Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

Monday, October 05, 2009

Tokyo Game Show 2009

Crap in a kolache, I totally blew past The Tokyo Game Show, which is normally a pretty important gamer milestone (largely consumer, though there are a couple of biz-dev-ish days that precede the bulk of the show).

I blame it on GDC Austin, and a wealth of games coming out as the holiday season groans to life (Halo ODST, Bowser's Inside Story, Scribblenauts, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and L4D DLC) -- all of which I'm playing in rotation.

But for what it's worth, despite fewer games and lower attendance at this year's show, here are a handful of things from the event that floated my boat:

Natal buy-in -- Nay say as you will about motion controllers (I won't), but the train has left the station, and Microsoft for one is truly making it core to their business (I don't yet feel quite the same about Sony's offering, which doesn't even have a name yet). To add weight to the tech, at TGS Microsoft paraded 7 big-gun Japanese developers who are supposedly bought into Natal. This included Capcom's head of R&D Keiji Inafune (Dead Rising); Namco Bandai's GM Yozo Sakagami; Tecmo's Keisuke Kikuchi (Rygar); Kojima Productions's Kenichiro Imaizumi (Metal Gear Solid 4); Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi (Monkey Ball); FromSoftware's Masanori Takeuchi (Ninja Blade); and Konami's Naoki Maeda.
Epic Games expands to Japan -- Sure, it's largely a support organization, but there's now way it's going to stay that way. And with top game dev talent in-country (and with recent, hefty, in-country game dev layoffs), the makers of the Unreal Engine are well positioned to make use of ground forces to directly address local game tastes, and conceivably work more closely with Japanese-HQed Sony and Nintendo.
Nintendo Wii price drop -- I'm not sure what I found more interesting -- Nintendo's price drop of the Wii to $199, or their brilliant timing of making the announcement during Sony's TGS press conference (which felt a bit lackluster anyway, and really lost live-blogging steam once their competitor's price drop was announced).
Square-Enix and billing innovation -- This was interesting, and got poo-pooed by a lot of gamers. Since I'm a financial services tech guy who moved into the game industry, and spent years in my previous life trying to push gaming payment solutions (I was told, "there's no money in that"; so I left), it's good to see a high-profile company raise awareness of the infrastructure innovations that must happen for games to evolve -- it's not just about hardware and game design innovation.
Universal video capture for 360 games? -- This one slipped a bit under the radar, but, allegedly, a gamer made a sideways comment about not building vid capture functionality into their game -- "... why work on something that the platform holder is already developing".

Video capture, by itself, doesn't really float my boat (what is with me and boats, lately?) -- but theater capture (a la Halo 3) does. Why? Because this kind of capture captures (erm) the game data -- not just a video feed of the game being played. This lets you do all sorts of wicked cool things like play the scene over and over from multiple angles, from multiple cameras, speeding up and slowing down motion, etc., with a negligible memory footprint (especially when compared to raw video).

Make that available in the Xbox XDKs for developers, and not only do you have cool functionality for gamers, but really useful stuff for game devs as they debug, test, and iterate on polishing their titles for gamers. This is tech on which to keep an eye.
Games -- Hey, I'm a gamer, so even if things weren't new, per se, I get stoked for new content for titles I like. For me, this included Snoopy Flying Ace (Snoopy versus the Red Baron on XBLA); Ni no Kuni (NDS RPG from Level-5 Studio (freaking) Ghibli); Dead Rising 2 (zombie games are not "old and busted"); Crackdown 2 (sequel to one of the most underrated games evahr); Alan Wake (I will not lose faith in this game); New Super Mario Bros. (co-op Wii franchise goodness); L4D2 (what is with this franchise? There are so many things that should make this not work, and I. Can't. Get. Enough.); and Dante's Inferno (a classic-made game; I hope it's success signals a Watership Down RTS).

Sorry for you letting you down on the real-time updates, Gaming Faithful. Still friends?

Anyway, get more retcon coverage from people here, here, and obviously here.

(And apologies to any folks in the kolache industry.)

Labels: events, TGS, TGS09

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Tokyo Game Show 2008

Overview:
The Tokyo Game Show is in full swing, and other than putting some links over on the left to TGS tags or sections of industry sites (IGN, Joystiq, and Kotaku*), I haven't been able to write much -- though I've been keeping up.

So what's the big news at TGS?

Depends what you like.

If you're of a certain type, maybe it's all about the TGS "companions" and their "outfits".

I'm not writing to your type. Ever.

Industry Happenings:
From a lightweightish touchpoint of the industry perspective, the platform representation is a bit interesting. Not definitive by any means, but the percentage of titles per platform at TGS08 is an interesting indicator of commercial interest (and therefore, addressable market) for those platforms. Obviously, the data slightly skewed due to the regional (and, therefore, regional consumer interest) nature of show.

Attendance is down around 11,000 from last year (continuing a downward trend), probably due to Nintendo's continued absence, and the in-betweenness of big shipping titles and not-yet-playable titles, and/or Microsoft as one of the big publishers still not being the Japan draw that Sony is (or Nintendo would be, if they deigned to show).

