To Gamespot: The buttom line is that I don't believe the PR you posted about Jeff. You really expect us to believe that Jeff just up and left without so much as word to the rabid public that follows him? You further expect us to believe the video review in question just got deleted randomly? If that's not the reason that he left... then what is? I have cancelled my paying account as a result of this outrage.

If I could share a quick thought, why do we have so many versions of these consoles? Let me see if I can get this straight. We have:

PS3:
20GB, 40GB, 60GB, 80GB

Xbox 360:
Elite, Premium, Arcade, Core


Seriously, what is the point of all of that? Each of these systems have different capabilities and cost different amounts. How in the world is the average joe parent going to be able to tell a difference between all these come Christmas time? Not that this is the only factor of course, but there's little wonder in my mind about why the Wii is doing so well.

Okay, if I may...

 *Rant mode engaged*

I'm getting rather sick of gaming companies announcing high-profile titles, showing all kinds of footage, and doing interview after interview all the while saying at the end it'll be released "When it's done." I mean, seriously, they put the full hype-machine in motion only the give the consumers nothing more than speculation and happy thoughts.

QUICK TANGENT:  Granted it's much better to do that rather than constantly delaying an empty release date (Half-Life 2 and company, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Spore, and the list goes on). If you're going to make such a big deal about the game then at least have a release date that you're confident in. I understand these dates change all the time, video game development is still pretty volatile and stuff comes up that you didn't expect all the time... I get that. But seriously, these delays are much more than random unanticipated variables. Am I really expected to believe that a year long delay is because of "balancing" or "unexpected bug fixes" or "polishing" or, my personal favorite, "a code leak"? Do us all a favor and say you screwed up the schedule. But I digress...

Do these titles need hype... like, at all? People have been salivating for years about the possibility of Starcraft 2. People watch the job boards at Blizzard just to see if they can get a hint of what title they're developing. You could announce Starcraft 2, say it will be coming in two weeks, and the gamers would rise as one and rejoice. Is it REALLY necessary to dangle the bait in front of us for another year or whatever it may be? At least with my Blizzard example they didn't announce this back in 2005, two years after they started development, then make us wait another two years. Nope... that award goes to Splash Damage, developer of Quake Wars.

E3 2005 was where we saw Quake Wars for the first time, and at the end of the trailer it said "Coming 2006"... okay fine. They're making us wait another year to play it... but fine, not terribly unexpected. By the way, here's a trend you can bank on: Whenever a game company gives you a generic release date like 2007, Q3 2007, Summer 2007, or October 2007, you can bet your life savings that it will come AT THE END of that time frame. But anyway, then at E3 2006 Splash Damage began the whole... it'll be done when it's done routine. Not to mention that they're touting every award under the sun BEFORE the game has even been opened to the public.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm sure it'll be a fantastic game and I'll be sure to play it. I'll also end up buying Starcraft 2, Spore, Half-Life 2: Episode II, etc. etc. But that's exactly my point. These games don't have to work hard to be successful in terms of exposure. There's a fine line between getting players excited about a title and just plain pissing them off. I'd rather be oblvious that a big title is currently in development for a bit longer rather than knowing it's out there and having to wait. Frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing how cool Quake Wars is... I want to PLAY it.

*Rant mode disengaged*

I had an interesting idea recently, and I can't say I'm fully versed in all of the legal/business issues involved in what I am proposing... but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

The vast majority of gamers are pretty well acquainted with idea of purchasing virtual goods or characters in any MMORPG through eBay. Not long after beginning of the genre certain players realized that other players would be willing to buy the goods they've acquired. When you think about it, this mentality makes perfect sense. If a player is willing to pay a monthly subscription to play a game, then it would stand to reason that they would also be willing to purchase items, equipment, or whatever.

Essentially it's the creation of a virtual economy; supply and demand at it's finest. Players want certain goods or skills without having to go through the time and effort needed. Even the money needed becomes an issue if you have to pay for the method of acquisition itself. In the real world, people constantly purchase goods on this principle.

This is still viewed as a major problem by every game company that has an MMORPG, and even eBay itself just recently removed all virtual content from their site. The logic is simple; these players are making profits from a platform that the game company created. Thus, these companies do what they can to prevent any player from selling or purchasing any virtual content with the product in question.

What if a company went the complete opposite way with it...? Total commitment.

