The Full Circle: 360 News Report 10.31.08
Posted by Joe Roche on 10.31.2008
It's a Halloween edition of The Full Circle full of treats for the 360 fan in all you. This week Joe Roche is talking about a Mirror's Edge demo that is available a week early, Netflix in HD, Avatar's being more expensive then you thought, Fable II codes being emailed around, and strong sales figures abroad. All of that plus some reader rants, and we close out the week talking about huge advertising budgets for games that simply don't need them. It's all inside The Full Circle.
We approach the end of another great week in gaming I hope you've all had a chance to catch your breath. Coming off the heels of Fable II I'm sure many of you have now embraced Fallout 3, but with Gears of War 2 on the horizon there is no rest for the weary. Being right in the middle of a huge rush of good games being released should seemingly make writing this column easier but for whatever reason there has been little interesting news making the rounds this past week. I guess the old adage that no news is good news holds true in this instance as you'll see when we actually get into the column, but first a little home front update.
- The NBA regular season tipped off on Tuesday with the 17th Championship banner going up to the rafters in the TD Banknorth Garden and what a night that was. Any sports fan will agree that there are certain players that they grow up with rooting for and when they finally achieve their goal it's a great moment, for me Paul Pierce is one of those players. I am a lifelong Celtics fan and for his entire career Pierce has played on horrible teams, being written off and forgotten about all the while playing each night under the immense weight of being a Boston Celtic. To see him Tuesday night openly crying as he was handed the NBA Championship trophy from John Havlicek is a moment that I will not soon forget.
- On the gaming front while everyone else was enjoying Fallout 3 I spent the week playing Saints Row 2 getting ready for my 411mania review of the game. I don't want to give away anything that will wind up in the review but there is nothing that ruins a good game quicker then freezing, a problem that unfortunately plagues this game. I also don't understand why a game would enable auto save but not save between side missions – again these are nitpick problems but expect a more indepth review as soon as I can wrap up Saints Row 2.
- Final note as my next column will not go up until Friday, November 7th I want to implore you all not to sit at home playing Fallout 3 on Tuesday. I don't care if you head to the polls and vote Libertarian, Green Party, Independent, Republican or Democrat as long as you have the conviction to make a choice. George Carlin once said that the fact that he didn't vote gave him the right to complain about the guy who won, a statement I simply don't agree with. If you are capable then vote, I'd hate to live in a world where WWE Cyber Sunday did better business then the United States Presidential Election. You have a chance to be a part of history, whether your want to vote for McCain or Obama this is a pretty important election and I hope you take the ten minutes to cast your ballot.
Alright with that out of the way let's wrap the week up right, by going around The Full Circle.
Activision Drops the Cymbal
I've written in this column at length about how disappointing it is when a game ships incomplete, or flawed. To me racing to meet a deadline and sticking people with a broken product is simply unacceptable, which is why Activision deserves to be taken to task for shipping Guitar Hero: World Tour with peripherals that simply put – do not work. If you are one of the many people who ordered GH: World Tour with the full band kit then you may have noticed a drastic problem with the drum kit, well that's because Activision shipped a broken kit and you got stuck with it for a hefty price tag of a little less then $200.
According to the official statement from Activision: "We have learned that certain drum kit controllers manufactured for Guitar Hero World Tour have sensitivity issues" claiming that it's an "isolated manufacturing issue" that occurred in the early manufacturing stages of production. A Neversoft spokesperson has confirmed that a drum kit tuning kit will be available as Windows PC downloadable content (I'm a PC!) that will allow you to calibrate your drum kit/useless paper weight.
Surprise: Avatar Store coming in Spring
In what must come as a complete surprise to some, Microsoft has announced that sometime in the spring they will be launching an avatar store where you can purchase and download additional customization options for your avatar. This story comes on the heels of Microsoft telling us that some of the content they had hoped to have ready for the November launch of the NXE would be delayed until Spring as well, and comes as a shock to absolutely nobody. As a matter of fact I'm pretty sure the minute Microsoft started showing their avatars everyone and their mother knew this meant an avatar store with clothes to purchase. You can't blame Microsoft for trying, but when I see someone's avatar rocking a Ramone's tee shirt that they bought for 50 MS points I might have to delete them from my friends list.
