This could be a decent way of assuaging with the problem every single digital platform has of having a bunch of games not included for little reason other than the submission process being pretty arbitrary. It would still be very arbitrary but would at least be in the hands of the consumers instead of a very small rotating group.
Look no further than the Apple App Store for widespread fraud as developers inflate the ratings of their own games.
There's a lot of shenanigans going on in Desura, and of course, there have been many instances of shenanigans going on in XBLIG and XBLA as well.
That reminds me, did said shenanigans in XBLIG ever get fixed? I'm guessing no.
They made it harder to vote for XBLIG games but they didn't go back and remove suspicious ratings.
They took away voting from the xbox.com website via free Silver Xbox Live accounts.
The reason was because there was proof of someone paying a developer (in India no less) to create a web bot that would produce 5,000 free xbox live silver accounts and use those accounts to log in and submit game ratings automatically.
There was no proof of who did this, or specifically why, but the fact that it was done and followed up mere days later of voting fraud on XBLIG makes it pretty convincing.
So they took away the right to vote via free Silver accounts on Xbox.com as a result. Probably because it affected XBLA as well.
You can still vote game ratings on a Silver account from the Xbox dashboard. But thanks to this change the vote blasting that was going on was largely eliminated; at least on a large scale like it was before.
Look no further than the Apple App Store for widespread fraud as developers inflate the ratings of their own games.
There's a lot of shenanigans going on in Desura, and of course, there have been many instances of shenanigans going on in XBLIG and XBLA as well.
That reminds me, did said shenanigans in XBLIG ever get fixed? I'm guessing no.
They made it harder to vote for XBLIG games but they didn't go back and remove suspicious ratings.
They took away voting from the xbox.com website via free Silver Xbox Live accounts.
The reason was because there was proof of someone paying a developer (in India no less) to create a web bot that would produce 5,000 free xbox live silver accounts and use those accounts to log in and submit game ratings automatically.
There was no proof of who did this, or specifically why, but the fact that it was done and followed up mere days later of voting fraud on XBLIG makes it pretty convincing.
So they took away the right to vote via free Silver accounts on Xbox.com as a result. Probably because it affected XBLA as well.
You can still vote game ratings on a Silver account from the Xbox dashboard. But thanks to this change the vote blasting that was going on was largely eliminated; at least on a large scale like it was before.
Christ. You'd think indie developers wouldn't have that kind of resources to blow on fraud, but there it is.
That reminds me, when I dove into XBLIG to pick up Rain-Slick 3, I noticed there was a LOT of shit out there. I mean bull elephant with the squirts-level shit. I'm happy that indie developers have an outlet to get their games out there, but if I didn't have a specific game in mind to buy I wouldn't have a clue which ones would be worthwhile in that massive pile.
Edit: And it seemed like every fifth game was borderline Japanese-style porn.
Look no further than the Apple App Store for widespread fraud as developers inflate the ratings of their own games.
There's a lot of shenanigans going on in Desura, and of course, there have been many instances of shenanigans going on in XBLIG and XBLA as well.
That reminds me, did said shenanigans in XBLIG ever get fixed? I'm guessing no.
They made it harder to vote for XBLIG games but they didn't go back and remove suspicious ratings.
They took away voting from the xbox.com website via free Silver Xbox Live accounts.
The reason was because there was proof of someone paying a developer (in India no less) to create a web bot that would produce 5,000 free xbox live silver accounts and use those accounts to log in and submit game ratings automatically.
There was no proof of who did this, or specifically why, but the fact that it was done and followed up mere days later of voting fraud on XBLIG makes it pretty convincing.
So they took away the right to vote via free Silver accounts on Xbox.com as a result. Probably because it affected XBLA as well.
You can still vote game ratings on a Silver account from the Xbox dashboard. But thanks to this change the vote blasting that was going on was largely eliminated; at least on a large scale like it was before.
Christ. You'd think indie developers wouldn't have that kind of resources to blow on fraud, but there it is.
