Summer of Arcade

This is just a quick rambling AudioBoo about the quality of downloadable games we’ve seen this summer, which only further justifies the medium as a contender in the video game market.  I haven’t purchased a single hard copy of a game since Fight Night Round 4 in June, and in the meantime my attention has been kept by arcade games like Battlefield 1943 and Shadow Complex.  I bet GameStop loves to hear that.

Subscribe to Jason Calacanis’s Newsletter

The headline pretty much says it all.  Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo.com, puts out an extremely intriguing newsletter every now and again that’s totally free.  Who is Jason?  Well, he’s basically a successful tech entrepreneur who is business-minded but doesn’t neglect the inner geek.  You might have seen or heard him on the This Week In Tech podcast, which he participates in from time to time.

I have to admit, at first glance Mr. Calacanis might rub people the wrong way.  His brash manner and uninhibited honesty is a departure from the norm, but that’s also the reason he’s garnered my respect.  That’s what inspired me to subscribe to his newsletter when I first heard about it a few months ago.  That being said I tended to ignore it when it landed in my inbox for the first few times.  That has changed.

A couple weeks ago Jason sent out his now famous email about the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership.  I won’t go into details because they’re readily available online, most notably at his blog, but it was the first newsletter that I took the time to read.  He presented a well-written argument which, if nothing else, inspired me to think a lot more about the matter.  He’s since followed up with emails about Apple and their flight from openness in regards to the iPhone, each equally if not more thought-provoking than the “seppuku” note.  Calacanis provides the perfect mixture of equal parts experience and opinion that stimulates great discussion, and he doesn’t shy away from readers replying to his comments (in fact he has shared some of them in follow-up newsletters).

So, with that said, hit up http://tinyurl.com/jasonslist and subscribe right away.  Even if you don’t agree with everything he writes about it’s a great way to keep in the loop and stimulate thinking.  In the meantime I’ll steadfastly await that next [Jason] subject line to drop into my inbox.

Google’s Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple Board of Directors

This is a very interesting development given very recent conflicts between Google and Apple/AT&T.  Sure, Steve Jobs has stated that Eric’s resignation was a mutual decision made by both companies because Google’s encroachment on familiar territory is becoming a conflict of interest.  Still, Android has been out for some time, so why now?

One of the biggest stories last week was Apple’s denial of the Google Voice application on the iTunes app store.  The dispute has since been consumed by the gaze of the FCC to determine if this choice was made by AT&T moreso than Apple, or if AT&T in any way influences the content found on the App Store.  If that’s the case, as it may very well be, the ruling could be important for a couple reasons.

1. Consumers have one more reason to detest AT&T
2. It gives no logical support for the claim that the denial of Google applications has anything to do with Schmidt’s descent from the board
3. Consumers have one more reason to dete….oh, I already said that one

Honestly though it doesn’t sound like Apple’s style to bend to the will of AT&T.  They love their products enough to say something to the affect of “Listen, we have a product that has made you millions, you think this app conflicts with your service then tough cookies – we’re working on a Verizon version of the iPhone anyways.”  I’m getting off-track here.

Does this departure setup a feud between Apple and Google?  The two companies have seemed almost philosophically aligned for some time now, and most pundits don’t really consider Android or what we know of Chrome OS as major threats in their individual markets (phone and PC operating systems).  All this time it has been Microsoft who has been desperately trying to compete with the big G, and just when it seems that they’re making a solid go of it the focus might be shifting towards an Apple/Google main event instead.

There is one area in which the philosophies of Apple and Google conflict, however.  Openness.  It’s been proclaimed that this might be the achilles heel of Apple.  Google always happily opens up their projects to developers while Apple severely shies away from such behavior.  Sure, the iTunes App Store is extremely successful, but the only complaint we seem to hear about weekly is that certain apps get shot down for seemingly silly reasons, and of course Apple’s proprietary take on their hardware and software is always criticized.  If Apple had the market share Windows does, they’d have one of the worst monopolies we’ve ever seen.

The only thing we could possibly say Google has a monopoly on is the search engine market, but with Bing approaching 10%+ market share that’s not as much of a compelling case.

Does “Security Essentials” spell trouble for Microsoft?

Microsoft is doing a very smart thing.  One of the biggest complaints against the company’s flagship product, the Windows OS, is that it has become a victim to malicious software including viruses and trojans.  To help solve this problem Microsoft has turned in-house to create their own security tool/anti-virus program called “Microsoft Security Essentials” (previously codenamed “Morro”).  The free tool will help to keep PCs clean but could also put the likes of McAfee and Symantec out of business.  As a result a very quirky question has been raised: would the current anti-virus application developers have a solid case against Microsoft for holding a monopoly in the anti-virus market?

