Early Registration Opens for Penny Arcade Expo 2008

The Expo that's been growing by leaps and bounds since its launch in 2004, PAX (Penny Arcae Expo), has begun offering a discounted early registration. The even will occure on the 29th of August. I'm going to go ahead and pick up my registration this coming Febuary. The 40 dollar pass is for three days of festivities.

Founded in 2004 by Penny Arcade creaters Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, as a reaction to what many saw as the bloated corporate events like E3, the Expo is expanding in space this year by 20%.

Register here

Last year's PAX was notable for Wil Wheaton's keynote and closing speech for PAX. Watch and enjoy.

WoW, Vivendia made 1.5 billion in 2007, thanks to WoW

Vivendi Games revenues totaled 1.5 billion USD in 2007. This large chunck of change was due to World of Warcraft's 10 million players. Blizzard brought in 1.2 billion USD in revenue. That's an increase of 58% from 2006, with profits expected to continue to climb when Liche King is released this year.

Vivendi Games had a less then steller year when you take away Vivendi's other business's. Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi mobile made a combined revenue of 301 million uSD, a 29% decline from the previous year.

This whole story highlights ActivisionBlizzard (Vivendi is part of Activision), as Blizzard and Activision outshine Vivendi and hence the lack of the Vivendi name in the merger of the two companies of which it is part of.

Source: Joystiq

Blizzard releases two new screenshots

Blizzard Entertainment has released two new screenshots but no word on Starcraft 2's release date.









View more Screenshots
here

Why Rumors of 120GB PS3 Fail to Excite.

While its twice the size of the original 60GB, 3 times the current standard 40GB and 50% larger then the recently defunct 80GB. The Sony PS3 120, which remains a rumor to be confirmed or denied by SOny, is not news to me. I've found 11 stories to blog about and while going through them, the 120GB story via Game|life blog, doesn't seem to impress me or get me jumping up and down like a crazed addict in need of a fix. Why ? No games!

All they (Sony), have done is put yet another SKU out to pasture and replace it. Most people are happy with the 40GB which can compete price wise with the 360, at least it looks appealing given the 55 dollar price difference.

That being said, most people have settled for the 20GB 360 although as I download demo's and content via xboxlive, I find myself wondering if an elite's 120GB HD would've been the way to go for the extra 100 dollars.

Which would mean 3X the hard drive space for 50% higher price tag vs the 40GB PS3, which is the current favorite SKU.

However when we get into why we buy these freakishly larger and larger hard drives, content. The people at SOny might as well be hallucinating out in the desert, becuase the collection of AAA titles they see is about as equally belieavable.

Kane and Lynch, GTA IV, Endwar, Turok, Devil may cry, Final Fantasy series (Final Fantasy XI Online: Wings of the Goddess), all can be either found on the 360 as well as the PS3(though release dates for PS3 versions are later), or take a piece of what used to be exclusivly Playstation (PS1,2,3) territory.


The much coveted Killzone2 remains vaperware to this day. Even if were coming out tomorrow, it would be like compareing ugly friend you're girlfriend (HALO series), got for your friend on a double date. You thank w/e gods may exist that you're not dateing *that*, and value what you have all the more. The Halo series is alot like that only you don't have to contend with mood swings. Though Xboxlive's holiday troubles and subsequent launching of ideotic lawsuites by spoiled retards could dent that statements truthfulness somewhat.

The one thing I could always count on from Sony were epic RPG's but with Nintendo's DS doing a descent job of churning out RPG's for the gamer on the go (most of which are Playstation family ports), and the upcoming release of the 360 exclusive RPG "Lost Odyssey", there's no reasion to go to SOny when you can expect a 360 version or that that the next killer RPG will be 360 Exclusive. Didn't even mention the Bioware treasure chest of Mass Effect, KOTOR and Jade Empire, All available exclusively via microsoft's consoles (xbox & 360).

O sure you have unreal tournament and rumors of crysis for the Playstation 3 but that ignores the fact that both titles are on the PC and that if anything they are better experiences on ever improving PC hardware then with the Playstation 3. Unreal Tournament isn't a hit like HALO 3 and Crysis bombed in spectacular fashion when it managed to sell only 80,000 copies in its first month. A whole month and the most hyped, sophisticated game sells below 100,000 while games like Assasins creed (the bulk of which was sold via 360 not PS3), sold 2.5 million copies before the holiday christams rush of 2007.

The Developers who create our games have been saying for a long time that the Playstation 3 is harder to develop for given its cell processor. Add to that, the fact that Sony hasn't reached out to get more developers. Especially inovative and creative Indie developers. Xboxlive arcade is seeing more and more titles developed by hobbyists and small teams via microsoft's game creation software XNA. Which I might add is free to download and play around with. Requiring you to pay a fee only to publish your titles and even then your still getting money back for pennies compared to the thousands of dollars spent to develop for the Playsation 3.

While Sony is falling all over itself to create an online community "HOME", resembling that of its 360/microsoft counterpart, it hasn't exactly excited anyone or made people feel like there Playstation 3 is anything more then a Blue Ray player that plays games.

Despite Blue-Ray's success and obvious advantages over microsoft supported HDD DVD, AppleTv's digital distribution shceme seems to forshadow the coming end or at least reducing of physical content in favor of digital.

Though its fortunes can only go up, one has to wonder if the PS3 will be Nintendo's N64 equivelent. The 360 is the PS2 of this generation of game platforms to todays gamers.

Xbox360 Runs to S.Korea's embrace after being neglected/rejected by Japan.

Anyone interested in the video game industry knows that when it comes to the console wars, Microsoft has failed to gain ground in Japan, where homegrown titans Sony and Nintendo hold a special place in the hearts of the Japanese people. That being said, S.Korea has had no such squabbles over embracing the American made console. Siliconera & Kataku blogs both attributed this to a similarity to the PC gaming scene. While I personally don't see this, one can attribute a huge portion of 360 international success to its successful ease to use online service, xboxlive.




