| Set On Stun |

so close -- yet so far

We’ve all seen the sweet bundles Microsoft has been serving up since the COD:MW2 special edition. It was the ultimate “I Want That” console. Now spring is hear and we’ve got the FF13 special edition console and next month Splinter Cell comes out with another special edition bundle. In each instance the console comes with a 250 gig hard drive. So of course the question becomes ….

“Why can’t I get that separately like the 100 gig one?”

Well if you believe the rumor mill then hope springs eternal as of March 23. Unfortunately Microsoft refuses to confirm this rumor. In fact the word from Aaron Greenberg last month in a Joystiq interview was this,

“We did it with the Modern Warfare bundle, which, as people know, was a huge success, completely sold out. We’re excited to bring it back with the limited edition Final Fantasy bundle.” But that whole limited edition element is  “part of what makes it special,” he said.

To get directly to the point — “We’re always evaluating but for now we feel like the 120 is serving us very well as the standard offering, and then having the 250 as a limited edition is a good balance.”

250 gigs? You want it then you have to buy this!

Well gee Aaron that’s a bit unfair isn’t it? Special editions make them balanced? C’mon Greenberg! Especially when you consider the truckload of content Xbox live now offers and will continue to do so. It’s not entirely inconceivable that a gamer could fill that hard drive with full games (rather than own the disc version) movies, demos, TV shows and music. So for Microsoft to say that the only way you can get this is to buy one of these special edition console is in a word — stupid.

So to you Microsoft — WTF!

By the way, you may come across alleged versions of a 250 gig on some random sites but they’re bunk. Add to that you have a company that won’t allow you to say go out and buy a Western Digital 500 G external hard drive and use that for your console and well, once again, it’s stupid.  In a culture of consumerism wouldn’t it make sense to make it available so that you can then offer more stuff for people to then add to their monster hard drives? With that much space why you wouldn’t think twice about downloading GTA or Fable. But alas for now we’ll either have to shell out and extra 100 for a whole new console or be happy with the 120 gig.

Sony people in the house wave your Move in the air!!

So everybody sitting around at GDC and then Sony starts their presentation ….

Tough year … blah blah, great games Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2 blah blah ….Mag blah blah … God Of War 3 system seller million unit release blah blah blah… more stuff coming at E3 blah blah …. and then we finally get the big announcement ….

The PlayStation …. Move?

All that buzz about it being called the Arc well that was just the rumor mill at high speed. It’s being called the PlayStation Move System — as it was pitched during the presentation “from the tiniest twitch to the strongest punch, it’s ahead of it’s time”  The folks at GDC got a chance to try out this new peripheral first hand and reports are so far so good. Forget kicking balls and painting things, this motion controller had  actual games to show off and not just any games, they brought  PlayStation staple, SOCOM to the party.

In the contest of show me your stuff, Sony didn’t just blow people’s minds — they kicked Microsoft’s ass.

kicking balls? Puleeze -- we so got that beat

Here’s the breakdown

It sort of looks like a Wiimote  except for the weird glowy ball (changes colors too)  but make no mistake — this aint no Wii

• The controller has less buttons and is more streamlined
• It charges using a USB connection just like it’s big brother controller — battery sucking? Not
• The main controller and it’s nunchuck counterpart (known as the subcontroller) are not tethered by a wire.
• The colored ball — that’s your motion detector.
• The report from those who played SOCOM say the functionality blows the Wiimote/nunchuck combo out of the water. What would normally be a clunky interface is now a seamless transition with weapon and movements nicely paired out.
• Depth sensing — if you don’t know what that is well then you haven’t had a chance to not experience that with the Wii. The Move pupports that the glowing  sphere at the end of the controller along with the PlayStation Eye camera work together to solve that issue.

If you’re wondering — those are actual games that you’ll be able to use this new peripheral with. Along with games like cheating golfer tour (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11) and Little Big Planet (retrofitted). Granted the promotional video is replete with cheese and then some but  this goes so far beyond what Natal showed us last summer.

Natal offers no controller at all but here’s the question — where’s your stuff?

PlayStation Move has

1. An estimated fall launch possibly ahead of Natal
2. A rumored starter package price of $100 (depending on if you already own a PS3 and what you’re planning to buy)
3. Titles that already look cooler than anything we’ve seen on Natal.

The path has now been paved. Come this holiday season the Wii will not be the only game in town and tapping into that casual gamer market when you already have the hardcore gamers as part of your core audience  will be a lot easier for Sony and Microsoft.  For Sony to use GDC to drop their Move bomb was a bold and absolutely brilliant move. These are the folks who you want to sell this system too more than anyone else because they’ll be the ones making games for it.

Tough act to follow? Without a doubt. So Microsoft — show us what you got.

So word has it that not only is Sony looking to push their motion control peripheral into the fray before Natal even has a chance to start running ads, but they’re doing it on a franchise that well — they doing it for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11.

You know, they guy who is not only one of the world’s most well known athletes but now he’s also one of the world’s most well known players. I guess EA is sticking by Tiger and his game hoping by the summer that other people will want to play with Tiger besides waitresses and escorts. Even weirder is that the cover will be shared by Irish golfer Rory Mcllroy.  In the 11 years they have made this game, Tiger has never shared a cover. What? Have a looksie.

Please play with me?

But that’s not the head scratcher? The game will be embedded with motion controls  in advance of the allegedly-named “Playstation Arc” peripheral which by the way has no official drop date

WTF??????

Questions
Why announce this at all? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to tell people after Arc drops that “Hey everybody, here are the games we’ve already coded. No waiting.”  This method is like buying Wii Sports without owning a Wii.

Two words — Tiger Woods? Really? The game is slated to launch in June for all three systems but who will be brave enough pick this up as a family game while explaining to their kids that just because the actual Tiger Woods is a douchebag cheater, the videogame version is way cooler. Is this the game you want to pin your first test of new technology on Sony?

Where’s Natal? EA did not mention Natal at all in the release. So that means one of two things.

1. It hasn’t been developed yet so they figured why be a boob and announce something preemptively like Sony
2. Or Natal was not a factor for the 360 version because maybe they want a game without a Scarlett Letter on it as something people won’t feel embarrassed about playing

So with every advertiser this side of Doritos dropping Tiger like an anvil on Wile E Coyote’s head it’s amazing that EA decided to launch this game before Mr. Woods officially returned to golf.  This dude’s actions were and continue to be big news. No one is going to forget this by June! In any case kudos to Sony for greenlighing the Arc game announcement for no reason other than to get press. Nice work.

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.

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.