This is Part 2 in a series where I describe why Streamed Gaming services like OnLive are unrealistic for the foreseeable future.  In Part 1, I talked about why the PC market won’t see Streamed gaming for at least a decade (and for all we know, the PC gaming market won’t exist in ten years).  In this part and the next, I will discuss why the next generation of video game consoles won’t use any streaming service.  (As well as go off on huge tangents about the make of those consoles.)

Streamed gaming has no appeal the the Big Three console manufacturers.  If the systems are basically just a dumb terminal for a server, the bar of entry into the console market drops drastically to anyone that can manufacture a custom PC case and stuff parts into it.  Streamed gaming kills their business model by taking the propriety away from it.  No game publisher will release a console exclusive when the cost to go cross-platform is negligible, and no consumer will want to buy multiple consoles where the only difference is the brand logo on the case.  Why would a consumer even BUY a console if their computer performs all its functions?

Now, this first point here just argues against the Big Three going into streamed gaming, not necessarily against the existence of Streamed Gaming.  (Which still won’t happen for ten years.)  But it means they will have a big incentive to slow down its proliferation.  Enter the next console cycle.

The first to launch their next system will be Nintendo.  Not because they feel any need to react to Sony or Microsoft, or even to get a head start, but because their next console has been in development for years already.  Remember that the Wii is essentially 2 GambeCubes strapped to a DVD player as far as horsepower goes, and that’s because at the start of its development, the Wii was going to be a GambeCube accessory (much like the Move and Kinect are now).  This is probably also the real reason the Wii wasn’t an HD console, as the project was originally made with the GambeCube hardware in mind and there wasn’t time to finish development of a full new console after they decided to make the Wii a standalone console.

With the successor to the Wii (for the rest of this article, we’ll call it the Wii2), Nintendo will be adding a lot of innovations.  Innovations are what has put Nintendo on the money train to the gold mine for the current console, and they’re not going to stop.

These innovations will make the Wii2 experience hard for an OnLive-like service to replicate it, or even directly compete with, but the primary goal for Nintendo will be to add immersion and bring more gamers into the market.  Expect to see at least the majority of the following to ship with the Wii2.

•    3D goggles.  Remember the Nintendo On hoax?  Remember how everyone believed it?  That’s because we all almost expected it.  Nintendo remembers what they wanted to do with the Virtual Boy, and the tech to do it right and do it at consumer pricing finally exists (you can go buy a pair of low-end stereoscopic goggles for under $200 today – that’s the consumer price; Nintendo could manufacture them for much cheaper).  It will include a pair of low-resolution (probably 720×480) lenses.  Like the 3DS, the 3D aspects of the games will probably only add immersion, because Nintendo will want you to hook it up to your TV for multiplayer games. Of course, to facilitate multiplayer games that require 3D, the console will let multiple goggle sets to be plugged in (or tethered if they’re wireless) to the console.
•    Or for simpler games, let your friends use their 3DS instead.  Or who knows, maybe they’ll just make each person network their entire consoles together for Wii2 multiplayer.
•    Expect a microphone on the goggles, or in the controller if 3D is accomplished with polarized lenses instead of stereoscopic goggles.
•    Expect the Wii2 to be backwards compatible with the Wii and GambeCube and have full Virtual Console access.
•    Expect some motion-controlled games.  Expect dual-layered DVD games just like the Wii and very little internal data storage.

I’ve been saving my most audacious prediction of the Wii2 for last, and it’s a doozy.  Go watch this video.  Now when you watch that, what’s the first application you think of for it?  Sure, you could drive a car with it or operate machinery, or make yourself a smart house that adjusts to your thoughts, but those are all things that you don’t want to accidentally misread your whimsical thoughts and take them as a command.  And it will still probably need years and years of refining to be good at high-precision tasks like prosthetics, robotic surgery, or flying Veritechs.

But hey, after computer interfaces for the disabled, the next consumer use of this tech is definitely going to be in video games, and Nintendo has almost undoubtedly pounced on this as their next big thing.  Half-assed implemented motion controls have already sold 75 million consoles and put eleven figures into the Big N’s bank account.  Brain Wave controls, even poorly realized, will make the Wii look like a dress rehearsal for what’s to come.

