Story here.

This was moderately... wow. Before, selling a million copies of something was a big deal. "Good job! Amazing!" As a firm reminder those days are gone. As David Jaffe said:

"Let's put it this way: it's really, you're at a whole new level, and it's not scary in the sense that I want to get out of it, and walk away from the problem, but it really is amazing to look back at, say, Twisted Metal 1, and go, "OK, we were selling that for 49 bucks, and that cost about $800,000 to make." And we sold 1,000,000 copies, and we were just like, "Hell, this is great!" And now you look at selling a million copies of a title that's going to cost 10, 15, 20 million (to develop), and you're like, "Man, I hope the low end is a million copies!" Because if it ain't, you're screwed!"

Well, we know know however much Eidos put into Tomb Raider this last go round, 1.5 million in sales wasn't enough to meet their sales expectations. Did they break even or acheive any sort of profitability? Not sure. But not meeting expectations/sales goals is seldom a good thing.

Oh, how horribly terse. I would've loved for this to have gone on at length!

Most interesting take-away quote?

"I've thought a lot about how Western games have been winning, looking it from a global perspective, and there are things that I've noticed. So 2009 will be a year of change, a year where we start from zero again."

So Kojima joins the ranks of other Japanese developers who seem to be concerned that the Japanese are falling behind. The fun thing is that some of us remember when Western (or, more to the point, American) developers were pretty bad/rubbishy (the NES days in particular). As time went on and the Japanese kept raising the bar, US and European developers followed right along, learning, and sometimes surpassing. Now? Well, it seems to be Japan's turn.

I'm looking forward to seeing Japanese twists on how Western developers have been doing things. The end of this generation should have some very interesting titles!

Tonight I picked up a 360 Arcade. I can't find the 256m memory card, so I'm pretty darn sure I've got a Jasper chipset. I used a $25 gift card and payed the rest. Would've been under $200 except I got the Gamestop 1-year warranty to go with it for $20.

Anyhow, I'm unpacking it right now, looking through the manuals, etc. Will probably go online to check for updates, and need to remember to order a HDMI to DVI converter later on. Thanks to the kind generosity of ProtogeRuckus, I've got a 20g harddrive and a bunch of games already, plus my buddy will be returning my VF5:Online come Monday.

I don't have the time to go uber-hardcore anymore, so don't expect my meager gamerscore to be anything but that: meager. But I do believe I will enjoy this quite a bit. Later on I'll have to start trying to track down copies of Scene It, Lips, and other good, social games since I'm planning on this thing being a traveling system. Oh, and I'll need two more controllers to boot. All in good time, though :)

Who is the winner? Isn't it too soon to tell?

Nope. As I've said before, the winner of this generation was IBM.

BuuUUuuut the Wall Street Journal has a bit on a new book, The Race for a New Game Machine by David Shippy and Mickie Phipp. I've often commented how in the business world you see what we would consider to be odd matches of companies in bed with each other. We all know that IBM was "in bed" with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo - this is old news. But Shippy is alleging that, well...

But a funny thing happened along the way: A new "partner" entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM's Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony.

All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony's primary videogame-console competitor. The result was that Sony's R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.

It would seem that some folks in Sony's legal department might need to reexamine things: they should've made sure there was a non-comptition clause or SOMETHING to have prevented this from happening. Either that or IBM's lawyers did their best to make sure that IBM held most of if not all the important cards in whatever happened. This is more likely to me - after all, before there was the "all powerful" Microsoft that the FTC had to bust down on during the 90's, there was IBM who ruled with an iron fist in a way that Microsoft couldn't. I'm sure their laywers are amongst the darkest, most evil and heinous the industry has to offer!

I mean, obviously, if what IBM had done was illegal or breaching contract, well, we would've heard about a massive lawsuit by now. Or will hear about one in the next month ;)

Its interesting. I always knew that Cell and Xenon were related due to their PowerPC roots (which in turn was derived from their POWER line of CPU's). They have common roots, but are very different. But if this is indeed true? The two are a lot more related than I had ever imagined! I've already commented that I believe the PS4 and Xbox 720 are already in development - I would not be surprised if this drove Sony or Microsoft to Intel or AMD for their next CPU. Or at least make damned sure IBM doesn't try this again!

Limited offer from Microsoft.

So, that works out to being $15 for the harddrive. Looks like MS is trying to blow them out. Anyhow, if you've got an Arcade but are either on a budget or really are very casual, this might be worth looking at.

I'mwilling to bet that shipping and handling will be extra.

Simple list. Just hopes and dreams, with little or no support for them!

1. I get my 360 before the end of January!

2. That we'll see the very first Wii price cut or bundle-improvement by Christmas '09.

3. That we'll see the PS3 drop by at least $50 on the low and top end plus get a bundle improvement OR we see a $100 price drop. Hoping for an improved bundle with a $100 price drop seems a bit greedy :P

4. That we'll see price drops on 360 storage (memory cards and harddrives), a $20-50 price drop on the various SKU's or improved bundles. Seeing the current Pro become the new Core, the current Elite become the new Pro, and the Elite getting a bigger harddrive, WiFi adapter, etc., would be even better. Keep the prices the same in that case.

