Archive for January, 2006

Manure! We hate manure! Good thing GameDaily and Joystiq have helped us dig through some of the BS surrounding the PS3 and Nintendo Revolution.

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We’ve been trying to ignore most of the random guesses that video-game analysts are throwing out there lately, and fortunately GameDaily has a nice feature cutting through the propaganda coming from the tech companies themselves.

They attack four statements — two about PS3, two about Revolution. Here’s a brief look.

1. Sony will sell 4-7 million PS3s in 2006 = Major BS.

The Cell chip manufacturing ramp up has not yet begun, and the chip yield will almost certainly impact how many units can be manufactured this year. The senior vice president of Pioneer Electronics should probably do some research before throwing out comments that force us to dig through a pile of BS before getting to the truth.

2. Sony is setting up a competitor to Xbox Live = Medium BS.

What we see happening is a partial Xbox Live service for the PlayStation 3. … However, we do not see the service being anywhere near the level of Xbox Live. It may take Sony the entire life cycle of the PS3 and beyond to get to the point where Xbox Live is at now with the 360.

In Joystiq’s response to the feature, they note that Sony recently bought Zipper Interactive, which pioneered PS2 online play with the SOCOM series. That “probably happened for a reason” — maybe some big plans for online action?

The article also slices up a claim or two about the Revolution, but they agree with the big points: it’ll be sub-$300 and on the market before Thanksgiving, or Nintendo is in trouble.

• Digging Through the BS [GameDaily]
• PS3 and Revolution bull considered cut (well, maybe) [Joystiq]

In a week full of analysts’ speculation, BusinessWeek’s Next Generation column offers up some truly interesting thoughts on the impending release of the PlayStation 3.

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Their theory: It’s not about the games, it’s all about the DVDs. Because the gaming market is tiny in comparison to the high-def DVD market, it’s possible that Sony is really using the PS3 to take on Toshiba, which created the competing HD-DVD format, rather than Microsoft and Xbox 360. If Sony wins in gaming, that’ll just be an added bonus. If they win with Blu-ray, that’ll mean billions a year in royalties.

So, if it’s true — the columnist takes great care to remind you it’s not — what does that mean? Maybe Sony will launch the PS3 in the US first, because the DVD market is here, not in Japan. And maybe they’ll launch early, with little software support, because their primary goal is to get as many Blu-ray players on the market as they possibly can.

Then again, they remind us — “if it ain’t ready, it ain’t ready.” Quite a good point. Check out the full story, and decide for yourself which speculation you prefer.

• Sony’s War Goes Beyond Games [BusinessWeek]

EARLIER: Why we think Sony’s vertical integration will help them control the next-gen DVD market.

The developer of the SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals series will become part of Sony’s new SCE Worldwide Studios.

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Zipper, which has been working closely with Sony since 1999, is said to have at least one PlayStation 3 title in the works. Their current management team will stay on, and they expect to make some new hires for next-gen development.

• Sony snaps up video-game maker Zipper; hiring expected [Seattle Times]

Word on the street is that the people behind E3, the year’s biggest gaming expo, are cracking down on scantily clad models.

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Which is too bad, because that’s the main reason we were gonna go.

But seriously, Gamespot has sliced and diced the rumor and concluded that, though models in general won’t be banned from the E3 floor, their attire will be subject to some tighter regulations. Though the expo has apparently had these rules in effect for a long time, they’ve gone unenforced — until this year’s new addition: a $5,000 fine.

So, if you like cute girls holding video games, this is a sad, sad day. Here’s more from Gamespot’s rumor mill:

Like at virtually every other trade expo, E3 exhibitors will use attractive women to help make inroads with mostly male E3 attendees. But are they on notice not to be as risqué as in past years? Given the still-simmering fallout from last year’s “Hot Coffee” Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sex-mini-game scandal, the answer appears to be “yes.”

• Booth babes banned at E3 2006? [Gamespot]

One of the major criticisms of the PS3 so far has been that it’s hard to program for — now, at least one developer says otherwise.

