This morning I updated to firmware 2.30 on my PS3, and tried out the new PLAYSTATION Store. I was surprised by how quick it booted up once I hit the X. That was nice. The new interface looks very nice as well, as you’ve all probably figured out from the screenshots and videos.

I think it’s a shame that the store caters to those with 4:3 aspect ratio televisions. Lots of us own HDTV’s, so it would be nice if that wasted space was being used. Used by what? More content of course. But there’s a problem with that…

The store is slow.

Not the interface. The interface is quick. If you drill down or up, or click on a game or video, the next screen comes up quickly, which is nice

Downloading content is slow. Click on a category, and you have to wait a long time for all the icons to fill up. And this will only get worse. I was trying the store at 8:45am EST, before the people on the west coast were even awake. And even then, content was slow to come up. I hope Sony works on fixing this.

One of the new features of the store is the preview functionality. With it, certain select titles have screenshots or videos that you can video. And when I say “certain select”, I’m not kidding. I found one title with a couple screenshots, and about three titles with videos. Of course, I didn’t check them all, but I checked quite a few. I assume that Sony will try to have previews for new content, and not care so much about content that’s already on there. But who knows, maybe Sony will surprise us.

All in all, the new store is nice. It’s quite an upgrade over the old one. I just hope that the performance issues will be resolved.

N’Gai Croal says that this is due to lack of wealth and assets among African Americans:

If you happened to have a trust fund or your parents were going to give you a credit card or things like that, then you could make it into those professions. Otherwise you would have to look into other fields.

Trust funds? Huh? Most game programmers don’t come from the wealthy, privileged elite. They tend to be introverted, rebellious, self-taught programmers who received extremely little formal education or support and started their career as a hobby of passion while working a traditional day job. Game testers, which is the traditional easy way into the industry, don’t come from the wealthy elite either.

a lot of black students go to college with a different mission in mind. It’s not to find yourself or figure out what you want to do or whatever. It’s very pre-professional. It’s pre-law, it’s pre-med, engineering, business, things like that.

If I was involved in public policy and was trying to improve the well being of a particular group, I’d value careers in medicine, law, engineering, and business well above video game careers.

I think N’Gai Croal is completely wrong on this one. It’s easy to accuse people of elite wealth and trust-funds, and suggest more big government, paternal academia, and public policies. But that’s simply not the answer here.

I would suggest that there are not merely fewer professional game developers from this particular ethnic group, but also fewer hobbyist developers as well which is what feeds the employment pool. And that is caused by culture, personality, and personal preference rather than financial barriers.

Plenty of Predator and Alien action this week. At last Predator 1 hits Blu-ray. I’ve been waiting for that for a while. Anything for your this week?

* Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (Fox)
* Alien vs. Predator/Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (Two-Pack) (Fox)
* Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Image)
* Commando (Fox)
* Juno (Fox)
* Mariah Carey: The Adventures of Mimi (Image)
* A Passage to India (Sony)
* Predator (Fox)

Blu-ray.com

The PlayStation Store will be unavailable for around 15hrs (if everything goes to plan ) from April 14th, in readiness for the new and improved PS Store:

The PLAYSTATION®Network will be taken offline for a scheduled maintenance to our network during the following times:

Start: April 14, 2008, beginning at 8:00 a.m., Pacific Time
End: April 14, 2008, ending at 11:00 p.m., Pacific Time

During this time, the new PLAYSTATION®Store upgrade will be taking place. As a result access to the PLAYSTATION Network will be restricted, including:

* No access to the PLAYSTATION®Store

For information regarding the changes to the PLAYSTATION Store, please visit the PlayStation.Blog.

It is not anticipated that this will affect other PLAYSTATION Network services

Once the new PLAYSTATION Store upgrade is complete, a new system software version will be available for download. This new system software must be installed before you may access the PLAYSTATION Network.

The times are obviously North American but the other stores should also be unavailable around the same time. I’m looking forward to the new design and hopefully a lot more new content on a more regular basis.

NA PlayStation Store scheduled for some downtime

When they say teaser, they really mean it. Not much here, but what is here is cool:

Resistance 2 - GTTV Exclusive Teaser HD

I just saw this video today of Resistance pre-release footage (from Resistance 1. Resistance 2 footage supposedly hits later today), and it reminded me why this is easily my favorite title in such an over-crowded genre (for campaign mode. I think other titles have Resistance beat in multiplayer fun).

I definitely need to replay this one when I get an HDTV.

UPDATE: Resistance 2 teaser is merely an announcement of the real gameplay footage to come on June 13.

Looks like next week is going to be a massive week for everything concerned with the PSN, what with the revamped PS Store, Firmware 2.30 and the Metal Gear Online Beta, which has now been confirmed for European MGS fans:

Konami has confirmed details of the Metal Gear Online Beta dates for Europe, with the game available for download on April 17 before going live on April 21 through to May 6.

The dates keep it in line with the Japanese Beta window, and the test pack includes the two maps ‘Blood Bath’ and ‘Groznyi Grad’. It will be available for download from the PlayStation store from April 17, and Konami is expecting congested servers so are allowing a four day window for everyone to get their hands on the game before pushing it live on April 21.

That’s next Thursday. Hopefully I’ll be able to download it without any problems! I wonder if the servers will be region locked…I wouldn’t mind meeting up with Tosh for some neck snapping shenanigans.

