Random PSP thoughts ...

I was thinking in the shower this morning (where I do all my best thinking), and had some thoughts about the PSP. There could be some directions that the PSP is going to, perhaps unintentionally, drive the market.

For example, the widescreen format of the PSP (and the mass-market appeal) has already changed my though process. I caught myself thinking that I'm going to create a droplet for Photoshop that will crop and resize my photos to PSP's screen dimensions. If I get a new videocamera, it's going to have to support shooting in 16:9, so that I can easily convert to the PSP format. Already, a device is manipulating how I work with my other devices and media. Yesterday, as I'm trying to decide what to put on my PSP, I opened MusicMatch Jukebox, and used the Portable Media option to downsample some MP3s to 64kbps so they'd fit on my memory card. Now I want a bigger memory card so that I don't have to suffer the lower sound quality (which really isn't too bad, surprisingly).

Sony could end up forcing a movement to standard 16:9 widescreen format for all sorts of media now, TV, photos, movies ... people may just start expecting the content to be formatted for the device, rather than doing the work themselves. It's a paradigm shift in the making (even if I hate that phrase).

Then my mind drifted towards Porn (and what healthy male's mind doesn't). Already the PSP has gained the name PornStation Portable, and it's not at all surprising, I'd even argue that it was inevitable. It's fairly well-known that the porn industry has driven a lot of the technology that we now take for granted ... VHS, CD-ROM, DVD ... they all got a big boost from the adult film market. So how long do you think it might take for the industry to start pressuring Sony to allow them to release films on the UMD format? I bet it's already happened. The question is, would Sony allow it to happen? They got burned when they didn't open the Betamax format to them. Sony might want to distance themselves for PR reasons, but considering porn getting onto the device is already happening, why shouldn't Sony make a buck. I guarantee that it's more likely that people will buy adult movies on UMD than standard DVD movies, simply because it would be more discreet. That would play right into Sony's business model.

My mind switched gears pretty quickly after that (the hot water running out might have had a catalyst effect), and I started thinking about possible other uses for the PSP that maybe even Sony hadn't thought about. I thought about the size of the device, the button layout, the screen definition, and it struck me ... the PSP would be very interesting as a detatchable face for a car stereo! The electronics for receiving radio, playing CDs, etc. could be kept in the car unit, and the PSP would just drive a UI. Perhaps it could even dump radio to Memory Stick so that you can take it with you when you get out of the car? No, you just listented to it, that's silly. Still, the possibility of this sort of application intrigues me. Would Sony ever create a car deck that sells without a face, or one so large you'd have to have a double-DIN housing for it? I don't know, but I think that there is potential there.

DIY PSP games - PSP News at GameSpot

Homebrewers, rejoice! From Software is planning to release the "Adventure Player" for the PSP. You get a UMD containing the game engine, and tools to build your own games on the PC. Add art, script events, and dump it all to a file, which you can load onto a Memory Stick. Load it up with the UMD, pull the game file off the stick, and you've got your own game!

The best part is that since it's just a file, anyone with the Adventure Player UMD could play your game. All of a sudden, there is a bonafide way for aspiring game designers to practice makig games, and you can share them with others over the net, or even with the built-in Wireless. Very, very cool. I'll snatch this up if it ever comes to the US.

Lumines

When I pre-ordered my PSP, I wasn't sure what game to get for it. I wasn't about to pay $250 for the PSP, then another $40-50 for each game, which is why I'm glad I had a lot of trade-in credit stocked up for just such an occasion. I decided to go ahead and throw a couple bucks down on Ridge Racer, mainly because it was a known quantity. Luckily I came to my senses, and the games I came home with were Lumines (pronounced like luminesce, I think) and Wipeout PURE.

Lumines is made by the creator of the outstanding game Rez. The game is similar in theme to Tetris, but every block is made up of either one or two colors, and is always a square shape. The goal is to is to create squares of a single color. When you create a square, it doesn't get "deleted" immediately, they are removed from the field when a "timeline" bar comes scrolling across the screen left to right. This gives you a chance to plan multiple squares and create combos.

Where the game manages to nail it is the way the music works. The soundtrack is mainly electronica, but the cool thing is that the moves you make with the cursor, dropping a block, rotating the blocks ... each has a sound effect that punctuates the music. You're effectively creating your own remix of the music while you play, adding vocal samples and percussion. There is also a video that plays in the background, and while it can be distracting at time, mostly just adds to the feeling that you're not so much playing a puzzle game as playing a musical instrument. It's not quite as interactive musicwise as Frequency, but it's far more addictive.

