OrtizGames

Prediction Number Two has been fulfilled.

PS3 Fanboy has shown some amazing accuracy in predicting the movements of the market so far. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for Predictions Three and Four (which we’re getting hints of already), and once the end of 2008 comes around, we’ll know the full extend of their clairvoyant powers.

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This may have just be Michael Bay rambling, and I don’t exactly trust Michael Bay. But it seems like there were various sources suggesting earlier this year that Microsoft wants to fight Blu-Ray with HD DVD just so they can drive both formats down. It seems that Microsoft’s ulterior motive was to keep the format war at a standstill so they could work on and release their Direct 2 Drive purchase system. So Microsoft’s support really hasn’t been about movies all this time–sorry, moviegoers, but this is actually closely tied in to the videogame industry.

I know it’s relatively old news, but I mention it now because 1) I really felt a need to talk about this, 2) I’ve had it on the backburner for a month now and haven’t gotten to it and 3) we has reached a general consensus the Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD war is more or less over. Blu-Ray wins.

But from thinking on HD-DVD’s “downfall”, I start to wonder whether Microsoft was really aiming towards competing. My theory is that, if anything, they were hoping just to slow Blu-Ray down, and never planned to even give HD-DVD a chance–which is rather uncool, in my perspective–it’s kind of on the same moral standing as Wal-Mart coming into third world countries and lowering their prices to dirt cheap in order to bankrupt all local businesses, and then raising their prices back to normal when they hold monopoly.

Thing is, I think this strategem was doomed from the start. You can’t really remove the physical element from game ownership–people don’t have the internet infrastructure necessary to download whole games that work in Hi-Def, so Microsoft would have had to sell physical copies anyway. And then there’s the issue with space–where are Xbox 360 owners going to save all those games? Their minute yet extremely lunky Hard Drives that are shipped with their consoles? PS3 at least gives owners the option of purchasing a computer hard drive and installing it in place of their standard drive on their computer. Microsoft holds exclusive market over the manufacture of their 120GB drives. 120GB aren’t going to cut it in this day and age. Computer hard drives are rapidly approaching massive space range–I can get a 500GB hard drive for 500 bucks at Best Buy.

In the end, PS3 would have been able to compete with Direct 2 Drive par on par. Especially since PSN downloads are so simple and straightforward.

So, we give you a send off, HD-DVD. I’m sorry you were just a tool. We’ll bury you near to all your fellow dead formats, like Beta.

(The following video is NSFW due to language and the fact that they’ve chosen Hitler to represent HD-DVD, which is somewhat mortifying.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=friS4OOcdgQ]

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One of my friends recently told me today (after having read my People Hate the PS3 post) that while I had hit many of the key points as to why PS3 was getting such bad rep right now, the reason he personally “hate[ed] the PS3 with a passion” was because it was just too expensive. He also said the games coming out for the PS3 weren’t interesting to him, though I was intrigued as to how he liked Perfect Dark Zero and PGR3 over Resistance and Motorstorm.

After listening more and more, I came to the conclusion that, in all honesty, he was just a casual gamer. He pointed out that none of the games PS3 had come out with were easy to get into or had really fun split screen. I thought about it, and realized the games he plays on his Xbox (Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Halo 3) are all just glorified party games, and not really all that hardcore at all. Wait, Halo 3, a casual game? Halo, I concluded after a while, could really just be called casual. It’s pointedly simple, quick and requires very little strategic learning or improvement. Most people I know are good at Halo because–just that–they’re good at Halo. They didn’t practice, they didn’t get better–they’re just good at it because they are. This is from a biased perspective, of course, but I suspect it’s more or less the issue. People CAN get better–there’s the whole Rock Band and Guitar Hero progressive improvement based on difficulty level, same for Legendary Mode–but really, I can do voice on Expert at Rock Band, and I barely struggle. I was just GOOD at it… and I know there’s plenty of people that were good at Uncharted and Gears of War, but those games were bound to provide a real challenge to complete.

