The XMB is too in-your-face for my taste.

I was playing Army of Two with Steve the other day, and there’s a part where you have to select your profile data. First, you say that you want to select it, then you have to confirm, and afterwards, you have to exit. If I selected a profile in the first place, that should be enough. Now I know what you’re going to say. What if you selected the wrong profile by mistake? Ok, maybe the first prompt might be acceptable, but once that’s passed I don’t want to have to hit circle to exit, I want it to keep going!

So what about this situation?

Say you want to change the wallpaper. You go to your photos. You go to the photo you want. You hit triangle. You select the option to set as wallpaper, and then it prompts you to make sure that’s what you want to do. After all those many steps, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is what I want to do. And besides, even if it isn’t, I can easily go back and choose my previous wallpaper.

And what about this?

You’re in the store. You want to download something. You click the download button. Then the same artifact appears again, but in list view, and you have to hit download again. What’s up with that? I already said that I wanted to download it, why does it have to ask again? And why does it ask if I want to put media on my HDD or memory stick? Can’t it just default to the HDD? I can always copy it over to the memory stick later if I wanted to!

So you say I’m nitpicking.

I’m not! It’s all about the total user experience. Frankly I don’t like being nagged to death for everything I want to do. “Are you sure Jonnyboy that you want to do this action? After all, it’s completely harmless and you can easily undo it later if you really had to. But I don’t trust you to know what you’re doing, so I’m gonna bug you about everything you do until the cows come home.”

Let’s take a look at the Mac.

One of the things I found was odd when I moved over to using my Mac (a white MacBook, if you must know) is the lack of confirmations. No “Apply” buttons. In the preferences, when I selected something, it just happened. When you change the desktop background on a Mac, it changes as soon as you click on the image. How refreshing! How instant! How easy!

I think Sony has a bit to learn…

Pursuant to the first developer diary, here’s a diary entry that a Killzone 2 PS3 developer may (or may not) have sent me:

>>>>

Ya ya. Well, we are now done with E3, the big American schmooze-fest that the bigwigs at Sony said we had to be at. So we took a cruise across an ocean or two and tada, 14 days and 63 beers later (each) we were there.

Did we get a big showing at the press conference? No no no, alas we weren’t in the big press conference. Instead Sony tipped their collective hats to our American compadres at Insomniac. You know, because their game is releasing this fall, and ours in February. Theirs need the attention, ours doesn’t. The marketing, you know. Na na nana nya nya. Whatever. We all know that Resistance 2 is gonna be great, they’re our best buddies across the pond, we don’t compete with them, we play their stuff, they play ours, we share technology, blah blah blah.

You want the truth? Killzone 2 is gonna kick some collective @$$. It’s gonna be better than Resistance 2, better than Halo 2, better than Gears 2. Big bulky battle suits are so 2007. Aliens? Who needs ‘em? Human versus highly-modified (maybe I guess because we put the Helghast inside those cool glowing-eyes uniforms so you can’t really tell if they look any different than the normal human or not and I ain’t gonna tell you if we resolve this in Killzone 2 or the sequel (oops, I didn’t say that) or not so you’ll just have to keep on guessing) is where it’s at baby!

We got revolvers. We got machine guns. We got bullets. We got the rat-tat-tat sound down to a TEE man. We recorded a machine gun with 359 microphones (one malfunctioned) placed all around it and recorded those sounds and encrypted them into the game so that no matter what angle you’re approaching an enemy at (except from below at a 30 degree angle), you’re hearing the right sound! In full 7.1 surround sound, FTW! Woo hoo!

Yeah, so, The sound’s gonna be the table’s legs man. (I hope you know that expression over there in America. It means good things. You know the legs hold up the table. Good stuff.) But the graphics are good too! You all seen them, right? We actually built some sets for reference, and just scanned ‘em right in. Who needs Maya? Well, ya, we do. But still, the sets were scanned in and that’s why they look so realistic. We couldn’t of course, create all the sets for all the levels, just a few reference ones. But it helped a lot, and they’ll be used in the movie.

What else?

Badges! Right, Badges! That was a dumb name. I thought of a great new name all by myself. It fit perfectly with how “Badges” were supposed to be used. So I tried convincing Steven and Mathijs to call them … wait for it … “Perks”! Yay! But they said something about something where something is something and so: bad. My bad. Can’t call them Perks. I’ll tell ya, my girlfriend got an earful that evening!

Nya well, that’s about it. Sorry for the short update. The game is actually done. We’re not doing anything now except playing PixelJunk Eden demo and wondering if we’ll ship any new maps after the game is released. So see ya next time, maybe I’ll do a postmortem.

