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Stories · 3,462
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Square To Expand Into Online And Mobile
GameDailyBiz is reporting that Square Enix is looking to expand further into the online and mobile markets. While they already have an MMOG (FFXI) and a mobile game (Before Crisis), they see those markets as moneymakers for the future. From the article: "Although there seems to be no indication that Square Enix will be attempting to shift away from its core competency of small and large-scale console RPGs, the company is looking to further invest itself in the rapidly growing wireless and online sectors. Wada specifically pointed to Japanese financial realities almost requiring involvement in the wireless market, and when wireless numbers are included with the traditional console figures, the Japanese video game industry actually isn't in a recession at all. 'Running a business that depends on the software sales through retailers has become a thing of the past,' Wada told Yomiuri."
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Questioning the Manifesto
Next Generation has a Q&A with Greg Costikyan, discussing the reveal of the ambitious Manifesto Games portal business. From the article: "If you look at almost any other medium there is a way for people to succeed with product aimed at more of a niche audience, with more manageable development costs. But that largely doesn't exist in the games industry because of the narrow nature of the retail channel, which is 'hit big or don't try at all'. My belief is that it possible to be successful with niche product. The technology is there; there are plenty of good games out there; the issue is probably about marketing. The question is, figuring out how to reach consumers and make them aware of it." We discussed the announcement yesterday. Relatedly, Next Gen also has a look at digital downloads from the developer's point of view, and from that of the digital distributors themselves. We took a look at the first part in that series on Tuesday.
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Xbox 360 In China Next Year
The U.S., Europe, and Japan are getting ahold of Microsoft's next console this year, but China will have to wait until 2006, reports Gamasutra. From the article: "Obviously, it's somewhat unclear that the majority of China's workforce would be able to afford such a console - the average wage of an urban worker in China in 2004 was 9,422 yuan ($1,164), and a rural worker made just 2,936 yuan ($363) on average. Nonetheless, Microsoft is keen to make a symbolic move into the territory, as Sony did in December 2003 when it launched the PlayStation 2 in four major Chinese cities, to as yet unrevealed sales figures. Nintendo is trying a different strategy, with its license to iQue for the release of specially branded, localized Nintendo 64, Game Boy, and even Nintendo DS products in Chinese territories."
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Hollywood's Depiction of Gamers Getting Better?
Wired is reporting on the Hollywood depiction of games and gamers, and how it has improved (or not) over the years. From the article: "... has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture? For years, they've been achingly bad at it. Gamers have long been accustomed to seeing incredibly weird, off-key portrayals in TV and movies. The trouble began with the first wave of TV ads for video games. They'd inevitably portray the player as a spastic in mid-seizure, flailing away on a joystick while jumping and twitching."
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A Boxless Industry - Digital Downloads
Next Generation is running an article entitled Gaming's Digital Future, discussing the reality that digital downloads are likely to be commonplace in the industry in the near future. Today they've polled publishers for their opinions, with developer and distributor opinions later in the week. From the article: "While the digital distribution of music took that industry by surprise, and Hollywood is still figuring out the best way to utilize digital distribution for movies; the videogame industry has embraced digital distribution as a new revenue stream for videogames new and old, at least on the PC side of the games business."
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NSF Reports No Geek Shortage
Baldrson writes "The NSF's report titled 'Graduate Enrollment in Science and Engineering Programs Up in 2003, But Declines for First-Time Foreign Students' (a pdf of the report released for the first time last month) is now available online. In an analysis of the report, Edwin S. Rubenstein of ESR Research states of these latest figures: '4.2 percent of science and engineering PhDs work outside their field of training, chiefly for financial reasons. This further weakens corporate America's claim of a shortage of high-tech workers.'" Interesting to see how things have changed since then.
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Data Storage For Home?
kuom asks: "Every couple of years, I face the same problem: running out of hard drive space. No matter how big of a hard drive I get, I seem to find ways to fill it up within a few months. The size of my hard drive grew from 2.5G to 13G, to 20G, to 40G, 80G, 120G, and most recently, 200G. Today, I have a combined hard drive space of 280G, but I again find that I only have about 2G of free space left. My collection of family photos, web site content, TV episode captures, music files, and my archive of ISO files for various operating systems, they just eat up my hard drive space so fast. I could get a 400G hard drive, but I figure maybe it's time to think about something long term, something like EtherDrive or StorageWare. But the price tags are definitely out of my range. Slashdot readers, what do you suggest for home data storage?"
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Games Teaching the Basics of Programming
RandomPrecision writes to tell us Wired is reporting that computer programmer Igor Kholodov has created a game designed to make learning the basics of programming fun. From the article 'The board game turns players into skiers who must race down a mountain in the quickest way possible. With each roll of the die, players must follow instructions that are similar to computer program codes. Using basic math, players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line.'"
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The Future of the iPod
sebFlyte writes "Those of you waiting for a video iPod, an iPod with a radio in, an iPod with Bluetooth in...or in fact an iPod that does anything except play music and have a pretty-but-basic interface, you're likely to be disappointed. According to silicon.com, Steve Jobs and the Apple crew insist that the iPod will remain simple for the time being." From the article: "Whether people want to buy a device just to watch video is not clear - so far the answer's been no. Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula."
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Learning to Code with a Boardgame
markmcb writes "While some of us cling tight to our memories of Apple-filled classrooms playing The Oregon Trail and driving our Turtle around in Logo, children today have many other ways to learn about the inner-working of computers and the code that drives them. Wired.com is running an interesting article about a boardgame in which players must use simple logic similar to that used in programming to get their skier down the mountain. From the article: 'Using basic math, players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line. The trick, however, is learning which paths are open to you using only programmer jargon like 'if (X==1)' then you can take the green path or 'while (X4) you can take the orange path,' where X is the roll of the die.'"
