In Perspective The PlayStation 4

The PlayStation 4

What you've heard

NEXT GEN BITCHES! The PlayStation 4 is here and it raises the bar on gaming for everyone. We’re going to see performance beyond our wildest dreams and graphics that are going to make movie CGI look like claymation. More importantly, it’s going to make the current gen system and the Wii U obsolete as its massive processing power processes circles around them. This is the gen revolution baby, and the future is NOW! Well I mean the future is holiday 2013, not NOW now, but you get what I’m saying ...

Except...

This is going to be a little tech heavy, but the PS4 doesn’t really have a lot going on under the hood. As a rule when a presentation has more buzz words in it than specs it’s a bad sign, and we didn’t even get to see what type of RAM the PS4 had until after the conference. And while the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM is easily the most impressive feature of the new system, it’s not enough to take away from the shortcomings. Let’s start with the CPU, which is an AMD APU with 8 cores. This isn’t a custom chip, it’s based on the Jaguar architecture that’s been around for over 2 years, so it’s not going to break any new ground for AMD. In fact the eight cores based on AMD’s Jaguar architecture are unlikely to be as fast as AMD’s current high end chips based on the Piledriver architecture, which lag significantly behind the i5 and i7 offerings from Intel. This is because the Jaguar isn’t even a desktop architecture; it was intended for use in low power devices like laptops. On the bright side, heat generation shouldn’t be a problem, which means they’ll likely turn up the clock speed a little.

The choice of a slower, 8 core system is Sony’s biggest miss this generation. Like the cell processing of the PS3, notoriously hated by developers for being difficult to work with, Sony is once again putting the onus on the game designers to use extreme hyper threading to take advantage of the 8 core set up. This could be devastating if Microsoft goes with a faster chip in their upcoming system. The Wii U has 3 processing cores which means if MS sticks to 2 or 4 cores in the new Xbox, developers will continue to do what they do today; write code for the the Wii U and Xbox and never bother to optimize it to take advantage of the PS3’s cell processing. This undermines any benefit Sony gained by going with a x86 processor this time around, a baffling move that is going to have a huge backlash in the community. For anyone who doesn't follow Sony, they are a bit nuts when it comes to pirating. They tried to lock up someone who hacked the PS3 and invented the DRM rootkit, and the community responded by taking down PlayStation network and all Sony owned MMOs for 63 days. Now the PS4 will release with a chip so fully understood that it almost guarantees a day one hack.

The GPU is what’s really going to make or break the PS4, and the numbers here are less than encouraging. The 1.84 TFLOPS promised at the conference is an impressive number, but not even close to what I would expect from a custom rig. By contrast a 7970 can push 4.3 TFLOPS in the much less friendly PC architecture. It doesn't get any better when you break down the details; Sony said the GPU would support 18 composite units, a useless figure without also telling us what architecture it’s going to be based on, but that in itself tells a story. If this was a new generation of chip, they would have been showing that off. So it’s safe to assume this means the same 64 stream processors, 4 texture units, and 1 render unit per composite of the current line of AMD chips, given us a total of 1152 stream processors, 72 texture, and 18 ROPs. This puts it more in line with the 7800 series, and although the numbers don't align perfectly with anything currently on the market, its closest match for architecture and Tflops is the 7850. Amazon has them for around $200. This is bad news for 4k gaming. Sony has said the system officially supports it, but based on these numbers ... I don’t see how. Frame rates on the 7850 running even 2560 x 1600 are generally horrendous.

So what’s the deal?
The PS4 is a much better system than the PS3, and for a lot of people that’s all that matters. When you look at the numbers above, it’s clear the PS4 doesn’t even hold a candle to a custom PC, but $1000-plus gaming rigs are simply out of the picture for a lot of gamers. So we have a system that’s better than what they currently have and better then what they could get for the money elsewhere. The media is focusing on that while ignoring the simple fact that it’s just not enough. When the PS3 and Xbox came out they weren’t mid ranged PCs at a decent price - they were better than any PC money could buy. Developers saw this, and took advantage of the new options open to them. They created games that couldn’t be played anywhere else, and even the hardcore PC enthusiast was given the choice; buy a gaming system or miss out on the best games. This time around, most games shown as “next gen” are being released on the current gen systems as well, and it’s only going to be a few years until you can buy a PC in the $500 range that outperforms the PS4. Without a gimmick the PS4 doesn’t do a lot for the average gamer that they can’t do with current gen tech, and when it comes to gimmicks, MS and Nintendo have always have Sony beat.

