Microsoft with Another Power Play

In probably one of the more pandering ways they could have announced it, Microsoft has finally pulled the Kinect as a pack-in starting in June, meaning the XBone will start being sold as a stand-alone console in June for $399.  It's surprising in all the same ways that it's not - I really thought Microsoft was going to be stubborn on this one, but I guess the allure of phantom sales was too strong for them.  The XBox One is now, officially and literally, nothing unique at its base, and that is honestly more than a little disappointing, even for someone who just straight-up has never been interested in an XBone.

The whole of this little experiment as I'm charitably calling it has been rather interesting to witness.  From its inception, the XBone has been this malleable box of variable evil in the eyes of many and that's solely because of the poor messaging and the poor attitude from Microsoft with regards to everything about the system.  Once they fell flat on their face, the following could best be described as "Flailing wildly, grasping at any and all articles of your clothing to drag themselves back to you, prostrate and begging for your time and affection" which is...well, not everybody cares for it, we'll say.

Objectively, nothing is wrong with any of this.  The XBone has now (or will, in June) become a system that is truly about what a console should be: something you can pull out of a box, attach cables to, do the set-up on and then just get to playing your damn games.  There's no Kinect to calibrate (or even think about unpacking) and no -direct- need to plug an ethernet cable into it (or set up Wi-Fi) because of some nebulous DRM scheme.  (Okay, you still need to do that to make the console more or less -functional- but, you know, baby steps)  It is just a system reminiscent of the one we've had for the last decade but shinier and with some extra bells and whistles of some immeasurable value because of their inherently subjective nature.

Is that a bad thing?  No.  Not in so many words.

I have never been a fan of the XBox in any of its incarnations, and I had no love for the XBone when it was announced because, as it was announced, it was a product incapable of being loved.  It was a standing monolith of spite personified, primed and ready to exclaim "Fuck you!" and punch you in your reproductive parts upon being unboxed.  I can't even say, as most are willing to do, that they were trying something new on the Digital side of things because they weren't - they were attempting to push some sort of Frankenstein's Monster version of Games for Windows Live on the system and telling you to sit down and enjoy it for all the 'benefits' that being tied unceremoniously to a server structure an inordinate amount of miles away will provide to you, because shit is futuristic, yo.  It was never going to work out.  It was never going to be a thing heralded from on high by all or even some.  It was destined to be as it was - loathed and mocked for treading on the grass with the "No Trespassing" sign on it.

The Kinect, though?  It had potential.  Perhaps insomuch as MSPaint has potential in being a program in which you can create photorealistic images of shit, where it is only barely on this side of impossible to actually make that happen, but potential nonetheless.  I have a hard time believing anyone who says they -don't- want what Kinect is technically promising, but can't dream of delivering, on top of what it can actually do with some reliability.

Much like Tablet computers, there's something innately futuristic about motion controls and voice commands that is ingrained as awesome future shit to me.  Maybe it's just the Star Trek stuff I watched growing up, but it does tickle parts of my brain that come right to attention when that premise shifts up.  The jumping around, waving your arms about to protect an imaginary goal from soccer balls with dodgy (at best) detection when not instantly calibrated before hand?  Yeah.  I can see people not caring about that.  But walking into a room and saying "XBox, on" and having that shit turn on, waiting for your next command?  Yeah.  That's the shit I can get behind.  Were it only as natural as it could be (rather than having to put on your super authoritative voice most of the time) it would be -really- cool, if just for the novelty.

But I am convinced that with some combination of -something- like the Kinect (maybe even the Playstation Eye 3.0 or whatever) and a controller of some sort (Maybe a Move Wand(s) ) that there could be something immensely cool or enjoyable about motion technology where it concerns gaming.  It might be a couple generations off, but there has to be something out there for it.  I was personally banking on Microsoft stubbornly keeping the Kinect around (even as a toss-away thing because they weren't requiring it) to have it as an option for developers to use.  For someone to finally get -that- idea and implement it and it gets big because, fuck, everyone has one.  That's unfortunately just probably not going to happen anymore.  With the Kinect stuck as it was last generation, it's going to get much the same support as that did (read: almost none) and we'll all just sort of point and laugh derisively at it and what is attempted.

Now, is this move going to make a difference?  Not...much of one, I don't think.

The damage has been done.  In some ways, the Kinect was holding the device back.  In some ways, the extra $100 was holding it back as well.  Some pretend that these were the only two albatrosses about the neck of the XBone and now it's free to soar the sales charts and reign King Supreme and that's just not going to happen.  The time for the XBone to soar was back when it released, and if there's another time, it's a solid year, perhaps two away. The initial rush of consoles purchased has happened and the PS4 reigns on top of that pile.  The stragglers are the ones reluctant to pay $400 for a Next Gen system for whatever reason, so bringing the XBone down to that price parity....doesn't really do a whole lot.  Were there people that were just -really- waiting for Microsoft to do just this?  Sure.  Not the 'masses', however, since it honestly wasn't something you -should- have expected.

Even still, a stigma is just a -hard- thing to shake.  The PS3 had the "no games" thing for a while as well as the "stupid price" thing, and it all just cast the machine in a negative light long after those issues had been rectified.  It's going to be the same way with the XBone, especially because all they've done is put themselves directly next to the PS4 for comparison....where it will only be seen as lacking.  The XBone without the Kinect is just a less good PS4 without the benefit of PS+ and all the fun stuff that Sony has been working on.  Microsoft's exclusive lineup isn't going to draw in any -new- customers, either.  Halo 5 isn't going to make a Playstation diehard eschew grabbing a PS4 in favor of an XBone.  Gears of War anything isn't.  Forza didn't. 

No matter how you see it, this move with the Kinect just seems born of desperation and short-sightedness.  I will be heartily surprised if it makes the thing sell like a PS4 for any amount of time, and who knows if it's going to help in the long run if Sony continues to do their best with services and Exclusives that you -can't- just expect?  The Order is new and exciting because it's -new-, and if Microsoft wants to grab a few new people, they're going to have to put new things on the plate.  That's what'll sell an XBone over a PS4 way down the line when both have seen a price cut and parents are finally starting to relent, deciding to grab one of these things for the system.  But who knows if -that- is the next move Microsoft is going to rattle over towards?

seriously, I just don't see the point and I really wanted to see them take a stance on the goddamn Kinect

I Still Don't Know What The Hell - Watch_Dogs

I was really, really excited about Watch_Dogs (underscore for life) when it was announced and shown off at E3.  It seemed like this really great, really new and fresh-feeling thing that was going to ratchet up new IPs again and kick some ass.  It also seemed like it was going to look damn pretty while it did it, too.

It's, uh....it's not looking like it's any of these things anymore.  In truth, I just don't know what the hell Watch_Dogs is going to be like anymore.  I'm not exactly convinced the developers do either.

Watch_Dogs doesn't know if it wants to be a badass hacker simulator, a Grand Theft Auto-wannabe with electronic shenannigans, a rudimentary third-person shooter with driving elements, or even if it wants to be a super serious spy romp, or a wacky "Jerks with powerful tools" simulator.  The game gives off the impression that it wants to be all of these things specifically to try and cater and sell to everyone, and that little experiment has been tried and tried again, always with less-than-impressive results.  And yet everyone still tries it anyway.

The above video is where the cracks in my belief -really- started to show.  To that point, Watch_Dogs had seemed to want to go down the humorless (aside from the badass Asian dude rockin' the Kazuma Kiryu look) "I WILL HAVE REVENGE" route, which can be fine if done right.  The tension, the bitterness, the internal anguish and hatred festering in the main character, they're all very gripping and driving with the right writing applied to them.  However, that's a folly to start, since an open-world game is prone to mischief the likes of which that makes grown men giggle - something that inherently destroys that mood, and one of the big problems people had with GTA IV.  (Rather, thematic disconnect all around, not just the revenge plot)

However, adding a side mission where you almost comically pass out only to awaken piloting a giant fuck-off spider-tank (with only six legs) bent on destroying everything in sight?

Nah.  Not feeling it.

At least, not from the mood that Watch_Dogs had fostered before that point.  The Not-So-Spider-Tank is silly and dumb as hell and I love it because of that, but it just doesn't make sense and I'm almost disappointed in it.  I don't want to be disappointed in a giant fuck-off tanks in a somewhat destructible environment with plenty of people and cars to stomp.  That is the direct opposite of what I want!  Yet, this is what Ubisoft has reduced me to and I'm not too happy about it.