Oddly, the game is actually doing more to get me excited for another upcoming title by the same designer, Meteos for the Nintendo DS. Meteos is harder to describe (so I'm not going to try), but the game has been rated 39/40 by Famitsu ... an amazing score. To compare, Lumines only got 30/40, and it's still a fantastic game.

I made the mistake of giving my PSP to my wife to play for a couple of minutes last night, to see what the Wife Acceptance Factor was like on the device. She wasn't at all interested at first, so I gave her Lumines and just let her go. Once she figured out what the game was all about, she got into what I'm calling the "Lumines Groove Zone", and she started beating my scores from earlier that day. Later, (never taking her eyes off the game) she said, "Thanks for buying me this new toy, Bobert!" She's not at all interested in the device itself (though her first comment was that the screen was enormous), but she loves the game. She also really likes the Nintendo DS, so when Meteos comes out, I think I'm going to lose my DS forever.

PSP

Today marks the launch of Sony's new "dynamic entertainment medium", the PSP (PlayStation Portable). I've had one on pre-order for about a week, and spent some time yesterday and this morning ripping a couple of shorts from my The Incredibles DVD. Using DVDDecrypter to rip the files, and 3GP Converter to do the conversion to the PSP's MP4 video format was painless, and worked flawlessly.

The PSP makes a great first impression. The screen is huge, vibrant, and just plain stunning. The glossy face is also attractive (but attracts dust like a magnet). All is not roses and Skittles for the PSP, though. The sound levels are low, and even if you crank the volume, you don't get much out of it. (Reportedly, high volume levels will reduce battery life as well ... perhaps Sony has artificially reduced the sound level on the US unit to preserve battery life?) I'm also not thrilled with the white accessories, which seems like a clear attempt to capitalize on the Apple "white headphone" phenomenon, which the PSP just doesn't need. Black and Silver would have fit better, and wouldn't clash with the glossy black PSP.

Anyway, the "out of box" experience is incredibly positive, arguably better than the the iPod. There is a ton of stuff crammed into the box, including an impossibly thick manual. The free copy of the Spiderman 2 movie on UMD was a welcome addition, and the video quality is outstanding. That said, it's not convincing me to buy movies on UMD, considering the battery drain the format causes. I think I might invest in a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo and just rip a DVD or two when I want to watch a movie on it.

I've picked up Lumines (made by the creator of Rez) and Wipeout PURE. Both games are fantastic, but my favorite so far is Lumines. The game is oddly relaxing and invigorating at the same time. The way the game interacts with the music and backgrounds helps put you in the zone.

I'm looking forward to giving it some quality attention in the next couple of days, but today I'm very busy. I have to go to the UW and take my Written Communication Skills assessment, the final part of my application process. If I do well on this assessment, I should have an excellent chance of getting into the Business Program.

Poynter Online - The Next Big Thing in Online Type

Poynter Online has a story about the six new fonts that will ship with Longhorn. These new OpenType fonts are specifically tuned for ClearType, so the extended reading experience should be improved. They are also suitable for print, and I suspect that Candara and Consolas could replace Arial and Lucida Console as my sans-serif and monospace fonts of choice for the first time.

OK, so I'm a big ol' font whore. I've got the entire Adobe Type Collection, and even with over 1000 fonts at my disposal, I still primarily use fonts that came with Windows. (That comes from running a design consulting company, I suppose.) Having some variety in the system fonts will be quite nice indeed. In fact, I might even consider upgrading to Longhorn just for the fonts. These would likely cost over $600 each, but Microsoft is just giving them away!

Anyway, hit up the story for a look at the new typefaces.

Spring Break!

It's Spring Break from school this week, and then starting next week, I go into my last quarter at Cascadia! I'm sort of weirded out by it ... to think, in just a couple months, I'm going to have a degree! From College! I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to feel about it ... I've become so used to working my ass off for the past two years, not having that same sort of crunch is going to feel odd. Even when I was working full time, I never worked this hard. (Something about taking 20 credits a quarter, plus working.) I'm going to apply to the University of Washington, Bothell's Business program, but even if I get accepted, I have to figure out how I'm going to pay for it. That might keep me busy for another couple of years. But odds are, I might need to take a year and get back to work, and store up some cash.

