Archive for the ‘Consoles’ Category
Wii update 4.2 may brick your console. Is it worth it?
From /. games:
Now, Nintendo has pushed a boot2 update to all Wii users, and the results are what was expected: users are reporting bricks after installing 4.2 on unmodified consoles. Nintendo is currently attempting to censor posts and remove references to homebrew. It is worth noting that the new boot2 does not attempt to block anything or offer any additional protection or functionality. Its sole purpose is to simply replace current versions which may or may not have been modified with BootMii. Another interesting tidbit is that Nintendo is not believed to have any method to repair this kind of brick at a factory, short of replacing the entire motherboard."
So in their haste to combat those .01% Wii users (my guesstimate of homebrew users), they are releasing code that could brick a Wii AND they may not have anyway other than sending in the system to get it fixed?
Why is it all right for regular users to suffer to combat a very small percentage of the users that do things with their console that Nintendo doesn’t approve of? We all know, even Nintendo knows, that you can’t stop piracy/homebrew/etc with mere software updates. The pirates are crafty and will just release a new version of their software. So why does Nintendo spend so much time working against them, at the expense of their bigger customer base?
I don’t know. I hope Nintendo knows. Because this is irresponsible at best.
What Would Matt Do: Wonder why Nintendo is so headstrong to get pirates when they represent such a small part of their console owners… I mean, I know companies don’t like it when people steal their shit. That’s a given. But is this course worth it? What next, Nintendo will start releasing updates that make your promise you’re not a pirate before you use console? Because that’s about how effective these updates are, except regular paying customers are also being hit with the flack.
I’m tired of being so negative, but CCP is really making me angry!
I haven’t been posting as much, as you may or may not have noticed. That isn’t so much because I haven’t wanted to, but more because I wanted to shift the focus of the site. Mainly just from the angry tone to a more mindful one. It is what it is.
That said, fuck CCP. How dare they try to make me break my no MMOs on the console rule. Much less my general lack of interest in FPS (CoD4 and any FPS you can play coop exluded…of course) games on the console. How are they doing it? By do something not many in the industry are even aware you can do, trying something different. That’s right, they are going to attempt a new idea. They will take an FPS with RTS attributes and tie it into their already existing MMO. They claim the following:
The team-based game has the player "fighting in a massive war" on existing planets in the EVE Online universe, and is a standalone MMO title, "but is also connected to EVE," according to the CCP boss.
In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can "fund mercenaries and give them goals" in the console title.
CCP’s Petursson hope that "these communities will meld over time," expecting specific Dust 514 corporations to start with, but eventually social structures that bridge across the two. He quipped of the new game and the relationship between the two titles: "While the fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying."
As I’m reading The Prince even (four books all about the future of humans and the military exploits of one John Christian Falkenburg. It’s a history of the universe created in The Mote In God’s Eye, another must read. The Prince is a great read if you like military and sci fi. Also does a very interesting and greatly detailed look at future and social issues), so I’m already in sci-fi military mood. What a bunch of complete shits to try something so interesting, one MMO linked to another, with the second being the land battles of the first (at least in theory), that I’m going to have to pay serious attention and maybe break my own personal rules on console gaming.
God, I can’t stand these CCP bastards.
What Would Matt Do: So that better, right?
Valve and Sony NOT sitting in a tree.
And I’m pretty damn sure there won’t be any kissing. Just a quick note in my continuing love story with Valve:
“The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform. [...] I didn’t come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun.”
Of course, that’s kind of mean. I mean, why would you say that about such a simple and easy to use product like the PS3. Lets let Sony set the record straight here:
"We don’t provide the ‘easy to program for’ console that (developers) want, because ‘easy to program for’ means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" explained Hirai.
Huh? But his explanation didn’t end there.
"So it’s a kind of–I wouldn’t say a double-edged sword–but it’s hard to program for," Hirai continued, "and a lot of people see the negatives of it, but if you flip that around, it means the hardware has a lot more to offer."
Oh, so you made it hard to develop for on purpose… Well, that’s pretty dumb. Turns out that means great developers like Valve aren’t going to be interested in your system at all. Strange, I know.
What Would Matt Do: I can’t help it. I’m going to keep laughing at Sony. Also, I bought Rockband 2 yesterday. This price is just too good to pass up (link will die when the supplies go).
Oh, and I’m sure you got all of your news about E3 from the big boys…but did you see the video of the APB character creator? If you didn’t, try not to get too happy at work while watching this video. Just think of the possibilities. Not to mention we should have NPCs where every single one of them looks different. Bad ass.
