Don’t Bet On Celebrating New Year’s In Home

When Home was delayed until “Fall” I figured that was it for 2008, and statements today from Kaz Hirai are only further throwing cold water on the prospects for the launch of the 3D avatar-driven meet-up space this year. Hirai has gone on record today saying not to expect Home until the end of the year.

That picks up the wriggling software, carries it past the 1-year-late mark and throws its marketing effectiveness clear into 2009. That means no buzz to help spur PS3 sales in the holiday season. Once again the console will have to tread water with individual titles all doing their own thing for online play. This strategy didn’t work so well last year.

Our own Joe Haygood has mentioned before that there’s at least one big problem with Home: nobody asked for it. While important innovations can be a surprise, if Sony’s inability to execute on a design created to leapfrog the competition ends up in making them so late to market that nobody is listening anymore you have a serious problem. Being this late with home seriously blunts any perceived momentum the platform will have had this year.

All Sony had to do was sit down and take notes on the best feature sets from all online game lobby, matchmaking, and communications systems and create a common system for developers to build into their games. Bring in some highly paid UI talent and you’d still probably have come in below what Home has cost them so far not just in development dollars but lost mindshare and PR opportunities.

Even some Xbox 360 games haven’t done things perfectly based on comments our own George Walker has made on how poorly the matchmaking on Gears of War (or was it Halo 3?) in one of our earlier podcasts but just the core unified services developers can rely on are better than having next-to-nothing unified, you’d have to agree.

See also: You Can’t Go Home Until 2009.

Via: PSU.

CONFIRMED: Blu-ray Equipped Xbox 360

Just saw this on Slashdot.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer had admitted that Microsoft had been working on support for Blu-ray under Windows during this year’s Mix08 conference. Rumors began to swirl and many began to expect Microsoft to announce a Blu-ray peripheral for the Xbox 360. However, Microsoft came out and denied all rumors, stating that they were not exploring any kind of Blu-ray add-on or in talks with Sony about integrating Blu-ray into the Xbox experience. After months of rumors and denials, the Xbox 360 with a Blu-ray disc drive is due to be manufactured soon and shipped in Q3 of 2008. Pegatron Technology, an OEM subsidiary of Asustek Computer, is reported to have received the winning order from Microsoft for a Blu-ray equipped Xbox 360.

I think we all expected Blu-ray support for the 360, but I was expecting a Blu-ray add-on, not an actual Blu-ray equipped console. Very interesting, indeed. Now, if Sony were really smart, they’d pull a Microsoft and include some compatibility bugs to handicap Blu-ray support on the 360.

For example, they could make the 360 version not upgradeable, so that as new versions of the Blu-ray standard are released, the 360 will not be able to keep up with the updates, as the PS3 is now able to do.

I know for myself, though, I can’t imagine buying another 360 just for Blu-ray support, so a PS3 would still be the way to go.

Now, if there WERE a Blu-ray addon, I would probably be more inclined to pick up the cheaper alternative.

Some Thoughts on Dead Space

Not sure if anyone else has been following development of EA’s original IP title, Dead Space, but they’ve recently posted a new developer diary video.

What immediately stood out to me about this video (besides the nasty-looking alien meatbags) was that the developers are really trying to focus on story first. It is interesting that they mentioned that they’re building the story first, THEN the gameplay, and this hasn’t really been done before. Well, I can’t speak to whether it’s been done before since I’m not sure how most developers do things, but it is promising, nonetheless. 

As a huge fan of the System Shock series (especially System Shock 2), I’ve been moderately encouraged by what I’ve seen on Dead Space, so far. The environments look pretty darn good, even with several months left in the development cycle. I’m not sure if Dead Space will have the depth that Deus Ex or Bioshock had, but a great story is definitely the right place to start.

As one of the first major IP’s since EA’s shift from licensed IP’s to original IP’s, it’ll be interesting to see what the end result will be.