Microsoft Offers Parents Redo
As we head into the holiday season parents will be flocking to the mall to buy all those toys that Little Jimmy put on his list, one of which is sure to be a new Xbox 360 or at least that's what needs to be true for my analogy to work. However, many people may be lured into purchasing the almost completely useless Arcade unit and not realize what a waste of time and space they have just unleashed in their household until it's too late. In response to this very real possibility Microsoft seems set to release a 60GB HDD pack that according to Gamestop and a leaked Circuit City flyer will come bundled with 3 months of Xbox Live free, a wired headset, and an Ethernet cable all for the not low, low price of $99. Of course all this really comes out to is you paying the same price as you would have paid if you just bought the Xbox 360 Pro in the first place, but I guess you need to take some lumps to learn anything these days. Just remember, friends don't let friends buy the Xbox 360 Arcade.
Run and Jump Now!
If you're reading this on Friday morning like a good boy then I ask that you please fire up the 360 and download the demo for Mirror's Edge. Yes I know that it was slated for a November 6th release but someone, somewhere thought of giving us kindly 360 owners a Halloween treat and that baby is ready to roll today. The demo will include the entire prologue, a tutorial, and a chunk of the single player campaign. Also if you pre-ordered the game you will be able to use your code to unlock the demo time trial mode. So as soon as you finish reading this column you will finally be able to embrace that passion of yours – being a messenger.
Japanese Numbers Still Strong
It has been six straight weeks now that the Xbox 360 has sat comfortably in fourth place on the console sales charts in Japan, maintaining a steady lead over the PS3 which continued to drop this past week. The 360 held steady selling 7,856 units last week which is almost identical to the number they moved in the previous week. Meanwhile the PS3 dove 17.60% to a Microsoft like 1,009 consoles sold in the last seven days. Normally I wouldn't care much about these numbers as it has only been six weeks and lets face it – moving less then 8,000 units in a week isn't really something to write home about when the Wii is selling about four times that number. However, on the horizon Microsoft still has The Last Remnant and the timed exclusive release of Star Ocean 4 which leads me to believe that the 360 is primed to regain a lot of the ground it lose in the foreign market to Sony by simply ignoring them for the last two years.
High Def Netflix
Well here is a surprising bit of news. According to Engadget, Microsft and Netflix are prepared to announce that Xbox Live gold members will have access to streaming HD movies from Netflix when the service launches on November 19th. The reason I claim this is surprising is because HD streaming is not current available to Netflix users with their "Watch Instantly" portal, Roku hardware, or Samsung and LG's Netflix enabled Blu Ray players. According to the people who know things there will be 300 HD movies set to stream on launch day, so you might want to clear your calendar.
Claim Fable II Codes
If you purchased Fable II Collectors Edition then you have probably already know this, but if somehow you missed it – those missing DLC codes can now be yours. To claim your Fable II DLC codes simply head on over to Xbox.com support page and enter your Windows Live ID. Once you fill out that information you will be emailed the codes within 5 business days. Of course you should probably head over and do that because the offer is only good until December 31st. I am usually pretty hard on companies for rushing product, or sending out defective units (cough:Activision:cough), but this one really isn't Lionhead's fault. I am sure that they don't shrink wrap all their own product, but somewhere down the line the CE packages got screwed up and I guess this is the best/only way they could think to fix the problem.
Reader Rants
RavenTazzECW - I think I fall into a similar pattern with games. I have a tendency to hit a point where I just put the game down, move on to something else and have a hard time going back for awhile. This happened to me and GTAIV where I got all the way to the final mission, got aggravated with how poorly the dirt bike handles and then put the game down without going back as of now. I also agree with your assessment of sports games and why I can spend more time with them then a regular story driven game, namely that each game feels a bit different so I don't get that sense of repetition that I get by looking at the same city/character in other games.