5. Street Fighter IV will have PC/360 and PC/PS3 online play.

6. City of Heroes will get a new, boxed expansion, plus the Mac version adding 50-100% to the playerbase.

7. Guild Wars 2 comes out and kicks major butt. Well, actually, this will be a given...

8. Microsoft finally gives Live! Silver online play, but adds even more features to Live! Gold. However, I do not want to see anything more taken from Live! Silver - all perks should be just that - perks.

9. Microsoft finally loosens up and starts embracing User Generated Content the way that Live was originally envisioned but they backed off from.

10. NCSoft finally gets a PS3 game out for us to play!

11. That the console version of The Witcher blows the doors off of Final Fantasy XIII. Because, honestly, the status quo needs to be shaken up.

12. That Japanese RPG companies will try and make something along the lines of The Witcher, Knights of the Old Republic, Oblivion or Fallout 3. Because, honestly, the status quo needs to be shaken up.

Sort of thinking aloud here. Anyhow, when considering buying a game, these bits usually run through my head:

Is this game going to be hard to find in the future? If the answer is yes, I'm more likely to buy it sooner rather than later. For example, I bought Virtua Fighter 5: Online based on my horrific experiences trying to get copies of Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. I bought Katamari Damanci - no review, never having heard of it - on my friend's recommendation because it was in short supply (and I implicity trusted his taste in games). Big, popular games? I don't worry about those. I'll find them easy enough even a year or two later.

Is there a particular buy to support this game/version? I waited for the PC version of Devil May Cry 4 just to support Capcom's PC efforts. I bought Galactic Civilizations 2 because I support Stardock and their views on DRM. If my computer could run it I would've bought the new Prince of Persia game to show Ubisoft I support them and their experiment to make it DRM-free. SNK? I've almost always got money for them :)

Will I get my money's worth? I've discovered a while ago certain types of games are worth more or less to me based on interest. A good fighting game that I'll play regularly? Full price is fine. An RPG, on the otherhand, I won't pay full price for anymore. Why? Because I don't replay them, won't go back and find everything, etc. That's a lot of the value gone for me - why buy brand new when I can rent once, twice, three times at most and beat? I beat KOTOR and KOTOR 2 in under two days each (marathon playing). Platformers? I almost never finish them, so paying full price (or even half-price) is out of the question. Ditto for FPS-games, really. No sports game is worth my money except for a fun, arcade-****baseball game, wrestling or MMA. So on and so forth.

Will I keep this game? This is a new addition, actually. Since I've got a PC and plan to get a 360 next month, I have to wonder now "will I keep the game?" I can't trade-in PC games, after all. But PC games can get mods, user-generated content, I can use FRAPS and make game-movies, and a whole host of other things. However, with a console I don't have to worry about getting updates (automatic), driver issues, trying to figure out obscure settings to get something to work, worrying about performance, etc. Plus I can grab a console, throw it into a bag with controllers and games, and go to a friend's house, easy. No can do with my PC. So, yeah, figuring out which version I want can be tricky in that regard.

No, this isn't comprehensive, and I don't think of every thing every time. But, this happens often enough. How do you decide what you're going to buy?

I was surprised to find this just happened; the final VHS supplier calls it quits. I figured that would've happened a while ago. Surprise, surprise! The co-owner's comment was no surprise to me, though:

As it turns out, Distribution Video Audio now sets up discount DVD displays for big-box retailers, although Kugler warns that DVD's days are numbered as well. "The DVD will be obsolete in three or four years, no doubt about it. Everything will be Blu-ray," he said.

Speaking of which - globally Blu-Ray seems to be doing well, but it looks like they've finally gotten around to a Blu-Ray/DVD hybrid disc to market. It sounds superior to the HD-DVD/DVD hybrids in that you don't have to flip them over, which is a nice convenience. Hopefully movie companies won't make the same mistake as they did with the HD-DVD/DVD discs - not sell them. The hybrid format was meant to help the transition between DVD and HD-DVD by allowing consumers to buy one disc that had both formats. Great idea, but it barely got used. Had HD-DVD movie companies had followed through with that plan, the format war might still be going on.

Hopefully next year we'll see a lot of movies come out this way. Why? Its consumer friendly (which is a good reason for it not to happen, given the industry's past record) as it protects your investment - no having to buy the same movie twice, or "waiting it out." Likewise, you can get a movie and lend it out (or borrow) and enjoy the best you version you can. It will help reduce redundancy on store shelves (ie, not having to stock the DVD and Blu-Ray version of any given movie). Side benefit of this is there's less waste to boot.

This won't affect gaming any, but that's okay.

OpEd here.

He says "no." I disagree. The 720 and PS4 will both need Blu-Ray to succeed. Why?

There's no way Microsoft will install a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 720, and to be quite honest, I don't think there's any reason for it to do so. The reasons are simple. First, Microsoft doesn't want to pay a competitor--Sony, the key backer behind the Blu-ray Disc Association--to use its format. Second, and perhaps most important, Microsoft realizes that Blu-ray isn't an ideal format, given the fact Blu-ray's chance of success is very much in doubt.