So this has been a big tangent away from OnLive and why it’s a pipe dream, so thanks for following me.  All this hardware is going to have to be sold, and the price tag for a single pair of goggles and a single brain wave reader is going to cost more than Nintendo could sell as a peripheral (and after the Wii’s success, why would they?), so expect the Wii2 between Summer 2012 and Christmas 2013.  This will be long before Nintendo could gather a network even close to capable of handling millions of high-bandwidth, low-ping (HPLB) connections across Japan, Europe, and North America.  And even then, they’d be cutting out a lot of people that don’t have access to HBLP connections (by half at least).  Now if you’re Nintendo, making the Wii2, that’s billions in sales you’re losing because your console doesn’t come with enough horsepower to run itself.

The other two consoles (Xbox 3 and PS4) will share a lot of these same motivations for not offering an OnLive-like service.  Neither Sony nor Microsoft wants to have their brand diluted by having their consoles be nothing more than a controller and a really long video cable.  Both will want to justify to publishers and developers that they can’t be replaced by a TiVo and a bluetooth controller.  Even though the Xbox 3 probably won’t have a disc drive, it will still make you download and install your games, otherwise its existence is invalid.

This is an article in response/agreement with Rich’s article from last week.

A pretty universal constant of the video games industry is that Michael Pachter is always wrong. The latest sound bites describe his prediction that services like Onlive will be major competitors for the Big Three console manufacturers, if the Big Three don’t themselves jump on the streamed gaming bandwagon.  This is crazy wrong and here’s a more in-depth explanation as to why.

For starters, quasi cloud-based gaming has been around for years now.  Garage Games’ Forgotten Empire: Legions streams game files to your PC as you play it.  It’s not streaming video, but it gives every advantage to the consumer that streamed gaming does, except for extremely low hardware requirements.  Despite this, gamers and businesses aren’t exactly flocking to this model.  To the casual gamer, it’s just one more plug-in to install.  For the hardcore, they’re used to installing games and they already have their high-end PCs and a fat bandwidth on their internet connections.  And as NamelessTed pointed out earlier this week, streamed gaming doesn’t really appeal to either the casual or the hardcore, and PC gamers are generally one of those extremes.

The internet infrastructure in the US doesn’t exist.  We have to be realistic here; internet connections in North America are barely good enough to play traditional FPSs multiplayer, where only kilobytes of data are being transferred per second.  Streamed gaming will require transfer rates megabytes per second, even with a high compression rate and only 30fps.  Now, most homes in North America these days can stream on-demand video at that kind of bandwidth just fine, but the key difference here is that kind of video is buffered.  A gaming service has to keep that high-bandwidth low-ping (HBLP) transfer rate up for the entirety of the gaming experience.  It can’t buffer in advance, nor stop to buffer mid-way.

And it’s not just the consumer side that matters here.  We’re talking crazy bandwidth on the server side.  Think of YouTube on steroids for the kind of outgoing bandwidth these servers will have to handle, but with much higher demands for a constant, un-interrupted stream while loads vary wildly as users log on and off.  The network doesn’t exist for this kind of service yet.  The combined costs of cloud-based computing with real-time requirements are higher than having the consumer buy their own gigahertz.

But these are just the reasons PC gaming won’t see Streamed Gaming for at least a decade.  Join me next time for Part 2: Why Console Gaming Won’t See Streamed Gaming.

Ron and I went to GameStop the other day and picked up an old used copy of an Xbox LIVE Arcade compilation disc. We were delightfully surprised when we watched this amazing marketing video. It was too good to not share with the world. Watch this video right now.

If you listen to our podcast (GolgoCast, listen, srsly) then you know that I have wanted to talk about Mass Effect 2 for a few weeks. Much to my chagrin though, Cory hasn’t played it yet, and probably won’t in the near future. Since I can’t talk about the game on GolgoCast, I decided to write a little ditty about a disappointing part of the game. Note that THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. And it’s also not for Corys.

If you know anything about Mass Effect 2 then you probably know that the whole game builds up to a major “suicide mission”. Most of the game is spent recruiting and gaining the loyalty squad members in hopes that you will survive the mission of the suicide. If you don’t recruit all the squad members, or gain their loyalty, there is an increased chance that members of your squad may die during the mission… including Shepard.

I really liked this idea on paper, but I think it could have been executed better. The first problem you’ll run into is that you need to upgrade your ship completely or it will be partially destroyed during the initial attack. This, of course, will cause a completely random character to die before anything else happens. The second problem is that you need the loyalty of everybody, even if you don’t care if the person dies or not. If one person is not loyal, that can lead to a different random character dying. On top of that, it is possible for a random character to get shot and die in a cut-scene even if you have done all the ship upgrades and loyalty missions.

One thing that I do like about the end of the game is that it forces you to make several decisions which may or may not lead to a squad member dying. You have to choose who will lead the second team, who will go up the ventilation shaft, who will go back to the Normandy with the crew, and who will hold up the Barrier. If you choose the correct people then all of your members will survive, but if you choose wrong then one or two of them might die.

