| Set On Stun |

New on the Wii -- The failure game

First of all this is not something I came up with. The buzz on the intertubes is out there. There is a growing belief that the Wii will meet it’s demise this year. Even Nintendo is saying that they expect sales to drop this year — they still think they’ll beat the PS2 as the most successful console ever? Ay but there’s the question — most successful according to what?

If we’re looking a raw sales data then sure (how much of those sales are the console and not the games) — and beating the PS2 is no easy feat. This behemoth was still selling years into the release of the PS3, it’s still out there and there are people, believe it or not, still playing PS2 games. Need I remind you God of War 2 came out for PS2 …  and that was after the Ps3 was released. But I digress. Back to the Wii completely sucking this year.

It’s no secret that many refer to the Wii as the kiddie console. Some may call it the great equalizer bringing young, old, families, casual and hardcore gamers all into the fold of gaming. Marketing wise it’s one of the easiest consoles to market because if you’re running campaigns for something like Wii Resort or Smash Bros. you’re dealing with innocuous spots and trailers and something that resonates with a large audience.  That then translates into parents buying games not just for their kids but for themselves or for “the family.” In fact that was one of the big things you heard this last holiday season  — “We go a Wii” or “We got Rock Band for the Wii.” Yeah that’s great but here’s the thing Wii isn’t delivering beyond that point.

Think of it this way — We currently have three consoles.

• Two of them are high-end multifunctional CPUs with advanced graphic cards that also play games. One of them — plays games. A majority of those games are gimmicky in the sense that they have some feature that panders to the Wiimote.
• Two of them have evolved to a level of performance that allows us to see videogaming like we’ve never seen it before with unprecedented graphics and gameplay the likes of Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2 and Gears of War 2. Developers relish in pushing these systems to their extreme in terms of what they can produce. One of the consoles is not a big fan of third party software, doesn’t have the capability of running the aforementioned games on its platform and  developers of these big budget games don’t even factor the Wii  in their plans for a typical multiplatform release.
• Back in the Gamecube days, the playing field was much more level because you had essentially three gaming consoles. Microsoft and Sony upped the anti in the next round (as did Nintendo with motion control) and having gone past the benchmark of the 5-year gap between consoles both Sony and Microsoft say, “We don’t need new consoles just yet,” knowing they can get a couple more years out of their machines. The Wii typically becomes a novelty shortly after it’s bought

All you Wii lovers and Wii-loving parents can raise your fists and yell about the last bullet point but that’s the truth. Anyone who owns a PS3 or 360 and a Wii will tell you — we play the Wii when friends come over or the kids use it. The rest of the time these gamers default to their primary console.

So why are Microsoft and Sony making motion controllers then? Good question. The biggest reason is to tap into that casual gamer/family market. Notice though that these are peripherals and not entirely new consoles. They know full well exactly how these device will be treated from the developer side. Sure there will be a whole slew of folks looking to make cool motion-control, fun games and figuring out how to retrofit old games to mod with the new device. But  you’re not going to see a developer like Bioware spend time making Mass Effect 3 compatible with Natal or the Arc. You just won’t. That’s why the Wii gets left out so often for the A-list titles. And since they can’t match up to the caliber of games we have seen in the last year and are bound to see this year what’s left for Wii to do? Make more of the same, which ultimately spells — S  U C  K.

Nintendo’s sinking feeling that this year sales will slump is not far off.  As the system consistently keeps getting left behind by developers or the last console you pick for your team, we end up with games that people want to play except not on the system that everyone can use.

Don't Think, Just Click

Evony is at it again. In their attempts to sue Bruce Everiss at Bruce On Games, they’re scrambling to disguise or delete any and all of the evidence he and the gaming community has collected.

The article he wrote about Evony being Malware caught the attention of Eric Lam, the guy who runs the gold-farming UMGE network of businesses and the guy who was sued by Microsoft for click-fraud schemes decided to sue Bruce Everiss. While the details of the case are expertly described on Mr. Everiss’ site, the new wrinkle in this attempt to silence criticism is that there are efforts to disassociate Evony with UMGE altogether to cover up the evidence.

They’ve edited their Evony wiki to remove references to UMGE and when one of the commenters on Bruce’s site pointed out that they missed a reference, shortly after, that reference was removed as well.

