Rock Band not just a game but a platform for music

In general, I don’t like the full on publication of interviews. Call it my journalism brainwashing telling me the reporter has to cull the good quotes from the interview. OXM’s interview with Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, actually has some rather enlightening dialog on what Harmonix really wants to achieve with Rock Band. (Found through 1up.com)

Among the many exciting things Rigopulos has to say, the most interesting for me was his vision of how we’re going to experience music in the near future.

In 3 to 5 years people are going to expect to be able to play with music as the normal way that they experience music that they love. If you have a favorite band that releases a new album, sure you’ll buy the CD but you’ll also want to go onto the Rock Band server the game levels based on those 15 new songs to experience them as an active participant in the music-making. But this is how people are going to come to expect to experience the music that they love.

He later said of music distribution through Rock Band:

In the same way that MTV has promoted artists through the video medium on their channels, we actually see Rock Band as a way to break and promote new artists to the audience of people that are playing the game. So that’s definitely something that’s part of our plans.

It’s nice to know that my thoughts on how to best utilize Guitar Hero turned out to be what they wanted to do all along.

Also exciting are plans to be able to export your character onto the Rock Band Web site and convert that into different kinds of merchandise, from t-shirts to bumper stickers. Figurines are mentioned by both OXM and 1up, but I don’t see it in the interview.

So, to get Rock Band or to not get Rock Band? That’s a lot of money to drop on one game, but if Rigopulos’ vision comes true it will be the future of music content delivery anyway.

Kmart selling PS3 for $319 with coupon

Kmart is turning into a gamer’s paradise by selling Playstation 3’s for the low price of $319 with a 20% off coupon you can print out. The coupon is good from Nov. 11 - Nov. 17 and Nov. 18 - Nov. 21. No idea is the coupon is good for Xbox 360 or the Wii but reading the fine print it says nothing about game systems.

Various consumer coupon websites have reported that the above coupon works at select Kmart stores valid this week only (Nov. 11 - Nov. 17). No word if the coupon is valid for Wii or Xbox 360 purchases.

Regardless, prospective PS3 owners are encouraged to take advantage of this deal while they can. Enlarge the above image, print, and check with your local Kmart store to pick up a PS3 for a cool $319 before tax. Go on — get out of here. Shoo.

[Source Gamepro.com]

R2-D2’s Ultimate Disgrace as a Soy Sauce Dispenser

More of my childhood icons get remade and some butchered Speed Racer (Movie Coming soon), Underdog Movie (if you call it that, I call it a crap festival), Transformers (Good Movie but screwed the story line) and G.I. Joe (Movie Coming soon). Now they have really done it, this is the last straw! R2-D2 is now reduced to serving as a soy “source” bottle. Dam You George Lucas and your endless quest to rule the world!

ATARI Stops Game Development

Atari CEO has resigned as the ailing publisher announces that they’ve ceased any game development. They will still publish titles apparently. Atari is only trying to put a positive spin on a really bad deal for us all.

Amidst concerns about the company’s lack of funds and ability to continue its business, Atari officials announced today that the publisher will “re-focus its operations on publishing and distribution in North America, completing its withdrawal from the production business.”

According to the release, Atari’s operations going forward “will involve title acquisition, sales and marketing, and physical distribution of products from [Infogrames] IESA, its 51% shareholder, and other selected partners.”

Atari has agreed in principle to terminate its Production Services Agreement with IESA in the near future. The company is planning to transfer certain employees and contract other staff on a project basis for a limited period of time. Unfortunately for Atari’s employees, this restructuring initiative will also reduce the company’s current workforce “in order to re-align the Company’s cost structure with its on-going business base.”

Along with the withdrawal from production, Atari CEO David Pierce has also announced his resignation. Curtis G. Solsvig III, Chief Restructuring Officer, has been appointed interim CEO and will assume Pierce’s responsibilities for now. Atari said that an executive search for a new CEO has already been started.

Wii still leading consoles, but for how long?

Video Game Chartz has released the hardware sales chart for America for the week ending Nov. 10, and once again Nintendo’s Wii is first and Sony has come in last.

The Wii came in first for the week at 192, 482, followed by the Xbox 360 at 173,895 and the DS at 142,299. Sony’s PSP came in a distant fourth at 75, 954 and the Playstation 3 came in an even more distant fifth at 63, 788.

All three next-gen consoles saw a jump in sales, though: 31 percent for the Wii, 25 percent for the Xbox 360 and 15 percent for the PS3.

I once predicted the Wii was the future of video game consoles. I said, since the Wii changes how we play games instead of just how we view them, it would be able to over take the Xbox 360 and PS3, which certainly go farther in terms of hardware power but don’t fundamentally do anything different than the original Playstation.

I think a lot of the industry on the console production side is focused on better hardware power for consoles because that’s what has worked before. If you look at the jumps from system to system, what what you notice most in the slide show is the change in detail, from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit and the era of the Playstation, which by my estimation only ended with this generation. The real fundamental change, though, is the change in gameplay.

Indeed, much of Nintendo’s success comes from seeing where the next change in how we play games is going to come from. Likewise, their failure comes from not seeing these jumps. Sony won the last generation because all the other companies that got involved, Nintendo, Microsoft and to some extent Sega, were content to try to do more of the same, and the Playstation 2 just did it better, either because it was more powerful or more deeply embedded. If Nintendo, or anyone else for that matter, had figured out a new way to play games we probably wouldn’t have seen the Playstations dominate as heavily as they did, if they would have dominated at all.