The other main bone of contention (Literally the only other thing, really, since the "lack of coherent direction" is fairly all-encompassing) revolves around the fact that the graphics and presentation has slid around quite a lot in the time from the initial reveal (Which everyone knew was bullshit anyway) to now which has seen some -dastardly- looking screenshots and gifs (that is a comparison, btw) in the meanwhile, all of which indicating that the game is going to look...well, not -bad- (except that screenshot), but not Next Gen, which at least Assassin's Creed 4 managed to do, and quite capably.  Part of that has to do with splitting to last-gen as well, which is ultimately the wrong way about it, but part of the blame has to fall on the clear mismanagement that the game has seen in the time it's been developed.

So what do I even want from Watch_Dogs anymore?  I don't....don't really know.  I'll have to do what I do best in these situations: assemble a list.

• Game has to look at least -pretty- good.  (It's looking like it will, even though it was thought to be 1080p/60 FPS on PS4 and apparently is not)
• If this is another Third-Person Cover Shooter, I'm going to be pissed.  Thus, I don't want gunplay to be a -major- portion of the game.  It's going to be moreso than, say, Sleeping Dogs' gunplay, but I don't want GTA-levels.
• The Spider-Tank?  I don't even know....I guess I hope the other "Cyber Trips" aren't as silly and inconsistent?  Or maybe I want them to be moreso.
• I want Jordi Chin to be a major part of the story.  I do not want to go five missions without seeing that dude because he is awesome.
• A little depth to Aiden would be nice.  "REVENGE" is good and all, but....yeah.
• Cars don't control like ass.
• -Locked- Framerate.  It'll probably be 30 FPS, and if it dips below 30, that is downright embarrassing.
• I want the Electronics/Hacking stuff to be -useful- and -integral-, not a neat thing you can use -or- completely ignore in favor of BOOLETTS

Are we going to get any of those?  I don't know.  I have absolutely no clue.  I just know that I want them and if they're not present, I'm just....really going to be disappointed with the game.  Don't do this to me, Ubisoft.

I feel like asking this game to not just be a cover-based shooter at this point is moot, but goddamnit, I can hope

On the Radar - Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor

As much as it pains me to admit this, since I'm sure some circles would call for my head and/or my nerd card, I'm just not really a fan of Lord of the Rings.  I've tried several times over with the movies and the games and perhaps that's the problem, in that I've never tried the books, but it has just never worked out.  I tried watching Fellowship three times and fell asleep all three times, twice for Two Towers and I saw Return of the King in the theater, so I didn't fall asleep then.  The film, however, did stop about 2/3rds of the way through for about 10-15 minutes, though, so maybe it's a sign.  Perhaps it's just not for me, as they say.  It's a thing that happens sometimes.  So when I heard tell of a new Lord of the Rings game coming out, I didn't pay it much mind, even when there was a bit of controversy over some of the animations used in the alpha footage.

All that said, however, it wasn't until I saw a post by Chance on the subject that I decided to give it a look-see and boy am I glad I did.  While I can definitely see where the concerns lay insofar as the Assassin's Creed comparisons, I don't care.  That is because what I see looks astoundingly good, especially for a franchise that I have no particular affection towards.  Of course, it's hard to -not- look good when it cribs from the Darksiders school of thought, by being a Locke's Socks amalgamation of Lord of the Rings and these fantastic games.  Intentional or not, you can pick out the Assassin's Creed, the Arkham Asylum/City, the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and the Hitman bits and inspect them on their own merits, and you can possibly try to determine whether or not it's cool that they are so clearly those bits placed into the stew that is Shadows of Mordor, but it's an easy decision.

When it looks like that?  Yes.  Yes it's cool.

Of course, Shadows of Mordor does bring something incredibly interesting and new to the table in the Nemesis system, which I for one am wary to believe is as fantastic as it's made out to be.  Simply because I cannot comprehend a world in which is does work as flawlessly as indicated just yet.  The Nemesis system claims to be able to randomly create a Nemesis for you that will serve as a major figure in your world that you ultimately want to kill as well as henchmen for that figure.  Not only that, but the Nemesis system promises, much like so many other games do, that all your actions and decisions matter and change the course of your story, causing your Nemesis (Nemeses?) to act accordingly.  The example used is that the player encountered two of the figures in the game early on, left the major figure to burn to death in a fire, but he survived, leaving him with a rather nasty burn, and a mean grudge.  It promises a wealth of opportunities and scenarios unique to every player and it sounds, in a word, amazing.

The cynic in me just cannot believe this is possible.  The cynic in me understands that, if you're using voiced lines, there can only really be so many instances of situations possible, since the lines have to be recorded for them all.  And the cynic in me believes that it's something that will offer less 'endless possibilities' and more 'scenarios created by creative gating' which is merely a series of binary yes/no options that are little more than littered along a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style path.  On the path in the trailer, there was a choice where the player apparently did -something- that left his Nemesis with a massive burn on his face.  That choice is a gate that takes you to a certain path in which X and Y happens.  While it gets a bit more impressive when X and Y are influenced by A, B and C or what have you, it's all something that you can see the workings of.  Depending on how many 'paths' and 'gates' they actually include in the game...it's quite possible that this 'unique experience' will not be that at all for most, which would be unfortunate and the exact thing I -don't- hope for.

I don't really like the cynic in me.  While I can see all that logic and such, I don't want to, because 'player choice affecting world-building' is something that I'm always a fan of, though few games pull it off as well as some shining examples which is an absolute shame.  It's a hard thing to pull off, I'm aware, because it's stacking variable upon variable, but it's so worth it if it actually works.  It's for that reason alone (well, the genre-blending helps) that I'm looking forward to Shadows of Mordor now, and I eagerly await some more trailers that show off the Nemesis system more - hopefully showing different ways entire scenarios can carry out or something along those lines.  Mostly just because I want to believe they can pull this off.

really, I'm just drooling at the potential to do a fictionalization of my playthrough of the game because it would be so good

Oh. Well Then.

Not too terribly long, I got all bent out of shape over Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, since it was reported that the PS4/XBone versions were going to be digital-only and that's kind of a bad thing.  For reasons that I went into with a lot of words that ended up boiling down to "The Gaming world just isn't ready for this nigh-evangelised 'Digital Future' but more importantly I'm most definitely not ready for it, goddamnit" because I really really want to play every single MGS game ever always.  All of that remains true, of course, because Internet Infrastructure has not magically become better in the weeks since, nor is it showing any signs of magically coming to ultimate power any time soon either.  Unfortunately and fortunately.  (Since even if Infrastructure got better, I'd probably still be fucking stuck)

Good news has come out for everyone, however, as not only does Ground Zeroes have a release date for North America, but it has pricing and release details that are a bit different than previously reported for good ol' Europe.  First off, the game comes out March 18th, 2014 across PS3 and 4, the 360 and the XBone.  PC players...get to keep waiting for REVENGEANCE, I assume.  (Please buy it when it comes out.)  Much like Europe, there's a bit of a price variance not only between current and last gen platforms, but physical and digital as well.  The PS3 and 360 versions retail at $30 for Physical and $20 Digital which is pretty much what I figured would happen in that it's exactly the same as the European price, except they switched denomination markers.  Sorry Europe!

The good bit comes in, however, when you see that, yes, the Digital Versions for the PS4 and XBone versions of Ground Zeroes are $30 for some reason, but there are actual physical versions of the game as well which will retail for $40, a full $20 more for a prettier version of the game on a disk instead of a digital PS3 purchase.  In another complete 180 from previous reportings, there's apparently going to be something extra in the Physical versions, though if that's just the Next-Gen ones, I don't even know.  Regardless, there's going to be a box with a PS4 disk in it that has Ground Zeroes on it that I am going to one day stare at and debate whether or not I should purchase it.  On the one hand, I'm very, very glad that it's going to be something I -can- buy and play, but on the other hand, it's a prologue that could be shorter than the Tanker section of MGS2, and it's $40 when a digital version of the PS3 version is half that for reasons, and while I -want- to play it in stunning visuals with the Dualshock 4 and all that, I'll need to convince myself a little more.  Also, I'll be concerned about a package deal for Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain whenever that ends up coming out.  (Likely around a year later, I'm guessing)

Still, it's good to know that I have the option if I decided to go that route because I likely will because I have no will-power.  Though I have to wonder what the extra bit in the cases is going to be, because I highly doubt it's going to be the Exclusive DLCs mentioned for both systems.  The Deja Vu mission for Playstation and the Jamais Vu DLC for XBox both look great, even though I swing more towards the Jamais Vu one because REVENGEANCE, and it kills me to think that I -won't- get to play it.  It's...not the same as more REVENGEANCE, of course, but it's close.  At least Konami is still acknowledging the game and hopefully the hopes of a sequel will end up panning out, because I will buy the absolute fuck out of it.  On the other hand, more 'exclusive' DLC for the Boxed versions on top of platform-exclusive DLC?  That's...that's going a bit crazy with it.  Though we are not exactly surprised, I should think.

crazy conspiracy theory, "David Hayter Voicepack DLC" - it'll never happen, but goddamnit if we're not all hoping

Tomb Raider - The Quandary

With yesterday's official announcement of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, I had a brief thought about picking the game up with my own Playstation 4 purchase, since January was the intended get of that as well.  I thought about playing through the game for a third time, but on this new console, and partaking of all the same things which I was already aware of, that I'd already tasted of.  I thought of how good the game would look during particular scenes in 1080p rather than...I guess 720p on the PS3?  I honestly don't know what resolution it was.  Really, I thought of every moment of fun I had with Tomb Raider and the possibility of doing so again on the PS4 for a price.