6 out of 4 Testers Agree: GTA IV Has Issues

While Rockstar flails around looking for redemption with PS3 owners by telling us to not play their game — what else do you call a recommendation that we erase cached data, game saves, reset the PS3 to factory defaults, and switch off rumble — I’ve continued to play the game despite one isolated freeze-up during the drunkenness mission. Online play is ridiculously fun with friends — not with the general public who have a penchant for yammering things like “WHAT UP YO I HOPE THIS GAME MODE IS GOOD!” into their microphones while the game loads — but the picture here should give you a second clue that Rockstar didn’t test online play much.

Oh what was the first clue? When Kotaku’s GTA IV FAQ said yes, Rockstar told them there would be voice chat, but the online servers weren’t up and running before launch the way the 360 version’s were. (See questions 9 and 35 in the FAQ.)

The profile here should have a “2″ in the star showing me having leveled up twice, and those level-ups let me choose extra character features in the appearance categories. I chose them for Legs and Hats here, and upon returning to single player mode or reloading the next day, going into the character profile menu via the mobile phone (an immersive menu system I really like by the way) shows that yes they’re still chosen and still appear in the character model on-screen, I can’t modify them or I lose the ability to switch back to them. Is this happening on the Xbox 360 as well? I haven’t seen any reports about it on either system, and in case you’re wondering I’m logged into the PSN all the time.

Glaring problems like this tell me a patch must be coming, and it makes me worry whether or not it’ll do something really aggravating like force me to erase all of my saved games. Maybe it’s time to turn my attention back to finishing up The Darkness or dive deeper into the delicious brutality of Bloody Palace on Devil May Cry 4 while I wait for Rockstar to fix their delayed game.

Possible PS3 GTA IV Fix Reminds Me of Tweaking a PC

Well, it seems that the good folks over at Gamespot decided to submit a tech support inquiry to Take Two regarding the lockups that were occuring on the PS3.  The response was a long, drawn out process to get the game working correctly.  I do not know if these steps are complicated, but just from looking at them, I started to realize that gaming on a console today is starting to become as difficult as gaming on a PC.

I mean some of these items seem far beyond the simple, “blow on the cartridge”, or “hit the reset button” that we are used to in console gaming.  Some examples include:

8 ) Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.

or

6) Delete all of the system’s Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the ‘Network’ tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the ‘Internet Browser’, highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the ‘Tools’ option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach ‘Delete Cookies’ and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for ‘Delete Cache’.

Maybe it is just me, but a console owner should not have to jump through these hoops to get the most anticipated game of the year working.  Rockstar delayed the game eight months, so how could they not of fixed problems like this long before the game went to gold.  It should also be noted that there are still no responses to our inquiries to Rockstar about the freezing issues.

Ones to Watch on PSP and PS3 for May 2008

April was nearly devoid of releases thanks to the massive landing of GTA IV but May is looking pretty heavily laden with titles that have some sleeper hit potential on both the PSP and PS3.

Echochrome lands on the PlayStation Store today, May 1st, with separate $10 versions for the PS3 and PSP. The levels on each are supposed to be unique, and just looking at a couple of screen shots makes my head hurt. You puzzle fiends out there will love it, I’m sure.

The movie tie-in Iron Man lands on May 2nd on several platforms, the PSP and PS3 among them. The demo for the PS3 version appeared on the PlayStation Store last week. CheapyD and Wombat on the CAGcast weren’t too unkind in their description of it, though, saying that while there was something to it and it had potential, it didn’t quite click, probably due to being rushed to meet the film launch.

May 6th is showing a Call of Duty 4 Game of The Year Edition, which should include the map pack currently being sold separately on the PlayStation Store. This edition is already available on the Xbox 360 and I imagine if I ever get around to renting COD4 I’d consider buying it in this pack instead of the original.

Also hitting on the 6th is the PSP’s R-Type Command from Atlus. There’s quite the buzz-generating preorder bonus for it, something called an R-9A.
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When Patches Attack!