Well whoever did it paid for some guy in India to develop the web bot for a few grand. Mere days after the completion of that "web bot project" what happened was the Top 30 highest rated games on XBLIG started getting exponentially more Votes on their rating, which were mathematically determined to be 1-star votes across the board. The result was that the Top 30 highest rated games all crashed in rating, and if your game was relatively new-ish and didn't have an existing "base" of legitimate ratings, its standings in the overall Top Rated charts pretty much went into the shitter.
Soon as proof of the web bot was found and publicized on certain web blogs (like Kotaku), whoever posted the "job listing" for the "web bot" immediately removed it, and as soon as MS closed the Silver account rating ability, all the 1-Star voting spam stopped immediately.
That reminds me, when I dove into XBLIG to pick up Rain-Slick 3, I noticed there was a LOT of shit out there. I mean bull elephant with the squirts-level shit. I'm happy that indie developers have an outlet to get their games out there, but if I didn't have a specific game in mind to buy I wouldn't have a clue which ones would be worthwhile in that massive pile.
And thus we have the (arguably) major market mentality towards XBLIG: As soon as you go in, you pretty much have to know what you're looking for or else you might wind up never coming back. On the plus side games that draw a crowd the hope is to give the channel a little bit of positive publicity and hope that people at least check out the Top Rated games.
You guys all remember Band of Brothers: Furious 4, right? The over-the-top, four player nazi slaying game from Gearbox? The one that, after a single controversial trailer at E3 2011, was never seen again, and everyone figured was quietly swept under the carpet?
Turns out it's not canceled, though it does sound like they're retooling it; probably in response to the negative feedback the ultraviolence in the 2011 trailer got (I think it was giantbomb that mentioned "it's pretty bad when you feel sorry for Nazi's")
I'm still wondering what happened to Insomniac's Overstrike though.
Yeah, that one was MIA from the latest E3, wasn't it?
Meanwhile, Squeenix is returning to the teat even though it's shriveled and unloved:
In an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu (via Andriasang), FFXIII and XIII-2 director Motomu Toriyama dropped some hints that we may soon be adventuring with Lightning once more.
When asked if Final Fantasy XIII would be a focus at the upcoming Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary event, he replied, "The [FFXIII-2] Lightning download content had an ending that left a feeling mystery and hope. The day when the meaning of this will come to light is not too far off."
Wow, they are really trying to recoup that insanely long development cycle as much as possible. With all the assets they claimed to have "thrown away" I wonder how much real work they are actually doing on these sequels (at least in the art department).
If you think about it, $5000 is a small price to pay to potentially increase the sales of your game tenfold. In a marketplace like XBLIG where the only games that really get picked up on a whim are the ones exposed by being on top in some way (sales or ratings) then you could potentially make that money back after the fact. In addition, high ratings/sales can also be a foothold into getting into a more exposed, curated storefront like Steam as our own Zeboyd has demonstrated. And as they have also demonstrated, the sales potentials in that sort of market are far higher.
Speaking of that though, the state of XBLIG is something Valve definitely needs to take into account with their Greenlight program, especially since unlike the sandbox that is Xbox the games will run unrestricted on your PC. There's just too many open questions right now to determine which side of the fence it's going to fall on.
I suspect they did a budget forecast for their next game, including what it'd cost them to redo a bunch of art and models... And when they saw the numbers they immediately backed away with a big NOPEface. Square Enix should, by now, know pretty well what it'd cost them to continue building behemoths, so I imagine this time around they're gonna minmax the process a bit. Reuse as much as possible with only minimal additional input, so that even if a new FF game doesn't break a new sales record for the series it's still gonna make them bank. The real question then becomes, how many people are they expecting to sell it to? Because, if they set their expectations too low, it's really going to show in the final game...
Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.
The first title to come out of the newly-formed mobile division at Activision is not a Call of Duty game. Instead, the group will produce a mobile version of the Activision classic, Pitfall.
"We've been working on Pitfall since earlier in the year when we set up and it has been really good to revisit that and bring it to a modern audience," Martyn Brown, Team 17 co-founder and Activision Mobile head honcho told MCV. "Being able to call upon a wide portfolio of properties is really good for us and we are looking forward to finally showing it to more people."