I'm....not sold.  It's a weird barrier of entry that I didn't know I had, especially since I have gleefully partaken in so many HD Collections thus far into my gaming life with the advent of them on the PS3 and Vita.  But thinking about 100% completing Tomb Raider -again-, but this time on the PS4 where it looks better but has all the exact same content with nothing added on....just gets me thinking about paying the PS3 version again since I already have that.  I can try to validate it by saying that enough time has passed for the HD Collections, that they routinely offer a bit more content (at least trophies for all the 'ugh' you can throw at me for that, but also "Making of" and sorts of things that I don't believe were in the originals) or even that it's simply harder to hook up my PS2 instead of just playing it on my PS3, as lazy as that sounds.  It's certainly why I bought Persona 4 Golden for my Vita (extra content) rather than the version of Persona 4 that I owned for my PS2 for years prior and never played.

Part of the problem is simply how off-guard Squeenix was caught when it came to Tomb Raider and the expectations thereof.  For some odd reason, Squeenix anticipated the Multiplayer of the game would be a huge hit and that's why the DLC was staggered towards that rather than having at least a few people working on Single-Player DLC to add more tombs to the game or something along those lines.  The Multiplayer was, as we know, awful by most stretches and definitions of the word and thus the inclusion of the Multiplayer-centric DLC in the Definitive Edition has almost negative value to me and most people.  Not only is it unwanted, but it's almost representative of the fact that we never got, nor will we ever get single-player DLC for the game that was by and large fantastic in single-player.  It's not fair, of course, but that's just how it falls sometimes.

By all accounts it seems that the game will retail for $60 rather than....$40 or so, as a re-release might generally run at.  Most will just say "Well, duh, Squeenix" and some will claim that adding TressFX and native 1080p and all that, as well as inclusion of the DLC necessitates the 'extra' $20, but the fact remains that many, many people bought Tomb Raider for $60 already  Some are more than happy to do so again and I tip my hat to those people because even though I loved Tomb Raider, you clearly love it more than I.  And that's great!  It's a great game and deserves all the support in the world, it's simply that I cannot justify throwing another full price at it.  I'm not sure I could even justify it for Metal Gear Rising:  REVENGEANCE, even with all the DLC on-disk.  I would be tempted - I own the game and the DLC (but haven't downloaded it) - but I think I would even refuse that at $60, perhaps even $40.  And you all know how much I loved REVENGEANCE.

That is not to say that I won't eventually own Tomb Raider for my PS4 - I will.  I will be compelled to eventually for the lush visuals and the engaging gameplay and the wonderful character progression of Lara herself.  I will be compelled to once again 100% the game and, if there's a separate trophy list, potentially even bother with Platinuming it as I intend on doing with the PS3 version.  (The opposition, of course, is the dregs of Multiplayer)  I just won't be doing it Day-One.  I won't be throwing down $60 for Tomb Raider again until there is a 2 or a subtitle after those key words.  Even a single bit of new single-player content would have had me questioning this decision but Squeenix has made it easy to stand firm.  Though I still do find myself regretting that.

I really do kinda wanna play Tomb Raider all over again though

So That's What Snap Looks Like

Last week when I took a look at the UI video for the XBone, I was explicitly impressed by it, but mentioned a lament for the lack of the Snap feature that has been touted so highly.  I took it as a worrisome sign that it was not show-cased and it seems as if I were a bit premature with that.  (No jokes, please)  Of course, I didn't quite expect them to release a nearly two-minute trailer exclusively for that feature since...well, the UI video was meant to be comprehensive.  It was, too, aside from the whole "they completely left Snap out of it" thing.  Unfortunately, while the UI video was comprehensive and informative, I cannot say exactly the same thing for the Snap video as you've already no doubt learned.

It's...functional as a video showing off a feature, but it's nowhere near as good as the previous one.  It doesn't go in-depth, it doesn't -really- demonstrate the feature, but it shows that it's a thing that is possible and that happens, so I guess that's good enough in their eyes.  Or...perhaps as I feared, it's not exactly working all that great just yet, so the exposure was minimal.  Maybe not, maybe I'm just being cynical and/or pessimistic, but these are the types of things you're trying to stamp out with demonstrations, not further fueling them.  Still, that has been Microsoft's MO lately.

I'm more or less tepid to Snap as a result for now.  Some of the uses seem superfluous at best (The TV Snap is pretty much -only- good for Sports channels, since what else can you enjoy with a tiny screen and no volume?) whereas some are absolute game-changers in theory.  The internet explorer bit is something that a lot of people scoffed at because "Hurr, hurr, I look up that stuff on my computer/laptop/tablet/phone" and -yes- you can, but it's simply more convenient to bring it up on the same exact screen like that.  However, I'm worried about the versatility of it - the screen real-estate allotted is minimal, meaning the websites will be squished and I'm not sure how you would navigate text-heavy sites like GameFAQs and the like.  If the XBone pauses your game every time you Snap something, does it pause when you want to interact with it too?  Or can you do -something- to scroll the screen up a bit without breaking your game flow?  I personally doubt it, and I assume that would get ridiculously annoying eventually, but perhaps it won't actually be so bad.  This is, of course, something they could have shown off, but failed to do.

I would have liked some more examples of things you can do with Snap.  Can you, for instance, snap Skype on and do a video call with a friend or family member while playing Forza?  Can you snap on the Marketplace and buy a game to start downloading while you're running through Ryse?  Are you able to snap on any of the video services and switch audio to them, like Youtube?  That would be helpful for advanced tutorial needs, but that's one that I highly doubt, personally.  Still, any and all of this were things that they could have taken time to actually explore and explain, or even just touch on a little more than it was done, but none of them were, and I highly doubt a follow-up "Here's a second video about Snap because oops", so I suppose this time I -can- be disappointed and/or wary about the feature and its completeness.  I suppose we'll all know for sure next Friday, however!  With any luck, if all the annoying things are true, they can be addressed.

oh sure, let me just pause the game five times in a single minute so I can scroll up this site on the side so I can read the full paragraph, ob boy

In Which I Resume the Status Quo

My last post about the XBone was fairly positive, but that's mostly because I made sure that it would remain that way throughout because that was the point of the post.  This post is under no such obligation.  This post is another in the line of many "Goddamnit, Microsoft" posts that exist because they should, because Microsoft has clearly learned nothing. I wish this weren't the case because I know that I'm personally tired of rehashing the same points over and over again, but it's kind of appropriate to do so since I'm not the one who is doing it first.  I am in the responsive position here, not the instigative position.  If it weren't such a critical issue, I would have more or less given up on it by now, but it is certainly -not- that.  It's a big deal, bigger than we like to admit, and that it's barely getting addressed is the real issue.

In a recent interview, Albert Penello, Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management, prefaced a statement with "I always have to be really careful what I say here," and then proceeded to do no such thing, much to my amusement and frustration.  Protip:  If you ever say, "I do feel like we never got a chance to have a rational conversation about what we were trying to do," then you should probably understand that you're being very, very condescending, since it basically infers that your side was correct, but the other side was simply so rabid and/or unintelligent to understand your rationale that you just dropped it entirely.  As we know that is entirely -not- what happened, and the insistence, however passive-aggressive, that it was is just irresponsible.  I'll get to that in a minute, however.  More importantly is this little tid-bit, likening the XBone announcement (which he refers to as "the Dark Days", another good sign) to the original Duke controller.

"I always tell this story about how we did so much user testing on that thing, about how comfortable it was. Every piece of data we had said that was the best controller ever made. And then we showed it to customers and they're like, 'Oh my god, this thing's huge! It's gotta be uncomfortable!'

