I was really looking forward to Space Giraffe, but sorry Jeff, it doesn’t work for me at all, and I loved your old games!) Anyway, you also can’t discount the demos on Xbox Live. How brilliant it is to be able to play all the new releases before they come out, and find out what is worth buying and what isn’t. It also means that if you turn on your console as irregularly as me, there is always something new and exciting to play - for free!

And that leaves the PS3, I still love the console, Blue Ray movies look fantastic, and while the Playstation shop borrows heavily from the 360, it still gives you some free demos worth playing. But, the games releases this year have been awful. Pretty much nothing worth getting excited about has been released. This lethargic attitude to releasing top flight games was ok in the PS2 era, as there was little competition anyway, but when Sony are chasing the 360, they really need to get something exciting into the marketplace. Apart from Little Big Planet, there’s nothing to look forward to next year either. For a company with such an outstanding development history, it’s quite astonishing. Warhawk, Lair and Heavenly Sword have all offered little graphic superiority or originality, and while Drake’s fortune looks very nice, it’s a blatant copy of Tomb Raider.

It seems that Sony are banking on ‘Home’, their replacement hub front end, but from what i’ve seen it looks like a laborious waste of time, who really wants to move an avatar from room to room just to access a demo or change a setting. Even Sony bosses are unsure, recently delaying its launch while they rewrite some of the code. For a company hoping to reclaim its number one status, let’s hope there are a few tricks left up its sleeve.

Ok, i’ll round off this festive rant with a brief list of my favourite games of the year, i’m sure there aren’t many of you who’d agree!

Mario Galaxy - Wii - It makes you feel sick at first, but really is better than Mario 64.
Orange Box - 360 - Finally I get to enjoy Half Life without a PC.
Touch Master - Nintendo DS - Incredibly addictive card game compilation with top ten scoreboards! Awsome.
Project Gotham 4 - 360 - It’s a great one player game, but damn those online ‘manual transmission’ experts.
Parappa the Rapper - PSP - Gamings coolest Hip Hop Dude is back!
Peggle - PC - Stupidly annoying but brilliant pachinko game.
Colin McRae Dirt - 360 - Incredible graphics make this an amazing rally driving game. RIP Colin.
Skate - 360 - Oh my god, not only the first Skateboarding game to handle brilliantly, but it’s by EA!
Halo 3 - 360 - Hope to finish it in the next year or so!
Dragon Quest VIII - PS2 - Yes, I know its a couple of years old, but i’m still loving it.

And that’s about it for this end of year rant. Hope everyone has a great Christmas and new year, and many thanks for reading.

10th April 2007: Don’t make me play that again!

Do you ever get tired of games? These days my games playing seems to ebb and flow, i’ll play avidly for a week, then take two weeks off. It’s a changing habit, and while you can put it down to the pressures of daily life and having a family, it’s also partly due to the content of the games themselves.

We currently are living with two types of games, on two types of hardware. The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are all about quick fixes, and attention grabbing nibbles. Anyone who’s succumbed to handheld gaming for any length of time will no doubt appreciate the difficulty in getting back into console games afterwards. While the PS3 and 360 offer small portions of action in their racing games, i’m finding the enthusiasm to mount a championship challenge severely lacking. Role playing games also used to be a favourite, I bought Elder scrolls IV on the day of release, but the depth and time it required of me meant it actually got less than an hour of play. Meanwhile, accumulated time on Guitar Hero has grown into days.

I don’t want to become a ‘quick fix’ gamer, for this is the domain of the dreaded casual gamer. Those who miss out on the finer intricacies of a story line, those that swear to their friends during online racing games, those that buy Fifa soccer each and every year. Thankfully, I have a saviour.

Both PS3’s shopping area, and Xbox 360’s live arcade offer some of the best gaming on home systems. Sure, they are quick fix, but they appeal to my retro sensibilities. Shoot-em-ups are suddenly back in fashion, and clever platformers with detailed animation. Scores are now all important, and you don’t even have to venture to the shops to buy these games. I recently climbed into the top three hundred on Paperboy, and am now making my mark on one of the best games i’ve played in ages. Jet Pac.