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Of course, this is coming from Guerilla Games, a Sony subsidiary, who’s developing Killzone for PS3. So even though we doubt they’d have anything bad to say about their parent company, here’s what we’ve heard:

“And as for the PS2 vs PS3 development question. I was chatting to Michiel and he was telling me how crazy-easy it was compared to the PS2 and how much quicker things have been going for them. I will take his word on that” Seb Downie – Lead Tester – Guerrilla Games

A bit reassuring, at least, right? Maybe these guys finally got their hands on the instruction manual.

• Playstation 3 not so hard after all? [Game Faction]

EARLIER: A Sony 3D artist came out to bash the PS3′s development process, but his article was swiftly removed from the site where it was posted.

Sorry, Jabronis: it looks like WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 is in a figure-four leglock of delays, and won’t make it on to PS3 until further notice.

And you bawling brutes can grab a weepy nerd for a good group cry – Webzen’s MMORPG Endless Saga is cancelled too.

On the plus side, Sony would like to offer , which means when there really are games to play, you can continue forking out dough for them week after week. But hey, if it somehow involves new/less visible costumes for new DOA games, I could be interested.

Despite these setbacks, it appears that Japanese gamers still prefer the PS3 to the Wii. Not only that, they like the PS3 60GB – Japanese like ‘em huge, I hear – but aren’t fond of the 20GB. Dear readers, enlighten us: is it really going to be worth to you it to go for the larger hard drive?

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Another Microsoft bigwig has debunked the theory that Halo 3 will be deliberately timed to compete against the launch of the PS3. Granted, if they coincidentally come out at the same time, there’s nothing we can do about that. Here’s what Xbox VP Peter Moore had to say in an interview with Engadget at CES.

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Well the interesting thing is, when is the launch? How can I time for something when I don’t know when it is? So first of all, the answer is no. To somehow artificially plan something to combat things? They’ll launch, let’s face it. They’ll launch and it’ll be very successful. …

It’s stupid, ridiculous, and almost impossible to say to 80 guys programming, “I want you to make sure they see you can be ready to go two weeks from now.” It just doesn’t work. You know what you end up with? You end up with a sub-par game because you’re actually building a game with an alternative plan in mind other than making a great game. Game development doesn’t work that way, and anything that is of the quality of a Halo franchise, you do not risk screwing it up.

• The Engadget Interview: Peter Moore

Kotaku reads some Japanese gaming mags, which predict that the PS3 will retail for $350 (or 40,000 yen) in Japan.

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As far as Japanese product magazines go, Trendy is really one of the best. They’ve been covering domestic consumer goods for approximately two decades and are a good barometer for what’s happening in the marketplace.

That prediction is quite a bit cheaper than what’s been kicking around lately — after all, even CNN predicts it’ll be around $500 in the US. But, as with everything PS3, only time will tell.

• Futher PS3 and Revolution Pricing Speculation [Kotaku]

There’s only one thing better than high-def DVDs — and that’s high-def DVDs full of porn. So it’s good news that Digital Playground, one of the nation’s biggest skin-flick studios, has thrown its support behind the Blu-ray format for next-gen DVDs.

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The company, which is said to hold about a 40 percent share in the US adult DVD market and bring home $12 billion a year, is hoping that an early PS3 release will cut down on HD-DVD’s market lead time.

• Porn studio sticks up for Blu-ray [Computing.co.uk]

EARLIER: All about the competition between Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

In our last post, we reported that Taiwanese firm Asustek was already shipping PS3 units. Now it turns out that whether they are or not, they don’t want people talking about it. The Chinese paper DigiTimes reports:

Asustek warned of legal action against media for any incorrect reports that jeopardize its relationships with clients, according to a company statement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s website.

In an attempt to ensure a smoother launch than the Xbox 360 experienced, Sony is reportedly in talks with British retailers to require a £150 deposit, roughly $279, to reserve a unit at the Nov. 17 launch. The full cost of a unit in Great Britain is likely to be £425. But cheerio, British readers! The United Kingdom will have both versions of the PS3 – just not at launch.

IGN reports from Comic-Con 2006 in San Diego that the PSP will serve as a controller for the PS3. Because that theory worked so well for the GameCube.

And now, because reading is boring, here are some screens you might have missed:

These are from the upcoming PS3 FPS Resistance: Fall of Man.

Check out the rest