"See who's wanting you?" WTF?

The official UMGE.com site is down (and parked by GoDaddy) as well as 321Wan.com (the company that built the original Civony game, then cloned it to other browser games) is also down as well.

A student and reader of Bruce on Games went into the code of the game and found numerous references to UMGE and found that rather than malware designed to hurt the computer, it’s a massive data-mining engine.  Evony’s client, once installed, harvests tons of user information and sends it back to UMGE/ Evony.  While this is speculation, this would be a great way to scrape emails for spam, track sites you’re visiting and generally invade your privacy. Now, those references are gone.

It’s become clear that the core argument from Evony/ UMGE/ Eric Lam is primarily that Bruce Everiss (and the internet community at large) made fun of him, his business and his game and he wants litigation to cause them to shut up.  His case depends on removing the digital trails and deleting the connections so that the claims Bruce made can no longer be found.

All of this deception continues as Evony continues to throw stupid and misleading ads across the internet.  Again, while sex in advertising works, there’s very little in those ads that represent what the product actually is. It’s deceptive, pure and simple.

It’s bad marketing, it’s bad business and when called out, they litigate and try to remove evidence.

When you pay for products and services online, it’s critical that the company deserves a basic level of trust.  As more people join and play Evony, they’re giving their money to a company that doesn’t deserve that trust.

Donate to Bruce’s fight against the UMGE/ Eric Lam/ Evony litigation here at PayPal.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a few conversations with some game industry watchers about Project Natal and the reactions to it range from, “it’s a gimmick” to “it will revolutionize gaming”.  However, under the surface lurks the visage of Microsoft’s un-stated strategy.

Project Natal could become the means of content creation on the Xbox 360.

It’s very clear that Microsoft is turning the Xbox 360 into a primary device for consumers. We can update our Twitter & Facebook profiles from the console, we can stream Netflix’s digital library at will, we can listen to our playlists on Last.fm and we can enter a virtual world to play classic arcade games.

The underlying theme is that the Xbox Live platform is a strong social network for gamers to consume media that we want.  However, what’s lacked in the platform has been something that’s inherent in all web and mobile based social networks, content sharing.

One of the core things that changed the web into the social web is the ability for browsers to run native applications through the browser and allow the user to participate, modify and share those applications as they interact with it.  The social participatory network that social media sites have mastered have given us all a platform to share the things we love, hate and do to a wide variety of groups.  Twitter is, for the most part, public.  Facebook is experimenting with different ways of balancing personal privacy with our desire to distribute information.

The second aspect of social media collaboration as it’s evolved has been the advent of real-time updates.  Search giant Google has integrated Twitter streams into its search results page:

Click to embigulate

With the social web combined with the real-time web, there has to be a way to consume media in written, audio or video form, there needs to be a way to share that media with another person in your network and there needs to be a way to modify that media in some form.  Traditionally, the modification of media is comments, ratings or tagging. Lastly, there needs to be a way to create new media, let it reside on a social platform where your network can consume, share and modify it.

Natal fills that gap for Xbox Live. It is a way to modify existing media, it will be able to create new media.

Once that media is created, Microsoft’s Xbox Live has already been looking for ways to spread that media to your network, they’ve been collecting data on how Xbox Live users are actually using Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter and presumably, adding a method that’s more intuitive to share your created content via the Natal update.

Another thing to consider is that Apple has dominated the Zune in usability, user penetration and more importantly, the application distribution and development potential.

With Natal, Microsoft has a unique way for developers to create motion specific applications that can be downloaded from the store, played with and the result of that media consumption and creation will need to be shared with your networks.  If I were to create a really cool picture using “Natal Paint”, I should be able to send that picture to my email, to Twitter, to Facebook.  I should be able to make that creation my background image, the ways for Natal to inspire unique user generated creations is absolutely limitless.

That distribution capability is now being tested.  While some, including my partner Shawn has called Microsoft “drunk” or “stupid” when new features come out that only go half way, I think that this is just the foundation for Xbox Live, in combination with Natal, to explode in the ability to create content and then distribute it.

If I were to be able to link my YouTube account to Xbox Live, I could record my motions in video, apply some paint techniques to add some style, upload it to YouTube and Facebook, promote it with Twitter, then Microsoft would have been successful in creating a fully functional social network out of the browser, away from the computer and in front of all the media we belong to.

