Posts tagged with “sony”

By now you’ve probably noticed the PlayStation Network all over the news, it appears that the service was hacked and user information was compromised. It’s recently escalated to the point where somehow Sony is explaining the situation to Congress!

A lot of people have been asking us lately how the PSN outage impacts Fire Hose Games. Obviously it’s been a huge bummer for us as people can’t buy Slam Bolt Scrappers right now, and we hope the problem is resolved quickly! With any luck we’ll be able to get SBS involved in the Welcome Back program or something similar when the store comes back online.

It’s also important to remember not to blame Sony for this. Near as I can tell this was much more a product of competent hackers than incompetent security. Unfortunately this sort of thing does happen on a regular basis (remember back when Gawker got hacked?), and I think that Sony’s handling of the situation has been pretty decent so far. We also feel that Sony has been a good partner to work with, so we’re trying to keep things in perspective and keep our Zen.

In the meantime, while you’re waiting, those of you who were smart enough to download Slam Bolt Scrappers already can enjoy the awesome non-networked multiplayer in the comfort of your own homes.  I recommend surrounding yourself with friends, cursing each other and swearing vengeance after each match.

Alec and I spent the last week in sunny, sunny LA at E3, the video game press hoedown. And we got some press! Specifically, there is a kick ass article on Joystiq by one Alexander Sliwinski reviewing our game, and there is another awesome piece onSBS at PlayStation LifeStyle, courtesy of Josh Fernandes. Rock on!

But you already know about our game if you’re here, and this year had a heavy focus on new gaming hardware, so let’s talk about the stars of the show: the PlayStation Move, the Microsoft Kinect, and the Nintendo 3DS (by the way, how hilarious are the models pretending to use the systems in those links?). I’ve seen a lot of articles and comments around the interwebs claiming that Nintendo “won” the show (if such a thing is possible) with their 3DS, and that the Move and Kinect had a weaker showing. I personally don’t agree with this assessment, as I think that the unveiling of new hardware by Sony and Microsoft shows a shift in their marketing strategies.

Both the Kinect and Move are designed to compete with Nintendo, but in different ways. The XBox is currently a system for “hardcore” gamers, guys who have grown up playing games and still want to spend lots of time with new titles. This reputation may have caused it to do well with men but the system trails with women, especially behind the popular Wii. MS has recently been trying to broaden the scope of who the system appeals to with the addition of Netflix and Facebook to the system, and the Kinect will go even further in this direction. The games coming out on the Kinect aren’t designed for hardcore gamers, they’re designed for their girlfriends, wives, or non-gaming friends. These people think Halo and GTA4 look stupid but might be willing to give a dancing or fitness game a shot. And bridging the gap between gamer and non-gamer can be incredibly important in a home where there are such disparate views on gaming. So think of the Kinect as a “gateway controller” for older non-gamers living with hardcore gamers.

The Move, on the other hand, is designed to capture the hearts and minds of kids. It is a shiny, easily approachable controller for the PS3, complete with a beautiful colored light ball on top. Of the games I saw demoed at E3 a majority were aimed at small children and had child actors playing the games in the trailers. I think that Sony has a long term strategy in mind with the Move wherein they hook small children with the controller now and get them to be PlayStation gamers for life. Look at Nintendo – they have an insanely loyal customer base of fanatics who remembered and loved playing the NES and SNES as children. Sony wants to duplicate that loyalty with the next generation of gamers, and the Move is a salvo designed to hook these children. And with the cheap price point of the controller they just might be able to do it.

I curious how much of an impact the 3DS will ultimately have. There are a lot of DSes out there, and though the 3DS has some cool new features I wonder how quick fans will be to trade in their older version for a new one. Then again people regularly upgrade their iPods, and it doesn’t pay to bet against Nintendo so I’m going to guess that it will turn out to be a hit.

Ultimately I’m incredibly excited about all of these systems and can’t wait to play with them all. It’s going to be a good year for gamers, old and new alike.

There were a lot of announcements from this year’s E3 conference, including all sorts of fun, awesome games that I can’t wait to try out. It seems like the conference is getting back to something of its former glory after a few years of mediocrity. Even the booth babes were back!

However, the most exciting announcement by far (in my book) was that both Microsoft and Sony seem really dedicated to doing new, exciting things with user interfaces. Microsoft announced project Natal, which seems to be a camera that uses both the visible and IR spectrums to make some 3D guesses about where a user is and what they’re doing. I’m a bit dubious of the tech as there is no controller involved (what happens when users get tired?) and a straight up camera has other limitations based on the environment. However, Microsoft apparently has Johnny Won working on the project, which makes me feel a lot better. Let’s see what he can come up with.

Sony unveiled their own new tech with the PS3 Eye, and Rick Marks spoke about the advancements they had made with the tech since last year. They used a weird controller with glowing bulbs to help with camera tracking problems, and while this may seem less sexy than Natal I believe the controller will ultmately be more reliable as a result. It’ll also be nice to be able to push buttons on occasion if the user wants to. The Eye also has a microphone array so it can do voice detection – I assume the Natal does also but I haven’t seen anything about that yet. Rick’s a super smart guy (I got to chat with him last year at MIT) and I’ve got a lot of faith in his work too.

So will either, both, or neither of these controllers be successful? Time will tell.