The GameShadow Blog

OK, I found this a bit odd, and mildly worrying. The big supermarkets appear to be taking an interest in shifting consoles it appears. Today there is news in MCV that Game (and other indie retailers) have been rushing out all over the country and snapping up cheap Xbox 360 concoles from Sainsbury and other major supermarket chains.

It’s a bit of a mad world when a proper gaming store such as Game has to resort to such measures to get a discount on hardware that it should clearly be commanding as a specialist (with volume) in the games retail sector.

What worries me now is that the likes of you and I, every day punters, can’t buy the cheap consoles at our local Tesco (insert your local supersnore here) because they have been snapped up by Game. What happens now? Do Game create bundles and put the prices up for everyone or simply pass on the great prices without penalising the buyer in their own store, presumably to get them into the store with the chance they might buy some other stuff whilst they are there getting their cheap console?

Comments/Views very much appreciated!

Regards,

Tony

Don’t get me wrong, Gameshadow does an excellent job of delivering the latest demos to the PC masses.

Problem is, not only are the major developers of the gaming industry threatening to abandon the PC gaming market in a ‘ the grass dollar is always greener’ nod to console owners but the cross-platform games that are (eventually) released on the PC miss out on that key selling feature: the demo.

Perhaps it’s my age but since the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 to the Amiga and then finally the PC I’ve always enjoyed playing demos and more importantly made decisions to purchase based on their quality.

Look at Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect;  big on the 360 and PS3, big demos, big sales figures.  Then the PC versions limp along much later and the sales figures are found wanting.  The finger of blame is pointed soley at piracy but is there more to it than that?

Try before you buy . . . yes, that’s right, I want a chance to test your game, decide whether or not I like it and then, if it ticks the appropriate boxes, I’ll buy it.  Why should I shell out for a game I’ve never played before - console owners aren’t expected to make that step into the unknown so why should PC gamers.  In fact, it’s crucial that PC gamers are given this opportunity - it goes someway to negate the outcry of horrow when that aging graphics card can’t give you a smooth 60FPS and you’ve spent £35+

Fingers crossed that the highly anticipated autumn/winter releases have demos otherwise I’m going to be asking for a 360/PS3 for Xmas - well if you can’t beat them . . .

As an upshot of the Diablo III unveiling last weekend, Blizzard let slip a whole load of juicy goss on the subject of their other projects. To be honest, Blizzard isn’t the most exciting developer in the world - the emphasis is firmly on polish and evolution rather than on actually coming up with ideas of their own - butthey’re a talented team all the same.

First up, we’ve got Starcraft II screens, one of which you can see above, courtesy of Gamespot. Word has it the game’s still a significant way off - the singleplayer campaign’s 1/3 complete, so you won’t be seeing much more before Christmas, in time for a 2009 release.

Next there’s a rather interesting report from VG247 regarding Diablo III coming to consoles, and the power struggle between Blizzard and new owner Activision.

“Blizzard will face immense pressure to produce a console version of Diablo III. If Kotick says, ‘We can sell 10 million units of a console version’ - and he will, because they can - it’s an obvious situation. Money talks. You could be looking at nearly half a billion dollars in revenue.”

“That said [Blizzard is] in a unique position. Very few people have any sway over them at all.”

Blizzard seems dedicated to the PC audience - which makes a nice change in today’s climate - but time will tell.

Finally, Blizzard boss Rob Pardo has confirmed that the company still has one further project under raps, in addition to WoW: Lich King, Starcraft II and Diablo III. It’s almost certainly an MMO, and clever money says it’s Starcraft - Blizzard’s hardly known for running risks.

Mark this one down as highly sceptical, but you never know.

Intellisponce is a Market Research firm responsible for data belonging to a number of high end developers and publishers. Earlier in the week, the firm’s database was ripped open, and its contents splurged all over the web - including details on a previously unknown piece of software called ‘Trioxide’.

“Introducing the ability to play the latest console games (i.e. Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc.) on your PC. Many of these games are only available on consoles today and with this new feature would now be available on the PC as well. With this new feature those console games are now playable on your PC!

Uses the same game controllers as the original console system (all games use regular console controllers, not your computer keyboard or mouse.)”

That’s from the various bumf that was leaked from Intellisponse. No one really knows any more about the technology, or the developer.

The descriptive text seems straight forward enough - I don’t think we’re misunderstanding the purpose of the software - but the practicality of the thing is mind boggling: this is space age technology here. Platform emulation is a very inefficient process, so the chances this is for real are fairly slight.

More than likely, it’s a software concept that no one ever followed up as soon as they realised it was a no hoper.

Still, you never know.

This is deeply cool stuff.

Let’s get those boring targets replaced with Nazis and we’re away!

And what’s more, it’s true. Let the backlash commence!

Hit the image below to find out what I’m yabbering about.

EB Games, one of the largest video game retailers in the world - and, bizarrely, nothing to do with Electronics Boutique UK, owner of GAME - is said to be arguing with Microsoft over AUD 10 million worth of faulty 360s.

The infamous ‘red rings of death’ issue which lead to thousands of 360s being recalled is said to have cost EB a hefty sum of money - a sum that Microsoft refuses to pay.

EB Games chief exec Steve Wilson has dismissed the rumour: “It’s 99% bullshit really. Even when we had the batch problem six months ago, we were talking about a couple of thousand units.”

