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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle So E3 came and went, and we still don’t have a hard and fast date for Home yet. Sure, we’ve got a “spring” dating for the Home Beta, but still, people have been waiting. And people kinda wish that Sony would hurry it up! According to Kaz Hirai, Sony’s trying to make it right so that first time users have a positive Home experience. Fair enough! Says Hirai, “…we don’t want to prematurely launch it and then be dinged for having a bad service… this is a platform initiative which means that we need to be extra careful that we’ve crossed all the ‘t’s and dotted all the ‘i’s”. And hey, Sony is in it for the long haul. No need to rush. Just listen to Hirai chime in about that 10-year-life-cycle and keeping the last hardware generation alive:
And the E3 post-mortems continue! Latest to chime in with his 2c is swarthy heart-throb David Perry, who thinks E3 is stupid. And broken. And an embarrassment. And diluted. And…look, we’ll just let David explain:
If there aren’t dramatic changes to the format and staff, I’m never going again…The concept is broken, it’s expensive, messages are diluted, consumers are ignored (remembering that the future of this industry is direct connections with consumers – not retailers), the ticket policies are stupid, and if the entire industry worldwide doesn’t participate, it’s not real anyway.
Tough words! Tough, but true. Who’ll be next to let us know of E3′s impending demise? Stay tuned!
Perry: E3 is an embarrassment [GI.biz]
Back at E3, we had a chance to check out some of the titles Natsume is publishing in the US. Titles like Rune Factory 2 for the DS. It’s of course the second Rune Factory game, which is best explained as Harvest Moon meets fantasyland. The game’s going to be out this fall, and here’s something I didn’t know about it: Rune Factory 2 has over 9,000 words of text. That’s a lot of text! For those not into the fantasy element, the DS and the Wii will both see new Harvest Moon games. Bring on the farming and marrying!
The Xbox 360/Netflix deal may well be one of the more important things to come out of E3 last week. Streaming Netflix movies (at least for Americans) sure beats the Video Marketplace. Here, Microsoft’s Larry Hryb takes us on a guided tour of the new service, including how quickly your 360 queue is updated once you make changes on a PC.
They’ve got Pokémon planes so why not Pokémon trains? As summer vacation kicks off here in Japan, Japan Rail East is rolling out four Pocket Monster bullet trains for the Tohoku and Joetsu lines and one each for the Yamagata, Akita and Nagano lines. Says one 7-year-old boy travelling with his parents to Iwate Prefecture:
I was surprised to see Pikachu, but I really like the character so I’m happy…It’s a cool bullet train.
And Pikachu was surprised to see you. Summer 2008, this is the photo op. Hit the jump for a clip of the train in action.
We wrangled up Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi to justify, well, Resident Evil 5. Since there was no official Capcom translator on hand, stay tuned for a special “guest translator” appearance by some random dude. He totally bungles up the whole damn thing. Shame on him!
Like many other games companies, Capcom will be at Comic-Con. Unlike many other games companies, however, Capcom are getting into the spirit of things. Not only will they be showing off games, but attendees will get the chance to hit up Capcom’s booth and meet Kristin Kreuk (ie Chun Li from the upcoming SF movie), some of the Udon art team, Street Fighter IV producers Yoshinoro Ono and David Clislip and (and!) both Mega Man and Nathan Spencer. Or, dudes in suits dressed like Mega Man and Nathan Spencer. But still! Mega Man and Nathan Spencer!
Capcom Comic-Con Happenings [Capcom]
Speaking with VentureBeat, EA boss John Riccitiello was asked what he thought of each of the big three’s E3 keynotes. Despite dodging the initial question, he goes on to talk so much about staying neutral that he does a 180 of sorts and gives a handy guide on how EA view each of the three home consoles strengths:
There are three strong players in the sector. They have all got their respective demographics and geographies. Blu-ray on the PS trumps DVD on the Xbox 360. Xbox Live trumps the PlayStation Network. The wand controller trumps the traditional controller. They’ve all got their rock, paper, scissors competition going.
Give John Riccitiello a Blu-Ray-playing 360 with a Wii Remote and he’ll be a pig in spit. The rest of the interview’s also worth a read, if only to see him say “I don’t think the investors give a shit about our quality”.
E3 perspective: An interview with John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts [VentureBeat][Pic]
Portal: Still Alive was announced during E3 last week. It bundles the original Portal with some “additional content”, and it’s due for release on XBLA. And ever since, PC owners have been complaining, wondering why 360 owners are getting new stuff while they’re not. Well, according to former Shacknews boss Chris Remo, the “additional content” isn’t necessarily “new content”, as he says the bonus maps are those found in Portal: The Flash Version MapPack. Which PC owners can already get. For free.
Portal: Still Alive explained [Remowned]
The whole “Res 5 is racist!!!” thing got pretty big for a while there, didn’t it? Culminated in some thoughtful (and heated) discussions about the place, few as notable as N’Gai Croal’s “clearly no one black worked on this game” piece on MTV. Well, in a case of “better late than never”, the game’s producer – Jun Takeuchi – has attempted to put the whole mess to bed by saying clearly somebody black worked on this game, telling MTV:
To answer the question that was posted on your blog, there are black members in the development team. We do have staff working on the game, who are aware of the historical background and we are constantly checking these kinds of things with them.
Course, he doesn’t say how long those staff have been working on the game, but slow, reactive progress is progress nonetheless.
