Last Friday at work we had our Information Systems department LAN party (the image above is the department Christmas card I made). We had three PS3’s, and one 360, all running on projectors. Sadly they are all 480i projectors, but it was still fun. After I had the PS3’s set up, I tried to get them all connected so we could have a massive Warhawk battle. I was kind of bummed that the Omega Dawn booster pack wasn’t out in time for the LAN party though.

We have a huge Ethernet hub at work. So we connected all the PS3’s up to that, but the weird thing was the PS3’s couldn’t see each other. The PS3 basically said, I need the internet, where is it? Luckily I remembered that in the office next to us, they had wireless. So I tried that and it worked, and we got all the PS3’s to connect to each other that way. But I think it’s pretty stupid that you “need” the internet just to play a LAN game … at least with Warhawk you do.

Anyway, once we had them all connected it went very smoothly. At one point we had all the PS3’s running Warhawk. We only had 7 people playing Warhawk at once, but it was possible to have a total of 12 people on three PS3’s. We had enough controllers, but not enough people. I like how you can jump in and out of Warhawk on the fly. Great feature, wish more games used it.

But the big hit of the night was surprisingly PAIN! I loaded that up on my PS3 and had a few people try the multiplayer on it. There was 3 modes: Horse, Bowling and a mode where you see how many explosive boxes you can hit. They played that for a couple hours, constantly laughing. It was a great party game! A couple people said they would buy a PS3 just for PAIN, lol.

I tried Rainbow Six Vegas & Call of Duty 4 via LAN. And you can only have one person per screen, which got old quick. But we jumped online with CoD4 and invited the other PS3’s into our party, that was fun! After a while I tried out Rock Band on the 360. I’ve never tried those games before, took some getting used to of course, but very fun. I used to play DDR a lot so the concept was similar. So I picked up on it pretty quick. A couple times in the night the 360 had trouble reading the rock band DVD, had to reset the 360 and clean it off to continue. I’ve never had that issue with the Blu-ray discs, which I like

Through out the night people tried various demos and PSN games. We started at 5:30 and went until 11:30. It was a fun night.

I’ve heard lots of talk recently about PS3 sales versus the GameCube. So I thought I’d look at the chart over at VG Chartz, and compare the consoles’ sales. It looks like the GC is tracking worse than both the PS3 and 360, who are tracking roughly the same.

Click the image to enlarge:

Anybody know how accurate this info is?

Game Chartz - Nintendo - Sony - Microsoft - Hardware Comparison Charts

First, there’s news that Microsoft has announced that it has sold 6 million Xbox 360’s to gamers. In July Microsoft said that it had sold 5 million, so they’re up a million since July - not bad!

Microsoft says has sold 6 million Xbox 360s

Second, with all those rumours going around (that I personally reported on too) about their lack of manufacturing ability, Sony said that they are still on track to make 6 million PS3’s by the end of March.

Sony Reasserts PS3 Shipment Targets

Take a look at this video. Fast forward to halfway or so. It shows the Xbox 360 and the HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360, side by side.

Notice anything? That HD DVD player is huge! It’s just as deep as the Xbox 360, and almost as thick. When you stack that together with the 360, you’ll definitely be taking up more space than a PS3. Not that I would care, I got enough room in my rack for stuff like that. But some people seem to think size is a big deal, so I thought I’d kindly point this out!

Microsoft plans to release XNA Game Studio Express so that aspiring hobbyist game developers can make their own 360 games. This is similar to the Linux kit that Sony released for the PS2 so that hobbyists could make their own games.

This is a nice gesture, but the problem isn’t the API or devkit barrier. It’s already extremely easy to get the APIs and distribute games on the PC. The biggest barrier, by far, is the game development itself. It’s really really hard to write games that people want to play. Even most mediocre games take huge time commitments and require very complex skill sets.

Sure Counterstrike was great, but that was done by a highly skilled professional level team. Darwinia is fun, but in reality that was more successful as a platform for pundits to romanticize the notion of hobbyist developers than as a game that people actually played.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I believe that most journalists like to fantasize and exagerate the hidden potential of homebrew and closet game developers.