What if Blizzard or NCsoft or whoever decided to hire players as employees to do nothing more than create characters and collect items that could be sold for cash through the company's own online store?

I don't know how I feel about that as a player, this could certainly be exploited to the average player's disadvantage; but the business side of me says that there is definitely a profit to be made.

Before you read this please believe me when I say that I am first and foremost, a gamer. I own each of the three current-generation consoles (PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube) and I will most definitely own each of next-generation consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii). A good game is a good game, period. This is true regardless of which system you may believe is superior or which system you believe, as a whole, has higher quality games. Please take this into consideration as I offer my opinions of current trends.

-----

At E3 2005 easily one of the biggest controversies was the debate over whether or not the PS3 Killzone trailer was in fact real-time. Over the course of the following year it became relatively obvious that it wasn't, though that question was never answered to my satisfaction. Sony claimed from the beginning that it was real-time and never recanted. Whereas, the European CG effects group who claimed to have done the project said that is was not real-time but was to the specifications given to them by Sony who said would be able to run in real-time. But let us assume, for the moment, that the footage was not run in real-time nor could the PS3 run it in real-time.

But ask yourself this question: How far away are we from being able to run that level of real-time graphics? 5 years? 10 years? At least by the standard that we can conceivably judge with our own two eyes. I think most would agree that that kind of graphical performance is coming, and relatively soon. The important question at that point is what happens next?

Seriously, what then?

The possibilities for full photo-realistic graphical performance of these machines are finite no matter which way you choose to look it. Sooner or later everything will have the quality of photo-realism. Consider what will happen at that point. Photo-realism will then become the standard for all gaming. Suddenly the gamer's way by which he/she judges games will shift, and naturally so. Our focus with begin to concentrate more on the game's design rather than how pretty it will look. Of course we'll have different graphical characteristics and different games will create different environments. But from that point innovation is the real key. Blurring the genres and coming up with new ideas of what a video game is will be the key to success in the video game world.

We'll come back to that point.

Of course this already occurs. Of course we don't judge a game simply on looks alone. But the current emphasis on it is extremely heavy, and probably the biggest standard by which we judge. Enter the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo). It is extraordinarily clear to most what Sony and Microsoft are focused on for their next generation of consoles, raw power. They fought the same fight six years ago with the current generation. Each system constantly trying to 1up (no pun intended) each other for which game system looks better. Some would say Sony's PS2 and others would say Microsoft's Xbox. In the end, at least my opinion, the difference between the two is minuscule at best. Nintendo didn't enter the fray much; they just tried to develop innovative quality titles, and some good-looking ones at that. And after the dust settled, by Nintendo's own admission, the Gamecube failed as a console.

(By the way, they didn't actually lose money on that hardware. Nor have they ever lost money on any new system they have developed. They just didn't sell as many units as the other two.)

Now here we are again, hearing the same song and dance from both Microsoft and Sony. The epic battle continues over which system can run more polygons in real-time. And in my opinion the same thing will happen once more. Both companies will develop some quality titles that both look amazing, but there will be no clear graphical winner. But this time...

Could it be that Nintendo is choosing not to fight? Could it be that the winning move is not to play? The graphical power of the Wii is about on par with the current generation, no distinguishable graphical change. They aren't even touching what graphical power of the Wii could be. The emphasis is clearly on a new way to play video games. It is a new platform where developers can come up with an entirely new framework for their games. Now back to the earlier point. I believe that this move is much more than trying to reach a broader audience, though they are definitely trying to do that. It is also because they believe that innovative ideas are the keys to success in the gaming world.

Quite honestly though, Nintendo may be buried under the flag of innovation. The risk with such a philosophy is huge. Nintendo may have just eliminated most of their core gamers only to go with the standard controllers on other systems. Maybe people do not want to spend two hours or more moving around their living room? And if Nintendo does not reach some baseline level of quality graphics then they may just be edged out of the console hardware business and then have to go directly to software, not unlike Sega. Not like they couldn't be perfectly happy there. The intellectual property they have for games easily wins over the other two systems (Yes, even more than Halo and GTA and Fable). Not to mention Nintendo’s portable successes.

BUT, if Nintendo's timing is just right then we may have a new market leader in video game world. They will be light-years ahead of the competition when Sony and Microsoft realize that they can no longer improve on how detailed a character's face is while being shot or they can't make the jungle any more animated.

Thank you for reading for reading.

-Swick