Long story short; where I work has been without power for over 24 hours. Paper deadlines don't change, so we took work home with us. I'm at home, got everything I can do, and must say, I hate it.

Also, my display at home is only 1280x1024; a resolution that is far, far too little room to work with. I hate it. I'm already wanting more space than the Apple Cinema Display I have at work offers (1680x1050? 1920x1200?), so you can only image how horrible this is for me. Its a pain in the neck to be sure.

I might well take what little i've gotten saved for the 360 and just dump that into another monitor and two new video-cards (one for my Mac, the other for my PC).

Story here.

So, if you enjoy either game online or never tried either online, you'd better hurry up! December 31 they're both losing online support.

A special thanks to MacRuckus for getting the ball rolling. I'm not going to beat on a dead horse here, honest.

With all the furor over the current situation, I think its time we perhaps looked at this from another angle. To do so, it might not be a bad idea to revisit the past a bit to an older story Gamasutra ran about PR and the Game Media. Read it first, then come back - its relevant, I promise.

Done? Good.

There are allegations and numbers being tossed about right now from more sources than I care to cite, but in the end, Gamespot's position is the same as any content or service provider with an ad-based revenue scheme. No different than television, magazines, newspapers or radio. As someone who works at newspaper who's sole form of revenue is through advertising, I can readily appreciate Gamespot's position regardless of how accurate the rumored details are(n't). We (the paper) do our best to provide the best content we can, to have as much integrity as possible, because that is why our readers make us a regular part of their week. The quality of our content plus our reader base gives us the means to go to business and say, "We can help you to reach x-many thousands of people every week if you advertise with us." They see our product (the paper) and circulation, work out a marketing plan with one of our sales reps, and enter into an advertising contract with us.

We have to keep them happy. We have to keep our readers happy. And we have to, at the very least, break even in a competitive market; there are two other weeklies, one bi-weekly, plus the daily. And that's just the locally produced stuff, nevermind papers from other parts of the state or with nation-wide distribution as well as the TV news, radio news and internet! Its *not* easy (especially since the economy has been belt-tightening, most businesses cut back on advertising first), and nobody wants to think of the "l" word (hint: its also known as "downsizing"). We don't want to lose advertiser money, period.

Similarly, Eidos has spent millions making Kane & Lynch and don't want to lose money either. "Low" reviews like they got from Gamespot, EGM, IGN, Game Informer, Game Pro, Gamespy, Edge, Gamer 2.0 and others does not help them in the least. While probably not as urgent as Konami and Metal Gear Solid 4's 1-million first day sales requirement, not breaking even is painful for any publisher financially. To get those kinds of reviews after paying out so much in marketing must be a bitter pill indeed.

Which brings us to the revenue model itself; advertising. There are many products out there that are either partially or completely subsidized through advertising; pick up a newspaper or magazine, and there are ads plastered throughout. This helps keeps the price of the publication down for the consumer by subsidizing it, allowing it to be sold for less than its full price (or even given away). Television works on a similar model as does radio. Gamespot along with many other gaming news and download websites are primarily ad-supported while offering paid subscriptions (with additional perks). And now? So are games.

Some games are using advertising to pay for a free experience, be it the game itself or its online component. Quake Wars' online play is ad-supported. Sometimes its alone, sometimes its accompanied by an additional revenue model; PSN, NCSoft's Exteel, and some of Acclaim's MMO's are "free" due to microtransactions and (planned) advertising, Gametap offers its free service through advertising as well as its subscription service.

A lot of Dot-Com era companies offered "free this!" and "free that!" before the bubble burst. A fair number of the non-retail ones attempted to utilize advertising revenue to pay for themselves and failed. Likewise, boycotts have been used in the past in order to influence advertisers to pressure content providers (such as television) when special interest groups disapproved of content. Content providers scramble to please advertisers. The more the game industry tries to rely on advertising revenue to keep things free or inexpensive, the more they expose themselves to the weaknesses of the model. In my personal opinion, solely (or primarily) advertising reliant games are at great risk for this, and their developers/publishers must figure out a combination revenue model that can help them weather through advertising related issues. The addition of a modest subscription (Live, Gametap, MMO's and game services) as well as microtransactions (PSN, Live, many free MMO's) would go a long way to providing stability and security against hesisitant, beseiged and vengeful advertisers.

Bobby Kotick at Gamespot, Next-Gen and even GameIndustry.biz.

Me here (back in June no less!).

A cute little gem that Gamespot didn't have in their news piece?

"The Wii at its price point is now setting a standard and an expectation, and people say, well, the Wii is less complex technically. I don't think that really matters as much to the consumer..."

Games matter, there's no denying this. Capabilities matter, but probably not quite as much as we thought. But more than anything, price matters. We've already seen the dramatic improvement the 40g PS3 has had for PS3 sales, and Microsoft is lowering their pricing (too) slowly but surely while Nintendo sits happy at their current pricing. If performance was the only thing that mattered, the 360 and PS3 would be fighting it out alone with the PS2 and Wii a rapidly fading memory. But performance isn't the only factor.

To be honest, I don't think he's entirely off the mark. I've seen stories not once, not twice, but three times (and I'm sure there are more I've missed) about how most consumers don't know the half of what their console can do besides play games. Heck, even the people selling the systems aren't entirely sure of what they can or can't do (as Mac's friend found out the hard way).

You can look at the PC market and see the same thing. We all love the high-powered machines with blazing hot specs, but those machines aren't the ones most people buy. Budget machines with integrated video and sound, skimpy RAM, and modest processors are the big sellers. Its rather telling when even Apple, a company known for expensive machines (and a legendary 20% or higher rofit per item sold) even has a budget priced offering with the Mac Mini. You will never mistake a Mac Mini or that $399 PC for top-end gaming hardware, but its good enough for most people because it does what they want it to at a price they can handle.

Naturally, this drives Mark Rein crazy, since the lowest common denominator in terms of hardware limits high-powered PC games sales. Blizzard, realizing this, tends to keep their hardware requirements rather modest, and their biggest hit, World of Warcraft, is testament to the wisdom of that - it can run decently (for a MMO) on cheap, modestly powered PC's, compared to its rivals. valve even made sure Half-Life 2, a gorgeous game, could even be run on Direct X 7 video cards like the GeForce 4 MX! Dumb move? Not when you consider how well Half Life 2 sold.

Most of us have a pain threshhold for spending money, some higher than others. If we look at the Playstation 2, around 75% of its total system sales were from $200 and less. About half of its total sales were at $180 and less. Maybe 2/3rds or so were at $150 and less. Kotick seems to realize this; the mass market will not jump onboard until the system is at most $200. If you think your system of choice is selling well now, wait until it passes that magic price point. Last generation will not truly be last generation until one or more of the current generation becomes fully embraced by the mass market. And price is the major holdback to that happening, not games. There are enough good games on all the systems right now to make them worth owning if they were at that price point, and publishers will follow system sales like they always have.

But for now, price is the key.

Next month or so, when I've got a little extra cash, I'm going to subscribe to Gamespot's Total Access. There's a nice amount of goodies for going paid, not the least of which is GETTING RID OF THE ADS. I was actually fine and content to deal with ads, but these new ones that go zipping aorund the screen? Gag. Hate them.

Goodbye sometime soon.

Oh, and the faster downloads. I'm doing enough PC gaming again that I want them demos real quick-like.

Don't have the Zapper thing, but I must say this...

Using the Wii-mote to play? Man... they need a hidden Star Trek-phaser-a-like weapon in there, 'cause that's what it feels like.

Maybe Raven should dig up that Star Trek: Next Gen FPS they did years ago and make a Wii version of it O_o

Available here.

I was a little surprised you could download this without a, you know, Zune, but no complaints. It's a bit on the light side being only 34 megs. Installation was quick and easy - even did it while playing City of Heroes (ahem). It told me my graphics card might not support some of its advanced display options (waaa?), and that was it.

Man, this thing is simple. Mac simple. It gave me the choice to do things one way or the other, saying very plainly what they were. It found my music easily, and really was just plain brainless. So simple a Mac user could do it.

The player itself is nice; worlds ahead of Windows Media Player in terms of immediate usability. The interface is clean, simple, almost elegant. When viewing your music collection, you can do the whole shift/control click thing to select multiple items (as normal). Funny thing - left and right side columns are lists, but the center column is nothing but album covers! Weird. Its not as easy to sort things as it is in iTunes, though. Making playlists simply involves dragging songs or albums to the Playlist icon; moving music to a Zune or to burn to CD is the same. Overall, its nice. Much better than WMP, but not quite iTunes.

Along the top are your main options (tabs, basically); collection, device, marketplace, social. Pretty easy to understand. When you click on one, its sub-options come up too; music, playlists, videos, pictures and podcasts show up for collection and device (device gets status too). The marketplace isn't bad, and I love the fact they sell DRM-less stuff too in MP3 format. Again, nice and easy, but iTunes is still a bit better here for finding stuff. Not messing with social because, well, I ain't ;)

Overall it seems really nice; quick, clean, simple. I doubt its as light as Winamp, but likewise, don't think its the hog iTunes is, either. One of the things I realized with my Sansa is the software end of things is massively important to me, hence my constant staring back at iTunes. But the Zune stuff? I think I can work with this. Its easily what Windows Media Player *should* be. Maybe the next WMP will slim down some - it would certainly promote the use of non-iTunes music players among those who aren't technically inclined. In fact, to be honest, I'd have to say this might actually be better for basic computer users than iTunes, and that's saying something. I'm pleased with it, in all honest. My brother joked "Its basically an Apple product made by Microsoft," and its not too far off. With this as the software end, I think i could actually see myself considering a Zune of some sort, or at least debating a Zune vs iPod. The iPod Touch might be the coolest thing out there, but I'm not paying those prices; given that you can get a (cheap) original Zune and upgrade its firmware to be the same as the new ones, or just get a flash Zune (comperable to the iPod Nano), things are good.

