Archive for March 8th, 2007
Kotaku Helpu: Why Is This PS3 Menu Popping Up?
I’m gonna be honest. I use my PLAYSTATION 3 as a DVD player primarily. No, wait. I only use it to view DVDs. While watching Superman Returns (crap, eh?), the above menu popped up multiple times — At least seven or eight times. It was totally random, too. My questions: Why is this happening? Has this happened to Kotaku-land? How can I make it stop?
Nice Gaming Leather…Arm…Things
What do you call these? Armbands? Bracelets? Wrist-thingamies? Who knows. It’s genre-bending apparel. They defy classification. They’re being made by a friend of serial tipster Mylkqueen, who whips them together for a nominal fee, and are apparantly a big hit.
They’re mighty nice. Maybe not the 360 one, it’s a little too fanboyish, but the Phoenix Wright one is intriguing. But not on your wrist. On your fist. It’s got some texture to it. Like if you were in an argument with someone, and it got heated, you could just *WHAM*, punch ‘em, right in the face and there’d be a giant, albeit backwards, OBJECTION smacked into their noggin. So they knew you were objecting to their point of view, and that you weren’t going to take it anymore.
[Thanks Mylkqueen]
Crecente Hits Xbox.com
Ahoy! Some big time bloggers attended Microsoft’s “Bloggers Breakfast.” Guys like Slashdot’s Michael Zenke, Joystiq’s Chris Grant, GameSetWatch’s Simon Carless, D-toid’s Robert Summa and Wired’s Chris Kohler. And Microsoft picked the one who looks like a pirate to throw up on Xbox.com. Shiver me timbers.
Crecente On Xbox.com [Official Site, Thanks MrPants!]
Today’s “Aaawww” Moment: GDC Wedding Bells
Steve Chiavelli had a pret-ty sweet day yesterday. Part of the DigiPen team that won a GDC award for their game Toblo, it was Chiavelli who got to make the acceptance speech. No “I’d like to thank Jesus” here, he cut straight to a marriage proposal, asking his girlfriend Brittany, also a DigiPen student, the big question.
She said yes. *sniff*.
Congrats to you both! Nerd love is adorable.
GDC: She Said Yes! [Game|Life]
Pajitnov, with needle and thread, wins Game Design Challenge
Filed under: Culture, Puzzle, Simulations, GDC, Casual
The following is a pseudo-live blog of the event from earlier this afternoon. Read on for a full description of each game proposed.
Continue reading Pajitnov, with needle and thread, wins Game Design Challenge
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DS = Dog’s Style
Some think “DS” stands for “Dual Screen.” Others say “Developer System.” And then there are a few that believe it means “Dog’s Style,” because “Dog’s Style” feels so nice.
Huh.
There’s a sex joke in that shirt. And I didn’t see it until now. I should get out more. No, really.
Today’s Engrish [Engrish, Thanks Craig!]
GDC 07: Eiji Aonuma on the Twilight Princess
My very first GDC (in fact my first industry event since E3 1999), and here I am not 5 feet away from the man behind Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and of course, The Twilight Princess. Today Eiji Aonuma is speaking about the process of developing the blockbuster Wii and Gamecube title, from its roots as a sequel to the cell shaded Windwaker all the way up to the release of the game that launched a million Wiis.
I snap the picture and sadly return to my seat all the way in the back of the meeting room, but I’m lucky enough to have a chair to sit in. When I arrived at the venue the line was stretching far off into the hallway, and I was sure I was going to be turned away before I even got to the door.
I put on my special headset and listen to the music playing on it as Aonuma gets ready to speak. Since he will deliver the session in Japanese, us non-speakers have to listen to a woman over the headset who translates on the fly.
He begins by speaking about his hopes for Wind Waker. Despite critical acclaim the game did not perform as well as he had hoped in North America, and things were even worse in Japan. A phenomenon was occurring there which he calls gamer drift…gamers losing interest in games. They needed a new way to play games. Something that would bring back the old gamers, while reaching a whole new market. While the team was already working on Wind Waker 2, they found that toon-shading wasn’t popular with the fans, while 3D gameplay that hadn’t changed much since Ocarina of Time would get boring for older players while at the same time confusing the newer ones.