Also scheduled for the end of next week is a press junket to Los Angeles that I'll be taking part in, on behalf of THQ. They do these just about every year, and this is my third year. The junket is for THQ's wrestling titles, and this will apparently be the first showing of their WWE Day of Reckoning 2 game for Nintendo GameCube. They'll also be holding their third annual THQ Superstar Challenge, where 16 WWE Superstars will compete in THQ's soon-to-be-released WrestleMania 21 game for Microsoft Xbox, to be held at the House of Blues. I've been there a couple times now, and it's an amazing venue.

Of course, my favorite part is getting to sit in a SkyBox for WrestleMania. From what I hear, Staples Center (site of the event this year) is even smaller than Madison Square Garden, so the skybox should still have a fantastic view. You bet I'll post some photos ... if I get my digital camera back from Kodak in time. The zoom lens busted a while ago, and the timing will be tight getting the replacement (actually an upgrade) before I leave for LA, but I think it'll make it.

Putting it in Perspective

I just finished my final "Game Design" class tonight, and our instructor fielded questions from the class. By and large, he impressed upon the class that if you want to get into the industry, you have to "do the work". Make stuff.

I told him that I want to be a Producer, and asked what kind of "work" I would do. There wasn't a real answer for that apart from what I've been doing, except to develop the mentality to be the "undeniable force" to the team, keeping the train on the track.

He then told us a story about the end of a game project where because of what he considered to be failures on the production side, the Crunch Mode that all projects go through took a very serious toll on the team. One person felt as if he were physically dying. "I'm not going to make it", but he wasn't talking about finishing the project, he was talking about surviving it. Another team member could be heard tucking his daughter in at night over the phone, night after night, because he couldn't be home with his family. Physical pain endured by the staff. Emotional strain. All of which could have been mitigated (or even avoided) if the producers would have forced the issue early in the process to keep the project on the rails. It had our instructor literally choked up when he thought about the toll this project took on his team ... his friends.

That really hit home with me, and while I'd thought before that I had an idea of what a Producer does, I've got a whole new perspective on what my chosen job function is going to entail. And now I want it more than ever. I don't want people on my team to ever have to suffer this badly for what they love, because it's entirely possible to keep it from ever getting that bad. There's always a crunch mode when shipping software (or any product, for that matter), but it doesn't have to be like that.

It's not going to happen to my teams. Not on my watch. This is why I want to be a Producer.

Billy "Wicked" Wilson passes ...

There are no details as to why Billy has left us at the tender young age of 33, but I remember that Billy was one of the pioneers in the gaming/hardware website scene. I used to read Voodoo Extreme (along with Blue's and numerous other sites) daily, and I have fond memories of his unique attitude.

Billy is survived by his done Dax, and his ex-wife Aimee, not to mention his mom, brother, step-dad and others. My thoughts are certainly with his family today, and it seems that as much pain as they must be feeling right now, that they remember him as he lived. It's never fair when a parent survives their children, and I certainly feel their pain.

Forbes.com: TiVo to Make Customized Version for Comcast

Looks like TiVo might have just staved off a certain demise, by finally securing a deal with Comcast to provide DVR's for the cable company. This is great news for TiVo fans, as it gives a bit more leverage to TiVo in their dealings with DirecTV, as well as shoring up the company's stock price, which has just about doubled on the news.

Interestingly, it appears that this might even be the start of TiVo getting out of the hardware market entirely. According to the Forbes report, TiVo will be adapting it's software to work on existing Comcast DVR units. That, along with the admission that TiVo is considering the PC as a platform for TiVo software suggests that TiVo is going to focus on their main competency, which is a fantastic user experience, and leave the hardware challenges to other companies.

I'm a pretty big fan of TiVo and since Comcast and DirecTV are pretty much the only game in town where I live, this is nothing but good news as far as I'm concerned. Anything that keeps TiVo around longer is just fine by me.

Alternative Distribution Channels (for games)

Greg Costikyan was part of the "Burning Down the House" rant at GDC on the problems with the game industry. He's blogged a bit about some ideas for alternative distribution, seen by many to be "the" problem with games today. Thinking a bit about the idea, I came up with something that I posted on his site, but I wanted to explore a little more thoroughly here. What spurred this was thinking about the Magazine idea that Greg talked about, which is pretty much a push mechanism that I don't think is going to last much longer. So how else can we "push" games to gamers?

