Shake Shake Shake your controller yourself if you want rumble

In yet another baffling move, Sony has announced the Dual Shock 3 will be available in Japan at the end of this year and in the US in “Early ‘08″.  Of course, several games will actually support “rumble” before the end of this year, including Haze and supposedly Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (if I remember reading some TGS impressions correctly).

No, rumble isn’t the most important feature in the world, but it can be an effective addition to a game nonetheless.  The fact that these games will be available and support rumble before we even have the ABILITY to utilize it is frustrating.  Certainly, the games can still function just fine without them, but its unlikely I’ll go back and play either of them again after the Dual Shock 3 becomes available just so I can have rumble.  So I basically have the choice of playing a sort of “incomplete” game or waiting to play the games until I can buy a Dual Shock 3 controller.  Is this really the kind of choice Sony can afford to give its potential customers right now?

I really don’t get what’s so difficult. Unlike software, a controller requires virtually no localization (just an instruction manual).  Why would it be so difficult to release the controller in its biggest market (the US) at the same time as Japan?  I have a couple theories:

1) Not enough supply.  This theoretically shouldn’t be an issue, as Sony claimed the tech inside the DS3 is the same as that inside the DS2.  However, reports from TGS seem to suggest that the tech is at least a little better in the DS3.  This could, forever reason, cause delays in getting enough supply together for a multi-region near-simultaneous launch.

2) Sony already has way too much unsold stock in stores as is for both consoles and extra SIXAXIS controllers, all sporting the original SIXAXIS design.  Sony would rather sell the rest of these out of date controllers to unsuspecting people first before starting to package in the newer DS3.

Multiple Configurations

I have to agree with this PtB post on multiple PS3 configurations.  And this doesn’t just apply to Sony.  There’s room in the world for a “Basic” and “Premium” version of each console.  Other than that, stop wasting our time.

What If They Threw A Game Show, And Nobody Came?

Via Kotaku, apparently attendance at the Tokyo Game Show has dropped a bit: only 64k visitors came on the first day this year, compared with some 85k gamers from last year.  Kotaku attributes this to the fact that Nintendo is forgoing the show this year; the hypothesis seems reasonable, since the Wii and DS are the hot things on the market at the moment and Sony can’t carry the show itself (the 360, of course, is a non-factor). 

I’m a little hesitant to start drawing conclusions based on a single day’s worth of data, but if there is a discrepancy, it brings two things to mind: first, that Nintendo is definitely successful enough this generation to dictate its own rules - why give free publicity to Sony when it can throw its own conference and have people show up? - and second, that it’s quite impressive Sony can draw 75% of last year’s audience considering how relatively unsuccessful the PS3 and PSP have been on a global scale thus far.  That may say more about Japanese tastes than the companies per se, but still: don’t count them out yet.

Manhunt 2: Blurry Mess Edition

IGN has now had a chance to play the M-rated version of Manhunt 2 and check out the differences from it’s original AO form. The results are slightly disappointing, although not all that unexpected.

Apparently the gameplay mechanics are unchanged, but some of the more anticipated “features” of the game have been changed. For instance, the infamous sequence where the player could actually use pliers to pull out a victim’s testicles has been completely removed. As IGN notes, this perhaps isn’t a huge deal as it only effects one sequence out of many throughout the game.

The far bigger deal is the fact that the “death” sequences are now “blurred” out. IGN writes:

“The biggest and most disappointing change relates to the major death strikes. When Danny sneaks up on an enemy, gamers can hold the A button down, at which point they will be given the option to pick from three different murder animations (on Wii, they get to act them out with Nintendo’s motion-sensitive controllers). In the AO-rated build of Manhunt 2, we could clearly see these over-the-top and horrific animations. In the M-rated version, Rockstar has added both an extreme blur effect and in most cases darkened the graphics so that it is nearly impossible to make any sense of what is going on. Players will be able to see character movement, blood splatters, and sometimes they may catch a glimpse of an identifiable action (for example, Danny jamming nails into the legs of a chair-bound opponent), but mostly it’s guesswork - a garbled, motiony mess that’s far less satisfying. This truth is doubly unfortunate because both everything else is unchanged and because these death strikes are what gamers will want to work toward; they’re the pay off for a job well done, but now the pay off is not nearly as rewarding.”

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If Only Every Game Came with a “Reviewers Guide” (Update)

This has to be one of the most absurd things I’ve seen. Sony is sending out a “Reviewer’s Guide” for Lair to various media outlets. Let’s ignore the fact that the outlets have already reviewed the game weeks ago… What exactly am I supposed to think if I receive a “Reviewers Guide” for a game?

To me it says, “We know this game is shitty, but if you play it JUST RIGHT it can be fun!”

Here’s the thing with games, or for that matter, any media. When it’s in my possession, I get to do with it what I like. I can read a manual that tells me how to play, ok… but if I don’t like it, then I don’t need the developer/director/writer telling me “No no no… you just didn’t play/watch/read it right. What you really need to do is…”

It kind of reminds me of this old Penny Arcade comic where Kevin Smith defended his crappy movie “Jersey Girl” by saying it “wasn’t for critics.” Guess what? Critics are people too, just like non-critics, and they can watch a movie, read a book, and watch a movie however they want. We don’t need a guide to tell us how we should use your media to have fun as long as you *gasp* actually make it fun.

*UPDATE* If you want to see the whole thing, Destructoid has it here.

Where are the PS3 Demos?

In the last week the 360 has gotten some pretty high-profile demos for Eternal Sonata, Stranglehold, Bioshock, and Beautiful Katamari. All of these games are going to be available within the next 2 months.