Activision announced the studio back in May, which employs former Rockstar talent and the co-founder of Team 17. Pitfall celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Nintendo Console Codes
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Codemasters co-founder David Darling, who is now head of mobile gaming company Kwalee, believes that the next-generation of games consoles will fail unless they are digital only. Darling looks towards things such as Steam, Facebook, and Apple’s AppStore as proof that boxed games are now history.
“Consoles have become like dinosaurs heading for extinction as their natural retail habitat begins to change. These ancient beasts must now adapt to a new environment where platforms like Steam, Facebook and Apple’s App Store are pushing innovation. People are already playing more games through digital download than physical media. For instance, Angry Birds has had more than one billion downloads, a sales figure totally beyond what can be achieved by boxed games sold in the likes of Game and GameStop.”
“With digitally distributed games we can cut out physical production, warehouses, distributors and retailers. We can publish our own games, reducing our costs so that we can deliver fun experiences to players for far less cost than a console game. Therefore it is no longer necessary to charge people huge prices to play video games.”
Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Codemasters co-founder David Darling, who is now head of mobile gaming company Kwalee, believes that the next-generation of games consoles will fail unless they are digital only. Darling looks towards things such as Steam, Facebook, and Apple’s AppStore as proof that boxed games are now history.
“Consoles have become like dinosaurs heading for extinction as their natural retail habitat begins to change. These ancient beasts must now adapt to a new environment where platforms like Steam, Facebook and Apple’s App Store are pushing innovation. People are already playing more games through digital download than physical media. For instance, Angry Birds has had more than one billion downloads, a sales figure totally beyond what can be achieved by boxed games sold in the likes of Game and GameStop.”
“With digitally distributed games we can cut out physical production, warehouses, distributors and retailers. We can publish our own games, reducing our costs so that we can deliver fun experiences to players for far less cost than a console game. Therefore it is no longer necessary to charge people huge prices to play video games.”
Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Which is what we've always known with anything related to online stuff:
The big hurdle is infrastructure and investment there in
If you think about it, $5000 is a small price to pay to potentially increase the sales of your game tenfold. In a marketplace like XBLIG where the only games that really get picked up on a whim are the ones exposed by being on top in some way (sales or ratings) then you could potentially make that money back after the fact. In addition, high ratings/sales can also be a foothold into getting into a more exposed, curated storefront like Steam as our own Zeboyd has demonstrated. And as they have also demonstrated, the sales potentials in that sort of market are far higher.
Speaking of that though, the state of XBLIG is something Valve definitely needs to take into account with their Greenlight program, especially since unlike the sandbox that is Xbox the games will run unrestricted on your PC. There's just too many open questions right now to determine which side of the fence it's going to fall on.
It really is the core problem with the no-publisher scenario and I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to solve it.
Codemasters co-founder David Darling, who is now head of mobile gaming company Kwalee, believes that the next-generation of games consoles will fail unless they are digital only. Darling looks towards things such as Steam, Facebook, and Apple’s AppStore as proof that boxed games are now history.
“Consoles have become like dinosaurs heading for extinction as their natural retail habitat begins to change. These ancient beasts must now adapt to a new environment where platforms like Steam, Facebook and Apple’s App Store are pushing innovation. People are already playing more games through digital download than physical media. For instance, Angry Birds has had more than one billion downloads, a sales figure totally beyond what can be achieved by boxed games sold in the likes of Game and GameStop.”
“With digitally distributed games we can cut out physical production, warehouses, distributors and retailers. We can publish our own games, reducing our costs so that we can deliver fun experiences to players for far less cost than a console game. Therefore it is no longer necessary to charge people huge prices to play video games.”
Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Which is what we've always known with anything related to online stuff:
The big hurdle is infrastructure and investment there in
We know. Yes... but I've yet to see a single analyst broach this subject.
Another thing in our consumer based society is Christmas. As long as that holiday remains the way it is, physical media has to remain a thing. A massive chunk of sales are generated within the market during that time and retail is a big part of that. I can only imagine the puzzlement of parents going to the store in the "next gen" to buy their kids some games only to be sent away and told to go look on the internet.
