Gaming by GlossGreen

Earlier this week NPD released it's sales numbers for the videogame market for January. Let's see what it said. Wii had sold 274,000 units for first place. Nothing surprising there. What was surprising though is second place. With 269,000 units sold, the PS3 took the runner-up position from the Xbox 360, which had sold 230,000 units. The DS in January sold 251,000 for third, and in a tie with the 360 for fourth, was the PSP, also with 230,000 units sold. This isn't the only hit that Microsoft has taken this week. Announced just today, Toshiba held a press conference to formally cede the "format war" to it's competitor, The Blu-ray Disc Association. What happens to Microsoft's HD-DVD add-on now? Is there any room left in New Mexico beside E.T.?

OK, I know these events probably won't have a huge impact on the Xbox in the long run. But it's the short term that interests me. First, being outsold by Sony. It's no secret that Microsoft has had trouble keeping some of it's SKUs in stock lately. Try to find an Elite out there. You won't be able to do it. There just aren't any. Now if you search for a Pro or an Arcade, you may have some luck. The store down the street from me has plenty of each in stock. If instead, you're looking at the online retailers for an Xbox, you will apt to be confused. Amazon.com has no Xbox 360s in stock. If you want one, you'll have to order it from another retailer. I'd understand if one or two SKUs were not in stock, but all of them. Why is that?

Here's what Microsoft's David Dennis said during an interview with Next-Gen on the subject: "We saw the sales outpacing our forecasts as far back as November," he explained, "but because we had inventory built up in advance of the holiday, it really didn’t become a shortage issue until the latter half of December. The sales continued to be robust through January, so it just continued to worsen." Demand for the Xbox has been steady for quite some time now, so this could very well be the reason for not being able to find one. Although, that is not the only possible reason. Speculation has it that Microsoft may be selling through it's old stock to make room for new SKUs. What is likely, if the new SKU story is true, is that more reliable hardware has been designed and put into manufacture, thereby displacing production of all the old models. Should this be true, we could be hearing an announcement any day now from the Game Developers Conference.

OK, now the format war crap. It's over. Let's move on people. Seriously.

There has been a lot of conjecture of the possible fallout over Toshiba's move to leave the HD-DVD biz. Would Microsoft take a financial and sales hit from this loss? Would Microsoft immediately make a BD add-on drive for their Xbox 360 console? Would the PS3 benefit from this unfortunate turn of events? Short answer...Possibly. Long answer, I don't think Microsoft had as much invested in HD-DVD as Toshiba did. Sure, they made the add-on drive accessory for it. The reason I don't think Microsoft took a big hit was because of the add-on itself. Imagine what would have happened if Sony had lost. The PS3 has an internal Blu-ray drive. The PS3 would have had to remove the drive in subsequent hardware generations and add an HD-DVD drive to be competitive. Of course, by then the Xbox would have already have installed on in their hardware. I think having the drive external did a lot to insulate the 360. The PS3 with its internal Blu-ray disc drive will, of course, have some sort of an impact, but it's not as bad for Microsoft as it could have been.

Now, it has been a tough week for the Big M, but never count them out. They seem to thrive on challenge up in Redmond. Look for new hardware soon, and with it hopefully, an end to the Red Ring of Death. Microsoft has made some mistakes lately, but it has a rosy outlook. There are some great games are coming up, Live is as strong as ever, and the hardware is getting better by the day. Not to say that they shouldn't be worried, but let's wait and see what the sales numbers for February and March look like.

Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson's in the news again. We all knew it was a matter of time. It seems every couple of months he ends up rearing his ugly, misinformed head, spouting falsehoods and half-truths to the unsuspecting mainstream media outlets. And why does the media listen to this guy? Because they may be even more clueless than he is, if that could even be possible. There is recent evidence to prove the validity of this, though. Just look back to earlier this month and the whole Mass Effect "Sexbox" controversy. I especially liked the Fox interview with Cooper Lawrence. To her credit, she did research the topic (after the fact) and recanted her previous statements. Better to say your sorry for being wrong instead of proving it time and again. Which leads me back to Thompson.