Sony's stock took a hit after the announcement and Nintendo's went up, and for good reason. For 2 years Nintendo has been saying "next gen" isn't even a thing, and the next irritation of systems will need to focus on social connection, player experience, and what they can do outside of gaming. They then released a disappointingly under-powered system that did just that. Sony on the other hand spent 2 years telling us how the only thing that will matter in next gen is pushing the envelope in teams of power and performance. Then they released a disappointingly under-powered system that focused on social connection, player experience, and what it can do outside of gaming.

In Perspective - Microsoft's New x-box

What you've heard 

Another victory for the internet! An e-mail went out today from the higher ups in Microsoft to the low downs that detailed how Microsoft’s vision for the next Xbox includes players being able to do “everything they would expect to do”, including playing single player games, while the system is not connected to the internet. We did it! After weeks of watching the reaction to the news, Microsoft has made the changes to the system we are asking for! They know that without the support of the internet, the system will fail.

Except

What changes? It seems everyone is using this e-mail to prove that changes were made based off the following logic: it’s never a company’s policy to just e-mail something saying “everything is still like we said it was” so this is clearly an e-mail communicating an update or change. The problem with that logic is that it’s

· wrong
· flawed
· stupid

Companies that are in the media spotlight send out “on course” reminders all the time when the media picks up a story that isn’t true (or is true but not public yet). They need to; since they generally communicate nothing to the lower level employees, many will take what they hear in the media as gospel and go on repeating it to people, who assume they are more informed because they work for the company. It’s the circle of bullshit; the media misinforms “experts” who repeat the misinformation to other media outlets who misinform other experts.

Not telling low level employees anything about anything is the policy that you really should be looking at here. Anyone who worked at McDonalds can tell you that you find out about the price change or the new sandwich the day it goes live and there is never an e-mail to prepare the masses for the high level change they have no say in. Microsoft has no reason to tell anyone outside of the design team anything about the new Xbox, and this e-mail isn’t a clarification - it’s the first any of these employees have heard about it. It was only sent to counter the negative press they are getting based on wrong information.

Another good question is why would they lie? If this really was a reaction to customer feedback, why hide it in an e-mail saying it’s always been the intention? Why not use this to showcase how “in touch” with the internet you are, and say “we love our customer so much, we are changing this to benefit them!”. There is no negative in that; I’m surprised they didn’t do it even if it isn’t true.

Still not convinced? Consider this. The Xbox press conference is in less than 20 days, and the system has been in development for (best guess) 5 to 8 years. Do you really think they were able to make low level software (and likely hardware) changes to the system to showcase offline features in less than a month? Do you think they are willing to go to that press conference with anything other than a build they have tested, retested, and mega-tested to ensure it is perfect? Hell, the footage we are going to see was likely pre-recorded long before the "always on" issue hit the internet.

So what’s the deal?

Operation Rainfall was an online petition that brought 3 extremely popular and successful JRPGs to the West and is heralded as one of the biggest victories of the internet gaming community. It’s a classic underdog story and a fantastic example of people coming together to get things done, and it's also completely made up. In an interview, the publisher of “XenoBlade”, the first game in Operation Rainfall said he had no idea what Operation Rainfall was, and the lead designer admitted he only heard of the Operation after the localization began and it was never mentioned in the decision to bring the game to the West. This was mirrored with the two other Operation Rainfall games, with developers and publishers alike saying it was great to hear they had such a dedicated fan base, but the decisions to port that games were made at high level and had nothing to do with anything other than lines on a graph. Yet the very same websites that did the interviews that confirmed Operation Rainfall had nothing to do with the release of these games ran stories about the role the fan based played in getting them published.

We all love a underdog story, especially one that makes us feel empowered and important. That’s what happened with Operation Rainfall and it’s what happened with the Xbox. The internet is taking credit for changing the mind of a multi-billion dollar behemoth and we are eating it up because we want it to be true. But everyone knows you can’t listen to the internet. Big business tried with "Serenity" and again with "Scott Pilgrim" and learned its lesson. Design things for the masses and try to sell them to the internet, but don’t ever design things for the internet and try and sell them to the masses. The masses aren’t interested, and the internet isn't going to pay for them when you’re finished. The internet is the home of the vocal minority, and the vocal minority is never your key demographic.