Could you imagine Christmas where each kid gets nothing but a card that says "Go to your game console to download your gift!" then they have to wait to actually use their gift? Sheesh. A digital distribution only future is kinda scary. I just don't see it happening next gen.
Codemasters co-founder David Darling, who is now head of mobile gaming company Kwalee, believes that the next-generation of games consoles will fail unless they are digital only. Darling looks towards things such as Steam, Facebook, and Apple’s AppStore as proof that boxed games are now history.
“Consoles have become like dinosaurs heading for extinction as their natural retail habitat begins to change. These ancient beasts must now adapt to a new environment where platforms like Steam, Facebook and Apple’s App Store are pushing innovation. People are already playing more games through digital download than physical media. For instance, Angry Birds has had more than one billion downloads, a sales figure totally beyond what can be achieved by boxed games sold in the likes of Game and GameStop.”
“With digitally distributed games we can cut out physical production, warehouses, distributors and retailers. We can publish our own games, reducing our costs so that we can deliver fun experiences to players for far less cost than a console game. Therefore it is no longer necessary to charge people huge prices to play video games.”
Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Which is what we've always known with anything related to online stuff:
The big hurdle is infrastructure and investment there in
We know. Yes... but I've yet to see a single analyst broach this subject.
Another thing in our consumer based society is Christmas. As long as that holiday remains the way it is, physical media has to remain a thing. A massive chunk of sales are generated within the market during that time and retail is a big part of that. I can only imagine the puzzlement of parents going to the store in the "next gen" to buy their kids some games only to be sent away and told to go look on the internet.
Could you imagine Christmas where each kid gets nothing but a card that says "Go to your game console to download your gift!" then they have to wait to actually use their gift? Sheesh. A digital distribution only future is kinda scary. I just don't see it happening next gen.
It's also going to be fun if you get them more than 1 game/card. That's going to be a great math equation.
~10 gB game x 1024 = 10240 mB / ~2 mB/s = 5120 seconds / 60 = ~85 minutes x # of games x # of kids = "MMMMMMMMMMooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!"
I hope Mom got a bottle of Asprin for Christmas.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I don't get why the DD crusaders hate physical stuff so much. DD is awesome and probably the best way to get stuff. I'm not exactly sure why that means it can't exist alongside physical media. I guess inventory costs are supposed to sink game makers? Even then I would think that is more of a problem for retailers.
There I was, 3DS: 2621-2671-9899 (Ekera), Wii U: LostCrescendo
Codemasters co-founder David Darling, who is now head of mobile gaming company Kwalee, believes that the next-generation of games consoles will fail unless they are digital only. Darling looks towards things such as Steam, Facebook, and Apple’s AppStore as proof that boxed games are now history.
“Consoles have become like dinosaurs heading for extinction as their natural retail habitat begins to change. These ancient beasts must now adapt to a new environment where platforms like Steam, Facebook and Apple’s App Store are pushing innovation. People are already playing more games through digital download than physical media. For instance, Angry Birds has had more than one billion downloads, a sales figure totally beyond what can be achieved by boxed games sold in the likes of Game and GameStop.”
“With digitally distributed games we can cut out physical production, warehouses, distributors and retailers. We can publish our own games, reducing our costs so that we can deliver fun experiences to players for far less cost than a console game. Therefore it is no longer necessary to charge people huge prices to play video games.”
Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Which is what we've always known with anything related to online stuff:
The big hurdle is infrastructure and investment there in
We know. Yes... but I've yet to see a single analyst broach this subject.
I don't get why the DD crusaders hate physical stuff so much. DD is awesome and probably the best way to get stuff. I'm not exactly sure why that means it can't exist alongside physical media. I guess inventory costs are supposed to sink game makers? Even then I would think that is more of a problem for retailers.
