Does Ubisoft wan’t once paying customers to pirate their games? I think the answer is yes. This measure is nearly as absurd and extreme as that whole OnLive thing.

If they want PC gamers to hate them, why don’t they just abandon the platform and save themselves a wad of cash? Expensive DRM systems won’t increase sales, and will only piss off loyal customers. As do all DRM systems.

When people moaned about activations and online authentication, nobody expected Ubi to punish their customers even more. If OnLive is the gaming equivalent of the gas chamber, then this is the way there. Anyone who now buys a Ubisoft game on PC clearly has a keen interest in sadomasochism.

This will only end in misery for Ubi as piracy numbers increase.

So, apparently EA will be gobbled up by a bigger company soon. Garnett Lee, previously at 1up and now Editorial Director at Shacknews, reckons that bigger company will be Microsoft.

I’m inclined to disagree. For starters, any acquisition Microsoft made of EA would be for its franchises. Everyone is well aware of Microsoft’s approach to making first party games; they generally make them “second party”, as in, developed by a third party and published by MGS for the Xbox 360 exclusively. EA isn’t in such a state that buying the company for its franchises is particularly viable; they’d have all of EA’s studios to deal with (and, quite honestly, they wouldn’t know what to do with them), would lose the licenses on some of EA’s biggest money makers, and would be caught between a rock and a hard place in regards to one of EA’s other successful markets; Mobile. Would Microsoft shift EA’s portable development exclusively to Microsoft portable devices such as Zune HD and WinMo? It would certainly add an extensive lineup to the systems, at the cost profitability from EA’s platform ubiquity. I see very little sense in Microsoft buying so many studios at a stupidly high price, only to obliterate them, EA’s premium licenses and most profitable divisions, and be left with a ton of licenses that they don’t have the developmental or publishing might, or will, to work with. Read the rest of this entry »

IT’S THE IGUGU VIDYAHGAEM CONSOLE!

2009 was a rather disappointing end to the last decade which, on the most part, has been very good. The last ten years brought us games like Shenmue, Metal Gear Solid 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Half-Life 2, Beyond Good & Evil, Shadow of the Colossus and so on. The last year has brought us very little that would touch the high points of this decade, and many games due to be in stores for this Autumn slipped back to 2010. Whilst there are plenty of things we can come to expect from next year (like, for example, the fact that it’ll be an exceptionally strong year for releases, especially in the first half), I think we’ll have a few surprises too. Read on my for my ten predictions of 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

I really do. I guess the vile, contemptible Ant and Dec adverts which swarm ITV’s commercial breaks like flies on shit really have struck a chord with Daily Mail-reading Middle (Ages?) Britain. You’d think the awkward, faux-interview style of Ant and Dec talking to fat women actors pretending they want to keep fit would make people squirm. Maybe I was too optimistic about people’s standards. Or maybe I’m just being cynical right now.

It doesn’t matter; this is the price we paid to get Nintendo back at the top. I almost wish they’d gone third party now…

Let’s get the record straight; I hate OnLive. I think it’s a pile of shit, technically impossible and is the Nazification of gaming as we know and love it. There, now I’ve said it, I’ll get on to the point of this article.

A few minutes ago, to my horror, I read an article on Bitmob by Four Player Co-Op’s Jim Plachy which promoted the streaming of games as the one and only future of gaming.

The discussion about digital downloads as “the future” of video games continues to increase. Theories say that we’ll be downloading all of our media within the next 15 years.  If digital downloads are the future, I must’ve hit 88 mph in my DeLorean and zoomed into 2025 — the last time I checked, I was downloading games like crazy.

I have a Steam account. I have dozens of Xbox Live Arcade games and a few PlayStation Network games. The last time I checked, you could download Xbox 360 games to your hard drive. All of the iPhone’s software comes via digital download — it must be some alien technology!

Digital downloads are the present, not the future. The streaming of video games is the future.

So, just because the author of this piece is (like myself) “downloading games like crazy”, it doesn’t mean that it’s the present. It’s new technology, hasn’t reached anywhere near its potential and grows year by year. Even still, I’m prepared to hedge a bet that retail overwhelmingly dominates game sales. And whilst digital downloads grows and retail shrinks with each year, the balance is still in retail’s favour and will be for a very long time. Needless to say, services like Xbox Live’s Games on Demand, PlayStation Store and Steam are not the present; we still use physical media for most of our games, and we’ll still use physical media for some time.

