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by Published on March 4th, 2011 00:21- Categories:
- PS3 News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- Xbox 360 News
Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe believes that home consoles are pushing away users through bad, restrictive design choices that delay the game-playing experience.
Checking for new downloadable content, updating software, cut scenes and the time between turning a console on and actually playing the game are just some of the problems that turn customers to more immediate portable experiences and social networks, said the outspoken designer.
"Portable game time is going way up, but why? Those of us in the console space are actually making choices that push our customers away. The time it takes to power on your console and be in the game playing takes too damn long. The gap of time from pressing 'on' to actually beginning to play is getting longer and it's annoying customers," he told an audience at GDC.
"Cut scenes, installs, updates, load times, system boot-up times - a lot of the stuff can be designed around. For me there are times I've wanted to play a new console game but I just don't because I don't want to deal with all the ramp-up time. Maybe that makes me lazy but look at all the other stuff that's competing right now for my leisure time.
"The one thing that they all have in common, the best thing, is that all of these pretty much have instant payoff. Literally seconds after thinking about doing these activities I can be doing this activities. Why would I put up with 3-15 minute wait times when I can be entertained otherwise, instantly?" he said.
These delays were tolerated in the past, said Jaffe, because console gaming was the better experience, but the evolution of portable, mobile and social gaming now rivals a traditional home console.
"If we're talking sheer fun factor, for the first time handheld, mobile phones, internet games, they're just as good, in some cases better - and in all cases cheaper - than the console options," he said.
"If I've got 5-30 minutes to kill and I want to do something it makes total sense that I'm going to reach for instant gratification. The gameplay on my DS, PSP and iPad is just as good as it is on my console."
Jaffe reeled off a list of possible solutions to some barriers, using tech and design choices to avoid annoying the player and turning them off from the experience.
"Can anything be done? What about if you have a disc in the system and there's a save file on the hard-drive for that disc, the instant I power up it shows me a prompt and says 'do I want to go to my latest save?' If I say 'yes' it bypasses everything - hardware logo, dashboard, XMB, game logos - all of it, and I'm in the game much faster.
"Another thing is, why can't - if it's technically possible - I have a sleep mode on my consoles like I do on my Mac and I do on my game devices. All I have to do is hit a switch and within seconds I'm back in the game."
To applause from the crowd he also called for a limit to the number of updates a game should have over the internet, forcing better design and completion of a game before it's released.
"Hardware manufacturers, I feel, should only allow 1-4 updates to the software per game every year. And none of them should come in the first one or two months of the game shipping. When I first started in the business the games we shipped was our last chance off the bat.
"If game developers could make it work then, we can at least make sure games don't have to be updated the same f**king week they hit shelves, thus causing more wait times for the consumer."
Discussing game length, he called for shorter games - not titles that are artificially lengthened to justify a high price point.
"Some of these games on console are just too long. They run out of gas in the first four hours and they should - I want them to. I want to finish stuff and feel a sense of accomplishment. I want to go from start to end of a story in a weekend.
"Ultimately what happens is these console, story-based games putter on for 3-12 hours just because the business model demands it. With portable, most of them focus on the purity of play and not story, it's less of an issue. And a fluid pricing system is acceptable for portable and phone games and story-based games on those platforms are shorter and can be priced accordingly."
And he saved his final criticism for multiplayer gaming on console, that according to Jaffe, has upped the number of players online purely for the sake of it.
"Competition I feel is best when it's one-on-one, and worst case when it's small teams versus small teams. Console multiplayer has lost sight of this just because technically speaking they've been able to. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do something.
"The spectacle of a massively multiplayer war will never get old, but the experience of the game in such a battle usually just feels like just chaos to the player. But console games rarely stop to think about this. Instead they just throw more virtual bodies at the issue and the result is often mind-numbing and empty.
"I still love console games," he concluded. ...by Published on March 4th, 2011 00:19- Categories:
- PC News
OnLive publisher and developer relations head Chris Donahue has said that the cloud streaming service has to adopt new payment methods for Europe, including cashcards and mobile payments.
Speaking after a presentation to developers at GDC yesterday, Donahue told GamesIndustry.biz that a global operation would mean an integration of global payment methods.
"Absolutely. There's no doubt about it," said Donahue when asked about the possibility of a freemium or microtransaction model in the service's future.
"Our economy engine is a little bit limited at the minute but we're looking at it. We're launching in Europe later this year, so we've got to change. They don't accept US credit cards there. There's pay by mobile and all those other billing things.
"I want to get cash cards, so I can get little kids' money. I want everybody's money," the executive joked.