It's the singularity for ever-so-slightly-more-realistic nerds who are clueless about the larger scope of online infrastructure. Also generally Americans in my experience since they are the least familiar with data caps. (fairly new down there from how people talk about them)
I don't get why the DD crusaders hate physical stuff so much. DD is awesome and probably the best way to get stuff. I'm not exactly sure why that means it can't exist alongside physical media. I guess inventory costs are supposed to sink game makers? Even then I would think that is more of a problem for retailers.
For me they're in the same boat as people who champion wireless-computer-equipment-only. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it should be the only way or that it's without flaw.
As I said though, DD is great for content delivery that's smaller than the bigger stuff, or for releasing supporting content to that bigger stuff. A DD champion would argue, "Well, we should be able to transmit more data faster without caps!" And they're right, we should be able to. Sadly, in reality, we cannot. Besides, it's not cost effective. The internet is not yet equally accessible in all places anyway. I'd rather that get worked on first.
Y'know on this topic, when the PS4 comes to light, the read speeds on Blu-Ray tech better be goddamn incredible.
If physical media is like french fries, then DD is like gravy. The two working in tandem make for the ultimate combo, in nearly any ratio. A lot of fries and a little gravy, or a little fries drowned in gravy. Hell, throw in some cheese and you could rule the world. The thing is, as much as you think you love gravy, you cannot eat it by itself. It just doesn't work, no matter how much you want it to. Not yet at least. Maybe one day in the future. But not today.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I don't get why the DD crusaders hate physical stuff so much. DD is awesome and probably the best way to get stuff. I'm not exactly sure why that means it can't exist alongside physical media. I guess inventory costs are supposed to sink game makers? Even then I would think that is more of a problem for retailers.
I'm a big proponent of the whole DD thing, but I don't know of anybody who hates any physical content with a game. Whatever animosity there is is due to the whole crappy issue of places like Gamestop trying to force physical media as the primary option for consoles instead of letting me just download the damn game on day 1. I think it would actually be a mistake to ever completely get rid of a physical media option, if for no other reason than it's going to be long time before everybody has something resembling broadband internet.
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
God bless government incentives.
They might be able to afford to live in something besides a cardboard shack now at least.
Although Capcom claimed that a Western release for Monster Hunter Tri G is unlikely, it hasn’t been ruled that Monster Hunter 4 will not be released in regions outside Japan. According to Capcom’s Christian Svensson, “Western Monster Hunter fans should have some sort of information before the end of this calendar year.” Since there is an upcoming Monster Hunter game for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan, perhaps this information will be about that title.
skeldare on
Nintendo Console Codes
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
God bless government incentives.
They might be able to afford to live in something besides a cardboard shack now at least.
In the Toronto area? Don't count on it.
I'm not surprised Ontario has been offering incentives to software companies. Montreal has been stealing a lot of our thunder lately in the tech sector, especially in gaming, and I know the Quebec government has been offering incentives to companies. Toronto has a thriving indie scene, but not as many big game companies, though those have been trickling in. Vancouver, from what I've heard, has been bleeding gaming jobs. Anybody know why?
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
Y'know on this topic, when the PS4 comes to light, the read speeds on Blu-Ray tech better be goddamn incredible.
The PS3's blu-ray drive is only a 2x drive that still manages 72 Mbps, in comparison the 360's dvd drive is a 12x that does 132 Mbps.
if Sony put a 12x drive in the ps4 we could see speeds from the drive like 432 Mbps.
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
God bless government incentives.
There,s a bunch of government incentives in Montreal too! That's why we keep getting new studios opening up that try to grab the talent from the other studios.
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
God bless government incentives.
There,s a bunch of government incentives in Montreal too! That's why we keep getting new studios opening up that try to grab the talent from the other studios.
I find it amusing to see how many people jump ship from Ubisoft's shovelware division every time another Montreal studio opens up.
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
You know what they say: Every time a window Vancouver studio closes, a door Toronto studio opens. Well maybe that's not how the saying goes, but tell that to Rockstar; the company has closed up its Vancouver, Canada facility, and opened up a new facility in Oakville, Ontario for Rockstar Toronto.