Nintendo has a device called Play-Yan for the Game Boy Advance (and Nintendo DS, by virture of its backwards compatability with GBA) which allows you to download movies, music, and "garage games" to a Secure Digital card. It's been pretty popular, essentially during the GBA into a portable DVD player, sans the DVDs. But it's the downloadable mini-games that intrigued me.

What I'm seeing is a similar device that can use a wireless connection to download games automatically, based on preferences you can set. It's a pseudo-push mechanism, where games are pushed based on your preferences, but you don't have too much control over it. You can choose which games to save once you download them (so you can "keep" games you really like), and obviously these sorts of preferences would be made available (in aggregate, to protect privacy) to developers, advertisers, etc. There would have to be some sort of fee for the service, but I think that with the rising popularity of podcasting, RSS, and other similar pseudo-push techologies, perhaps this is the way to go.

There might be different business models that could be applied to this. Something like Phantom's as of yet unreleased service could be interesting, where you get most games for free, but others would carry a premium. Perhaps a Pop-Cap model where you get a limited version for free, but you could pay to download a more full-fledged version which you could save on another SD card. I'm not sure which would work best, but I think this could be an interesting way to move forward.

Given that the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP both have wireless capability built-in, as well as a way to store data on a high-capacity memory card, I think that this might become viable faster than anyone might think. DS games can access the GBA slot (if I remember correctly) so you would have to find a way to sell the DS card or PSP disc, which I think would just bring this problem back around again. Hmmmmm ... obviously there is more thinking to be done here.

MSNBC - Washington a No. 1 seed? Yes

I can't be more proud of the University of Washington Husky Basketball team, who I had an opportunity to watch play live a couple of times this year. Winning the Pac-10 tourney was fantastic, but getting the number one seed in the Albuquerque circuit was unexpected. The Huskies held a rally at Hec-Ed Pavillion to watch the event live, and the place just erupted when the announcement came across the wire.

What's very interesting is that the Huskies could get a chance to play against Gonzaga (number 3 seed) before the Final Four, if both teams advance as they are expected to. That's a matchup that would be about as highly anticipated as our annual Apple Cup.

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I've been finding myself more interested in following the Dawgs since it's possible that I could be attending the UW starting this fall. We'll see how the application process goes.

I never thought I'd be this close to having a degree, much less possibly going to as renown a school as the University of Washington. My family didn't have a lot of money when I was younger, and I didn't really have the work ethic to have been a successful student when I graduated high school. As much as I may now regret having put off my education as long as I have, I'm somewhat thankful at the same time, because I have certainly learned more now that I'm ready to learn.

I'm a quarter from finishing my Associate's Degree at Cascadia, and I'm very much looking forward to finally being able to say that I'm a college graduate, but I'm not going to consider myself finished until I have my Bachelor's from the UW. I just have to figure out how to pay for it ...

Penny Arcade

Penny Arcade is pretty much always right on the mark in terms of having their finger on the pulse of the gamer community. (Where they have their other fingers, I don't want to know.) Suffice it to say, they're pretty accurate about what's likely going to happen with the Xbox 2 camera option as well.

Hostage

Just got back from the movie theater with my wife, and we checked out the new Bruce Willis movie, Hostage. This is what I would consider to be Willis' best film ever, and is already on my list of favorite all-time movies. Part of what made me love the movie so much is when I thought I had things figured out part-way through, whispered my thoughts to my wife, and I turned out to be wrong. Probably happened three times. I love it when a movie keeps me guessing.

Anyway, Willis turned in an incredible performance. Yes, it was arguably the same character he played in Die Hard, but he displayed so much more depth and emotion in Hostage. He's really come a long way over the course of his career.

On a tangental note, it looks like his next big move is going to be a hit too, if the trailers are anything like the movie. That next film is Sin City, based on the comic, and has an unbelievable slate of talent. What caught my eye was the style ... it looks a lot like the comic. I can definitely see Tarantino's influence.

OK, enough rambling. Go see Hostage as if your family's life depended on it.

GDC full of news ...

