Sony and write protection

This is one of the hotter topics currently filtering about the internet. Sony is apparantly accused of write protecting their disks to ensure that no game of theirs can be sold or loaned after already having been placed onto one specific individual console. Im no Sony fanboy by any stretch, and no matter how much I hate Sony as a corporation, I see no truth whatsoever to this rumour and I will explain why here.

Sony has made admittedly several mistakes already, but this would be a catastrophic blunder of a gargantuan proportion. Sony is already attempting to cover their hides with the cost of the playstation 3 console being at minimum $100 us above and beyond the Microsoft flagship xbox 360 console. However, despite the cost differential, Sony did throw in a blu-ray dvd player along with a hard drive that is at least equivilant to the premiere xbox 360 premiums hard drive. The Sony premium ps3 offers triple the current xbox 360 hard drive space. Cost in my opinion, for my budget is excessively steep, but there are others out there of better means or that like the system that are more than readily willing to pay the extra money for these features.

We now move on to the controller for the Playstation 3. This is another hot topic of debate especially concerning the release of the Nintendo Wii. Even though Sony has already produced licensed copyrights that predate the Nintendo Wiis controller, there are many out there that believe that Sony just literally found out that Nintendo went ahead and implemented the idea and Sony decided to jump on the bandwagon. Regardless of the hows and whys, I feel that there is enough of a difference between the two styles of controllers to ensure that there is more than enough room for both ideas to be successfully implemented. The Wiis controller setup is based off of motion. The Ps3s controller appears to be based off of certain gamestyles (driving/flying/motion based simulation type of games) while the Wiis motions are all inclusive to all gametypes.

Then if that werent enough of a hurdle, we still are faced with the aspect of Sonys online play which we still know little to nothing about other than it is free. We still know little to nothing about guaranteed launch titles for the Sony console. I think that Sony realistically has more than enough on its plate with
1)high console price
2)controller scandals
3)lack of knowledge of launch titles
4)lack of information with online play
to realistically concern itself with write protection of games.

Will Sony go ahead and write protect their software? Potentially yes it could happen and will more than likely happen sometime in the future, but I do not feel as though this would be the opportune time to do so. There are many out there that have already (due to the reasons listed above) jumped ship to either Microsoft or Nintendo. Sony already is around a year behind Microsoft, they cannot afford anymore major mistakes in the industry if they want to retain their #1 position in the console marketplace. If however this does happen, I fully anticipate that the ps3 will replace the gamecube in the #3 status of the business podium of console finishes.
 

 

Posted by ashersgcorps @ 11:38 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Common sense applied Liberally

 

With regards to the esrbs rating systems and methodology of choosing their ratings, supposedly all content is to be passed by the esrb before ratings are chosen. The current "scandal" is Bethesda softwares Oblivion nude mod. It is the main rationale for the esrb bumping the rate up from a t to an m. I believe that the developer did release all information that they had available. I cannot comprehend that something as simple as a method for creating characters that involves nude modeling would have been something that would have required the esrbs notification.

In view of the mod, if there were something that would have been lude, or something of an adult nature of content, then there would have been more of a reason to make it known to the current ratings standard. As it is, the mod appears to be applicable to the upper torso of the female skin. Should Bethesda software be subjected to this negative publicity when the actual content was altered by an individual outside the company? Is there a reason why Bethesda is not seeking out the individual responsible and pressing charges?

Much attention is going to be drawn to this topic and more only fueling the fire between public responsibility and manufacturer responsibility. The true topic that I feel is going to be overlooked is the very fact that most will alter any type of code that they have access to. This is a form of political and societal protestation. There is no way to prevent a game from being altered, no lock that cannot be picked. We are already seeing examples of the xbox 360 being hacked already with less than a years shelf time.

Another example is the Battlefield 2 patch/mod made by terrorist organization. As much as it pains the general populace to see these things going on, and as much as we want these items to cease existing, there will never be a way to stop these hackers. When do we state that the developers responsibility stops here and the action taken is solely the responsibility of an individual that is outside of the corporate sphere of responsibiliy?

There will more than likely be more items of this nature to come in the future before we see less. As much as those that do these acts view themselves as anti-heroes or speaking out politically through their modifications to someone elses work, its done for one reason and one reason alone, attention. It is not the individuals that will be forced to pay the price for their transgressions, but the corporations that have made the very platforms that these actions take place on.

I find it amusing personally that the violence that these games have contained in them were not the reason for the advancement in the games software rating, but rather the biological human physique that did it. Those in power seem to find it easier to accept violent motifes rather than physical structure yet the crimes that take place that are usually attributed to violence within video games rather than physical attributes of the human body. Are we focusing on the wrong field within the gaming community? Are language and nudity more of a reason to penalize rather than violence? If it is than Id like to hear an arguement against mine supporting this. Ive emailed a copy of this letter to the esrb and am waiting a notification though Im not holding my breath.

Posted by ashersgcorps @ 11:29 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

ps3 rant (work related)

Okay, working at any video game store will teach you a lot of things about the industry. One of the things that I personally would like to address is the LACK of knowledge that we have about the playstation 3. I recieved I dont know HOW many calls yesterday ranging from "do you have it in stock" to "what are the launch titles". Sony hasnt announced ANYTHING! The PSM magazine that stated that it was coming out in november at xxx dollars? Sony heads have already come forward and stated publicly that, and I quote

http://joystiq.com/2006/04/26/psm-reveals-ps3-release-date-price

"Sony hasnt actually decided on a firm price yet. Theyre in the process of shrinking down everything to try to fit it in the box, getting together all the manufacturing partners for some of the miscellaneous chips, ordering parts, etc. This is the time when Sony themselves are trying to figure out exactly how much its going to cost to build and ship, try to get that cost down, and ultimately come up with a price for consumers.