Sounds ludicrous, right?  Microsoft improves their product by increasing its security, a feature that users have been begging for, and in the end they could be sued for doing so.  Still, people have successfully taken down the Redmond-based corporation in similar disputes.  The EU still requires Microsoft to sell a version of Windows that doesn’t include IE because it’s considered anti-competitive.  Of course the question remains, without a bundled web browser how does your everyday user go about installing their browser of choice easily and conveniently, but I’m not going to argue for the EU’s case logically in this post.

Honestly, I think Microsoft has learned from their prior exploits.  I don’t expect Security Essentials to be bundled with Windows 7.  Instead it will more than likely be acquired in a similar fashion as their Live suite of services.  The user might be prompted to download some of the Windows Live applications (Writer, Live Mail, Photo Gallery, and of course Security Essentials) but the chances of it being installed with the OS is kind of low, at least in my opinion.  That’s not to say I’m against the idea – I think it would be a great help to users to have a built-in anti-virus application that has a fairly small footprint which is integrated into the OS much like Windows Firewall is today.  However, I have a feeling there are some lawyers representing anti-virus competitors who would disagree with me.

Sometimes I feel as though Microsoft simply can’t win.  If you look at all of the cool products they’ve produced since 2005 you’d think consumers would cut them some slack, but everyone loves to hate on them.  It must be residual feelings left over from their glory days when Microsoft was, for all intents and purposes, the only player in the PC marketplace, but it seems impossible for the company to shed its “big brother” persona.  Me personally?  I feel that if you have to speculate about a company holding too much power in the tech industry it’s Google by far.  That doesn’t seem to be a commonly shared sentiment, though.

How to improve Xbox Live messaging

It’s generally accepted that Xbox Live’s core user experience is better than that found on the PlayStation Network.  Having one set standard across all games makes communicating with your friends much less of a hassle (most noticeably when grouping up for particular games).  However, I still think there’s plenty of room for improvement.  The following is just a quick list of simple features that I wish Xbox Live had.

1. Message Previews – More often than not, when I receive a text-based message from a friend while playing a game it’s usually a short 1-3 word phrase.  But in order to actually see what the message is saying I have to open up the dashboard, go to the messages tab and that’s where I see the actual preview from the full message.  Why not just include the preview in the new message notification?  Rather than the notification saying “so and so just sent you a message” it could say “‘Invite Please’ – Friend’s Name.”
2. Simpler Voice Messages – Voice messaging is the sort of feature that you use a few times because it’s a cool idea and then realize it’s too much work so you go back to normal text messages.  If you’re playing a game it’s hard to justify opening the dashboard, going to messages, selecting create new message, recording audio, then sending it to your friend.  It just takes too long.  Not only that, but most of my friends hate getting voice messages if they’re in a game because not only do they have to navigate to the messages tab (see #1), but they also have to take the time to listen to whatever the sender is saying.  It sounds trivial but if they could add a sort of hotkey with the xbox jewel for quickly recording messages, and also add a prompt similar to “hit the ‘A’ button to play” for incoming voice message notifications, it might be a much more attractive feature.
3. Access to Sent Messages – This is a quick one.  There’s nothing worse than logging into Xbox Live and seeing a new message from a buddy that simply says ‘okay’ or ‘haha’ or ‘cool.’  What are they talking about?  I have no idea, but if I could see my sent messages I could find out.
4. Seamless Community Integration – It’s kind of annoying that for every game my group of friends decides to adopt we have to first go through that game’s particular clan or team features to become associated.  Why not just work this into Xbox Live itself?  Steam does this quite well.  In Steam you can setup your own groups and invite users to the group without having to mess with individual games.  Steam also provides a handy homepage for each community group to see their latest activity.  Imagine being able to login to Xbox Live and browse a list of clans/guilds, see what games each is playing, and also sign up right from the guide?  Sounds like a good feature to me.

E3 2009 – Rumors and Such

It’s that time again.  This year’s return to the E3 of yesteryear should produce some exciting news.  This post is really just a roundup of some of the rumors I’ve heard and what I’m looking forward to most.  We’ll start with Microsoft and the Xbox 360.