And you're like, 'Okay, we're done.' Because I'm not gonna be able to tell you about all the work we did, and all the data I had, and, oh by the way, when you feel it, it is really comfortable. Sometimes the customer just says 'No.' I look at it this way: I'm done; I've made up my mind. And we go, well, we've gotta fix it. It's not worth it. And that's where I think we were on the digital stuff. We'll get back to some of the cool stuff, and we have a lot of the cool stuff still in there."

Do take note that unless he's talking about -another- Duke controller that was much larger than the one that we got, it doesn't spell out a whole lot of anything for this story.  Since the Duke was famously large and, despite Penello's assertions, uncomfortable, which is why the second controller was made during the OXBox's lifetime that was much smaller and the prototype for what the 360 got.  So what I'm getting at here is that this is a really bad story to tell, especially in relation to this topic.  Which makes the fact that he stated earlier on,

"The thing I want to be super explicit about, because I do think people are worried about, is once we made the decision to go to physical disc security, we're not unwinding that decision. We're committed to the physical disc; we're committed to trading and loaning. This is my official: 'We're not going back on that.' I don't want anybody to think we 'got' them, and then tomorrow I'm gonna go back to the old stuff, 'cause that's not gonna happen."

...needlessly suspicious!  Speaking, sir!  You are bad at it.  Note the same smarmy condescending tone to this little anecdote as well, further reinforcing...well, what I've said. 

But that's not the worst of it.  Not by a -long- shot.  The worst comes right at the end, and it's the part that just absolutely makes my blood boil because it is precisely the wrong thing to say ever.

Regardless, Penello admitted that, in the end, it was the right decision. He still believes the all-digital future is coming. "We just think that's the way the future's gonna go," he said. "We may have been right. What we were wrong about was that it's just too soon. People just weren't ready to make that leap right away."

This.  This thing that you're doing right here?  Stop doing it.

You don't get to proclaim that the thing you're doing is ahead of its time.  Things are only declared to be ahead of their time after history has played out and you go "Hmm, I wonder why this thing is happening" and then you find out the progenitor of it.  In this case, the Dreamcast is the thing that was ahead of its time since it was wacky enough to try and introduce internet-based multi-player gameplay, even though internet as a whole was not even a standard, much less good.  Microsoft took this concept and added their own...'improvements', which, combined with the Dreamcast's following despite the lack of real purchasing power behind that, prompted the others to follow suit.  That is why we have online multi-player and such in our consoles, rather than it simply being a PC thing, though it could be argued that it, too, was an 'inevitability'.

All of what that translates into for me personally is "See you again for Round 2", which almost makes me weary just thinking about it.  This time around was hard enough, but we managed to put up a brick wall of common fucking sense.  I believe that's due in no small part to the fact that digital purchases are still on shaky grounds with Consoles, especially with the shift between this gen and next and the almost-lack of connectivity in-between.  We'll not have that cushion when the XTwo and the PS5 are announced since they'll likely retain a PC-like architecture meaning there should be no trouble making them backwards compatible with the XBone and PS4.  Since the entire library of games will be digital at that point (minus the few that get de-listed for licensing issues and such), it might not cause much of a kerfuffle there.  On top of that is the theory that the internet -is- getting -slightly- better in an average sense, but not an 'everywhere' sense, and I'm just seeing a lot more people becoming accepting of the idea of something like the XBone was originally set to be.  The bad parts of it.

Call me cynical, but the short-sightedness of it is what makes me believe it's possible.  That there were even defenders of the XBone this time around, with the majority of them being people crowing from the rooftops, "Fuck you, got mines" is more than enough to crush the spirit a little bit.  The issue is that it's just not something that should be done, because it's not something that can be done.  Internet Infrastructure is not a world-wide standard.  Internet Service Providers are considered, as a general statement, to be among the worst companies out there (up there with Gas Companies, Insurance Companies and EA for some reason) and there is a reason for that.  They are providing a service that is infinitely invaluable because of short-sightedness and by that virtue, they have free reign on what they can and can't do, with the latter being 'not a whole lot'.  What's going to change that?  I ask that as a real, actual, legitimate question.  It's not rhetorical, I'm not going to say "Nobody, that's who" because I don't know that.  But I also do not know -who- is going to make the ISPs start behaving like the less-evil multi-million dollar corporations out there.  And somebody has to do it if we're all gung-ho for this stupid notion of an "Always Online" future.

I'm still just shaking my head at the condescending vibe that oozes from every single word said, goddamn

In Which I'm Mostly Positive About the XBone For Once

Do I really have to preface this post with a reiteration of my past opinions on the XBone?  No?  Okay.  Because I'm not going to for now.  What I am going to do is direct you to the above video of what is apparently a real XBone running the real dashboard in real-time.  And it is rather delightful, I should say.  While I applauded the use of the PS4's UI on-stage some time back for its simplicity while still showing off the nuances, there's something to be said still for a nice sit-down, "Here is how everything works" presentation when it's handled well, and this was nice and smooth with only a couple things I can really complain about.  That's..kind of the point, obviously, and it's probably not -completely- indicative of every situation, but it's still promising.

The first thing that needs to be said is, of course, how seamlessly the game goes back into play once you resume it from the Home menu no matter what you were doing previously.  I'm personally used to this already with my Vita since I frequently pull out of a game to access the internet browser or check a Youtube video for some help, but I understand that it is a new concept to some people and am still appreciative that it works as well as I've already seen it work.  Though, I do have to agree with Chance in wondering how the One will handle the whole "People play more than one game" thing, since Yusef could have been playing a different game entirely on his XBone, or even if he was playing Forza, he still has his own instance that obviously can't really be transferred over like that.  For having "everything of yours on any XBox One" (the pinned things, it seems) available, that one thing seems like it's the most -important- thing to have, but I don't think it's actually feasible.  Though, I suppose at least that's when the whole "You can download your (bought and downloaded) games to any XBone and use them so long as it's you actually using it" comes into play, so you still -can- get to your game, and I imagine your saves can automatically go to the cloud, so you'll be able to pull it from there.  It might take a bit, given file sizes and all, but still.

I would like to call special attention to the Skype demo.  Even though I'm not a fan of Skype at all, nor do I really care about its inclusion, I have to admit that I'm really, really impressed with what they showed off.  I never would have even thought that the Kinect could be 'smart' enough to actually zoom in and follow you if you were moving about and doing that was a real smart bit of forethought.  Even though you're mostly going to be using it when you're just sitting down and playing, there's something to be said for if you have it set up in an area where there's a lot of visibility and things you can do.  Maybe you're cleaning house and talking to someone else, or something along those lines, since, hey, it's totally possible with that set-up.  I dare not think of some ways that it will -actually- get used, but the -intended- usage is neat and actually uses the Kinect to its capabilities instead of just making it kind of like a webcam for that as I might have expected.

Really though, I'm not quite sure what to think about with the whole Game DVR.  As someone who watches a lot of Let's Plays of games and the like, I clearly understand the appeal of simply watching a video game being played, and with reactions (though not necessarily facecams) but that's not really what this is for.  So the next usage would seem to be little tip videos, showing you how to do something specific or what have you, but that seems to be a little limited as it's hard to tell just how long you can make these Game DVR videos.  I understand not being able to do 'walkthrough/Let's Play' length videos for multiple reasons up to and including HDD space concerns, copyright concerns with the companies that aren't cool with those types of things and that sort of thing, but if you can only do 30-second clips (I'm sure you can do longer, it's just a matter of how, and how much longer) then...what's the point?  To be fair, this is all shared concerns for the whole Share aspect of the PS4 as well.

I do find it a bit concerning that there was not even a single instance of them attempting to use the whole Two-App thing with the Snap interface, since that's something they've been touting for a while.  The worrying idea is that perhaps it's not working up to snuff and thus wasn't shown off because it would have looked bad, but we are officially past the "Well, it kind of looks bad" phase in terms of end-game functionality.  Because we are -at- the end-game here.  The console will be released in two weeks (if you don't get it early as someone has who is in the process of being banned from Youtube, Twitter and possibly Live as we speak) and the Day One patch is already live - it's where it's going to be at launch.  Maybe that function simply won't be available - I haven't really paid attention to news about it - and in that case it can be patched in later on when it's in a working state, but still.  It's a really weird omission for an otherwise stellar little presentation.  They officially have my attention in some capacity for now.