With Xbox live arcade games, there is no fanfare, no release dates to look forward to, just occasional surprises when you boot up your console. Jet Pac was one hell of a surprise. As a big fan of Rare in the Nintendo days, I had kind of given up on them. I finished Kameo but its style seemed to be more important than the gameplay. Perfect Dark Zero wasn’t very good, and Viva Pinata, while unusual, didn’t hold my attention. Then, out of the blue, Rare’s very first game rebuilt for this generation, and it is incredible. Like all great titles, it is the restrictions of the game which add to the concept. For those who haven’t played it, the game is set in an area only slightly bigger than the screen, and using a thrust button and fire, you must kill the aliens while assembling your rocket ship and filling it with fuel.

If you asked someone to imagine a next generation version of Jet Pac, they couldn’t think up better. There are 128 levels, an improved weapon system, and some great retro styled music. Strangely the new version feels more like a Commodore 64 game than a Spectrum one. There are level saves every few stages, and things get incredibly tough. One ingenious new ingredient is the brief shield you have while holding a fuel canister, vital in some of the alien infested later levels.

The real icing on the cake is the included original Spectrum version, complete with worldwide ranked leaderboards. Now, if back in 1983 when I was playing Jet Pac on my (sadly) black and white TV, I had managed to send myself a photo from 2007, of me playing exactly the same game, but on a giant TV with a wireless joypad, i’d probably have been disappointed in the future of gaming. How strange that in reality, Jet Pac is still the game i’d prefer to play!

13th Dec 2006: Microsoft Killed my Xbox
Now, I usually rant about things which aren’t so directly related to me, but upon the launch of Gears of War, my 360 forced me into yet another update. For those blissfully unaware of how the 360 works, every so often the machine requests an update to its front end through the internet, in a similar way to how the PSP makes you update the system occasionally when you play the latest games. Anyway, I downloaded the update, and for around three hours everything was fine.

However, after that the game froze. I thought it was odd and reset, only for it to freeze again a few minutes later. After that it didn’t stay on for more than a few minutes before freezing, even on the start up menu. I surfed the internet, and was surprised to find an absolute mountain of information on the problem, and literally thousands of fellow upset gamers. Despite nearly fifty pages of complaints regarding the freeze on their own US Xbox website, there was no official statement from Microsoft. Many victims had sent their machines back to Microsoft, and had to pay for a repair. The general feeling is that the update caused the problem.

In order for Microsoft to compete with the newly launched (in the US) Playstation 3, the download forced the machine to overclock the CPU. Overclocking is a way of pushing a computer chip beyond its recommended limits. This is common practice on the PC, but generally requires you to run a very cold system, hence all those thermal tank casings and hyper-fans you find in computer shops. The rumour is that while current hardware has been improved to allow for overclocking, those of us with the original machine, so that’s pretty much all the hardcore gamers who supported Microsoft from the outset, will have, or do have, problems.

There are lots of solutions on the net, from balancing your power supply on an upturned cardboard box, using a third party clip on fan, plugging your power cable directly into a wall socket instead of a multi-point adaptor, and even using the 360 without the hard drive plugged in. None of these worked for me, but they seem to have helped some people if you trawl enough message boards.

I waited patiently, assuming Microsoft would eventually launch a new update to cure the problem, surely they weren’t going to do nothing? Well, a week later I was pleased to find a new update was required. I downloaded it, and again the system lasted ten minutes before freezing. I turned off, turned on, and hip hip hooray, three red lights and a completely dead system. Since then i’ve found many more friends and customers have had exactly the same problem with their UK machines.

To be fair, Microsoft’s response has been excellent. After some difficulty getting through to their US help line, I was glad to find that Microsoft arranged for the machine to be picked up, repaired and returned all free of charge. It was as if that early serial number I gave them was a magical key. While waiting for the return i’ve had to make do with Wii and PS3. This episode does bring a strange precedent to the history of games machines.

Many view the problem as a calculated risk from Microsoft. The thought being that they were totally aware the new update would cause a problem for early machines, but it was more beneficial to replace them and push the current hardware harder than run all the machines at the original power level. While this may be a way of slimming the power deficit to PS3 slightly, surely it would be better to concentrate on better software routines than effecting the hardware directly.

