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Xbox One Clarifications Add More Confusion

Does the Xbox One always have to be online? According to Microsoft, no. However, it does require an Internet connection.

What does that mean? The Verge seeks to clarify:

The statement, while accurate, isn’t forthcoming with the information that gamers want to know. How long can I play offline, and is the connection required for single-player games? Kotaku attempted to clarify in a question to Microsoft’s Phil Harrison, asking if you’d need to connect as regularly as once per hour or over a period of weeks. “I believe it’s 24 hours,” said Harrison, before confirming you’d have to connect online once every day. However, Microsoft spokespeople later dismissed the exact timing. “There have been reports of a specific time period — those were discussions of potential scenarios, but we have not confirmed any details today, nor will we be,” Microsoft said in a statement to Polygon.

Basically, Microsoft hasn’t worked out the specifics of its new hardware, and as such, probably shouldn’t have said anything in order to avoid confusion. Also, what happens if we don’t connect every 24 hours? Does the system stop functioning? Do my saves roll back? Does the cotton candy machine stop working?

Further exacerbating the issue is the controversy surrounding game ownership and licenses.

The confusion doesn’t end there. A Wired report on the controversial online requirement introduced the notion of a fee for second-hand games, noting that a disc could be used with a second account, but that the owner of the new account would need to pay a fee and install the game from the disc. The result would mean the new account then owns the game, after the fee is paid, and can play without the disc. Microsoft was quick to note, once again, that this is a “potential scenario.” In a blog post from Larry Hryb, Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, the company attempts to clarify the confusion. “We have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail,” says Hryb.

While PC gamers are used to buying a Steam license for a game and downloading it for use on their own account, asking console gamers to pony up the same fee when they have a physical copy of the game in front of them is a bit odd. And how will the system know that the game has been installed under another account? Unique serial numbers identifiers contained in the code of each copy of a game would be my guess, and the system will register that code under that account when connected online.

This is all guesswork at this point, as no real details are known. Not just by the press, but apparently by Microsoft as well. While I would like to say this reveal was handled poorly, I worked at retail during the N-Gage launch, so I can’t really complain.

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Twitter Introduces Two-Factor Authentication

Twitter blog:

Today we’re introducing a new security feature to better protect your Twitter account: login verification.This is a form of two-factor authentication. When you sign in to twitter.com, there’s a second check to make sure it’s really you.

This is great news for security of Twitter accounts. After a large number of high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked, including AP and E! Online, this new feature is undoubtedly in the best interest for users.

Via TechCrunch

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The PS4 will be 33 percent faster than the Xbox One

AnandTech:

On the graphics side it’s once again obvious that Microsoft and Sony are shopping at the same store as the Xbox One’s SoC integrates an AMD GCN based GPU. Here’s where things start to get a bit controversial. Sony opted for an 18 Compute Unit GCN configuration, totaling 1152 shader processors/cores/ALUs. Microsoft went for a far smaller configuration: 768 (12 CUs).

Microsoft can’t make up the difference in clock speed alone (AMD’s GCN seems to top out around 1GHz on 28nm), and based on current leaks it looks like both MS and Sony are running their GPUs at the same 800MHz clock. The result is a 33% reduction in compute power, from 1.84 TFLOPs in the PS4 to 1.23 TFLOPs in the Xbox One. We’re still talking about over 5x the peak theoretical shader performance of the Xbox 360, likely even more given increases in efficiency thanks to AMD’s scalar GCN architecture (MS quotes up to 8x better GPU performance) – but there’s no escaping the fact that Microsoft has given the Xbox One less GPU hardware than Sony gave the PlayStation 4. Note that unlike the Xbox 360 vs. PS3 era, Sony’s hardware advantage here won’t need any clever developer work to extract – the architectures are near identical, Sony just has more resources available to use.

This isn’t an advantage that will show up four years down the road when developers have figured out how to program for the PS4. Their architectures are nearly identical – Sony just went with faster parts. 

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Xbox One Coming This Year

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The wait is finally over. Microsoft has announced the successor to the Xbox 360, the Xbox One, this morning at a live briefing in Redmond, Washington. The new system will act as a home media solution, with both HDMI in and out ports, 8GB of RAM, WiFi capabilities, a Blu-Ray drive (which is apparently super quiet), Kinect functionality built in, and 64-bit architecture.