So that’s just it–what IS casual? What is hardcore? Where can you find them? It seems my friend would rather play games on his Nintendo Wii, so maybe that’s a more “casual” console? He bought the 360 because it’s cheaper than the PS3, but in all honesty does he like it more? Is it “more casual” or “less casual”? He says he’s neutral towards the 360 while hating the PS3, but I’m thinking if the PS3 were to release a few more on-console multiplayer games (like Killzone 2 or LittleBigPlanet, for example) and he had waited until then to make a decision between Xbox and PS3, he wouldn’t know which to buy. He’d go for the cheaper one, I’m suspecting–and the PS3 is lowering in price, now that production costs are at 400$ per console (Sony actually is making money off sales now). So what would happen in that instance?

In the end, I’m not sure. I’ve figured that the real competitive showdown in the industry is between those games that are deemed casual and those games that are deemed hardcore. Who’s the bigger audience? Casual. Who’s more likely to take to a game? Hardcore. How do you balance these out?

I’m thinking someone needs to come up with a symbiosis–something truly extraordinary, that will appeal to people all over. Games like SPORE (and maybe Rock Band?) come close to what I’m thinking, but nobody’s hit it on the nail yet–a merge between hardcore and casual, a game anyone can play but that feels just as epic as a game like Mass Effect. Something that appeals to everyone.

Portal? Maybe.

I don’t know. I’m just at a loss tonight.

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I remember thinking in summer of 2006 that I wanted an Xbox 360, and bad, for one game. One, single game was catching my attention. I wasn’t waiting for Halo 3, I wasn’t excited about Gears of War–which really wasn’t even that big yet, so whatever–no, I wanted to play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

To me, that was the selling game of the 360 during that time. A multiplatformer.

Fast forward to one year later, and the games that sell the PS3? None. Despite the fact that it has FEAR, The Darkness and Oblivion in its repertoire, it has no selling point at all. And people hate it. They hate the PS3. They hate Sony, too–not that they didn’t have a reason to, with Sony’s constant confusing marketing strategies that are about as commendable as falling on your face on purpose. Everything seems geared completely against the Playstation 3, and what’s the argument used against it?

“It doesn’t have any games.”

At the very same time in the PS3′s lifespan, it holds just as many interesting titles as the Xbox 360 did in its time–and yet people hate the PS3, with a passion.

Why is that?

I have a theory that has three points of reasoning behind it.

1) PS3 does not have a Gears. Gears of War was the game that turned Microsoft’s sales completely around–whether it be because of the overhyped marketing put across for it about how it would be a ‘Halo-killer’ or just the general attitude of the game itself which somehow appealed to the exact same audience that would be interested in Halo, plus ten of their friends. Christmastime, and PS3 has no Gears of War title to show–it could have been Uncharted, or even Folklore, but Sony simply didn’t back the game up enough–they threw their support behind games like Heavenly Sword and LAIR which were, to be honest, simply atrocious compared to what was promised in the advertising. Heavenly Sword was by no means bad–I loved it, it was gorgeous–but it just didn’t live up to what people wanted, like Assassin’s Creed. And LAIR… let’s not go there.

2) Sony screwed up too much. Microsoft had the Red Ring of Death and crappy launch titles and the whole “This is an Xbox 180, not a 360!” bit. Sony had a lot of bad rap for not having “PlayStation Live” or having any good exclusive games. But they didn’t fix things. They screwed up with the Boomerang controller, which I have a high suspicion was supposed to have motion sensing technology but they wanted to save the news for later. Upon hearing people’s dislike for the controller, they went right back to the drawing board–only Nintendo came out with the motion sensor technology announcement first. And then Sony were left looking like jackasses as they raised their Sixaxis timidly, “We added motion sensing, too.”

Then there was the horrible PSP advertising, and bad management of things like prices and titles being held back, all of which made the console look like it was either not worth it or too hard to develop for.

3) Above all other factors, though, it comes down to competition. The Xbox 360, during its starting year (we all remember), had no competitors. It had CRAP games, like Perfect Dark: Zero, Kameo and Battle for Mattle (My affectionate name for Battle for Middle Earth II). It had some good ones, like PGR3, but those were so niche it was difficult to sell via mainstream (and PGR3 was rather limited compared to PGR2, to be honest). But it didn’t have any next gen console to compete with. It could make its mistakes, and there would be no other company to compare to.

Sony comes out with the PS3, making a lot of the same errors and having many of the same difficulties as the 360, but now that Microsoft has an established fanbase, Sony’s called out as if they were incompetent, because they have trouble catching up to a console that has already been out for a year. Now, let’s think critically here, you naysayers who seem to believe PS3 has no games: what are the REAL differences between PS3′s launch and the 360′s?

