lost in games

N’Gai Croal is leaving Newsweek (link - his last post). I don’t really know what he will be doing from now on but i really hope he stays within the videogames industry. Videogames need N’Gai’s and other serious journalists’ influence to keep maturing as a medium.

The way i play and see games has changed a lot in the last couple of years as i have tried to keep myself thinking of what i am doing and feeling during a game. It’s not just about enjoying the moments in games now but also trying to understand why. In these couple of years games journalism and critique has started to move beyond reviews. Now people with great writing and thinking skills, who are not just kids who play games for a living, have started to influence the way we see games.

I think a leading figure in this “movement” has been N’Gai. He has always been able to ask the questions to both developers and gamers that were always waiting under the surface but never asked. I remember one post about Manhunt on the PSP. He found the game to be average and had many games lined up to play. Yet he was really hooked on it and could not undestand why. He wanted to know what qualities it had that were not obvious but yet sufficient to keep him playing.

As i was playing Freedom Fighters and Beyond Good & Evil (both of course better than average) recently i kept asking myself, why do i like these games? For the most part i could not answer my own questions beyond that it had cute graphics, tight controls and a friendly user interface. The usual checklist. I could not find the words to explain what i was feeling and thinking. But at least now i am aware of it.

As we ourselves mature it’s important to not be just gamers but also critical gamers. I think people like N’Gai have to take the credit for this new way of thinking about games.

It’s not often that i get excited with the Wii and DS anymore. However this week, two major announcements have caught my eye.

1. The Nintendo DSi will be launched in Europe on April 3rd, two days before the US launch. This is great news as i am really interested to see what kind of applications and games will be made for the DSiWare. Stephen Totilo at MTV Multiplayer had his first hands on encounter with the console. Brief but interesting nevertheless. The price is expected to be around GBP150.

2. Mad World on the Wii also got a release date. March 20th - link. After seeing that first trailer it’s been a highly anticipated title in my book. Probably the only Wii game i know and care about for 2009. The developers are the main guys behind games like Okami and Viewtiful Joe and were part of Capcom’s, now closed down, Clover Studio .

3. The last bit of news is not actually news but what the hell. Last week The House of the Dead: Overkill was released on the Wii. It’s an on rails shooter packed with zombies and it’s the kind of game that should be ideal on the Wii. Especially co-op. I was disappointed with Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles but after reading some mostly positive reviews for The House of the Dead: Overkill i decided to give the genre another try. I will have more comments on this soon. Just need to find the right partner for this one. Someone who will stick after that first try…..

I have a stiff neck since Monday which has prevented me from doing my runs this week. But the flood of releases did not prevent some major announcements being made at this time.

Bioware and Lucasarts have revealed that they are working on the mmo Star Wars: Old Republic. EA’s acquisition of Bioware has been all about entering the highly profitable mmo business to compete head on with Blizzard’s WoW. With Lucasarts massive intellectual property and Bioware’s talent this game has the promise to be a big player in the mmo marker.

link

I have not been following the Tokyo Game Show this year but there are some announcements worth mentioning:

1. PSP direct store access in Japan from 15th of October. Hopefully the European launch will follow and there won’t be any restrictions if you are in Cyprus - Eurogamer
2. Halo 3: Recon - Wired
3. Xbox 360 dashboard update on 19th November - Wired
4. New Res 5 trailer (haven’t watched it as i want as many suprises as possible when the game finally comes out) - Gametrailers

If there is a blue light coming out of your Wii today its not because of it supporting Greece in Euro 2008. Well not yet anyway. It’s because the Nintendo Channel was launched today in Europe. This is the channel where you can watch video trailers of Wii and DS games and also play download demos on your DS. The channel allows people to also recommend games to other Wii owners.

I was not able to find any demos to download this morning though. Just a few videos. The ability to play demos is a step in the right direction for Nintendo and i have to admit that the Wii menu is starting to fill up with some useful channels.