After my brother finished the game I happened to chat with him about it. He had completed all of the loyalty missions and the ship upgrades, and also had two of his characters die during the final mission (one by complete random and another by a bad choice). He asked which two of my own characters died, thinking I wasn’t as balls to the wall awesome as him. He was then quite surprised when I told him that I actually got through the whole ending without anybody dying, and even moreso when I pumped the most awesome rock fist into the air. I guess he just assumed that two of the characters had to die, but then again he is not as awesome as I.

This issue of random character death, and some of the character interactions and development, could have been better executed. While the Mass Effect 2 loyalty sidequests are well designed, I think Dragon Age managed to have more dynamic characters and seemingly deeper decision making. Instead of just having a sidequest to gain the loyalty of a character, almost anything can play into whether or not any of the squad members is loyal to you or not.

Rather than recruiting the character and then completing their sidequest to keep them loyal through the whole game, DA characters can go back and forth based on the decisions you make. Each character will receive different levels of bonuses in combat depending on how much they like you. If you have a character in your party and make decisions that they don’t agree with, they will express their discontent and their loyalty towards you will diminish. If you don’t keep your characters on your side there is even a chance that they will leave you or turn against and then you may have to kill them.

I do really like the fact that everything from Mass Effect 2 will be crossing over into ME3. This might be part of the reason for a slightly simpler character system. It is safe to assume that things get more complicated as you add more decisions that need to transfer into the next series in the title. I don’t even know how they are going to pull off a 3rd game with the possibility of Shepard being either dead or alive. I am definitely planning on having a play through where all the squad and Shepard dies because I really want to see how that turns out. The game is still amazing and I hope that the game’s DLC is enough to hold me over until ME3 comes out.

First of all, let me point out that I am very excited for Dragon Age and can’t wait to play it. Secondly, let me tell you that this is the most ridiculous news that I have heard in a while. BioWare has decided to have not one, not two, but three different DLC packs available on day one.

The first DLC is titled Warden’s Keep and will sell for 560 Microsoft Points ($7) which will add a new quest, several new abilities and items as well as a market area. The second DLC is titled The Stone Prisoner and will be free to players that purchase the game new but will cost 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) to anybody else. The Stone Prisoner is a character that will be unlocked at the beginning of the game as a party member. The last piece of DLC is also free and only available with new copies of the game which provides you with some really kick-ass Blood Dragon Armor in both Dragon Age as well as Mass Effect 2.

Let me start with the last bit of DLC and work my way to the first. The Blood Dragon Armor is fucking awesome. It is great that they would add something like this into not only Dragon Age but also Mass Effect 2. It is like a nice little present to everybody who buys the game new and in no way does a single piece of armor effect the overall game. Kudos to BioWare for Blood Armor.

The Stone Prisoner DLC gives me very mixed feelings. From a business point of view, I can understand where BioWare is coming from. They want to encourage new video game sales by charging $15 for a part of the game that you would otherwise get for free. My major complaint about this is that it seems like they are taking a full game and cutting part of it out and only giving it back to new game purchasers, or over charging for it. My second major complaint is that I believe that people shouldn’t be required to connect to LIVE in order to get the full video game that they paid for.

And last but not least, the Warden’s Keep DLC. This shit pisses me off so much I’m not even sure where to begin. I don’t know if this was BioWare’s idea or if it is something that EA is making them do but it is unacceptable. If there is game content that is done and ready to ship with the game, then you better fucking ship that content with the game, ON THE FUCKING DISC.

This is exactly what Alon predicted several years ago and I disagreed with him. I guess I was wrong, and sadly so. This is just completely unacceptable from a developer like BioWare which I consider to be one of the best in the industry. The whole thing just seems like they are trying to fuck more money out of the customer and it is completely inappropriate.

I don’t know how much more I can describe how much this news has pissed me off. The strictly paid DLC is completely retarded and I am on the fence about new copies of the game receiving free DLC. At the end of the day I would really like to hear from somebody at BioWare to figure out what their rationale behind these decisions was.

[via BioWare]

So Josh has been yelling at me for 3 days to write an article that includes a bunch of pictures of cosplayers from this year’s San Diego ComicCon, both good and bad. I went through a bunch of pictures on a few different sites and found some of my favorite and will now share them with you.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say here other than that these posters look superb and I want them on my wall right now. We have seen very little on Halo Legends but so far I am fucking loving the anime vibe in the Halo world, this art makes me feel all good inside. Seriously, just check out the gallery already.
[via Polygamia]

As you may have already read, I wrote up a beginner’s guide to modding Fallout 3 last week and am just now getting around to writing the second in the series. This week I tested out a whole bunch of user interface modifications and came up with 4 mods that I now find essential to playing the game. Before I get into the details of the different mods I am just going to rehash a couple of main points on modding.