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Financial Services Software for Linux?
Shakrai asks: "I find myself in the process of building a new computer system and at a crossroads for what OS to put on it. I have used Linux for years as a server for my home network and as a workstation dual booting with Windows. I have find myself unable to get away from Windows entirely because of the large amount of older games that I retain and still like to play. Nevertheless I am less then eager to pony up $80-$200 for a Windows license for my new box and I figure that I can learn to live without most of the Windows games that I enjoy. There still seems to be one stumbling block before I could totally abandon Windows though: Financial Services Software. For the last six years I have been quite the avid user of Quicken. Every single investment and transaction that I have ever made resides in Quicken. Is there a package for Linux out there that even remotely provides the same functionality?" "I don't really use Quicken's online services (why pay for something my credit union gives me for free) but I pretty much use every other function of the product (tax estimation, investment tracking, reports, etc). Is this going to keep me stuck in Windows land? Short of writing my own replacement for Quicken (not very likely) what are my options?"
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Free 3D Animation DAZ|Studio 1.0 Released
Thyme3333 writes "DAZ Productions, Inc. has officially released DAZ|Studio 1.0, a free 3D figure posing and animation software package. DAZ has a made a commitment to keep the DAZ|Studio core application free to the public for as long as possible by relying on the revenues generated by the purchase of content available in the DAZ online store. To obtain a free copy of DAZ|Studio, users must register for a free account on the DAZ website and agree to participate in the company's aptly-named "Tell-Ware" program, which asks that each DAZ|Studio user share information about DAZ|Studio and/or the DAZ website with at least two friends." Good to see that more companies are trying to keep their software free, but perhaps the Slashdot crowd could offer advice on a better business model than spam and merchandising?
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ESR Gets Job Offer From Microsoft
epsalon writes "Eric S. Raymond, the well known Open Source Evangelist, recently received a job offer from Microsoft, that he strongly refused. Is this another attempt to lure Open Source figures or just ignorance?" From his post: "I called [the Microsoft HR rep], who told me my name had been passed to him by his research team. I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply."
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Secretaries Sacked After Flamewar at Work
ross.w writes "Two legal secretaries in Sydney have been sacked after a flamewar over a ham sandwich got circulated throughout the cities financial district. The insults about figures, boyfriends and jobs flew thick and fast and ultimately resulted in the dismissal of both of them for mis-use of the email system."
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PayPal to Offer Micropayments
lazarus corporation writes "According to a press release on shareholder.com, PayPal are introducing micropayments processing fees for digital goods. Will this allow musicians to do away with record companies completely and successfully sell their own music online?" It looks geared to be the under $2 area and not the couple of pennies area, so I think calling it "Micropayments" is a bit much, but it's something. Still amazing that in 2005 nobody has figured out a way to make it simple to charge a penny on-line.
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The View from the Top of Husband Hill
chriscrick writes "After 14 months of climbing, the Mars rover Spirit has reached the summit of Husband Hill, 269 feet above the edge of the Martian plain. The panoramic view from the top is spectacular. According to lead scientist Steve Squyres, 'What field geologists typically do - and Spirit is a robotic field geologist - is you climb to the top of the nearest hill and take a look around so you get the lay of the land and figure out where you want to go.'"
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PSP Usage Lower Than Expected
Next Generation has an article analyzing the numbers of a recent PSP usage survey. Despite a showing that there is strong brand loyalty, the numbers are probably not what Sony was hoping for. From the article: "Most said they had no plans to buy any UMD movies. Less than 50% said they would use the PSP to watch video or view pictures using a memory stick. The figure drops to less than 30% among female users. Sony will be concerned that 50% of users admitted they had not touched their PSP in 'some time'. 25% of male users have updated their PSP for Internet use, with only 10% of female users doing same."
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HighDef Content to Require New Monitors
QT writes "Ars Technica has an interesting article on how HDCP figures into Microsoft and Apple's future OS plans. Not only will future HD content not play in pure HD on most existing monitors (it will be degraded, or not shown at all), but high-end monitors today don't support HDCP yet. HDCP has been coming for 3+ years, but geek fantasy items such as Apple's $3,000 30" Cinema Display don't even have support for it yet! The end result is that when Windows Vista ships (and Apple's next OS), most people won't be able to watch protected HD content on their computers."
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Warren Spector on Licensing
An anonymous reader writes about an "interview with Warren Spector about his thoughts on licensing movies for games. From the article: 'At these Hollywood meetings, the same thing has happened to me more than once, with multiple people...I describe the game I want to do. I tell them I can deliver you a triple-A title for this cost...Spector names a high figure; no one has ever yet written a check that big...They think it over. Then they say...What could you do with twice as much money?'"
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Recordable Media a Bigger Threat Than Filesharing?
Matilda the Hun writes "The Register is reporting on the RIAA claims that recordable media is more of a source of piracy than P2P networks. From the article: 'The RIAA's chief executive, Mitch Bainwol, last week said music fans acquire almost twice as many songs from illegally duplicated CDs as from unauthorized downloads, Associated Press reports. According to Bainwol, in turn citing figures from market watcher NPD, 29 per cent of the recorded music obtained by listeners last year came from content copied onto recordable media. Only 16 per cent came from illegal downloads.'"