If you look at a machine like the ZX Spectrum, early games were very simple, nobody even tried to push the hardware hard, but by the end of the eighties those same programmers had managed to create games with multi-channel music and paralax scrolling moving at 25 frames per second. I think it is strange that a company renowned as the leaders in the Software industry can’t find a better way to make the 360 impress next to PS3.

20th Oct 2006: Another Battle Commences
You have to admit, Sony isn’t looking like the same company who beat Nintendo and Sega into submission with the original Playstation. It’s been trumpeting the huge power of Playstation 3 for nearly two years now, has laughed at suggestions that Microsoft are serious competitors, and confidently promised a huge step forward in the quality of gaming for the entire planet.

In reality, it’s hard not to see that the current leader of our industry is on the ropes. After picking holes in Microsoft’s 360 global launch, it promised to do the same - only better. Ken Kutaragi promised that Europe was now a priority at E3, only to move our launch to next Spring, and on the precedent set by PSP, i’m sure it will be pushed back even further. Then there are the numbers, it is likely only a million units will make it to the US this year anyway, the problem famously being the difficult creation of blue ray diodes. As Sony invented the Blue-Ray format, you’d think that they’d be more prepared than anyone. The knock on effect will be devastating.

If you look back at previous launches, hardware shortages have seriously crippled the early success of many consoles. The Saturn could have heavily dominated against the Playstation in Japan had stock been there at the start. The Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance SP could have added a couple of million more units to their totals if it wasn’t for stock shortages, and the Xbox 360 could have easily sold an extra two million units last Christmas.

That said, Sony have the huge power of the Playstation brand to make the console desirable, whatever it ends up like, and however poor the opening round of games, the hardcore gamers are always going to buy it. But the overall picture being painted of the new console, high price, out-sourced network gaming, and lack of quality software, means Sony need to take full advantage of the over-hyped launch sales. One million units in the US, and one million in Japan isn’t doing that. Once reality sinks in, with the Christmas spirit gone, things might get much tougher.

All Sony need is one mighty game, Motorstorm looks like it could be the game, but its now been delayed from the launch and looks far less impressive when running compared to the original E3 demo. What I really don’t understand is why Sony didn’t fight to keep the GTA series as a PS3 exclusive. Surely that game alone is worth tens of millions in advertising, and for the 360 GTA4 to be released at the same time as the PS3 version is a huge blow. There are very few games franchises left that can significantly shift consoles, Halo, Mario, Zelda, GTA and maybe Gran Turismo. The latter already confirmed as not ready for PS3 launch.

So, what would a world dominated by Microsoft and the 360 be like? I’ll admit, when Microsoft initially announced the Xbox, I wasn’t exactly excited. When you socialise with hardcore PC gamers, they all pretty much despise Microsoft. Either they have too much control, or Windows isn’t good enough, or they only care about the bottom line and not the end user. All I know is that without windows, the PC would have died out, and we’d all be using Macs now. If we were all using Macs we’d have one over-powered Steve Jobs to be angry at instead of Bill Gates.

Microsoft is the company that provided the language for many of the original 8-bit computers, they have a heritage before Windows. Surely anybody who hates Bill Gates is just jealous of his success, and his immense wealth. The Xbox was ugly and expensive, but it was more powerful than the PS2, and its inbuilt harddrive and internet networking were serious innovations in gaming. Laughed at and ignored by developers in its infancy, the games eventually came to the original Xbox, and by the end of last year, the Xbox version of the latest multi-format titles started outselling the PS2 versions. The same way the Amiga versions started to outsell the more established Atari ST versions back in the late 1980s. The technology wins in the end.

If there had been no Xbox, it’s doubtful Nintendo would have sold many more Gamecubes than it did. It’s cute console has some brilliant games, but not enough to tempt the casuals. Sony wouldn’t have been in a rush to release PS3 either, so i’m sure Nintendo would have held on to it’s Wii (My Mum always told me not to do that) for a bit longer. If anything, Microsoft have sped up the console cycle.

The 360 isn’t perfect, and Microsoft haven’t done everything right. The launch was global, but there stil wasn’t enough stock. The launch games were good, but I don’t remember a worse Summer drought of software for a new machine in gaming history. There was a month when only one (sports) game was released! It’s all very well saving up your top titles for Christmas, to fight with the competition, but when you’ve got a newly installed user base, you need to keep on satisfying them all year long. They don’t want to go back to the previous generation to play new-releases. But the machine looks good, it’s got some great games, Xbox live has become an integral part of gaming, and the achievement system makes me disappointed to finish a game on a different machine and not earn a points reward.

