2nd Time's A Charm?

This has easily been one the most interesting Summers for gaming that I've ever witnessed. The big ones obviously being what what happened at, and after E3. But what's surprised me the most is this persistent narrative of "well, if one company is screwing us, then surely the other one is". Leading up to the E3 press conferences, the press seemed hell-bent on pushing Sony into the fire with Microsoft over the DRM and connectivity issues, despite any actual evidence to back this up. The idea seemed to be that there was no way a company so large would make such huge mistakes without being sure that the competition was going in the same direction.
Oh how soon we forget.
The truth is that game companies have been making these kinds of huge mistakes for decades, usually on their third outing. Going all the way back to the days when Sega and Nintendo were the top two contenders. Sega found success with it's second console, the Genesis, but then proceeded to flood the market with hardware and confuse consumers with it's third generation consoles, the 32X and the Saturn. The 32X confused customers by being an attachment to the Genesis rather than a stand alone machine, and it made matters worse when Sega quickly dropped support for the add-on. The Saturn, on the other hand, was a victim of the transition from 2-D to 3-D games, or more specifically, it was a victim of Sony's Playstation. Sony caught Sega completely off guard with the Playstation, a machine designed from the ground up for three dimensional gaming. This caused Sega to release the Saturn months ahead of time, leaving game developers and consumers baffled.
                   
Fast forward to a little over a year later and Nintendo released it's third console, the Nintendo64. Opting to buck the inevitable transition to disc based media and stick with the much more expensive cartridges, this was when Nintendo lost it's spot as kings of console gaming. I wouldn't call the Nintendo64 a failure, but Nintendo's decision to stick with carts, coupled with new policies making it harder for 3rd parties to put out games for the console, meant that it would go on to lose to Sony's Playstation.
                   
But not even Sony, with it's record breaking sales from both the original Playstation and its successor, the Playstation 2 (which would go on to become the best selling console of all time), could break the curse of game console makers stumbling on the third outing. Even with Microsoft releasing the Xbox360 a full year ahead of the Playstation 3, Sony, along with just about everyone else, was confident that the immense popularity of the Playstation brand meant that the PS3 would quickly catch up to, and surpass the Xbox360 in sales. But ultimately, the high price tag of the PS3, along with a hard-to-develop-for architecture kept the PS3 trailing behind Microsoft's machine month after month. It didn't help either that many top Sony executives were quoted saying things like "we want people to get a second job to be able to afford the PS3", or, "we could launch the PS3 for $1000 and no games and still sell out". There's seems to be some debate as to which console has the most sales worldwide, but here in America the bad decisions made by Sony with the Playstation 3 clearly lost them the crown.
                   
And here we are again, watching yet another leading console maker - Microsoft - stumble on their third outing. What's so incredible about Microsoft is that some of the mistakes that they're making with the Xbox One appear to be the same mistakes that Sony made with the PS3. Ironically, these mistakes that Sony made are what allowed the Xbox360 to step in and take the lead. You'd think someone at Microsoft would've been paying attention to that. Of course Microsoft managed to create an entirely new set of problems, not the least of which being the used game issue, followed by the always-online announcement. It's almost sad to think that if no other major players enter the console gaming arena, this could be the last time we see a company so publicy implode. But I'm sure someone will come along and keep things interesting.
                   
They say that the third time is a charm, but when it comes to video game consoles, it looks like the third time is a curse.

A Deeper Look at Halo 4 So Far Part 2

It didn't really make sense for me to continue updating my previous Halo 4 news blog, so I decided to start a new one. If this one gets too long then I'll start a third and so on and so forth. Here i'll post any new info, videos, and screens of Halo 4 as I come upon them. Today's salvo with be salvo will be void of any commentary as I'm pressed for time at the moment, though it's not entirely impossible that I might come back and add some in. So here we go.

Halo 4 War Games Gameplay (Multiplayer)

Halo 4 Infinity Multiplayer Mode

Halo 4 Spartan Ops Gameplay (co-op)

Halo 4 E3 Gameplay Footage

Screenshots and Images

 

 

 

That's it for now, I'll add more as it becomes available.