At this I assume you already have FOMM installed and have clicked that nice little button labeled “Toggle invalidation” in order to enable that feature. If you haven’t done it, do it now. The second thing I want to mention is that all the files you will be downloading will need to go in the Data folder located in your Fallout 3 directory. If you have done those two thing everything should be good to go so let’s take a look at some mods.

MTUI:

As you should be able to tell this mod will make it much easier to scroll through the different dialogue choices. Aside from talking, it also makes similar changes to pretty much everything that involves text: item trading, leveling up, system setting, you name it. If any of you have played this game then I don’t need to tell you how annoying it is when you can only see a few lines of text at a time. Head on over to Fallout 3 Nexus and download it.

Color Hi Detailed map and icons:

Don’t worry, this mod won’t change the language, it just adds a map that is much easier to see. The main Fallout 3 isn’t all that bad but this is just so much easier to read. Not only is the map colored the icons are as well which makes this mod that much better. One thing to note with this mod, you will want to go into your display settings and change the pip-boy color to white otherwise you won’t be able to see jack shit. Download.

Item Descriptions:

For whatever reason I really didn’t want to use this mod when I first saw it but it really is a must-have. This mod only adds to the amazing world of Fallout 3 by adding more details about all the items that you may come across in your journey across the wasteland. To install this mod you will, of course, copy the content into the Data fold but there is one extra step. First you need to make sure the file “Item Descriptions Img.esp” is inside the Data folder then when you launch FOMM you will need to check the box next to file name. Download.

Interface Mod – Revelation:

This mod changes quite a bit more than the previously mentioned mods. I know that this mod will not be for everybody which is why I recommended MTUI first. This mod brings back a look much more familiar to those that have played any of the original Fallout titles. I actually use this mod in conjunction with MTUI because that mod makes a few changes to the pip-boy interface that this mod does not. If you want to use both you will want to copy the MTUI files into the data folder first, and then copy the files for Revelation into the data folder and overwrite all of the other files. One thing I need to point out with this mod as well is that every now and then you will notice a stutter when a menu pops up because it essentially makes the game load an image when it wasn’t expecting to so it won’t be in RAM ready to go. This stutter doesn’t bother me but others may not like it. Download.

Mouse Acceleration Fix:

This mod doesn’t require you to download anything but you will need to make a modification to your .ini file. If you didn’t know, the in game menus have a strange mouse acceleration property that not everybody likes, myself included. The first step here is to locate the FALLOUT.ini file. It will be located in you “My Documents/My Games/Fallout 3″ directory. You will want to open that file in notepad and scroll down a little ways until you find the section labeled [Controls]. All you need to do is add these four lines of text to that section and then save the file:

fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0
fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0
fForegroundMouseBase=0
fForegroundMouseMult=0

So that concludes this week of Fallout 3 modding goodness. I always recommend you checkout Fallout 3 Nexus to see if you find some other mods that you like. I will be doing more of these article and take on a different category each week. I have already been playing around with a handful of model and texture mods as well as some mods that are significant gameplay changers. And what fun would traveling the wasteland for the third time be without some cheats and god items?

Last week, on a whim, I decided to read a couple articles about David Jones, the creator of Crackdown (the videogame, for realz). Apparently he found used games in his vagina and is now contributing their sale to the lack of new games sold. In particular, his game. This also reminded me of when I read about how Dead Space sold 1.5 million copies while 3 million people have played it. This may sound alarming, but I assure you it is not. What is alarming though, is how much publishers and developers are bitching about the used game market.

To them I have one thing to say; suck my fucking cock.

Quote time! This one is from David Jones:

With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even. It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop’s amazing used-game sales; we know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it’s likely there were 2.5, three million sold when you include used.

Oh how I <3 quotes, they make the article longer and I don't have to write anything! But anyway, someone should tell him selling 1.5 million games is a GOOD THING. It was brand new IP for godsakes, of the top 75 best selling games on the Xbox 360 only 11 were new IP! Stop bitching, it's not like you shipped Too Human, you sold one of the best selling games (and one of the more fun games) for the Xbox 360. I'm sure you can add that to your resume.