A who done it, Witcher style.
Or maybe more imporantly, who didn’t do it. It goes like this… Rumor goes around that CD Projekt cancelled the console version of The Witcher, laid off the entire team. Times are rough, these things happen. Except then we get word that things aren’t quite what they seem:
"Basically, after a few months of not being paid, we stopped," said Masclef speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. "We’ve not been paid for a few months and we had a very nasty broken payment. We had no choice but to put the product on hold. We’ve not been able to find a solution."
Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.
"We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult," he said.
Hmmmm… They also claim to have not been told about milestones (mini-deadlines):
Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.
"We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult," he said.
Man, those damn CD Projekt guys (and Atari for that matter)…except well, they have their own take on the situation (check out comment #8):
It is sad that we cannot talk with WSG in normal business way, but communicate through media. It is absolutely not our style of making business, and we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information:
1. All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
2. Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
3. Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn’t make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
4. Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.
So we have a he said, she said situation. Which really sucks. I couldn’t really give a crap whose fault it is…but I was sure looking forward to trying out The Witcher on my 360. Now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
I couldn’t claim to know who was in the right, nor do I really care. Sucks to see a game that was so potentially close to release get shelved, probably forever (Almost any game put on hold is gone for good).
What Would Matt Do: Play the PC version…maybe I’ll hook up my 360 controller and pretend. Probably not though. /me pours one out for the fallen games…
I see NPD Numbers
Well, I see NPD numbers that Gamasutra saw. Here’s the interesting parts:
To be exact, numbers cross-platform are: Madden NFL 09 sold 3.9 million, Burnout Paradise sold 592,000, Dead Space sold 421,000, and Mirror’s Edge sold 145,000.
Wow. I knew that Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge weren’t successes for EA, but I didn’t realize that the latter was so poorly sold.
Ok, so those are sales numbers for EA. Big whoop. Here’s where I get a little less happy…when people start to think like this:
How sad. These games definitely deserved to sell more.
And I sure hope this won’t result in cancellation of these series or that innovative games are a thing of past.
That’s the first comment on the Gamasutra article. I’m not singling out that guy, but the sentiment. I’ve seen it all over in the debate on Mirror’s Edge and how good it was and how it should be rated and so on. As a matter of fact, some big name journalists recently said the same thing.
That’s just crap. If the games had been better, they might have sold better. I can’t tell you one thing about Dead Space other than it’s apparently very messy and is a horror game. Not really my bag and no one I talked that played it said it was a must play. But Mirror’s Edge… Yeah, they tried, but it was broken. It didn’t flow right, it didn’t feel right and even though some of the stuff was cool, for most people it was just an effort in futility. Plus, it’s a new game in a recession without anything to bring in the Big Guns Big Breasts™ guys.
Whatever the reasons it didn’t sell to well, it doesn’t matter… Because EA has already said they are going to back their old ways. Except well, they never really left them. Spinning your story for less than a year doesn’t count for leaving your old ways behind. Especially when at the first sign of not huge success, you turn around and run the other way.
All of that aside… The next person that says this game or that game deserved better reviews or sales gets a fucking smack. Games don’t deserve shit. They either sell well or they don’t. They earn their way by good design, good marketing and good execution. Usually.
These are my rules for purchasing games:
1) We don’t give charity lays. Really. We don’t buy games because they should have been good or we really like the developer. The game is either worth buying or not.
2) We don’t, at any point, believe anything EA says until they start telling us the truth at least part of the time. Look at John R, the CEO. He says he hates DRM…this from the company that released the most pirated game ever (since people started paying attention), due in at least some part to the draconian DRM measure on it (it being Spore). So when buying an EA game, we need to be doubly sure it isn’t poop.
3) We don’t buy Epic Games. Much like we don’t support Nike because they employ children to work for them (is that still true?), we don’t buy from people who complain about not making enough money off the secondary market on one hand while raking in TENS of MILLIONS with the other. From one game.
Maybe I’m being a jackass here, but I couldn’t give a shit of EA succeeds or fails. They don’t watch out for me, I don’t watch out for them. I hope every single employee at EA is happy or finds another job if they are let go, but EA as a company is waring with me, the customer. How much care should I put into their financial difficulties? Zero.
What Would Matt Do: I’ll buy the games that are good and I won’t buy the ones that suck. Plain and simple. And I won’t buy from Epic. Seems like simple enough rules. For a company that we can have sympathy for, we turn to Troy Goodfellow and his piece on Ensemble. Good read so far.