"That's the thing - the platforms are now irrelevant, we upgrade the hardware - all you need is something you can view OnLive on, then you can play. When it comes to the economy stuff, people expect us to have, what is it, 215 different currencies worldwide? Then also other billing methods."
"We're definitely working on it, we'll have all that for whatever regional roll-outs we do."
OnLive has been very light on its feet in terms of adapting its business models to changing market conditions far, opening a service last month which allows players to access most older games on the service for $10 a month.
Originally, OnLive had planned to charge $4.95 a month to access the service at all, but that wasdropped in October last year.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...els-for-europe
...by Published on March 4th, 2011 00:16- Categories:
- Nintendo 3DS News
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has acknowledged that the company's online services must improve, and has stated that there will be a raft of improvements coming with the launch of the 3DS.
Speaking during his GDC keynote, Iwata stated his belief that the new handheld's connectivity options would "will make owners want to carry their 3DS systems around with them, just to find out what new game elements have been passively transferred to them."
But he conceded that so far, the company's efforts had been disappointing.
"I must admit that in the overall area of wireless communication and digital downloads Nintendo can do better," he said. "To date our WiiWare and DSi services have not operated as well as they should."
During the keynote, Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime announced two key partnerships for the US in an attempt to boost its offerings, with 10,000 AT&T wireless hotspots to be created, while Netflix members will be able to stream movies and other content via the 3DS platform.
Additionally, he noted, 3DS owners will be able to seamlessly transfer their viewing from the handheld to their Wii console and big screen, should they so desire. A new 3D Super Mario title was also teased, with more information set to follow at this year's E3.
The Nintendo 3DS launches in the US on March 27 - shortly after Europe - with a retail price of $249.99.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...nline-failings
...by Published on March 4th, 2011 00:14- Categories:
- PSP News,
- PS3 News,
- PS2 News,
- Nintendo DS News,
- Nintendo 3DS News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- Xbox 360 News
New 3DS titles have made a significant impact on the Japanese sales charts, but the number one selling game of the week is Sega's Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity for the PSP - a new iteration in the popular Monster Hunter-esque series that sold 206,654 on its debut.
The second highest new entry, at number two, is Namco Bandai's SD Gundam G Generation World on the PSP with 192,981 sales. The Wii version charted at number 12 with 28,119 units sold.
As a result the highest-selling 3DS title was Level-5's Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle at number three, with 119,591 units sales. An impressive figure considering the charts only take into account the first two days that it, and the 3DS itself, went on sale.
The second biggest seller was nintendogs + cats at number five with 64,213 sales, followed by Samurai Warriors: Chronicles at number six, (49,327) Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition at number seven (44,649), Ridge Racer 3D at number eight (38,226), and Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D at number 15 (26,345). Pilotwings Resort was not part of the Japanese launch line-up.
With the weekend total for the 3DS hardware put at 374,764 the total of all software sales for the format suggests an overall attach rate of almost exactly 1:1.
It has been a generally busy week by any standard, with Nippon Ichi's Disgea 4 also debuting at number four with 79,425 sales and THE iDOLM@STER 2 on Xbox 360 squeezing into the top 10 with a creditable 34,621 unit sales.
As a result there is only title from the previous week in the top 10 (Monster Hunter Freedom 3 at number nine, and only four overall in the top 20.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...3ds-debut-week ...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:58- Categories:
- Retro Consoles/Translation News
Toru Iwatani, the original creator of classic 1980 coin-op Pac-Man, has been discussing the creation process behind the game at GDC 2011, as well as his thoughts on modern game design.
"The reasons why I created Pac-Man was because we wanted to attract female gamers," he said - as reported by website Gamasutra.
"Back then there were no home games and people had to go to arcades to play games. That was a playground for boys. It was dirty and smelly. So we wanted to include girls or female players so that it would become cleaner and brighter."
However, Iwatani's concept of what girls might be interested in was not quite as enlightened: "I thought about something that may attract girls – maybe stories about boys or something to do with fashion?"
"However, girls love to eat desserts – my wife often eats desserts. The verb eat, that gave me a hint to create this game."
Once he had decided on the main gameplay mechanic Iwatani again tried to ensure the enemies would be interesting to a female audience. "I made the design very cute because some furious faces or expressions, girls probably don't like that," he said.
Iwatani recalls how the female president of Namco at the time was against the idea of multi-coloured ghosts and was concerned there would be confusion over whether they were your enemy or not. Iwatani organised a survey of what were essentially beta testers, which made it clear the multi-coloured ghosts was a good idea.