I made it the whole post, that is kind of amazing

Okay, This Trend Needs to Stop Before It Starts

It's been known for a while that Metal Gear Solid V would be yet another of the Cross-Gen titles coming out, releasing for both PS3 and 360, but PS4 and XBone as well.  It's also been known that Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, the prologue to the actual meat of MGS V, The Phantom Pain, would be releasing beforehand due to it being a prologue and all.  That was roughly all the information that we knew to this point, however, and that finally changed today....kind of.

The release window has narrowed from "2014" to "Spring 2014" which is, of course, considerably more focused, but it's clearly still not ready for an official release just yet.  We also have prices....in a sense, and this is where things get a bit tricky.  Current gen prices for the packaged versions of the game (meaning PS3/360 disks) will be £30, which roughly translates to about $48, assuming they don't do that thing they do where they just exchange £ and $.  Current gen prices for digital versions of the game, however, will be £20, which roughly translates to about $32.  And then there's an entry for the price of the Next-Gen downloadable versions, which is the aforementioned £30 or ~$48.  So, what's the price for the Next-Gen packaged version?  Uhh..

Well, apparently there won't fucking be one.

It's already been confirmed elsewhere from the linked article - Ground Zeroes is going to be Digital-Only on the PS4/XBone and I have only one thing to say to that:  Fuck that.

Next Gen games are going to be fucking huge - Killzone:  Shadow Fall is just south of 40 GB as a compressed file (down from a hefty 290 GB) as an example - and I can't imagine that Ground Zeroes, the first Open-World Metal Gear Solid title is going to be an exception to that, prologue or not.  My thoughts on digital-only games has been well-covered at this point (even if I understand that it's a necessity -sometimes-, and can acknowledge that there are varying degrees of problem areas to it) but I think we can all agree that downloading 40 gigs is simply unfeasible for a majority of the people playing games out there.  Not only is there speed issues to consider (since we're not all blessed with the ability to pay for wonderful internet), but there is that whole pesky issue about Data Caps that has not gone away by some sort of magic or sorcery.  So it's at this point that I would like to ask Developers to kindly pull their heads out of their goddamn asses.

I'm going to reiterate the very point I made back when Microsoft assumed the internet was magical and ever-present around the entire goddamn world:  It's fucking not.  Internet infrastructure is actually pretty piss-poor in the United States (not to mention neighboring Canada and Mexico) since the farther out from a major city you get (not even the semi-major cities) there is a drastic drop-off in speed, capacity and what have you.  Everyone in the industry seems to forget this constantly, because, and I'm just guessing here, a lot of developers are based out of major cities.  I can see how it's possible that it's easy to forget what you -don't- have to deal with, but that doesn't make it any better.  Still, I think even some of these people would have an issue downloading 40-50 Gig games on the regular.  So hopefully this little idea of "Digital Future" stays in the future now as it has done so already, because we just are not ready for it yet.

I mean, seriously, Ground Zeroes is going to be fucking huge even if it's supposed to be a 'short' game are we kidding anyone thinking otherwise

Some Encouraging Project Spark News

It seems that Project Spark, Microsoft's game-building game, will not require XBox Live Gold to play in any of its versions on the 360, PC or XBone.  Seeing as that is a Microsoft Studio title, as first-party as can be, that's quite a surprising development, but not an unwelcome one.  It also makes a lot of sense to do which I posit is most of why it's surprising.  Despite me being a little disappointed in Project Spark, or what little of it has been shown off, I'm still nonetheless interested in it, especially now that the XBone left Crazytown and is a viable, purchasable console now.  Because I am just a whore for the concept of creating things even though I'm terrible at actually executing the creation thereof.

Of course, that's kind of where the rub is - everything points to being able to play Project Spark without XBox Live Gold.  Semantics are a wonderful, terrible thing, of course, so one could actually infer that silver members can only do that - play the game.  Play other creations people have made.  The worry, then, is that you will still need Gold to actually be able to create and share your little games that look suspiciously like Fable even though it's supposed to be set in space or something.  It would certainly make sense, since it makes -more- sense than Microsoft being cool where it concerns this game.  It's not that we want to be cynical, that we don't want to believe, but, well, I think we've all touched the fire one too many times, and we're pretty sure it's still going to burn.

We're watching you, Microsoft.  Keeping an eye on you in case you go all Crazytown again.

yes, it was a short post but what else is there to say about a game that has like three minutes of footage out there

Well, That's a Problem - Next-Gen Upgrades Can't Keep SP Saves

Various publishers and companies have come out saying that they'll be offering a "Next-Gen Upgrade" for certain games that are going to be released in a way that straddles this gen and next - releasing as PS3 and PS4 games both, for example.  Generally, the situation is that you have your current gen disc, enter a code, pay $10 and you get a digital copy (I believe) of the Next-Gen version of the game on your account which you can start using whenever you pick up your PS4 or XBone.  The knowledge that all your Multi-player stuff will transfer over because it's half-hosted from a server is fairly common, so I figure at least some of us assumed (or simply didn't think about) Single-player working similarly across generations for some reason or another.  Actually having it pointed out makes you wonder why you thought it was possible in the first place, when it probably should've been obvious that single player saves just won't carry over next-gen.

Then, if you're me, you think of the Vita and PS3 cross-save and realize that they're saves for the same game running on two completely different pieces of hardware and go right back to wondering why it won't work out.  But that's really not the point, the point is that you're going to end up starting from scratch in anything but Multi-player if you jump in on this upgrade deal.  Which, for games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, it's not a big deal, but for something like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Watch_Dogs, where the main content is Single-Player, well....it seems like a bad idea.  Or at least one (more) reason to skip this gen's version of the game and jump head-long into next-gen which...okay, yeah that is probably the reason for this since we obviously know it -could- be done if they wanted it to be done.  Most likely.

It's certainly turned me off from picking up Watch_Dogs until some random point in the future that I don't really know about just yet.  It could be that I'll just pick it up in January when I grab my PS4 as something to tide me over until inFamous:  Second Son, but I might even just skip it then as well - impressions seem to dwindle down more and more with each and every trailer and video that comes from the game as it seems to stray more and more from "Do cool shit with the internet" to "Shoot mans and pretend it's high-tech Grand Theft Auto".  Which, there's probably nothing wrong with high-tech Grand Theft Auto, but it certainly seems a lot less interesting and innovative now than it did originally, with the whole 'internet' thing being relegated to a tertiary or even optional tactic when it really should be the main focus....and done so in a way that's not messy or obfuscated.  That'll be the true test of the game, I suspect.

As for Assassin's Creed IV:  Black Flag, well, you already know my opinions on a good grip of the Assassin's Creed games, so I will be staying away from the game until it's bargain-priced as I do with every AC game except Liberation.  Hell, I haven't even grabbed Assassin's Creed 3 yet, so by the time AssFlag is up for a purchase from me, I'll be getting the PS4 version anyway.  I'm not sure I can think of any other games that straddle the gap that have announced an upgrade system like that, but it looks a lot less tantalizing now than it did in a lot of ways.  You gotta wonder if there's going to be any games that buck this trend, however.  Microsoft's Project Spark is a big one since it's coming out for 360 as well as the XBone and...well, it basically revolves around devoting hours of your life to create something, so I would imagine upgrading to a blank slate would be less than ideal and I doubt all of that information is going to be considered "Multi-player" so it would be stored on a server, but considering the original XBone goal...who knows?

It's just a weird situation halfway between "Well, duh" and "But wait", and it's only worth mentioning because it could very well impact your purchasing decisions on at least a couple games.  Like I said, it's definitely pushed my purchase of Watch_Dogs back a little, and similar SP-heavy games will likely be bought on the Next-Gen systems straight-away rather than paying the $10 extra for a 'second' copy of the game.  Because I really don't see myself as an edge case in this scenario.

it'd be different if the game was like Sleeping Dogs, I'd play the shit out of that twice

More More Microsoft News

I'm gonna be honest here - I'm getting a bit tired of posting XBone news.  I had to search for the new box art picture instead of using the same old image I tag the XBone posts with (you know the one) just to switch it up a bit.  The obvious response is "Well, then just don't post the news, duh" and yeah, it is kind of obvious, but, well, there ain't shit else going on and a few pieces of news came together that made for an interesting little chat.  So I figured I'd do it and then hopefully get it out of my system and then hopefully we'll get some news about other things, since just about all of it has been about the XBone and not a near-bit of it very positive.  I've been one of the people who have been, uh, vocally against what the XBone was in its original inception, of course, and I remain one of the unswayed by Microsoft's furious back-peddling and desperate attempts for further affection, but even I've basically lost the verve and the concern with which to talk about the XBone in any manner, even negative.