So popular is the 360 in fact, that South Korean television station MBC Game has begun to airing a program called *360 Live Attack*. The most striking factor here is that the network most responsible with airing starcraft matches (which south Korean's are obsessed with!), has made room for the 360 when the pc continues to dominate. It shows that the 360's popularity is going up in south Korea and lessening the consoles failure in japan.





360 Live Attack, has two hosts discussing the latest 360 games (think of it as a S.Korean X-play), then picking up controllers and doing battles on xboxlive on everything from Viva Pinata: Party Animals to Halo3.

Hello Mr.Kettle: Jack Thompson defends Mass Effect.....wtf?!

I was shocked too. Here the biggest crusader against video games (with the exception of Hillary Clinton), has come to the defence of Mass Effect as some ill informed critics label it the sexbox. While Thompson confused Cooper Lawrence's sex (thought she was a guy), he stated that she didn't know what she along with others were talking about and called her claims contrived. This strange news was made available by BRIAN CRECENTE of Kataku.

Now please excuse me while I inspect the sky for pigs.

-Al3x

Money Talks...

For years lobbying groups with words like *family*, and *values*, attached to them has been throwing money at washington to get everything from games being banned to tough laws that amount to censership. In all these cases, courts have thrown out the legislation as being unconstitutional but still these groups persist with there moderatly funded and ignorance induced campaigns to limit free speech.

Even if they haven't succeeded yet, they are still as annoying as hell and have the ears of some of nations politicians.

The Video game industry and video gamers have tried to reason with people like Jack Thompson, Hillary Clinton and the endless list of lobbying groups. But to no avail. So the Game industry did the only thing it could do. Play by Washingtons rules.

The old phrase money talks and bullshit walks best sums up what is going to happen this year. The ESA (Entertainment Software Association), has been approved and will begin to write checks to politicians. By the end of this calender year they expect to have sent out 50-100,000 dollars in campaign funding for game friendly politicians.

You can check out our lobbyist at there website: www.theesa.com

The anti-gaming lobbyists are pissed becuase they know there is no way to compete with the fastest growin industry that today is valued at 18.85 billion and growing. That the average gamer is a mature adult and that those who played games in the 80's and 90's have grown up and will vote and spend money to defend there games.

You can jump into the action by checking out and joining Video Game Voters Network, a site devoted to helping protect video gamers, the video game industry and free speech by mobilizing we many gamers into a politcal force. I stop being apathetic when the government starts taking away and censoring my video games.

Where in the world is Jack Thomspon ?

Where in the world is Jack Thompson. The lawyer who's baseless facts and ideotic arguments have been annoying us for the better part of a decade. Well considering he's in danger of being disbared in his home state, he may be too busy to pester us with his "games are evil", speal in light of the upcoming release of GTA IV.

Rather then giving a wikipedia profile of Thomspon, I thought I'd remind everyone who the second biggest enemy of video games is...next to hillary clinton.

The following video's show Jack Thomson, Miami lawyer and anti-gamer vs:

Paul Levinson



LG: Violence among teens and young people is down. Has been going down for years. Maybe something like poor schools, lack of jobs or drugs could lead to increased crime though. Not in Thompson's world though...or his *selective studies*.

Chris Matthews

Note: click on chris mathews link to go to the youtube video (since embedding was disabled.

LG: counterstrike ? The hit game from the 90's ? There are net based games of everything so that means that the kid Thompson referes to, saught out a game about columbine. Sounds like the kid had issues before ever taking up a mouse and keyboard.

Vs Tony Romando:



LG: If I walked ouside my home after playing a ww2 shooter or GTA, and someone got shot next to me, I wouldn't be decentitized. Yes, lets be responsible with what kids watch and play.

Vs: most concise rant ever heard via youtube against Jack Thompson.

Xbox finally makes some bank for Microsoft

since Microsoft jumped into video games over 8 years ago, one thing has been constant. Its been loseing money. Microsoft being...well microsoft. Has been able to weather the storm and give us some impressive gems like the HALO series and Gears of War, lest we forget psychonaughts on the original xbox.

Well the people over at the Redmond giants Xbox Entertainment and Devices division, can hold there heads up high. The division recorded an income of 524 million dollars. As opposed to the 423 milllion loss the same quarter last year.

In the first half of fiscal year 2008:

6.1 million Xbox360 consoles sold

4.82 million copies of Halo 3

The simple fact is that the Xbox360 costs less and less to produce while the price to advertise it has also continued to decline.

Rumor: PS3 80GB going the way of the dodo ?

...If so then what does it mean for backward compatibility ?



If the above internal Bestbuy memo from a PS3 fanboy is true then Sony is going to drop the 80GB SKU. If the high end 80GB SKU is on the way out then what does this mean for those looking to or having already bought a PS3.

Sony could decided to match Microsoft's Xbox360 gig for gig and bring out a high end 120GB SKU. There has been speculation though that the 40GB PS3 has become the standard and is slated to gain market share for just that reason. Its double the premium Xbox360's HD space (20vs40GB).

Sony is trying to cut costs and make there new console as profitable as it can be as soon as possible. Sony still lags behind with its hyped online community "HOME". Most experts or those who play xboxlive will admit that, to steal a phrase from apple, "it just works".

So Sony's lacking in the online content and game software (although this year will see a huge release of PS3 games), leading everyone to bend over backwards to get backward compatibility. Everyone I've spoken to, I've said get the 60GB or 80GB because of the lack of good games. Sony has other ideas and there are rumors that they will cut backwards compatibility out. If you still wanna play PS2 games then go buy a PS2. Sony needs to ship PlayStation 3 titles to get game developers to continue to make games or even think about making them.

All things considered, the Xbox360 is winning because of its massive library among other things. What do you think of all this ? Is backward compatibility dead ?

source: PS3 fanboy

Harmonix: Rockband peripherals to start going on sale individually. No more buying the bundles for another guitars.