One answer they tried was connectivity. He explains that while connectivity had played a part in Wind Waker and other games, no other game had fully taken advantage of linking the GBA together with the Gamecube. Enter Four Swords. He was very hopeful for the success of the game, but it turns out people weren’t happy with having to buy four GBA systems, and to the outsider the process seemed overcomplicated. Suppose the entire internet could have told him that, but even big time developers have their vision clouded sometimes.
Wind Waker had alienated their teen demographic and Japan needed a new way to play to get over the gamer drift, so Aonuma decided that he should create a game to cater to the North American audience since Japan was still uncertain. He decided to make a realistic Zelda game, announcing it at E3 2004. He was worried the staff working on Wind Waker 2 would be upset at the different direction, but they loved the idea.
Aonuma announced the game at E3 04, with a release target of 2005. People were intrigued, excited, overwhelmed, ecstatic, orgasmic, and several other adjectives.
Now he shows some footage from the prototype of Zelda DS, which would eventually go on to become The Phantom Hourglass. Originally the 3D portion was on the top, but the controls didn’t really work. Moving right along.
He explains that he wanted to play with the concept of transformation. Light and dark, good and evil. Inspired by the bit in Link to the Past where Link becomes a bunny, he decides to explore the wild and heroic…link will become a wolf!
Aonuma left the game in the hands of the team and went to work on The Minish Cap, the game that brought Japan back and made the worries about gamer drift fade. Awww, he says that he had put himself so fully into the Minish cap in order to avoid the fear of not coming up with innovative gameplay for the adult Zelda.
In 2005 the response to the wolf Link was overwhelming, but there was still no real innovation. Time to break out the Miis!
Miyamoto said that the ‘Revolution’ would be the key to innovating the game, but Eiji says hewas torn…he didn’t want to alienate the Gamecube users, and making different versions would push the game to 2006. Iwata had the answer.
Huzzah!
He says that since the hardware between the Gamecube and the Wii were not all that different, transferring the code was a snap. Now he details the control issues…the trial and error used to make the game feel right. He says that control was a problem with the E3 2006 demo, and his reactions when Miyamoto told him weren’t all that positive.
Still, controls were ironed out. A new way of targeting, sword strokes with the wiimote taken out, then returned with a complete mirroring of the game’s maps to make the right-handed sword holding make sense. Brilliant move there. Much better than trying to rework the entire character with only several months of development left.
Finally they did internal playtesting…he says that even the women in the office could play it, meaning it had to be good. Not sure what he is implying there ladies. He said it, not me.
The game finally came, and the rest is history.
He says he suffered a lot during the development process, but he says creation is about suffering…you must learn from your pain.
Now he talks for a bit about The Phantom Hourglass, explaining the multiplayer aspect. One player plays Link, the other plays three phantoms trying to stop him from collecting gems. The gems are of varying sizes and weights, which effect how fast or slow Link moves towards the base. He can only see the phantoms on the map when he is holding a gem, and they cannot see him in his base or a safe zone. Looks…interesting. Not exactly fun, but interesting. When one player loses the sides are swapped. Hmm.
And now his final parting words. It’s about his family…his wife, and his 5 year old son. Dammit, what is it about you fathers putting your five year old sons into everything you do? Not to name names, but here and here and here.
Aww, his wife never plays games, and his son wanted a wiimote…not the Wii, but the wiimote, because he saw it on TV and it looked cool. His son loved Wii sports, and then played Zelda. Then one day he comes home to find his wife playing the game with his son.
And that wraps the whole thing up into a lovely package. Eiji Aonuma struggled for years to come up with something that would be special enough for fans and new gamers to enjoy, and is paid off by discovering his non-gaming wife playing the game he created with his son. What a heartwarming tale, with a storybook ending. And they all lived happily ever after.
Clip: Phantom Hourglass Trailer
I am soooo happy they decided to keep the Wind Waker art design for this game. And the cute humour. Last time I eat my breakfast at the computer, I spat milk out my nose when Link takes that beating from the pasty guy towards the end. Now my nose hurts.
Rumour: Mass Effect Out Before July?
Little tenuous, yeah, but anything to do with Mass Effect getting inside my 360 gets tagged as super important.
According to Bioware’s Ray Muzyka, the game won’t be shown at E3. Not even a little bit. E3 is being held in mid-July. If your game is yet to hit the shelves, you’d think showing it to the press at E3 and letting it build a little more hype would be a good idea. Unless, that is, it’s already out by the time E3 comes around.