The Vancouver staff, which numbers around 35 and was last seen working on Max Payne 3, is being given the option of joining Toronto, or a different Rockstar studio.
The new Toronto facility, says Rockstar, is being built in conjunction with a deal from the Ontario government, though specifics on how much the deal is worth weren't available. Rockstar says the combined Canadian team will grow even further, with as many as 50 people being hired on in the future. As for the Vancouverites – we hope they're flexible on location. Otherwise, we wish them well wherever they end up next.
God bless government incentives.
They might be able to afford to live in something besides a cardboard shack now at least.
In the Toronto area? Don't count on it.
You could get twice the house for what it costs you to live in Vancouver.
I'm not surprised Ontario has been offering incentives to software companies. Montreal has been stealing a lot of our thunder lately in the tech sector, especially in gaming, and I know the Quebec government has been offering incentives to companies. Toronto has a thriving indie scene, but not as many big game companies, though those have been trickling in. Vancouver, from what I've heard, has been bleeding gaming jobs. Anybody know why?
Living expenses? Shitty provincial government?
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Y'know on this topic, when the PS4 comes to light, the read speeds on Blu-Ray tech better be goddamn incredible.
The PS3's blu-ray drive is only a 2x drive that still manages 72 Mbps, in comparison the 360's dvd drive is a 12x that does 132 Mbps.
if Sony put a 12x drive in the ps4 we could see speeds from the drive like 432 Mbps.
Right. I mean, reading data quickly is just as important (moreso maybe) than just being able to store a ton. It'll make John Carmack happy as shit, I'll tell you that much.
GamesIndustry International caught up with Square Enix's worldwide technology director, Julien Merceron, to talk about the Philosophy demo, the arrival of next-gen consoles and what that means for Square Enix and the industry at large, and why Merceron feels that no matter how good next-gen looks, the uncanny valley problem will always exist.
Julien Merceron: Oh definitely. There are two aspects to complex hardware. When hardware is too complex to target, it leads to a smaller number of titles available for launch, and then with fewer titles you end up not being able to sell your platform really well, so you actually start with a big disadvantage. PS3 and 360 haven't found a way to be as successful as PS2 was. On the other hand, if you have complex hardware, although you have problems at the beginning, you do have potentially better longevity for your platform because every year quality is going to increase as developers find out all the optimizations they can use.
But with a simple architecture you do give more chances to everybody, which I believe is very important based on the critical business situation we're in. Games will be more costly. If you start to make the entry bar really high, more studios will die, more publishers will die, there'll be less titles on platforms, etc. If you make it accessible, you give more chances to people, you'll have a better portfolio at launch , but now you also have a problem with your longevity. Studios could be 80 percent perfect one year after the console has shipped, so games for years afterwards will look the same.
Now, I would say that this is not a problem anymore. It was a problem in the generation of offline platforms. Now you don't need to manage longevity by complexity of programming, because your longevity is ensured by your online model. And I would suggest that maybe we don't want long generations. We have Sony and Microsoft talking about this generation lasting 7,8,9 or even 10 years and it's the biggest mistake they've ever made.
This generation has been way too long, and I say this because you have a lot of developers that work on a new platform, and perhaps will not succeed, so they will wait for the next generation, and will jump on that platform. You could not do that with this generation though. So these developers went elsewhere to see if the grass was greener. They found web browsers, they found iOS, they found other things and a lot of them won't come back to the hardware platforms. So you could look at it that thanks to Microsoft and Sony and the length of this generation, it helped the emergence of other platforms and helped them get strong before the next hardware comes out.
The new phone and tablet games are basically competing with a bunch of tired old consoles.
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http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight
On the one hand, great idea in theory. On the other hand, I expect to see massive ratings fraud as soon as the site goes live.
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Yeah, I'm writing a story up about it for GI, and wondering if I should comment on the nightmare they have coming with ratings gaming.
On the flip side, even if it gets to Steam, people still have to decide to buy the game or not, so it may not be a problem.
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I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Hopefully Valve has sufficient safeguards in place.
But it often seems to me that once things like this are opened up to a large enough community, a great deal of shenanigans start to occur.