Microsoft lets players be designers

IGN has had hands on time with the Xbox 360 version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 & there are a few notable changes to the game from the Tiger Woods ‘06.

There will be 12 courses for you to smack the little white ball around compared to the disgraceful 6 that featured in Tiger Woods ‘06 on the 360, with 15 golfers to choose from. That’s still a lot less than what’s featured in current gen games. However Tiger looks incredible apparantley thanks to the new Universal Facial Capture Technology. Sadly only Tiger has been created using this technology.

The controls have been changed back to a more user friendly method with the left stick controlling the fades and draws and the right stick now controlling the loft.

The PS3 & 360 versions will apparantley be nearly identical with just a few visual differences.

IGN - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 Hands On

The EA Sports Tiger Woods website has more images, tons of info, a producer interview & strangely there is no mention of a PS3 version at the top of the main page.

EA Sports Tiger Woods Website

Gamevideos has some fantastic looking in-game footage of Call of Duty 3. It looks like it’s the Xbox 360 version but there shouldn’t be much, if any, difference between the PS3 & 360 versions in the graphics department.

The footage also shows off the hand to hand combat which takes place in CoD 3 & it looks great if a little basic.

Gamevideos - CoD 3 Gameplay Footage

Your next-gen gaming options from Sony* and Microsoft, from least expensive to most. **

Xbox 360 Core System ($299)

IBM processor
512MB RAM
DVD drive
Wired Controller
Xbox Live Silver (no online gaming), can buy Gold (online gaming)***

Xbox 360 System ($399)

Xbox 360 Core System Features Plus:
20GB HDD
Wireless Controller

PS3 Low-End ($499)

IBM/Sony processor
512MB RAM
BD drive
Wireless Controller with Motion Sensing
20GB HDD
PlayStation Network (online gaming)

PS3 High-End ($599)

PS3 Low-End System Features Plus:
60GB HDD instead of 20GB
WiFi
MemoryStick/SD/CompactFlash Reader
HDMI output

* Note: Sony systems to be available in November.
** Note: Microsoft may change their pricing by the time the PS3 is released. Though I doubt it - I don’t see any reason why they should.
*** Note: I’ve corrected the Xbox Live stuff. Hopefully I’ve got it right now.

Following on from Phil Harrison’s interview with Edge you can read some of Peter Moore’s interview (just the bits where he comments on Sony) from the same magazine below:


Edge: Apparently many small-to-medium-sized Japanese developers don’t yet have PS3 dev kits. How much of an opportunity exists there?

Peter Moore: It’s similar to a story I heard a couple of weeks ago. I think the challenge is that when you’re on the condensed timeline that Sony clearly is, you for better or worse have to prioritise your devkits, because you’re not getting the flow you would like, & the smaller guys are just not getting them. Clearly the Capcoms & the Konamis of this world, & the Activisions & EAs in the west, I’m sure they’re getting their devkits, but when there’s clearly a challenge in getting supply it’s the smaller publishers & developers that struggle. And we’re doing a lot of work over there with them, & they enjoy developing for 360 - hopefully that’s of benefit to us. We’ll see.

Edge: What did you think of the keynotes from Sony & Nintendo, & why didn’t Microsoft deliver one this year?