The more I read about this guy, the more worried I become. His actions, like the people he tries to defend, are becoming more and more erratic. He has recently attempted to defend or assist in defending accused murderers using the "videogames made me do it" defense. Thankfully, to date no judge has sided with his nonsense. Equal unsuccessful in censoring music and retailers in his past, you think this guy would give up, but no, he has the dedication of a religious zealot. He has sued just about everyone in the music, movie, retail, and video game industries. Why does he do it? What does he get out of it? Here's the editorial description for his book, Out Of Harms Way, on Amazon.com:



Jack's career has spanned over 30 years and has had many interesting highlights. From his beginnings as a humble lawyer (which must have lasted all of 5 minutes after passing the bar) to bashing Janet Reno (calling her a closet lesbian no less) to his battles with 2 Live Crew (and losing) and to his current obsession with violent video games (losing yet again). In a kind of ironic twist, he also has had repeated clashes with the Florida Bar Association, the association that granted him his license to practice law. He is currently involved in a disbarment case, to be ruled upon in a month or two. If he is ruled against, he will no longer be able to practice law in Florida. What will that mean? He will have to hire a lawyer for any complaints that he wishes to file.

If Jack Thompson thinks he's in a war against videogames, he is definitely losing. He has repeatedly said how he has never played the games he is issuing judgment against. How can you judge a thing if you've never played a thing? I don't know the answer to that. If I don't know something I either research it (ie...play the game), or keep my mouth shut. Maybe Jack needs to pull out a book, other than the bible.

For more information on Jack Thompson, check out the following links:
JackThompson.org
Wikipedia
GamePolitics.com
Game Trailers

Just search for Jack Thompson on the Game Politics and Game Trailers sites for lots of good, and sometimes humorous, information.

Mobile gaming is nothing new, it's been popular since the original Gameboy way back in 1989. Since then, numerous other systems have come and gone from various companies, but none as successful. Today we have 2 handheld gaming systems, one from Nintendo and the other from Sony. We are seeing a very heated competition between the two for the mobile market, and it's only getting hotter. These two systems are not the only ones out there vying for the almighty portable gaming dollar though. There is another competitor. This one is a little different. There is no standard platform, not many big name publishers, and not much in the way of gamer recognition. Even so, most people these days have one of these systems right now. I have one here, beside me, and you probably do, too. What system am I talking about? The humble cellphone.

Yes, the cellphone is turning into the next lucrative gaming platform. I know, I'm surprised myself. But, this is a growing trend, and no, it's not new. I used to work in the cellphone business, way back in those glory days of the mid 90's. Back then cellphones did not have color LCD screens. All we had back then were the standard one line number-only displays. State of the art was the Motorola StarTac phones. A game on a cellphone in those days? Not a chance, never happened. A couple of years later, something funny happened. Cellphones ended up getting LCD screens, and with them, games. They started with simple games are first, black and white versions of Snake or Tetris rip-offs were common, but not today.

The mobile gaming business is huge, and only getting bigger. It's been estimated that the mobile gaming business could possibly reach $8.4 billion by 2010. Now that's a lot of money up in the air, and todays big name publishers are trying to take advantage of it. Take a look at EA and Activision Blizzard. EA owns a company by the name of Jamdat, which in 2005 had an estimated $80 million in earnings and 31% market share in the cellphone gaming market. Second place was a little company called Namco that held 9%. You can see the logic behind the EA purchase of this company. Cellphone games are, by console gaming standards, cheap and easy to make. Why not jump into this ever growing market.

And jump in they have. We have heard recently that a company called IG Fun has secured the rights to make games based on the BioShock property for the mobile market. And that's not the only big name game announcement about mini-sizing themselves. The co-founder of Blizzard, Frank Pearce, in an interview stated that they are looking at bringing some of the World of Warcraft world to the cellphone market. In the interview, Pearce does state that the game itself won't be ported over, that instead they could provide, via cellphones, access to auctions, in-game mail, and other gaming functions to enhance the game experience for the player. In itself, this is an innovative way to integrate new technologies into the lives of WoW players. Maybe by having this ability on cellphones will allow these people to leave their homes more often and see daylight. Have you seen one of those people? They practically glow from being so pale.

This year looks to be very interesting in the mobile market. Whether they realize it, Nintendo and Sony have more then each other as competition in the mobile marketplace. Cellphone games are very popular in other parts of the world, and it's only a matter of time they become popular here. Let's see what they can do with BioShock and (believe it or not) Spore. Yes, Spore, the massive evolution simulator, is scheduled to have a cellphone version too. What this means, we don't know, but it should be interesting.

Today's words of the day* are FLAME and BAIT. Let us begin with the formal definitions provided by Dictionary.com. (For this post I've omitted any irrelevant definitions)

flame /fleɪm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fleym]
- Show IPA Pro–noun

7. intense ardor, zeal, or passion.

12. to burn or burst forth with strong emotion; break into open anger, indignation, etc.