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There's a lot of shenanigans going on in Desura, and of course, there have been many instances of shenanigans going on in XBLIG and XBLA as well.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Sounds like a good idea to me, from what I know a lot of good games get turned down by steam for little to no real reason.
That reminds me, did said shenanigans in XBLIG ever get fixed? I'm guessing no.
They made it harder to vote for XBLIG games but they didn't go back and remove suspicious ratings.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
They took away voting from the xbox.com website via free Silver Xbox Live accounts.
The reason was because there was proof of someone paying a developer (in India no less) to create a web bot that would produce 5,000 free xbox live silver accounts and use those accounts to log in and submit game ratings automatically.
There was no proof of who did this, or specifically why, but the fact that it was done and followed up mere days later of voting fraud on XBLIG makes it pretty convincing.
So they took away the right to vote via free Silver accounts on Xbox.com as a result. Probably because it affected XBLA as well.
You can still vote game ratings on a Silver account from the Xbox dashboard. But thanks to this change the vote blasting that was going on was largely eliminated; at least on a large scale like it was before.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Christ. You'd think indie developers wouldn't have that kind of resources to blow on fraud, but there it is.
That reminds me, when I dove into XBLIG to pick up Rain-Slick 3, I noticed there was a LOT of shit out there. I mean bull elephant with the squirts-level shit. I'm happy that indie developers have an outlet to get their games out there, but if I didn't have a specific game in mind to buy I wouldn't have a clue which ones would be worthwhile in that massive pile.
Edit: And it seemed like every fifth game was borderline Japanese-style porn.
Well whoever did it paid for some guy in India to develop the web bot for a few grand. Mere days after the completion of that "web bot project" what happened was the Top 30 highest rated games on XBLIG started getting exponentially more Votes on their rating, which were mathematically determined to be 1-star votes across the board. The result was that the Top 30 highest rated games all crashed in rating, and if your game was relatively new-ish and didn't have an existing "base" of legitimate ratings, its standings in the overall Top Rated charts pretty much went into the shitter.
Soon as proof of the web bot was found and publicized on certain web blogs (like Kotaku), whoever posted the "job listing" for the "web bot" immediately removed it, and as soon as MS closed the Silver account rating ability, all the 1-Star voting spam stopped immediately.
And thus we have the (arguably) major market mentality towards XBLIG: As soon as you go in, you pretty much have to know what you're looking for or else you might wind up never coming back. On the plus side games that draw a crowd the hope is to give the channel a little bit of positive publicity and hope that people at least check out the Top Rated games.
edit:
Welcome to xblig.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Turns out it's not canceled, though it does sound like they're retooling it; probably in response to the negative feedback the ultraviolence in the 2011 trailer got (I think it was giantbomb that mentioned "it's pretty bad when you feel sorry for Nazi's")
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/brothers-in-arms-furious-4-isnt-canceled-despite-what-you-may-have-heard/4257/
I'm still wondering what happened to Insomniac's Overstrike though.
Yeah, that one was MIA from the latest E3, wasn't it?
Meanwhile, Squeenix is returning to the teat even though it's shriveled and unloved:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/05/is-final-fantasy-xiii-3-on-the-way
Yay for recycled art assets, I guess.
Wow, they are really trying to recoup that insanely long development cycle as much as possible. With all the assets they claimed to have "thrown away" I wonder how much real work they are actually doing on these sequels (at least in the art department).
Speaking of that though, the state of XBLIG is something Valve definitely needs to take into account with their Greenlight program, especially since unlike the sandbox that is Xbox the games will run unrestricted on your PC. There's just too many open questions right now to determine which side of the fence it's going to fall on.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
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Personally, I believe the opposite. "Next-Gen" has a higher chance of failing if it's digital only.
With many ISP's pushing bandwidth caps and next-gen game files rising in size as a result of higher graphic fidelity, something is going to have to give. This means either ISP's are going to have to do away with/raise their caps (yeah right) or consoles will have to have physical media.