All that’s missing is a cotton candy machine. And backwards compatibility. Gamespot reports via The Verge that since the new system boasts x64 processor, and not the PowerPC processor that the 360 used, any Xbox Live Arcade games and disc-based titles will not function on the new system.

Personally, I’m not too heartbroken over the lack of backwards compatibility in the Xbox One. Now, the Xbox 360 will retain some of its value, and we won’t see piles of systems clogging the shelves of our local used game stores. Keeping the two platforms separate and focusing on the future also gives Microsoft the chance to completely rework the Live Marketplace and organize things more intelligently. The marketplace is currently a nightmare to navigate, and going into a new system launch with 1000′s of items already available would make browsing it a total debacle.

Besides, look at the issues we had with the 360 due to backwards compatibility with the original Xbox, friend list caps being chief among them. Starting fresh might be just what the doctor ordered. Never fear, though: all of your achievements will carry over with your Gamertag to the new Xbox Live. At least your legacy of online domination will remain intact.

It’s insensitive to folks who want to retain their libraries all in one place, but I think ushering in the new and focusing on the future is the best thing Microsoft can do right now to refocus the brand in the new direction they’ve envisioned. Whether that’s the correct direction for their business remains to be seen, but you have to go big or go home, and the robust specs of this hardware clearly lean towards big.

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Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Coming to PC

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It looks like my personal favorite game of the year so far, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, is coming to PC.

Via Joystiq:

Series creator Hideo Kojima announced Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is coming to the PC. Speaking on his HideRadio podcast, Kojima revealed the upcoming port. The news was then confirmed by Platinum Games creative producer Jean Pierre Kellams.

In itself, this isn’t terribly amazing news. Revengeance did alright in terms of sales, but it’s hard to argue whether or not a Steam version of the game will reach a new audience that the console versions failed to tap into. Financially, this may just be about Platinum Games getting the most out of its development dollars.

On the other hand, porting the game to PC means 1080p visuals, plus whatever goodies modders will come up with. Revengeance is open ended in the way you cut apart your opponents, but when you start including possibilities like custom skins and levels and upgraded enemies and whatever silliness people with too much time on their hands can cook up, fans will likely be able to squeeze quite a bit more enjoyment out of the experience.

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Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- Announced

Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- Announcement Trailer

Arc System Works (Aksys) is in the business of making anime-style fighting games that favor high-speed, beautifully drawn sprites duking it out in a variety of crazy environments. Though known most recently for its BlazBlue series and Persona 4 Arena, Aksys’ first fighting game franchise was Guilty Gear, a similarly batshit insane fighter that favored both style and substance and pioneered many mechanics that are commonplace in today’s more complicated fighting games.

That’s why the announcement of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- is so exciting. One look at the launch trailer reveals two things: first, that this is a “sprite based” (scare quotes intentional) fighting game that also uses the Unreal Engine, most notable for its ability to generate 3D visuals. Second, that the game has full rotation camera capabilities during key moments in a fight, as well as cinematic switches to aerial combat that have never been seen in a fighting game before.

What does this all mean? It points to Xrd being a 2D fighter, utilizing 3D graphics that mimic (or are textured with) sprite-based visuals to combine two different styles of animation and design into one unique aesthetic. That in itself is exciting because of what it means for fighting games as a whole. In this marketplace, even if your fighter has solid mechanics and an engrossing, well-executed combat system, it’s the flashy visuals and tricks that get new players interested in your game. You still need the former in the long run, but to make those hard impulse sales, you need the latter. Xrd seems poised to deliver on this sentiment in a unique way.

Oh, and the title? Not so weird, when you consider that the series contains a game called Guilty Gear X2 #Reloaded: The Midnight Carnival. Compared to that, Xrd -SIGN- is downright sensible.

 

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RoboCop Statue Nears Completion

RoboCop

Remember that 10-foot tall statue of RoboCop that was supposed to be installed in Detroit? Well, it’s nearing completion, having just been cast in foam, and is ready for bronzing in the near future.

