| Set On Stun |

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.

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?

What do you mean I can't play Fusion Frenzy online anymore?!

For all the folks out where who are still playing  Star Wars Battlefront, and Halo 2 online well, that will end soon.  Come April 15 (tax day) Microsoft is pulling the plug on the online component for their old green machine games. Forget the fact that Halo 2 is still one of the biggest online multiplayer success stories ever the company has deiced that with a new decade comes time for a change. The original machine, almost 10 years old itself still has a lot of titles out and  some of those may still  get a decent amount of online play.

But,  Xbox says, “We’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox V1 games.”  That’s from XBL manager Marc Whitten.

Translation: If you and your two buddies  are planning to do some Halo 2 multiplayer  April 16, then you’re SOL.

Is this a bad thing for Microsoft? Not entirely. The fact that their on demand service, which they offered up last year, let’s you download old Xbox games that may or may not have that live component, then you’re basically stuck with whatever the single player version is. So it’s kind of pointless to make these games available if you remove half a chunk of the usability that you would  get from the online play  like with Halo. What Whitten says makes sense though. If they’re trying to transition to strictly 360 titles then why hang on to the support  for games that go back several years for a system from the last decade?

Who’s Playing These Ancient Games?

The real question to  Microsoft is does it really take that much effort to continue offering live support for original Xbox games? If not then why shut it down? And even more importantly why offer these games as part of your classic library if you’re going to expect gamers to spend $20 or $30 bucks, memory space but then not allow them to  play the game online? It seems a bit … stupid. Solution — don’t offer those games.

Looking at the the current games in the XBL on demand library  you’ll see that most of their downloadable old (Xbox 1) games are primarily games that were single player hits. So essentially for this online gaming element,  we’re talking about folks who have some semblance of a videogame library and still own some of these original box titles or for some reason still use the original Xbox and buy “new” games at bargain bins and Criag’s list. As to how big of a market that is 5 years into the 360’s existence, who knows?

From a customer reputation standpoint they may lose favor with those old school gamers but it looks like Microsoft feels fairly secure that they’re not going to irk that many folks with this decision and they’re still giving them a few months to relive the old game glory days before pulling the plug.

broke people + choosing between games or food does not equal sales

Hang on to your tissue boxes — Microsoft says they lost money last year. You could blame this flurry of diminishing reports on the our current economic woes and you would be partially right but what about the rest of it? Could it possibly be that an overabundance of peripheral and music games, lack of  really earth shattering titles, endless release delays and poor marketing led to this general decline last year? And by the way a billion dollar company not making an extra billion — is that really bad news?

Maybe, maybe not. For Nintendo a big reason in their drop was the decline of the sales of the DS. Wii sales were also down and so collectively you have a situation where they’re not clearing a lot of hardware and frankly how many Mario games or versions of  Wii Sports or Wii Fit can you own?  For Microsoft, last year’s price drop  was a great marketing ploy and definitely sparked more people into buying consoles but let’s face it, when you’re broke $300 isn’t going to go to a new console and the only games you’re playing are the “price savings/coupon clipping/shop around game” at the grocery store.

On the plus side Xbox live boasts a membership of 23 million people which is amazing when you consider you have to pay for that gold membership and Sony’s is free. Of course Sony’s PSN isn’t anywhere near as good as Xbox Live and has a long way to go before that happens but hey, they’ve got blu-ray.

Know what all of this sounds like when you still see figures for these companies in the billions? — blah blah blah, poor us, blah blah blah. That’s right, unless they’re losing money left and right and firing so many people that Detroit looks like the land of opportunity, then all of these reports and analysis on why sales are down are a bunch of bunk.

poor us --we can't sell a jillion consoles

Here’s the bottom line — even with cheaper consoles why would it matter unless there were games you wanted to play? Argue all you want about what a great year it was last year in games but go back and take a good look at the whole year. Outside of the billion dollar boon for Modern Warfare 2, how many games released last year were driving sales?

We’ve reached a point in the industry where we should be seeing a lot more quality titles coming out over the course of the year but outside of a few standouts last year, we didn’t see that many games drives sales.  Videogames are at a level of abundance that we haven’t seen since halfway through the last decade so it’s almost as if there’s no driving force behind the supply and demand. The prices are reasonable enough, you have three consoles to choose from, you can play games on phones, iPods and of course computers so what’s driving people to buy these things? And if you lump on to a lack of  compelling reasons to get you into the store, a poor economy and games that really aren’t winning people over well, you get poor sales. Did they really need a report to figure that out?

Hey console makers, call us when you have something important to report.