Today is one of those defining moments in my career in digital media – we have just switched on a new world called the Echo, which corresponds geographically with the surface of South Africa.
I return to this subject every now and then because it is my honest belief that buying a PS3 for R6700 is a total waste of money compared to the R2800 for an XBox 360. Gamespot have just released their second graphics comparison between the two consoles and, in my opinion, the difference is barely noticeable.
So this, plus the sheer volume of mature titles for the XBox 360 make it a no-brainer (one would think). I have noticed though, that people seem to have the perception that the PS3 has superior graphics because it came out later and because it costs so much. Frankly, putting the extra R4000 towards a HD TV makes much more sense.
So now that I have owned my XBox 360 for half a year it feels like the time has come to take stock of the debate again. Initially I was a loyal Sony customer and loved my PS2 until it died from overuse. Then I bought a PSP which I love to bits. But at the time, last December, the PS3 was a long way away and there were rumours the price would be in the R6000 range. The XBox was there in front of me so I bought it.
Have I regretted this descision? Only in the sense that I realise now I would have been perfectly happy having the core system and I could have got that free with a cellphone contract. Other than that little issue, no regrets. If I was able to make some changes to the machine the first would be to make it a little less noisy. The fan makes quite a racket. The second thing would be add an extra ear to the headset and the third could be to rationalise the menus around game achievements and gamerscore.
The question was aksed of me the other day, about whether I am thinking about getting a PS3. The thought hadn’t actually crossed my mind but I am pretty sure that I will want one in two years from now once the games really start using that engine. If you think about the PS, games like Black took five years to come onto the scene so there definately is a period within which you’re not going to get the full benefit of the graphics processing of the machine from the game developers.
That also gives you time to wait for the price to drop, so in a way I think the competition between Microsoft and Sony might not be a bad thing, expecially given that the consoles were launched a year and a half apart in the US. This means that 3 years after getting an XBox your wallet has probably recovered and its the perfect time to buy a PS3.
In terms of gaming, I have loved playing Rainbow 6: Vegas, GRAW and the Call of Duty series. I thought Gears of War was fun but a little bit boring and predictable. Because I’m not playing in Hi Def I assume I’m missing out on a lot but its really not bothering me – at all. What I care about most right now is getting some proper LAN gaming solution working – i.e. I need to find friends who feel the same way LOL.
I suspect, in the back of my mind, that the PS3 will have better looking games in the long run – when that happens I’ll get one.
I found Super Columbine Massacre RPG today while reading an interesting article on CNET abut gaming and emotional outlets. The game, obviously, has been quite controversial and the Virginia tech shootings have prompted game creator Danny Ledonne to issue a statement on his site saying he would not make a game about this incident:
I will not be because it has not been something that I am personally connected to; the shooting at Columbine (which hit so close to home for me – literally and figuratively – during my sophomore year of high school) was not only an American tragedy in the broadest sense but also a clarion call for change in my own life. Having said this, one might ask if I think an interactive project (a “video game”) about the shooting at Virginia Tech can be made. My answer is “absolutely.” Societies throughout history have dealt with pain, tragedy, and suffering with art in a multitude of forms and ours is no exception. There will be poems about this shooting, there will be books about it, films about it, paintings about it, and indeed I do not believe the medium of interactive electronic media should be excluded from exploring the sorrows and challenges of the human experience.
That’s a brave stance, or perhaps stupid, because it shows a profound misunderstanding of the shift in perspective from representation to simulation that happens when one shifts from a movie or documentary to a game. You are no longer asking an audience to look at what happened from a distance, you are asking them to simulate being the killers. This is the key difference between a game and a movie and possibly the only basis for any moral objection, in my opinion.
It has been so long since I have lain my eyes upon your beautiful curves or pressed my thumbs against your rubbery joysticks and felt you twitch. I can scarce remember the sound of your startup screen, or the endless bouncing of shells upon concrete in Gears of War.
And for nothing, we have been ripped asunder by the purest, the blackest evil. But those days are gone, I have returned from the desert of your company with renewed thirst. Dark shall be the day that foul little hussy from Sony resume her conniving tricks!
Forver yours,
Your most loyal fan, xoxoxo
Linden Lab has released the source code for the Second Life client software to the Open Source community under the GPL 2.0 License.
In the blog entry announcing this, note the emphasis:
Releasing the source now is our next invitation to the world to help build this global space for communication, business, and entertainment.
As the title “Embracing the Inevitable” suggests, Linden Lab are taking a major step forward by focusing on the development of the back-end and leaving the front-end to the community (for now). One of the ways I can see immediate benefits is that someone might actually fix the proxy support in the OS X version.
In the long term, however, I’m sure it has crossed the people at Linden Lab’s minds that they want to become THE virtual environment for business. Opening up the source means a variety of things, most of them ideological.
