Sony’s Arc
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
I have found it interesting that, as with time shortening until the release of Arc and Natal, that there seems to be more and more people trying to convince us that they won’t just be gimmicks. However, today I read an article regarding Sony’s PR strategy surrounding the Arc which is quite refreshing. Sony evidently would rather not tell you about how great Arc is, but rather show you how great it is. This strategy seems quite evident when you compare the two presentations at E3 last year. Sony had a very tech intensive demo, while Microsoft had one that was more about presentation rather than an actual demo.
Another interesting point from the article is that it seems that Sony has really considered the end user and how the product relates to them. Of course we are going to see a few games (hopefully this is all) with stupid controls just like on the Wii – but perhaps this won’t be the case with all of the games incorporating the new motion controllers. Only time will tell.
Tags: Arc, microsoft, Motion Controls, Natal, sony
France’s Web Filtering
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary
Australia has already begun instituting internet filtering, and now it seems like France is one step closer. Now I need to ask the question whether or not governments should even have the right to filter the internet. The old argument is that even if you block something, people will still find a way to obtain it. Not to mention the fact that, sure child pornography is bad and really shouldn’t be out in the world – but will filtering internet even stop it. Will the government stop at just that? What about political websites that attack the status quo?
While I don’t condone child pornography in any shape or manner, how effective can internet filtering really be against it? There are proxy servers, P2P, the sneaker net, and what not to get the stuff into the country/past the filtering. Does the cost really justify how much money it will cost? Wouldn’t it be better to continue attacking it at the source, catching the people that are doing the most harm to children?
The thing that I have the problem with is the fact that, while the government may have good intentions, that doesn’t mean that somewhere down the line there won’t be a problem with the system. There is the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and it is quite possible that this will be true to any internet filtering. I believe that the internet should continue, and always be, 100% free from all government control. That’s not to say that governments shouldn’t have the tools to combat stuff like child pornography, just that there must be a better way.
Tags: filtering, France, internet
The Tester
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary
I sat down and watched the preview show for Sony’s The Tester. They really are hyping up being a game tester, making it sound really cool and everything. There was some truth in what they were saying, because it really does take someone who is dedicated to video games and who literally could play them nonstop, over and over. It definetly will be interesting to watch… I can’t wait for it. I hope that Sony continues with this sort of media release.
Tags: game development, sony, The Tester
Why the iPad is no good
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary, Games, Programming
Well the news about the iPad has been around for a while, and there are plenty of game developers excited about it. Why? I haven’t the slightest clue. There is three differences between the iPhone/iPod touch and the iPad and they are: (A) Size of the screen (B) System power & (C) Price. The iPod Touch got more power between the first and second hardware revisions just like the iPhone 3G and 3GS. But, here is the problem… the iPad will bring about the downfall of the video game industry (if it actually catches on).
While my statement may be very wild, if the iPad actually catches on – video game developers should not be happy at all (at least the ones who want to make money). Sure, with the bigger screen size and more powerful system we’ll be able to make bigger and better games, but the problem is that the economics surrounding the iPad will probably gravitate to towards the same trends that the iPhone/iPod Touch have in terms of application costs and the flood of applications. While usually having more is better, in terms of the consumer, in the case of the App Store it is actually really bad. With the 20,000 games available on the App Store how can one find a good game? Its not easy. I put less research into buying a $60 game than I ever have trying to purchase a game from the App Store.
While the iPhone OS and SDK are great for indies and hopefuls wanting to break into the game industry, there are very few companies that can actually survive with the sort of economics that are available on the iPhone. The thing is, that you need to develop something really quick and really cheap in order to turn a profit. There are very few games that sell for more than a few dollars, so if your game cost $100,000 to make (not really that big of a number if you have an artist, programmer, QA, etc working on your game) then you would have to sell a minimum of ~150,000 if you sold your game at $0.99 (there is a percentage that Apple takes from the sale). Sure there are many developers that could put out games for less than $100K, but there are many people who will do this development on the side so there really isn’t any cost associated with it.
Now, you might be wondering why a a game developer would care about a platform they may not even develop for. Well, that is simple. The economics surrounding the App Store have started to bleed over into other sectors of the industry as consumer’s are getting more and more used to getting really small (and usually not that good games) for good and cheap. They want more of this. Now there are less and less people who are willing to continually spend $60 on a new release for a game. They might start buying used copies, none of which goes to the developer. And while I may be exaggerating a bit regarding the overflow, there are plenty of examples of people complaining about the price of the PSP minis in comparison to the App Store.