It’s still not confirmation of a release date, but we know Mass Effect is nearly done, and we’ve always presumed it would be coming in the next few months. This only adds an ounce of tubby, squishy baby fat to the weight of that expectation.
BioWare dangles the carrot while it says 360 RPG won’t be present at this year’s E3 [Games Radar]
Today’s queueiest game video: Miyamoto keynote line
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii, GDC
It took a good four minutes to traverse roughly half the line that circled a whole city block around the Moscone center’s South Hall. We know your time is important, though, so we sped the above up to double speed.
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Cliffy B reveals the secrets of the universe
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Action
He didn’t tell us how to program a VCR or how socks go missing in the dryer, but in his session today, Cliff Bleszinski clued us into some interesting aspects concerning the development of Gears of War. Our friends over at Xbox 360 Fanboy told you about Cliffy’s longing for Jazz Jackrabbit on Xbox Live Arcade, but did you know that Gears of War began as Unreal Warfare, which then turned into the Onslaught mode found in Unreal 2004?
If that didn’t blow your mind, Cliff also revealed that the “roadie run” only increases your speed by a whopping twenty percent. It’s all in the camera tricks, my friends. He also touched briefly upon the original name for the Locusts, which was Geist, until a Nintendo trademark squashed that into oblivion.
The Y Button — used to focus in on objectives in the final game — was without a purpose until one of his leads came to him one day and said, “Why don’t we make it the look at cool sh*t button?”
Designing by iteration, indeed.
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Hands On: Guitar Hero II 360 Impressions
Thirty floors up overlooking Sydney’s Darling Harbour - there are worse places to drink beer, eat pizza and play some Guitar Hero II on 360. Lots worse.
I arrive late. Well, I arrive at the general location early, expecting a street number and a bar name to be sufficient to get me there. Nope. I got lost. A lap of Darling Harbour, two tower walkway crossovers, a few run-ins with bemused security guards and three keycard checkpoints later I’m upstairs. Ungh.
First stop, the fridge, get a beer. There are 32″ flat-panels everywhere, and about 8-10 360s hooked up playing Gears and Crackdown. Nobody touches them. I can already hear Sweet Child O’ Mine. I didn’t mind that song. I’d go on to hear it another 1742 times during the course of the evening. Now I can’t stand it.
I know there’s new songs on offer for the 360 version, but Madhouse is calling me. Everyone’s still awkwardly saying “hi, hi” and staring around the room, so the guitars are still lying on the floor, untouched. I grab the nearest one, scroll down to Madhouse. Your medication is ready Mr Belladona. Muhahahaha!
It kicks off then…oops. I get about four of the squawking “you fucked up that bit” noises. I bumble my way through the song, but something’s not right. It’s the fret buttons.
They’re tiny. Made for midgets.
Mike’s right, they do feel better. They feel a lot firmer, you get a sense that when you hammer down, you’re hammerin’ down. You even get a little clicky feedback, unlike the mashy vagueness of the PS2 ones.
But they’re just so tiny. Made for delicate, precious little fingers. It was really, really difficult for me to distinguish between the 2-4 frets when chords started flying, and that pissed me off. If you’ve never played the PS2 version, you won’t care, you’ll probably even enjoy the fact the 5th fret button is now closer to your pinky. But if you have played the PS2 one, just keep in mind: the fret buttons, they’re tiny.
The rest of the guitar is nice. The mysterious comms port underneath is mysterious - nobody knew what the hell it was for. Maybe you can plug your guitar into a phone line and just wail down it in morse code, like a really metal skype. Wow, that started as a joke, but that’d actually be really awesome. I don’t like the little black select/start buttons, they’re not as guitar-y as the PS2’s Gibsons, but bleh.
By now I’m 3-4 songs in, and people are on their second beers. All the guitars are now taken. The little crowd I’d formed with my Madhouse fumblings has disappeared, drawn by some guy from PC mag Atomic who can actually play songs on expert, and play them well. I can’t, and I’m slightly intimidated watching him. He’s kicking my ego’s ass.
The game looks nicer than the PS2 version. Lots of bloom. Better texturing on the characters, better lighting. And BLOOM. God, it’s everywhere, it’s quite distracting. The black marker pen strokes on the tracklist are about the only things that don’t radiate light. Death’s wing feathers look great. But it’s Guitar Hero - if you’re caring about the graphics you’re kind of missing the point.