Those of us wanting to invite our friends over for a few sessions of jamming with Rockband but don't wanna pay the whopping 170 for a bundle. Harmonix has heard your pleas.
Harmonix announced on the 24Th that they will soon be selling individual Rockband peripherals. Go forth and acquisition your guitar or drum sets starting next month.

Peripheral	Price	Available
Drum controller	$80.00	2/12/08
Wireless Guitar	$60.00	4/1/08

There will be two sets of peripherals. One to go with the 360 and another that will work with both PS3 and PS2.

Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned!

Well more appropriately the Internet is the one lacking in the fury department. Gamers using the net are another story entirely. The jist of the story is that author Cooper Lawrence appeared on Fox news in a discussion on sex in the hit game mass effect. Commenting how male gamers could have sex with female characters who were portrayed as objects.

At least when ass hats like Jack Thompson make claims, they show some footage or throw some half-baked bribe inspired inspired facts our way before we laugh at there idiocy. Lawrence not only hadn't played the game, she hadn't even watched the supposedly pornographic clips.

Know where she got her info ? A friend who told her that the game was pornographic. That's it! One source. She made a statement without any facts. Was she the author of a book spewing crackpot theories on gamers and violence ? No.

Lawrence is the author of snide sounding and before this already negatively reviewed "The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever".

The bright spot in all this is that gamers retaliated, going online to amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble's website, and giving her book negative reviews.

If this book was craptastic before the event, it's gone down right bargain bin trashtastic in the aftermath. By Friday afternoon 412 of the book’s 472 user reviews were the lowest possible rating, one star. If there was such a thing as negative stars then I'd be giving it negative -5.
You on the other hand are more then free to pile on the pain by going to the following link and contributing to this lesson in justice. Most craptastic book that shouldn't have seen the light of day

The supposedly pornographic Sex scenes she and every other ignorant person are, or in her case not aware of, are shown below.



She also failed to mention (having not played the game), that you can be a female character in the game and have romantic encounters with either male or female characters.





An example of the actual depth of Mass effect and the 140 people who put there heart and soul into the game is the drama involved in the plot lines. As opposed to Lawrence and Fox's interpretation of the game as being on par with some thrown together hentai flash game.
Given all the frontal nudity they claim the game has (but doesn't).



Depth.

Speaking of which. If you'd like to get a more "fair and balanced", look at this interesting lesson in ignorance being battered down into oblivion. Check out the source for the story: The New York Times. The additional negative numbers for Lawrence sighted in its article should bring a smile to your face. I'm grinning ear to ear....and can't stop for some reason.Side effect to an Overexposure to Joy perhaps ?

-Al3x

World of Warcraft hits 10 million subscriber mark.

Weather you realized world of warcraft (WoW), had become mainstream when the coveted south park episode aired to kick off its 11th seasion. Found your friends deserting you, there families and eventually all society for what you so foolishly deamed back then to be "only a game". World of Warcraft has become our generations biggest attention whore.

I say this as world of Warcraft hits 10 million users, and leaves us all wondering "how much higher can those numbers go ?". To break it down by number of subscribers per continent, Asia easily trumps all of north america and Europe combined with 5.5 million subscribers. America comes in second place with over 2.5 million subscribers. This all leads FPS (first person shooter), crazed europe to bring up the rear with 2 million subsribers.

While on other posts you might just get facts and figures I'll offer up my genuine opinion here on a game that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Looking at Asia's numbers, its important to realise that Asia is counting not only the gaming mecca of japan but also South Korea and the limitless chinese market. If recent numbers are to be believed the chinese MMO market already has grown to nearly 59 million. While much of this is free to play, chinese citiezens don't pay anywhere near what we in america or europe do. 60 cents is a number I hear thrown around on 1up and Joystiq podcasts frequently when this emerging giant of a market is brought up. But thinking of the sheer volume, Blizzard doesn't have to care if the chinese pay less to play the game.

The Chinese government has taken steps to try to curb its people's use of computers to play games (hence charging by the hour and not the month), yet this actually helps Blizzard and any MMO that attempts to unseat it's dominance. South Korea is a prime example of people loseing sleep, there jobs and even dieing in the course of playing a computer game. And that was Starcraft ! Can you imagine what an MMO will do to them ?

Granted only one person has ever reportedly died of exhaustion playing starcraft but if your talking about paying per hour for being able to play an MMO then the sheer volume of time required to level your character (never mind the retooled leveling system Blizzard introduced to WoW for new players), go on quest and explore Azeroth more then makes up for the small fee. You could even say we in the US and Europe have it easy by comparison.

Blizzard isn't however content to just let Asia(china,japan, south korea), have all the fun. There are plans to tap into India, (where computers and IT are fueling the econmic boom), Russia and of course any yet untapped gamers in the booming East European countries.

This post was originally going to draw comparisons with Dungeons and Dragons but its very clear that WoW is its own entity all by itself. Eventually the game will start to drop off peoples radar and subsciption will begin to go down but that years away. For Now lets just appreciate how Blizzards been rideing the cash flow to finally get around to making Starcraft 2.

Merging With Activision to creat "Activision Blizzard", to compete with the evil empire that is EA, doesn't hurt either.

- Alex

Sources: Gameindustry.bizz
BlizzPlanet

CAD is the best web comic ever

Ok so I know the title of this post sounds rather over the top and unrealistic but in the last year and a half that i've been heavily into video game based web comics only three have caught my eye.

Ctrl + ALt + Del being first and formost my favorite of the bunch. Tim Buckley has really created soem awesome characters and the fact he games and lives off the comic is basically all us gamers can ever hope for. Although we are more likely to end up being some company's bitch doing beta testing...which we of course beg and plead for. While I've enjoyed the webcomic and made a list of various shirts to purchase via the online store for over 1.5 years, its only recently that Tim Buckley posted a youtube video of the animated series of the webcomic with voice overs. Before I knew it existed and had seen the animations but not heard any sound so his latest post showing the vid has sealed the deal and condemned my wallet to go cry in a corner.