Of course, as Nintendo would testify, it’s hard to innovate, but very easy to pick and choose other people’s innovations for your own machine. Sony seems to have stolen much of the framework of Xbox live for PS3, as well as Nintendo’s motion sensing technology for the controller. That’s how you truly wind up your competition, steal all their best bits and then tell them you’re going to outsell them five to one. Nintendo got their own back with their Rumble pack though, which has forced rumble to be removed from the PS3 controller due to legal issues. Of course Sony say they didn’t need it anyway.

Nintendo is again the third part of this war, and as a huge fan of the company, it’s with great sadness I say i’m not very confident in the Wii. I initially loved the controller, with it’s in-built speaker, the thought of waggling it around seemed great fun. But what about long term play, waving your arms around like crazy is great for Tennis or Wario, but the thought of spending hours on Zelda, having to physically move things around makes my shoulders hurt just thinking about it. Then there is the technical side, all Nintendo will say is that Wii is not about the technology, and everyone else says it is a little bit better than the Gamecube.

The Gamecube was not as powerful as the original Xbox, surely Nintendo are not really going to release a next generation console with technology a generation behind? The biggest factor in my lack of enthusiasm for Wii is the DVD which came with an issue of Official Nintendo magazine a few months ago. The games did not look impressive at all. The hyped ‘super speed’ of Excite Truck was particularly deflating.

Hang on you cry, you’re supposed to be the Retro guy, why are you so upset about the power of the Wii? Well, two reasons, firstly, if the graphics and speed are nowhere near that of 360 or PS3, it will always maintain the inferiority tag which has been the death of so many consoles. Saturn, Dreamcast, Jaguar, and even Gamecube all suffered because of the public perception that the consoles weren’t as technically proficient as the current market leader. The second reason is that despite championing gameplay and my love of all games retro, i’m also a graphics whore!

Prediction

This is what I think is going to happen. Wii will sell out on its release, PS3 has already sold out through pre-orders, and 360 will sell all they can make this Christmas. It’s going to be a year of console shortages that is going to hurt all three, but of all three, i’d imagine Microsoft will have the most stock, and will help cement their position as the new industry leader.

In the longer term I see us in a similar position as last generation with Xbox and PS2 swapping positions. 360 will lead by quantity this generation, but PS3 will have a firm second place, gaining popularity at the end of the cycle thanks to superior hardware (plus thats how long it will take Sony to finally work out how hard it can push it). Nintendo I think will remain in third place, though i’m sure like every console they make, the Wii will be profitable.

XBOX 360 Comes to get us!

I know, it seems to have become an annual rant, but yes, I’m still here, still working hard, and still just as keen on all things gaming. And what a busy time its been since I last wrote, Xbox 360, GB Micro, Playstation 3, Nintendo Revolution, and a brand new Gameboy almost certain for next year. Not to mention the raging battle between DS and PSP, which has again highlighted Nintendo’s incredible ability to create groundbreaking software, any Nintendo doubters out there just need to try and find a copy of Nintendogs readily available in the shops this Christmas!

The most recent excitement though, has been Xbox 360, and like many of you, I was hyped up to the point of bursting on the day of launch. There may have been many problems with the UK launch, primarily the lack of stock, indeed, the bundling of ten games with the core system by Game must rate as one of the most cynical moves by any high street chain. £700 got you the console and EA’s hard to shift sports games, but you still wouldn’t be able to get a hard drive. Many argued that Microsoft’s insistence of releasing two versions of the Xbox for Christmas was miss-guided, but they always held that it offered poorer gamers the chance to get in on the act of 360. Anyone who witnessed the feverish queues of launch day will agree the truth is a very clever profiteering scheme by Microsoft.

Release equal numbers of Core and Full systems, take all the bits you didn’t need to add to the core systems and repackage as add-ons, then sell the add-ons to everyone who had no chance of finding a Full system. Brilliant. Before the launch of 360 Microsoft even had the audacity to say that while they weren’t making a profit on the console, but they were making healthy profits on all the peripherals – they weren’t even hiding the strategy. Anyone thinking I’m cynical, and believing Microsoft only had the poor gamers at heart, should take into account that the Japanese launch only included the full system. They were already fully aware they’ll struggle to sell any 360s in Japan. There’s no point in using the same strategy as nobody is likely to fight over hard drives like they will in the UK and the rest of Europe.

