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Halo 3 In Stores On September 25th
Officially announced on the Bungie website (now with Luke Smith action), Halo 3 will be in stores on September 25th of this year. The multiplayer Beta for the game begins today; if you're looking for some answers they have an extensive online guide available for curious minds. MTV's Stephen Totilo had a chance to have some good chats with the developers, and he points out three things every Beta player should do, as well as a proposal for an unusual alternate scoring system for bad players. GameDaily has just a few more details, including some information on the tie-in Zune device Microsoft is offering to enflame fanboy passions.
People who are currently trying to download through the Crackdown tie-in are experiencing a "short delay," according to a message posted on Bungie's website. It was supposed to go live at 8 AM EST - I'm curious as to how many servers crashed & burned.
I love it when Microsoft pretends to be oblivious to the trends and situation on the market:
"including some information on the tie-in Zune device Microsoft is offering to enflame fanboy passions"
The subtle (or maybe not) stupidity of this struck me first when I saw the following list of options on the MIX 2007 video streams:
Stream live (Silverlight).
Download (WMV).
Download for Zune.
Great, thanks buddies! So although I have the latest ever WMP, the only option I have to stream it live is a crashing beta plugin that has no stable release out there.
But the funnier thing was the "download for Zune". You see, many sites offer "download for iPod" links. This is because a huge number of people have iPods. I guess in Microsoft-land, what matters is artificially push your product in tie-ins and integrating it in your sites, in the hope someone buys a Zune just to watch the MIX 2007 streams on the go.
The only thing they've proven so far, is Zune can't stand on its own.
Who gives a fuck? this agme is coming out in 4 MONTHS. whooopy so. how about games 'journalists' actually report on stuff I can actually enjoy, rather than what might be 'just around the corner' 4 months away. I'm sick of people hyping stuff a million years before release. unless you are gullible enough to 'pre-order' a game, who cares about any of them until they are in stores? or maybe a month away if you need to put money aside?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I work in a company in which produces special effects software. We've pretty much always agreed on a shipping date months in advance, but R&D chooses what features would go in the product and what would have to be cut early on. We've had 4 releases in the past two years and the most we've slipped is 1 week and the software is getting more and more stable. Nothing important ever gets cut. No rough edges. Good management makes a WORLD of difference. The videogame business should not be taken as an example of the software development industry.