DRM and the fighting against it are both losing battles. First, most of the trouble I hear about with DRM involves playing protected media on PCs. As long as the media works in the DVD player that the average Jane User has in the living room, most people won't care. That part of it is what, in some sense, has Microsoft worried the most. Microsoft has to develop and promote DRM on Windows to first satisfy the rights owners and then to be able to promote Windows as the preferred media platform. But Jane User doesn't need Windows to play DVDs and generally wants to stay as far away from those difficult to use PCs as possible. DRM nightmare stories will make sure that she doesn't even think about playing DVDs in a PC.
At the other extreme, as usual, DRM will not stop the real pirates who have time and resources to defeat any DRM scheme. So ironically for Microsoft and the entertainment industry, people will still be able to get cheaper pirate DVDs they will happily play in DVD players that do not (in most cases) use any Microsoft technology. Knowledgable PC users (ie geeks) will continue to find ways to get around DRM and/or b*tch about it here on/..;-)
Hmmm, guess I've gotta rethink putting my cell phone in my pocket eh? Fortunately, my kids came before I started doing that! So I guess that means...errr, forgot where I was, nevermind!
Don't give your hopes up on a console port happening. ever.
It could happen. The Dreamcast port of Half Life was essentially complete when Sega announced that they were getting out of the hardware business, so the port never saw the light of day. So it could happen, given that they got burned on the DC deal, I wouldn't be too surprised if a console port was not the highest on their list.
Too bad really, a title like Half Life 2 could pull Halo 2 numbers on a console.
I concur. I live in Illinois too, and it's true, Blago's an idiot. I've heard that most of his staffers are pretty stupid too. Lucky for him the Illinois Republicans are in total disarray...not so lucky for the state... And this is coming from a Democrat.
Hmmm, nothing wrong with tastefully dressed women and men handing out awards. Serious can be fun too, that mess on Spike last night was not very fun and definitely couldn't be taken seriously. Heck, I could take the XFL more seriously than last night's show. Even with setbacks like that, I think that within ten years or so, video games will be recognized as a legitimate art form by the general public. Remember, "talkies" were just a novelty a long time ago.
I should have watched this. I turned off the awards after Snoop's first rap which made it quite clear that there was no hope of the show getting better. EGM magazine did a pretty good games show on Spike earlier this year or maybe last year that was much much better. So naively I had high hopes for the awards show. I won't be watching this next year!
it sucked! The show just seemed clumsy and trying way too hard to be crass. Is there such a thing as too much hip hop? Well...YES! Next time a wider variety of music and some real fun in presenting the awards that doesn't involve so much swearing. And this is coming from someone who likes hip hop, when it's actually good that is. Snoop Dogg, you sooo disappointed me!
I was just reading about the wild popularity of not only music from the Final Fantasy series, but music from many of the best game series in Japan, in Chris Kohler's excellent book Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. And now to hear that it is coming to my sweet home Chicago! Sweeeeet!
Many here have been raising the spectre of the infamously battery hungry Sega Game Gear with respect to PSP battery life. But I don't think that we're going to see a replay of the GG failure not so much because the PSP will have stellar battery life, but because our cultural expectations have changed. One poster here made mention of all of the things that he/she has to charge daily, cell phone, mp3 player, and laptop.
In other words, we're used to charging things up every day! And since the PSP has a rechargeable battery, no one is really going to feel the same kind of pain the GG induced back in the '80s. The PSP could give the DS a good run for the money if it delivers on the software and movies, etc...
Any industrial designer will explain to you: it's the J-factor. A mysterious power that comes from Japanese design. If you need to ask, you'll never understand.
Well actually, there isn't anything too mysterious at all. More than the government/industry partnerships and subsidies mentioned in the article, we are seeing what you get in a society with its roots in Buddahism, Shinto, and Confuscianism mixed with various spices from other cultures. This is a crude way of putting it, but the result is a society that is much more at home with technology (mecha) in everyday life than that of a society whose roots are in conservative Puritanistic Christianity. Americans (with apologies to Canadians, Mexicans, etc...) are a conservative lot when it comes to trying new gadgets, except when the technology is going to be used to enforce those conservative values like the V-chip and similar freedom sapping devices!
Thank God we aren't all the same! I can't wait to see what the Koreans, Indians, and Chinese come up with! I was in Hong Kong for a month about 11 years ago. Everyone there was walking around talking into cell phones. Now I can see that on the streets of Chicago. So by that measure, we're about 11 years behind...geez!