First up in the parade of bad news and worse decisions, one of the other main things that folks have been clamoring about regarding the XBone from the onset of it, even alongside the whole DRM nonsense.  The Kinect 2.0, as it's been dubbed, was previously listed as required for the XBone to do basic things like function whatsoever, which people didn't like for one reason or another.  "The room is too small for it to be utilized", "there's 'no good use for Kinect'", "I don't want it constantly watching and listening to me and even though you can turn it 'off', how off is it really?" and such things, which are valid concerns in one way or another.  While there wasn't going to be some sort of NSA situation going on, there was and still is, I suppose, a very real chance of Kinect 'spying' on you to direct you towards ads that it thinks you want to see, which is almost and oxymoron because nobody wants ads, even if they're advertising the brand of coffee you drink in the morning or the brand of chips you snack on at night.

Obviously, all that build-up is to simply say that the Kinect is no longer required except in the rare case that a game requires Kinect, of course.  Which will be few and far in-between as even Microsoft's Kinect Sports thing was delayed til a few months or more after launch, meaning the number of games that -require- Kinect at launch will be zero I believe.  Of course, the bigger thing is that unless you're planning on talking to your XBone, waving at your TV or playing that new Harmonix game that I can't be bothered to search the name of, you can safely leave the Kinect that will be included in your XBone box right where it is, since absolutely everything about it appears optional now aside from its purchase.  The announcement made a lot of people think that the Kinect could safely be taken out of the box from the getgo, resulting in a hefty price drop, but I seriously doubt that's going to happen.  This is less of an issue of programming and whatnot, and more of an issue of they've probably already started mass-producing the things, so they're -going- to be in the damn boxes whether you like it or not.  Similarly, others have been suggesting that -down the line- there will be a Kinect-less box after the initial 'shove Kinect down everyone's throat' phase and I'm...not inclined to believe in that either.  It's a game of too little time at this point now, and while Microsoft has been screwing the pooch left and right here, splitting things up like that would be silly even for them.  I think.

Speaking of mass-production and shipping, the XBone was initially supposed to launch in 21 Markets, and that number has been reduced to 13 surprising absolutely nobody.  Given that they're still throwing things in the box as shown by the unboxing vid that let slip the Chat Headset that was previously going to be sold separately, but I guess they just decided to throw them in since they were already manufacturing them as well.  Really, it's -far- easier to -include- things than it is to take them out which is why I'm saying that the Kinect is going to stay in for the launch bundles at the very least.  (Also because the unboxing video kind of...well, makes it 'official', I should think)  What with production apparently going on at the moment, though not quite as fast or well as they would like it to be going and all.  What's curious about that is that I can't help but wonder if those countries are going to be the ones where the console -launches- or if they're going to be the ones where the console -launches- and XBox Live for it is up and functional, meaning the region-free aspect of it would be quite moot otherwise.  There is the whole matter of that Day-One Firmware update for the console as well as the update that Forza 5 will require to be a functioning game that will be unavailable to those were Live for the XBone isn't supported.

And while we're on the topic of XBox Live (geez, it's almost like I put thought into the flow of this post), there was a little announcement that....is kind of good?  It actually seems a bit redundant and dumb, but it's not actively harmful or out-right silly like some of the other bits of news, so it gets a pass, I suppose.  A season pass, actually, because I am so clever since the news is that the XBone has a "Season Pass Guarantee", meaning that every time you buy a (supported) 360 game with a Season Pass, you will be able to access the Season Pass content if you then buy the game again on your XBone.  Why you would do that is....quite a bit beyond me (unless the game is just really good and only gets better on the Next-Gen machines for some reason), but it is rather nice that the option is -there-.  Though I do believe GameStop is going to offer some sort of "upgrade" trade-in thing so that you get so much credit towards an XBone version of a game for the 360 version, which makes the offer a whole lot more tantalizing if you're into that sort of thing.

Aside from trying to assuage some RROD-type fears by stating that the XBone will fix itself when it's overheating, there's not a whole lot of other news about the thing which is great, since that was a lot to cover when I didn't even really want to do it in the first place.  With any luck, that should be all the XBone-related news from now until Gamescom which is...in like a week.  Great.  Regardless, Microsoft's presentation will be a short one, though they're hyping it up to be something big.  I guess we'll see what comes of it, but until then, I will hopefully not have to type the words "XBone", "Kinect" or other such things again.  After all, can we just...you know, find some other news to make a big deal about?  There should be more news-worthy things, it's almost the end of Summer!  Almost.

honestly, I probably shouldn't write about it because I'm so whiny, but I want to write -things- and it's like the only topic there is some days

XBone Requires Live Gold for...Pretty Much Everything

In what is no doubt the least surprising thing about the XBone, all those features that were stuck behind the pay-wall of XBox Live Gold are going to be the same way with the new system, as well as the shiny features showed off exclusive to the XBone like the game recording feature, the Twitch integration, NFL Leaderboard integration, Skype and the new and improved match-making.  Some of that isn't a surprise, especially the match-making since you need Live for Multi-player -anyway- so obviously a new shiny thing attached to that is going to be behind the very same pay-wall, but that's kind of semantics.  Basically, this narrows the amount of things you'll be able to do with a Live Silver account down to "Play single-player games, buy games off of XBL and gain regular Achievements" since even the new 'dynamic' Achievements seem to be locked to Gold.  All of which basically means that you may as well tack on $60 to the XBone's already higher price, since it's damn-near mandatory.

Some would argue that Sony's decision to put PS4 multi-player behind a similar pay-wall in Playstation Plus accomplishes much of the same in making it mandatory, but I'd say there is a very, very fundamental difference between the two and their implementation.  From what I've seen, the -only- thing behind with pay-wall is multi-player which means, yes, you can't play online with your friends without it (unless you're playing an MMO like DCUO) but you can still socialize with them regardless.  Party chat, all of the sharing bits, all the social interaction things that aren't specifically tied to playing Killzone:  Shadow Fall MP with your buddy are unrestricted if you choose not to throw down $50 for a year of the service.  Not to mention if you want to enjoy Netflix on your TV and don't want to have to keep going back to your PS3, your Wii U (assuming they ever fix the Wii U's Netflix app) or something else that is presumably letting you watch Netflix without paying more than Netflix's own subscription, you can do that on the PS4.  Same with all of the other programs and applications of a similar nature.

Without throwing what appears to be a console warz-type pitch, there's also the idea of perceived value associated with the services as we've seen them.  Live Gold simply allows you access to all of these things that you're paying for otherwise in Netflix and the like, while also letting you play multi-player in games.  Playstation Plus went an entirely different route with the Instant Game Collection, giving subscribers access to dozens of games over the course of the year simply for subscribing.  Plus was always an additive entry prior to the PS4 and will likely persist in that capacity, where Live Gold has always been the barrier of entry.  They have started a program where you get some free games per month and it's true that the games appear to be 'yours' in that they're not tied with you actually subscribing to Live Gold, but it....comes off as a little too late, not to mention it's a temporary program until the XBone is launched.  Then things look as if they'll return to the status quo.

It just seems like a missed opportunity.  Obviously, you -want- people to subscribe to the service, but you can do that through incentivizing rather than force.  Honestly, even if the PS4 -didn't- require PS+ going forward, I'd still have it because of the IGC, even though that's an extra $50 a year.  It's damn worth it.  When and if I eventually buy a 360 to catch up on a few exclusives, I honestly don't know if I'll get Gold at all and if I do, it will be begrudgingly at best.  I see it as $60 that I don't -need- to spend, nor do I want to.  And you know what?  That argument is always rattled against by people shouting "If you're paying full-price for Live, you're doing it wrong" and to that I say "Fuck you".  I don't need to shop for deals that may or may not exist in the time-span between when I get a 360 and when I need gold, nor do I think it's an effective way of combating the issue.  It's $60 that I don't feel like paying, don't think I -need- to pay, and if that $60 becomes $35 because I stumble across a sale it's not fundamentally different.  I -want- to spend the $50 on Playstation Plus because of what it gives me not what it allows me to do.  That is all the difference there can be.  Live Gold is simply a service that I, nor do many people, feel is worth buying into because of the amount of things that are behind it when it's clear that they don't need to be.

