The Pensive Gamer

Posted Jul 27, 2008 @ 10:30:33 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Product Feedback , Zune

Over the years I've tried a variety of different software music players including Winamp, MediaSource, iTunes etc. Of late, my complacency had me sticking with Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player under Vista, however, is slow and temperamental on my two primary machines. Because of this I started looking for alternatives again. I tried earlier versions of the Zune software, but things weren't quite ready.

Then 2.5 arrived. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but between the speed in dealing with large collections, the ease in exploring my music, the ease in exploring marketplace music and the social aspects, I finally found a good player.

More telling, perhaps, is that the Zune software has changed my music listening habits. I'm now buying music digitally (DRM-free). I'm back to listening to music whenever I'm at a computer. And oddly enough, I find myself exploring the Marketplace and exploring friends and random people's music tastes ... searching for something I might be interested in.

All that said, there are things things I would love to see introduced or updated. Some are uniquely Zune, others are simple improvements. Without implying a priority, here are my suggestions:

• Support subscribing to automated Zune/e-mail messages indicating when new content is available.
  • Receive notifications for new albums from band/artists
  • Receive notifications for new episodes for TV shows
  • Optionally receive notifications for new albums/episodes from similar musicians/genres.
  • Easily go to the Marketplace for purchasing.
• Support social experiences. These experiences could potentially be supported not only between Zune software players, but between software and hardware players. If it was the same back-end as the upcoming Xbox Live Party system it could potentially extend to friends on Xbox 360s.
  • Listen to music together
  • Watch slide-shows together
  • Watch videos together
  • Remote participants can easily go to the Marketplace for purchasing.
• Support audio/signal analysis for music similarity.
  • Allow finding similar music in own collection
  • Have auto-lists based on similar music
  • Allow finding similar music in the Marketplace
  • Find other users with similar tastes in music.
• Content collection sync support (this could involve Live Mesh as the conduit).
  • Zune servers store the meta-information of all media a user has regardless of computer/device it is stored on.
  • Support sync'ing content between physical locations; a person can request to bring local any content in their collection. The software will fetch from the appropriate computer/device that contains the content.
  • Allow people to browse their friends content collection and provide a way to preview and purchase any content that also happens to be in the Marketplace.
• Support more player view modes. Examples:
  • A proper full-screen mode (no Windows task bar)
  • A Vista side-bar player (include a panel when viewing video content)
  • A task bar embedded player (like the minimized Windows Media Player)
  • A compact floating player
• Support more visualization options when listening to music. Examples:
  • Playlist photos. Only shows images based on those in the playlist. Include artist/band photos from the Zune Marketplace.
  • Friends. Have nice stylized view of friends with what they are/were playing.
  • Make the photos, albums, friends all clickable. Clicking will bring you to the appropriate place in the Zune software player (almost everyone I know has attempted to click on albums cover shown in the current visualization).
• More photo browsing/organization options. Examples:
  • Photo tags
  • Timeline (similar to the music release year but more granular)
• Support more photo slide-show modes (also good for listening to music). Examples:
  • Photo album. Make the screen look like a photo album with various layouts for photos. Transitions are page turns.
  • Photo-drop. Photos drop into a pile.
  • Photo-timeline. Photos are placed along a timeline and the transition has you move across the timeline/calendar.
• Miscellaneous UI and usability updates
  • Turn off screen saver when watching videos
  • Generally support the Video, Pictures and Podcast pages collection as deeply as Music (e.g. sorting/browsing options, etc).
  • If I'm listening to or watching something but then browse the marketplace or friends list and decide to preview music or videos, or perhaps I launch media from Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer, allow me to go back to what I was listening to or watching. This means going back to the exact spot in the song or video.
  • When I start-up the Zune player the player should be in the same state as when I had closed it. I particular, I should have the same playlist open and should continue playing at the exact spot in my last song or video.
  • If I add music to a playlist and I'm currently playing that playlist, add the music to what I'm currently listening to
  • Support creating video playlists
  • Support fuzzy searching local and Marketplace content.
  • Typing in the search box filters content immediately and updates as you continue to type. The Marketplace search could begin either when there is a sufficient pause in typing or the user hits the Enter key.
  • Support removing friends from within the Zune software
  • When I click the 'Save as Playlist' option on the 'visualization' page, it should default to the name of the current play-list. For auto-playlists it could pre/post-pend additional text so the user doesn't overwrite the existing playlist.
  • The social tab commonly has a Zune overlay logo when loading items in the background. This makes it look like you cannot use the content that is under the overlay (even though you can).
  • Cache more content locally on the last state of friends and their music. The Social's Friends and Me pages require waiting a fair amount of time for content to show up. I would rather it show stale content that is replaced with updated content when the updated content is finally retrieved from the server.
  • The Social's Me page seems to use the server to show what I have listened to instead of the local data. To make it appear faster, use local information first.
  • I wish the Social pages mirrored the data shown on the Zune web site. The data on the web site has more interesting data and has a slightly better presentation (though the Flash controls can be hard to use).
  • Support more background options and colours.
  • Allow viewing badges in the software player.
  • Support more permanent badges.