I think those ESPN people are in for a little shocker. Once you cut prices like that on a product that is not the leader in its sector, there's no going back. Madden is king, they can do what they want for the most part, but ESPN is going to find out that they can't hope to stay in the game without some kind of price advantage. Now maybe the retail price will go back to $39 or $49 with a mail in rebate or some other incentive. But toe to toe with Madden at the same price they can't make it.
Discounts are a double-edged sword. As the auto manufacturers found out, once you start discounting, the customer expects it all of the time. When was the last time you or anyone you know bought a car that didn't have a rebate or discount financing? Only the top end can play without incentives.
Well, I'm actually glad that Nvidia has found a new dance partner after the falling out with Microsoft with respect to the next Xbox. With both Nvidia and ATI now firmly in the console wars as competitors, I think gamers are in for some serious treats. I just hope that gameplay won't be lost in all of that eye-candy!
Well, HL 2 etal probably aren't helping WalMart too much since they are reporting less than spectacular holiday sales so far. So the great HL 2 and Halo 2 sales aren't enough to compensate for the stuff they aren't selling I guess. Of course I won't be crying for them since I'm not too wild about WalMart's labor practices and penchant for censoring games, music, books, and magazines they don't think I should be able to buy. So with all of that, I generally choose to buy games online or at the local games shop rather than WalMart.
Besides, one of the great successes of Steam was the fact that many gamers bypassed retail altogether and bought Half Life 2 via Steam. That is the true threat to retailers like WalMart.
Actually, a couple of close friends of mine work for the govt and from what I've heard, it sucks way more than the well publicized EA situation. At least the bad publicity may result in positive changes at EA and elsewhere within the industry. But if that story had been about some state agency no one would have done anything. Indeed, if the mayor or governor had decided to improve conditions, some cheeky reporter would run an exposee on how the govt was wasting tax money! Ever read Snow Crash? Working for the government is sort of like that!
I too am glad that SOE hasn't given up on SWG. I last played it about a year ago and finally left for FFXI because there just didn't seem to be enough content or people around to play it with. With JTLS out and the announced improvements (plus an upgraded computer!) I'm tempted to dust off that old SWG box and jump back in.
They also announced that they are doing a fully localized Japanese version. I wonder if they will follow the FFXI model and allow NA and Japanese players to play together on the same servers. I know that there are language and culture issues from the FFXI experience. But on the plus side, having players around the globe means that there is almost always someone to play with, which for SWG might mean fewer seemingly deserted cities.
Hmmm, I guess this means it may be easier to still find all of that crazy s**t I wrote back in college when people actually used their real names on the internet! Uh oh...
Hmmm, well this certainly has some interesting possibilities if true. It might be kinda cool to be able to project one's gameplay on a good TV. I wonder if anyone will try to enhance this "feature"?
Yeah, I know why bother? But most of the time when new gaming hardware comes out it is only used to a fraction of its full potential before the next generation arrives. So part of me really thinks it's cool to squeeze out some of that perhaps untapped potential like this. Maybe Tree Wave will play something with this.
Hmmm, adapting HBO's Oz might lead to some rather interesting gameplay possibilities. Just imagine it as an MMORPG wherein players all start off as inmates, etc... Of course PvP would be mandatory! As silly as this all sounds, that might actually attract a not insignificant market. If the social conservatives are complaining about the GTA series now, just imagine the fuss over Oz. I could see Rockstar doing a game like this.
If Miyamoto is starting to talk about online gaming, then I think that means that he may already have some game ideas in mind. Up until now, Nintendo has been famously against online gaming. But given the string of Miyamoto hits that have supported the company over the years, if he is talking about online play, then the wheels are finally starting to turn at Nintendo. But I don't really believe it will be 3 or 4 years. If they are serious, I'd guess we'll see some serious NDS online play within about 18 months, maybe something related to Pikmin or Pokemon. Maybe they'll have a bundle with a GameCube wireless router add-on or something. I think an online multiplayer Mario might be interesting, but a real challenge to design and keep the Mario flavor.
Heck, if they're working with Square Enix, we might even see some kind of FFIX NDS connectivity as a proof of concept (wild speculation!). This might be followed by a version of Crystal Chronicles with online elements or full blown online multiplayer.
Normally if I saw something like this, I'd say let the lawsuits begin! Nintendo is infamous for its fierce protection of its properties. But in this case I don't expect to see that anytime soon. Why? Because of the funky mini dvd format the GC uses, practically speaking, only homebrew software is going to take advantage of the mod chip. So Nintendo will be hard pressed to argue that the mod chip was created to facilitate piracy. By the time anyone comes up with a way to make pirate game GC disks cheap and easy, the GC 2 will be out and no one will care any more.