Somehow my favorite character isn't Lucas, Ethan or the robot xbox known as Zeke, rather its the linux web programmer Scott. Who I happen to think I most resemble. Posted below is the youtube video in I've mentioned and a link to the first webcomic post Tim Buckley ever did. I also happened to include a Wiki link about CAD for good measure.



First issue of CAD webcomic

After looking at the first issue of the webcomic (do this unless you want to kill several hours reading all of em up to the most recent), go ahead and click on "latest comic", to see how far the qaulit department has come along. Really interesting plot lines and its covered issues we've all experienced.

Ah to be old enough to remember the days of dreaded dial up and aol.

If you'd like the history of CAD go to the wiki link below:

Wiki history of CAD

While this is a CAD centered post, I'll be sure to include posts relating to MegaTokyo and Penny arcade in the future.

- Al3x

Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust coming in Fall '08.

Many a game graced the xbox platform but few were as points blank male oriented as Leisure suit Larry: Magna cum laud. You played Larry, a college student who ran around with the end goal being to score with girls around campus through various mini games. Larry’s uncle who was the original Larry of the 1990’s games by the same name now is getting a new lease on life as Sierra announces Larry Laffer’s return.




Artie Lang spilled the beans last year to Joystiq but it was made official only now. The script is penned by Happy Madison Productions Allen Covert. LSL series creater Al Lowe isn’t mentioned anywhere by Sierra.

Playing through the game as Larry Laffer you take part in mission based exploration, platforming, racing and puzzle solving. Everything Magna Cum Laud offered us on the xbox.

The game is to be developed by Worm’s studio 17 and is expected to be released on the Xbox360, PS3, PC and mobile phones.

Wii Surgery

According to a recent study, surgeons perform better after playing Nintendo’s wii console. The authors of the study are now planning to develop surgery training software for the wii.

The two authors are surgeons at Banner Good Samaritan medical center in phoenix AZ. The study showed that playing an hour of Nintendo wii’s motion controlled games improved surgical residents scores on the virtual surgery training tool by 48%.

The Catch ? Not any game will do. Games that call on you to make precise and impossible movements of the wrist. Games like Marble Mania for example.

This got me thinking about big brain academy and brain age which are both hits for Nintendo. Clearly exercising of the mind and wrist equals out to better performance regardless of how many statistics are thrown around. In a field where errors can be fatal, a surgeon at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, found that surgeons who played games like super montey Ball (similar to Marble Mania’s gameplay), for 3 hours a week had 37% fewer errors.

When the software these two surgeons are developing along with similar games come into play on the wii its hoped it will mimic one laptop per child’s success. Bringing Basic and advanced education to the developing world through a low cost platform given the wii’s $250 and 50-100 dollars for software if that, compared to virtual training machines running in the thousands.

Source:

Video Games Live Going Live near you

Video Games Live Announces 40 shows for 2008

A few weeks back I reading WIRED and stumbled upon the story of Video Games Live. While we’ve all heard a friends cell emitting the iconic Mario theme song, imagine a whole orchestra blasting you with the plumbers anthem.

If that sounds unreal or too good to be true, rest assured its not only true but backed up with visual aids (dudes in costumes + large screens displaying iconic characters), and coming to a city near you.

There are a total of 40 cities worldwide where Video Games Live will be taking place (including my home town of Milwaukee WI), with everything being played from Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedghog to Final Fantasy (details on weather it’s the whole series or one specific iteration remain sketchy), and recent hit Bioshock.

If you feel like doubling your nerdy pleasure in a two for one combo, you can catch Video Game Live at the Game developers conference & San Diego’s Comicon.

Among Video Games live International destinations are Taiwan, Germany and for a little fun south of the border, “Mexico”. If that wasn’t enough, our pals south of the border will be witnessing the concert in Bullring seating 7,000 people. Weather someone will be waving red in front of a bull to cap off the concert is anybody’s guess.

Sources: VGL schedule 2008

On Digital distribution and THQ's partnership with GamersGate

If you follow the news or the prophetic visions of some in the tech industry, you know that our world is increasingly buying its merchandise digitally. No, I’m not referring to the online shopping cart in your amazon.com account or your GameQ section of gamefly. I’m referring to a few major events that have made the transfer of information a completely digital and instant affair.


Amazon.com’s Kindle gives us the ability to download and read almost any book, magazine or newspaper within a minute or two at a low fixed rate.

Apple’s Itunes revolutionized the music business by giving us more choice then ever before in what we choose to listen to (no more buying 12 bad songs for the one hit you actually wanted). Apple’s done it again (sorry for all the machead gloating), with its rental service that might finally topple the mail based model of Netflix and put the nails in the coffin of brick and mortar operations like Blockbuster.

Finally there is Steam, the download service that allows you purchase and download any PC game in its library and retain on an account (you can play your games on any computer with steam installed on it. Steam software and account being free to set up), via one of steams many servers.

A look alike download service similar to Steam has announced a distribution partnership with one of my favorite game publishers THQ. The agreement covers PC versions of THQ’s hit games with a list of examples of what going to be available below.

Company of Hero’s: opposing fronts

Supreme commander: Forged Alliance

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl

Full Spectrum Warrior

Juiced 2: Hot Import Night

Frontelines: Fuel of War

GamerGate was launched in 2006 by Paradox Interactive.

Rumored: WoW Gold Limit Found!!

According to rumors flying around the Internet, the true extent of loot one can posses in world of warcraft has been discovered. Upon passing said limit, a message will appear "At gold limit".

The limit is rumored to be set at:

214,748 Gold
36 Silver
48 Copper

With how much time is spent on the game earning gold, shouldn't every quest be rewarded as opposed to being stomped on by a cap on how much the hard working citizens of Azeroth can earn ?
Just as some xboxlive subscribers are demanding the service be completely free, so too might certain WoW players demand raising the roof on the gold cap if not removing it all together. Only time will tell.

Sources: WoW insider

HP's PC shimpments climb 30% Causing Dell to go in a corner and cry tears of failure.