Not much is known about what Microsoft is going to show this year.  You can bet that Halo 3: ODST will play a big role, but otherwise they don’t have the laundry list of announced megaton games to talk about like they have in years past.  One rumor going around is that they’re working on a motion controller (in fact, the same rumor is going for Sony) so we may see the debut of a new motion controller initiative to compete with Nintendo’s ridiculously successful Wii.  There’s also a rumor that the 360’s dashboard will see another massive update similar to the “New Xbox Experience” we saw last holiday season.  This might be tied into the Zune / Xbox Marketplace integration that was announced this past week (along with the new Zune HD).  However, as far as games go, I’m kind of at a loss.  Some folks are saying that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be debuted during Microsoft’s conference despite the fact that it’s traditionally a PC franchise.  I’m not sure about that but Episode 3 is definitely a game I’m interested in seeing.

The Sony press conference is the one I’m the most excited for because they have the biggest list of announced games to look forward to.  There has also been some interesting information leaked about possible revisions to their hardware which have me excited.  Let’s start with the games, though.  Currently the games they’ve announced that I’m interested in:

• Uncharted 2 - A sequel to my second favorite game on the console.  What I’ve seen so far looks even better.  Can’t wait for this game.
• Heavy Rain - Should be interesting, comes from the same folks that made Indigo Prophecy.  The gameplay seems to rely heavily on quick time events but the visuals are great as a result.
• Project Trico - This game isn’t technically announced yet, but some footage was released not long ago and it looks promising.  Unfortunately I wasn’t around for ICO on the PS2, but I’m looking forward to playing my first game from Team Ico.
• God of War 3 – This one’s obligatory.  Another game from a series I haven’t had the opportunity to try out yet but if nothing else the gameplay looks extremely fun and the visuals are amazing.

So that’s just the software, how about the hardware?  I’ve been flirting with picking up a PSP (for the second time, I might add – I bought the original when it was first launched but there were no games so I traded it in to put towards my 360), and all rumors point to an announcement of a new version of the PSP this year during Sony’s press conference.  Apparently called the “PSP Go,” this new portable console will be focused on digital rather than physical media.  You’ll be able to download games from a PSP store which is very appealing to me, and very appealing to Sony because it should cut down on some of the rampant piracy issues associated with the device.  A lot of folks are pointing to this as the rebirth of the device, and I know that if it’s announced I’ll buy one, plain and simple.

There’s also the question of the Playstation 3.  Despite having a solid line-up of games Sony is still struggling in this department.  Some shots were recently leaked of a PS3 “slim” redesign, and originally these images were scoffed at.  There is a bit of a twist however – sites that put these images up were contacted with cease and desist notices, giving this rumor some credibility.  Could Sony finally be making a big push to put the PS3 on the map?  A slim and sexy version of the console could do the trick, though a price drop wouldn’t hurt either.  We shall see.

As for Nintendo?  Who on Earth knows.  They maintain that they’ll have games for core gamers (i.e. gamers who aren’t interested in doing exercises on a balance board or playing their Wii remote like a pretend saxophone) but we’ve heard that before.  All I know is that it really doesn’t matter what they do at this point, the Wii and DS combined will continue to sell like gangbusters and completely outshine the 360 and PS3.  My only concern is that Microsoft and Sony will begin to think that motion controllers are “where it’s at” and give up on traditional gaming as we know it.

It would be a sad day if that were to happen.

The Halo Wars demo

So I played the demo for Halo Wars yesterday, and I have to say it’s pretty much what I expected.  I’ve been a fan of RTS games on the PC for a long time, going back to Age of Empires whose developer also created this game (Ensemble Studios).  I’ve never been a fan of the genre on consoles, however.  To me this type of game was meant to be played with a keyboard and mouse.  I have to say that Halo Wars improves on the general clunkiness that has made up the bulk of console real-time strategy titles, but it’s still not perfect.

They’ve made it easy to quickly select all of your troops or just local ones (the ones that are on screen at the time) but I’m not sure if you can do things like select everything you have of one particular unit.  Unfortunately the demo only has the basic tutorial with the advanced tutorial being saved for the retail release (don’t want to let that amazing tutorial slip early!), so that could be a feature that’s in the game but I just haven’t seen it.  Even if that’s there though, I have to say that being able to click and drag to select both units on-screen and off it sorely missed.  Though the controls have been honed to make the game easier to play, there still isn’t the amount of precision you get from using the standard PC input/output devices.  It seems that they’ve adjusted the difficulty accordingly which is good.  I played the game on Normal and had no trouble at all.