Should be Playing - Dragon Age Origins

BioWare was, at one time, the most important name in nerd gaming. It was them and the now defunct (and then refunct via Kickstarter) Black Isles Studio that were responsible from turning all your table top fantasies into something you could play on a computer screen. The Gold Box D&D games from the early 90s had shown us the possibility, taking pre-written stories like Pool of Radiance and The Dark Queen and making serviceable games out of them, but it wasn’t until 1998 that BioWare showed us something completely new. They released a game focused not on game play but instead on story. You were not playing something that had already been written, but instead forged a path for yourself in a game world that reacted, albeit in a limited way, to the choices you made for the character you were playing. Gamers everywhere started to understand that this was the table top drug that video games could not deliver, and “Baldur’s Gate” became one of the best selling games of the decade. BioWare's next games; Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic were enigmas in the industry. Gameplay was not evolving, instead the games focused on more and more ways to make the player matter. BioWare wanted to make games that told stories, and in every possible way put you the player at the center. This was a fantastic thing back in the time when people wanted more from a video game than flashy graphics and a few one liners, but by 2003 the simple minded FPS was dominating and people were no longer interested in turn based experiences no matter how fantastic the story. BioWare had lost the ability to make games that people were willing to play. It took 5 years, but they reacted on two fronts, first making a FPS that was driven by story (Mass Effect in 2007) and then by releasing an epic, old school RPG with a next gen coat of paint as Dragon’s Age in 2009.

Dragon Age is a refinement in storytelling. It forgoes the idea of good and evil and instead forces players to examine the context of their actions within the game world they are a part of, creating a moral dilemma that almost always boils down to picking what you think the lesser of two evils is. Do you forgive the power hungry order summoning daemons, or kill hundreds of innocents to keep them down? The game does everything it can to prevent you from simply choosing to be the “good guy” or the “bad guy” at the start and mindlessly doing what fits that paradigm. This system is one of the primary inspirations for Raven LARP, where I’m always trying to present a game world where doing the right thing is incompatible with doing the good thing. Complementing this is an incredible cast of voice actors and a diverse cast of characters, each with their own back story, plot quest, and unique romance options with the PC (regardless of gender; any character that is a romance option transcends the concept of gender preference).

Game play is a throwback to an era before everything needed to appeal to a mass market. Combat is slow, difficult, and at times uninteresting, but these are sacrifices made in the name of the complexity and polish like you would find in table top systems. There are dozens of puzzles you might miss if you are not paying attention, and you could reach the end of the game with hours of content unexplored without even knowing you looked anything over. It feels like and plays like the games you grew up with, while looking like the games of today.

To anyone who wants to remember what games were like before the big 3 publishers started pushing for mass appeal clones every year, I can’t recommend going back to Dragon Age enough. It’s a bittersweet reminder of how much the industry has changed, and in my option, how much we as gamers have lost.

In Perspective - Nintendo

What you've heard

Nintendo has bowed out of next gen. After the horrible release of the Wii U, they followed up with “the year of Luigi” which focused on the 3DS, and now they have decided to skip E3 altogether. It’s clear they know they can’t “win” E3 and have given up on stealing the next gen thunder from Sony and Microsoft.

Except

You know in the good old days it was the mainstream media that would try and provide you with context and objectivity on a story like this, but now the drive to get sensational news out there as quickly as possible leaves that job to people like me. There are a few things you need to understand before you can truly evaluate Nintendo’s decision.

First, as I’ve already stated, the Wii U isn’t doing that bad unless you compare it to the Wii, the most successful console of all time. Compared to the Xbox 360, which had 3.7 to 3.9 million units sales at this point in its life, and the PS3, which was hovering around 3.2 million, the 3.45 million unit sales of the Wii U might come in well below the initial target of 4.5 million and even the revised target of 4.1 million, but they are hardly worth the doom and gloom they have been getting. More importantly, understand that Nintendo has been here before with the original DS, the 3DS, and the GameCube and has been able to turn it around with a strategy they have already stated they will be applying to the Wii U – first-party titles. They don’t need a press conference to speak to this; when Jr. wants the new Zelda game and it doesn't play on the system he owns, Mom goes out and buys the new one. Hype and anticipation are irrelevant in this market, and there isn’t anything that MS or Sony can bring to the table at E3 that’s going to have any effect on this market. In fact go ask your non-gamer friends what E3 is and you’ll be surprised to see that the holy grail of gaming, even with TV coverage, has about zero traction outside the “hardcore” crowd.