Now it's time to address the issue at hand, the blame everyone lays on Gamestop and the used game market in general. You have to understand something, people who buy used games DON'T BUY NEW GAMES, although there are some exceptions. Everyone knows the first one, if the games is the fucking bee's knees people will go out and buy it. Other than that, used game buyers generally break their rules for Madden and Halo, but I'm sure they purchase these by trading in all their used games. The second part to this issue is the fact that the market exists, and this cannot change. Whenever you sell something to someone there will always be a method of them pawning it off to someone else. You can't stop Johnny from selling something HE OWNS, so stop complaining you twats. If Gamestop didn't exist it would happen somewhere else, and the same people who hate paying full price would seek out where. This may shock folks in the videogame industry, but not everyone out there gets paid tons of money to design videogames.

When it comes to his 3 million dollar mark, he's completely delusional. He obviously budged for at least 2.5 million copies to be sold of his game, and the game was obviously not appealing enough to sell 2.5 million copies. It's not because people were being sneaky-sneaky and stealing Crackdown or copying their friend's copy, they weren't buying it. Who knows how many copies were sold just so people could play Halo 3, maybe without it he would of only sold 1.1 million copies.

In short: David, it's not our fault you just broke even, it's your fault for spending too much money and being a general douche.

Love,

Rich

So I recently installed Fallout 3 and started playing it again on my PC. I never actually beat the game before because I started doing a whole bunch of side quests and wandering around. Anyways, I decided that I wanted to check out some of the mods for the game to see if any of them were any good. When I first started looking for mods I came across several websites, only two of which that are actually decent: Fallout 3 Nexus and No Mutants Allowed. NMA had fewer mods and were easy to sort while Nexus has what seems to be every Fallout 3 mod in existence.

The similarity between both sites is that they had mods that referenced something called “ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated!”. Of course I had no idea what this thing was and started reading into it. Everybody was saying that you needed it in order for some mods to work, you don’t. Well, technically you do, but the newest version of Fallout Mod Manager has it integrated.

The Mod Manager is one of the most essential tools, by the way. If you have any of the DLC and start to add more than a couple of mods, or any retexture mods, you need to have it. The Fallout Script Extender is also something you will likely need. It is only required for certain mods but I recommend going ahead and download it to get it out of the way, just in case. But, before you do any of this, I highly recommend updating your installation of Fallout 3 to the newest version as things will likely completely fail on an older version. You can update your game using LIVE but I recommend that you not because it takes way too long and has problems. Instead, go here and download the updater directly from Bethesda’s website.

Good, now that you have Fallout 3 updated you can get FOMM and FOSE installed. What you want to do now is go and download FOMM here. At the time of this writing the newest version is 0.9.15, of course you should downloaded the newest version that is available. The installer will automatically detect where you have Fallout 3 installed so just click through the install process and everything will be taken care of.

The last bit you need to do to prepare for getting mods running is to get FOSE installed; you can find both the stable and newest beta builds here. Personally, I am running the beta version right now, I’m not sure what the difference is between the stable, check the change log. You will want to download the .7zip file and copy it to your Fallout 3 directory and then extract the files. It shouldn’t overwrite any files but if it asks, go ahead and overwrite old files. Don’t worry, this won’t break anything.

Next you will want to launch the Mod Manager from the “fomm” folder. If you are running on a previous install of Fallout 3 and have the DLC downloaded over LIVE it will detect them and ask if you want to move the files into the Data folder, I recommend that you do this. The second thing you will need to do is click the litter button that says “Toggle Invalidation”. This will enable the ability to throw any custom skins and meshes into the Data folder and have them work automatically.

And there you have it, everything is now done to allow you to start downloading different mods for the game and it will be easy to enable and disable them easily. I recommend you head on over to Fallout 3 Nexus and take a look at some mods to try out. All you need to do is dump the files for the mod into the “Data” folder that is in your Fallout 3 directory and and then launch FOMM, which will have its own folder within the Fallout 3 directory. I have been checking out a lot of different mods and and going to be compiling a list of my favorite mods that I feel are essential to making the game even better. Until then I recommend checking out the Top 50 on Nexus.

Note 1: One thing I have noticed recently is every now and then my game will crash. It isn’t often, maybe once every 5 hours or so. My guess is that it is from the beta version of FOSE that I have so I save manually often.

Note 2: If you plan on using Games for Windows LIVE so you can get achievements then you have two options. You can just skip FOSE as most mods will work without it or if you have FOSE files copied over then just launch then you just want to enable the mods through FOMM, then close it and just launch Fallout3.exe. The reason being is that LIVE sees the FOSE as a cheat program.

