Microsoft announces that Games for Windows Live is free, effective.... NOW!

Today at GamesFest 2008: Seattle, Microsoft announced that the Multiplayer-related features of Games for Windows Live will now be totally free rather than having the tiered price structured with a Silver membership being free and a Gold membership being $49.99. Such features that will now be available for free include voice chat, friend lists, cross platform play, achievements and gamerscores. Microsoft's "About Games for Windows - Live" page has been updated today to reflect this announcement.

Other announcements from Microsoft include the first official word on Direct X 11 and the features it will contain as well as a new marketplace for Games For Windows - Live.

NY Governer signs video game laws... "for the children"

Today, Governer David A. Paterson of NY signed a "Package Of Bills That Will Protect The Public Safety And Rights Of New Yorkers" including a bill that "establishes an advisory council to conduct a study on the connection between interactive media and real-life violence in minors exposed to such media," and will "require new video game consoles to have parental lockout features by 2010, and mandate that games sold at retail disclose the ratings obtained from the gaming industry's voluntary rating system."

Link to the press release HERE. (The relevent section is about five paragraphs down).

I'm not going to go into the insanity of making parental lockout features required for video game consoles but excluding TV service providers, DVD players, computers/web browsers, etc. I'm not going to go into the many reasons why I disagree with passing legislation on these matters in general. I'm not even going to go into the fact that the press release states that the advisory council will study "the connection," (not a possible connection), between interactive media and real-life violence, indicating that they have already decided that there is, in fact, a connection without the inconvenience of actual data.

Still, don't you think it would make more sense to create this advisory council and actually wait for the results of the studies before enacting legislation based on the assumed result?

P.S.- In order to add insult to injury, the section of the press release regarding videogames has been lumped into the same paragraph as sex offenders. Nice.

Reflections on the big-three press conferences

Hopefully by now you've read about all the big E3 press conferences either here or elsewhere. Perhaps for a lucky few of you, you actually got to be there. Well here's my personal take on the press conferences for each of the big three console manufacturers.

Microsoft: In my opinion, Microsoft's press conference was easily the best of the show. Microsoft basically spent an hour and a half slamming home one AAA title after another. By the end of the conference they had made clear that Microsoft is dedicated to A. bringing over the best titles that have been historically exclusive to other consoles, (Resident Evil 5, Grand Theft Auto 4, Final Fantasy XIII, etc), B. bringing exclusive content to 360 for multiplatform games, (360-exclusive DLC for GTA 4 and Fallout 3), and C. continuing to deliver first and third party exclusives for the 360, (Gears of War 2, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Infinite Undiscovery, Fable II, and a bevy of XBLA titles). Granted, Microsoft is able to accomplish all this by basically dropping huge sacks of money on developers, (which Nintendo and Sony can't afford to do), but that doesn't really matter to someone trying to decide which console to purchase. They just want the best console with the most content and don't care how the content got there. Of course, in the middle of all this talk of games was the announcement of a TOTAL overhaul of the Xbox 360 dashboard, (not really sure why they decided to overhaul it, I kinda like the simple and extremely efficient blade-style interface currently in use). I can't have been the only person sitting there thinking, "they are doing ALL THIS by fall?!? Sony couldn't even get their act together to deliver just XMB in a timely manner." Finishing the conference with the announcement of FFXIII 360 didn't hurt either.

Unfortunately I can't completely let Microsoft off the hook. The Avatars seem completely unnecessary and are obvious rip-offs of some other company's avatar system. When talking to games journalists and the sort of hardcore gamers that follow E3, childish and unnecessary rip-offs are not something that will go over well. Also, watching Microsoft employees demonstrate You're in the Movies was just painful. That's the sort of cringeworthy nonsense you would expect from the Nintendo press conference. The idea is cool and packaging the game with the camera all for the standard price of one game is fantastic, but again, the core and hardcore audience that comprises the majority of 360 owners is just not going to care about this game except maybe as a cheap way to get a live vision camera.

Sony: There were two points to the Sony press conference worth taking note of. The first was the repeated message: "hey, we did all this great stuff before with the Playstation 1 and 2, so just buy a Playstation 3 and trust us that we'll do something cool sometime in the future." The second was the focus on the PSP as a companion to the Playstation 3. Surprisingly, there was actually almost as much time spent discussing the PSP as the PS3, with one major announcement being that movies and shows downloaded to the Playstation 3 could be transferred to the PSP for portable viewing.