If you became interested in computers in the last five years or so and I mean "A+ certified, I want to take em apart and rebuild em" interested. Then you learned that Dell and its subsidiary Alienware were garbage when it came to tech support and insane with there price gauging. Into the spotlight stepped Dell's longtime rival Hewlett Packert. Eventually HP outpaced Dell and took away enough market share to tie and then overcome Dell.

I'll admitt that I'm pleased with Dell's embracing Linux and opensource but that doesn't take away from the fact there machines are overpriced at best and lacking in the aesthetics department.

After splitting the market in 2006 HP this past year sold more computer then Dell. HP now retains 18.2% of the market to Dell's 14.3%. In 2006 these numbers were dead even with each having 15.9% of the market. Obviously someone has gained traction while the other continues to have difficulties even after its founder, micheal dell took back the position of ceo in manner reminicent of Steve jobs returning to Apple.

While Dell and Jobs stories are similar in that respect, the downward spiral has continued for Dell with its total sales growing just 1.7% over the previous year. The lowest rate among the top five pc manufactureres. You know you've hit a little more then just a rough patch when your losing to gateway.

Not taking my word for any of this, lets look at what Connecticut-based research firm Gartner Inc. analyst Mikako Kitagawa told bloomberg. "HP established a solid number one position in 2007"

"Robust Consumer and mobile PC sales across all regions were two main drivers of HP's overall growth"

Looking for a second opinion on the numbers besides Gartner, research firm IDC had HP with 18.8% of the market to Dells 14.9.

Why is this happening ? Well most of it I believe has to do how Dell has come to symbolize not only low price but low quality as well. The firt point being debatable. The tales of poor tech support and machines taking several weeks if not months to get fixed didn't help matters. Only time will tell if Dell can turn it around.

Let it be known that I'm a Mac user but that everyone I meet owns an HP desktop. They must be doing something right in the qaulity department to warrant the change.

sources: Gameindustry.bizz

Spore to be Simultaneously released on PC/MAC

Good News for fellow Mac users. According to a recent CNET article, Will wright’s hit new game of sim everything (Spore)., is be released on PC and Mac simultaneously. Transgaming Technology will handle the conversion process. At this point though some are speculating as to weather or not Wright is even still involved in the development of the game. It’s very ambitious no doubt. It doesn't seem like its slated for Daikatana like failure though…I mean other then the editing it doesn’t seem overly complex. Somehow I just can't see Wright letting his most ambitous and strangly educational (would make bioligy interesting) work bomb.

A day in the Life of a turrent: the funniest shit you'll watch for a long while

Ok so I was browsing Joystiq and I followed a link to a day in the life of a turrent. I watched it twice and found it hilarious. Turrents being the automated defence units in portal. Watch and enjoy.

Call of Duty 4 coming to the Mac

What few people know about Halo developer Bungie is that it started out and made it big as a mac game developer. While this post doesn’t have to do with Bungie or Halo, the genere of first person shooters and the Mac plateform are in the news however. A hit FPS is headed to the mac this May and some say it tops the former mac developer bungie’s latest console and pc creations.

The hit Activision title Call of Duty 4 (CoD4), will be released this may for the asking price of 49.95.

There are only two questions you need ask yourself.

1. Do you have a good enough graphics card to run the game
2. Will this be native or merely a port to the mac ?

Ports at least in my opinion are a few guys redoing code to fit another platform which ends up being less steller then its original counterpart. With games made natively for a platform from the ground up, I know that it will run smoother and perfrom better since its made to work specifically with the hardware and software. Basically ports tend to be half ass after thoughts meant to score some additional sales while native ports are treated as though the game was launching for the first time (the only difference being the os or hardware).

Although since you can run bootcamp or parallels to make vista or xp available on your mac alongside your mac os x, why bother with ports or platform specific native builds at all ?

Before rushing out to buy COD4 or any mac game for that matter, you should make sure it will run. To this end Aspyr has released Game Agentwhich can check to see what games will or will not run on your mac based on your hardware. I remember with great displeasure finding out that my little macbook that could, could in fact not run Civ4.

Hopefully you'll have better luck.

Bioshock developer looking for PS3 talent

The game that’s been hailed for its immersive story, awesome graphics and a Boss fight every 15 minutes "Bioshock", could be heading to the Playstation 3. Well that’s wishful thinking on the part of playstation 3 owners but details are still sketchy on just why Bioshock developer, 2K Boston is looking for staff with PS3 experience.

Maybe its not a Bioshock port (would you really want sloppy seconds?), but then again it could be that 2K Boston’s next game will be simultaneously released on both 360 and PS3.

Why don’t I think it’s a Playstation 3 exclusive game ?

Well there is the factor of games costing and taking more to develop on the Playstation 3. Then when you talk market, youre dealing with almost 20 million 360’s vs a few million Playstation 3’s. The final reasion is that it doesn’t pay to be exclusive anymore. More and more games are coming to both the 360 AND PS3 as opposed to being exclusive. Though I’ll grant you that the PS3 versions typically launch a few months later. Just look at an upcoming games release date, if its on both consoles, you typically evidence of PS3 palying catch up and its version of the game being released a few months later.

Regardless of weather you’re a console fanboy for either 360 or PS3, it’s a positive if 2K Boston’s next game delivers the immersive storyline and graphical goodness to more people.

THQ Buys Rise of nations developer Big Huge Games

Rise of Nations was a great RTS that continues to sell on store shelves which had you conquering the world for many hours. You could build your own earth empire (without all the complexity of Empire earth I& II or the glitch infested train wreck of a kiddie game that is Empire Earth 3), with unique units and culture specific buildings. Creating wonders to win the game was also a breath of fresh air over the “kill everything”, style of game play that was so prevalent at the time.

Well Now all those building, units and anything else to come or coming out of Big Huge games is the property of THQ and you know what ? It isn’t a bad thing.

THQ has been the publisher for hit games and more specifically RTS games for the last two years. Supreme Commander, Dawn of War, Company of Hero’s. The three biggest games of 2007 for the Real Time strategy genre were all affiliated with THQ.