13. Computer Slang. to send an angry, critical, or disparaging electronic message.
–verb (used with object)

14. Computer Slang. to insult or criticize angrily in an electronic message.
—Verb phrase

—Related forms:


bait /beɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[beyt]
- Show IPA Pronunciation –noun

11. to worry, torment, or persecute, esp. with malicious remarks: a nasty habit of baiting defenseless subordinates.

12. to tease: They love to bait him about his gaudy ties.

—Synonyms:
badger, heckle, pester.

Combining the words is where we really see the relevance to our culture. Flamebait. Reading the message boards of a few sites recently, I found the following examples. This first one is from N4G. This poster is obviously anti-PS3. A search of some of his other posts show a pro-Xbox mentality. This next one is from the 1Up boards. Unfortunately, this type of topic generally leads to trash talking about the systems and other negative comments. Now, liking one console over another is not necessarily a bad thing. It becomes unbearable when people attack other people strictly on their console choice.

I know you've seen it elsewhere before. You have a guy (or girl, no need to be sexist) that writes just the right thing to piss you off. Pick any gaming message board and you will see it. There's that one person that is always looking for an argument. The one that gets enjoyment out of criticizing your console of choice or that favorite game of yours. Why do they do it? Short answer. They like to see you get angry. Long answer. They like to see you get angry because they feel inadequate with the choices they've made. It's possibly because they feel that the console they've chosen to support is, they feel, not as good as a competitors or has an exclusive game that is not coming to their system. That could be why they feel the need to lash out at others. Their reasoning behind this lashing out is to make their victim feel as if they, in fact, have made the wrong choice, and not the aggressor.

So, how do we avoid flamebait and the resulting flamewars? You can't. You will always see that offensive person and his or her opinion about your favorite console. Should you let it get to you? No. You can post a response to a person like this, but just don't sink to their level. Be logical, concise, and know what you are talking about. It is doubtful you will get a logical response back, but on the good side, you may just convince the offending poster to not add to the conversation. These people do not like being proven wrong, and if you do so, they just might go away. It won't work all the time, but it has worked for me. You might also try ignoring them. That will also prevent them from getting what they want. Angry responses.

Let me add just one more definition to this post:

gamer [gey-mer]
-noun

a person who plays games

This what I am and what I believe in. I play for the games, not the consoles. I'm not an Xbot. I'm not part of the Sony Defense Force (SDF). I'm not a beWiiver**. I'm a gamer. Pure and simple.



*Disclaimer: In using the phrase "word of the day" I am not stating that I will, in fact, write about a word every day. It just sounded better than "word of the week" or "word of the whenever the hell I feel like writing about a word".

** I'd love to take credit for this word, but that belongs to Penny Arcade.

I just got my issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine today, and I'm happy to say that I'm really stoked. Flipping through the pages, I gaze in wonder at the newest games to be released and revealed in this glossy tome. I can honestly, and probably for the first time, say that I'm really excited about the coming year for the PS3. My only complaint? That I have to wait a damn year to play some of these games. Which games am I talking about? What am I looking forward to? None of your business! Just kidding, here's what's got me pumped.

All things Final Fantasy. I can't believe it. A game spin-off from FF VII that I actually want to play. No offense to Dirge of Cerberus, well, maybe a little. The game did suck after all. Crisis Core seems to have it all. The return of Cloud (different from the one we all grew to like), Sephiroth, Aerith (or Aeris for all us English-speaking types), and Zack (the unsung hero of Final Fantasy VII). Why is he so important to this story? If you have to ask, go play the game again. Taking too long? OK, here's the short version. Zack and Cloud were both in the same military unit. Zack was in Soldier, and Cloud was a basic bullet catcher type. When he witnesses Zack get killed by Sephiroth, Cloud goes a little crazy and ends up adopting Zack's personality as his own. Later Cloud goes to Midgar and ends up working for Avalanche against Shinra. It's kinda confusing, but makes for a great game. Hopefully this prequel will be just as good. Also, it wouldn't hurt to actually learn who Zack really is. We know a little bit about him, but not enough. My only problem with this game is that I have to buy a damn PSP to play it. I guess there are worse things to have to put up with.

Crisis Core is not the only FF love we may be getting this year. A real numbered game is in the works. Final Fantasy XIII is due to come out sometime this year...or next. We don't quite know when it's coming out, but it will be released eventually. One thing we can count on though, is that it will be good and very polished. What I do like seeing is a return to the sci-fi type feel that X had. In fact, my favorite games of the series so far are VII, VIII, and X. All had decidedly futuristic settings and technology. The fantasy stuff just never really sat well with me, just couldn't get into it. The other FF XIII game coming out next year is Versus. Again, another one that I am hopelessly anticipating.