Unfortunately the rest of the Sony conference was all discussions regarding sales figures, talking up games that we've already been waiting for for months or years and a new video downloading service that looked strikingly like the service for Xbox 360 that has been around for years already. In fact, the only three remotely interesting announcements were a Resistance game for PSP, (yawn), God of War 3 and MAG. God of War and MAG might have been enough to pull the Press Conference out of the gutter if it weren't for the fact that neither game had more to show more than pre-rendered, non-gameplay teasers which most gamers are just too cynical to care about anymore. Speaking of MAG, the one place where the PS3 may be able to build it's own niche is extremely large-scale battlefield games. Warhawk built itself slowly into a hit and Resistance 2 with 64-player online games and MAG with 256-player online games look to make the PS3 the only place to experience that sort of massive-scale multiplayer battles, (aside from PC).

Nintendo: I was extremely disappointed by Nintendo's press conference. At it's launch, the Wii had a nice low price-point and Nintendo postured as the choice for families and folks who don't bathe nightly in cash. They even brought some real games to the party for the Core audience like Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxies and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Unfortunately since then the Nintendo Strategy seems to have become to release party games and mini-game collections while nickel and diming consumers to death. The Nintendo press conference only made this fact more apparent, not a single game shown is designed to play at its best with just the Wii remote. You can play Shaun White Snowboarding with a Wii Remote but for the proper experience you need a balance board. You can play some of the games in Wii Sports resort and some of the instruments with a Wii Remote but for the full experience you need nunchuks, Wii Motion Pluses and balance boards. To play Animal Crossing you need a Wii-Speak microphone. If you want to have friends over to play these games as advertised, you need anywhere from two to four of each peripheral. I may have payed more for my Xbox 360 or PS3, but every single game that I own for those systems plays best on the controller that came in the box with the system. Nintendo is the company that apparently wants to put a smile on my face and a severe dent in my bank account.

In terms of presentation Nintendo, as always, managed to be irritating and childish to the point where I genuinely felt nauseous. Having prozac-popping imbeciles with smiles on their face dance around the stage playing children's games and tell us how much they want to put a smile on our face really gets old quickly. I guess having a woman saying the majority of it is a good idea on Nintendo's part though because having the walking PR-tornado Reggie Fils-Aime telling us that he wants to personally put a smile on every child's face just sounds a little creepy.

I'm going to go into another paragraph on Nintendo here, because I have a very specific, major bone to pick with them. They show up at every interview or press conference chucking the term "innovation" at anyone within reach like raving monkeys throwing feces and their E3 2008 press conference was no different. Well, I'm going to yet again have to call BS on Nintendo's claims of continual innovation because there was exactly ONE SINGLE GAME that was mentioned during their press conference that wasn't a sequel, part of a franchise or multiplatform, and that was Wii Music. You know what, I don't care about Wii Music, after Wii Play, Wii Fit and Wii Sports I'm a little bit sick of dancing around like a bloody idiot in front of my television.

E3 2008 Sony Keynote Summary

For those of you who missed out on the hour and a half of announcements, excitement and PR fromSony, here is a handy bullet-point summary. The statistics and PR bluster have been intentionally left out, go somewhere else to see developers blabbing about how they're starting to get used to programming for the PS3 or how many PS3, PS2 and PSPs sell per year.

-Resistance 2 will have 8 player online coop, 60 player online competitive modes and is scheduled for a November 2008 release

-Playstation 3 Greatest Hits will arrive late 2008 at a $29.99 (US) price point, and will include Resistance, Motorstorm, Warhawk, Call of Duty 3, Fight Night, Need for Speed Carbon, Rainbow Six Vegas, Assassin's Creed, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma

-Playstation 2 development will continue with games like NCAA Football 09, Tiger Woods Golf 09, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Warriors Orochi 2, Singstar Pop 2, Yakuza 2, Madden XX and Mercenaries 2

-The Buzz series will be coming to PSP and PS3 later this year

-A new Playstation 2 bundle including the PS2, Lego Batman and a DVD of The Justice League: New Frontiers will be available in the fall for $149.99 (US)

-Playstation Network will feature a new service that will allow downloading of full length TV shows and movies. The media content partners involved with this service include Sony Pictures, Fox Film & Television, MGM Studios, Lionsgate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner Entertainment and Funimation.