I contemplated going to GDC this year. I've been trying to get back into the gaming industry, and while I'm working to finish my degree, GDC, DICE, E3, and other such gatherings are great places to network. I'm embarrassed to say that in my younger days, I didn't fully appreciate the opportunities that such events offered, and as a result, I've fallen out of contact with many former colleagues and acquaintances over the years (with a couple notable examples). I've been working to make more contacts, and keeping them up to date, and E3 should go a long way towards that goal this year.

Anyway, I would have gone to GDC if my school schedule would have solidified sooner, but as it turns out, two of my instructors didn't get around to deciding if THEY were going until the last minute, so I wasn't able to get down to California. Turns out that GDC was uncharacteristically high on news this year. Normally, companies hold back until E3 in May, then blow the doors off the place with major announcements and product unveilings. While this year is still going to be huge for E3, with three major consoles all having their cloak of secrecy dropped, companies were suprisingly talkative at GDC this year.

The biggest surprise was no doubt Nintendo, who is normally annoyingly secretive, revealed that not only is their next console (codenamed Revolution) going to be backwards compatible with GameCube software, but that the Nintendo DS handheld will be going online before the end of the year, through an online service Nintendo vows will be free. They also mentioned that Revolution will have built-in wireless as well, and probably connect users through the same online service. Sounds like Nintendo has taken notice of Microsoft's dominance in online gaming, and is looking to take a chunk of that market. How attractive is Xbox Live going to look when it costs $50 a year, but Nintendo's offering is free? It'll all come down to software, of course, but that's pretty compelling in and of itself.

Of course, Nintendo revealed some software news as well, with the big surprise (well, confirmation, anyway) being a version of Animal Crossing for Nintendo DS, wireless enabled. This could very well be the killer app for Nintendo DS, showcasing not only wireless, but the touch-screen as well. Nintendo also announced Mario Kart DS, which was stated as supporting 8-Player LAN (no mention of online, which is a shame, since there's little difference), and capped the announcements with a new Legend of Zelda trailer that stunned everyone.

Basically, Nintendo said all the right things. Reggie Fils-Aime gave some interviews over the course of the week, backpedalling on what is being written off to translation errors on Iwata-san's earlier statement about Revolution possibly alienating third-parties. Essentially, the way it was meant to come across is that some of Revolution's features might make straight ports of games more difficult, so developers will be challeged to create new game experiences for Revolution (and Nintendo DS, incidentally).

The news wasn't all Nintendo, though. Sony was rumored to have a closed-door session with Sony execs to show off the PlayStation 3, and Xbox head J. Allard gave a keynote which focused on the idea of the "HD Era" of gaming, and even gave away 1000 Samsung HDTV's! (Now I really wish I'd gone to GDC!) Overall, GDC looks to be a pretty good indicator of the level of announcements we're going to see at E3.

(My buddies over at Planet GameCube have more information on Nintendo's big reveal, and for some recaps of the keynotes, check out Alice's Wonderland.)

Tray and Play

Gamespot has a story on the future of gaming on Windows, and one interesting point was "Tray and Play", basically allowing a zero-installion experience for PC gaming, similar to consoles. It's being touted as pretty new, but it's not.

Back when gaming first got going on Windows 95, there were several games with a similar zero-installation feature ... I can remember Gex and a Pitfall remake as being notable examples. (I was on the support team at Microsoft through a contractor for the titles.) Zero-Installation worked as advertised, but the games that used it were cookie-cutter platformers, and enthusiasm lagged.

My take on this ... why wouldn't you use the advantages that come with having a PC to play games on, as opposed to trying to turn a $1000+ device into a $200 device? People that want to play console games will generally buy a console. I agree that PC gaming should be a much less painful experience, and mroe attractive to the mainstream gamer, but I don't know that "Tray and Play" is necessarily going to be the way to do that.

Electronic Arts to Institute Limited Overtime Policy

In other news, EA seems to be missing the point here.

EA has announced that going forward, some overtime-eligible employees will indeed be able to get overtime. The downside? Those same employees will have work hours that are more structured (i.e. no more coming in at 10AM and leaving at 2AM), and they will no longer be eligible for options or bonuses.

The problem here is that EA is missing the point by such a wide margin, it makes me wonder if they've even heard the argument. From what I understand, the problem here isn't that developers object to working long hours. It's something that they do because they love what they do, and when you've got a tough challenge, you tend to work until you solve it. Long hours just come with the territory.