Lots of AAA games are already hitting over 15 gigs in size. Heck, last month I almost hit my 80 gig cap between downloading a couple games and getting updates for games I already own. I can only imagine the consumer lashback when your average, ignorant parent gets a hefty overage bill because little Jimmy bought a game.
While the gaming industry might be ready for it, I fear that ISP's might be the last major hurdle before full on digital distribution can become reality.
Which is what we've always known with anything related to online stuff:
The big hurdle is infrastructure and investment there in
It really is the core problem with the no-publisher scenario and I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to solve it.
We know. Yes... but I've yet to see a single analyst broach this subject.
Another thing in our consumer based society is Christmas. As long as that holiday remains the way it is, physical media has to remain a thing. A massive chunk of sales are generated within the market during that time and retail is a big part of that. I can only imagine the puzzlement of parents going to the store in the "next gen" to buy their kids some games only to be sent away and told to go look on the internet.
Could you imagine Christmas where each kid gets nothing but a card that says "Go to your game console to download your gift!" then they have to wait to actually use their gift? Sheesh. A digital distribution only future is kinda scary. I just don't see it happening next gen.
It's also going to be fun if you get them more than 1 game/card. That's going to be a great math equation.
~10 gB game x 1024 = 10240 mB / ~2 mB/s = 5120 seconds / 60 = ~85 minutes x # of games x # of kids = "MMMMMMMMMMooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!"
I hope Mom got a bottle of Asprin for Christmas.
Single video game analyst? I'd believe that.
I see it all the time in other mediums though.
It's the singularity for ever-so-slightly-more-realistic nerds who are clueless about the larger scope of online infrastructure. Also generally Americans in my experience since they are the least familiar with data caps. (fairly new down there from how people talk about them)
Gabe and Tycho got it going on too: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/6/
They imagine some glorious future based on their love for Steam or something and their lack of knowledge of the things holding it back.
For me they're in the same boat as people who champion wireless-computer-equipment-only. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it should be the only way or that it's without flaw.
As I said though, DD is great for content delivery that's smaller than the bigger stuff, or for releasing supporting content to that bigger stuff. A DD champion would argue, "Well, we should be able to transmit more data faster without caps!" And they're right, we should be able to. Sadly, in reality, we cannot. Besides, it's not cost effective. The internet is not yet equally accessible in all places anyway. I'd rather that get worked on first.
Y'know on this topic, when the PS4 comes to light, the read speeds on Blu-Ray tech better be goddamn incredible.
I'm a big proponent of the whole DD thing, but I don't know of anybody who hates any physical content with a game. Whatever animosity there is is due to the whole crappy issue of places like Gamestop trying to force physical media as the primary option for consoles instead of letting me just download the damn game on day 1. I think it would actually be a mistake to ever completely get rid of a physical media option, if for no other reason than it's going to be long time before everybody has something resembling broadband internet.
They might be able to afford to live in something besides a cardboard shack now at least.
Western Monster Hunter News Coming This Year
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In the Toronto area? Don't count on it.
I'm not surprised Ontario has been offering incentives to software companies. Montreal has been stealing a lot of our thunder lately in the tech sector, especially in gaming, and I know the Quebec government has been offering incentives to companies. Toronto has a thriving indie scene, but not as many big game companies, though those have been trickling in. Vancouver, from what I've heard, has been bleeding gaming jobs. Anybody know why?
The PS3's blu-ray drive is only a 2x drive that still manages 72 Mbps, in comparison the 360's dvd drive is a 12x that does 132 Mbps.
if Sony put a 12x drive in the ps4 we could see speeds from the drive like 432 Mbps.
There,s a bunch of government incentives in Montreal too! That's why we keep getting new studios opening up that try to grab the talent from the other studios.
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I find it amusing to see how many people jump ship from Ubisoft's shovelware division every time another Montreal studio opens up.
You could get twice the house for what it costs you to live in Vancouver.
Living expenses? Shitty provincial government?
Right. I mean, reading data quickly is just as important (moreso maybe) than just being able to store a ton. It'll make John Carmack happy as shit, I'll tell you that much.