Last week on the podcast Josh brought up some news about Dana White and his position towards EA during our podcast. Basically, White had stated that anybody who appears in EA’s MMA game will be banned from fighting in the UFC. This seemed a little extreme and the best reason that I could think of was that it might conflict with some sort of contract that the UFC had with THQ. As it turns out, Dana White just hates EA.

One thing I love about White is that he never shies away from controversy. When talking about EA he says that he is “not tap-dancing around this things or whatever, I’m telling you straight-up I’m at ware with them right now. That’s how I look at it.” He also adds that “its easy to sit on the other side of the table and judge me on how I react to stuff like this, but let me tell you what – I’ve been in the trenches for almost 10 years, and I’ve been dealing with all these businesses, and EA was one of them.”

White also mentions EA’s overall negative attitude towards MMA overall. White claims that when they first approached EA they wouldn’t even meet with him and told him that they didn’t think MMA was a real sport and wanted nothing to do with it.

[via MMA Junkie]

You should know by now that I am going to post pretty much any and all Dragon Age Origins screenshots and videos. We got three new videos and 15 new screenshots today so take a gander. Not a whole lot to say about them, the screenshots look pretty and shows some crazy giant creature. The three videos drag on a bit but they are just showing some action fighting some crazy shape-shifting beast.

By now, you have probably heard all about OnLive, but I doubt you’ve heard of Gaikai. Gaikai was actually the first interactive-game-streaming nonsense to be announced, Onlive came later. Now I have certain choice words for both products, both good and bad, but before I elaborate watch this awesome video:

So lookie there, full real-life video games running in a web browser, albeit running flash. In the video Perry clearly states he is, “using Firefox with no plug-ins, no installs, nothing”, yet you have to install Flash to make it work. I guess if he was using the new fancy HTML 5 standard in Firefox 3.5 he could pull it off, but I really doubt it. I know I’m nit-picking here, but it’s still important to note.

When OnLive was first shown at GDC this year, lots of people were saying really good things about it. Being the dark minded sycophant that I am, my thoughts were mostly negative. But hey, that’s how I roll. In my defense, part of my hatred was the concept of a system where you never own the game. What you’re really doing is renting access from a server, and that doesn’t sit too well with me. I’d also like them to be more transparent when it comes to the backend, until then I’ll be skeptical that this thing can actually run smoothly.

While I still have reservations with the renting part, seeing Gaikai in action really got me thinking about its potential. Three things really piqued my interest: Mario kart 64, World of Warcraft, and Photoshop. I know Nintendo would never officially let Mario Kart 64 on Gaikai, but the concept is still valid. This would make re-releasing classic titles that much easier, and in turn allow more people to experience them. As far as WoW goes, it would be amazing if it actually worked in the first place. Just think, you wouldn’t have to install a 10GB game and then patch it for the next 20 hours. Any current or future patches would be done server side; just open a browser, sign in, and play.

Of course if they actually had all 12 million WoW players playing through Gaikai, who knows what it would require. Which makes me wonder, how many people could they fit on a server? I know my brother has tested his computer out and got 3 windowed instances of WoW running simultaneiously – with a solid 60fps in each window and the highest setting on each. I’m sure you could fit a bunch more instances on an actual beefy server, at which point you would only need to worry about bandwidth. Luckily, it looks minimal, which will definitely help out our ‘rural gamers’.

Now about Photoshop, this is something completely different from what OnLive has demonstrated. I would first like to say that I don’t think people will latch onto this delivery method in the professional world. Studios will always want their applications to run as fast as possible, and running programs like Photoshop or 3DS Max (if it becomes available) local is the way to go. I do think that this might useful for people who are out of town or not in their office, they could easily utilize the server to make a quick edit wherever they are. Heck, they could even use it on their Netbook. I could also see this type of service for a start-up or a smaller studio because they might not want to make the initial investment in the high end workstations along with the licenses for the software.

But let me get back to the main point in all of this, videogames. When I think about the type of videogames that I play on a regular basis, I don’t think this service would be good enough. Granted I am a minority in the market as I do have a $1500 computer and can run games on their highest settings at 1680×1050. It could be that this is the reason I only see this service really working for either MMOs or in the handheld market. The high-end visuals don’t matter as much in those markets and maybe all that those people want is to play a wider variety of games at a fraction of the cost.

I can see where this service may be viable but I am still not convinced. At GDC I think OnLive had 10-20 units playing games, for all we know they had a $4000 server running for each person that was playing, and they didn’t even show up for E3. Until these companies show more of their back-end and are able to demonstrate their technology working on a larger scale I will remain skeptical. Hopefully, we will be able to get more information soon.

