JonCole

The timing of my rekindled thought about Pokemon seems to have been timed very well/poorly in that Pokemon Black/White 2 just went on sale at Best Buy for $15. Pile on top of that the fact that I had a $5 reward zone credit and I simply couldn't resist. I just now hope that I don't burn out all my Pokemon passion for this game instead of X/Y in six months or so.

This is something that occurred to me as well. I'm really not quite sure how it'll affect the metagame, mostly because it's so easy to figure out many things (type, base stats, move list, etc) even without having it all spoiled by an earlier release in another region. It could significantly affect the first month or so of competitive play while people are still trying to figure out egg groups, breedable moves, and good areas for EV farming but after that it'll be back to the same old grindstone. That said, it'll be far less tempting for me to spoil the game for myself by just looking up anything that I can't figure out right off the bat. Ever since Gold and Silver I've had this ability to cheat by looking on GameFAQs or the like and now that simply won't be available to me in those early days.

This level of speculation and analysis of Pokemon is... great. I'm going to expect nine more months of this, you'd better deliver.

Games that require active internet connections get publicly panned for that choice and often knock down the DRM to one-time authentication. Also, Steam is already known as a storefront first and a platform second. Console makers have just barely dipped their toes in digitally distributed games, in comparison to Steam. Therefore, there's a pretty big disparity in expectations for what Valve is going to do to get you games and what Microsoft or Sony is going to do to get you games. Finally, price is a big differentiator between PC/console. There is practically no expectation that I can perceive that Microsoft or Sony will want to cut you a deal as badly as Valve wants to through Steam. Is Nintendo pricing games at 10% off with a preorder, or 33% off MSRP 3 months after release to juice sales? Do Microsoft or Sony for XBLA/PSN games? Not really. So... there are differences between Steam and this picture that's been painted about how these next-gen consoles will work, mostly having to do with expectations but also in how they function. Add to that the fact that it's easier to just, y'know, keep being a PC gamer rather than jumping on board a new console train and you have a situation where it's quite easy to say, "f that noise, I'll just keep buying Steam games for $2 and sit pretty."

Ubisoft announced at today's earnings call that Rayman Legends is going multiplat and the Wii U version is delayed to September. Hooray for things no longer tempting me to buy the Wii U right now.

Sleeping Dogs - man, what a good game. The end was a little anticlimactic given the level of escalation throughout the game, but otherwise I was quite happy with the story. It helped that the mechanics were solid and a substantial iteration on the GTA-style of open world traversal (aka, not really "realistic" but certainly not Saint's Row or Just Cause). This game easily would have butted heads with ME3 as one of the best games I played from 2012. Now, on to Darksiders 2!

Random thought - I wonder if Steambox will lead to controller-only (kb/m not permitted) games that specifically target that device/category rather than conventional PCs. Weird.

Mine is to go back to school and genuinely return to the path of earning my Bachelor's Degree. And for a gaming-related one, I'm trying once again to do my "complete two backlog games for every new game I buy" for this year, in a vain attempt to knock that down a bit.

I had a pretty good experience with the PC version of FO:NV, at least. And having played the 360 version at length (beat it once on normal, once on... whatever that mode where you have to eat food and drink water), I can say that it is definitely more stable if your PC is up to the task.

Brendon Chung of Blendo Games fame was on the Jan 25 episode of Weekend Confirmed, for those of you that are interested in that dude.

Man, I really wish I could back Sony but this is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me pretty neutral/centrist with the slightest leaning toward MS on this console stuff. This generation, they did tons of things right - awesome exclusives, PlayStation Plus, superior UI (FWIW), Blu-Ray, etc. But despite all this, they have the worst problem with communication, whether it's what I've heard down the grapevine with developers or their ad campaigns that seem to hit all the wrong points. Add to that some bad timing and the 360 became the console of choice for me this gen. If Sony can just step up their messaging and actually manage to sell all the good games they bankroll (hello, Resistance 3 selling like... sub-1 million units yet still being one of my favorite games that year) I will almost certainly make the Orbis my primary console.

I recently considered trying Backloggery again, but I just wish they could skim my Steam library and add those like... three-hundred games to the list.

