Editorial/Rant here.

I'm a Brad Wardell fan. Its no secret. I've quoted him about as often as any major name in the gaming or computing business, and every time its for how to do things right. His company, Stardock, was tapped by Dell to create a dock for their computers. Upon that being revealed the accusations "OMGRIPOFF!" began to fly.

Anyhow, Wardell got wind of that (obviously) and got a leeeeettle peeved. Hence? His editorial/rant above. Its a nice history lesson and a bit of a rant, but I can appreciate it

Story here.

*heart attack*

Oh, this thrills me. I might have to fire up Gears' multiplayer soonish now. You know... to get pwnd like the n00b I am. It gives me some faint hope that the 360's Live Silver will get some basic online play, too. Why? I don't know - it was just a gut, knee-jerk bit of hope. But who knows? Microsoft really needs to start building on this and that old concept of "Live Everywhere" that seems to have fallen to the wayside.

I would reeeeaally like to see Sony come up with some similar initiative (ie, a PC/PS3 multiplayer platform), but I sincerely doubt that would happen. Now, some PSN games that could be played online with PS3 and PSN games would be nice. Not everything needs to be in HD or have twitch reflexes like those of a paranoid chihuahua on crack, after all.

For example: could Maplestory be pulled off on the PSP? That'd be cool; PC, PS3 and PSP players all together... or hell, Gametap. Seriously; Sony is never going to kill off homebrewing/pirating on the PSP, so they might as well provide a legal recourse for folks just wanting to play old games. I'm sure Turner won't mind having their market expand, either

I had joked about this movie last year, saying it was more important for David Hayter to be involved in that than Metal Gear Solid 4. Anyhow, he's not involved in the film anymore, but the movie is still coming.

Watch the trailer.

Get the graphic novel.

And wait with me.

The graphic novel is one of the greatest ever made, written by Alan Moore. Other works by Moore would be V for Vendetta, The Legue of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Captain Britain, Marvelman (Miracleman in the US), and far, far more than I can list. Hopefully the film translation of Watchmen will be worth of the source material.

I really enjoyed Iron Man. Same with the last Batman, and I'm hoping the new one is as good. But Watchmen? Its in that upper-echalon of titles like Return of the Dark Knight and Kingdom Come for me.

This is a response to a post on another blog of mine. I've expanded some on it, though. The poster had commented concerns that going cross-platform could reduce quality compared to staying on a single platform (a legitimate concern when you consider some of the poor ports/cross-platform titles of the past). Keep in mind the words of David Jaffe, the mind behind God of War and former Sony developer:

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!

It's really scary. Especially when you're publishing on a single platform, versus spreading your title out amongst all kinds of places. So, you know, it's definitely on our minds, we definitely worry about it.

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I'd argue a solid game is a solid game. I think its too easy to get caught up in all the pretty graphics (and the addiction thereof) and forget that. Square's recreating of their old RPG's wouldn't work as a product if the core game wasn't any good, after all. And lets not forget the PS2 was less capable than the Xbox, but that never prevented PS2 developers from making some amazing titles.

In this generation a game's budget will a much more significant roadblock to its potential than being cross-platform. If you focus on only one system, you're losing half your potential sales. If you can only sell to half the potential market, you're not only losing profit, you're making it harder to break even! At that point you do one of three things:

1) Pray hard that your title is a knockout hit.
2) Lower your budget.
3) Swallow hard and go multi.

Ubisoft claims that creating a cross-platform title only costs them 10% more than going single-platform. If a game is $20 million, an additional $2 million isn't that much when you consider how many more people they can sell to. If you need to sell 4 times what you invested in to be profitable, it's easier to try and make $44 million on the PS3 and $44 million on the 360 (about 733.3 thousand copies per system) than it would be to try and make $80 million on a single system alone (about 1.34 million copies).

Just for reference, MGS4, a mega block-buster, sold 775k units in its first month, almost 1 million if you include PS3/MGS4 bundles. Assassin's Creed, a cross-platform title, sold 1.364 million in its first month (07); 987k on the 360, 377k on the PS3 (the platform it was originally intended to be an exclusive for). TakeTwo claims that GTAIV sold 6 million copies worldwide in its first week - a feat virtually impossible on a single console at this time. Even Halo 3 "only" sold 3.3 million in September. This is very good and very important considering its estimated that GTA IV cost around $100 million to make.