But can the business community can finally relax in the knowledge that they can invest further time in creating virtual operations because they have control of the source code? Not necessarily. The client application is only half of the picture.
It is, however, an ideological triumph because the environment as a whole can now be considered something owned by the community, and I suspect more will be released later.
I have been loyal to the PlayStation for ten years but yesterday i made the final decision. I am going to get an XBox 360 instead of a PS3, and these are the ten things that helped me make up my mind:
I am sure there are a few good counter-arguments, post them in the comments if you have any.
This is a list of noteworthy aspects about Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Second Life and World of Warcraft. The list focuses on the challenges and opportunities these environments offer for businesses and how we need to reposition our notion of what the media is before we can make any sense of it.
The convergence of the media and technology into what we call New Media today requires that we redefine what we mean by media. Once we accept that the media is more than paper and airwaves it becomes clear that games like Second Life are part of the media. The main point of difference is that the media used to be a tool for business whereas this media encapsulates business and becomes an environment rather than a mediator.
Provided massively multiplayer games remain populated there should be no reason why the worlds can’t scale infinitely and never suffer the risk of environmental depletion.
Second Life is perhaps one of the most poignant examples of a thriving virtual economy that has a real-life corollary. There have been several success stories, particularly in the area of property development, and the key driver of this type of economy is in its extension into the real world.
If the real world were safer to walk about we’d probably have much better outdoor advertising. In new worlds like Second Life and outdoor advertisement can be interactive, have embedded functionality like a direct link to a call centre, or ordering capability, and you seldom have to worry about muggers or vandals interrupting you.
The Web made proximity and location irrelevant. There is no such thing as “closer” on the Web, although this could change with the net neutrality debates going on right now. In 3D worlds, the value of being closer to where a character lives or works is significant, much in the same way it is in real life.
Even if you spend less time interacting with a virtual world, it will probably seem like quantitatively “better” time than the time you spend in your real life because you have chosen to spend it that way. By implication there is something there that appeals to you more than your current real life situation. Some people watch TV, others play sports, some inhabit strange worlds that don’t really exist. The point is that for many in the game it is a time spent feeling good, which is the best time to transact.
Because the physics of these new worlds and they way they work are flexible and subject to change, the potential range of needs or desires is significantly different to those of the real world, some won’t have a real word equivalent. This means new markets will develop where there weren’t any before for things that have never existed before.
Going to the bank or shopping for groceries is a drudge in real life but put it in a virtual world and suddenly everything seems like fun. Companies that understand this will be able to increase their customer base by making their products interesting to find and buy.
As customer service has been migrated from interpersonal to telephonic to email, the quality of the service has become worse even though rapid responses are more available. With avatar-based customer service some of the interpersonal aspects of human communication can be reintroduced and some others will continue to be automated.
Game and world developers are keeping an active eye on the way the virtual worlds are operating. This means that critical changes can be made quickly, that the community of users can influence the direction of the development and that things will not remain stagnant for hundreds of years at a time.
The world of massively multiplayer games is in its infancy now. The economic, political and cultural impact has only just begun to become apparent and then only on a small scale. Whatever the impact is, it will be significant. The question is, for how many and what happens to those who either don’t have access or the interest.
If you have any more suggestions or comments, post them here and I’ll include them with a link and credit.
There is an article on the NYT today about MTV’s dramatic move into the virtual space of the metaverse. Like I have been saying for a while now, monetising the metaverse changes everything. Those clinging to a mix of old a new media will find this kind of stuff very difficult to grasp.
Wednesday’s introduction of Virtual Laguna Beach is the first of three virtual worlds that MTV plans over the next year as part of an effort to steal a march on popular Web sites like MySpace and YouTube that have diverted the attention of the MTV audience.
…
Of the two other virtual worlds planned, VMTV is a music destinationwhere visitors can club-hop among hip neighborhoods, buy music, watchvideos, sing karaoke or even start their own bands. The third virtualdestination, LogoWorld, an offshoot of Logo, the gay and lesbian cablechannel, will be designed entirely by its participants.
Not in the Real World Anymore – New York Times
Once virtual worlds become markets the model for marketing, advertising and retail promotion will have to change from the current 2-D e-commerce model we have on the web to a combination of automated and mediated bodiless real-life interactions.
Anyone watching the world cup soccer coverage on SABC1 will notice two things immediately. Firstly, the score isn’t shown somewhere on the screen all the time, making it very difficult to flip in an out of a game. Secondly, and this is the point of my headline, the editing and camerawork seems about as drab as playing Pro Evolution Soccer on my PS2. So much so, in fact, that I tried a little experiment with my new invisible wireless controller and actually scored a goal for Mexico.
He has worked in the online media industry since 1996, has presented papers at many international conferences and specializes in profitable innovation in emerging markets.
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