The Onion’s A.V. Club reports that the statue should be completed and ready to be placed sometime next summer. This is great news, not just for fans of RoboCop, but for all pop-culture aficionados seeking to prove just how deeply media can influence our daily lives. Now, we’ll have proof, in the form of a 10-foot shining bastion of justice and mechanized violence.

Coincidentally, the joke proposal to erect a 10-foot tall Wolverine statue in Edmonton, Alberta may happen as well. Welcome to the new Bronze Age. I hope every city gets its own metallic protector in due time. So long as Vancouver gets Batman, of course.

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Nintendo Seizing Ad Revenue from YouTube Let’s Play Videos

Even in the year 2013, I’m still baffled by how content creators can make a living off of producing YouTube videos. And yet, several high-profile YouTubers are able to do just that by generating ad revenue of of their videos, even when those videos sometimes amount to simply playing someone else’s game and talking over it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as art based on art is still art. However, Nintendo has decided to reap the fruits of its labors by collecting ad revenue off of Let’s Play videos that feature Nintendo content.

Via Destructoid:

Over on GameFront, a Nintendo rep explains that as part of its push into social media, the company registered copyrighted content in the YouTube database. “For most fan videos this will not result in any changes,” the rep explains, “however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips.

“We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.” See? You can still produce anything you like! Nintendo will just keep the money you ought to be earning for itself. That is unbelievably ballsy.

As the Destructoid piece points out, often, the real draw of these Let’s Play videos is the personality of the content creator, not necessarily the source content. This is especially true of channels like Game Grumps, who attract a large following due to their ability to consistently be hilarious and provide insight into the games they play.

For Nintendo to piggyback onto these personalities to earn revenue is a difficult situation to judge. Should people be able to earn money off of Nintendo products without cutting them in? Are Let’s Play videos so far removed from the original works that they shouldn’t be considered related at all? Is Nintendo really being benevolent by not simply blocking the content, and instead leaving it up to generate ad revenue?

It’s hard to say for sure, but at least we’ve entered an era where online videos are serious business, so much so that the money earned off of them is worth fighting for. This is a day I never thought would ever come.

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Controversial EA Online Pass Program to be Phased Out

In an effort to discourage used game sales, publishers like Activision and EA have implemented an online pass system for their most popular titles in recent years. The plan was to make $10-15 off of pre-owned customers by charging them for online game access after the one-use code included with new copies of the game had been redeemed. Obviously, fans were understandably upset about this “used game tax”. Today, EA surprised us all by announcing an end to online passes for all EA-published games.

From GamesBeat:

“Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”

 

“Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format,” Reseburg said. “We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”

Additionally, EA plans to focus more on post-release content, which should have been their goal all around. When trying to sell to a customer, your product should be all about “yes, and” and not “no, but.” Gating content, or offering more? What’s more of a motivator for purchases? Clearly, the fans have spoken. Hopefully Activision will follow suit soon and help bring back the age of the game as a product, not as a service.

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Google Play Game Services to Add Google Plus Integration

Google announced today that they’re bringing a new suite of services to Google Play that will allow Google+ integration for mobile games, including leaderboards, achievements, cloud-saving, and matchmaking. The free SDK will allow developers to add these services to games released on Android, iOS, and web platforms, save the matchmaking system, which is Android-only for the time being.

Via Polygon:

Greg Hartrell, lead product manager for the Google Play game services, told us that the strategy was both user and developer focused. “It’s user focused in the sense that we’re trying to reach out to the largest number of users,” Hartrell said. “And for developers, they want to maximize the size of the audience and the quality of the audience. Both of those things drove that decision.” They also drove the decision to offer the services outside of the company’s Android ecosystem.

If you read any of my posts, you know that I’m a big fan of making good things widely available. Nobody I know uses Google+, but the fact that these services will be available on Apple devices through downloaded apps is intriguing. It’s the equivalent of Sony finding a way for the next Xbox to somehow include Blu-Ray support without Microsoft okay’ing it. Apple doesn’t have a stake in Facebook, sure, but having your mobile competitor’s social network potentially be featured in your proprietary game offerings is amusing, at least.