"She is a businesswoman, she judged from the numbers I gave her. She was a wonderful manager", recalled Iwatani.
One of the many innovations of the game was the different artificial intelligence algorithms of the four ghosts, which appeared to give each a different personality. The game's difficulty was also kept intentionally low at first, against the accepted wisdom of coin-ops at the time.
When comparing the game to modern titles though Iwatani was concerned that they appear overly complex and that their objectives are not immediately obvious to all players.
"Today's games, you don't see what the game is all about, what the goal is, and the controls are too complicated perhaps, and you're being sort of needled and persecuted sometimes," he said.
"The core game players want to have challenges, I understand that, but I think fun should be the first, most important point for any game."
Although still a beloved title, with titles such as Pac-Man Championship Edition DX earning wide critical acclaim, Namco has perhaps struggled to evolve the concept and character into other genres.
However, Iwatani's thought on the franchise's future is unexpected: "I'm thinking of a Pac-Man that's singing. I don't want to make it a musical, really, [like] Chicago the movie. The Blues Brothers maybe."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ly-game-design
...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:56- Categories:
- PS3 News
Sony has lifted the lid on the rumoured PlayStation Move server - a piece of software known as Move.Me, which allows limited use of the motion controller on PC in order to create new games and applications for it.
The software is designed for "hobbyists and academics", claimed Sony senior engineer John McCutchan on the PlayStation Blog, and grants access to "the exact the same data that licensed developers have."
He claimed that "Even before PlayStation Move was publicly available to all of you, we were talking about the device's potential implications for academics and researchers. Move.Me... is an opportunity for PlayStation to inspire new, revolutionary applications in other fields beyond gaming."
Rather than running directly on PC, Move.Me involves running special server software on a PS3, which then communicates Move data to a nearby computer via LAN.
"We hope it will be used to discover new ways of connecting individuals with information, and maybe even discovering a new healthcare application or two."
Move.Me may, of course, also open up the controller to the same kind of inventive hacks as have been seen on Microsoft's rival Kinect. No release date is available as yet.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...o-amateur-devs
...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:53- Categories:
- Android News
Turns out people like Angry Birds -- and free things. The freemium Android release of Rovio Mobile's wing-slinging hit has been downloaded over 30 million times, according to Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka, who is speaking at GDC as part of a Google-run Android monetization panel.
He also provided evidence that people continue playing Angry Birds after that initial download. 80 percent of Android users, Vesterbacka said, downloaded subsequent updates, indicating that they've retained interest in the game. This is good news for Rovio, but bad news for those birds -- sustained anger isn't good for you.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/03/an...ds-on-android/ ...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:51- Categories:
- PC News,
- Retro Consoles/Translation News
Famed game designer Eric Chahi shared an interesting yet somewhat terrifying anecdote about his legendary action-adventure Another World during his GDC talk today. It seemsAnother World nearly ended up being essentially another game.
According to Chahi, when he got to the point of shopping the game around to potential publishers, he initially approached (the now defunct) Virgin Interactive. The company proceeded to try and sway him to rework the game into a point-and-click adventure since "that's what was popular at the time."
Given the amount of work he'd already done on the game and the formidable task it would have been to re-tool all of it, Chahi decided to leave Another World alone. He went on to work with Delphine Software, which he described as being "very supportive" of the game as it was -- and how it will appear on iOS devices later this year.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/03/ho...ick-adventure/ ...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:50- Categories:
- Apple iPad
iOS 4.3 is getting itself a pretty snazzy launch vehicle in Apple's brand new iPad 2. The thinner, lighter, faster Apple tablet now comes in a choice of black or white, has cameras on front and back, and we understand its cake-cutting abilities are unrivaled. Now that you've had a good few hours to digest the news, consume the subsequent comparisons against the original iPad and the rest of the tech world'stablet offerings, we want to know what you think. Will the iPad 2 pry open your purse, is the oldie still a goodie, or will you wait for the bigger and better things coming down the road? Answers below, please!
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/03/i...ou-buying-one/
...by Published on March 3rd, 2011 22:48- Categories:
- Apple iPad,
- Apple iPhone
That's right, kids! The Golden Master version of iOS 4.3 has become available -- it's seeding as we speak. If you do any development on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, and you're ready to get to partake in (or even dev for) all the new AirPlay and Personal Hotspot capabilities (for starters), you know where to go. As for the rest of us, we guess we'll have to wait until the OS gets its official release on March 11. By the way, there's no word of an OS update for Apple TV yet. Sorry, kids. That's what they call "tough love."
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