I tried out most, if not all of the new tracks. They may as well have not bothered including a Pearl Jam track it’s so awful. But Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo is awesome, mainly because it made me feel like I was in Dazed and Confused. Man I love that movie. The other new songs are OK, just nothing special. There’s no More than a Feeling or Texas Flood kind of track that’ll straight-up convince you to get this if you’ve already got the PS2 version.
Which pretty much sums the whole thing up. It’s nice enough. If you’ve got the PS2 version don’t bother, just don’t, wait until the downloadable tracklist starts to swell, because there’s nothing here you don’t already have. Unless you have tiny fingers. I’ve already got the PS2 version and saw nothing that would convince me to part with an additional AUD$140.
But 360 owners, if you’ve somehow never played it before, it’s Guitar Hero. It’s awesome. But you don’t need me to tell you that. You’re probably scratching deep clawmarks in your skin counting down the April release.
Microsoft on the hunt for originality with Xbox Live Arcade
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Business
In a self-sponsored session, Microsoft Senior Program Manager, Katie Stone Perez, laid out what they’re looking for when it comes to new titles for Xbox Live Arcade. The six most important factors for a successful submission are worldwide appeal, cooperative play, multiplayer features, visual redesigns for ports, a family-friendly design and of course, paid downloadable content.
When it comes to family-friendly experiences, they don’t mean they’re looking for bubbly visuals or titles with easier difficulties, but the option to include different handicapping and kid-friendly tricks, scaling difficulty and the ability to continue in arcade titles. Microsoft is also looking towards more portable-like experiences, citing the recent boom in the pick-up-and-play nature of say, the Nintendo DS. Original, innovative titles are also a huge plus when it comes to pitching a title, so it would be best for developers to leave their dual-analog shooter at home. PomPom? You guys are just fine.
Now that you know what Microsoft wants from new Xbox Live Arcade titles, how about yourself? We’d personally love a release schedule, but that’s just wishful thinking.
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GDC07: Loco Roco, a Jiggly Postmortem and the Most Boring Session Ever
This session is in Japanese, translated on the fly by people “UN-style” into our headphones. So everyone is familiar with Loco Roco, yes? The jelly game for the PSP, allowing you tilt the world around to guide that big blob like a snot on a tissue. Okay? Good. Here’s a mini history.
Tsutomu Kouno, the director, says that the three ideas that were integral to the game were it being easy to play, fun, and dramatic. Did that come across? Who knows, we (and by we, I mean me) haven’t played this game before. We (again, me) are lost.
Now there’s a Japanese lady translating the Japanese to English. We think she’s missing something. There’s about 3x less words when she’s translating. There’s no way for us to confirm without Ashcraft here, though.
So he and a two programmers made some crazy pre-prototype in March 2005.
The translator’s breathy whisper is kinda sexy. “Ooooh, it’s very good!”
Prototyping took 3 months, actual development took 11 months. So, there were various textures to the world being experimented, but many of them turned out to be “weird”.
Back to the American translator. We had to say it, but Kuono-san is pretty boring. This is a packed house, actually, and has more in attendance than the Gears session this morning. Weird.
They spent a lot of time on the music, making it feel like “live” music, kinda dynamic. You know who would love this session? Mrs. Ashcraft. She likes Loco Roco. Not as much as Mario—she loves pot-bellied, hairy guys (which means I have a shot!)—but enough.
Anecdote: he sang his Loco Roco song on the train, and people looked at him like he was a weirdo.
Not sure if it’s this guy being boring or the translators taking the fun out of his talk, but we’re about to fall asleep.
You know what? I don’t even have a PSP. Bet you didn’t know that.
The most interesting thing to come out of this talk? That Loco Roco 2 is confirmed. Oh wait, you already knew that since last December, didn’t you. Then yeah, we got nothin’. No wait, these things coming up are kind of interesting.
He wouldn’t say whether LR2 was going to be for the PS3 or PSP or PSP2.
Loco Roco was actually best in Europe, and after that, Japan. That’s not what you would have thought.
Someone just asked whether the development budget of the PSP impacted the development. Looooooooooooong pause. You can actually make PSP games “very sophisticated”, but “the PSP is portable and easy to use”. So that makes PSP games lower budget, but developed in a shorter span.
Doesn’t the Loco Roco look like flan? We could use some flan right about now.