Wilson’s words certainly imply the situation has been blown out of proportion. Crucially, however, he’s not denied that a pitched battle is raging between the publisher and retailer - just that it’s not as big as was suggested.

Ah the heady days of spending all day in the arcades with a mate, hiding in a corner trying to kick him in the face from across the room.

I speak, of course, of my long-time fascination with Dhalsim - yes, I had to look up the spelling - and his cowardly, freakishly long limbs. My other favourite pass time was hiding in the corner hammering ‘down’ and ‘low kick’ to electrify my opponents. I probably wasn’t very fun to play with.

The big news is that Street Fighter is finally returning, eight years after the last true sequel. Capcom’s game seems to be marking a real return to form, with lovingly rendered 3D, cartoon-like graphics, and traditional 2D gameplay. Enough of that, though, onto the screens.

Shoryuken!

“PlayStation Network is extremely interesting because it’s a more flexible space,” states Riley Cooper, of Tomb Raider Anniversary fame.

In the good old days before I discovered the PC was the answer to my gaming needs, consoles were straight forward. All the controllers were pretty much the same, there was none of this online malarkey… what used to make or break a platform was its software library. In fact, even as recently as the last generation, that still held true. Despite Nintendo’s innovation of the analogue stick, shoulder buttons and four player as standard, it was the PS2 that took over homes throughout the West. Where Nintendo carefully regimented quality, Sony’s more lax approach meant a huge back catalogue, and unheard of 3rd party support.

These days, it may not be so clear cut, hence why Cooper’s backing of PSN over Xbox Live is somewhat interesting. We all know the 360 has the stronger exclusive line-up. By a mile. These days, that may not be the key issue.

Xbox Live is the superior, more established online service, but if development support switches over the Sony, no doubt the stronger exclusives will follow.

Looks like the West’s not yet won.

I’m a big fan of decent writing in games. So much so that I’ve adored some stinkers for making me laugh (Armed and Dangerous), and hated some fantastic titles for their disappointing narratives (Bioshlock).

I’ve recently been playing Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk on DS. They’re both elements of the prestigious recent movement towards reinventing the adventure genre for the 21st Century. Phoenix Wright is a surreal lawyer ‘em up with manga roots, while Hotel Dusk is what would happen if you took the storyboarding from Max Payne and made a game about it. And set it in a hotel.

The DS is perfectly suited to this new, leaner more enticing style of adventure, and Hotel Dusk is one of the most visually arresting games I think I’ve ever seen, on any platform. My problem is, I’m not sure they’re really games.

For the most part, all you do is click through reams of text, interact with the odd object or solve a puzzle, then click some more. They’re films with clicking. Old style adventures were hardly gameplay heavy, but at least the puzzling was meaty and substantial - here it’s been necessarily reduced to get with the times. It doesn’t help that there’s no fast forward on the text due to the (admittedly effective) way in which the text scrolls in time with the way it would be spoken by the character, to make up for lack of voice acting.

It seems to me that until we lose joypad entirely, shooting things in games has just about reached its pinnacle. Realism in driving games is fast approaching a similar level of perfection. Story, on the other hand, really hasn’t moved since the very first dialogue tree. What I’ve been playing recently isn’t interactive story, it’s just plain old story, in a vaguely interactive environment.

But that’s cool. That’s exciting. That means there’s more to be discovered, more to be achieved.

It means that if story is what gets you going, then the next stage in the evolution of gaming could well change your world.

Merry Christmas to all those countries that worship the eternal god, consumerism. Hello to everyone else.

Yes, the Christmas rush is well and truly over. All the games that were going to get rushed into production in time for the big day are already sitting under Christmas trees, and all the releases that didn’t quite make it have got another month of so’s respite.

Christmases and birthdays tend to pass by unnoticed these days, but this year I made a brief foray back to my childhood, by treating myself to a shiny white DS Lite. Well, I bought myself a DS Lite, wrapped it up and gave it to my nan to give to me on the big day, at which point she forgot what it was she was giving me, and had no further clue once it was unwrapped.

Regardless, it was a pleasant return to the time when unwrapping games and consoles on Christmas day is an exciting and magical time. What’s more, I actually got some time to play the thing, because the kids in the house had gotten bored of their own DSs two years ago when they were first released.

Compared to PC, there’s naturally not a whole load of must-have games on any of the consoles this Christmas, but the DS has nonetheless seen the bulk of my play time this boxing day. Despite my jaded, cynical perspective, the touch screen control is actually remarkably intuitive - compared to the hardcore requirements of the keyboard and mouse, the DS actually lets me enjoy games again.

I’m a PC gamer, but it’s the ‘gamer’ aspect of that that’s important - computers are just the best means to an end, and that hasn’t changed. However, there’s some truly essential and eye-opening experiences to be had on DS that could never be translated to PC, and, as the vaguely available and affordable Nintendo console this Christmas, the DS really shouldn’t be missed.

It’s the January sales already, so treat yourself to a DS today. There’s a new year’s resolution for you.

Call it opportunist, call it cynical exploitation, call it downright cheeky or just call it a good marketing idea - we’ve just discovered that The Carphone Warehouse have managed to get hold of some Nintendo Wiis (which as most gamers are aware are currently harder to get hold of than a decent English football manager) and they’re offering them out to new customers. The (not entirely unreasonable) condition - you have to buy a contract phone too…

Check it out here…