Drew Robbins - I don't think we're alone in our fear of lengthy games, which makes me wonder why you'll often read game reviews that claim a game with "only" 20 or so hours of game play is too short. I think this is my major concern with Fallout 3 and it's hundreds of different endings.
S. Masters - Glad to hear Fable II comes highly recommended, I do believe that it's going to be my Christmas list. I've got Saints Row 2 in the console right now, with Gears 2 and then Smackdown vs Raw coming down the road so I don't anticipate much free time for Fable II until around New Years.
Matt - If you get video of you and your friends singing Dragonforce on Lips I think Microsoft might turn that into a viral marketing campaign.
David - I am waiting on a copy of Dead Space to arrive in my currently unoccupied office. I have heard good things about the game, and have high hopes for it. I shall keep you updated.
Rod Oracheski - Any truth to the rumor that you've already been given a copy of Fable III?
The Hot Button
Today's topic: Was This Necessary?
I think that as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading video game centric websites, news articles, press releases and trailers I might be living in a bubble that the "real" world doesn't operate in. I say this because there is a story on Kotaku that explains how EA spent over $10 million on advertising for Madden 09. Obviously this isn't the only game that EA spends advertising money on, hell the Dead Space trailer runs so many times per day at my house that I think I might vote for it on November 4th. The difference between Dead Space and Madden 09 is obviously though. One is a new IP that people aren't aware of; the other is the best selling sports game franchise in history, the only game in town and a cultural institution. What I'm getting at is simply – does Madden 09 really need a $10 million advertising budget?
Were people going to miss Madden if they weren't subjected to countless commercial breaks full of guys with afro's talking trash about how good they are at the game? Might my year come and go without ever stopping to think – hey why didn't EA release that football franchise this season? Might I have been able to sleep at night without watching guys I wouldn't talk to in real life playing Madden against one another in a van for ESPN?
All of these questions will go unresolved because EA does have the money to spend, and they did flood the air with Madden advertisements. I just wonder what the sales figures would have been if they have spent, say $5 million on ads instead and directed the rest of that money to a studio to create a new IP for the company. I realize that this might just be nitpicking, because we all know that EA is a monster that can easily afford the massive advertising budget that they allot to each game. It's not like these funds were redirected from somewhere else. I still saw roughly 40,000 Facebreaker commercials, and 100,000 NCAA Football 09 ads, so I don't think there is an EA studio under the umbrella who feels short changed. And there is no denying that Madden is the breadwinner in the EA fold. The game is a massive success every year, and hell this year the game was actually fun – which is a nice change of pace for the Madden series.
It also stands that EA isn't the only company spending a huge advertising budget on games that in my world, need no introduction. There is a good chance that you've seen the Fable II trailer on TV five times already today, and if you even try to get through the afternoon without seeing someone exploring the wasteland that is Fallout 3 you'll never be able to turn your TV on. Not to mention the videos that become available each afternoon on Xbox Live (thanks Epic) hyping a game that could probably have been the best selling game at release with a sixteen dollar advertising budget.
I guess when you break it down I'm not mad at the company for their advertisement budget, I'm more curious as to whether or not these ads change anything. I'm sure this is the wrong crowd to throw the question out to seeing as you are all for the most part video game fans so you're not exactly ignorant to the fact that Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2 come out next week. However, I know just as many people playing NHL 09 as I do playing Madden 09 and I'm pretty sure those two games had a much different ad reach. Some games I understand the appeal to putting ads on TV for, as I said Dead Space was a game that people outside the video game circles wouldn't have known about without the ads. But I'm not sure Madden is one of those games. I'm confident that if you ran the ads for Madden only on Sunday between 1 PM and 7 PM you'd have the same desired effect.
