the hd era

Dead Rising: A Trope Down Memory Lane

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

In 1985, Shigeru Miyamoto came to down with a truckload of tropes, and they were so wonderful, they did such a great job at filling the creative vacuum of the time, that it took two decades for people to notice the limits to their application. Now, step by step, we’re kind of getting back our perspective. Under Satoru Iwata’s oversight, Nintendo – so long, so much to blame for the entrenchment – has painted a huge “EXIT?” sign in the air, with a wave and a sketch. Valve has suggested new ways to design and distribute software. Microsoft and Nintendo have tinkered with how videogames might fit into our busy, important lives. Blog culture is helping aging gamers to explore their need for games to enrich their lives, rather than just wile them away. And perhaps most importantly, the breach between the Japanese and Western schools of design is finally, rapidly closing.

( Continue reading at Game Career Guide )

Note for the balconies

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I’m just going to say this here for posterity, so I can link back to it in a few years.

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are going to bomb, people. Not as badly as UMD, though that should give you an idea what we’re dealing with. One or both will hobble on for a while as a high-end videophile format; there’s a hole to fill, now that laserdisc’s gone away. As a mass format, though, DVD’s not budging. Not so long as most people don’t even know if they’re watching a TV show in the right aspect ratio, and not so long as there’s nothing wrong with DVD.

People change their ways when they’ve damn good reason to, and not a moment before. Plain old DVD is going to stick around until it’s too unwieldy to maintain any longer — if for no other reason than that there’s too much personal and architectural investment in the format to arbitrarily pick up and switch to something that’s exactly the same except that guy you know who will scream at you for not hooking up your stereo correctly insists it’s somehow better.

For there to be a successor to a format as established and perfect, for its part, as DVD it will have to offer something so significantly different and so obviously better in just about every aspect of convenience, simplicity, and quality, that there is no comparison between the two. You create something that’s meant to be compared, and you’ve lost before you’ve begun — however nice your product in its own right. Nobody cares! At least, nobody outside the geek ghetto — and that’s the whole issue, in a nutshell.

In conclusion, Sony is fucked.

Xbox 360 Launch Analysis

  • Reading time:9 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published in some form by Next Generation. Doesn’t seem to be up anymore, and I don’t remember if anything was changed.

Xbox marketing chief Peter Moore has done his job well enough, declaring the 360 launch catalog the “best lineup in history”. Of course, most people see through at least this level of hubris. Just for fun, though, let’s take a stroll through the lineup and see just how it adds together.

A quick glance will show four main categories of software: new games actually developed with the hardware in mind; pared-down PC ports; spruced-up console ports; and the prettiest versions of this year’s disposable sports games.