While not strictly software-based, here are some highlights for what I would love to see in the Marketplace:

• Support additional information for videos including production photos, history of the series, actors/directors involved, reviews, etc. This would make it similar to the information available for artists and albums.
• Make the the Marketplace artist and album data (bio, related artists/music, etc) viewable regardless of the user's region. For example, there is no reason a person in the UK, who cannot purchase content yet, cannot view the background information of a band.
• Support renting/purchasing movies.
• Support more MP3s
• Support hi-definition video content.
• Support upgrading low-definition video content to high-definition content.
• Support for events. For example, right now there are ComicCon videos but they are not straightforward to find.
• Make it so Xbox 360 Marketplace and Zune Marketplace are one and the same.
  • Content purchased in one store can be downloaded, without repurchase, off the other
  • Support the same content in both stores. This includes, trailers, game videos, etc.
• Support streamed content
  • Streamed live events like ComicCon, E3 shows, CES, music events, etc
  • Streamed live music concerts. This may require MS points to watch.
• Support sending recommendations from the Marketplace

This list may seem large, but it is not due to annoyance with the software. On the contrary, I'm extremely happy with the software. The above items are really about continuing along the path Zune is already traveling ... a complete connected entertainment portal.

Of course I don't know the feasibility of many of these feature. Some depend on where Microsoft wants to take Zune. Do they really want to be an entertainment encyclopedia? Do they want to invest in events? For device related suggestions, is the battery capable of lasting? I have no clue.

For those curious, no, I don't actually own a Zune hardware player. If my commute was longer I would highly consider it. I will consider getting a Zune once my wife's iPod dies (it is temperamental) or some form of Zune Phone makes an emergence. 

Until then, I look forward to seeing where Microsoft takes the software/service.

Oh ... I shouldn't forget my Zune Card:

Posted Jul 21, 2008 @ 12:30:08 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Developer Diary , Programming , XNA

Since the 4th of July weekend I've been coding in XNA in my spare time. As is typical with me I've been putting together an extension framework. The goal of the framework is to provide some basic needs when writing XNA games. I'll release, as Microsoft calls them, a Community Technical Preview (CTP) soon.

While not exhaustive, here is what I've been doing:

• A UI control, screen state and input management system. It is largely meant to handle things like menuing systems and heads-up displays. General features:
  • Hierarchical control structure similar to WinForms or WPF.
  • Controller-bound screen state management system.
  • Layout handling including control docking, automatic sizing and layout managers.
  • Focus manager that, unlike most UI systems, supports more than one control in focus at a time; it supports one control in focus per controller.
  • Input-mechanism that supports binding 'gestures' similar to WPF. 
  • Includes a few helpful controls, though nothing implies how a control should look; a developer has full control.
  • Developers can extend anything (e.g. they can add input gestures, layout managers, controls, etc).
• A GameSession that replaces NetworkSession. General features:
  • Abstracted the notion of sessions so it supports both pure local or network games where the participants can be local users, network users or even bots.
  • Includes controls and screens that do not make assumptions on how something looks, but manage the lobby process. This means developers generally do not need to write the game session logic, but concentrate on how the lobby should look.

I'll post more details, including samples, once I release the CTP.

Posted Jul 19, 2008 @ 12:00:54 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Site News

Yesterday I started playing with Twitter. I've been meaning to play with it for quite some time since it is a great way to quickly comment on things I encounter during the day. A friend and I were talking about it yesterday so I figured it was about time I took the plunge.

I've added a Twitter control here on the blog. Unfortunately it doesn't automatically create clickable links from URLs. Of course, if you have a Twitter account you can also follow me.

Posted Jul 5, 2008 @ 11:20:23 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360

Curious blog entry title perhaps, but it is my theory of where the new PlayStation Trophy system is going and where Xbox Achievements need to go.

I think Achievements were a brilliant idea. They entice gamers to play games longer, to play games differently and, until now, may have enticed those with both a PS3 and an Xbox 360 to take the 360 version of multi-platform releases.