Halve the potential market, halve the budget, and then halve the game, GTAIV, for all possibilities of technology holding it back would not have been the same game if it was was made with half the budget.

Update: More reading for folks.

Why next-gen games have next-gen prices. A good article that references a report from Forbes, Why Gears of War costs $60.

Ars also has a superb article from '05 about cross-platform development. It's an interest look between generations and worth reading. And it also offers an answer to my perpetual question, "Why did Sony make the PS1 so easy and powerful, but the PS2 and PS3 so powerful but damned hard to work on?"

An upstart needs as many reasons for third-party developers to support the new system as possible. There will be tons of excuses that developers and publishers can use for avoiding your new system, so the best thing to do is remove as many possible gripes and make it as easy for developers to support as possible. Ideally, the new system should be a breeze to develop for.

Two examples of this are Sony's introduction of the original PlayStation and Microsoft's original Xbox. When both were introduced, they faced competition from much stronger and entrenched companies (in the PS1's case, Sega and Nintendo; in the case of the Xbox, it was Sony that ruled the roost). The original PlayStation had a very simple architecture with a single CPU and a 3D graphics processor, making it easy for companies to jump into the then-new world of 3D. This worked greatly to Sony's advantage over its competition, particularly the Sega Saturn. The Saturn had two CPUs, one of which was rarely used due to the complexity of programming multiple-CPU platforms (sound familiar?) Sony used this advantage to grab developers who were wavering between the platforms and Sega lost a ton of ground. The PlayStation became the dominant console of its generation.

Sega's fumbling and Sony's marketing expertise meant that the Dreamcast, which as an underdog went back to the simple architectural model and was again easy to develop for, failed to restore the balance of power. It sold moderately well, but all the buzz was about Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2. Publishers like EA declaring that they would not support the Dreamcast sealed its death warrant (despite the fact that the Sega 2k Sports games were actually superior to EA's offerings—remember, this is marketing we are talking about, not technology). Sony was now in the driver's seat, and so their strategic goals were now different. It was not an issue of needing new developers to come to the PlayStation 2. They wanted to hang on to their dominant position and prevent people from moving away from their platform.

In entering the next round of console wars, Sony believes they are starting off with a still-dominant position, and so have increased the complexity of the PlayStation 3 architecture in an attempt to lock in the next generation of developers. Microsoft, believing that they have seriously damaged Sony's position and will continue to gain share by launching the Xbox 360 ahead of the PS3, have gone to a more complicated architecture as well. Because of their knowledge of software development, Microsoft believes it can "have its cake and eat it too" by making the 360 development kits as easy to use as possible. Many developers, including John Carmack, have praised the 360 dev kits as being a step up from what they are used to from console companies. It is only Nintendo, still a perennial underdog, that seems to be promoting a simpler design for their Revolution console. With neither Sony's market advantage or Microsoft's software advantage, Nintendo is attempting to combine a simple development platform with unique types of innovation (such as the motion-sensitive Revolution "wand" controller) in order to maintain its position in the three-horse race.

Starting off with Microsoft's. I'm actually a little over halfway through it so a quick recap on thoughts then comments as I go.

Mattick? Mattrick? Former EA guy. I really, really would've preferred an exec (or a hired host) who had a better stage presence. Or a better speech writer. Both, perhaps.

The fact Fable 2, Resident Evil 5 and Gears 2 have coop modes makes me a very, very happy man. As an old-school gamer (old-school arcade gamer at that), I love coop games. That one feature alone puts those three games above Fallout 3 for me.

I love the growing media partnerships Microsoft has. Will I rent anything from Live? No idea. But I'm a lot more likely to do that than go to freakin' Blockbuster these days. Blockbuster is a 10-15 minute drive depending on traffic, and cancels your account after 6 months of inactivity, so everytime I actually do want to rent something I have to rejoin. Yeah, not going to miss them in the least. Note to Microsoft: would you hurry up and start integrating the Zune or other media players to the experience? Rent a movie on the 360, load it to your digital media player, and off you go. You already do let people do that through Zune Marketplace on Windows, you've set up the ecosystem to do that using WMP and other players, Apple does that with iTunes and the iPod, and Sony is doing it with the PS3 and PSP. Come on!

The control panel reboot, complete with Avatars and such? I like it. The interface contains elements of the Zune UI, a bit of Windows Vista's Flip3d (Windows key+Tab) but spread out a bit. Its easy to compare to Coverflow found in Apple's iTunes (created by a guy at tech forums I used to regular!), but when Apple bought and integrated Coverflow into iTunes Vista was just a few months from being released, so don't say "they ripped off Apple!" Now, I don't know when Coverflow originally came out (2004?), so I can't guess if the someone at Microsoft saw that at some point and fell in love with the idea, its a case of parallel development, or what. But overall, I like the new interface a lot more than the old one.

Avatars. Been around forever guys, sorry. Yes, the implementation could not have been more Wii-like if they had gone to Nintendo, fed Mii's steroids and filed off the serial numbers, but contrary to popular belief, Nintendo was not the first (2d or 3d for that matter). Just like Sony aped Linden Research's Second Life (debuted in 2003, I might add) and has put their own spin on it, MS did the same with Avatars. I'm sure there are examples I refer to even farther back than that, but honestly I don't feel like it - pizza's getting cold

The social games and such are interesting; I do like the concept of playing the game online against other people and winning prizes. Nothing new, but finally being integrated onto the console experience. The chatroom/party concept is nice, although I really do wish they had shown something more interesting than Uno as the demo. I hate to say it, but sharing photos through Live will probably be a popular way for teens to show off their porn collections in all likelihood.

As an old school gamer and occassional shooter fan, I have to admit I want to try the new Galaga. Portal: Still Alive being a 2008 exclusive for the 360? Good news - PS3 version should be coming 2009 (hopefully January 1, 2009). No idea what the South Park game will be like for obvious reasons, but I fear licensed crap. I am VERY excited about the possibilities of Xbox Live Community Games, although of the bunch shown only Coloseum really interested me. That word-puzzle one looked good, although I've got to be in the mood for puzzle games.

I got introduced to Netflix forever ago. I like the sharing feature a lot, although I want to know what the limits will be. I know my party can watch; if all 8 360's can watch the movie? Sweet. I do hate the fact its 360 only, though. I hope its timed; something like that would be great for PS3 owners who also use Netflix.

Not a Banjo fan, never played Viva Pinata, so I'll skip those. Scene It? Okay, that would have a place in a few homes I know (another bloody exclusive?). You're in the Movies? Not for me. Of course, the only camera-related game I've ever been impressed by is Eye of Judgement. But all these live-action, interactive, "gee, I'm in the game!" games have always been a turn off from me - even as far back as when I first saw those kinds of games packaged along with an Intel webcam (hint: it pre-dates the Playstation Eye). The fact its masking the background with one of its own, in realtime, on a real background as opposed to a bluescreen impresses me though. I'm a lot more curious about the editing and uploading features than anything else.

Guitar Hero World Tour didn't interest me until they got into the music creator part. Okay, that's cool. Is the feature a 360 exclusive? I hope not. That's too cool to be on only one system.

Lips? I like that - very interesting. Of course, I have the defective gene that lets me like karaoke. Sober even. Nice to see another addition to the karaoke genre. Kind of sad, a friend of mine had Karaoke Hero, but nobody was interested in playing that night (of course, they were still sober). Anyhow - you can connect your music player for more music? I like that idea a lot. I would so laugh if you could use music off the PSP

Rock Band 2. I want to play Rock Band 1 for crying out loud! That annoying word, "exclusive," came up again. Timed exclusive from the sounds of it, but still. Blah. The "forward compatible" feature between Rockband 1 and Rockband 2 is very good, though. Very excellent. Hey, Konami, I see a feature DDR needs.

Believe it or not, Wada-san's English isn't bad. Trust me. One thing you have to understand - there are sounds we take for granted in English that do NOT exist in Japanese. So when it sounds weird? You're hearing "work arounds" to get the sound.

Anyhow... yadda yadda yadda... Last Remnant will be coming to Games for Windows?! Hmm... I'm curious now... might have to look into that later, as I've been happy with the various Games for Windows games I've bought thus far. And for the record, I'm glad FFXIII is going multi, but I have no intention of getting it, regardless of platform. You could give me a version, any version, and chances are I'll either give it to a friend or trade it in. I just can't get into JRPG's anymore, and you can blame Bioware for it. Here's hoping Mass Effect 2 and (dare I wish) KOTOR III show up on all systems so you guys who never played KOTOR can see what ruined me.