The objection as I have heard, is that people were being coerced, cajoled, and otherwise had it insinuated that working the additional hours was actually MANDATORY, and was not at the developer's discretion, but one of the unwritten rules. Now you're no longer working long hours because you love it, but because it's expected, and even demanded. That can suck all the joy out of the job. So the developers have said that if you're going to make it mandatory for me to work the extra hours, you have to pay me for them. (For what it's worth, many developers make between $80,000 to $120,000 a year, but if you were to break that down to actual hours worked, it's roughly $25-30 an hour.)

This is what makes the EA decision so baffling ... all this will do is further the wedge between management and the developers. EA is a behemoth in the industry, but I can't help but wonder if decisions like this aren't going to cause EA to lose a great deal of talent.

Mythbusters ...

I'm a big fan of The Discovery Channel, and particularly the show Mythbusters. For those unfamiliar with the show's premise, two engineer-types dig up urban legends and "common knowledge", and put them to the test.

I've noticed, as much as I enjoy this show, that the tests that they conjure up are sometimes lacking any sort of scientific basis, and are largely an excuse for the engineers to build cool contraptions (which admittedly, is half the fun). But I've got a wee bit of a bee in my bonnet over the last episode, "Is Yawning Contagious?"

No, it's not about the yawning myth (which, with very close results, they decided was Confirmed), but rather the old saying that toast knocked off a table will land butter side up. The very first test they did was a "natural model", with a very simple device that would push a piece of toast off a table, and then they would note the results. As far as I could tell, it seemed that invariably, the toast would land butter side down. That is "Confirmed" in my book, because this is most likely how it would happen in "real life". Toast knocked off a table would only have enough time and momentum to turn once before hitting the floor.

Then a second device was screated that would basically hold the toast vertical, then drop it, and the results were inconclusive, but slanted towards butter side down. Again, there is only enough time for one turn, but they decided that the both devices were biased, because they weren't getting a "random result". I thought that the point of the experiment was to get a non-random outcome? So they set out to automate as much of the process of toasting and buttering the toast as possible, then to drop it from the top of a building with a pneumatic device, to keep the test as "scientific as possible".

This is where it came off the rails, as far as I'm concerned. First, while they automated the toasting process (including testing for temperature), and the buttering, they did absolutely nothing to regulate the size and weight of the slices of bread, which when falling from a greater distance, would likely have a magnified effect. They also dropped the slices from a much larger distance, and did it outside, where the wind would have an effect (and was even seen once as a piece of toast was blown into one of the "researchers" on the ground. Finally, in ALL cases, they drop very few pieces of toast, certainly not enough for true trending to occur.

Here's how I'd have done the test. First, trim each slice of bread, square them off, and weigh them to ensure equal weight for each test piece. The toasting / buttering contraption would work fine. Then I'd drop each piece of toast with the pneumatic device in a vaccuum, to ensure that only the toast and gravity are in play.

I'm probably way overanalyzing this, as I tend to do, but it just irks me a bit to see someone claiming to do a scientific test, then doing a really half-assed job of it. :)

Warren Spector resurfaces at Junction Point - News at GameSpot

This is fantastic news. I always thought that the retirement of Warren Spector would be a detriment to the industry, and I'm thrilled to hear that he's decided not to hang up the +2 Cloak of Game Design Acumen just yet. Many of my favorite games of yesteryear were credited to Spector, like System Shock and Deus Ex.

The tenuous links to Spector's previous work with Allen Varney (of Paranoia and Paranoia XP fame) as well as Art Min alluded to in the name of Spector's new company, Junction Point Studios, are heartening. A Spector-designed MMO would certainly be interesting, though quite frankly, I'd rather it were in a similar vein to my aforementioned favorites and not in the crowded fantasy genre.

Welcome back, Warren!

Update: Allen Varney popped up in a Slashdot thread on the subject, with the following quote ...

I don't know what Warren's current plans are, but I'm willing to bet he isn't trying to resurrect that game. I expect he chose the name purely for sentimental reasons.

Microsoft Announces Next-Gen Xbox Details at GDC:

Now if only the actual story were as compelling as the headline. :(

J. Allard issued a press release today before he gives his GDC keynote, announcing a few details on what is being called the "HD Era" of gaming, which meshes with some of the information that GameSpy claims are the current slate of specs for Xbox 2 (codenamed Xenon).