Of course, anyone thinking that anything would come -out- of the pay-wall in the 360-One transition was simply fooling themselves, so this news isn't -really- news.  It's simply an affirmation that Microsoft is happy with the money Live Gold brings in and they don't feel they need to change it up.  Which....good for them.  Clearly they don't since people happily pay for the service and swear by it, but it's just another one of many chances they could've utilized for even the smallest bit of good will, and it's just clear they're not interested.  Still, it does ensure that we'll hear about all these features from the folks who end up picking up the system, since it's out of necessity rather than want, and some of the features are down-right neat sounding.  The Twitch integration for one, and I suppose it is good that they're jumping on Skype, considering it is one thing that legitimizes the Kinect that they're forcing in.  One just has to wonder what else is going to show up and get added to the list of "things you need Live Gold for".

people have been shouting for them to remove the pay-wall from the Netflix thing for ages, they could have at least done -that-

Even More Indie Confusion

Brian Provinciano of Retro City Rampage fame is one of the many suspicious of Microsoft's new plan.

It seems Sony's still the only one out there getting it right in terms of Indies, though Microsoft recently announced that they're making strides in the right direction....if you believe spin at its face, that is.  Essentially, what Microsoft has announced is that Self-Publishing will be possible for games on the XBone and on top of that, every single XBone console will eventually double as a dev kit.  This would allow you to run down to the store, buy an XBone, take it home and work whatever voodoo that involves to turn it into a dev kit/debug unit.  Because it's not going to be as simple as flipping a switch and 'woooo suddenly I'm a game developer'.  Not to mention that allowing you to be able to mess with the innards of the XBone as you would anything with code and such with reckless abandon would open all sorts of unsavory doors, so there's obviously some bits that haven't been mentioned just yet.  Apparently this was supposed to be big news at Gamescom, but it just so happened to leak out beforehand.  Mysteriously.

"Suspicion" seems to be the operative word in terms of reactions among both consumers and Indie Developers alike, and it's not unwarranted, of course.  Even without Microsoft's numerous foot-in-mouth moments subsequently followed by furious back-peddling in what comes off as a desperate display of "PLEASE LOVE US", their previous attempt at the Indie Scene with XBox Live Indie Games was less-than-stellar in concept and execution.  An annual fee allowed you access to the development tools with which you could eventually create a working game for the service that was then checked by other XNA developers (I believe) for QA purposes (pretty much, I just heard Zeboyd asking/talking about "Peer Review" for the XBLIG versions of their games before release) before being unceremoniously placed into the roster next to the rest of the games similarly added without much regard to grouping or visibility.  Of course, that is kind of how these things go, things like the App Store and such that allow 'self-publishing' in this way, which is akin to "Yeah, just kind of put it out there and make sure we get our cut for storage" which is...less than ideal.

Whether or not Microsoft's plan for the XBone will be like XBLIG but 'better' or something else entirely that might actually be good has yet to be seen and will likely remain under wraps even beyond Gamescom.  It's highly doubtful this system will be able to go up and running by launch, of course, and first-hand experience is really where it's going to count, as well as how Microsoft handles the marketplace thereafter.  It -does- sound like Microsoft is making strides in that area in a sense as they previously announced that all the games will be in the 'games' section of the store, thus no "XBLA goes -here-" and "XBLIG goes over -there-", but really that was never the biggest problem.  The biggest problem with indies on the 360 was that you...basically never knew when the games went up because they went up 'whenever'.  Sony has the right of it here, I think - Games go up Tuesday, Mobile games go up Wednesday.  If you're even a little familiar with your Playstation devices and such, you know that, so you'll know to check new releases and you'll be able to find all the new games, indie or otherwise, held within.  Then they also have an Indies Section that, well, actually has visibility as well.

Something else that's curious is that Microsoft seems to be promising full compatibility of the wide spectrum of extra essentials to Indies as well.  Specifically, Mark Whitten, VP of the XBox Division had this to say:

"Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at gamescom in August."

This is new in terms of Microsoft's treatment of indies for the most part.  Even Kinect integration, something that obviously could have happened on the 360 seems new unless my googling has failed to inform me of a time when XNA developers were allowed to work with the device for 360 purposes.  Additionally, add me to the list of people who believe that you don't just get to say "the cloud" and we fucking know what you're talking about.  Does it mean cloud saves?  Cloud storage?  Cloud computation, as some XBone games are touting already even though that kind of requires internet which was something of a problem as we have discussed?  Will you be able to have some sort of cross-compatibility with Windows 8 thanks to "THE CLOUD"?  Any of this is something you could mention instead of just saying "THE CLOUD" as a thing of reverence.  Regardless, it'll be interesting to see just how many Achievements you can add to your indie game and how updating it can or cannot change that, since that's something that has been played around with quite a lot by actual developers (in terms of adding DLC which adds Achievements/Trophies to the overall list).  Actually, it'll just be interesting to see how it handles updates in general, considering some of Microsoft's difficulties with that.

Meanwhile, on the Nintendo side of the world, Nintendo has made a strange move in telling Japanese Indies to shove it.  Or, more succinctly that they're just not accepting Japanese applications for development on the Wii U, despite Nintendo's moves to make the device friendly to Indies of all types.  It's especially weird that they're not taking applications from Japan of all places, considering that's where they're based, but there are some reasons at play here that do sort of make it a little more understandable.  I don't know a lot about the Japanese Indie Scene, but I have to imagine that a good portion of it is likely Visual Novel-based, since that's really big in Japan, and I have to also imagine that a good portion of -that- is...well...not what Nintendo is looking for, I'll say.  I mean, maybe I'm wrong on that, and it's definitely possible that I -am-, and that the Japanese Indie Scene is just rife with platformers that blow Nintendo's own out of the water or something, but I'm just saying that that's possible.  Still, it's just a weird move, especially amidst all the other drama surrounding Indies.

So yeah, it's just kind of amusing to see all this going on and Sony just kind standing off to the side with the bulk of Indie Developers just looking on going "Okay".  I'm not sure what all moves they actually made in wooing the scene as heavily as they did, but it paid off with dividends and it's continuing to do so.  If nothing else, this is all at least a good exercise in realizing the importance of goodwill.  Sony's gained it massively, Microsoft pissed all theirs away and Nintendo is somewhere comfortably in the middle.  Who knows how this'll all play out when plans are actually outlined and put in place, but I wouldn't expect something of a large-scale event occurring.  It takes a lot of work to shift developers away from something, but most of the time it takes something negative to something else, so unless Sony screws the pooch at some point, they might just be around for a while.  Still, with a little competence, a little humility and a little courting, Microsoft could endear themselves back eventually.  I just don't see that happening, though.

well, something negative or truckloads of money, but

Developers/Publishers Aren't as Smart as You Think They Are

If you pay attention to release announcements, like yesterday's Strider announcement, you tend to see two things that are almost always left out:  Wii U and Vita.  The 3DS misses a lot as well, but that's...kind of a different beast in that the 3DS is likely the weakest machine out there at the moment.  Which isn't a knock against it, it's just that it's fairly impossible to get some games to fit within its confines.  Watch_Dogs, for instance, simply wouldn't go on the device in the same form as it could go on the PS3, the Wii U or anything else.  It's not an unfair statement to make, is my point.  Regardless, that they're -not- on the Wii U or the Vita is always something of an anomaly, given that both platforms can more than likely stomach the game you're trying to hand out, especially if it's on the PS3 and possibly PC, given that it's been said it's an easy port from the former, and I imagine a lot of the PC Indies have found it rather simple to get their game on the Vita, and I've yet to hear of a screaming technical error from any game yet.

Whenever a question is posed, "Why isn't this game on the Wii U/Vita", someone will always (usually in a snarky fashion) state it's "Because those systems don't have anyone buying them."  Okay, so then the question becomes "Why isn't anyone buying them?" (by the way, people are buying them, obviously) and the answer is then, still snarkily, "Because they have no games."  Well, yes, they do have games, but okay, not quite as many as the other systems that have been around for seven years (or almost three for the 3DS), so yes, totally fair.  Totally.  Still, this is a lead-in question as well - "Why do they have no games?"  "Because they don't sell any systems."

Right.

So the way to get a system to sell is for it to already have a fantastic library of games on it already?  Games made for it, I assume is the qualifier, since, you know, the Wii U has the Wii library (of which I'm told has a few gems) and the Vita has a good percentage of the PSP library which has quite a fantastic line-up as well.  Regardless, I'm sure you can all see the logical inconsistency here.  I have faith in you all, you're smart people.

However, the answer to that is that it's simply 'unprofitable', and in today's environment, 'unprofitable' means 'doomed', either in the over-reactive presumptuous way, or the....actual, literal way, which is a fairly sad state of affairs.  That fault lies nowhere but on the developers and publishers for creating the environment to begin with.  We didn't force them to make grandiose teams of developers to work on possibly out-of-this-world-great games or potential over-polished garbage (or, hell, even under-polished garbage as we have seen), certainly.  We assisted in fostering it by buying the games, one could argue, but what are we going to do, not buy games because their developers/publishers were fiscally irresponsible in making them?  Of course not because that's silly.