Cynical I may be, but truthfully, I hope Microsoft did make nice healthy profits with their core system initiative, they deserve it, the 360 is a lovely system. Sure, it sounds like a hair dryer, you always forget to turn your wireless controller on, and the strange console shape is more lava lamp than hi-tech, But…

The graphics in Project Gotham are fantastic, the Hi-Def TV images are beautiful, and the attention to detail over Xbox live and the Gamer Score system is to me one of the greatest innovations in console gaming for the past ten years. Any game system which instantly ranks your last play against the world has to be admired. Of course, this makes everything, from simple puzzle and arcade games, through to hot laps on the Las Vegas strip, around fifty times more addictive. If I don’t get in the top hundred on something soon, I may give up gaming for good!

Or is that actually part of a new problem which gaming hasn’t faced before. A world where games are dominated by people who don’t work, those who can spend the day playing their machine without real lives getting in the way. They’ll set unattainable levels that everybody else will have no chance of reaching – and your everlasting gaming record will display that for everyone to see! A permanent record of how poor you are at gaming.

However amazing console gaming gets, it’s always going to be hard to fit it in with most people’s busy work and family lives. Proof of that has been on Xbox live since day one, you’ll find more people to play with online at midnight than at three in the afternoon.

Let’s all think for a second about all those women lying in bed at night on their own while their partner is downstairs talking dirty to someone in Newcastle for fragging him off. Actually, let’s not ;o)

PLAYSTATION 3 - How about something Different?

So, what of the other consoles, Playstation 3 has wowed the world with some cartoons it commissioned in good old Blighty, it’s nice to know we can still make nice movies! Nintendo hasn’t actually shown any Revolution games yet, and everybody is guessing the console will have less power than just one of 360’s Power PC chips. But then, there can’t be many hardcore gamers who aren’t excited by that weird controller – especially if they’ve seen that Nintendo promo advert.

But as a humble gamer, it seems to me that all three companies are missing a trick. There’s more to mass market than cheap to sell, expensive to produce hardware. Negative profits are surely part of the problem with low production. All three of our current consoles have suffered with low stock issues. Playstation 2 has had three hairy Christmas periods, where games have had to take pre-orders just to meet demand, the original Xbox has been hard to find in numbers for the past six months, and even the less successful Gamecube has had stock issues this Christmas. High prices mean lower sales, which means more stock. All three harp on about Europe becoming a priority, but who knows how big a part of your global picture the UK & Europe could be if we had unlimited stock allocation.

On the same point, why do the big three need to embrace the mass market when they could make enough profit out of the hardcore. For years they’ve been raving on about making everything mass market, but older formats and handheld machines can cater for casual gamers. The solution I’ve been thinking of is radical, but would solve a lot of problems.

What if, let’s say Sony for the point of argument, decided to abandon Playstation 3, and set their sights on a far higher technical specification. If Microsoft can pack all that power into a 360 for £209, then how much could they pack into a console at four times the price, or even more. How about if Sony made a games console which had ten times the power of 360, surely at most that would cost ten times the price, and while many would laugh at the prospect of Sony producing a £2000 games machine, there aren’t many who wouldn’t want a machine with that kind of power, blowing away all the super charged gaming PCs and consoles in one fell swoop. Imagine ten 360s (or Sony’s own Cell based PS3s) each handling a different facet of the game, surely that would be enough for photo real gaming, the final convergence of movies and videogames. Maybe not, but it’s still surely going to be far more impressive than those suspect PS3 E3 promo films, which certainly got me excited.

There are so many plus points to this business model, my hands can’t type as fast as my brain can think of them. Firstly, Sony could make a profit, abandon the old business model and make 20% on each machine. Games would also need to be very expensive, as development time and staff numbers would be huge, and as it’s such a break from the traditional model, it’s probable that Sony would have to develop primarily with their internal studios, perhaps merging a few together to work on a very limited number of games.