It’s also important to note that E3, without question the most expensive convention to attend and have the main stage at, had an attendance of around 43,000 in 2012. Compare that with CES’s draw of 150,000 or TGS with 230,000 attendants in 2012 and you start to wonder why E3 even gets the attention it gets, and if the money that is spent to be on a main stage there is worth it. Microsoft and Sony have new systems to show off, but without that who is to say what would have happened. Marketing budgets are being cut everywhere, so why not invest in the biggest bang for the buck?

So what’s the deal?

For years now, E3 has been the cash cow of gaming websites everywhere and the big question is who of the big 3 will “win”. For 4 solid years everyone has brought their game and used the stage to show why their system’s exclusives, features, and developers were the best going and why they would dominate the year to come. Stock prices would jump 5% or more the day after the conference for the “winner” and it's undeniable that the negative buzz to the “loser” had an impact as well. This year, Nintendo simply can’t win. Sony and Microsoft both have new systems coming out, and the budget and hype they will spend fighting each other will be on a level we haven’t seen in 8 years. The money Nintendo would have to spend just to step in the ring would be insane, and for what? To show us a new Zelda game, a new Smash Brothers, a new Mario Party, and a new Pokémon we all know are coming and are going to top sales charts regardless.

There is also this little thing called Nintendo Direct, which has been the focus of marketing dollars at Nintendo for almost a year now and has seen incredible results.

Nintendo made the right choice in bowing out. This doesn't mean they have given up and don’t have a plan to move the Wii U; it shows they HAVE a plan, and it’s a smart, well thought out one.

In Perspective - The Ouya

The Ouya

What you've heard

Open source, open license, moddable; these are meaningless words that I've been told are very good. Finally, we have a gaming system that puts all of these things into one package of buzzword awesomeness. With 10,000 developers already signed up and the second most successful Kickstarter in history, it’s time for the big three of gaming consoles to start running! Very soon Ouya is in your base, killing your market share.

Except

The Ouya seems like a great idea as long as you keep people talking about what it is; a gaming console that is easy for devs to modify, as a (mostly) open source OS, and is going to allow for more open publishing and distribution than either Google Play or the Apple app store. It becomes a lot less cool when you realize all of these things solve problems that don’t really exist. Is there really a base of developers somewhere who would be putting out fantastic games if not for the constricted publishing environments imposed by the current systems? The 10,000 developers who have signed on include mostly big names of established independent developers who are already doing just fine releasing games on the locked, un-rootable systems of today. It’s right about this point you realize that when the Ouya’s sales pitch says it will free developers from the things holding them back in the modern distribution model, they are talking about things like quality control and accountability. We already have free to play developers trying to scam people out of money with deceptive in-game purchases (often aimed at children), and it’s Google and Apple who have stepped up to prevent this type of behavior, going as far as to offer refunds to people fooled by the worst offenders. Ouya will have none of that, and have already stated they want to attract the free to play market.

So what’s the deal?

The Android gaming market is HUGE, and everyone wants a piece of it. Being able to work around Google Play is a godsend for smaller developers who want to make a $1000 budget game and try and sell it to 2000 people, and that type of market might be desirable on a local level. Hell, as a LARP owner the Ouya would be a great medium for releasing a LARP based game! It simply doesn't have the wide appeal everyone thinks it does, and will not have any impact on the current game market. It allows people to build a new type of game, but unfortunately that type of game is the low budget shitty game with no quality control.

But the real nail in the Ouya coffin is what it can’t do. It’s a gaming console running Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) on a 1.7 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9, or, put in non-technical terms, it’s a cell phone from early last year that you can’t take with you. Or use as a phone. Ars Technica and Slashdot have already had a crack it reviewing it and it’s not a good story; my Galaxy Note 2 phone outperforms this gaming console by almost 100% in some benchmarks and it’s slow by even the most generous standards when compared to $150 to $250 tablets. At $100 for the system and $50 for additional controllers, this system seems to attempt to fill the need people have for sitting at home playing the cheap games they bought on their phones...on the TV. Hands up everyone in the room that has that need?