Well, the Sony E3 2008 press conference is over. As I predicted, Sony was relatively quiet and didn’t announce much that was new. In case you didn’t see the conference or read the news, here’s a quick recap:

• Video Download Service
  The new video download service goes live tonight! It looks like Sony got all the major players aboard, if memory serves. That’s cool. As well, you’ll be able to download your content to your PSP, which is also cool. To me, prices seemed inline with what you have to pay at iTunes or elsewhere. In other words, slightly too much.
• Resistance for PSP
  Sony announced a new Resistance title for the PSP, not developed by Insomniac.
• PSN Ratchet & Clank
  There’s a new Ratchet & Clank game coming to the PS3, and it’s a $14.99 PSN title.
• DC Universe Online
  DC Comics MMO by SOE. This is the first time that this title has been shown to the public.
• MAG
  By Zipper Interactive, this is a new shooter with 256 players online at once! They showed a teaser video with example gameplay. Parachuting from the skies!
• New PS3 Hardware
  Sony is upping the storage of the current 40GB PS3 to 80GB PS3. And while they didn’t say it, I assume this means that the current 80GB PS3 will fall by the wayside. In my mind, this is actually bad news. It means that Sony will no longer be selling a PS3 with BC or 4 USB ports or memory card readers. Doh!
• God of War 3
  Sony officially announced God of War 3 for the PS3. They showed a teaser video, but no gameplay.
• Greatest Hits
  Some greatest PS3 hits are getting a $30 pricetag, like the original Resistance, Warhawk, MotorStorm, and Call of Duty 3.

Tosh, Gary, Darrin - feel free to expand the list.

One of the coolest things was the use of a LittleBigPlanet level to help present some of the facts and figures surrounding the PlayStation universe. I want to play that level!

What do you all think? I am unhappy to be proven correct in that nothing really new and significant was shown off. MAG is cool, sure. But it’s not the knock-out punch that Sony really needed to deliver.

Or is it?

Sony Keynote
July 15, 2008 at:
- 11:30 AM PST
- 2:30 PM EST
- 7:30PM UK

E3 2008: The Thread

* IGN LiveWire
* Gamespot Video Feed(Started late yesterday)
* G4(last resort)

*links to several liveblogs*

* StiqOfJoy
* GiantBomb LiveBlog

If you know of any others let me know and I’ll update this post.

First, a Look Back at Sony’s Surprises from E3, 2007

• Redesigned PSP hardware
• Surprise price drop on North America PS3 hardware
• New Game Unveilings: Echochrome, Infamous
• First Looks at WipeoutHD and Socom and Killzone 2
• Exclusivity Announcements for Metal Gear Solid 4, Haze, and UT3
• ncSoft partnership and future PS3 exclusive MMOs
• More footage and more details about all other upcoming titles.

In hindsight, it was a fairly surprise packed show. MGS4 was a huge hit, but other titles were disappointing (Haze), and several still haven’t been released. The delays of the MMO type titles, such as Home and the ncSoft titles, are somewhat understandable since longer than usual delays and dev cycles are the norm for that type of game.

What to Expect from Sony at E3, 2008

New Games

Judging by past events, most new games that will be announced will likely still be in early development and won’t be ready to ship until late 2009 or so. However, I would expect a few 2008 surprises similar to how Sony revealed Folklore only a five months before it hit shelves in May 2007. Prime Sony Studio candidates for new game unveilings are: Team ICO, Naughty Dog, SCEA Santa Monica, Zipper, SCEE London. More games for the PlayStation Eye? More PSN titles? First look at flOwer?

Third Party Deals

Last year, they announced several surprising third party deals. Since we haven’t heard much since then, hopefully that means that there are some new developments that will be made public at the show. Namco has hinted at one PS3 exclusive that we will hear about (probably a Tales title that parallels the 360/Wii Tales titles). Will there be anything new with Square? Maybe we will hear more about that Rockstar PS3 exclusive that Sony execs hinted at?

Services

We are sure to hear about their movie-on-demand service. Will we hear about their planned music-on-demand service as well?

Hardware

Sony has been very tight-lipped about hardware in the past. Almost no one saw the price and hardware changes that were announced at least year’s E3 (although the redesigned PSP was widely rumored before hand). I’m not expecting anything, but I’m hoping to be surprised. Specifically, I’m hoping for lighter, slimmer PS3 hardware. They’ve already shrunk the CPU technology to smaller, cooler 65nm technology and they plan to make the same change to GPU hardware as well. Additionally, manufacturers are making blu-ray drives that are much slimmer than what current PS3’s use. Routine logic board optimizations and simplifications are also expected. A slimmer PS3 is inevitable, it’s just a question of when.

Surprises

It wouldn’t be a big show, without the surprises.

Anyone have any other E3 predictions or wish lists?

I’ve been thinking about it, and you know what? I don’t think there will be any major revelations for the Sony camp at E3 this year. They’ll talk about Resistance 2, LittleBigPlanet, and other sundry games that have already been announced.

They’ll probably talk about their new video download service. Tosh reminded me about that one. But that’s not new, it just hasn’t been officially unveiled yet. Sony has already said that something would happen this summer.