-TV shows on the new service will be available in standard and hig definition and will start at $1.99 (US) per episode and movie prices will range from $2.99 to $5.99 for rentals and from $9.99 to $14.99 for purchases. All downloaded content through this service will be transferable to the PSP

-A new PSP entertainment pack including a silver PSP, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, and National Treasure 2, Book of Secrets, a 1Gb memory stick and a voucher for Echochrome will be available in fall

-A new game in the Resistance series, Resistance: Retribution, has been announced for the PSP and is scheduled for a spring 2009 release.

-An 80Gb version of the Playstation 3 will be available for purchase starting in September, it will have the same functionality as the current 40Gb Playstation 3

-God of War 3 "announced" exclusively for Playstation 3

-infamous, an open-world superhero-ish game, will be coming exclusively to Playstation 3

-A multiplayer action game under the working title MAG, (Massive Action Game), has been announced exclusively for the Playstation 3 that will involve up to 256 player multiplayer split into 8-player squads and will involve RPG style character growth

E3 2008 Nintendo Keynote Summary

For those of you who missed out on the hour and a half of announcements, excitement and PR from Nintendo, here is a handy bullet-point summary. The statistics and PR bluster have been intentionally left out, go somewhere else to see How many Wii consoles have been sold in each country or what the ratio of male to female DS owners has been for the past three years.

-Shaun White Snowboarding announced for Wii and will utilize the Wii balance board, scheduled for October 2008 release

-Animal Crossing: City Folk announced for Wii, scheduled for release on November 16, 2008. It will utilize the new Wii Speak microphone for community communication

-Wii Speak peripheral announced, a microphone that will sit on top of a television that will pick up voices of everyone in the area

-Star Wars: The Clone Wars-Lightsaber Duels announced as Wii exclusive, releasing Holiday 2008

-Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party will offer more minigames, this time utilizing the Wii balance balance board, releasing Fall 2008

-Call of Duty: World at War will be released on Wii utilizing the Wii remote as a control device and will contain cooperative gameplay, releasing November 2008

-A sequel to Guitar Hero: On Tour has been announced, also for Nintendo DS, titled Guitar Hero: On Tour: Decades

-Spore: Creatures will involve the "core elements" of Spore which are creativity and sharing, (creating and sharing creatures). Spore: Creatures is scheduled for a September 7, 2008 release on Nintendo DS

-Pokemon Ranger: Shadow of Almia will be released for Nintendo DS on November 10, 2008 in the US

-A new installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto, Chinatown Wars, has been announced for the Nintendo DS and will arrive in Winter 2008/2009. It will be set in modern-day Liberty City and feature a new game engine and new characters

-Nintendo is testing the Nintendo DS for use as a sort of local information hub. One example being that it might be used at an airport to find gates, departure times, local hotels and restaurants, etc.

-A virtual cookbook with recipes, tips and more is in use in Japan and an English version will be released in November

-An addition to the Wii remote, called Wii Motion Plus, has been announced that will supposedly make the remote more precise and responsive (1:1 motion control)

-Wii Sports: Resort has been announced as a beach-themed sequel to Wii Sports and will include one Wii Motion Plus with the game. Mini games shown that will be in Wii Sports: Resort include a frisbee game, a wave-race looking game and sword dueling game. Wii Sports: Resort is scheduled for Spring 2009

-Shigeru Miyamoto's official title has apparently been upgraded to "gaming legend" and will be introduced on stage as such henceforth

-Wii Music has been announced and will utilize the Wii remote, nunchuk and balance board to play over 50 virtual musical instruments in real-time to play along with various songs and melodies

E3 2008 Microsoft Keynote Summary

For those of you who missed out on the hour and a half of announcements, excitement and PR from Microsoft, here is a handy bullet-point summary. The statistics and PR bluster have been intentionally left out, go somewhere else to see how many items have been purchased on Xbox Live or how many more Xbox 360 consoles have been sold than Playstation 3 in North America.