Anyhow... that was an hour and a half of my life. I'll get to Nintendo and Sony later on.

I simply have to know: why believe in such a concept?

Obviously the Square-Enix announcement has been a shock to everybody except ProtogeRuckus. I was surprised and I had openly discussed the possibility of them going multiplatform for a variety of reasons; if nothing else I figured Sony would've gotten an exclusitivity deal.

So, Square is on the 360 in a meaningful way (I don't quite count FFXI as being "meaningful"). Big deal. Square has released games for the NES, SNES, Gameboys, Gamecube, PS1, PS2, 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, PocketStation, Wonderswan (a Japanese handheld from Bandai), Windows, MSX (home to the original Metal Gear), other personal computers and cell phones. Now they're actively developing for the PS3 and 360. They've been developing on multiple platforms for years; they are not, how would you say?

Monogomous?

No, they are not. Those of you who have read my blog for a while know that I really do believe Sony owes Square, not the other way around. While not as blatant as Capcom, Ubisoft or EA, Square is historically a multiplatform company, only favoring a particular platform when required to (Nintendo during the NES/Famicom days), there are no other viable alternatives, and the possiblity of getting a good deal (likely for the SNES and PS1 days).

So why are all these people acting like they are and they do? They've been on multiple platforms since 1984, and were a major developer long before the PS1 even hit store shelves! And lets not forget Sony themselves have been expecting the death of 3rd party exclusives: "We understand publishers are needing to recoup their investment," said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony. "From our perspective, as long as the games aren't going exclusive to other platforms, PS3 gamers are not actually losing anything."

David Jaffe even noted the difficulties associated with the costs of AAA-game development this generation: "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!...It's really scary. Especially when you're publishing on a single platform, versus spreading your title out amongst all kinds of places."

Multiplatform games sell better than being on a single platform alone; even Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac, was impressed with how well cross-platform games can do. Back in January, the cross-platform Guitar Hero series broke $1 billion in sales. Devil May Cry 4 broke 2 million copies sold in less than a month of being released. Assassin's Creed beat Gears of War's 1-month sales record because it was multiplatform, selling over 1.36 million copies.

Fans of every system need to take a look at reality - game developers and game publishers are business. Always have been. Games are very expensive to make, and unlike last generation the systems competing with Sony's Playstation are very viable systems, commercially speaking. Just like not making a PS2 game was walking away from a lot of money last generation, not developing for the 360 and PS3 is passing up a lot of money for no good reason.

Games are expensive to make, and its a lot harder to break even on just one system when you consider how few 360's and PS3's are out there right now. Yes, I said it, few. Add up all the systems out there; Wii, 360 and PS3? How does that compare to the total number of PS1's or PS2's?

* As of 2005, the PS1 game Final Fantasy 7 has sold just under 10 million copies. As of 2005, there were over 100 million PS1's in the world. So, rounding up, Final Fantasy 7, one of the highlights of the series, only sold to 10% of the PS1 market.

* According to GameIndustry.biz, as of October 2007, the PS2 has over 120 million systems sold worldwide. Final Fantasy X, released in 2001, sold 5 million copies. That's not even 5%.

Honestly, looking at that, how well would FFXIII do if released soley on the PS3? Probably not well enough to cover costs; remember, they need to pay bills as soon as possible, and cannot afford to wait over the lifetime of the system to sell to 5-10% of the total possible users. But selling it on both the 360 and PS3? That will help a lot.

Its business. Its always been business. Where do these stupid ideas of a company having to be "loyal" come from? Is Square supposed to "loyally" follow Sony around, unquestioning, no matter what? Hardly; and they certainly didn't for Nintendo. No developer is honorbound to satisfy some delusional fanboy's concepts of system loyalty. Game makers have to duty of making the best games they can, in budget, make their money back and make a profit, keeping their employees employed and shareholders/owners happy.

Why is this such a difficult concept?

Anyhow, off to bed and wondering what kind of game Bungie could make for the PS3 and Linux.