In the past month, Sony has released a super-short Heavenly Sword demo as well as some demos for substantially lower profile games. It’s not as if Sony doesn’t have high-profile games coming out soon too. Warhawk launches August 28 and Lair the following week, both before Eternal Sonata and Beautiful Katamari. Then a month later the PS3 gets Ratchet and Clank and around the same time Folklore. Finally, in November the PS3 gets Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

“Well, that’s a long way away”, you say. “The demos probably aren’t even finished.”

Well, except that they are. Warhawk had a public beta which I’m sure could have a demo based around it and every other one of these games had playable demos at Lollapalooza.

Does Sony want to show people that they have games to go toe-to-toe with the 360 this year? They should release these demos soon (and for that matter, extend the Heavenly Sword demo if it’s really as good as they say it is).

Microsoft has been generating a slew of positive hype over the recently released 360 demos, particularly with Bioshock (exclusive to 360 and PC). You want a place at the table, Sony? Ante up.

PS3apalooza

This past weekend I attended Lollapalooza in Chicago.  Sure, it’s a music festival, but that doesn’t mean that big corporations like Sony don’t love spreading their corporate message to the hundreds of thousands of people who flowed in and out of Grant Park over the weekend.  Sure enough, Sony set up a tent with several demos of games for all of their current platforms, and several of their biggest titles for the year were on display.  Unfortunately, I really was only able to play 1 demo for a few short minutes (I was, after all, at a music festival, which made it difficult to fully appreciate the games anyway), but I did catch some glimpses of other people playing the rest of the games.  I figured I would give my impressions here and, going back to the roots of the site, give an estimate of where I think the scores will fall for the games.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

This was actually the only game I was really able to play.  Given the short time span, I basically was able to just run around the first section of the demo, hop on a rail, and test out the different weapons.  The game DOES look beautiful.  It runs very smoothly and has detailed, dynamic, and destructive environments.  I tried out the new “Groove-a-tron” weapon, which was good for a laugh, although not really the most amazing gaming advancement ever.  The rail sliding section was pretty fun with a robot that kept blowing up chunks of rail in front of me, although it somehow seemed a little slow to me.  I’m not sure if sliding on the rails is actually slower than any of the other games in the series, but for whatever reason it seemed like it should’ve moved a bit faster.  I also thought the initial “main” weapon was a little strange as it fires very slowly and I ended up mostly using my wrench, but I suppose over the course of the game it’ll probably be improved.  Overall, the game should be a lot of fun, but I don’t think it’s doing anything new.  Add in the fact that they have stripped multiplayer out (or rather, never implemented it despite it being a component of the last two games) and I think this game will probably land in the B to B+ range, unfortunately.  As the original Ratchet and Clank titles were all “budget” priced at $40, I’m finding that paying $60 for this one may actually be a tough pill to swallow, and I may end up actually renting the game first.

More games after the jump:

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Sony’s Innovator’s Dilemma

I’ve read The Innovator’s Dilemma.  It was an interesting book with some fresh thoughts on how businesses address questions of innovation in a strategic way.  That said, it had definite “business book” symptoms: overgeneralizations, insights only possible through hindsight, and a tendency to see case studies as Rorshach tests that match your preconceived theories.  The same seems true of the author’s advice for Sony:

“[W]hat should the company do now? …Instead of following a me-too strategy, Sony could seek to truly develop a category-changing project. [...] The key to success is realizing that the market is still replete with nonconsumption. Nintendo has shown one way to appeal to the non-gamers, but Sony could find others.”

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How much is Sony actually losing on PS3 Hardware?

I’m not going to discuss whether the dismal sales of the PS3 is causing Sony to lose money in the short or long run. Rather, I’m going to talk more about whether Sony actually loses money on selling the PS3 hardware worldwide.  This is a bit of a long post, but bear with me.

With the announcement that the PS3 will cost 9,999 Mexican Pesos in Mexico, which is the equivalent of $910 USD, I was curious to find out how much the PS3 cost around the world. I found this pricing information from Wikipedia.

In Japan, the PS3 (60GB) is about $492 USD. In Canada, you can get the 60GB PS3 for about $526 USD.  In the UK, the 60GB PS3 is about $872 USD. It should be noted a new bundle will be made available there soon, but it’s roughly the same price, and therefore the cost to get into a PS3 is still roughly the same.  The rest of the EU can also get this same bundle for about $827 USD. In Australia the PS3 is about $880 USD and in New Zealand the PS3 bundle is about $954.

You can look at the whole list and see that basically PAL users are, on the whole, much worse off than NTSC users.

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Why didn’t people mention this?

I just finished installing Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the last 15-20 minutes or so.  That’s right, installing a console game onto my PS3, just like the demos I’ve downloaded.

What ever happened to the idea of just popping in a game and going?  Will I really need to sit through 15-20 minutes of installation for every game?

I assume this must just be a requirement for all PS3 games, in which case the 60GB will probably eventually amount to even less space than the 360’s 20GB.  I’m not sure exactly what they did, but Microsoft got this aspect of console gaming exactly right.  Download a demo, play it right away.  Buy a new game, it’s ready to play in just a few short minutes (after the ridiculous number of screens telling us who made the game and what technologies went into it, but Sony will have the same and in fact, there was also about a 2-3 minute slowly scrolling “warning” at first bootup of NGS too, as there was for Resistance and I assume for every other game as well).

For some reason, I don’t remember anyone really complaining about this aspect of the PS3 at all.  How is it that Microsoft, makers of Windows XP which requires lengthy installs, managed to make a system that very quickly lets you get into the game, while Sony, dominant in the past 2 console generations, seemed to make their console much more Windows-like?