The integration of Xbox Live into the Zune is just one more way to spread that content. If I’m right, I think that all of the seemingly random and strange things Microsoft has been doing with Xbox Live lately has been a carefully coordinated test-bed to truly launch Natal as a content creation mechanism supported by a network that will share it with the browser based web.

not mini-me -- biggie me

The answer isn’t entirely clear. To hear Steve Jobs say “It does way more than a smartphone” well that’s kind of obvious (and if it could, the IPAD would probably be a better phone) but what’s the point of this expensive gadget especially in a recession filled, unemployment ridden new decade?

This is not to deride or poke fun at the IPAD. Oh, no. The IPAD is a wondrous device but let’s think about this for a minute. We have smart phones, we have Iphones, we have iTouches, we have notebook PCs and yes we have tablet PCs. Granted there’s no Apple Tablet and one could assume that’s their motivation but really do we need this? Couldn’t the R&D team at Apple have used their monster brains to develop something else?

Out here in videogame land you now have a 10-inch screen to play the same games you already play on a tiny screen with your Itouch or Iphone (sans Tap Tap Revolution — do you really want to shake this thing?) but does this mean you have to buy the same games? From a marketing perspective it’s like Nintendo making a bigger DS  — why would they do that? We have enough agita with their new models of the same device. Speaking of which, do you  think Apple will stop with just one or two models of this thing? Check back  in three years.

We’re not going to regurgitate the tech specs because it’s an Apple product and it has all the stuff you would expect  it to have. For the casual gamers who have all this stuff on their iPod, iPhone or iTouch, the company says the iPad will be compatible but to restate the earlier question will you then have to buy them again like when you have to re-buy a CD from iTunes? Apparently you’ll also be able to surf the web, load photos and listen to music. So … it’s a bigger iTouch that costs twice as as much?

You remember the campaign for the iTouch right?

everything the new thing has except smaller

Now take a look at what currently graces Apple’s home page…

Notice what is says –unbelievable price. Really Apple? We’re supposed to think that the $500 base price for the 16GB model is a deal? Yes so when you’re done hanging out at the unemployment office line maybe you can go down to the Apple store and wait in line for one of these new gizmos.  Who’s the target audience for this? If it’s people with money then good luck with that. If it’s going after the handheld fans who have already spent chunks of of change for their other I-gadgets then we go back to the initial question that titles this post. And if it’s for that “floating in ambiguity between a smart phone and laptop buyer” then you can envision all those Best Buy and Apple store associates trying to explain why the iPad is better. It almost (almost) seems that Jobs thinks of the Apple consumer as a cat who likes shiny things and can be easily lulled into chasing this a new version of the same shiny new toy right into the store.

Cool new gadget worth spending money you don’t have or enough already Apple?

This sucks to report.  Earlier last year, Crispy Gamer bought the gaming social media site GamerDNA for a bunch of money, it had also raised over $8 million dollars as well last year.

As VentureBeat reports, once you raise that much money, the investors expect a strong return on that investment.  While details are unclear at the moment, what’s known is that all of the editorial staff at Crispy Gamer have been laid off and it’s CEO, Chris Heldman has resigned in protest.

Personally, I really enjoyed Crispy Gamer, it’s ethos didn’t allow any advertising money from game companies and it strove to give independent analysis on the game industry free from influence.

Once I started reading Crispy Gamer, I found its unique insight and the personality of the writers to be a refreshing change from most gaming editorials.  While I’m not one to say they were better than others, what was clear was that their passion, intelligence and independence really showed through.  They were able to become a clear voice for gamers in a short time with their excellent features, writers and analysis.

While it’s unclear as to what’s going to happen with GamerDNA, Crispy Gamer is still live, but it’s no longer being updated.

Hopefully, something good will come from these ashes, but that may come much later.

I’m sure some people will come along and question the wisdom of spending that much money to acquire GamerDNA at a time when money is tight across the industry, but from a consumer perspective, Crispy Gamer kept its integrity, kept its reviews worth reading and had the guts to call out influential players in the gaming industry.

Update: In my previous entry, I’d made the association that they’d raised the $8 million to buy GamerDNA, that was not the case.