In case you haven’t heard, the XBLA version of Battlefield 1943 is a bit wonky. The word wonky can be a bit general, so let me specify: THE GAME DOESN’T FUCKING WORK. Yes that’s right dear readers, you will pay $15 dollars only for having the pleasure of owning another EA title, rather than being able to play it. Internet peoples have been reporting that they either cannot connect to servers, or get extreme lag when they do. So why are these mouthbreathers complaining then, can’t they play single player? No you fucking cunt, the game is online only. But then again you take these sort of chances when purchasing an EA game, or should we say, interactive-titlescreen-demos.

The only reason I post this is because I read a recent tumblr blog post from Mr. Ron Workman himself which is titled “Dear EA Games: Fuck Your Shit!”

Microsoft allowing EA to do this bullshit is too far. This is the 3rd EA XBLA title that has not worked at all for me (as well as many many others). Other dev’s have to fight to get games up on XBLA and EA can swoop in and throw a non-working broken pile of shit on there. This has to stop.

Allowing EA to use its own servers as well as its own logins on Xbox Live is bullshit as well. Someone (An actual journalist) needs to really lay this one out. Out of all of the problems people deal with, this one is serious and allowing EA to bend to rules this far and also fuck it up is really over the top.

I just realized most of you have no idea what I am talking about. Battlefield 1943 on XBLA as well as any of the old Draft/Fantasy sports games published by EA just dont work. This one is a new major release, online gameplay only (the others also), and you can’t play it. 15 bucks and you can only attempt to connect. It will not play. It sucks when smaller dev’s fight for a year or more to get a game through certification and EA is allowed to come in and do this.

These games all cost me real money and to date I have not been able to play them. Contacting EA in the past did little to nothing. It shouldn’t have anything to do with them. I don’t call ESPN when my cable goes out, so why should I contact EA when something won’t work on Xbox Live?

-Ron Workman

Look how he speaks the truth. He’s like a modern day preacher, in fact he’s a lot more relevant than Reverend Al Sharpton. But I digress, I agree with what Ron has to say. Independent/Smaller Developers work their asses off to make a game meets all the rules that MS requires, while EA can take a giant dump, somehow digitize it, and then upload to XBL. First off, no company should be able to host their own servers, that’s the whole reason that XBL exists! You pay 50 bucks for a reason, and it’s not to play on EA’s shitty servers (probably powered by third world children running in hamster wheels or some evil shit). EA basically undermines the entire system by running their own servers, and then failing to support them and their own game.

Seriously EA, get your shit together.

This is the best news I have heard in a while. For those of you who don’t know, ZeniMax Media is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, creator of The Elder Scrolls series as well as Fallout 3. ZeniMax announced today in a press release that their acquisition of id Software has been completed. ZeniMax CEO, Robert Altman, has this to say about it:

We, along with many others, consider id Software to be among the finest game studios in the world, with extraordinary design, artistic and technical capabilities. They have demonstrated, repeatedly, that rare ability to create franchise properties that are critical and commercial successes. Our intention is to make sure id Software will continue to do what they do best – make AAA games. Our role will be to provide publisher support through Bethesda Softworks and give id Software the resources it needs to grow and expand.

John Carmack adds that this merger-of-sorts “puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward.” He also states in an interview with Kotaku that they were “really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured, and we’ve really gotten more IPs than we’ve been able to take advantage of. And working with other companies hasn’t been working out as spectacularly as it could.”

While RAGE will be published by EA, as id already has a contract with them, Doom 4 and any other future titles with be published through Bethesda Softworks. As I mentioned above, this news excites me. id Software has done extremely well as an independent developer, but I think having a dedicated publisher will work out very well for them – especially a publisher like Bethesda Softworks.

Now that id Software is a part of ZeniMax they will be able to completely focus on the development of their id Tech 5 engine as well as finishing RAGE. John Carmack has said before that their focus is on making video games and not licensing their engine. Further more, he stated that he would only let selected developers use the engine. This is something that I never agreed with Carmack about, I think we need as many developers using the Tech 5 engine as possible.

I don’t want to get into all the technical details but Tech 5 puts the Unreal Engine 5 to shame in regards to visual quality, flexibility, and development. Tech 5 is a big step forward in technology, and will be able to deliver a higher end visual experience than what is available on the market. It will also be playable across consoles and lower end PCs and will be able to slip between operating systems with the slightest of ease. I just hope that ZeniMax sees the licensing potential of the id Tech 5 engine.