Maybe I’m missing something then when THQ says its gone ahead and bought Big Huge games to shore up its portfolio. I suppose THQ wants to be for RTS’s what Bioware is to RPG’s. To that end they have given Big Huge Games the ability to expand with new staff and focus on creativity.

Big Huge games has a partnership to develop a new MMO titled,

Once this deal is closed Big Huge Games will have the resources to create a new hit for the RTS genre, give THQ an MMO to gobble up some segment of that WoW dominated market and close any gaps THQ thinks it has in its portfolio.

Kane & Lynch not enough for Sci investors

The publisher of tomb raider and producer of Kane and Lynch is facing an angry mob of investors these days. The reasons ? Despite Kane and lynch selling over a million copies to date, shares of the company fell by 65% and chief executive Jane cavanagh's position at the top has set the company on course to be out of cash by May or June.

But wait. What about Tomb raider you say ? Surely that will bring in enough money to keep the company afloat.

Sadly, no.

Tomb Raider: underworld, has been delayed six months. If your next suggestion was that they sell the company and cut there losses, Ubisoft and Time Warner have already declined to buy the company in apparent negotiations that lead to nothing.

At this point the company is basically struggling to get the finances to just keep the lights, which according to financial analysts is going be a cool 30 million British pounds.

Read all about how investors are demanding Cavanagh's resignation on the TimesOnline website that broke the story.

Sam & Max headed to the wii

Jowood has confirmed in a press release that the hit pc based series, Sam & Max, will be headed to the wii.

Press release here

This combined with a good helping of Zack and Wiki should make for adventure gamegasmic fun.

UK prime minister vows to crack down on knives in video games

Yes reader, the uk's prime minister wants to crack down on the use/existance of knives in video games. He's doing this in response to a spree of knife related deaths in the UK. The logic of this move had me wondering if Jack Thompson had gone abroad. Never mind the lunacy of the logic involved, why doesn't he bring up something more stareotypical like the existance of guns in video games ? Rocket launchers ? Ok. Automatic assault rifles ? Ok. F'n Tanks! Ok.

The British Prime minister Gordon brown went on to make a pathetic and condescending statement about this all not leading up to censership or a witch hunt.

"No one wants censership or an interfering state. But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to excercise that. " - Gordon Brown

No Mr.Brown private company's and corporations in general shouldn't have to nore will they edite there artistic material (video games are a form of speech). For all america's supposed ills, I'm happy to live in a country that respects freedom of speech as passionatly as we do and only have to contend with the occasional loon such as Jack Thompson and not our president when it comes to such issues.

Society is changing, it's what people and not politicians choose to make it. That being said, I can't wait until the current video game generation replaces individuals like Gordon Brown weather it be the UK, USA or the world.

The british news provider The Sun has a whole slew of info on the topic of knives and Mr.Brown's feelings on them.

Sonic RPG Details

The most recent issue of nintendo power offered up some new info on the upcoming DS RPG, Sonic chronicles: The dark brotherhood. The reasion you should care even if you dislike Sonic or haven't played the character since the Sega dreamcast days of yore, is because its developed by Bioware.

Bioware having brought us hit RPG titles Star wars Knights of the old republic, Jade empire and the recent hit Mass Effect, has the experience to make a high quality role playing game based on the sonci universe.

Unlike all the other Bioware games however you'll be allowed a party size of up to four different characters. The Sonic crew can be composed of Sonic (of course), Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, Amy and Big the Cat.

The Combat will be turn based with the controls being entirley stylus based just like phantom hourglass. This doesn't have me bummed since its after all a DS title and Bioware's turn semi turn based game KOTOR (knights of old republic), handled well gameplay wise. The jist of this infromation is that the comabt will be roughly the same as that of the final fantasy series or Blue Dragon.

Some attacks will be team based while others will be special attacks to be purchased and leveled up. The currency of the game will be Rings, meaning that all the rings he's been collecting since the 80's finally translate into bling.

The Story consists of two acts, the first being in the familiar sonic world while the second takes us to a darker one. In other words the difference will be night and day with the darker world being dreary and probably populated with generic bad guys.

The Sonic RPG looks to be well worth the cash. I'll post any additional info that pops up on the internets.



Jeux France has the pics

Alone in the dark about alone in the dark

So appearently no one knows weather Alone in the dark has been delayed. Possibly until September according to an article in games for windows .

Then of course Atari responded to said accusations and rumors of delay by saying they were still on track to meet there march release date. For me the confusion builds given that EB games had set the ship date at 1/2/08 a few months back for the 360 version of the game.

Of course to hear Atari tell it, any delays will be worth it because its going to be an exciting new direction for the horror genre. Atari's promises

All well and good but then hearing CVG tell it, you get the impression the game couldn't even be out THIS year. Because its just that awesome.

Cause FEAR and Silent Hill are just kiddie games by comparison. Don't make me laugh. When alone in the dark came out back in the 90's it was big and will go down in horror game lore as one of the top ten. Myself and others however don't have ths same nostalgic memories and with everything else going wrong for atari, you would think they could manage not to overshoot a release date by a whole bloody year.

Course this is all speculation.

Smash Bros. Brawl delayed to March

In a move that shouldn't shock anyone but still manages to do so. Nintendo has announced it will be delaying both its Japanese and American releases of super smash bros: brawl. The hope here is that this delay will result in a very polished, much the same way rockstar has chosen to delay GTA 4 till march (3/03/08).

Tha Japanese will get there hands on smash brothers brawl at the end of the month (January 31st), while we Americans must make due with our copies of mario galaxy and zelda phantom hourglass all the way through to March 9Th.

Nintendo's official word on the delay is posted below:

The launch date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl has shifted a few weeks to March 9. The development is taking slightly longer than expected. As we're sure you have seen on the Dojo site (www.SmashBros.com), the game contains an unprecedented number of characters, options and experiences. Be sure to keep an eye on the Dojo site for the latest information.