Theres little chance that Sony even had a real price internally for PSM to catch wind of (remember, the print mags are produced usually a few weeks before readers get them).

Theres potential that Sony would announce a price at E3, but if they do, itll be debated internally probably up to the last minute.

Dont believe anything you see or hear about the PS3 price until Sony officially announces it. Nothing even remotely reliable is going to leak out in just a single magazine or website."

We are gamers no different than yourselves, we dont have that much in the way of insider information. We dont know when halo 3 is coming out. We can only tell you things about a month in advance. If you want to ask for example exactly how far out we can project, we can go safely to about august. Just because we told you that a game was going to be released on such and such a date, doesnt mean that it isnt subject to change.

We dont have control over the developers of software or hardware. If something gets pushed back, all that we can do in a worst case scenario is to refund your deposit, or let you know that it has been pushed back and we will still contact you when your product has come in. Congratulations, youve just yelled at the LOWEST possible person in the pecking order that has the LEAST amount of control over what goes on in these corporations. If you want to yell, yell at the corporations that actually make the games.

I apologise for the rant, but some little peon in a retail outlet store that just happens to be standing in front of you is not the person to go off on. We are gamers just like yourself, the only difference is we have a minimum wage job working minimum hours to sell what we enjoy. For maximum information, that is ACCURATE, talk to the actual developer. If you do not hear it DIRECTLY from the developer, then it is literally nothing more than "he said, she said".

Posted by ashersgcorps @ 11:34 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

In Search of the Killer App

Too many times with my 360, I find myself still wanting to play halo 2. I have two of the so called killer apps for the 360 at the moment with call of duty 2 as well as graw, but theres still that undefinable something thats missing. That halo for the 360 type of feel. I, like many others have been following the rumours regarding the next halo, and if it is going to be an mmorpg, I dont think its going to work and instead of halo2sucks.com, were going to be dealing with a lot more websites along the same line. Right now, theres only two games that are coming out that I really want to get my hands on, chromehounds and gears of war. I dont think that either is going to be good enough to be truly called the killer app. Developers, please take note of whats going on in gaming, THERE IS NO HALO FOR THE 360! This is what we call a golden opportunity for capitalization. Your chief competitor is currently absent! If you have the ability to outdo graw and cod2, which are both according to the public still plagued with glitches, and just come out with a better product, you will have the 360 to yourself.

Posted by ashersgcorps @ 5:15 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

The oh so popular WW2 fps genre.

It seems to me as though most of the historical based war games seem to forget that there were wars both before and after ww2. Had it not been for a few twisting my arm to get cod2, I never would have purchased it since theres been how many games out that have focused on this era of combat? How many times can we actuallly take the beaches of normandy before the germans watching the beaches just throw down their guns and say "enough"?

Im going to say that call of duty 2 is one of the few GOOD ww2 games that Ive played, primarily because with the way that the gameplay is done, its actually a hoot to log onto it and play with other sgers. Going beyond this, there have been attempts (albeit piss poor ones) at the vietnam war, and then the ever popular "war on terror"  . The problem with the games that were done with the war in vietnam, although the games were highly publicised, was that they felt like they were not taken seriously. Id have liked to have seen a good vietnam war game done with the quality that call of duty 2 was done with. Just having watched and read the developer interviews, you can tell that painstaking attention to detail was done with this series.

Some people that Ive seen do similar posts offer up desert storm, or korea as other alternative wars. Myself, Id just rather not have to sit through one more world war 2 game. I share more of an affinity to vietnam and korea than I ever did with world war 2. Right about now Id even settle for a game based off of the bay of pigs invasion. My point is this, theres plenty of other wars that weve been in in the 200+ years that this nations been around. Id love to see a wwI game or even spanish american war, or anything JUST NO MORE WORLD WAR 2!!!!! Heres what Id like to see (conditionally based going off of the same attention to detail that was paid to cod2)
1)Vietnam/Korea: Still one of the hotter wars, but I think that theres plenty to go around here especially if historical facts were presented, to my knowledge, the only major battle was the tet offensive, but I think that these two conflicts stand to atually have quite a bit of sales points.

2)Desert storm: Sadly, it would be a short game given the duration of the war,and this war was actually covered quite extensively during the old days of the genesis/snes. Regardless with next gen hardware pushing it, I think Id enjoy giving old saddam another enema again.

3)WWI: Yeah this one is usually covered by aerial combat, but I cant ever remember seeing a ground based fps on this (or even a sidescroller for that matter) Yes, it would be mostly trench combat, but I think that war would be pretty good if it had the right people working on it.

4)WWII PACIFIC: I put this one lower since the wwII is part of my rants, but I wouldnt mind fighting somewhere OTHER than europe in WWII settings.

5)Civil war: Nice Idea, but can we say racial tension? That and the reload times would truly be a bitch and it would probably wind up being a pistols match.

6)Spanish American war:Better known as the battle of the alamo to some, immigration issue being what it is? Time for another good idea/bad idea, you can imagine what this one would be.

7)Revolutionary war: No thanks, unless someone gets really super hyper creative do I think that this one would be suitable.

Anyways, as always with my posts, I leave this puppy open to debate. Just thought Id try to stir up yalls thought processes and see what falls out. Enjoy tearing each others throats out, and take care of yourselves

Posted by ashersgcorps @ 5:18 am EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments