http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/18/tabulator-ps3-slim-and-phat-sized-up/

By Luke Plunkett, 5:20 PM on Mon Aug 17 2009

One of the things I appreciated most about my Xbox 360 Elite was that it shipped with a HDMI cable in the box, letting me get the most out of my system's visuals without the need for further expense.

Thing is, I got my Elite years ago. If you plan on picking one up in the future, you won't be so lucky, as several GameStop employees have told us new models of the hardware hitting stores across the US (new box pictured) no longer ship with a HDMI cable. In fact, they don't even ship with component cables either, just some SD composite cables, meaning anyone with a HDTV is going to have to pay a little extra. A HD tax, if you will.

Disappointing, Microsoft. How are you going to help kick the HD generation along shipping composite cables? This was a bum move when Sony pulled it in 2006. Pulling it in 2009 is just...yeah, disappointing.

Source:

http://kotaku.com/5339432/elite-360-no-longer-ships-with-hd-cables

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/24/360-pro-missing-from-new-elite-packaging/

August 17, 2009 - If your Xbox 360 hasn't broken down yet or suffered from the dreaded red ring of death, then consider yourself pretty lucky.

A new survey published in Game Informer's print edition indicates the Xbox 360 failure rate has climbed to a shocking 54.2%. The magazine surveyed nearly 5000 readers, asking them about their experience dealing with broken consoles.

Here are their findings:

Console failure rate

Xbox 360 - 54.2%
Playstation 3 - 10.6%
Wii - 6.8%

Percentage of console owners who suffered a second hardware failure after the original repair.

Xbox 360 - 41.2%
Playstation 3 - 14.7%
Wii - 11%

Percentage of people who rate their customer service experience "very helpful"

Nintendo - 56.1%
Sony - 51.1%
Microsoft - 37.7%

Percentage of respondents whose friends have had console hardware failures.

Xbox 360 - 69.9%
Playstation 3 - 12.4%
Wii - 6%

The magazine also makes a few notes about their results:

The reason the Wii has the lowest hardware failure rate could be because console is played the least of the three. 41.4% of Wii owners surveyed said they play the console less than one hour a day, meanwhile the majority of Xbox 360 (40.3%) and Playstation 3 (37%) owners say they play their console on an average of three to five hours day.

Also, only 3.8% of respondents said they'd never buy another Xbox system because of the failure rates

Sources:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/101/1014486p1.html

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/17/game-informer-xbox-360-at-54-2-percent-failure-rate/

Financial data for the quarter ending June 30

EA

• Wii: $184 milion
• Xbox 360: $136 million
• PS3: $99 million

Activision

• Xbox 360: $140 million
• PS3: $104 million
• Wii: $74 million

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/07/activision-vs-ea-quarterly-console-performance-of-gamings-pub/#comments

Sony's PlayStation Network is allowing developers to get much closer to the consumer, and tailor content to specific needs and requests, according to Doublesix studio boss James Brooksby.

Doublesix has worked with both Microsoft's XBLA and Sony's download service, but the team has been able to have a better dialogue with players through PSN release Burn Zombie Burn.

"There are different models for different platforms," said Brooksby at last night's BAFTA digital distribution panel. "South Park we're making for Microsoft, and that's a relationship where they are working on almost a standard model. We're developing it for them and it's their relationship to take to the consumer and carry on.

"With Burn Zombie Burn for PSN the relationship we have is different. Sony sees itself much more as a channel, they have a store and they take a percentage for providing that channel, but you have a great deal more you can do within that channel. There are some very interesting models we can do in that space."

Community feedback helped Doublesix on the first patch for Burn Zombie Burn, with user suggestions to be incorporated into the first batch of downloadable content, and the franchise going forward.

"We listened to what people were saying and when we do our first patch it will have features that people have asked for. And then we do our first expansion pack it's actually tailored according to what people are looking for," offered Brooksby.

"And we can do that in a very short turnaround as well because the game has been developed with that in mind. We started along the route with a good relationship with the consumer, and it's going to get better with time. Games as a service is the right phrase. It's early days but that's exactly where we want to go with this. We've got a large amount of plans in the works for our next game, and what we'll do with the Burn Zombie Burn franchise going forward in terms of becoming more of a service."

Working with smaller teams on digital titles can be lucrative, said Brooksby, so long as staff are prepared to take on extra roles. And without meddling from middle management, small teams should be prepared to turn projects around at a much quicker rate but also be directly responsible for the finished product.

"We have to scale it down a bit, we have to be very ambitious. You need really enthusiastic and talented staff who may be the game designer but they may also be the community manager. It sounds really clichéd but it does go back to the old days. It does feel as though everybody has got an influence over the game."

He continued: "And that's how you can create games in a shorter space of time with a smaller team, because we don't need committee meetings or lots of people influencing from high. We're the team and it's our decision. If the game is rubbish, then it's us who made it rubbish."

Source:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/psn-praised-for-allowing-closer-relationship-with-consumers

For months, everyone aside from a select few at Microsoft was in the dark about how well the XNA Community Games were selling. That changed in recent days as Microsoft has updated its reporting tools to allow XNA game makers to view day-by-day sales of their work. The results have been disheartening for some. Mommy's Best Games, the independent developer responsible for IGN's 2008 Community Game of the Year, Weapon of Choice, has released a public statement regarding its sales and has summed the news up in one word: sobering.

With a full year of production time, Mommy's Best had hoped the Community Games program would be a viable platform that could support development of its next game. That turned out to not be the case. Though an exact number for sales was not provided, the range given was less than 10,000 units. At $5 a pop, less a cut taken by Microsoft, taxes, royalties paid to contractors, and development costs, you can see little room for actual profit.

Those results might be enough to turn any serious businessman away, but the release also promises more from Mommy's Best Games. "Maybe rational people hang up their keyboard and call it quits. But if you played Weapon of Choice, you realize we're far from rational... Our new title, currently in development, has recently moved from preproduction into production. "

Microsoft claims as much as 60 per cent of the revenue from Xbox Live Community Game sales, according to XNA developer, Mommy's Best Games.

The developer's president, Nathan Fouts, received the sales data for the company's XNA title, Weapon of Choice, describing the results as "sobering", with less than 10,000 units sold, stating "that hurts".

In his blog post, Fouts explained that Microsoft takes a baseline cut of 30 per cent and remittance rate, plus an additional 10-30 per cent cut for advertising. This put the developer under strain, he explained, as it also pays for membership, software licenses, hardware and marketing as well as royalties to contractors.

"What all that means to our bottom-line, we do not yet know, but it does not feel great," he wrote. "Maybe rational people hang up their keyboard and call it quits. But if you played Weapon of Choice, you realise we're far from rational."

Fouts concerns echo comments made by Andrew Oliver, chief technical officer of Blitz, who told GamesIndustry.biz that a developer could make more money by working with a publisher than acting alone through digital distribution.

Sources:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/Microsoft-takes-up-to-60-per-cent-of-Community-Games-revenue

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/967/967643p1.html

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/30/gamerbytes-study-shows-disappointing-sales-for-xna-community-gam/

Sony has kicked off a scheme today which will see it match the development budget of self-published games in return for PlayStation exclusivity.

The first game to take advantage of this deal is Doublesix's Burn Zombie Burn, which goes live via the PlayStation Network today, with Sony indicating it's "looking for a great many more titles" to take advantage of the fund.

"It's all very well for us as platform holders to say 'put all your money into PlayStation Network, it's a fantastic idea', but are we prepared to put or money where our mouth is? The answer is yes," Chris Eden, Sony's development relations manager, told an audience at the Game Developers Conference today.

"We're looking for a number of great games, and in return for exclusivity we'll match your development budget with guaranteed royalties," he said.

The scheme, called the Pub Fund, is a realisation of comments made to GamesIndustry.biz last year by Sony's David Reeves, who said that while exclusive deals with publishers is probably a thing of the past, there's scope for such a relationship with the development community.

Eden added that Sony is not buying titles directly from developers, and IP rights and control of any games will remain in the hands of the teams that create them.

"A really important thing to point out is that this is not first-party publishing, this is not Sony buying your product," he said.

"You'll be the publisher, you'll own the IP and you'll control your product. This is assisting you to make your next step from developer to publisher."

Sources:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sony-to-match-dev-budgets-in-return-for-exclusivity

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/966/966813p1.html

Microsoft has sacked games tester Robert Delaware for speaking publicly about Xbox 360 hardware failures.

Delaware's comments were published in an article by Dean Takahashi on Venturebeat last week. Now, reports Takahashi, the whistleblower has been fired for breaching his confidentiality agreement.

Delaware has been told he's likely to end up in court over the whole thing, but he has no regrets.

"I don't regret it," he told Takahashi. "I'll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on."

The now-ex-Microsoft employee reported he learned about problems with the Xbox 360 hardware while working for VMC, which tests games for Microsoft. According to Takahashi, he saw how "Xbox Live updates embedded in retail games could turn working consoles into worthless hulks". Delaware later went on to test games for Bungie.

Source:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/microsoft-fires-whistleblowing-employee_7

GamesIndustry.biz has learnt that Valve approached Microsoft and Yahoo - among others - to build Steam before deciding to develop it themselves.

Speaking in an interview, Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi, described how the developer tried to convince other companies to build the gaming platform but was repeatedly rejected.

"You know, we went around to Yahoo, Microsoft...and anybody who seemed like a likely candidate to build something like Steam," he explained.

"We basically had our feature list that we wanted. We wanted auto-updating, we wanted better anti-piracy, better anti-cheat, and selling the games over the wire was something we came up with later.

"We went around to everybody and asked 'Are you guys doing anything like this?' And everyone was like 'That's a million miles in the future...We can't help you.'"

Steam now serves as a digital distribution platform selling over 300 titles and hosts a gaming community with over 14 million accounts.

GamesIndustry.biz'full interview with Doug Lombardi is now available.

Source:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/microsoft-and-yahoo-rejected-steam-says-valve