Yeap, it is being launched today and we have the following games to choose from for 500 Wii points each. I have my eye on Lost Winds but here is the full list of WiiWare titles released:

• 1. Dr. Mario & Germ Buster (Nintendo)
• 2. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (Square Enix)
• 3. Lost Winds (Frontier)
• 4. Pirates: The Key of Dreams (Oxygen Interactive)
• 5. Pop from Australian (Nnooo)
• 6. Star Soldier R (Hudson Soft)
• 7. Toki Tori (Two Tribes B.V.)
• 8. TV Show King (Gameloft)

This is not an absolute list as there are sites missing from this list but the most well known ones are here. The numbers represent total unique visitors per month. To be honest i never realised that IGN and Gamespot were so ahead of the rest of the sites.

Company Dec. 2007 Dec. 2006

ign.com 8,502,000 8,738,000

gamespot.com 7,524,000 7,206,000

gamespy.com 1,595,000 1,568,000

1up.com 1,415,000 1,257,000

kotaku.com 982,000 1,134,000

joystiq.com 721,000 790,000

gamepro.com 518,000 721,000

It’s no secret that Music has been facing a crisis with declining song and album sales in the past few years due to the advent of piracy. As the record companies are continuously searching for a solution to their problems through itunes type of services it seems that the answer lies elsewhere.

The videogames industry has been booming in contrast with the US expanding by 43% in revenues last year alone. MTV has spotted this trend and also that its own viewers are regular gamers. That is why they collaborated with Harmonix and Electronic Arts to develop Rock Band to rival Red Octane’s Guitar Hero which is published by Activision.

The latest figures show that as both Rock Band and Guitar Hero made more songs available to play via download gamers have been actively purchasing them. In two months Rock Band sold 2.5million additional songs via download. What makes this even more remarkable is the fact that the game has only been released in the US so far with a European release in spring. The Metallica three-pack of “Ride the Lightning”, “Blackened” and “And Justice for All” is the best selling “Rock Band” download. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock on the other hand which was a worldwide release has sold 5million songs since it began adding downloadable content in early November.

There is no reason to restrict the music-games link to just Rock Band and Guitar Hero and it is very likely that record companies will try to include downloadable music in games such as FIFA, GTA or Skate.

Games may just be the Hero of music,

Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need

I need a hero
I’m holding out for at hero ’till the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’till the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life
Larger than life

Hardware Sales (in units sold)

Nintendo DS: 8.50 million (17.65 million LTD)
Wii: 6.29 million (7.38 million LTD)
Xbox 360: 4.62 million (9.15 million LTD)
PlayStation 2: 3.97 million (41.12 million LTD)
PlayStation Portable: 3.82 million (10.47 million LTD)
PlayStation 3: 2.56 million (3.25 million LTD)

 PSP

The PSP might not be the juggernaut of sales that the Nintendo DS is but it still managed to establish itself in the handheld world with a respectable market share and a very solid games lineup. This despite Sony’s blunders with the UMD format and controls design. In fact it is my favourite handheld console and with games like Patapon and God of War coming this year it will only get better.

The PSP community showed Sony that with regards to movie playback no-one was willing to purchase titles on a UMD format, which is slowly becoming obsolete as everyone predicted. Instead they were being downloaded or copied on the console’s memory stick. In the CES 2008 which is taking place since Sunday Sony demoed how Blue-ray discs can be copied first on the PS3 and then on to the PSP for playback on the go (PC World article). This comes just after the announcements regarding the use of Skype by the slim version of PSPs and also a new 16GB memory stick.

Sony is slowly giving consumers useful applications and also appears to be doing it in a logical and a more consumer friendly manner. Not to mention the realisation of the hard fact that the PSP’s future also depends a lot on its interactivity with its big brother the PS3.

Do all these, plus a great game lineup, mean that Sony is finally getting it right with the PSP? I really hope so.

Blu-ray Vs HD DVD

After Warner Bros decision to side with the Sony camp and release movies exclusively on Blu-ray it appears that Paramount may be about to abandon the HD-DVD sinking ship according to the Financial Times:

“Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, is understood to have a clause in its contract with the HD-DVD camp that would allow it to switch sides in the event of Warner backing Blu-ray, according to people familiar with the situation.”

This means that the end of the format war is very near unless HD-DVD has some wild card up its sleeve. Although i don’t think that the blu-ray is the future (downloadable content is) it is good to have this thing over with for the benefit of the consumer.