And forget it when it comes to automated rental machines. Redbox just stocked the first disc of Max Payne 3 for 360. For other multi-disc games, they wouldn't even stock them and instead double down on PS3 versions. No idea why they did that shameful shit with MP3, maybe because it was just a popular enough game to warrant it.

I was about to ask if anyone was interested in some Syndicate PC co-op, but then it struck me that there wasn't an Origin ID exchange thread (or at least not one that I could find, forgive me if I'm mistaken). Not a huge fan of the service, but it certainly helps for setting up games in EA PC games. Anyways, I'm jonac13 and I'm interested in Syndicate co-op and Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, if anyone would care to hit me up.

You guys are verging on vehement agreement. It seems like you're both saying that Microsoft bet on online after HD-DVD failed in lieu of blu-ray and were largely successful doing so. The only difference is that one of you thinks that the success of Microsoft's services paid off and the other thinks that it's only a half-victory without the blu-ray half of the equation. I only have to ask, is "[creating] the second biggest distributor of online TV and Movies after iTunes" really a glass half empty achievement in lieu of a physical format victory? Or in other words, do you think Sony is happier to be the top dog on blu-ray or Apple is happier being the top dog on digital movie distribution? I would personally have to guess Apple feels a little more pretty in their position, but that's just my perspective.

Hilarious wrinkle to the X-Surface rumor - http://x-surface.tumblr.com/

Well, as someone who never played Wind Waker, I'm in on the Wii U as soon as that releases. Consider me sold.

One interesting takeaway here is that the purported specs mean that the Orbis will be more powerful than the Durango (1.8 teraflops vs 1.2 teraflops). Considering they're both going to be running on a similar architecture, unlike last generation, I wonder if the Xbox will be the "target" platform for development again this time around. I don't think it's insignificant that between being "easier to develop for" and being the de facto multiplayer platform for games like Call of Duty, the Xbox 360 enjoyed much more mindshare despite having inferior hardware. In other words, if the hardware shakes out as these rumors suggest and the Orbis does have a multiplayer/social infrastructure as good as the Durango, I think Microsoft could be in a bit of trouble.

It's because Microsoft actually knows what they're doing with the Xbox 360, financially. Why do you think Sony's gaming division has posted losses practically every quarter even though they've enjoyed the same sales success as the Microsoft? Because Microsoft understood that services were more important than hardware (after the clear failure of HD-DVD, as we've trodden on quite well), which could certainly help explain why they didn't build in blu-ray from the beginning, didn't mess around with more hardware with a blu-ray add-on, and why they placed so much emphasis on Netflix and Zune Marketplace (and by association, Gold memberships).

Oh, you're right. I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier. You have complete knowledge of this situation and we're just ignorant simpletons who don't know better than Microsoft how to run their own business.

Thanks for the elevated caliber of discourse.

And less than a million HD-DVD players sold in over a year shouts "people care passionately about HD video players in their households" and are willing to spend over $400 to do it?

I like the idea of the "X-Surface" being completely standalone from the Xbox, but with the ability to use it as a kind of software hub. It takes out the potential downside of any "accessory", namely that not everyone with the main box will have it. That said, I still really want a Vita and can't justify the price to myself right now so I doubt that I'd actually buy this X-Surface thing any time soon.

Define "sold relatively well" - according to this 2007 year-end NPD wrap-up, attach rate was 3.5% to hardware sales or a total of 316K units with respect to 9.15M Xbox 360s sold in the United States as of December 2007. Considering the add-on was discontinued in February 2008, I think that's essentially the most useful number we're going to get as far as its retail performance goes.

The whole bandwidth argument makes me think that discs disappearing "soon enough" is also unlikely. Even with good bandwidth, it still takes a hell of a long time to download 10 or 15GB especially at peak hours when all your neighbours are watching their 720p Netflix streams and clogging up the pipe. That's why you're seeing 4K movies being distributed on dual-layer blu-rays and hard drives - even if Sony or LG wanted to send you 25+ GB movie files over the web, 8K televisions would swoop in before you even downloaded your first 4K copy of Casablanca.