-Fallout 3 will get "substantial" downloadable content exclusive to Xbox 360 and Games for Windows

-Resident Evil 5 will have full online cooperative play

-Resident Evil 5 will get a "Friday the 13th" release on March 13th 2009 in Europe and North America, and March 12th 2009 in Japan. (2009? Haven't we waited long enough for this game already?)

-Fable II development has been completed

-Peter Molyneux announces a new "innovation" for Fable II, "Friend Orbs"

-Cliff Bleszinski shows off Gears of War with new enemies (tickers), new weapons (flame throwers), new activities (Brumak riding), and new gameplay modes (Horde)

-Gears of War 2 is dated for a November 12th release worldwide

-NBC/Universal Studios have been named as partners in downloadable content on Xbox Live, (which includes NBC, USA and Sci-Fi

-The next Xbox update will include a complete overhaul of the interface and menu as well as the addition of a Mii-like avatar (designed by Rare) that will be built in to the gamercard

-A "Community" channel will be added to the Xbox interface including "Live Party," where up to eight people can chat and share photos, watch a video together or play as contestants in gameshows on the new "Primetime" channel to win actual prizes

-Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved announced exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade

-Galaga 2: Legions announced exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade releasing next month

-Portal: Still Alive announced exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade in Fall, with new levels and achievements

-An unknown game based on South Park announced Exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade

-Xbox Live Community Games, (XNA created games) will release in Fall

-An exclusive partnership with Netflix will allow Xbox Live users who subscribe to Netflix watch more than 10.000 movies and TV episodes

-Netflix movies and TV shows will be sharable with up to seven friends through Live Party

-The first exclusive Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC will hit before the end of the year

-Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise are set for a Holiday 2008 release and the original Banzo Kazooie has been announced as an Xbox Live Arcade download scheduled for a Holiday 2008 release as well

-Scene It: Box Office Smash will be the first Xbox game to integrate Xbox Live avatars online

-"You're in the Movies," a game that uses (and includes) the Live Camera to put you in a a cheesy movie green-screen style

-Metallica's new album, Death Magnetic, will be released in its entirety in September for Guitar Hero 3, and then again along with Guitar Hero: World Tour in Fall

-Lips, a new sing-along game exclusive to Xbox 360 has been officially announced and will be released this holiday season with motion sensitive, wireless microphones

-Rock Band 2 will debut as a timed exclusive for Xbox 360 in September with 84 songs on disk, all with master tracks

-All downloadable tracks for Rock Band as well as most on-disk tracks from Rock Band will be playable on Rock Band 2

-Infinite Undiscovery will be released exclusively for Xbox 360 on September 2nd in North American, 5th in Europe and 11th in Japan and Asia

-Star Ocean: The Last Hope will be releasing to Xbox 360, in Spring 2009

-The Last Remnant will be released on November 20th 2008 worldwide as a timed exclusive for Xbox 360, and will also be released on Games for Windows

-Final Fantasy XIII has been announced for Xbox 360 and will be released concurrently with the version for Playstation 3

I'm sure that if you know anything about Peter Molyneux or his many unfulfilled promises regarding what will be in his games, you read the title of this post and sighed... or perhaps rolled your eyes. The fact that you're reading this means that at least you decided not to just ignore it completely.

This particular promise of innovation looks like it might bear fruit. Molyneux claims that development on the game is actually complete, so the fact that this "innovation" actually sounds pretty darn cool is compounded by the fact that it has apparently already made it into the final build of the game.

The innovation is what Molyneux referred to as "friend orbs." Friends orbs are actually representations of all your Xbox Live friends as they play in their own Fable II single player game that manifest as glowing purple orbs at the same time in your single player game. For example, if a friend of yours is playing and standing in front of a shop on his/her Xbox, then in your game there will be a little purple ball of light floating in front of that same shop in your own game at the same time. Wherever that friend is in their game, the little purple orb will be their in your game all in real time, (provided you are both connected to the internet). You can then walk up to the orb and invite them to join you without going through any Xbox Live menus and if your friend accepts then BANG you'll be playing coop instantly.

Molyneux may be a man with a reputation for having enough hot air to lift a balloon into the sky, but this particular innovation is truly an interesting concept and I can't wait to try it myself. I just hope that it works just as advertised and that there is an option to turn the friend orbs on or off on the fly.