Now, here's a series that I've never had any real interest in playing. Tomb Raider. Sure, there have been some good games in the series, but not any of what I've wanted to play. I've never been one for third-person platforming games, but one game recently changed that for me. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. That one game has opened my eyes to this genre. The only thing I expect now for Tomb Raider is for it to be as good as Uncharted. If it isn't it'll lose me and a lot of fans and potential fans forever. So far, it does look promising. But, looks are only half of the equation. It has to play good too.

There are also a couple of other games that have caught my eye. One is The Force Unleashed. That is a game that seems to have a lot of potential. Intriguing story, interesting characters, empowering abilities, and eye-popping visuals. It won't be out for a while, but It's got my attention. The last game is that damn Turok game. Everywhere I look I see these huge 2 page spreads for it. I've also played the demo. Good environments, fluid controls, and of course, the dinosaurs look plenty menacing. Can't wait to see the bigger ones later in the game. Taking a bow and arrow to the T-rex will be pretty hopeless, but looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Being a fan of the N64 series, this is one game I have to get.

Well, that's my list for what really has me excited this year. Of course, there are many other games coming out that look great, but these are the top of my list. For now. So, what did I miss that you are really looking forward to? Drop me a line and let me know.

And Speculation.

Last month I gave my thoughts on the upcoming year for all the consoles. I thought the PS3 and 360 could have a strong year. I also wrote that I thought the Wii was on shaky ground. Now we are hearing news and speculation from some of the other media outlets. Was I on the right track? Will the PS3 make a comeback? Can the Wii maintain it's momentum? Let's see what the experts are saying.

First up with the big announcements is EA. We all know EA is fond of making grand statements with regards to its competitors and partners. So them coming out with a statement from left field is nothing new. This is what they had to say about the coming year. EA thinks that the Wii will stay on top in 08, not much of a surprise there with the Wii's current sales figures. What is surprising is EA's prediction that the PS3 will outsell the 360 in the upcoming year. But, should that really be surprising at all? According to sarcasticgamer.com, the PS3 has already outsold the 360. Check out their article to see how they came up with the numbers.

If what they say is true, the PS3 outsold the 360 by 1.53 million in 07. If that comes as a surprise to you, join the club. All we've heard this year is how the 360 is trouncing the PS3. Are we being lied to or is this just something that no one has really paid any attention to? If it's a case of the first, I get that. Microsoft definitely does not want this to get out. But, if it's a case of the second, now that's a problem. We all know the ignorance the mainstream media has in regards to videogames, but what about the typical gaming media outlets? Why is this being reported only by sarcasticgamer.com? Are they way off base, or are they onto a story that has yet to break big? Definitely something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

As far as the Wii goes though, EA's assessment is not the only one out there. Microsoft has it's own ideas. Jeff Bell of Microsoft has said that the Wii is kinda like a gateway device to the world of gaming. His thoughts are that the Wii is getting people into gaming that may not have thought about owning a console before. Unfortunately for Nintendo, Microsoft doesn't think people will stick with it for the long haul, and will be looking for a new system when they grow out of the Wii. This is simplifying Jeff's statements quite a bit. Read the full interview with him here. Does his theory hold water? In a way it does. The theory of the Nintendo bubble bursting has been making its rounds on the internet lately and has been getting a lot of attention and speculation.

What? You haven't heard of the Nintendo bubble theory? Well here it is: The latest thoughts are that the Wii's game line-up can't support the sales the console have achieved as of late. What this means is that the gamers will realize that all there is to play on the Wii are the typical Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games, plus lots of crappy third party games. In the past Nintendo has had the problem of not being able to get consistent third party support. Nintendo doesn't have that problem this time. The new problem is all the really bad third party games that are on the console now. Aunt Trudy may buy that cool looking game for little Timmy, not realizing it's a complete disaster and pretty much unplayable. This may lead to a backlash of people not purchasing third party games, even the good ones, and stick to the first party games. That in turn, could lead to the third party developers pulling their support. The result being a drought of good third party games similar to what the N64 and and Gamecube were plagued with. The result will be less game sales, and then less console sales. The bubble, being the currently huge sales numbers, will eventually burst.

Overall, I think my ideas were pretty close to some of those in the industry. I was surprised about the bit of PS3 outselling the 360, but the Nintendo bubble bursting idea didn't surprise me at all. It just doesn't seem to have the credentials to hang with it's competitors. Game-wise, Nintendo doesn't have the library. Tech-wise, there's no contest to either platform by its competition. Even if it adds DVD support this year, I don't think it'll be able to maintain the top spot past 2008. I may be wrong, after all, I'm just the average gamer.