[source shacknews]

You see, people, you just need to trust Valve; they know what the fuck they are doing. Valve posted on their L4D blog yesterday (June 19th, if you can’t tell time) details of a new update. They have completely integrated a new “add-ons” segment that will allow you to easily download user created campaigns and play them in the game. They will also be bringing their Authoring Tools out of beta with a few bug fixes.

The new system actually sounds really cool and I hope that Valve will be able to adopt the same or similar system for their other games where applicable. Basically, anybody that is using the L4D SDK to create maps or new campaign will be able to publish their work in a nice VPK file. This file will be able to house any of the creator’s unique maps, posters, models, and textures that are needed to play the campaign. All the end-user needs to do is download the file, double click it, and then play.

With these new player created campaigns also comes a slight upgrade to the matchmaking system. Instead of just choosing from the standard Valve created campaigns, you will be able to select any of the custom campaigns that you have installed; matchmaking will work for them as well so you can find some internet friends to play with.

This update comes less than a month after the announcement of L4D2 and countless complaining from the community. This update really shows how Valve operates and that they really do value their community. One thing that I would like to see is if Valve could somehow take a small collection of the best community campaigns, and put them up on Xbox LIVE. Not that I play L4D on the 360, but that would be tits.

There is all sorts of juicy news regarding Halo 3: ODST over the last couple of days so let me get right to it.

First is the announcement of Sgt. Johnson. You will get to play as him in the new gamemode, Firefight (basically Horde from Gears of War 2, except it’s Halo). Of course, if you want to play as Sgt. Johnson you will need to pre-order the game to prove your love of the Halo franchise, otherwise you will be stuck with the standard characters. Check out the gallery after the jump for the new screenshots and more fun tidbits.

The other bit of news that has surfaced is the pricing for ODST. The game will retail at the standard $60 while the Gamestop exclusive Collector’s Edition, which will include the ODST themed wireless controller, will be $100. At first glance these prices don’t seem that odd and would be expected for any new Halo game. But, if you look back at previous statements from Bungie employees, this pricing model doesn’t match up.

Way back in November when Halo: Recon (as it was previously titled) was announced Joe Staten said, “We do not view this as a $60 title.” Brian Jarrard also stated, “This is definitely a subset of [Halo 3]. I think this is going to be a good value and a lot of content but we’re not viewing this as sort of a full game release in the sense of Halo 3.” The first quote is very straight forward whereas the second one is a bit more vague; though anybody should be able to figure out that the game was never initially planned to be a full $60 retail release. Joystiq noticed the pricing inconsistency and contacted Microsoft and received a reply from a spokesperson stating,

At the time of those statements, the overall scope of Halo 3: ODST was not yet finalized, and since then the project has grown increasingly more ambitious. We believe this standalone experience is much more than just an expansion. Halo 3: ODST provides a new campaign from the point of view of an entirely new character. Combine that with three new multiplayer maps, the entirely new cooperative mode called Firefight, and the complete Halo 3 multiplayer collection on a standalone disc, we feel this is a good value and tremendous addition to the Halo franchise.

This sounds like pretty good reasoning to me. I mean, you are getting the new campaign with the 4 player coop, plus you are getting the new Firefight game mode as well as 3 new multiplayer maps. On top of that you are getting the ENTIRE Halo 3 multiplayer experience which includes all four map packs that have released since launch as well as access to Sandbox and Forge. You also have to consider that the game comes with a slew of new achievements: the ability to obtain the coveted Recon Armor, as well as access to the Halo: Reach beta (a game which we know nothing about) and you have a shit ton of content on one disc for $60.

For a newcomer to the series, this actually is a really good deal. But for all of the Halo fans that buy the map packs when they come out, this is a big hard slap in the face. Anybody who purchased Halo 3 already bought the multiplayer aspect of that game, so why would they pay for it again? They make it sound like including the multiplayer is a huge deal, but it really isn’t, it is expected. When ODST was first announced they said it would be a 3-5 hour campaign, that sounds like $10-15 DLC to me, not a full $60 retail release. I would hope that the campaign has turned into at least 10 hours or Bungie might be hearing a lot of noise from their community.

I don’t know how ODST turned into the full $60 game that they have decided on, but they better make it worth every penny. The only new content that will be on the disc is the 5 hour campaign, 3 new maps, and the new Firefight mode. All of the content that will be copy pasta from Halo 3 shouldn’t qualify as a reason to charge $60. I think the retail version works fine as a standalone product, but they should really consider providing the content in some sort of DLC for current Halo 3 owners – albeit at a lower price.