But ignoring jaded gaming press's various wailing's about "not much happening" at TGS this year, for gamers who still love games, there's some good stuff, and Saturday's public attendance (from picts) at least looks respectable.

Microsoft:
If you're an Xbox 360 fan, there was a lot of good noise on that front. Besides the formal announcement the New Xbox Experience (NXE) coming November 19th, (confirming what we already knew, based on an XBL ad), it sounds like the monolothic, twice-a-year Xbox dashboard updates of the past may give way to more fleet-of-foot updates, which as a gamer, program and former development manager, makes me happy. Plus, the videos of the new dashboard in use is pretty exciting.

And the laggard "Bringing it Home" downloadable content finally showed up (anyone else find it funny that Xbox Live's Major Nelson seemed surprised by the content?). Oh, but good luck finding it in one place on your Xbox, since I have yet to find the TGS08 button there, what with all of the "Shocktober", Quantum of Solace, Gears of War 2, and other noise on the dashboard. (UPDATED: Turns out I got to it by going to Marketplace --> Spotlight --> Games --> Tokyo Game Show 2008 (37 slots down from the top? Seriously?).)

If you're more on the 360 fanboy side, you should take glee in Microsoft's further eroding of the Sony exclusives by taking Tekken 6 (out next year), adding to the usurped Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy franchises.

Oh, and Halo junkies? Bungie finally got to make their late- and- undercut announcement of Halo: Recon, a boxed-title expansion pack for Halo 3, that will be a prequel (single player campaign and new multiplayer maps and modes), featuring a playable Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) marine -- a bad-ass looking character I've been waiting (and I'm pretty sure I've been promised I'd be able) to play since Halo 2. The trailer shows off the repeat top-notch, triple-A, traylor madd skilz we've seen in past Halo universe trailers. Some of the cool stuff is pretty subtle (which makes it cooler).

Of similar interest is the Halo Wars RTS, and I'm hoping it gets the love it needs from Microsoft and Ensemble, given the former's recent shuttering of the latter.

Public service announcement: I still want Otogi 3, but From Software's Ninja Blade will likely fill the gap until someone comes to their senses and makes that other thing happen.

And on the free- publicity- better- than- your- own- game- PR- could- do front, I'm not sure Microsoft could get better than Kotaku calling Banjo Kazooie "More Like LEGO Grand Theft Auto".

Sony:
Sony folks? Were you bummed like I was that anticipated title White Knight Chronicles -- a game showing up this year -- wasn't playable on the show floor, and its session was a PowerPoint presentation? Hey, at least 4-player co-op news snuck out.

But the Resistence 2 (PS3) and Resistence: Retribution (PSP) interconnectivity sounds nifty (actually the whole "PSP Plus" tie between the PSP and PS3 (including DualShock functionality) feels cool, and I hope devs exploit it).

I'm watching to see if LittleBigPlanet becomes the atypical console mover I think it could be. But the brilliance of leveraging Sony's IP as Sackboys (Kratos from God of War, Nariko from Heavenly Sword, "Old Snake" from Metal Gear Solid 4, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII), while kind of a "duh" move, showcases the kind of tactical marketing savvy I like to see. Now, if they could only do the same thing with their video and music catalogs on PSN...

Multiplatform:
On the multiplatform front, Resident Evil 5 is looking grr-eat, and the co-op deets (I'm a co-op bigot) make me happy.

Konami's going to get us a new Xbox 360 and PS3 Castlevania, but other details or neigh non-existent.

Namco Bandai's Afro Samurai? Looks wicked sweet.

And, no, Square Enix didn't announce a date for Final Fantasy XIII. [Sigh]

And this Street Fighter IV trailer? Art. Again. I want the game to look like the ink or watercolors or sand post-processing effect. Please?

Changing Business Models:
On the "changing business models front", Microsoft's NXE goes a long way in that direction, because it will give better access to the wealth of content that's made the 360 a victim of its own success, and it'll be an interesting experience in the "core, non-core, social interaction" realm (a la the avatars and LIVE Party). Sony making all first-party PSP titles downloadable is a very cool, moving- into- the- digital- distro move, and Level 5's surprising ROID digital distro (Steam?) competitor gets props for super sexy packaging, and console- transformer- red- herring tease (but they don't have any PC or mobile games in their portfolio, do they? Hmm.).

Philosophy:
As a left-field kind of thing, I really like what I think is an important industry statement from Peter Molyneux (Fable II):

"More and more we are saying these ones here are core games and these one here are casual games. Actually I think that is an incredibly divisive thing and if we're not careful the amount of attention we put into these core games will get less and less because they are so expensive to make."

Show Floor:
Here's an embed of what the Tokyo Game Show floor must be kind of like, from blip.tv / Kotaku (who, despite my rant below, I think are probably fine folks).

More as I think about it. Maybe.