The harsh truth is simply that you're going to have to eat a loss at some point.  Sorry, but that's just the truth of it.  You have to get games onto a platform to inspire purchases of it so you can put more games on it and eventually recoup from not only late purchases of that original game, but people who have finally picked up the console for the games who are grabbing yours up.  That's simply how it works.  Don't pretend the PS4 and the XBone are anomalies in this, considering the success both consoles seem to be having not only in pre-orders, but game announcements.  Think back on the announced lists and try to present a game that's 1.) Third-Party and 2.) Not also coming out for PS3/360 as a fall-back, ensuring that the PS4/XBone version is just an up-port.  Or perhaps a lateral port of the PC version.  I mean, go ahead, I'll wait, I'm pretty sure you're not going to find a lot.  (I'm gonna cut you off and go out on a limb here and suggest that Sunset Overdrive is a Second-Party thing, like Resistance for Sony has been.)

So it's not even as if they're giving the PS4/XBone 'proper' focus, either.  It's going to be up/side ports for a long time while Sony and Microsoft struggle to keep their First and Second parties making the system enticing enough for you to deem it worthy of a purchase if you're not sold on it already.  Neither of them will have very much trouble in this, of course - Sony has been working very hard at making the PS4 attractive from every angle and have succeeded almost uniformly, while Microsoft has gained back a lot of goodwill from the 180, specifically from the people who went "Well, I -want- Halo, but I don't want bullshit" since said bullshit is (possibly) gone.  The mandatory Kinect isn't near enough of a deal-breaker for most people (unless its requirement requires some funky layouts and/or won't allow a person to simply turn it around to keep the camera off of them, as they'd rather not deal with it) and you simply cannot fault Sony for much at this point, in terms of the PS4 itself.

Still, this is playing both sides of the fence, and eventually somebody is going to lose out on that end.  You're going to need other sources of revenue than the Large McHuge Super-AAA havens that people make the PS4/XBone out to be (as they made the PS3/360 out to be) and the time to get in on this is now.  Or rather, it was half a year ago at least, but you can still get in on it.  You especially want to jump in on Vita development, since the parity between the PS4 and the Vita is going to put the device in a lot of hands, and if it's there, people will buy your games.  Nintendo is probably going to get their act together on displaying the Wii U as a device that you want for reasons as well (if we know Nintendo, part of it'll likely be a price cut right around November to 'devalue' the PS4/XBone out of the gate), and to continue to ignore them isn't going to do you any favors.  People -will- play non-Nintendo First-Party games on a Wii U if you give them to us, it's just in your court to make that leap.  Since you're just hurting yourselves by not making the effort everywhere you could be focusing.

the cyclical bullshit is just so damn annoying

Forza 5 Shipping as an Unfinished Game

Note the title of this post.  Now note the title of the Joystiq post I'm sourcing primarily: "Forza 5 has a mandatory day one download".  Now note the title of the IGN post they sourced from: "Forza Motorsport 5 Requires One-Time Internet Connection".  Hell, look at the title of Eurogamer's post about the topic: "Forza 5 mandatory day one download adds Drivatars for offline play".  Now marvel in wonder in disappointment when friggin' Kotaku of all places manages to title a post the correct way to deliver the message from this Forza 5 news: "Forza 5 Isn't All On The Disc".

It's hard to make it really clear what I'm talking about without giving you the source material, so let's do that.

“So when you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in,” he explained. “And when you log in you’re going to get the Drivatars and you’re also going to get a whole bunch of content: tracks and cars. Our production schedule is such that we are putting them in as late as possible and that means making them free as downloadable content on Day One.

“[But] that is required content to play the game. We basically have designed the game to work with all that content no matter how late is coming in, in order to make the biggest game possible.”

After that, Greenawalt said, Forza 5 is like your refrigerator. “You have to fill it up with food the first time,” he explained. “And from then on, you connect whenever you want when you want to update your food. The Drivatars are as fresh as they are. It’s not like they’re going to degrade, but when you’re looking for new stuff – fresh stuff…it’s going to keep evolving. That’s the nature of this Drivatar system.”

“You do have to connect the game in order to get the latest Drivatars, because we need as many people training them as possible. And so rather than having just a launch-day set that was created by us, every day that people race is going to make the Drivatar set that much more accurate, that much more diverse, that much more interesting.

“All of the cloud and online features make the game far, far better,” Greenawalt summed up. “In fact I’d even say revolutionary. The things we’re doing with opponents and Drivatar are not something that anyone can envision unless you’ve played it. But we’re trying to get as much of that into the unconnected, offline mode as well.

“We’re not making a launch game. We’re making Forza 5, at launch.”

I cut out as much of the editorializing and whatnot as I could to simply give you the quotes from the post, since I provided the links anyway, and that should allow you to read the rest if you so desire.  But, I mean, the whole point of this post -is- to give you the whole picture on the issue, of course, so it may not be necessary.  Also, note the spin in place that has spurned a lot of misinformation about just what's going on here.  It's quite well done, of course, but it's annoying in how well it's seemed to work, given the comments from those particular sites from people asking for clarification and people touting misinformation with a "This is not news" tagline.  There are also people simply misinterpreting the news pretty clearly to push their own agenda, with the overall response pointing to this not being something to be outraged about despite all the obvious merits of it.  So I'm going to make it easy.

If you throw down $60 (or however much) on Forza 5 inside the confines of a store, walk out with a case that holds a disc of the game, go home, put that disc in the XBone and you cannot, for whatever reason, download the Day-One Download?  You cannot play the game.  The reason for this is that the full game is not printed on the disc.  It is that simple, and it's definitely a first.  A bad first at that.

How is this possible?  Well, it's explained quite clearly in the above if you read it correctly.  When the discs are going to start being printed, Forza 5 will not be a complete, finished game.  So they're printing what's going to be done of it and then working on it up until the days prior to the game launch, (hopefully) submitting it to QA and then letting the rest of the game go up on XBox Live for you to download on Day One.  The same day when, you know, a million other people are going to be downloading that data and the XBone's mandatory day one firmware update.  This is not a recipe for disaster on its face or anything, not to mention the undercurrent of it.  Regardless, it's something that needs stating and I cannot stress this enough:  THIS IS NOT A PATCH.  THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE.  It's astounding that that one point is not clear, because I'm sure if it was a little more clear, people wouldn't be so understanding of it.

Or maybe they would be, I don't know.  People arguing for this are basically throwing every point that we rallied against the XBone for to make this acceptable and the disparity between people arguing for and against it is much, much closer than it was for the XBone's policies.  "If you're buying the XBone, you have to have internet for the day one firmware anyway, so this isn't a big deal." "People barely play Forza offline anyway." "If you're complaining about this, you're using the internet, so you have no room to complain." and the old-standby "If you can't afford the internet, you shouldn't be buying a $500 entertainment machine." are all thrown around, I assume unironically, and it just makes my head hurt because I start questioning whether or not I'm being unreasonable.

I'm not.  If you're selling a game on a disc, the game should be on the disc.  Full Stop.

It doesn't matter if the "Drivatars" basically requires the internet to fulfill their promises and were what Forza 5 was seemingly built around because Forza 5 still claims to have an off-line singleplayer portion to it.  It doesn't matter that they're "using every bit of time up to launch to make it the biggest game it could be".  It doesn't even matter if the download isn't going to be all that big (though it's certainly going to be).  Doing this kind of thing is bullshit, and defending it on any level basically tells everyone that you're in the "Fuck you, got mines" camp which is truly not the place you want to be.  You're willfully ignoring that a Disc is supposed to -be- the game, not merely a pass to play it as the original XBone would have made it.

So, sorry all you people wondering why this is news.  It's because it is news, no matter how much you want to plug your ears and go "La La La" until it passes.  If it's an isolated incident, then that's just a blip on the radar, but if it starts a trend of "Fuck worrying about finishing the game on time" rather than responsibly delaying a game you can't finish, then that's going to be no better than what we were expecting with the original XBone, if not worse.  All it takes is one company trying to mimic this and then not managing to actually finish the game before the release date because....well, it's a gamble.  You're betting you'll be done with a goodly bit of time left for QA and some companies out there simply aren't good with time management.  Hence the myriad of delays you see games get almost every day.  Hopefully, this'll be the last time we hear of news like this.

I get that more people are going to buy an XBone now that it's not completely abhorrent, but you don't have to blindly defend it from actual criticism