Should be Playing - Bioshock: Infinite

I tried not to go with the obvious last week, but it has to be said: no gamer should miss Bioshock: Infinite.

(MILD SPOILERS OF THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OR SO)

Yes, the game play and gun play are fantastic. Yes, vigors (the “powers” in this game) are fun to use and make you feel very powerful. Yes, the graphics are insane. But that’s not why you should be playing it, and might even turn people who don’t like first person shooters off the experience. This would be a huge mistake.

From the moment you step out into the gates of Columbia for the first time, to a haunting rendition of “Oh Lord”, and are baptized (and nearly drown) before you are allowed to enter the city, you know this is going to be a powerful statement. By the time you win (by raffle) the opportunity to be the first to stone an interracial couple to death, it’s clear that statement isn’t going to be very comfortable. It only gets worse from there. You see, before TV and movies became the feel-good experiences they are, one of the main goals of art was to make us uncomfortable and question ourselves. It was soon discovered, however, you make a lot more money telling people they are awesome and everything is going to be ok, so we stopped doing that. Video games have become the only medium where it is still ok to shock and to confront the viewer with the true horror of the human experience, and this is something we all need from time to time. Bioshock not only guides us on that journey, it shows us why it is important in a girl named Elizabeth.

I could spend pages detailing how much of a leap forward in interactive art Elizabeth is, and others will in time. She isn’t a background character, an NPC, an escort mission, or even a companion; she is the main character in a wonderful and horrible story. It was Bungee who first understood what a leap forward in story telling this would be; they have also said that “Halo” is a game about an AI, not her protector, but never quite pulled it off. You see, in most games the idea of “player choice” is difficult to nail because you are the one affecting the whole of the universe, while being the center of it. The Mass Effect series is a great example. In Bioshock you are not the star, but you’re an important cast member. You react, and you get an opportunity to question the actions you are taking based on moral implications rather than outcome. I spent more time deciding if I should give Elizabeth a necklace with a bird on it, or one with a cage on it, than I did deciding which of my friends to send to their death in Mass Effect because the choice mattered more to me. I still don’t know what effect, if any, it had.

You need to play Bioshock not because it’s a great game (don’t get me wrong, it is) but because it’s a great, and truly accessible, work of art. You don’t have a lot of other options in that regard.

In perspective - LucasArts Closing

LucasArts Closing

What you heard

See, that's what happens when you release shitty games. Between Star Wars: Kinect, a generic first person shooter in 1313 and endless Lego games, LucasArts lost touch with their core fan base. It was only a matter of time until someone realizes there was no point keeping them around and to be honest, they got what they deserved.

Except

LucasArts has not had a financially unsuccessful game in about 20 years. Star Wars: Kinect, while having an average rating of 55 on Metacritic, topped sales charts for 3 weeks and spawned a limited edition $450 xBox. Clone Wars was the best selling Lego Star Wars game to date, despite it being the lowest rated.

So what's the deal?

I get it. You think because you hate Jar Jar Binks and Boba Fett you are a BETTER and more deserving Star Wars fan than the 12 year olds that watch Clone Wars today (even though you were around 12 when you first watched the originals and begged your Mom to buy you an Ewok toy). You need to get over the fact Star Wars is not FOR you anymore. Star Wars box office sales are around $4.2 billion total, but toy sales account for more than $12 billion. That's more than Movies, DVDs, and Video games COMBINED. Star Wars is marketed to children, and therefor Star Wars games need to be marketed to children, and the parents that buy these games don't care how well it's rated or even if it's any good. If it shuts junior up for a few days, it was well worth the money.

The problem isn't that LucasArts isn't able to push product and make successful games, it's that the two most profitable Star Wars games ... FOR LUCASARTS ... in the last 5 years are SW:TOR and Star Wars Angry Birds. The observant among you might note that LucasArts did not spent one single minute or dollar on developing either of these games. They were licensed products developed by other established teams. And that's all Disney sees. Why spend millions of dollars a year on a studio when we can just charge other developers to slap a Star Wars sticker on their game?

So if you thought Star Wars: Kinect was bad, just wait and see what comes out now that the license is for sale without accountability. The EA Sports Star Wars series including Star Wars Golf, the Star Wars facebook game where you play a moisture farmer, Real Petz: Bantha ... ok wait, I would totally buy that one but you get my point.