September 2007 - Posts
Was sent this interesting article highlighting ten businesses that will likely be extinct a decade from now. Interesting, but what really caught my eye was this snippet:
Coin-operated arcades
With Nintendo Wii, casual gaming online and the Xbox 360, the video game arcade industry is thriving, but not the standalone brick-and-mortar arcades. For those of you who thought arcades were already dead, they still exist — at movie theaters, miniature golf courses and other touristy spots — but it seems only a matter of time before they vanish from the landscape. Ten years ago, there were 10,000 arcades in the nation, and now the number is close to 3,000, according to the American Amusement Machine Association. Revenue from arcade game units brought in $866 million last year, which sounds good until you consider that in 1994, the industry was pocketing $2.3 billion and that the profits are only still high because it costs so much to play a game.
Odds of survival in 10 years: Game over.
It's sad, but true. I grew up in the arcades, and had a paper route specifically so I could go collect bills and get arcade money. Was a wonderful experience, but I have to admit I can see why consoles have devastated the stand-alone arcade market. It used to be that arcade games were the must-play, visually stunning games to beat. As PC and console games upped the ante, it just started making more sense to stay home.
Just wanted to point you guys to an interesting Gamasutra post on a recent Gamefest presentation about certifying Xbox 360 titles. It's important to remember that certification focuses on certain platform-interacting features of a title, and not gameplay, game bugs, etc. I've seen comments around "how could certification let bug foo pass?" Simple answer is that the platform isn't responsible for testing the entire game, nor does the platform try to define that nebulous "gameplay quality" bar. We don't define the game; the developer does. Common sense, but it's a good read.
Just wanted to point anyone who might be interested to a Seattle-area Halo 3 charity launch event. It's being pulled together by a good friend and coworker of mine Scott Henson (Gamertag: Bear), and is a great way to get that Halo 3 loving feeling going all over again! :)
Major Nelson has all the details, and I'll snip some details and post below. Thanks for reading!
You don't have to wait in line to get your copy of Halo 3 at midnight. Through our partnership with the local Circuit City, we will be able to make copies available at midnight at the party. Play for hours at the party, pick up your copy there and keep playing all night long!
Scott says he will have some of the coolest raffle prizes (and everyone who registers gets 2 entries into the raffle (worth $20). In there you will see 3 legendary editions of Halo 3, 3 Halo 3 wireless headsets, 3 signed copies of signed copies of Ghost of Onyx by the author, one of a kind hoodies that only celebrities like have received, concept art for the packaging, and more.
Been doing a lot of work on future platform planning and was having a conversation with a co-worker about our "Live Anywhere" initiative. Although there are a lot of different aspects of Live Anywhere that excite me, one of the areas I've been doing a lot of thinking around is the "life gets in the way" aspect of gaming. You get older, get into relationships, get married, have kids - the list goes on and on. And every one of those layers makes it challenging to continue playing.
Anyway, I was telling that co-worker about a great video we did back in the early days of Xbox Live that really captured this aspect. Amusingly, it was easier for me to go find on YouTube rather than internally, so I figured I'd share it with you while I had the link. Hope you like it!
Just wanted to share a great presentation Rob Gruhl, a co-worker of mine, recently did for Ignite Seattle. He had 20 slides (set on a 15 second timer) to describe how to buy a car and not get screwed. It's a great talk and funny as hell - check it out!
Saw this article on Slashdot that highlights some research showing that Liberal and Conservative brains process information differently. Admittedly, it's a "duh" finding (similar to the study last week that found that men found attractive women more appealing - surprise!) But it's interesting to see the testing and the results. Quick quote from the Slashdot summary:
This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, 'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry... as a flip-flopper.'
Please read the article for all the details - not trying to make any sort of political statement here, just using the Slashdot summary as it boiled down the main findings.
Had a bunch of people wanting my thoughts on the latest PS3 price drop rumor ($399/40 GB by year end), especially as I'd had thoughts on it earlier. Just wanted to post this to let you know that I'm not ignoring your mails, but I'm not going to comment on this any more than I did earlier.
Why? Simply put, even though it was my personal opinion, some press (particularly some gaming blogs) spun those opinions as official Microsoft statements, even though they quite obviously weren't. And that isn't cool, especially as it can cause extra work for folks (and friends!) here at work who have to deal with clarifying that fact.
The ironic aspect to this is that unfiltered and unfettered access to the thoughts of people working in the industry is what the "gaming press" (however you care to define it) most craves. Unfortunately, taking a sensationalistic tack for the sake of driving traffic simply causes that access to dry up. I'll still be posting things of interest (for those of you who care!), but in general I'm going to avoid commenting on console platforms for a while.