But let’s just assume that even if digital downloads are the present, who is to say that streaming is the future? Read the rest of this entry »

The BBC has just posted a piece by a charming guy called Raz, who is upset that Xbox banned his console.

I was pretty distraught at the time, I can’t remember exactly what it said but I saw the words ‘banned’ and I was gutted, completely gutted.

Serves you right, pirate. But he continues in an attempt at painting Microsoft as the villain here: Read the rest of this entry »

Consumables suck. They suck more than DLC already on the disc. So last Sunday, I wasn’t at all surprised to read on Kotaku that one iPhone developer has begun to sell lives to players of Parachute Panic for an extra $0.99. Essentially, you can choose to pay double the price of the game, and start off with an extra five lives.

Terrible. Why? Because our homes and our own devices are not videogame arcades, that’s why. If I want to spent $1 to get extra lives in the game I’m playing, I want it to be because I haven’t actually paid for the game, or the hardware I’m playing it on. If, for some reason, I spent around £160 for my iPhone/iPod Touch, and then an extra £1 for my game, why should the game then give me the option of unlocking things already in the game for extra money? Even if I can unlock them by actually, you know, playing the game, this kind of attitude lays the way for far more sinister practises.

One day, will certain games run on this faux-arcade model, not as an option, but a requirement? This presents limiting factors for gamers, and game designers, who will have to make the lure of their game limited, because it’ll be based on their equally limited revenue stream. But if this limited revenue stream produces a lot of profit, who is to say that this model won’t slowly edge out the more traditional method? This is especially true on internet connected mobile devices, where spending 99p for a quick bit of fun on the bus to work may be appealing to those with disposable income. But just because it’s affordable, doesn’t mean that it’s not a rip off.

To me it sounds like gaming fascism.

When Sony released the PSP Go!, many people thought that Sony’s already poorly handheld console was set for another disaster. Judging by the reception, it’s hard to disagree. But the PSP Go! isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s quite a nice machine. It’s the first PSP that’s actually portable. As in, truly portable – something you can keep in your pocket. The 16 GB of storage is welcome, and more than enough when combined with the Media Go software to keep your games backed up. You can still have enough on the system to justify it not having UMD. Speaking of UMD, the lack of that storage method is also great. Face it, digital downloads, especially on a handheld, are the future. UMDs were big and cumbersome; I could only realistically carry a tiny amount around with my bigger PSP at any one time. With the PSP Go!, I can store around 14-20 games on my console at any one time, without any of the portability issues raised by UMD. Read the rest of this entry »

After spending a few minutes travelling around Empire City, skidding along the railway tracks and looking for something to do, I finally see three red blips appear on my map; Dustmen are on the streets below and I’m itching for a fight. I grind my travels to a halt, jump off the monorail tracks, crash down to the streets below, land on a car and emit a red electrical shockwave that sends my foes (and some innocents) flying.

From around the corner, more of the Dustmen’s friends appear and start firing on me. I take aim at the car some of them are hiding behind and send an electronic pulse towards it, which crushes them. As the car is flipping through the air it explodes, killing a few of their friends – and more innocents – in the process. The last few Dustmen, aware that I’m not taking any crap, decide to hide behind pillars and buildings that I can’t destroy. Occasionally popping their heads out of cover, I zap them with my lightning attacks and watch them crash, very satisfyingly, to the ground, or off a building or from a bridge and into the water. Watching my enemies fly all over the place never gets old, I think. I could be this ruthless all day.

After the mini-carnage has ended, civilians are running and screaming – heading anywhere but here. I walk up to a set of traffic lights and drain them of their energy, which recharges my batteries. In the corner of my eye I spot one of my foes lying, still alive, on the ground. He’s struggling to get up and, for all intents and purposes, is incapacitated. I take aim with my reticule and zap him with one last jolt of electricity. “Wounded Kill 1xp,” the HUD says. In this run of inFamous I am a badass, just like this game is. Read the rest of this entry »