Now, the iPad has a touch interface, just like the iPhone. Guess what, it sucks. It doesn’t really drive innovation like one would think, except for innovation on how to adapt and get around the platform’s limitations. Sure limitations can drive people to create awesome games, but with the iPhone its about finding the interface that sucks the least. Yeah, the iPad has a much bigger screen that will allow developers greater flexibility when designing controls because screen space will not be as limited. The biggest problem with the iPad (in terms of gaming) is still present… NO BUTTONS. While the touch interface is great, it still needs to have physical buttons with physical feedback. No buttons = limited gaming potential.
Without forgetting one huge problem, we come to the biggest problem of all – PRICE. The starting price is $499 USD. That is more than a new desktop! This platform will suffer, just like the PS3 did, until it has a price cut to be a reasonable price that is affordable. The iPad is on track to have the same consumer adoption rate as the MacBook Air (while I don’t have numbers regarding this, many Mac enthusiasts that I know thought the device was a flop). You cannot charge $500 for a piece of hardware that doesn’t do that much and expect a huge adoption rate.
Lastly, we cannot forget the thing that I really cannot understand most of all – the lack of innovation in the device. What is the iPad really? It is an oversized iPod Touch. I think the only innovation is that it will be able to connect to the internet anywhere with AT&T – but that is not anything new. There are no new hardware innovations that will allow developers to create new interesting new interfaces. When the iPhone/iPod Touch came out at least the accelerometer and the multi-touch screen was new, now it is old and dull. In reality the iPad is nothing more than an oversized, overpriced, iPod Touch.
Tags: apple, Development, game development, Games, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, mac
Heavy Rain
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
Heavy Rain is coming out tomorrow, but for those of you who aren’t quite sure if they’re going to like the game there is a demo available on PSN.
I took a look at the demo and it is definetly an amazing looking game, without question. Additionally, the gameplay is definetly unique and is a nice innovation. It looks like this could be a very interesting game and could be a candidate for best new IP of 2010.
Tags: game, Heavy Rain, ps3, psn, Release
NUnit x64/x86 Problems
Posted by Mike | Filed under Programming
Well I found a rather odd problem with NUnit as I was playing with it today. It seems that by default, the NUnit files are all built with the “Any CPU” setting. This means that if you are on a x64 system, the default is x64, and if you’re on a x86 its x86. This will cause problems if the settings don’t match your project settings. The error I kept receiving was:
could not load file or assembly “INSERT NAME HERE”. The tool exception tool was useless, and it too me forever to figure this one out. The only way I found it is because there is an explicit nunit*-x86 version of all the programs, I used that and after it worked I did some googling and found out why. Anyways, hopefully this is helpful to someone out there
Tags: NUnit, TDD, Unit Test, Unit Testing, x64, x86
Kiva
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary
I came upon this interesting site, called Kiva. This is an organization dedicated to helping disadvantaged individuals. But this is not exclusively a charity, but allows you to help people help themselves. This site allows you to be an investor in poor entrepeneurs, and only a little bit at a time. Take a look at this site for more information.
Tags: charity, Entrepeneurs, Kiva, microfinance, microfinancing
South Australia Censorship
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary
While South Australia has recently been the subject of a heated discussion regarding mature rated games, it is now subject of a different type of problem – censorship. This news, coming via Gamepolitics, indicates that any person living in South Australia is required to publish their real name along side their comments or posts regarding anything about the upcoming election. Not only is this law repressive, but it is potentially dangerous for anyone expressing anything seeming like a radical opinion online. The internet is supposed to be a free and open forum to express any opinion, but this law makes it not. While South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson said that the law would be repealed after the election on March 20th, he also indicated that the law would not be enforced either (additional information on the law is available via the Gamepolitics link).
Tags: Australia, Censorship, Elections, Michael Atkinson
Sony’s The Tester
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
A little while back I heard something about this, but it seems that Sony is actually putting on the ultimate gaming competition… and the prize? You get to be a tester for Playstation games. Wow, what a punishment… I mean prize. The thing is, that game testing is very tedious and sometimes boring work. You have to play the same levels hundreds of times. Who ever wins, I hope they do a follow up a few months (or even weeks) after they start their new job, I’d be curious to see a kind of before and after.
Tags: game development, Playstation, sony, Tester
BadImageFormatException in C#
Posted by Mike | Filed under Uncategorized
Googling something can be extremely helpful sometimes and other times it can be problematic. Hopefully this will help people solve the error for BadImageFormatException. I had a valid image, and the DLL was correct, it worked on one system but not the other. The one thing that I never thought about is that one system (the one which the DLL worked) was an x86 Windows installation, and the version that didn’t work was x64 Windows. By default, for all C# projects, it automatically makes the projects compile for “Any CPU” and it was defaulting to x64. Because the DLL was built for x84, it was throwing a BadImageFormatException
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