The game also looks kind of bland.  It just feels weird playing an RTS on my TV.  The actual battles are good-looking, but for the most part you’ll be looking at small units without being able to observe many individual features.  One thing I will say is that the CG cinematics are pretty awesome.  The game takes place before the first Halo game, so if you’re into the Halo universe and the lore behind it you’ll be happy with the storytelling in this game.  One gripe I have is that the main character is voiced by the same guy who voiced Nathan Drake in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, as well as the prince from Prince of Persia.  That guy is a great voice actor but he’ll always be Nathan Drake to me, and it’s pretty distracting hearing one character’s voice coming from a different character’s mouth on my screen.

I’m not sure if I’ll purchase Halo Wars.  It depends on the gaming situation at the time because we have some high-profile titles coming out soon (Killzone 2, Resident Evil 5), and I’m still working my way through Far Cry 2 which is pretty epic in the literal sense of the word.  If I hadn’t just canceled my Gamefly account this would probably be a title that met my queue fairly quickly.

This is why I love Valve

They know how to sell their games.  They’re perfect at inciting that impulse purchase by putting up a game for so cheap that even if you don’t need or want it, you can’t resist.  This past weekend their extremely popular survival horror FPS “Left 4 Dead” was available on Steam for 50% off.  That means you could get a couple-months old blockbuster for $25.  It  goes without saying that this is an amazing deal.

Because of this deal the sales numbers for Left 4 Dead on Steam went up 3000%.  That’s not a typo, three-thousand percent.  Not only that, but the game sold so well that it actually outperformed the game at launch.  Amazing.  Hey Sony and Microsoft, you want to know how to solidify digital distribution as a means of content delivery?  Start offering up some limited-time deals to subscribers like Valve does!  The only unfortunate thing is that I already own Left 4 Dead for both the Xbox 360 and PC.  It’s funny, I actually got it for PC from Steam when they dropped the price to $35 a few weeks ago…and I thought that was a smoking deal.

You can check out the article that I read about this from here: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/20/steams-left-4-dead-sale-increased-purchase-infection-by-3000/

Also on a related note I saw this in my twitter feed yesterday and I couldn’t help but laugh: http://www.electric-escape.net/node/1426.  Props to @jcallinan for linking this up, haha!

Windows Mobile 6.5 – the new WinMo user interface

This is interesting.  Everyone knows that Windows Mobile has been looking a little long in the tooth as phone manufacturers race to compete with the iPhone’s touch interface.  I’m happy to say that with 6.5 Windows Mobile will also enter the manual touch market.  The new homescreen does a horizontal scroll to move through the user’s day (whether you’re navigating through emails, appointments, text messages, or photos) – it sort of reminds me of the Xbox 360’s interface in ways.  It’s a unique way of navigating though, and from what I’ve seen it’s my favorite part of the OS.

From there you can go to the new start menu which houses your applications.  The applications are now arranged in honeycomb-shaped bubbles making each a little more accessible with your finger.  That’s cool because anyone who has used an older WinMo phone can attest that they’re difficult to navigate without a stylus most of the time.

The only thing I’m a little concerned about is that the scrolling seemed a little chunky at times.  It didn’t flow as well as the iPhone’s scrolling.  They’ve also worked in the classic “snap-back” for menus, so that when you reach the top or bottom of a menu the content will snap up or down.  I think Palm is in some hot water for incorporating that feature because Apple has a patent on it, so I wonder if Apple will go after Microsoft now too.  Here’s the video:

Windows Mobile 6.5 Running on HTC from Jesus Diaz on Vimeo.

I don’t get it.

The main argument I’ve heard against maintaining one single version of Windows 7 is that Microsoft has a ton of customers, nearly 1 billion, and they all have different needs.  That much makes perfect sense to me.  Unlike Apple all of these people are running various hardware, they’re using their machines for various reasons, I got it.  So why can’t there be just one box copy of Windows 7?

One of the cool things about Vista is that you’ve got every version on one disc.  In order to upgrade you didn’t have to buy a whole different version, you just had to buy the license and you could upgrade from your current disc.  All of the install files for each version of Vista are contained on every disc.  The license is what makes your version different, not the disc.  So…since we can put all of the files for Windows 7 Super Mega Edition on every disc and just compartmentalize the installation….why not just have one version?  Let the user decide if they want Windows 7 Basic, Home or Professional while they’re installing.  Better yet let OEMs figure that out ahead of time.

Unfortunately it seems as though there will be many versions of Windows 7.  An Ultimate version is confirmed.  There’s a starter version (read Basic), Home (read Home Premium), and Business (Professional).  Hopefully that’s it.  I really, really, really want to believe that Microsoft has learned a lot from Vista.  This is one of the areas in which they have the opportunity to get things right with 7.

Oh well, I guess I still have great pricing to hope for.