Smalltalk with James Robertson

You have to see this to believe it....

Tags: ghostbusters, minecraft

As much as I might wish it to be otherwise, it's a pretty sensible business reaction to reality:

So as a general matter, Sony’s PlayStation business is not making money. And yet they’re doing everything hardcore gamers want.

...

Well, although Cousins points out that the division of the company that contains Xbox has, over its lifetime, lost a bunch of money, we can see a clear upward trend in recent years. And again, to bring this up to date, the Entertainment and Devices Division had an operating income of $342 million in the last quarter.

The reality seems to be simple - having a $500 (or less) gaming device that consumes $60 games just isn't a profitable business to be in. It's might be part of the model for a profitable business, and that's what Microsoft is after. Serious gamers should just put together a PC with a good graphics card and hook that up to the TV...

Tags: consoles

You have to admire the clueless "we're proud to be awful" response EA's Peter Moore has for us. Yet again, EA is competing for worst company in the world, and his summary is:

Every day, millions of people across globe play and love our games literally, hundreds of millions more than will vote in this contest. So here’s my response to this poll: We can do better. We will do better. But I am damn proud of this company, the people around the globe who work at EA, the games we create and the people that play them. The tallest trees catch the most wind. At EA we remain proud and unbowed.

There are a few reasons people have taken to disliking EA - one of the primary ones is their dogged insistence that every game they produce has to have a multi-player aspect - even if MP simply does not fit the game in any way, shape or form. Confronted with a massive success like Skyrim, they stand there confused - and then move along to add more micro-transactions.

Criticism of DA2? To hear Peter Moore tell it, it's all about the gay characters. Not the map reuse, not the inability to equip party members, not the really, really tiny playing arena - nope, it's the gay characters. Sure Peter - you keep telling yourself that.

Then there's the ME3 ending. The criticism was so loud they felt compelled to push out the "Extended Cut" - which, of all things, managed to make things even worse. Casey Hudson, arrogant twit that he is, added the "screw you" ending as a way of telling fans what he really thought of the criticism. You want to repair EA's reputation? Firing Hudson for that would be what we call a good start.

I'd comment on SimCity, but I have friends who've warned me off that game - not due to the launch issues, or even the always on aspect - but due to the utterly broken gameplay. SimCity is broken, but hey - it has micro-transactions, so it's all good.

What I love most about Peter Moore's response to gamers is his entire PC approach - "we support the conventional wisdom, which makes us courageous. By googling really hard, we found a few trolls who hate us for stupid reasons, so we get to ignore all of the thoughtful criticism". EA has well and truly been taken over by the marketdroids. Peter Moore will be one of the shocked ones when it all falls apart.

Tags: ea, stupidity

Spotted in Polygon - All

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim's add-ons will launch this February on PlayStation 3: Dragonborn on Feb. 12, followed by Hearthfire Feb. 19 and Dawnguard Feb. 26, publisher Bethesda Softworks announced today. Release dates in Europe are still to be determined, although Bethesda said it is "working with Sony Europe to finalize certification for other territories."

Looks like Bethesda is finally going to get the PS3 players synched up :)

Tags: skyrim, elder scrolls

I've been using Steam to play Mac and Windows games for a few years now - I've never really had any issues. This morning, on the Mac, Steam needed to update. I went ahead and let it do that, and suddenly I saw this when Steam restarted:

Seriously? I started googling, and sure enough - Valve has a forum page with this pithy advice:

If you wish to use Steam please make sure of the following:
Steam is installed on a case-insensitive partition or hard drive
Your User folder is installed on a case-insensitive partition or hard drive

I can't wait to see how well that stupid idea plays out on Linux. Sure, there's a work around - you create a disk image, mount it as a volume, and throw all of your Steam stuff in it. Then add a tons of symlinks to make it all look normal. I'm sure the casual Mac gamer will rush out to do that. Hey, Gabe Newell - the 80's called. They want case insensitive file systems back.

Tags: valve, steam

Looks like Bethesda is opening up the beta for the Elder Scrolls Online.

Tags: elder scrolls

I took this screencap this afternoon from Steam:

More than 13 months after the game's release - and the latest DLC isn't out for PC yet - and it's still in the top ten most days.

Tags: skyrim

I ran across this yesterday - I have a second monitor attached to my Mac, and I use Parallels (Win 7) to play games that aren't out for Mac. I set the big screen to be the primary, fired off Parallels, and then started XCOM: Enemy Unknown. And... the mouse pointer is registering dozens of pixels off. To hit a button, I have to move the mouse way to the right. If I play in mirrored mode (less resolution), everything works fine. No other game does this too me - I'm wondering whether it's a Parallels artifact, or something else?

Tags: xcom, parallels, windows

Spotted in Joystiq

"While I can't comment on why it changed studios, fans can expect a similar style of choices and action that they've come to know in Mass Effect," Gamble said. "Casey Hudson is very much involved in the new Mass Effect game, as well as many from Edmonton. BioWare Montreal is a great studio and they did fantastic with the multiplayer for Mass Effect 3, so fans should know the series is in good hands.

*Cough*. This is the same Casey Hudson who defended his awful, awful ending for Mass Effect 3. Good hands would mean that Hudson had been fired, and someone who understood how to end a story had been brought on.

Tags: mass effect