That said, I'm sure there's some factory in China pumping out pirate copies of GC games like crazy. But that certainly is not in response to the release of this mod chip.
This sounds pretty cool, but I think there is also a big risk. As others have alluded to, old school arcades have all but died off. Yeah there are Gameworks and Dave and Busters, but not that many of them across the country. The problem is that while video and computer games have become a $7B+ industry, gamers are still a niche market. There may not be enough of them willing to bring the repeat business that the gaming warehouse would need to stay afloat. They'd have to market it like crazy and try to draw in a more mainstream crowd. But again, there's that problem, Halo 2, Half Life 2, and Unreal Tournament are not mainstream! If these are the main dishes on the menu for multiplayer, we have something analogous to the indoor paintball centers here in Chicagoland, another tiny niche.
Still, with things that even the most hardcore gamer would be hard pressed to duplicate at home, this is pretty cool. But like Disney's failed Chicago Disney Quest Virtual Amusement Park (now a furniture store), getting repeat business is the biggest trick of all. I say good luck to them!
Nvidia provided the graphics chipset for the original Xbox. Then they had some sort of falling out with Microsoft over how much they were supposed to be paid. This probably contributed to the Xbox 2 graphics chipset being done by ATI. So Nvidia will be missing the Xbox 2 party, but given that the Xbox deal probably wasn't good for them anyway, it may not be a big loss.
I guess this is good news for both Nvidia and Intel. This should help Nvidia make up for being shut out of the Xbox 2 graphics game, though they may have lost money on the original Xbox deal anyway. And this should bring some gamer cred back to Intel who may have been using some gamer sales to AMD because of the nForce chipset. Of the two though, I think Nvidia gets the best part of the deal since they will now have an easier entry into the wider PC market which is dominated by Intel based systems. Intel will only see marginal gains since gamers are not a big part of the market, though they do buy a good proportion of high end systems I would guess.
Slashdot Mirror
DRM and the fighting against it are both losing battles. First, most of the trouble I hear about with DRM involves playing protected media on PCs. As long as the media works in the DVD player that the average Jane User has in the living room, most people won't care. That part of it is what, in some sense, has Microsoft worried the most. Microsoft has to develop and promote DRM on Windows to first satisfy the rights owners and then to be able to promote Windows as the preferred media platform. But Jane User doesn't need Windows to play DVDs and generally wants to stay as far away from those difficult to use PCs as possible. DRM nightmare stories will make sure that she doesn't even think about playing DVDs in a PC.
/.. ;-)
At the other extreme, as usual, DRM will not stop the real pirates who have time and resources to defeat any DRM scheme. So ironically for Microsoft and the entertainment industry, people will still be able to get cheaper pirate DVDs they will happily play in DVD players that do not (in most cases) use any Microsoft technology. Knowledgable PC users (ie geeks) will continue to find ways to get around DRM and/or b*tch about it here on
Hmmm, guess I've gotta rethink putting my cell phone in my pocket eh? Fortunately, my kids came before I started doing that! So I guess that means...errr, forgot where I was, nevermind!
Don't give your hopes up on a console port happening. ever.
It could happen. The Dreamcast port of Half Life was essentially complete when Sega announced that they were getting out of the hardware business, so the port never saw the light of day. So it could happen, given that they got burned on the DC deal, I wouldn't be too surprised if a console port was not the highest on their list.
Too bad really, a title like Half Life 2 could pull Halo 2 numbers on a console.
I concur. I live in Illinois too, and it's true, Blago's an idiot. I've heard that most of his staffers are pretty stupid too. Lucky for him the Illinois Republicans are in total disarray...not so lucky for the state... And this is coming from a Democrat.
Hmmm, nothing wrong with tastefully dressed women and men handing out awards. Serious can be fun too, that mess on Spike last night was not very fun and definitely couldn't be taken seriously. Heck, I could take the XFL more seriously than last night's show. Even with setbacks like that, I think that within ten years or so, video games will be recognized as a legitimate art form by the general public. Remember, "talkies" were just a novelty a long time ago.