* (What is up with Kotaku? Much as I like those guys, why the hell do I have to dig through so many fractured tags to get all of my TGS info? ("tokyo game show 2008"? "TGS08"? "Lets TGS" [sic]? WTF? Oh, and there's TGS content not tagged. Nice.)

Labels: announcements, companies, console updates, events, Microsoft, PC, PlayStation3, ramblings, Sony, TGS, TGS08, Xbox 360

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Capcom TGS rumors

In an earlier Tokyo Game Show post, I said, "I'm hoping for some good stuff from Capcom".

While some good stuff did come out from them this week (moving Capcom franchises to mobile handsets, Omega Five for XBLA, three new PS2/PSP games), I should clarify what I want:

Dead Rising 2. And more original IP (a la Dead Rising and Lost Planet).

Fortunately, Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft caught up with former Dead Rising creator/producer (and now Capcom exec) Keiji Inafune, who provided more info (if not short-term hope on DR2).

While Inafune said he does "really want to do Dead Rising 2. It's just still hard to get games for the Western market approved." and unfortunately, the "original team has been split up and is working on different projects".

More encouraging on the new IP side, though, there's this brief exchange between Ashcraft and Inafune:

Ashcraft: Capcom has been cranking about a lot new IPs like Dead Rising, though — not just relying on sequels.
Inafune: And there are a lot more new titles coming. A lot more.

Awesome. More new ideas, please. You guys tend to rock at those.

Labels: companies, rumors, TGS

Thursday, September 20, 2007

TGS coolidge so far

UPDATED: Added Soul Calibur IV video, link to Xbox.com's "Bringing it Home", and more info on Lost Odyssey.

OK, I'm not really able to stay away from game happenings, even while I'm trying to avoid Halo 3 spoilers.

Cool / interesting stuff is coming out of the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), and I'm pretty stoked.

PS3 gets rumble -- I feel bad Sony's thunder was stolen by a third-party partner, but they did get to announce the DualShock3 at TGS -- so Sony now has Sixaxis (yawn) and rumble. Sweetness. (List of supported current and upcoming games is here.)

Seaman 2 -- Stop giggling. Turns out they're making a Seaman 2 that is weirder than the first game, so it'll probably never see US (or maybe even EU) shores (how did the first game ever make it stateside?).

MetaPlace announcement -- Wunderkind Raph Koster's MetaPlace "open MMO platform" made its official debut at TGS. Official after winning in the TechCrunch40 conference and being chatted up at the Austin Game Developers Conference. But official. Again. (This is part of what motivated me to share about my AnthropoMMO(TM) idea.)

Soul Calibur IV -- One of my favorite franchises has a new, less-jiggly trailer (thank goodness)! The trailer has cutscene and gameplay footage, and shows tastes of the melodramatic (but for me, fun), mythos, and the WTF one-liners (love those). The video's also downloadable via Xbox Live as part of Microsoft's "Bringing it Home" effort.

Metal Gear Solid 4 -- Gameplay videos have finally shown up, and I'm hoping the bandwidth hogging lets up so I can watch the officially released vids to get a sense of the non-cut-scene quality. I am hearing that even folks who hate MGS (probably the same folks who dislike Splinter Cell) are loving it.

Lost Odyssey -- A playable version of the game is being shown at TGS. I really hope gameplay vids come out this week. Its from Hironobu Sakaguchi, fer crying out loud. Another nugget on the game? It'll be on four discs. Yeah, first Blue Dragon on two DVDs, and now L.O. on four. I wish Microsoft would rethink the non - high - capacity format thing, and the "don't - require - the - hard - drive" thing (but not in the "memory - management - poor - 5GB - per - PS3 - game" way). But, streaming is allegedly better off of the DVD-9 format compared to first- and second-gen Blu-ray streaming, so there is that.
2007 Game Awards -- Part of TGS are the Japan Game Awards. What's interesting is that the 360, despite sucking hardcore in the Land of the Rising Sun, picked up the "Global Award: Japanese Product" for Dead Rising and the "Global Award: Foreign Product" for Gears of War.
PSP/PS3 neatness --Looks like updates to your PSP and PS3 are going to lead to some coolness. Things like turning your PS3 on or off when you're somewhere else with your PSP, using your PSP as a rear-view mirror for Formula 1 Racing, using your PSPs as PS3 controllers (Why? If you feel that extra analog stick is annoying?), and (eventually) you'll be able to play the PSPs and one PS3. That's all pretty cool.
Folding @ home -- With the addition of the PS3 in the network, the project recently achieved the "petraflop" -- a quadrillion floating point operations per second. That's the equivalent of every person in the world (at the same time) doing 75,000 calculations in a second. That's cool because of its gaming connection, but it's cooler to me for the bigger application of successful (and useful) grid computing (whatever happened to Butterfly after the IBM acquisition).

There's more coming (in particular, I'm hoping for good some stuff from Capcom), but this stuff rose to the top for me so far.

Labels: events, TGS