Nintendo's website has also gone ahead and posted an apoligy to the millions of Nintendo die hard fan boys no doubt waiting to buy one of the few games to justify there wii purchase. Saying that they were very very sorry. link to nintendo homepage

Smash Bros brawl's designer, Masahire Sakurai offered up a personal apology's

Eventually Wii hardware sales will tapper off, by that time Nintendo has to have a large library of first party AAA titles as opposed to mostly third party crap. Nintendo's Achilles heel could well be delays such as this on a handful of hit games that will hit stands each year amid a sea of crap.

Source: Game|life blog on WIRED

Ignorance is painfully bliss

While browsing through WIRED's game|Life blog, I happened across a story pertaining to an NPR story about the latest in a long list of HALO books. Which I haven't read by the way but appearently all of you have since its been on the new york time best seller list for awhile.
Regularly belittling gaming as "all shoot em ups", or calling one of bungie's conference rooms a "gaming playland", was bad enough. The fact this gaming illiterate had the stupidity to ask weather gamers read and acted shocked that video games had a story is what really pissed me off.
Games with an in depth storyline have been around since Zork And the Sierragames.

Other comments such such as refering to gamers as geeks was less infuriating but just goes to show how out of touch some people are, regardless of there age or status.

It wouldn't surprise me if Jack Thompson was on NPR soon after words.

You can judge for yourself.

Click here

Why a N64 gem isn't on XBLA

The 90's hold many fond memories,the dot com bubble was still growing, the economy was great and gamers everywhere were too soon be thrilled with the glorious Playstation 2. Sony's console war ownage against Nintendo and sidelining of Sega not withstanding. Poor dreamcast, you never had a chance.

While microsft and Nintendo have been allowing us to journey back into the past through online marketplace and virtualizations, few games of note have actually migrated and gone cross plateform. Rare's hit FPS *Golden Eye 007*, could be among among the major stars of yester year getting new life on XBLA if only Nintendo, which co-produced and published the game, weren't so damn greedy.

For me Golden Eye 007, was my first real FPS, with multiplayer and all. No other FPS at the time had the variety and depth on the N64 or the enjoyability factor. Camping out and blowing your foes away with rockets was almost as thrilling as declaring supremacy with a little yellow gun. In alot of ways in established what other shooters on the console should look and feel like at least to my generation. Somehow Nintendo proceeded to become more chilish over time, with new james bond titles coming out for Sony's consoles and then Microsofts as well. Looking back its easy to draw comparisons between Goldeneye and the first Halo, with the evolution of the genre having produced many interesting stepping stones along the way for console FPS's.

Which brings me back to why this is so infuriatingly rediculous. The great roadblock in this mutually benificial and consumer friendly endeavor is that Nintendo and microsoft can't agree on how the money will make its way to nintendo's pockets. Will there be royalties to nintendo per XBLA download or one lump sum. Rare has re-activated the licenses for some but not all the actors who starred in the orignal game, showing an appreciation for talent that others rarely get.


Nintendo is rolling in cash from the Wii, DS and now Wii fit, not to mention the 7 or so good games on the Wii this past year, so why not just allow us gamers to be nostalgic and play a few rounds of 007 ? What could it hurt ? Nintendo is just being petty and greedy over a game that while a classic has had its day in the sun but could still go a few more rounds. An FPS'ers pong if you will.


- Al3x


Source: 1UP: why did golden eye XBLA stall

No Blue Dragon For You!

So DS owners such as myself were going to get to enjoy AQ popular xbox360 real time RPG "Blue dragon", which was to be dubbed "Blue dragon: plus". Last year AQ said that Blue dragon plus for the DS would be released this march, now there product page dashes our hopes with *undetermined release date*. Truthfully I haven't played blue dragon (will play and review later this month), because I lean toward Bioware type MMO's but I am curious about a 360 title going DS. We are all familiar with the crappy console ports that plagued the Playstation Portable (PSP), so naturally the DS game would either pull off a *looks like final fantasy 3*, look or else be somewhat clumsy with a frustrating control scheme and reduced graphical appeal.




Looking at the game (360 version), I can't help but wonder if this is what spyro would look like on steroids.



Sources: AQ "original", release schedule


Still possibly just delayed and not dead


What is blue dragon ?

DS domination

   With almost half a million nintendo DS's sold in the last two weeks of december nintendo continues to pwn rivals Sony and Microsoft.

   While half a million is a large number we can easily turn the tables when considering that microsft, who we knew was never going to do well in japan has managed to sell half a million xbox360's...just now. After two years they've finally managed to reach the .5 million mark. I'll recheck my sources on this but it seems more then believable given the poor sales at launch and japans continued loyalty to the homegrown heavy wieghts nintendo and Sony. The month of december saw notable numbers with the wii selling 385,000 units while the DS's Sony rival, the PSP saw a resurgent 332,000 in sales. Still well below DS numbers though.

The hardware sales for the week ending december 30th are as follows:

1st. Nintendo DS - 218,894
2nd. Sony PSP - 161,370
3rd. Nintendo wii - 152,209
4th. Sony PS3 - 52,706
5th. Sony PS2 - 25,569
6th. Xbox360 - 8304

The real story here is that the Playstation 3 FINALLY outsold the Playstation 2.

Wii Sells One million in Japan

 



As of January 8th, Nintendo's Wii fit has sold one million units. Impressive considering its only been out since Dec 1st. The little piece of nintendo hardware that at first glance resembles some sort of weight scale, has joined the ranks of the "zapper" and "nunchuck" to expand the ways in which Wii owners can enjoy there console. Shifting your feet on the Wii fit could affect gameplay in an FPS ("if nintendo made one of high quality beyond metroid). 

Since Shigeru Miyamoto unvieled Wii fit on July 11th at E3 I've been wondering about just how many ways I could potentially get excercise from the little piece of hardware. Appearently there are up to 40 ways in which you can excercise via the wii, doing everything from push ups and jogging to yoga poses and tight rope walking. I'm definitly thrilled with the variety.