Home? It’s been talked about so much, that I don’t think there’s really much to reveal. Unless they’ve added something new to the service that makes it more compelling for gamers. (Which I think it needs.)

So nope, I don’t think we have much to get excited about at this year’s E3. But that’s just me. I may be way off base here. Have you guys heard anything I haven’t?

There’s an interesting article over at Ars Technica, where they basically re-review the PS3 as it is now, compared to how it was when it was launched back in November 2006.

To cut a long story short, Ars Technica originally gave the PS3 a 6. Now, however, after Sony have updated the PS3 with Firmware update after Firmware update which has resulted in improved Blu-ray player thanks to Blu-ray profile 2.0 (amongst other things), a new and improved PS Store, the release of the Dual Shock 3 (STILL not available in Europe BTW) and most importantly of all; a more varied line up of quality games (both Blu-ray and via PSN).

As a result, Ars Technica have given the PS3 a 9.

If I had to do a review of the PS3 as it is in it’s current form, I’d probably give it an 8 (which is what I would give it if I had reviewed it when I got it back in March 2007).

Now, I’m not saying the PS3 hasn’t improved since I’ve had it but my issue is with what areas has the PS3 improved upon and their relevance to me.

A lot of the improvements that Ars Technica point out hold little relevance to me as a PS3 owner. Blu-ray profile 2.0? Meh. I don’t own many Blu-ray films (Spider-man Trilogy, Casino Royale and Planet Earth are all that I own) so my interest in the PS3 as a Blu-ray player is lukewarm at best.

Dual Shock 3? I would buy one but Sony haven’t released it in Europe yet. Awesome. And no, I’m not willing to import it, I shouldn’t have to.

The PS Store has a new look but the content is still lacking. I love Super Stardust: HD and PixelJunk Monsters, they are two of my favourite PS3 games, but Sony still falls short in providing meaningful content on a weekly basis, especially on the UK/EU Stores.

Where is Shivering Isles? Where is Commandos 3? Where is WipEout? Elephunk? Where are all the PSOne games that Sony could make a killing from if they bothered to make them available? Why can’t Sony combine the US and UK Stores, we both speak the same language (of sorts )! Localisation should not be an issue in that sense.

My main issue with PS3 games in the past was with the crappy ports that we were fed but that situation is less of an issue (although not totally eradicated) at this present time.

The areas where I feel Sony has failed to improve upon (aside from what I’ve already mentioned) are PSN related, such as the lack of in-game XMB access, customisable soundtracks and the ability to chat to your friends regardless of what you are doing or what games you are playing.

The forthcoming release of Firmware 2.40 should solve some of those issues but Sony still has a lot of work to do to realise the PS3’s full potential.

I’m very happy with my PS3 but I can see where Sony needs to make improvements and I haven’t even touched upon the backwards compatibility issue, various HDD sizes for different regions, their PR shenanigans and the need for price cuts etc.

To answer my own question of whether I think the PS3 has evolved since I got it, my answer would have to be no, not in the areas that matter to me.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with Ars Technica and my views?

Is it just me?

I’m finding that I’m not posting much here these days. Partly because I’m a little bummed about finding a software development job that I actually enjoy. (I’m looking for a job doing Mac development, but there’s precious little of that going on in Ottawa. Anybody know of any jobs like this in Ottawa? Or that would allow me to telecommute?) But mostly I’m bummed because there just isn’t much PS3 stuff out there that interests me right now.

We seem to be in a perpetual waiting game. The good stuff is coming, really it is. Just wait for it, and wait some more.

While the new PSN store is nice, it doesn’t impact my gaming life in any substantial way. I never spent a lot of time in the store before, and the redesign won’t change things. I get in there, get what I want, and get out.

This week we finally see GT5 Prologue, which I can’t buy because I’m looking for a job. So that’s something at least.

But all the really good stuff seems to be perpetually out of reach. We’ve been waiting a long long time for the likes of Home, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, MGS4, and in-game XMB. Are they ever going to get here? At least we know MGS4 is coming in June, but the others are all too far in the distance to have any concrete meaning. Except to tease us, and then to move even further into the distance.

So while I’m glad that the PS3 is selling well, I’m also in the doldrums. There’s not much new or exciting to talk about, and therefore I’m stuck. Ah well.

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.

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.

I’ve always liked unique marketing and this is is very unique. Can you spot the all the Playstation shapes? I can’t seem to find the circle. Hopefully we’ll see this is motion later

PlayStation 3 Advertising Art is Impressive

These videos are good for a nice laugh.

100 Reasons Why Fanboys Hate PlayStation

100 Reasons Why Fanboys Hate Xbox

Of interest to PlayStation fans are previews of:

Resistance 2
Just Cause 2
Alone in the Dark
Brutal Legend

Plus reviews of:

God of War: Chains of Olympus
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Army of Two
Patapon

There’s more but you’re going to have to download it to see for yourself. Leave any feedback in the comments please.

Download D+Pad Issue 6 in PDF or ZIP Here