The key here is that the hardware is being designed with the software in mind, which strikes me as a departure from how Sony has designed their consoles. More specifically, it seems to me that the hardware is being designed with ONLINE software, specifically Xbox Live, in mind. According to the press released, voice chat, Friends lists, and custom playlists are all supported at the chip level.

Obviously, there isn't a lot of news that is appealing to gamers directly here, but it will be interesting to see how the developers respond. What concerns me is that the "announcement" of these sort of features seems to be coming late, very late for a console launching this year, but many developers have already been working with early hardware specs and assumptions on final specs. I've heard developers saying very positive things about Xbox 2, so it seems Microsoft is making some correct choices right now. We'll just have to see if the early launch pays off.

Update: One detail I managed to leave out ... Microsoft is mandating that EVERY Xbox 2 title be Live-Enabled. Looks like Microsoft's going to defend their claim to the online console space rather vigorously.

PC Hardware: Ageia PhysX Interview

Now this is something fairly interesting. Ageia plans to release a Physics Processing Unit with 128MB of GDDR3. According to the exclusive interview with Gamer's Depot, this should allow a PC to go from processing physics for 30-40 bodies on a high-end machine, to a maximum of 40,000!

They plan to make boards with either a PCI Express (1x/4x) or standard PCI interface, as well as on-board solutions. The memory they state should remain pretty static. They don't really explain why, but I surmise that it's because generating 40,000 bodies with physics for all of them will require a great deal fo content generation, and isn't likely to ever hit that maximum level.

I can't even begin to fathom how something like the Havok physics engine, or a physics-heavy title like Half-Life 2 could benefit from supporting such an upgrade card. They state that they already have 5-15 games "that really matter" to support the hardware at launch.

Strangely, what I feel might be the best application of this has little to do with the physics themselves ... it's the benefits of off-loading the physics to a separate processor that intrigue me. We might finally see some real advances in terms of AI techniques, making NPCs that can truly react to their environments. That will go a long way to improving the believability of characters in games. Better physics and interaction is just the icing on the cake.

The trick is, will it sell? When you can't see in static screenshots on a box what the benefit is, will consumers buy it? Hard to tell right now, but we'll see how things progress over the next year.

GameCube: Nintendo President Talks Revolution

You'll just have to read the article linked above to get a real sense of what Nintendo President Satoru Iwata is getting at, but the following quote is quite telling ...

If the next generation platforms are going to create even more gorgeous looking games using further enhanced functionality, and if that next-gen market can still expand the games industry, then I'm afraid that third-parties may not support Nintendo.

The implication is clear. Nintendo is turning 90 degrees from the competitors and running in a different direction, in an effort to expand the market. If what the market wants is what the competitors are going to provide, Nintendo won't get supported by third parties. And we know what happens to consoles that are not supported by third-parties.

I'm now of the opinion that Nintendo really doesn't have any idea what it's doing. Nintendo DS was supposed to be (according to recent statements) how Nintendo was going to expand the market and appeal to more casual gamers. Now they're trying to do the same thing with Revolution. What is Nintendo going to do to appeal to CURRENT gamers, CURRENT fans, the ones that have supported Nintendo for two DECADES, grew up with Nintendo only to feel alienated and unwanted in recent years?

Regardless, E3 is two months away, and this is precisely the wrong message to telegraph to potential developers, publishers, and gamers eight or nine weeks before you're about to unveil it. Already Nintendo is setting expectations very low, and it's a curious move. Normally, Nintendo is very silent, more so than usual, leading up to E3, but lately, they've been very talkative and saying all the wrong things.

What is going on at Nintendo?

The New York Times > Technology > Apple Wins Initial Ruling

Apple recently sued several websites, including Think Secret, in order to uncover who leaked information about an upcoming Firewire audio interface box for Garage Band.

The first ruling in this case is in, and it's NOT good for the blogosphere. The judge in this case has ruled that Blogs to not qualify for first amendment protections afforded to journalists, and that they will have to reveal their sources.

The first thing I'd like to point out here is that journalists have no such protections. All journalists have the right to do is not reveal the sources and be held in contempt of court. So I'm really not sure what this ruling does, except force the websites to make the next move; either they'll have to fess up, or clam up (and go to jail).