The single benefit Blu-ray provides to developers is its capacity. But once another generation rolls around, doesn't it stand to reason that producing DVDs will be even less expensive and that it may yield a more cost-effective approach than using Blu-ray anyway?

Idiocy. This is looking at things like a fanboy, not from a business or technical perspective. They will use whatever works best at the best value. Pioneer's 16-layer Blu-Ray discs will likely be available by then, and Blu-Ray itself will be far more affordable then than it is now, and I sincerely doubt any other optical mass-storage options will be available by then for the consumer/mass-market (sorry - don't see HVD being an option anytime soon).

Likewise, this ignores the fact that Microsoft itself has contributed to the Blu-Ray specification with VC-1 being one of the supported codecs. Former Microsoft marketing VP Peter Moore and others from the gaming division have said a 360 BR drive like the external HD-DVD drive was a possibility. While we won't see that happen for the 360, there's no good reason why it can't be used for the 720. Microsoft supports Apple with OSX programs, after all. Sony and Microsoft also work together, and Sony licesnses/sells Windows on its PC's and laptops. The two companies are in bed with each other in some areas, enemies in others.

Or, in other words, the business world isn't so cut-and-dry.

Beyond cost, what's so bad with DVD? The games look perfectly fine on the format, most developers haven't had too much trouble developing for DVDs, and even fewer have spent time complaining that it's not as capable as Blu-ray. In fact, I've heard more gripes from developers about Blu-ray than DVD lately.

A single 16-layer, 400g BR disc equals 8 dual-layer BR discs or 45 dual-layer DVDs (approximately speaking). DVD-DL isn't an option, whereas Blu-Ray will offer immense flexibility in that regard. There comes a point where old media won't cut it - notice we're not using CD's for games anymore! There are some free games out there that won't even fit on a single CD these days.

On top of that, I'm fairly certain he's making a ****c fanboy mistake here, confusing platform (PS3, 360) with media (BR, DVD). Maybe not. The only concern I've heard about Blu-Ray vs DVD comes down to speed, but it depends on the particular benchmark you're talking about (yay statistics) and the immaturity of the BR format. Faster drives are coming. If anything, I'd imagine it'd be more of publishers complaining - from what I understand, a PS3 game has to be on a Blu-Ray disc, even if it could fit on a DVD-9.

I've read more than a few complaints about working with the PS3, but BR was never one of them.

But we also can't forget that gaming is moving in an entirely different. Over the next few generations, the need for media like DVD or Blu-ray will diminish and games will be purchased over the Web and downloaded to a hard drive on the console. It's already happening now in small amounts. But rest assured that as the industry realizes the benefit of sending games directly to you and Blu-ray loses its fight against streaming, you can bet that all this talk about formats will be just another stepping stone in the storied history of gaming.

The United States sucks when it comes to broadband speed and penetration. If he was talking about, say, Korea, he might have a point. But Microsoft will always have the US, its strongest region, in mind, and we're not ready for this kind of jump, nor do I think we will be anytime soon. Likewise, he's forgetting about retailers - there's not a business model that entirely bypasses retailers but doesn't piss them off at the same time! If you completely cut out Wal-Mart? They're not going to carry your system. Simple as that. Likewise, consumers are very likely to resist this as well - pure digital downloads for games do not fit in well with current views of buying games.

As always, PC's lead the way, including on this issue. Legally we're trying to figure out how downloads fit into "First Sale" doctrines - right now the debate is over MP3's, but it can't stop there. As a PC gamer, I can't trade in my copy of Devil May Cry 4, regardless of it being on disc. But more than that, I can't trade in my copy of Counterstrike, Penny Arcade 1 or 2, or any other game I've bought digitally from online stores like Steam or Impulse. This will not sit well with Gamestop and other used game stores who will, like Wal-Mart, will have reason to boycott any digital-only business plans.

And I can assure you - they will educate their customers about it. With a twist, with a slant, but they'll make it clear: no physical media, no trade-ins, no used games, everything is full price.

Until that happens, though, I simply don't see any reason for Microsoft to offer Blu-ray in the Xbox 720. I see no reason to pay a competitor for the use of its format when it's cheaper to develop for another that's perfectly fine.

The future of gaming has nothing to do with Blu-ray. And although we don't know what Microsoft will include in the Xbox 720, I'm willing to bet it'll feature DVD and a strong online component where buying games through Xbox Live is made simpler.

It's the smart move.

I see plenty of practical reasons - price:performance and business/political - why they would include Blu-Ray into the Xbox 720. There comes a point where you spend so little money that you're getting a poor value, and if Microsoft wants to continue the success the 360 has seen thus far they don't need to do something that will burn bridges. Not going to Blu-Ray, unless a truly viable option comes around and surprises the hell out of me, would be foolish for them.

Story here.

My thought?

I would like to see them take their considerable developments skills and work within a T or even E rating. The money is there to be made, and I would consider it more impressive for them to do that than to create another M-title. You can still be creative and poignant without blood, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, strong sexual content and use of drugs and alcohol (as read off of my GTAIV's ESRB rating), right?