Metal Gear Online Beta Dated for Europe

As reader Riggins44 pointed out to me, DTS MA is coming to the PS3. Finally. DTS Master Audio is one of Blu-ray’s audio formats, supported mostly by Fox if I remember correctly. It’s a lossless codec that would sound really awesome if you have the ears and home theater to hear the difference. Home theater buffs have been waiting for this for a long time. And it’ll be in the 2.30 firmware update. Here’s the salient part of DTS’ press release:

DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO NOW AVAILABLE FOR PLAYSTATION 3 COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

“PS3 was designed to enable delivery of new and improved technologies like DTS-HD Master Audio,” said Teiji Yutaka, Senior Vice President, Software Platform Development, SCE. “So we are delighted to be able to offer this capability to PS3 users.”

DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO NOW AVAILABLE FOR PLAYSTATION 3

Surfer Girl reports on suspected game developer workplace problems at Bioware and asks:

Finally, I would encourage journalists to regularly devote coverage to [Quality of Life] issues.

What do you think?

Here’s why I don’t normally post about developer workplace issues:

• I’m definitely sympathetic to game developers but do they deserve special attention beyond other workers? Probably not.
• This is a free society. It’s the responsibility of employees and employers to get the most attractive deals that they can. If an employee (or an employer) is getting a bad or unfair deal, it’s their responsibility to improve their deal or get out of the bad relationship and move on to better ones.
• Workplace atrocities are he said/she said type situations. Look at some of the well publicized workplace atrocities such as the EA Spouse incident. That may be completely legit but it could also be someone just overreacting and I don’t think the blogosphere crowd is in a good position to make that judgment. Also, the worst atrocities probably aren’t the most media-genic ones. I’m sure things a hundred times worse happened than the EA Spouse incident, but those made crappy blog snippets so no one talks about them.
• Even if we can judge, what are we going to do? Journalists (of which us bloggers are a lower form) can bring awareness to such issues, which isn’t a bad thing, but I’m skeptical of the benefit that will provide. Other sites (such as dice or monster) are much better suited for serious career advice and workplace concerns. Also, good friends and social support is more important than blog coverage.

Two PS3/360 game studios closed this week:

• Full Auto 1/2 Developer Pseudo Interactive
• Segas UK-based Racing Studio who developed the PS3/360 title, Sega Rally

This is somewhat of a reminder that game development can be an unforgiving field. These projects cost a lot to finance. One multi-million dollar flop will sink a studio.

Anyone mourning these studios?

I wasn’t a fan of their games, but others are, and I know how much skill and hard work it takes to put together those kinds of games.

I hope the skilled employees find better organizations to harness their talent.

Sony has confirmed that the new PSN Store will hit the Japanese marketplace on April 15th. Along with the new PSN Store, Sony will also be releasing firmware 2.30.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember seeing what’s in firmware 2.30, besides the new store. Home perhaps? Somehow I doubt it…

PS3 News: Sony confirms date for new PS Store

[Edit by Tosh]

IGN recently got to take a look at the upcoming expansion pack, Operation: Broken Mirror. Check out the article below, and here’s the video.

Warhawk — Operation: Broken Mirror Preview

EA had wanted to charge for some “extra” content in Battlefield: Bad Company that was actually included on the disc. Unless you paid extra for the premium version of the game, you’d have to pay extra for some additional weapons (that were already included on disc - you just couldn’t use them).

Nobody liked that idea! Some people went so far as to propose a boycott of the game. (Though I’m of the mind that you can just vote with your spending dollars by just not buying the game.)

Now EA has changed their minds and said that gamers wouldn’t have to pay for the extra guns after all, players just have to level up to the highest level in the game.

Personally, I am getting tired of developers nickel and diming us all the time, so I’m glad to see EA change their mind and do the right thing. On the other hand, I wonder if EA had left things as they were, if it would have impacted sales any.

EA scraps Bad Company weapon DLC

As we’ve known for a while, Metal Gear Online will be included with MGS4. It will be a basic online service and will be upgraded over time. I know I’m going to like MGO. MGS4 has been in development for 4 years, and they say some stuff won’t be discovered for a long time, months, maybe even years later.

Here are some other details:

The opening credits (of MGS4) were designed by Logan, the people that did the hugely successful ipod ads.

The story visits more locations and embraces more styles than any MGS to date.

A ‘virtual range’ will be included from the main menu. Here you can test the huge amount of weapons in MGS4 as well as the various advanced CQC techniques in the game.

The game will feature various details to play around with such as highly detailed and fashionable consumer gadgets.

There will be one hell of a big bang of a final to the game. Not a whimper. This will blow you away.

Snake is a slave to injections that keep him alive.

The sneaking play of the originals with it’s air ducts and cameras has now become a fast pace living battlefield of traps and innovations.

The control system is ‘revised and improved’

The Gekkou (the mechs with organic legs that make mooing sounds) will work in packs to hunt you down. They can sense past your optic camo if they think something is amiss.

Snake will have two new energy bars that makes Snakes advanced age impossible to ignore:

Stress: This rises in response to fight conditions. This can work with him, giving him hightened senses such as accuracy and sustained damage being halved. But if in this condition for too long, snake will crash causing him to become exposed to his illness. a drag on a cig will help him calm down however.

Psyche: This affects your general state of mind in the field.The balancing of these two bars will affect your progress.

You can use a camera to sneak away from your mission objectives and record incidents happening on the battlefield in secret. Some can be ‘unpredictable and dangerous’ There is something special about the camera this time around but EDGE were not allowed to say what.

There is a “surprising degree of explorative freedom” in the game. You can choose to engage in battles if you wish, or just ignore them. Friends and enemies can be gain this way if you do choose to help one side out.

Drebin (the arms dealer with the small monkey) will be important to the story and will also act as Snakes weapons dealer.

Productions values transcend modern video games: A Hollywood grade surround sound and moving track score by Harry Gregson Williams. Electrifying cut scenes and a sense of closure “more suited to Return of the King than Halo 3″.

MGS4 details from EDGE: This will blow you away