Aaaaand, we’re out of questions. Oh wait, someone’s asking about whether Loco Roco is going to be made into a cartoon series and whether Sony wants that. The answer? We want to do it, but it hasn’t moved in any direction.
Someone’s question was a wish for him to add a zoom-out feature in Loco Roco 2.
So yeah, look forward to Loco Roco 2 on some undecided console.
Spore Developer Chris Hecker Apologizes For Calling the Wii a “Piece of Shit”
Remember Maxis developer Chris Hecker calling the Wii a “piece of shit”? He has an apology for you.
I don’t know who has read the internet, yesterday. In a [unintelligible] panel I said a bunch of things. I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top—on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now.
When I’m on stage, I’m me. I’m talking talk from me. From me. I’m not representing EA or Maxis.
I want to make two things perfectly clear.
I do not think the Wii is a piece of shit. Nintendo needs to be applauded for trying to interface on the controller front, the user interface front, on making games accessible, on making a console that you don’t need to mortgage your house to afford.
Secondly, it’s totally obvious—and I’m sorry that I implied otherwise—that everyone at Nintendo is passionate at making great games. Some of the games give me hope that we will be seen as an art form on par with movies and books.
Whether or not he was made to apologize by his bosses isn’t clear, but it’s a good gesture nonetheless.
GDC07: Spielberg’s & EA Making Wii Game
Back in October of 2005, EA announced that it was working with director Steven Spielberg on a trio of videogames but has since been relatively quiet on exactly what those games are. As EA LA’s Neil Young expressed to Gamasutra last year, the games would focus on original IP, so a proper sequel to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 is probably out of the questions.
Today, Young spoke with GameDaily’s James Brightman on two of the games born of the Spielberg collaboration, revealing that one would be a Wii project. The other? A game described as “what you’d expect, sort of, from a Steven Spielberg production.” Young then clarified that statement with “Steven’s stories are intimate stories that take place around huge, world-changing events… sort of, big stories shown through the eyes of a small group.”
Check out more details over at GameDaily.
GDC: Spielberg on Wii Exclusive Info [GameDaily XL]
GDC 07: The Game Design Challenge
Every year GDC hosts the Game Design Challenge, which takes a handful of the best game designers around and challenges them to come up with an enticing game concept according to a set theme. This year’s theme? The Needle and Thread Interface. Creating a game that uses a needle and thread as the interface for the gameplay in some fashion. The contestants? God of War dev and all-around potty mouth David Jaffe, the father of Tetris Alexey Pajitnov, and finally last year’s winner for the Nobel Peace Prize themed challenge, Harvey Smith.
I had just gotten out of another meeting late, so it was dark when I got into the packed meeting room, and after finally finding some floor space all the way on the other side of the room, I settled down to watch greatness at work. I tell who was up first immediately, but then the windows update popped up. “Fucking thing.” Ah, first up, David Jaffe!
Jaffe’s design involved using a thread and a needle to create paper airplanes, which then could be tested, entered in competitions, etc. Elements included better function for better stitching, adding on weapons and the like. The game was envisioned as more of a social thing, with a community for sharing design ideas and leaderboards. Not exactly what I pictured when I heard the challenge theme, but I can’t complain lest Jaffe completely fuck me up. Hedoes so love the f-word.
Next came Alexey Pajitnov, who couldn’t seem to operate a Power Point presentation but received extra points because he created got-damn Tetris. He envisioned a game where two players faced off on a flat battleground, both trying to stitch their way to the goal. Each player would either take turns or battle it out in real time, and if one player crossed over the other’s line his opponent would have to start over. A simple concept, but one that would take full advantage of the theoretical controller, plus the guy is just so damn charming, with his over-explantions and funny accent. Oh that Alexey.
Finally came last year’s champion Harvey Smith, who certainly had the most amusing presentation. As he said “I knew this was going to be a really difficult”, the slide on the screen read “This is batshit crazy.” He also spent far too much time conceptualizing the controller, which was integral to how his game worked. He quoted Miyamoto, who said to think about the controller from day one, and came up with a sort of lapboard designed like an eskimo snowshoe. He then detailed an RPG adventure (no surprise there) featuring a little girl who travelled the world with a magical sewing needle and her sentient stuffed animal to try and save her father from evil (portrayed in the presentation by Bush and Cheney.) Throughout her adventure she would encounter sewing based challenges, and battles would be fought by her stuffed animal, who would be upgradeable by sewing on more cloth won in battle. A great concept, but as someone in the audience later pointed out, it only used the controller in a limited fashion, with the majority of gameplay being suited for a regular controller.
