This week we have more dire predictions for Windows 8,
criticism of the critics, Rumors about the next Xbox's guts and more!
So let's get on with it...
It seems my foot in mouth segment may have to become a
regular feature.
Rob Pardo executive VP of Blizzard entertainment apparently
is jumping on the Newell bandwagon of calling Windows 8 a bad deal for
gamers. He tweeted on July 25th..
nice interview with Gabe Newell -
"I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space* - not
awesome for Blizzard either
Since Blizzard hasn't been that "awesome" to
gamers recently it's a case of the pot taunting kettle. The concern is over the new Windows store and
the 30% royalty on purchases made through it.
Considering the desktop is still in place in Windows 8 and both Origin
and Steam work on it; Game portals like Origin and Steam don't have to use the store to sell their wares.
Further, If Microsoft tried to close Windows 8 to only allow
purchases through the store it's likely another anti-trust suit would soon
ensue. Such a move would be an even more
clear case of monopoly than the IE antics of the 90's.
Speaking of Blizzard, I've been thinking about Diablo 3 and
specifically reviews of the game.
According to Metacritic the critic reviews total up to 88
out of 100 points. The user reviews,
however, only total up to 3.8 out of 10 which is an unfavorable rating
according to their own scale.
As I look over the comments I have to wonder how there can
be such a discrepancy between the opinion of somebody paid to evaluate games
and someone who paid for the game itself.
Of the few points of agreement between the two camps the most important
appears to be the look of the game. In
fact among the user reviews the look seems to be the only thing actual paying
customers and paid critics agree on. So
I have a suggestion for Blizzard. They
should stop developing anything but their cash cow, World of Warcraft and farm
out their art department to other game developers. After all, there's always a market for good
cutscenes and I'm a strong believer in sticking with what you're good at. Apparently Blizzard's forgotten how to make a
game that doesn't annoy its customers or have a subscription.
I'd also like to challenge the 85 (notice how those numbers look like the letters BS) critics who gave Diablo 3 a
favorable rating to expose their criteria.
If it's anything but a real user's experience but instead based on betas their
opinion is worthless. As more user than
critic I can care less about the story if the game itself is poorly designed. If I want a good story I'll read a book. A good game doesn't hide its flaws behind its
narrative. Of course with an attitude
like that I suppose that's why I do this for free and the
"journalists" get paid for it.
People buy games for the experience. If it's a bad experience because of say, a mandatory
connection to the Internet or boring gameplay those factors need to carry equal weight to
the pretty cutscenes. That goes double
in this day an age of $60 pre-orders.
In other news....
Intel doesn't plan on an enthusiast Ivy Bridge processor till
the third quarter of 2013 instead offering one more iteration of Sandy Bridge E
called the 3970X running at 3.5 Ghz ( 15mb of cache, 6 cores and quad channel
memory controller) in the fourth quarter of this year. Meaning those hoping for similar firepower
from Ivy-Bridge are out of luck till next
year. However, the upcoming Ivy
Bridge Enthusiast part will work on X79 platforms with the socket 2011
configuration which means the possibility of an upgrade on an SB-E platform
with just a BIOS refresh.
If nothing else this proves the move to put most northbridge
functionality onto the CPU is finally paying dividends to the upgrade
community. For a few years now it seemed
that every new Intel enthusiast platform demanded a motherboard upgrade to
match. Think about it, when was the last
time you could actually swap in a new CPU on the same motherboard and see and
actual improvement? AMD doesn't count in
this discussion by the way but Intel may be taking a page from their playbook.
For those that may bemoan the lack of an Ivy Bridge
enthusiast part right now, consider that Ivy Bridge itself is a mainstream
platform and was meant to be from the start.
With less on-board cache, dual-channel memory controller and emphasis on
more efficient power consumption and on-board video it was as close to system
on a chip that Intel could offer to the PC market. So it's no wonder that they are wringing a
bit more life out of Sandy Bridge E when the platform offers everything to an
Enthusiast that Ivy bridge doesn't.
Let's not forget that Intel began this trip with X58 which was an
enthusiast chipset from day one. The P55
was the mainstream platform that came after that could never match it.