Decent but somewhat unimpressive shooter

(Xbox 360) Perfect Dark: Zero

(PS3) Resistance: Fall of Man

Fun But Otherwise Unremarkable Driving game

(Xbox 360) PGR3

(PS3) MotorStorm

Oh Look A Multiplatform Game

(Xbox 360) Oblivion

(PS3) Also had Oblivion, but also recieved games like FEAR, Project 8 and Fight Night

A War Game? Oh Wow

(Xbox 360) COD2

(PS3) COD3

I mean, the list goes on. We didn’t have that much of a success story with either of these launches. Or do you remember Xbox 360s in very short supply? I certainly don’t. And PS3′s been getting back up. Xbox 360 had to do exactly the same thing. We barely ever sold 360s when I was working in the game shop. The thing is, nobody was really aware Xbox 360 had been tripping. Now, with Nintendo and Microsoft also competing in the NextGen market, Sony has to not only establish their console but also maintain face as an approachable platform for games release.

In summary, all I’m trying to say is, lay off Sony, peeps. Yes, they’ve screwed up. But in the long run, PS3 has a very bright future ahead of them. All they need is a must-have, and a killer app.

I nominate MGS4 and Final Fantasy. But we could really use something right now.

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What the hell.

Apparently, Activision has no desire to share their controllers with Rock Band. Perfectly understandable, from a business point of view. But look here, and you’ll realize how little it makes sense when compared to what’s going on on the other end of the spectrum. On Xbox 360, the Les Paul (GH3 controller) works fine with Rock Band.

Now, either Activision couldn’t kill off the compatability forthe 360 version of Rock Band, or they’re making a move that makes no sense at all. They gain nothing from angering the hundreds of thousands of PS3 users that would want to use their Les Paul on either game. They stand to lose a lot of future Guitar Hero sales and they stand to lose a lot of leeway with Sony when it comes to releasing multiplatform and exclusive games.

So… what are they thinking?

Discuss.

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http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/sony-expecting-great-deal-of-momentum-with-ps3/18568/?ncid=AOLGAM000500000000016

 There’s much good news coming from Sony recently. I’m usually excited to hear good news about the PS3, since I’m such an avid supporter of its higher performance technology. Honestly, I would have one right now if I could afford it. I’m hoping the upcoming price cut (rumored $299 USD with the release of Haze–source unavailable, but there was a video, even, so I’m convinced) will allow me to finally be able to purchase one of my own. I’d prefer an original 60gig, with the integrated backwards compatability, but if I have to settle for a cheaper 40gig version I may very well do so. I’ve wanted a PS3 for well over two years now.

To elaborate on why I support the PS3′s high-power approach to gaming:

Someone once mentioned to me that “console gaming shouldn’t end up so focused on performance and visuals and hardware, because a good console will never match up to a PC.” While I agree a great PC will be able to run Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion far better than the PS3 or Xbox 360 ever could, I have to argue that from an industry perspective this can’t possibly be true. PC games, we’re assuming, will always improve graphically, as our technology is growing exponentially at a steady rate (it was technology doubling in potency every 8 months or so, no?) so consoles, if they want to be able to host those games (ex. Bioshock, Oblivion, CoD4 and SPORE) need to raise their hardware bar every so often to keep up. PC developers want consoles to host their games. They pay a lot of money for it, and often those games that are successful on the PC (and Mac) will be successful on consoles (imagine WoW on PS3). But why would PC developers care about consoles?

Because PC gamers often download their games illegally. And most of the time, a software developer is guaranteed that if their game is released on a console, it is infinately more likely that gamers will actually buy the real copy of the game and not download or purchase a free/cheaper pirated version.

So if gaming graphics continue to increase on PC and not on consoles, trust me, the balance will tip and the scales will fall. Unless people plan on holding back on the processing power of PCs (trust me, they won’t) games will continue to grow more and more complex and detailed, and consoles will have to keep updating. They can’t afford to sit still and experiment with the same old technology (and by this I mean infra-red).

And trust me, even if I have to buy a new Playstation every seven years because of the technology increase, I won’t mind. I’d rather have that than the gaming industry crackle and break like a twig under the strain of a rapidly evolving digital world.

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