After the presentation came a brief Q&A session, in which we learned that Pajitnov once made his own pants, hated the idea of letting players design levels, and that Jaffe was ticked because, “Harvey got to go out and get plastic for his fucking idea.”
The winners were chosen by applause at the end of the session, and I don’t care what designer you are (outside of Miyamoto), when you go up against the father of Tetris, you’re going down. Jaffe came in third, Smith second, and pants-crafter Alexey Pajitnov went home with the prize…a gold-colored knitting needle. It was interesting to see the different designs these three talented designers came up with given the same set of guidelines…an exclusive look inside the minds of three of gaming’s greatest.
GDC07: The LittleBigPlanet Editor In Action
While LittleBigPlanet really doesn’t need to convince me any further that it will be orgasmically fun, those of you who haven’t seen the editor in action and remain on the fence ought to settle down with this clip for a few minutes. The power of LittleBigPlanet compels you!
GDC07: Liveblogging the SCEA Blogger Congress
Sitting in a meeting room between Phil Harrison and David Karraker at a table filled with bloggers.
Ouch. I just got called out on the liveblogging think be Dean and the Merc.
Harrison is talking about the unveiling of both Home and LittleBigPlanet.
The thing lost, I think, during the original keynote, is that Sony is hoping to spur a wider conversation about something they call Game 3.0.
The idea is that it would create a set of terms and ideas by which gamers and developers could judge new and future games.
I just asked if it’s possible for that arcade, the one showing eight or so games inside the public space of Home, could be used as a form of premium advertising inside the PS3 space for indie games.
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Harrison said. “We are already working with some external developers to create those games inside Home anyway.”
“We initially intended to make the arcade games java based, but we’ve gotten away from that. It’s not trivial to be able to create those games.”
Home, Harrison said, will have a system in place to manage users with both a soft and hard cap, to prevent an overflow of people in one place that could hurt performance.
Money will be made in home three ways:
Object sales, item sales.
Advertising
B2B, like partner brands being embedded into the network.
The free stuff will include your avatar, public spaces, your home, there will be furniture and some items you can unlock by purchasing PS3 games.
“Exactly what the list is I don’t know.”
We’re quizzing Harrison on how Sony will make Home work, live.
It sounds like he doesn’t think it’s going to be a big issue. It isn’t really like Second Life, he points out when asked and despite it’s detail thinks it will be accessible to a broad audience.
Home will require a registration to the network and a free ID, and right now about half of the million or so PS3 owners have their consoles registered for online use.
The existing user agreement will be used to deal with griefers in Home, and those who “get in your face” can be set to just disappear.
More after the jump.
Harrison is talking about customizing your view in Home now:
You can buy a better view you can download a better sunset.
Speculative, we had a discussion about. Lets say you have a great view out the back of your apartment… all your friends come around and see thats great you have this view. Maybe as a premium item you can get that V of ducks or a boat floating in the water.
While the big view is the same of your friends, you might be able to customize your view.
We’re getting into the whole Sony image thing now.
Robert Summa just pointed out that people see Sony as being arrogant. The constant foot in the mouth statements, any little thing, people latch on to.
Now we’re into a discussion about whether the console is doing well, why some people think it isn’t doing well. Harrison points out that he thinks that Sony is doing quite well.
Now we’re on to corporate blogging and why Sony doesn’t have their own Major Nelson.
“We don’t have a Major Nelson, but we have a Dave Karraker. You can get tremendous access to people inside Sony.”
We got into this whole thing about ThreeSpeech, but it ended with most of us, or at least me, not quite sure who they are still. According to the UK PR guy, it was set up by Sony to be an independent voice and specifically in the UK.
Harrison is saying again that he considers the PS3, when compared to the PS2 and PSOne, a success.
He also says he doesn’t think that exclusives are as important.
“I’ m not sure that’s as big a deal as everyone points out,” he said.
Talking about E3. Lets look at what the old E3 was becoming, there was a huge number of stakeholders, who were not decision makers who were not valuable to the industry.
Harrison: Our investment to support the booth was going up and up and up. It was like an arms race.