However, because I wrote this much I want to throw it out to you and find out whether or not advertisements actually do influence your video game habits. Have you ever seen an ad that made you think you wanted to try a game? Or even better have you ever seen an ad for a game that you didn't even know existed and picked it up?
Update [6:00 PM EST]: Well after I finished this article to be posted the story broke that EA was laying off around 600 people due to rising losses. Net losses for the quarter were up to $310 million from a loss of $195 million year on year. The job cuts will save EA $50 million, or ten more years of Madden advertisements.
You remember when people made a big deal about ripping games to their HDD? You remember that? It seems that was all for naught. Current/Older releases did not have improved loading times. With the update in hands of developers, one can hope that newer games will utilize this feature and it improves load times. What do you think?
Posted By: David (Guest) on October 31, 2008 at 12:18 AM
Several sites have already done side by side timed tests showing marked improvements. GTA IV lost 10 seconds or more on some load times.
Here's a comparison chart one of the Digital Foundry guys made from his timings - done via recording both and using the chart time: http://www.digitalfoundry.org/blogfiles/timings.gif
That's not improved?
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on October 31, 2008 at 01:27 AM
Faster load time is not a must for me. I'm always trying to do two things at once, so I can easily find something else to do while the game loads. They should have it where you can turn that off.
Posted By: TWilliams (Guest) on October 31, 2008 at 01:52 AM
I'm finally starting to love EA and they are having larger Net Losses? What the heck!
Posted By: Drew Robbins (Registered) on October 31, 2008 at 07:54 AM
How DARE you not title this article "The Ghoul Circle: 360 Boos Report with Joe Cock-Roche." It was all set up for you, and you just let it go by for strike three.
Posted By: Gillan (Guest) on October 31, 2008 at 09:55 AM
Ha! Admittedly I write this column through the week so it wasn't until last night that it even dawned on me that this was going to go up on Halloween. I really should have done more with the date -- completely dropped the ball on that one.
Posted By: Joe Roche (Guest) on October 31, 2008 at 12:28 PM
Fable III is for chumps. Dude already has Fable IV. Did you know it's on PS3 this time? Just wait a year for the BIG BLOCKBUSTER announcement.
Posted By: Derek Robbins (Guest) on October 31, 2008 at 05:03 PM
About advertising Madden 09- Coca Cola is arguably the best known brand name on the planet (Disney, McDonalds and Christianity would argue against it), and they still spend billions advertising every year. Just because you're established doesn't mean you don't have to advertise. That's the logic at work, at least.
Posted By: Mathew Sforcina (Registered) on October 31, 2008 at 08:31 PM
Concerning the Coca Cola brand -- they have competition, remember Madden is not only a highly successful game, but it's the only game in town if you're a football game fan.
Posted By: Joe Roche (Registered) on November 01, 2008 at 12:16 AM
"Concerning the Coca Cola brand -- they have competition, remember Madden is not only a highly successful game, but it's the only game in town if you're a football game fan.
Posted By: Joe Roche (Registered) on November 01, 2008 at 12:16 AM"
God knows that EA has already spent enough money for the exclusive rights to the NFL.
I wonder how Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on XBox would've done if EA had put the same amount of advertising into it.
Posted By: WadeMcG (Guest) on November 03, 2008 at 01:37 AM
But Madden 09 isn't competing for just the "Football Video Game" market. I mean, they are in some regards, but those people who want to play a football video game already know and will or will not play Madden 09.
But the marketing is to try and get the jocks/casual gamers who don't follow games to, instead of buying another bottle of booze and some DVDS, Madden 09 instead.
Madden is one of the biggest cross-over games out there, outside of the games that have become their own pop culture (Halo, Mario, WOW), and as you said, they have no compeition in the video game market. But in the market they do fight in, they got lots of it.
Plus it's more expensive to advertise where casual players are rather than hardcore ones.
Posted By: Mathew Sforcina (Registered) on November 04, 2008 at 07:04 AM
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