I should have watched this. I turned off the awards after Snoop's first rap which made it quite clear that there was no hope of the show getting better. EGM magazine did a pretty good games show on Spike earlier this year or maybe last year that was much much better. So naively I had high hopes for the awards show. I won't be watching this next year!
it sucked! The show just seemed clumsy and trying way too hard to be crass. Is there such a thing as too much hip hop? Well...YES! Next time a wider variety of music and some real fun in presenting the awards that doesn't involve so much swearing. And this is coming from someone who likes hip hop, when it's actually good that is. Snoop Dogg, you sooo disappointed me!
I was just reading about the wild popularity of not only music from the Final Fantasy series, but music from many of the best game series in Japan, in Chris Kohler's excellent book Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. And now to hear that it is coming to my sweet home Chicago! Sweeeeet!
Many here have been raising the spectre of the infamously battery hungry Sega Game Gear with respect to PSP battery life. But I don't think that we're going to see a replay of the GG failure not so much because the PSP will have stellar battery life, but because our cultural expectations have changed. One poster here made mention of all of the things that he/she has to charge daily, cell phone, mp3 player, and laptop.
In other words, we're used to charging things up every day! And since the PSP has a rechargeable battery, no one is really going to feel the same kind of pain the GG induced back in the '80s. The PSP could give the DS a good run for the money if it delivers on the software and movies, etc...
Any industrial designer will explain to you: it's the J-factor. A mysterious power that comes from Japanese design. If you need to ask, you'll never understand.
Well actually, there isn't anything too mysterious at all. More than the government/industry partnerships and subsidies mentioned in the article, we are seeing what you get in a society with its roots in Buddahism, Shinto, and Confuscianism mixed with various spices from other cultures. This is a crude way of putting it, but the result is a society that is much more at home with technology (mecha) in everyday life than that of a society whose roots are in conservative Puritanistic Christianity. Americans (with apologies to Canadians, Mexicans, etc...) are a conservative lot when it comes to trying new gadgets, except when the technology is going to be used to enforce those conservative values like the V-chip and similar freedom sapping devices!
Thank God we aren't all the same! I can't wait to see what the Koreans, Indians, and Chinese come up with! I was in Hong Kong for a month about 11 years ago. Everyone there was walking around talking into cell phones. Now I can see that on the streets of Chicago. So by that measure, we're about 11 years behind...geez!
I think those ESPN people are in for a little shocker. Once you cut prices like that on a product that is not the leader in its sector, there's no going back. Madden is king, they can do what they want for the most part, but ESPN is going to find out that they can't hope to stay in the game without some kind of price advantage. Now maybe the retail price will go back to $39 or $49 with a mail in rebate or some other incentive. But toe to toe with Madden at the same price they can't make it.
Discounts are a double-edged sword. As the auto manufacturers found out, once you start discounting, the customer expects it all of the time. When was the last time you or anyone you know bought a car that didn't have a rebate or discount financing? Only the top end can play without incentives.
Actually, the Gizmondo portable console may be Microsoft's low risk (for them) answer to the portable gaming market. It was recently announced that they will be developing games for this console. Gizmondo is built around a powerful 400MHz ARM9 CPU and runs a version of Windows CE.
Well, I'm actually glad that Nvidia has found a new dance partner after the falling out with Microsoft with respect to the next Xbox. With both Nvidia and ATI now firmly in the console wars as competitors, I think gamers are in for some serious treats. I just hope that gameplay won't be lost in all of that eye-candy!
Steam indirectly aiding Walmart?
Well, HL 2 etal probably aren't helping WalMart too much since they are reporting less than spectacular holiday sales so far. So the great HL 2 and Halo 2 sales aren't enough to compensate for the stuff they aren't selling I guess. Of course I won't be crying for them since I'm not too wild about WalMart's labor practices and penchant for censoring games, music, books, and magazines they don't think I should be able to buy. So with all of that, I generally choose to buy games online or at the local games shop rather than WalMart.
Besides, one of the great successes of Steam was the fact that many gamers bypassed retail altogether and bought Half Life 2 via Steam. That is the true threat to retailers like WalMart.
Actually, a couple of close friends of mine work for the govt and from what I've heard, it sucks way more than the well publicized EA situation. At least the bad publicity may result in positive changes at EA and elsewhere within the industry. But if that story had been about some state agency no one would have done anything. Indeed, if the mayor or governor had decided to improve conditions, some cheeky reporter would run an exposee on how the govt was wasting tax money! Ever read Snow Crash? Working for the government is sort of like that!
I too am glad that SOE hasn't given up on SWG. I last played it about a year ago and finally left for FFXI because there just didn't seem to be enough content or people around to play it with. With JTLS out and the announced improvements (plus an upgraded computer!) I'm tempted to dust off that old SWG box and jump back in.