Karraker: They are limiting it pretty much to US only. Will it provide enough glitz and glamour to attract the mainstream media.
Harrison: My prediction we have just reset the clock.
Music and games, we’re talking about how the two compare, thanks to an intelligent question by Stephen Totilo.
And we’re off into a ranging philosophical discussion about the nature of gaming, music, human nature, tribal culture. Essentially, it sounds like Harrison believes that all forms of pop culture is suffering from this issue that people now fall into so many more niches then they once did.
On to the Playstation Portable.
Harrison said he didn’t talk PSP during the keynote simply because he didn’t have the space.
PS3Fanboy asks about the unrealized potential of the PSP.
The Sony guy here for the PSP group, sorry I didn’t get his name, tackles this issue:
“It’s a matter of how best to distribute on the PSP. Downloading movies need to be secure. We’ve been working on a way to do that.”
“The promise is there. We ran some research. They say they would rather watch movie on a PSP than an iPod.”
“It’s something we need to address. We are well aware of the market.”
So, still working on, going do it, just don’t know when. The design, he added, will stay the same.
Back to Home.
Harrison: They will be mining the database of PSN members, but the exact numbers haven’t been announced yet.
He adds that potentially you can use the avatars from Home in games, but their our some technical issues, so it won’t work in every game. It is something we hope to do.
And now other stuff:
Richard Marx (SCEA interface guy): We are working on a new camera. We’ve shown Eye of Judgment and things. It will have much better specs. We are working very heavily on microphone input. We have research for longer-range products. I don’t think the end goal for an interface is brain control. My personal opinion is we want to widen that as much as possible.
On Warhawk
Dylan Jobe, Warhawk game director for Incognito, was asked how much Warhawk would be as a downloadable.
“I’m not the person to make that decision. We were concerned about the changes we were going to make to Warhawk. I truly feel you have to take a gamer centric view when you make a game. I would love to see the game price more appropriately, I don’t want to see it priced full-priced.”
Then I asked him if he though t there is a stigma attached to downloadable games.
“I don’t think the success of iTunes have lead music producers to sit in a studio and lower their bar. Crap product will sell crap whether it is digital or on a store shelf. I think there is a stigma that download titles is shovel ware. I personally think it’s BS.”
“I think it’s a stigma, it’s there, it’s something we have to deal with. That is something Sony has to deal with. We are not going to try and cram some game into 10 megs or 20 megs. There is definitely a stigma. When we announced it into the team, one of our team members didn’t like that.”
“Sony’s commitment to their Playstation network transcends an arcade port. Proof is in the pudding. We have to put our product where our mouth is.”
GDC07: Capcom’s Inafune Slams Clover Producer
In a session with Capcom R&D head Keiji Inafune, the creator responsible for games like Dead Rising, Lost Planet and Mega Man, the topic turned to the recently closed Clover Studios. Session moderator N’Gai Croal asked Inafune about Clover’s gorgeous financial underperformers Okami and Viewtiful Joe.
He was about as blunt as one could be. Here’s the Q&A.
When you looked over the games that came from Clover Studios, why do you think that audiences didn’t respond to those games, Okami and Viewtiful Joe in particular, which got excellent reviews?
Perhaps I might get into trouble if I say this in front of people from the mass media. Games are not a work of art. It’s actually a product. If we think of it as a work of art, then… when we think about Picasso and Van Gogh’s paintings, the end result is beauty, so it doesn’t matter if you sell it or not. However for games, it’s a product. It is a commodity. The producer has to think about that.
Okami and Viewtiful Joe, I think, are wonderful games and because they are wonderful games I think, the job of the director was fantastic. But the producer didn’t do his work. The producers work is to make the team make good games and then sell those games. The producer has to do the promotion. They have to think about the promotion. The producer has to take those good games and think about how to deliver it to as many users as possible. Certainly to get good reviews is part of his job. However, the producer has to make sure the game sells [on par with the review]. I think the producer dropped the ball there. Capcom said they would do it, but Clover said “Oh, we’ll do it ourselves.” And I think this was a failure.
Great directors may exist in great numbers, however, if you don’t have a good producer it won’t lead to sales. And I think this Clover Studios example is a really good example of that.
Daaaamn! Who knew Keiji could be so harsh? Let’s hope Clover producer Atsushi Inaba has better sales success at his new venture Seeds.