For many, many years, PC gamers, including myself have always had to deal with one thing that has never bother console players until recently - patches.  It has always been that you would buy a console game and never have to worry about post-release fix.  It made programmers sit up and take note that what they were doing was right.  They even double and triple checked their work, because a wrong move would cost the developer a recall if the problem was big enough.

On the PC side of the equation, developers have always had the option to fix things later by patching.  I remember the first serious bug that I ran into was in King’s Quest V, near the end of the game.  I swapped to disc 7 (go 3.5″ floppies!) and got an OOPs error.  It was a malloc, or memory allocation error.  After a few calls to tech support, I fould out that the issue had come about due to my installing the VGA version on top of the 16 color EGA version.  No biggie, just wipe out the install, but it was not that easy.  I had to get a “patch” in order to fix it.  This was an unheard of issue for me.  My games had always worked.  So I logged into the Sierra BBS and got the patch, applied it and moved on.

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You Can’t Go Home Until 2009

Forget about trying to go home again, try going home once. Sony has delayed PlayStation Home’s open beta until the fall of 2008. In case you haven’t been paying attention — and with this many delays I wouldn’t blame you for dozing off — that puts the open beta a full year later than they’d promised to deliver the final code following its unveiling at the 2007 GDC. With the Home beta in the fall that means to me a final release won’t happen until 2009. All that blather about Sony having toyed with online virtual spaces since the PlayStation One hasn’t helped their engineers over in SCEE a tiny little bit, now has it.

I fully expect we won’t see in-game XMB this summer either. They just rolled out firmware 2.20 and have said 2.5 will contain in-game XMB. That’s three more firmware updates to go, and at roughly 30-45 days between updates it all fits in for a Fall release. The firmware engineers aren’t the same people working on Home, so I’m not saying they’re related, I’m just saying that Sony’s recent statements about in-game XMB showing up “in 2008″ don’t say “Summer 2008″ like they used to.

The big loss here is actually very painfully highlighted by the brand new PlayStation Store. By remaking the old Store in a fast, slick new interface Sony has proven that the PS3 can have native apps within the XMB that greatly extend the power of the system and can handle things that they’ve squirreled away into Home. I’m talking about cross-game accomplishments/achievements/trophies/whatevers and group chats to launch games from together. The marketing decisions to do this don’t look so smart when Home lags this far behind.

I’m still in the beta for Home, but nobody on my friends list is. Like many participants I was hoping we’d see the Home open beta happen at E3 this year so I could at least have friends around to kick the tires with.

Via PS3Fanboy

Stor3d: A New Beginning for Lair, Gran Turismo, and the Store.

The new PlayStation Store showed up on tax day this week (that’s April 15th for folks outside of the United States), bringing a “native app” feel to it instead of the sluggish Store we had in the browser. Its browser roots weren’t left behind entirely, unfortunately, with icons loading into the UI a little slower than some would have liked during the first few days. The content that hit this week gives some nice new goodies for games I either like already or have been interested in.
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How Long Will Your Favorite Game Be Supported?

PC gaming has lots going for it. Developers don’t have to get things approved for the platform, anyone can make a game, and sometimes being able to buy and download a full game without needing to scrape around in a desk drawer for a disc or CD key are all nice things. One thing that Windows gaming has against it, for me anyway, is the tragedy of orphaned titles. After a couple of years games might not run due to the latest and greatest Windows patch, maybe a new Windows version shows up that can’t run it properly, and your disc is now a coaster even though it might have been one of your favorite games ever.

Sometimes, however, games buck that trend and get lots of love long past their twilight years. Case in point? Half-Life just got a new patch this week. That’s Half-Life 1, people, not the shiny Source-engine Half-Life 2. That’s the 1998 game. The nineties. Remember them? Apparently Valve needed to close a few exploits in “cvar codes” whatever those are.

I think I’ve only seen patch longevity like this from Blizzard for their insanely successful Starcraft and Diablo 2 games. What are some of the oldest patches you’ve seen for PC games?

Source: VoodooExtreme