- David Reeves (president SCEE) tells customers to steal from Sony. This is what it looks like, here are his exact words: “We are a PAL market and we are going to do it in PAL and we are going to do it properly, you can wait for it and you can have it in good quality, you know you can get the stuff from Bittorrent if you want to and download PSP games, it’s up to you.” You can listen to it on this podcast.
- Are Rare going to deliver value to Microsoft at long last? This list of 10 rumoured Xbox 360 titles would definitely give Microsoft a whole pile of USPs if it is true. What is for sure is that this generation of console wars has turned out to be the most interesting by far, with many twists and turns.
- Oh the hypocrisy of the world. EIDOS roll out a new Tomb Raider “model” and the press, including the respected BBC (in technology!), fall over themselves in reporting it. A completely different reaction to Tera Patrick’s involvement in games. Judgemental or what? Alison Carroll, a 23 year-old gymnast, just serves as eye candy yet EIDOS come up with some amazing spin: “Tomb Raider: Underworld depicts Lara as we have never seen her before with movements and skills reminiscent of a highly skilled gymnast. Sharing Lara’s strength and grace, Alison is an experienced competitive gymnast who has performed and competed across the globe.” Basically tits sell games.
- BAFTA awards for games to reappear. A pity, it was such good news when they went. Firstly there are already enough different games awards so this is just confusing people. Secondly why are we letting the film industry give us awards, treating us condescendingly like a kid brother, when we are better in so many ways? Allowing this is an ELSPA failing.
- In the UK top 40 games there are fifteen titles each for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, six for the Microsoft Xbox 360, four for the Sony PlayStation 3 and none at all for the PlayStation 2, PSP and PC. No analyst would have predicted this twelve months ago. And for anyone who doesn’t believe in the damage that piracy does here is your proof of how PSP and boxed PC games have been destroyed.
- Rik Alexander boss of Monumental Games says it would need a billion dollars to take on World of Warcraft. And you could still fail. When, eventually, World of Warcraft is beaten it will not be by a “me too” imitator. It is far too entrenched for that and it will be very interesting to see what EA Mythic can do with Warhammer and the 808,000 beta applicants they have managed to recruit. The important thing is not to think in terms of your competitor but in terms of looking after potential customers. Anyone obsessed with World of Warcraft will not beat it. What is needed is an obsession with giving gamers the best possible experience.
- Codemasters boss, Rod Cousens, warns against outsourcing abroad holding up Race Driver Grid as an example of British development excellence. Yet Codemasters’ annual review boasts about developing in Malaysia. And their Malaysian General Manager, Maxime Villandre, says: “We have Race Driver Grid which was launched on May 30 in UK a major part of which was made in Malaysia.”
- Chinese online gaming market up 66% year on year reaching $645 million in Q2 08, with one title, Shenda, taking nearly 18% of that. Annualised that works out at over $460 million per year. From one title, from one country.
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Regular disclaimer: Piracy is bad.
PSP and PC games weren’t in the chart because of piracy (I’m not including PS2 into that) …so why were there so many DS games in there when everyone is pirating that too? It seems everyone and their dog is getting an R4 these days.
Maybe it’s because the DS is still getting regular releases? The PSP UMD format is terrible and put a lot of people off playing games using them discs. People started to use a memory card solution and from there the piracy ball started rolling. Chicken and egg stuff, that is.
The PC market has never got particularly high up in the game charts. It has very few releases, I don’t believe the charts have downloads in mind (even the music charts do now), some of the games are marketed out of the mainstream market by hardware (thus, The Sims and Football Manager do very well), and when things are released they are out several months down the line when everyone already has the game.
Why don’t you write a devil’s advocate article about piracy in some attempted to have a balanced view on the subject? To save the rest of us trying to add some balance at the end of everyone of your entries because you have blinkers on.
As for Sony’s “wait for it or pirate it”, I presume he doesn’t realise that most TVs don’t need to use PAL mode anymore thanks to HD and 60Hz options. After that a torrent is going to be of just a good quality. I don’t agree with piracy, but he puts up a better argument for importing since the prices are so much cheaper anyway.
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“… and boxed PC games have been destroyed.”
The truth is that the PC hasn’t had a really big title in 2008 yet (only poor addons, late console ports or a very good niche title like SoaSE), you might see that as the death of PC gaming but there are many titles on the horizon which might change your views and 2007 was still stuffed with many good PC games that did more than okay worldwide. It’s just a temporary drought.
And as BC says, you never need to look at the UK (nor the US in recent years) for high positions of PC games in the overall charts, that’s what the rest of Europe, and especially Germany, is for, always has been like that.
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Oh yeah, and Rare’s list of upcoming games …unlikely rumours, sequels to games they screwed up on, and xbla remakes. I know I’m excited.
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“EIDOS roll out a new Tomb Raider “model†and the press, including the respected BBC, fall over themselves in reporting it. A completely different reaction to Tera Patrick’s involvement in games.”
I’m not saying the new Tomb Raider girl is big news but there’s a vast difference between being a model and being a porn star. Say what you will about actresses and the ‘casting couch’ rumors/myths it’s one thing to sleep with someone for position but it’s quite another thing to sleep with someone on camera.