That being said, I'd still recommend iTunes/iPod to 99% of the people I know :P

Video demo of the software.

Actual reviews of the Zune media player and software:

Arstechnica's review here.

Cnet's review here.

Some quick impressions here.

I was actually in the original beta that ended early this year, so its good to see it restarted and that much closer to be ready for everyone to play. Nice that the NDA is finally lifted too @_@

I like it. Take a Deathmatch game (Quake, Counterstrike, UT, etc), add in Grand Turismo (winners get money, money buys upgrades), a little RP experience system and stats, mix, then add generously to a Virtual On mold. I'm not huge on deathmatch games (free for all or teams), but they do have a Vs. Computer mode (Last Stand) where a team of players tries to hold onto control points against waves of computer attackers.

Its fun, easy to get into, and its made to be casual friendly. The revenue model will be advertising and microtransactions for items. I like it a lot better than I did Gunz, and as soon as its in open, I hope to con some friends of mine into playing it. I'd really like to see them expand Last Stand some more, too, but hey, its not even released yet.

Sadly, there was a server/mech wipe in between the betas, so my nicely equipped mech (Meridian) got toasted and I had to restart from scratch. Similarly, I don't remember the names of the guys I did Last Stand with - we'd do it on a hard difficulty and it was tense fun :)

Its a great game, and I really, really do wish it would end up on a console - it's a good match, I think.

Well, guess what? Microsoft has a promotion just for you.

Read up for details, but this seems like a pretty good move to help original Xbox owners still playing Halo 2 online who are still sitting on the fence to upgrade to a 360 and Halo 3.

If you're eligable for it, combining this offer with Microsoft's Pro or Elite bundles, then you're getting quite a deal: Forza 2 ($60), Marvel Ultimate Alliance ($20-30 - Greatest Hits) and Halo 3 ($60).

Story here.

Its actually a clarification of Mark Rein's; a prior story made it sound like they hadn't even started work on the UT3 for the 360, which isn't the case.

Mark Rein has said Unreal Tournament 3 already works on Xbox 360, and it did as far back as last spring.

What he meant to say yesterday was that his team will "start working on it again" after Christmas, not begin from scratch, silly.

"What I probably should have said was 'start working on it again'. We had the game up and running on all three platforms up until last spring," Rein clarified to games blog Joystiq.

So, the question "why?" Why not release on the PC, 360 and PS3 simultaneously? Yes, it might well have meant that there would be no chance of getting mods on the 360 version (they're still talking about MS's policies on the matter), but that aside? Losing out on Christmas holiday sales is bad, right?

The answer is, obviously, money. The possible answer is "money and we're damned sneaky."

Good move on Sony's part in that they denied the 360 a great game during the holiday season this year. By obtaining (translation: paying off Epic) a timed exclusive, they get something to hang over the 360 ("Got it first") during an important buying time, while people are deciding which system they're going to buy for themselves or others. Sony has deep pockets and a need to build their library, plus having such a prestigious title on their system first is no small thing (whether or not its a Halo 3 killer is up to you).

Its a better move for Epic who basically got paid to avoid having to compete directly with Halo 3 (and planned or not, dodged Bioshock and The Orange Box). To be honest, by missing the holidays and all the high-profile games coming out, they don't really have to worry about other games in their (rather saturated) genre cannibalizing their sales. On top of that, the tools you need to create mods for the PS3 version of UT3 are, you guessed it, PC based. I have little doubt that should they hammer out a deal with Microsoft to allow mods on the 360 version (its a matter of Microsoft's Live policies, not technology), that this will remain the case. Indeed, this might even give them additional leverage in dealing with Microsoft! So it doesn't matter if you get the PS3 version - if you want to make mods, they still sell a copy of the PC version!

We had a fun discussion with Killswitch about this ages ago. There are some very good reasons why you'd want to make your mods (or rather, have to) on the PC that the PS3 cannot duplicate at this time, but the fact remains that's an extra copy you have to purchase.

Allegedly they delayed Unreal Championship 2 in order to avoid Halo 2 (or at least were thankful they had different release dates). Given that UT3 was scheduled for the holidays this year on PC and PS3 (and might still make it), it looks like Epic had a pretty good idea of what they would be dealing with on the 360, so opted to dodge. Getting Sony to pay for it? Getting PS3 owners to rebuy UT3 for the PC in order to create mods? Almost amazingly audacious in some people's eyes, but there are technical reasons for it that are undeniable, and lets be honest, PS3 owning Unreal fans wouldn't be happy with a mere map editor...

Bravo, Epic.