I see it more as a switch in marketing strategy. Instead of trying to amp up a mainstream part
with phony clock and cache bumps (I'm thinking P4 Extreme here) They lead with
the big guns and use the mainstream parts as a bridge to the next architecture. Just as Sandy Bridge E led the way to Ivy
Bridge, it's likely Ivy Bridge E will lead to the next mainstream
platform. A quick glance at the chipset numbering
reveals it. For example, SB-E is on the X79chipset
, Ivy Bridge is on the Z77 and Sandy Bridge Mainstream was P67. In the
End Ivy-Bridge E will likely be less of a boosted Ivy Bridge than it will be a
gateway to Intel's next platform even with socket compatibility with X79.
Perhaps the bigger upgrade news this week is the supposed
leak of a next Gen Xbox developer kit supposedly
sporting Intel CPU and Nvidia Graphics platforms. If true this could mean MS is ditching the
PowerPC and AMD platform in favor of something more closely aligned to the PC
platform. It's already known that the
XBOX UI has been moving closer to the Metro interface of the upcoming Windows 8
release. Some even theorize that the
move is meant to further consolidate PC and Xbox gaming into the Microsoft
channel thus closing the environment to outside vendors. That's quite a lot of speculation for just a
change of hardware platform. The
current asking price is 10 grand if you're interested by the way.
Speaking of Nvidia...
Rumors about the upcoming Gtx660Ti have been confirmed...
"The GTX
660Ti will feature 1344 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit memory
bus. This puts the GTX 660 Ti very close to the current 670 in terms of
potential performance. According to the leaked benchmarks, that seems to be the
case. The GTX 660 Ti is only a couple of frames behind the GTX 670 in Just
Cause 2 and Dirt 3, for example. Considering this card is likely to use a bit
less power and cost less, it is shaping up to be a rather desirable card. If
this ends up being on the low end of the $300-400 range "
If the card comes in at a midrange price it could be the first
salvo against AMD's Pitcairn 78xx cards in the 2 to 4 hundred dollar
range. Performance just a few ticks
behind a GTX670 is nothing to sneeze at.
And flying in the face of those who say the PC is dead as a
gaming platform comes news that game publisher EA known for titles like
Battlefield and Mass Effect made more
from PC based sales than PS3. Of course
Xbox 360 leads the pack at 292 million in Q1 2012 but coming a close second at
276 million is the PC followed by PS3 at 267 million. It's no surprise given the pay to play model
coupled with DLC packs that drives the gaming industry now. As consoles continue to stay a step behind
the PC from a hardware standpoint and games like Battlefield 3 pushing the
limits of consoles, it's no surprise that PC's are enjoying something of a
revival. Most of the sales numbers
quoted were not boxed but rather online and subscription which validates the
pay to play theory.
It seems that 60 is the new 50. No I'm not talking about sexagenarians
running around in their speedos.
I'm talking about the price of games. Initially I was confused as to the sudden price increase on mainstream PC titles as not so long ago a premium title didn't go higher than $50 with most being around $40. Then it occurred to me that the equivalent title on a console was around the $60 mark. Since the trend is to develop for at least compatibility with PS3 or Xbox it suddenly became clear. It's another case of charging more for less. It a twisted sense of the concept of fairness it seems reasonable to charge the same price for the same work.
I'm talking about the price of games. Initially I was confused as to the sudden price increase on mainstream PC titles as not so long ago a premium title didn't go higher than $50 with most being around $40. Then it occurred to me that the equivalent title on a console was around the $60 mark. Since the trend is to develop for at least compatibility with PS3 or Xbox it suddenly became clear. It's another case of charging more for less. It a twisted sense of the concept of fairness it seems reasonable to charge the same price for the same work.
Most popular titles
on PC these days suffer the effects of being concurrently developed for
console. It shows up with strange
controls, bad camera angles, limited replay and elimination of features that
only work on PC's. Heavy reliance on
Internet connectivity allows publishers to tightly control their content and
supplement the limitations of consoles.
With the next generation of console hardware moving even closer to the
PC, development becomes even easier especially if you create your own
Apple-esque sandbox (Think Microsoft Store and Steam).
So in the end we're getting less but paying more. Nothing is forever though and the trend
isn't sustainable. The same arrogance that
drove PC gamers back to consoles could drive customers to cheaper alternatives
and other platforms. As it stands now
indie developers already have a foothold in the portable market with the big
names conspicuously underrepresented.
In late breaking news it's reported that Codemasters
developer of the Dirt and F1 series is working on Grid 2 rumored to be coming
shortly after the release of F1 2012 which is due in September. Just in time for Christmas and for fans of
the original nothing would be a better present under the tree.
Finally Orcs Must Die 2 was released on July 30th and it's
shaping up to be just as much fun as its predecessor. Look for a video review from me in the near
future.
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