Wow, I can’t wait

(thanks to Doodlepants for the link!)

NPD Sales Data for US, February 2007

DS 485K
Wii 335K $249.99
PS2 295K $129.80
360 228K $389.00
PSP 176K
GBA 136K
PS3 127K $598.00

Ouch. Weak PS3 sales are somewhat understandable since the PS3 had almost no new games through the entire month of January and up to the end of February. However, in February 2006, the 360 managed to sell better than this with NPD reporting 161K US unit sales. The 360 was also still under heavy supply constraints at that time unlike the PS3 was this February.

On the bright side for PS3 fans, the good content has just started to roll in. VF5, flOw, F1, and Motorstorm have recently shipped. And the next week or two will probably be the best yet in terms of content:

• Calling All Cars
• Godfather
• Oblivion
• Virtua Tennis
• Go Puzzle
• Folding@home
• 1.6 firmware update with Remote Play and Background Downloading.

I can’t wait!

I’ve tried to play two 4-player PS2 games on my PS3 so far, and neither of them have worked.

First up, I tried to play my F1 game. It couldn’t recognize all four of my PS3 controllers. That was a while ago. Now I can’t even start the game anymore. So backwards compat for that game is totally broken.

Last night, I tried to play Champions of Norrath with four players, and again the game complained that it couldn’t find four controllers. I had all four of my PS3 controllers turned on, so that shouldn’t have been a problem. This is quite embarrassing when you have friends over and one in particular always has to find bad things to say about the PS3. (Although I must admit he didn’t give me a hard time about this.)

Has anybody else tried to play four-player PS2 games on the PS3? Has it worked for you? Inquiring minds want to know …

This is something that I’m really looking forward to. And it will be released with firmware 1.6 later this month. Right now you can do it but it’s just local remote play and that’s … lame to be honest.

But when global remote play is out later this month you can access your PS3s hard drive, memory sticks, anything hooked up to it via USB, for example a 500 GB hard drive like me And you’ll be able to access those files from any wireless hotspot in the world.

Remote Play to be added in Firmware 1.6

I saw this news posting about the Bluetooth controller connection issue, and I thought it would be a good topic for a poll. I had ignored this issue for a long time, because it never affected me. But two weeks ago it happened to my friend while we were playing on my PS3. His connection just got lost while in the middle of playing a game. It’s only happened the one time, but it’s quite annoying.

So my question is this: has the Bluetooth connection problem been a problem for you on your PS3? If so, how often?

Bluetooth connection issue arises with Sixaxis

Previous Poll Results:

What impresses you more?

* PlayStation Home: 75% (100)
* LittleBigPlanet: 25% (34)

Total Votes : 134

Here is a new preview video with gameplay footage from The Darkness.

This game looks great. This is from the talented dev team that did the Xbox/PC game “The Chronicles of Riddick”.

This is scheduled to be out for the PS3 and 360 this June. I can’t wait!

Sony recently launched a PlayStation Home Developer Network website. It’s worth checking out. Here are a few sections of the Q&A:

Q: What is the timeline for rollout?
Closed Beta (appx. 15,000 users): April - August
Open Beta (appx. 50,000 users): August - October
Service Live (50,000+): October

Q: What content will users be able to purchase from within Home?
Over time the range of content available to users will expand dramatically. If you consider Home to be a simulacra of the real world then most goods and services found within the real world could theoretically be replicated within Home. Initially all commercial transaction will be via the PLAYSTATION®Network (PSN) Store. Eventually users will be able to transact within the Home environment.

Q: Will I be able to trade items that I have bought or won with other Home users?
Ultimately, an auction service will be implemented that will allow users to sell their Home assets and user-created content to other users.

The initial PS3 Home download will be under 500MB and free of course. The first beta phase is going to be hard to get into. It’s limited to only 15,000. But there will be an open beta starting in August with a limit of 50,000. So keep your eye on this site for signing up.

PS3 home will most likely be accessible via the PSP and mobile phones over time. In your apartment when you leave all your possessions go with you, so if you have friends in your apartment and you just leave, your friends must leave your apartment too. At the moment users can’t visit your apartment while your away. But sony is working on a way to correct this in the long term.

And remember when Phil Harrison mentioned Grouper? It’s basically like YouTube, just a little different. I’ve been moving all my videos that I have on YouTube to Grouper. So I can show friends my videos from within home

Sony Computer Entertainment Developer Network

Microsoft’s Peter Moore famously introduced XNA as the “first step of creating a YouTube for videogames.” In the 3/8 1UP podcast, they said:

“XNA isn’t the YouTube of gaming, you have to work too hard.”

Bingo!

What I like about LittleBigPlanet, is regular people can realistically create mini-games. In the past there were products like RPG-Maker and Fighter-Maker, but those products were never very good. I really hope this game building genre gets fleshed out with more quality products.

The hurdle for indie games isn’t so much marketing or distribution, but actual development.

A quick summary of easy to hard approaches for hobbyist and indie developers:

• Easy User Created Content or end-user game builder products like LittleBigPlanet and RPG-Maker
• Medium Very simple games. Macromedia Flash is probably the major platform here, but many titles are done on other platforms such as C, Java, and .NET.
• Hard Advanced general purpose game engines. XNA is getting a lot of attention, but there is also Torque, TV3D, jME, and dozens of other PC centric engines. These are really high quality and powerful tools, but they require huge time and skill investments. This often crosses the line for most hobbyists from fun to work and from a practical hobby to a impractical pipe dream.

“I don’t think PS3 has the install base to support Rockstar’s investment in GTA IV on its own,” said Harrison.

Actually, that’s a pretty logical reason.

When development on GTA 3 was being planned, it was a big risk. It was a niche series with a small fan base. Up front money on a risky project is very desirable. However, GTA 4 was almost a guaranteed success, so the publisher would rather take more of the risk in exchange for a larger cross-platform audience.

The same thing happened with Harmonix’s music games. The early riskier projects were exclusives and when the series produced a runaway success, it eventually turned cross platform. I hope the same thing will happen in the other direction.

The other big question is where will the next surprise hits come from? The really great innovations are often completely unexpected.

Regardless, GTA 4 is the title I’m most excited about. I can’t wait for the trailer later this month.

IGN Post