They also announced that they are doing a fully localized Japanese version. I wonder if they will follow the FFXI model and allow NA and Japanese players to play together on the same servers. I know that there are language and culture issues from the FFXI experience. But on the plus side, having players around the globe means that there is almost always someone to play with, which for SWG might mean fewer seemingly deserted cities.
Hmmm, I guess this means it may be easier to still find all of that crazy s**t I wrote back in college when people actually used their real names on the internet! Uh oh...
Hmmm, well this certainly has some interesting possibilities if true. It might be kinda cool to be able to project one's gameplay on a good TV. I wonder if anyone will try to enhance this "feature"?
Yeah, I know why bother? But most of the time when new gaming hardware comes out it is only used to a fraction of its full potential before the next generation arrives. So part of me really thinks it's cool to squeeze out some of that perhaps untapped potential like this. Maybe Tree Wave will play something with this.
Hmmm, adapting HBO's Oz might lead to some rather interesting gameplay possibilities. Just imagine it as an MMORPG wherein players all start off as inmates, etc... Of course PvP would be mandatory! As silly as this all sounds, that might actually attract a not insignificant market. If the social conservatives are complaining about the GTA series now, just imagine the fuss over Oz. I could see Rockstar doing a game like this.
If Miyamoto is starting to talk about online gaming, then I think that means that he may already have some game ideas in mind. Up until now, Nintendo has been famously against online gaming. But given the string of Miyamoto hits that have supported the company over the years, if he is talking about online play, then the wheels are finally starting to turn at Nintendo. But I don't really believe it will be 3 or 4 years. If they are serious, I'd guess we'll see some serious NDS online play within about 18 months, maybe something related to Pikmin or Pokemon. Maybe they'll have a bundle with a GameCube wireless router add-on or something. I think an online multiplayer Mario might be interesting, but a real challenge to design and keep the Mario flavor.
Heck, if they're working with Square Enix, we might even see some kind of FFIX NDS connectivity as a proof of concept (wild speculation!). This might be followed by a version of Crystal Chronicles with online elements or full blown online multiplayer.
Normally if I saw something like this, I'd say let the lawsuits begin! Nintendo is infamous for its fierce protection of its properties. But in this case I don't expect to see that anytime soon. Why? Because of the funky mini dvd format the GC uses, practically speaking, only homebrew software is going to take advantage of the mod chip. So Nintendo will be hard pressed to argue that the mod chip was created to facilitate piracy. By the time anyone comes up with a way to make pirate game GC disks cheap and easy, the GC 2 will be out and no one will care any more.
That said, I'm sure there's some factory in China pumping out pirate copies of GC games like crazy. But that certainly is not in response to the release of this mod chip.
This sounds pretty cool, but I think there is also a big risk. As others have alluded to, old school arcades have all but died off. Yeah there are Gameworks and Dave and Busters, but not that many of them across the country. The problem is that while video and computer games have become a $7B+ industry, gamers are still a niche market. There may not be enough of them willing to bring the repeat business that the gaming warehouse would need to stay afloat. They'd have to market it like crazy and try to draw in a more mainstream crowd. But again, there's that problem, Halo 2, Half Life 2, and Unreal Tournament are not mainstream! If these are the main dishes on the menu for multiplayer, we have something analogous to the indoor paintball centers here in Chicagoland, another tiny niche.
Still, with things that even the most hardcore gamer would be hard pressed to duplicate at home, this is pretty cool. But like Disney's failed Chicago Disney Quest Virtual Amusement Park (now a furniture store), getting repeat business is the biggest trick of all. I say good luck to them!
Nvidia provided the graphics chipset for the original Xbox. Then they had some sort of falling out with Microsoft over how much they were supposed to be paid. This probably contributed to the Xbox 2 graphics chipset being done by ATI. So Nvidia will be missing the Xbox 2 party, but given that the Xbox deal probably wasn't good for them anyway, it may not be a big loss.
I guess this is good news for both Nvidia and Intel. This should help Nvidia make up for being shut out of the Xbox 2 graphics game, though they may have lost money on the original Xbox deal anyway. And this should bring some gamer cred back to Intel who may have been using some gamer sales to AMD because of the nForce chipset. Of the two though, I think Nvidia gets the best part of the deal since they will now have an easier entry into the wider PC market which is dominated by Intel based systems. Intel will only see marginal gains since gamers are not a big part of the market, though they do buy a good proportion of high end systems I would guess.