| Set On Stun |

Stop by the virtual 7-11 for a cyber slushee first

The block party is on the way. Okay look, maybe I’ve been a bit harsh on Microsoft recently so here’s something nice. As we head into March the folks over at Xbox Live have a big launch plan they are putting into action related to the what they talked about last year — the Xbox Live Gameroom.

Starting March 3, gamers can download a new arcade game every week and the end of the month they can download the app that goes with it. As a bonus you get 400 MS points at the end of it all and well you have three new games. The first two games (Toy Soldiers and Scrap Metal) are 1200 points and the last one, the cherry on top game is the old Perfect Dark (not the one that was part of the early 360 launch– Perfect Dark Zero). This was the multiplayer masterpiece that was originally released to the Nintendo 64.

After all this is said and done Xbox live will be as they call it in their press release, “kickin it old school” in this virtual arcade (replete with old school cabinets) with dowloadable arcade classics that will run anywhere from  240 to 400 Microsoft Points for game downloads  and 40 Microsoft Points for single gameplay. That’s .50 cents for a single play. The games on the roster will be revealed.

Okay so yes you have to spend like $40 bucks to get $5 back but this whole new virtual arcade may just be a good way to get a lot of casual gamers on board using Xbox live  and change up the game a little bit from the usual frag fest that’s online now. It’s a clever move create a central locale for all these games and your avatars. With a solid library of old games the this type of setup creates the instant gratification of the quick play or the re-playability of owning the game both on your console and your PC. This is the kind of move that targets the gamers who grew up with these games who can relive the glory of shooting asteroids and floating polygons. For the new gang of gamers it’s a chance for them to say — “This was a game?”

Updates will be continuously posted and uber promoted on XBL throughout the month.

next we should have xbox live on the tssseeeveeeee ... wait .. what?

We saw what a huge (huge) miss the Facebook and Twitter apps were for Xbox live. You think they would have stopped based on the amazingly tepid reception to using these apps via Xbox live. The apparent problem is clear. Xbox Live is a social media application all by itself. You can chat, game, watch movies together, even play games with your avatar. So basically why would you want to bring Twitter into that?

And then along comes this idea …. Xbox Live — on your phone. If you have an Xbox Live account this means you will be able to view your friends lists, gamerscore, and avatars using “compatible” mobile devices, as well as download games to play online. Translation of compatible means software they’re calling Windows phone 7 . According to Ron Pessner, general manager of Xbox Live Mobile,  “It has always been our vision to expand the Xbox Live service to connect people to their games, entertainment and friends wherever they go, and the launch of Windows Phone 7  Series is an important step toward that goal.” A step into what?

For that Microsoft gets this week’s AYFKM!!!!????

Seriously what are they drinking out there in Seattle?

Question: What do you use Xbox Live for?

Answer: DLC, Netflix, demos, online gaming, special videos and previews and oh yeah, Netflix.

Question: Do you care what gamertag Somedeadguy11 is doing when you’re not using your console?

Answer: Not even remotely.

Here’s the thing. Most of your gamer friends, and not just people you do team deathmatches with, you are already connected with —- using other social media! So the notion that having access to your live account on your phone will somehow “enhance” the gaming experince is like saying that the Ipad is not a big Itouch.

Xbox Live Coming to Cell Phones — Is Microsoft Drunk?

From Gizmodo’s liveblog.  I’ll take a look at the gaming aspects of the new Apple iPad.

So, there it is. The Apple iPad. "meh" so far unimpressed.... c'mon Jobs, bring on the games!

At this point, I’m watching the liveblog event on Gizmodo and within minutes, tweets and status updates are furiously scrolling past, “OMGZZORS will TEH Twitt3r Breakz?”  There are comparisons to Roman emperors and all sorts of fascinating geekery happening.  So far, nothing about the iPad and gaming.

Instant critique: It’s not widescreen formatted (lame)

Instant like: It supports HD even in YouTube.  (neat)

It looks good.. but no widescreen? WTF?

Some technical stats are in:

The iPad is 0.5 inches thin, weighs just 1.5 lbs, 9.7 inch IPS display.  It’s thinner and lighter than any netbook.  H.264 up to 720p @ 30 frames per second.  This part, I like.  However, it STILL seems like an amped up iPod touch.  Sound is done in glorious mono.. wait, what?  MONO?  I’m sure that stereo headphones fix that problem.

This is no surprise... but still good. Can it handle 2 handed multi-touch? How will that change gaming?

First look at the app store.  Calendars, Contacts and Maps.  No Games yet….

Urge to kill.... Rising... no games!

Alright, here are the games.  You can play in tiny mode or full screen with low rez.

I'm still in the "meh" territory.

Not bad. but not impressed.

GameLoft is on the stage and they’re showing the game Nova, which is already on the iPhone.  In this game, on the iPad, you can slide your fingers across to throw a grenade, you can slide the D-pad up and down the screen and potentially customize UI elements.

You can “interact with the game world in ways that weren’t possible before”.  Not sure what this means, but i’m sure its a more sensitive multi-touch.

Alright, I'm almost hooked. For this iPad specific game, it looks really nice and there are some interesting UI/ Touch capabilities.

EA is taking the stage:

EA is showing Need for Speed and it looks damn good (not as good as the Xbox or PC versions though)  but it’s better than the iPhone.  Basically, if you play an iPhone game really close to your face, then you get the idea.