In fact, Sony would only need one game, but it would have to be an amazing one! The obvious choice is a GTA style game, with far more graphic reality, realtime physics and countless other improvements. Ask anyone who loves GTA and they’ll tell you that despite it being one of their favourite games, they have a list of things they would like to see in it. If the console is ten times the price, then I guess the game is going to be similarly expensive, but let’s cap it at £300, as if we only initially have one game, then everyone is going to have to buy it. We’ll just have to put the console price up if software development requires more resources.

Ok, we have our mind blowing £2000 games console and our £300 ultra realistic GTA game. Who’s going to buy it? Everyone! Ok, not everybody is wealthy enough to invest in such a machine, but aspirational products exist in every other product sector. You might not be able to afford a new Audi TT, but you might beg borrow and save to get one. Think about Bang & Olufsen , Nakamichi , Bose , Mercedes , even Apple, all companies who have concentrated on quality and giving the best possible product to their customers, and who charge a relative cost for that quality. These are the brands everybody wants, they settle for a Ford Focus, or a Ferguson videostar, but they aspire to owning their far better equivalents.

One three minute advertisement on TV, and everybody is going to want Sony’s Hyperstation, it would be the most amazing gaming experience you’ve ever seen. Hardcore gamers would take out a loan, sell other items, and save like crazy to buy it. How many wealthy gamers do you think are out there? Considering those who’ve grown up on gaming are now mid-thirty somethings, probably in good jobs, and probably playing their current generation of gaming on a £2000 TV, paying for it wouldn’t be a problem. Everyone who can’t afford it will just have to aspire, for the time being at least. I’m sure Sony would still manage to cut the costs of producing the console as time went on and technology got cheaper, they could choose whether to give some of that back as a discount to new customers, or keep most of the extra profit for themselves and keep the new console exclusive. As someone who lost interest in his IPod once everyone else had one, and someone who refuses to buy an album if it’s number one in the charts, an exclusive console is something I’d certainly buy into.

And what about the rivals, will cheaper mass market consoles catch up with the technology? By then Sony should be ready with the Hyperstation 2, with the original console still powerful enough to compete with rival’s “next generation” machines. Sony should now be able to compete at a similar price but with an established range or incredibly well developed software - which can also drop in price in line with the competition at same time. Perfect.

So, we’re talking about less games, less hardware sales, but far better games, and far more powerful hardware. This would create big profits for both Sony and retail. If a company like Sony put all their resources into one or two games on their new console, the incredible public perception of the products would be such a blow for the far cheaper competition, it may force all game developers to concentrate on quality over quantity. I think the industry as a whole would be far better for it.

There’s nothing to say that this model doesn’t go far enough, how about a five or ten thousand pound console, imagine this pulsating piece of chrome clad solid state under your TV, actually, it might need to be tucked away behind the TV like a big PC, or even in another room and operated wirelessly. This much power would take up a lot more space than current consoles. If it was powerful enough, people may prefer to keep their old car for another year, and invest in one. The price isn’t as important as the size of the wow factor.

A console so expensive that younger players couldn’t afford one would also be a great shot in the arm for the flagging arcade machine business. Sega or Namco could licence this amazing hardware, write far less in-depth games suitable for the arcade, and finally offer an experience far removed from what you can play at home. Like arcades used to be! These games could of course then be converted to run on the home console, and that brings us nicely to the only console which this business model is comparable to.

SNK’s Neo Geo of course, the most expensive to own console ever developed. Released in the early nineties, it offered ten times the power of the Megadrive or PC Engine, and used the same hardware as SNK’s arcade machines. The games flowed freely between the two formats, and its place was cemented as the hardcore’s favourite console. While the console was expensive, the games were being released right up until 2003 with a retail price of over £300 each. Sure, they were priced high to allow for low volume selling, but Neo Geo cartridges remain highly valued, prices of particular cartridges soaring to between £600-£800 on ebay. While SNK did produce a great range of arcade and fighting titles, part of this value is down to exclusivity. The fact that SNK was still making money selling games for the machine so recently, when in competition with PS2 and Xbox, is testament to the power of the console and its well developed games.

So Mr Kutaragi, how about it. Development of Qrio and Aibo prove that Sony doesn’t mind taking risks on groundbreaking electronic products. Give us a chance to play the ultimate console, and take videogames to the next level.