PM: We certainly could’ve. J gave a keynote that sounded awfully familiar to what Phil said, certainly in the online world, except the biggest difference is that we’re actually now delivering on it. The keynote for Sony seemed weird because it was a rehash primarily of what Kutaragi had said in Tokyo the week before. I don’t know whether Kutaragi’s meeting was hastily arranged, & whether Phil had his legs cut off from underneath him - whether the plan was that he would announce all of this & then that suddenly changed. But I’ve not seen the demos, I didn’t actually go to the keynote, so I’m waiting to see the demos themselves - the playable demos, anyway. It seems like that was really the only thing that Kutaragi didn’t show, so until I see them it’s difficult for me to comment. But I didn’t hear a lot of news that I hadn’t already heard when I was in Tokyo the week before. Certainly there was a little bit more detail on Sony’s online service plans but nothing that shocked me that I hadn’t either assumed or had heard from Kutaragi.
And then with Iwata-san again I’d already left GDC, but it seemed that everybody is now jumping on the back-catalogue, digital-download model & they’re going to have Sega & HudsonSoft committed to making back-catalogue available. All very interesting, & I guess it validates some of the work we’ve already got in the marketplace, again with Arcade & Xbox Live Marketplace itself, allowing downloads. It’s going to be interesting to see, in the case of the Revolution, how that’s going to be facilitated - a hard drive, how big it is, etc. So I think people keep their powder dry until E3. I didn’t see an awful lot of stuff. I think the challenge now for Sony is that they’re shipping this year & gamers should be able to walk up to their booth & get their hands on relatively polished games & play them on the showfloor in LA in 5 to 6 weeks from now. We shall see.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gaming 360 has an article about the Datel Xchange 360. It’s basically a way to transfer data from memory cards to your PC. You can back it up, replace data, whatever.

But doesn’t this strike you as somewhat unnecessary? The Xbox 360 is network enabled. Can’t you just see the Xbox 360 on your home network and copy stuff from it that way? Why would you need an external device and software for this?

Gaming 360 - Datel Xchange 360

In a not-so-surprising move (I’ve always maintained that the 360 should support Blu-ray), Microsoft has stated that they’re open to releasing an external Blu-ray drive for the 360 if it wins the disc format war.

Isn’t that great? You could have both an external HD DVD hooked up to your 360, and a Blu-ray drive! Add a couple more devices, and it’ll resemble an octopus!

1UP.com - 360 Could Get Blu-Ray Drive

FiringSquad has an article listing 11 Xbox 360 mistakes. Is there anything here that Sony can do better with the PS3? I’ll put my guess at the equivalent PS3 probability next to each issue. (0 - not gonna happen, 10 - sure will happen.)

1. Overheating CPU or GPU. Seeing the problems Microsoft has had with heating issues, Sony can’t help but wonder if they will be plagued by the same issues. Probability: 3.
2. No MSN Music. FiringSquad complains about the lack of MSN Music or iTunes functionality in the 360. Sony also has such a service, it’ll be interesting to see if it will be integrated into the PS3. Personally, I think it will, but I’m just guessing. Probability: 5.
3. No HDMI support. Well, the PS3 does have this, so it’s not a problem. Probability: 0.
4. 20GB is too small. Mr. Ken has said that the PS3 will need lots of disk space, so Sony will probably sell a separate HDD with capacity of larger than 20GB. Probability: 2.
5. Microtransaction Security. Bugs in the system. Frankly, these teething problems will also probably affect the PS3. Probability: 7.
6. No Web Browser. The PSP has web browsing capabilities, so I think Sony is learning this lesson. But maybe not… Probability: 4.
7. No WMV-HD DVD Playback. I think the PS3 will probably have the same problem. Probability: 9.
8. No MPEG-4 AVI playback (i.e. XviD, etc) AVI being a Microsoft format, I think it likely that Sony’s PS3 will have the same problem. Probability: 8.
9. No System-Wide Video Calibration. A nice-to-have feature the PS3 probably won’t have either. Probability: 9.
10. Poor DVD Playback Quality. Who knows? The PS2 wasn’t that great. Maybe the PS3 will suffer the same fate? Probability: 5.
11. No pressure sensitive face buttons. The PS2 controller already has this functionality, so I doubt Sony would remove it. Probability: 0.

Agree? Disagree? Any problems that FiringSquad missed?

Xbox 360: Back to the Drawing Board

In the week up to Christmas, the 17 times as many PS2’s were sold than Xbox 360’s. That’s 97,000 PS2’s sold and 5,600 Xbox 360’s sold.

That’s pretty bad.

Gosh, I wonder why? Maybe because Microsoft doesn’t have any of the games Japanese gamers like? Nah, that can’t be it!

360 Insider - Only 5,600 Xbox 360s sold in Japan last week