Mingames and other aspects to MLB on the iPad.

Jobs said that the guys from EA only had a few weeks to put these together, “Imagine what they’re going to do in the next few months.”

I’m intrigued.  The iPhone did a lot to put gaming into a new, more casual and widely distributed audience, which significantly changed the game space forever.  With the larger capacity, more sensitive multitouch, the HD capabilities, the iPad should present an interesting challenge to game designers, developers and game enthusiasts.

@ferricide (from Gamasutra) tweeted:

“so hacky iPhone ports will be all over the app store at launch. devs: let’s think ahead instead.”

While it’s really cool, and there are some aspects of the iPad that I’m liking… it’s not a game changer.  It looks gimmicky (from a gaming perspective) the good thing: it’s bigger than a PSP or DS, it supports HD and will have massive gaming support.

The bad news is that it’s probably going to be prohibitively expensive and you’ll still have to deal with the draconians at the Apple App Store.  (just don’t say “fuck” in your app… as Trent Reznor learned).  Another thing is the excellent critique that the iPad is not a Mac, it’s a giant iPod touch and that it’s proprietary innovations stifle competition and boost up a business that’s become more closed than Microsoft.

Well, I think that the gaming section of the iPad is pretty much done.

Overall impressions: it’s an interesting and fairly useful piece of tech.  However, it seems to me to be the “segue” of computers.  It’s not a smart phone, it’s not a laptop, it’s in between.  It’s got some decent functionality, but I’m not sold.  I can easily predict that the games will be significantly more expensive and, at first, shittier due to the flood of ports.   I’m just not convinced that there’s a need or a vulnerability in the gaming world to accept this.

Lastly, it’s priced at $499.  Which is more expensive than any console… but considering, this isn’t just a console.  Overall, not a bad deal, most pundits were expecting closer to the $1,000 mark.

Doesn’t suck.  I kinda want one, but I don’t think this is going to revolutionize gaming or the industry in the same way that the iPhone did.  Not even close.  However, I still feel like a jerk-wad for saying “iPad” out loud.  I now remember how I felt saying “Wii” for the first few days.

Image Credits: Gizmodo

Update: They’re using AT&T.  Dammit.

Update 2: More detailed pricing structure from IndustryGamers.com

“The $499 model gives consumers 16 GB of storage, with WiFi built-in. Then for $599, the storage steps up to 32 GB, and $699 brings it up to 64 GB. A 3G model will cost an extra $130. So that means for $829 you can get a 64 GB model with 3G. “

Update 3: Gamasutra has a very good article on the gaming aspects of the iPad.

Firstly, I want to say that I’m a platform agnostic.  I enjoy both the Xbox 360 and the PS3.  When the blue slot lights up on my Wii, I remind myself that I have yet to have a bad experience on that little bugger.

I have a badly damaged iPhone that still works and more because it’s a point of pride, I still use the damn thing.  It refuses to die.

However, since I’m out of contract, I’m seriously considering a new droid phone, yet not terribly happy about having to lose so many good games I’ve got loaded.

This is what happens when you let your 4 year old play games on your iPhone

So, with all that said, I’m not really a fanboy of a particular brand… but I love new technology that works, that makes my life simpler, more fun, more organized and more connected.  Mobile gaming touches me on two of those points.  The games I’ve put on my phone have given me countless hours of fun and connection with friends.  And most of the time, it works well.

So, when Flurry, a phenomenal mobile analytics service, released some information that the major focus and use testing were for video games, naturally, that set my heart fluttering just a bit more.

Flurry used their mobile analytics to identify categories of the application usage on the Apple tablet.

However, there’s been something that’s been pulling on my brain about the Apple Tablet, it’s failed to capture my attention in the way that the iPhone did.  The iPhone was called the Jesus Phone, it took the reality of living a digital life to a new and amazing level, for that, I’m loathe to ditch my iPhone.  Yet, I think this is the crux of my skepticism towards the Apple Tablet.

The iPhone felt new, unique and exciting.

The Apple Tablet doesn’t strike me yet as revolutionary.

Mobile games have become a huge business, capturing the core-gamer and casual mom-gamer demographics expertly and almost completely.  However, my trepidation rests in the feeling that the Apple Platform will raise that bar only in scale and not connectivity, functionality and immersion.   I understand that the tablet, as a reader, could be superior to the Kindle or the Nook, I understand that the Tablet wont just be a big iPhone… all of these things I know.

However, if the primary use of the table will be gaming, as Flurry’s data suggests, it has to revolutionize gaming.  It can’t be just bigger, prettier, higher rez and have better multi-touch features, it has to force game development companies to truly change the way that games are made again… in the way iPhone games added a new element to gaming, the iPhone forced gamers to perceive and experience games in a way that hadn’t really been done before.

So, as it’s released today, I’ll be interested to see how they’re planning to take gaming to the next level, to change the game again and how they’ve not been satisfied to just make a bigger gaming platform, but how they can connect it with people, reinvent the way we play games again, force developers to take risks in the new functionality and ultimately give gamers and consumers a new way to experience games.

This is a case where I hope my skepticism is unwarranted, I want innovation, I want to buy the tablet and I want game companies and gamers to be surprised with how good it can be.  As for now, I’m not really seeing anything game changing about it.  Of course, I could be wrong… and we should all know by the end of the day.

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.