Nintendo is rolling in cash, no question but when this overweight diet crazed country gets hold of wiifit, nintendo will benjamin laden tp in there restrooms. Here's why. While listening to a jostiq podcast, the point was made that wii is top in hardware but not software. Why aren't Wii or DS games owning in the charts alongside Halo 3 and assasins creed ? The answer it seems is becuase most wii owners which nintendo has labeled "casual gamers", are buying into an experience and not a game console with a library of software to be bought later on. You still have your hard core nintendo fans who buy the top games and spend a few hundred on the good nintendo games and accessories each year but they are a seperate market and by no means the majority. Grandpa bought himself a ds to play brain age and nothing else, is nintendo's problem.

The same people who bought wii for wii sports will jump head over heels for the wiifit when its released here in the states because they want an interactive experience with the wii. Nintendo needs the Wiifit to keep the wii from going in the closet of many a casual gamers home, being labeled last years fad.  The wiifit ensures that the majority of overweight americans who want to lose weight can do so in a interactive way that fun and away from the public shaming that is the local gym.

The only question is "will it hold us ?"

- Al3x

Sources: Wikipedia

Gameindustry.biz

Wii won't be your sugar mama for DS games

  

    After holding out the promise of downloadable DS content via the wii, in a new york times interview, Reggie Fils-Aime (president of nintendo america), has now been hastily corrected by his bosses back in japan.

Nintendo issuing the following response: "An article about the Nintendo DS video game system in the December 31 Business Day section of the New York Times incorrectly referred to future capabilities of the device,".

Although I don't own a wii (thanks to nintendo's lack of factories for the damn thing), I do however own a nintendo ds. Downloadable content for me makes sense on the nintendo wii
since nintendo's two main rivals have been supporting mobile devices through the console for awhile now. The best example of what nintendo appearently has refused or been unable to do, is Sony making downloadable content available for the PSP over the PS3 network. The second example is microsoft's going all out for its ipod killer, the zune and giving us the ability to download music, video's, etc over xbox live.

By limiting to the wii's usefulness to a so-so online gaming experience with our only true promise of using it being when super smash bro's 2 comes out. This being a sad reminder that most 3rd party games are made of failure and  utter garbage. Nintendo seems to be shooting itself in the foot by not providing what the big boys have been providing consumers with for sometime now.

One has to wonder what will happen when gamers in 2008 come to view all these limitations (poor games, lack of HD, lack of use with DS), and are then joined in by the elderly not buying anything beyond wii sport for the rest of there days.

Xbox360 reache's 17.7 million in sales

Microsoft has something positive to report about its hardware...finally. Ok so while some of us may be scratching our heads or complaining about our lack of eliteness (reference to the latest xbox360 sku), it seems that the people at Redmond finally have something to smile about. Besides having the best online console experience through xboxlive and arguably the best games library of both exclusive and multi-platform games, there are finally a significant number of consoles on which to play said games.

It won't surprise anyone that Halo 3, sold 8.1 million. For all its hype Mass effect would be damned if it couldn't match Assassins Creed in sales and to its done just that by shooting past the one million mark with 1.6 million games sold so far.

While we look at the numbers game, the 17.7 million strong xbox360 owners family seems set to continue growing especially as we approach the release of grand theft auto IV which will be a system seller no questions asked.

While Gates and Co do love there Benjamin's, it seems that if market share is what they are after (more consoles = more games sold = more $$), then a price drop around the release on March 3rd could definitely help push the 360 toward the 20 million mark.

Because since when has Microsoft ever milked we consumers with over priced goods that could be great if only they weren't so damn expensive ?

*cough* Zune *cough*

THQ + Pixar = Wall*E Games

THQ + PIXAR = WALL*E GAMES

  

When I look at WALL*E, I think short circuit. When you look at WALL*E, you see a cute little robot with too much time on his hands. When THQ looks at WALL*E, it sees dollar signs. Still flush with cash from game adaptations of Pixar's cars and  Ratatouille,  THQ plans to make a game adaptation of WALL*E  (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), and his journey across the galaxy. 

This is is the second game since Ratatouille last year, in Pixar and THQ's four game deal. 
Expect to see Pixar's next two creations also to receive game adaptations.  Weather the voice acting in WALL*E or its future pixar siblings will be of any quality remains to be seen.



 

Jade Empire 2

JADE EMPIRE 2?




After an intense session of lurking around the internets, I stumbled across a rumor that Bioware will be releasing jade empire 2 exclusively on the 360. Dean Takahashi of MercuryNews.com claims to have recieved word of jade empire 2 through an undisclosed who claimed to have seen the source code labeled "Jade empire 2".

IS THIS TRUE ?

Maybe or Maybe not. No one has said anything official and EA's got a tendency to go for money rather then quality and thus whore itself and its products out to every plateform available.

WHY DO I CARE ?

If you love RPG's, then you're either aware of or should get around to playing jade empire. It's set in an asian atmosphere with martial arts in place of swords, lightsabers (KOTOR), or elves (oblivion & morrowind). What made the game appealing to me is that rather then go for turn based fighting, jade empire allowed you to attack and upgrade said attack with your regular D pad (A,X,B,Y), controls.

Bioware has a rich history pre-EA of shipping innovative and immersive role playing games. Its latest blockbuster Mass effect generated high reviews and high sales for the canadian developer. The key behind many of bioware's games at least to me has been that you can connect emotionally with the characters you interact with. You don't get mindless NPC's that are just there to distract the bad guys from shooting at you. They have history's, relationships can often be formed with them on a romantic level even. The last major sticking point for bioware games has been that they always give you two or more choices on how to play the game. You face moral questions throughout bioware games and what actions you take define you in the game and your party's reactions to you.

Recent Bioware Games	IGN	GameSpot	GameInformer	Amazon.com
Jade Empire	9.9	8.4	9.5	4.5/5
Mass Effect	9.4	8.5	9.75	4.5/5
Knights of the old Republic	9.0	9.1	9.5	4.5/5