Mario’s adventures across the consoles is a perfect example. Super Mario Bros. defined platforming in the 8-bit era. The next great change you notice is Super Mario 64 and the jump to 3D, which defined the 3D platforming genre. Where Mario failed most is Super Mario Sunshine, which didn’t do anything fundamentally different from Super Mario 64. It may be too soon to call Super Mario Galaxy yet another redefinition of platforming from a historical perspective, but that hasn’t stopped reviewers from doing so.

What really amazes me, however, is the public’s almost unquestioning acceptance of the Wii’s new terms of playing games. Usually people are very slow to accept change. Even though most of the games on the Wii are epic fail at fully utilizing the consoles innovations, the exceptions being first-party games, the console continues to sell out the day stores receive new shipments. Perhaps the public was already thirsty for something new after a prettier version of more of the same from last generation, even if the new doesn’t exactly work perfectly?

The real test for the Wii now is whether Nintendo will continue to string us along from one exceptional first-party game to the next, a third-party company will step in and finally get the motion controls as perfect as Nintendo does so the system can really show what it can do or the Wii slowly fades away into obscurity, something that could’ve been a revolutionary turning point in how we play games but turned into little more than a novelty for most people.

If nothing else, the Wii has shown there is serious money to be made in doing something differently. Hopefully console makers, and developers even more so, will take note.

“Xbox Originals” added to 360 dashboard update

Microsoft has confirmed that classic Xbox games such as Halo, Psychonauts, Fable and Burnout 3 would be available for about 1200 points on Xbox Live Marketplace starting with the Dec. 4 dashboard update, next-gen.biz reported Tuesday. It is unclear from the post whether some of the games Microsoft has confirmed to be released via these “Xbox Originals,” including Psychonauts and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, would be available with the update. Microsoft also said they’re trying to release as much of the original Xbox catalog as possible to the Marketplace.

“This new service will launch with an array of blockbuster titles spanning the most popular genres from action-adventure to classic role-playing games,” reads Microsoft’s statement.

Also in the update will be a movies-on-demand service for Europe similar to the one already available for U.S. gamers. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed when the service will begin, but next-gen.biz said users will download the movie to their hard drive and then have 14 days to watch the movie before it is automatically deleted. One they’ve begun watching, they have 24 hours to finish.

Championship Gaming Series World Finals

The details on the world finals for the first season of the Championship Gaming Series, sponsored by DirecTV have been announced today. The finals will take place Dec. 6-14 at the Sony Studios in Los Angeles with 12 teams battling for a total of $1 million with $500,000 of that money going to the world champion team. Counter-Strike Source, FIFA 07, Dead or Alive 4 and Project Gotham Racing 3 are the tournament’s official games. In addition a World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade 2v2 tournament will also be held for a top prize of $30,000.

CGS World Final prize distribution is as follows:

TEAM WORLD FINAL
1st Place $500,000
2nd Place $150,000
3rd-4th Place $70,000
5th-8th Place $30,000
9th-12th Place $15,000
MVP $25,000

INDIVIDUAL WORLD FINAL
1st Place DOA4 (men’s) $5,000
1st Place DOA4 (women’s) $5,000
1st Place PGR3 $5,000 (x2) CORRECTED
1st Place FIFA 2007 $5,000
1st Place CS:S $5,000 (x5)

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: BURNING CRUSADE ARENA 2V2 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
1st Place $15,000 (x2)

Grand Total Prize Purse $1,075,000

CGS WORLD FINAL EVENT SCHEDULE IS AS FOLLOWS:
December 6: CGS World Final press conference
December 6: First round day 1
December 7: First round day 2
December 8: WoW:BC 2v2 CGS Championship (Competition will be webcast on thecgs.com)
December 8: Individual World Final (Competition will be webcast on thecgs.com)
December 10: Quarterfinals day 1
December 11: Quarterfinals day 2
December 13: Semifinals
December 14: Final

The CGS official teams participating in the World Final are as follows:

Berlin Allianz
Birmingham Salvo
Carolina Core
Chicago Chimera
London Mint
Mexico City Furia
Rio Sinistro
Seoul Jinhwa
Singapore Sword
Stockholm Magnetik
Sydney Underground
Wuhan Dragon

Offical Portal Plush Weighted Companion Cube

 

This week’s Steam announced the new Orange Box SDK along with plans for their upcoming plush Weighted Companion Cube. Now I know what I want for Christmas.

We remind you that the Weighted Companion Cube won’t talk back, and if it does, please ignore its advice. Thank you.

Mario left me a voicemail

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(Video found through Kotaku)

Those who pre-ordered Super Mario Galaxy got a nice surprise tonight. Instead of the usual message saying that your pre-order would be available the next day, some got a message from Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario! Martinet quickly starts talking as Mario and confirms the availability of your pre-order. He also describes how awesome the game is and the general synopsis of the story. I think my favorite part is when he says Princess Peach makes his heart go “badda bing badda boom.”

What an awesome little treat for loyal Nintendo fans to get a message from Mario. Whoever thought of this is definitely going to get a hefty bonus.

Mass Effect best game ever?

That’s a basically what The Official Xbox Magazine is saying, according to a scan of the holiday issue at N4G.com. Before giving the game a perfect 10, the reviwer, Paul Curthoys, said:

Still, that’s what’s remarkable about Mass Effect. If you separated the gameplay from the story, you could crap on the gameplay for a handful of different things. But in this game, story and gameplay are relentlessly intertwined, and the impact of that is so powerful that any irritation you feel is washed clean away.

More after the jump.

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