Sexism in Games and the Individual Mind

Human beings are, at our core, individuals. No person requires another person to live their life. Sure, it may be a lonely life, but one that is liveable none the less. We live in a time that affords a higher level of individualism than any other period in human history, there are literally people of all shapes, sizes, and colors. But at that core, there are two inescapable groups that human beings can be grouped into: male and female. Each group has a vast variety of flavors within it's respected sex, but men and women themselves are so inherently different that they will live their entire lives never truly undertsanding how the other side thinks and feels.

Kiki Wolfkill - 343 Industries

Sexism in games has been quite the hot topic in the gaming world lately and 1UP's own week long cover story was proof that this is a topic that many people have passionate opinions about. So the question for me is, "why is this topic important to people?" Well, at least for the 1UP staff, the answer is simple: they feel that women are treated or portrayed unfairly in video games. But are they? Well, let's take a look.

Lorraine McLees - Bungie

The easy answer is "yes, women are portrayed in a sexist way in most games and women themselves are subject to harrassment by men when playing games online". The problem is that things are never black and white. To say that "women are....", or, "men are...", is an insult to the individual. Nobody likes to be put into a box. Why? Because we are individuals. We don't like it when another person attempts to "classify" us.

Amy Henning - Naughty Dog

Which leads to my problem with the 1UP cover story; it's the opinion of men. Sure there was an article on the subject by a woman, but the rest were by men. Men are the most unqualified people to represent the feelings of women. Men can never and will never understand what it's like to be a woman. Only a woman knows what it's like to be a woman. But even then, we're talking about individuals. Two women may understand what it means to be a woman and how things like "being more in touch with your emotions" feel, but that doesn't mean that they will have the same opinions. On the contrary, they're just as likely to disagree as they are to agree.

Jade Raymond - UbiSoft

This is not a subject that I had put a lot of thought into in the past, to be perfectly honest. But after reading the articles in 1UP's cover story I began to think that maybe I needed to think about it more. But, as a man who accepted many years ago that I will never fully understand the opposite sex, I decided it would make more sense to ask women what they think about sexism in games. They are, after all, the center of the topic. But what I found was that, by attempting to find a blanket answer to my questions, I was insulting them as individuals, which is, in my opinion, worse.

Meagan Marie - Crystal Dynamics

Today we have more women than ever in the video games industry, but more importantly, we have more individuals than ever. This means that the amount of unique experiences available to us will continue to grow. The games that we experience are not the result of a man's mind or a woman's mind, but an individual's mind. What if the Dead or Alive games had been designed by teams of women, yet turned out exactly the same? I've talked to women whose views fall on all sides of the spectrum. Some love the way women are portrayed, some hate it. Some think that it could be better, while others don't care at all. But what I found the most is that women, just like men, don't like to be grouped together. They just want to be accepted as the individuals that they are instead of having other individuals constantly point them out, regardless of the reason.

Winifred phillips - Award Winning Video Game Composer

The conclusion? Woman, just like men, are individuals. To assume that all women feel oppressed or portrayed in an unfair light is to rob them of their individuality. And to say that today's gaming industry is sexist is to rob all of the hard working ladies in the gaming industry of the time and energy they spent to get to their respected positions. Men, at the moment, game more than women. This is not something that is up for debate, it is fact. But that doesn't mean it will always be so, and because of this women will, over time, take up more and more lead roles in the gaming industry. This will, most likely, bring more women into gaming. It's really a natural process. But more importantly, it's one that should be allowed to happen naturally and not be forced, because history shows that forcing these kinds of things never works as well as when it is allowed to happen naturally.

Rieko Kodama - Sega

The solution? Individuals are responsible for any wrong doing on another individual, therefore these situations should be handled by individuals. If you see someone being treated in a cruel of unfair way, and you feel the need to intervene, then do so. I certainly do. As an individual you have the right to make that choice. What we shouldn't do, however, is assume that our opinions represent that of a whole group of people or attempt to rescue a group of people who, by all intents and purposes, do not need rescuing. All the evidence you need of this is to look at the response from women on this subject.

Tina Sanchez - Infinity Ward

I almost didn't write this because I honestly feel like this very blog can be viewed as doing the exact thing that I am talking about: taking away a woman's individuality by writing about where they fit in the video games industry. From my experience many women that game don't want to be thought of as "girl gamers", there are obviously those that do, but I've talked to many that want to be just "gamers". Many people don't like to be singled out, no matter the intention. But by constantly beating this drum we are categorizing these women as victims and "women/girl gamers". And by doing this we are taking away their individuality and cramming them into a box.