I'm still trying to figure out what it thinks Apple is going to get out of this. Blogs devoting to talking about Apple products and news are giving the company hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising and promotion. Why .... WHY ... would you alienate these people? You're basically suing your most passionate supporters, and that's never a good thing. I can't help but think that this is a big mistake.

Leaks coming from inside your company are not something you should be suing outsiders to discover. Work from the inside and find out where your weak links are. Keep your fans out of it.

The world could really use Google Calendar (by Jeremy Zawodny)

I have to echo the sentiments by Jeremy Zawodny, that Google making a calendar web-app would be fantastic. I've love even more if they integrated it with GMail. I think Jeremy hits all of the big points with it, though I'm not sure Thunderbird (Mozilla's e-mail application) integration is going to be big on the list of priorities.

Supposedly, people running web-calendars on the iCal standard are finding a large amount of traffic coming from Google. It's pretty clear that Google is interested in something, whether it be the iCal standard, the layout, the content, but I think that the speculation that they might be wanting to explore the calendar space is pretty solid.

If Google came up with a GCal that works as well as GMail does, I'd be totally thrilled.

Crossfader

Robert Scoble is up to his old tricks again, getting the ground roots buzz out about a new product that Microsoft will apparently launch in Miami at the Winter Music Conference, called Crossfader.

No other hints on what it might be. People are already noticing that the homepage graphic is "ripped off" from a hardware panel made by Rane. Doing a bit of speculation, I'm assuming it's a software product and not hardware, and that the copying of the Rane panel was just a poor decision on whomever posted the site.

I'm speculating that it's going to be a podcasting product, rather than a specifically music-oriented product, just because I can't see Microsoft getting into this area just yet, but podcasting is something that they want to have a piece of, hopefully to remove the "pod" from "podcasting". Is that what it's going to be? I have no real clue, and Scoble ain't talking yet, other than to say that Channel 9 did the same thing before it was released.

Let's just hope that whatever it ends up being can live up to the hype that is likely to be generated.

Update: Apparently Crossfader is indeed going to be launched at that show, and is simply an online community for musicians. A bit of a let down, but I wasn't the target audience for this particular "product".

DS focused on "Casual Gamers"

Satoru Iwata recently posted on Shigesato Itoi' s website that the DS would be pushed towards casual gamers, and generally increasing the population of gamers.

The genre of "casual games" is a fairly new one, but in essence, it's games you can pick up and play quickly, give a good amount of satisfaction in a short amount of time, and appeal to a broad demographic. Probably one of the most successful "casual games" of all time is Tetris, followed closely by Bejeweled.

I think the problem here is that it seems Nintendo is backpedaling away from the original intent of the DS, which if I remember correctly was to provide a new type of gaming experience. They've probably seen the types of games being developed for the device, and realize that it's hitting a bit of a different market.

And therein lies the catch ... the reason casual games work is that you can play them anywhere, and usually at low or no cost. The Tetris phenomenon aside, sites like Microsoft's Zone, PopCap, etc. work because the gamer can play anywhere they have web access, get a quick fix, and be done with it. For a more involved game experience, they can buy the deluxe versions, but it's the "play before you play" aspect that works so well.

The DS costs $149, which while being inexpensive for a portable game device, is extremely expensive compared to what people are expecting for casual games. Casual games are proliferating on cell phones because you're already carrying it with you, the DS needs to convince people that it's worth bringing around, and its size doesn't help much.

All in all, I think that this renewed focus might be a mistake. The touchscreen gives new gameplay options, but even the Pocket PC and Palm devices which have had them for years, haven't seen a great deal of innovation on that front. The DS has potential, but I don't think that the casual gamer market is where it's going to be found.

T-Mobile Sidekick sales up after Hilton hacked

In a stunning example of how there is no such thing as bad press, T-Mobile stores in New York are selling out of the Danger Sidekick. Whether this is despite of, or because of the high-profile hacking of Paris Hilton's SideKick data is unclear, but nonetheless, people are astounded by this. "Heavy" suggests that T-Mobile should capitalize on this by pushing Paris Hilton as spokesperson more than they are now.

I don't have a whole lot else to say about this, except for the fact that I really can't see why people as so willing to have someone who time and time again has expressed abolutely atrocious judgement as an advocate. Sometimes, I wonder what it's like, to be so famous (and for the wrong reasons), that you can end up making money on even your biggest mistakes.