Thing is, pioneers aren't guaranteed success. There are numerous cases where the pioneer opened the door only to have a more refined version from a later contender to win over the customers. In fact, Microsoft has won many battles using this exact tactic.

And so here we are with Sony introducing the Trophy system. In essence it is the same thing as Achievements BUT there is an additional novel idea in there. Users have a level. The more they earn trophies the more they level. The harder the trophy the more the trophy contributes to the next level. That just might be enough to sway a multi-platform choice.

But I highly doubt Sony is going to let the leveling stop there. Sony has stated they want Home to be more gamer focused. Like a massively multi-player game I fully expect that a user's level will carry weight in Home. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it granted users certain benefits. Maybe users get more emotes at lower levels, increasing to clothes, furniture and maybe even bigger houses or access to exclusive 'clubs'. This is on top of how game makers can have the trophies appear/react in Home.

The idea of giving away virtual goods is brilliant since the goods are inexpensive to create but will garner an amazing amount of loyalty from Sony's customers as people become more attached to things that are seemingly more tangible than a number. Home becomes the embodiment of a gamer's success.

This is good for Sony and good for those developing for Sony's platforms. When Sony first released details of Home I wasn't terribly interested, but with their increasingly gamer focused features I could see myself being much more interested.

While the idea of leveling by playing a lot of different games is hardcore focused, the hardcore are influencers.  I do think Microsoft needs to react in some capacity. One benefit Microsoft has is that 360 games have always required Achievements. Not only can Microsoft use the nearly 3 years of data to see what users achieved, but if they do turn Gamerscore into some greater meaning, a lot of people gain the benefit instantly.

Posted Jun 3, 2008 @ 11:00:47 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Product Feedback , XNA

I'm a big fan of XNA and what Microsoft is trying to do with the XNA Creators Club. Microsoft recently released the Creators Club as a beta and I've had the chance to play with it. The Creators Club is a fantastic step forward for hobbyists and I thought I would take some time to give some feedback on the current beta. 

Much of this feedback centers on creating a circle of communication between the game developers and the community.

My immediate suggestions:

• Don't require games to be in a final state before it can be downloaded; hobbyists need feedback for incomplete games. Introduce the idea of a 'feedback' (think alpha/beta) release that is available to premium members. In this state premium members aren't performing a review for acceptance for download by the entire Live community but instead performing a test so feedback can be given to the developer. When creating a 'feedback' release the developer can place a note requesting what in particular they would like feedback on.
• Allow games to be downloaded from the dashboard when in the 'feedback' or 'review' states. The need to download to a PC and then to a 360 seems unnecessary.
• Allow a convenient way for premium members to give feedback to the developer during 'feedback' and 'review' states. Developers currently have to create a root forum post under a particular community forum; it would be nice to see this more integrated with the game profile page and have feedback actively solicited from premium members who have downloaded the game.
• For publicly released games allow any Live user that has played the game to give a review/rating of the game. I personally like the idea of rating various components of the game (i.e., story, graphics, game play) as well providing an overall value. This is a feature that, in my opinion, should be available on ALL content on the Marketplace.
• Add a 'reputation'-style system for users that provide feedback and ratings. In essence this allows developers to rate the feedback given to their games. The reputation should be focused on how constructive the criticism is. Instead of a 'star' rating (as seen on Gamertags), perhaps it is word-based such as 'Helpful', 'Not Constructive', etc. The reputation is meant to discourage users from leaving non-constructive messages like 'yer game sux' while also minimizing the risk of reputation retaliation when a developer doesn't like a review.
• The user profile should include the list of games developed and reviewed/rated. Any feedback or review given to other games should be shown so other users can easily browse and read the feedback/ratings.
• Allow any game, regardless of state, to be viewable from the Creator's Club web site. For example, I cannot view game details when a game is in the 'In Process' state.

Now on the longer term side, I would suggest:

• Enhance the game and premium member profile pages. The information on the current pages is sparse. Allow the developers to enhance them. I would heavily consider a member controlled cross between a wiki and blog. The pages should be easily constructed; the developer can choose widgets to display. Such widgets could include picture/video galleries, blog entries, release schedules, top reviews (though all reviews should always be accessible, in my opinion) etc. Naturally some of the information should be structured so that it can be viewed in the Xbox dashboard or in a mobile front-end (think Live Anywhere).
• Provide a source code repository system similar to SourceForge ; perhaps some form of coupling into CodePlex or MSDN's Code Gallery (without forcing projects to be open source).
• Provide an easy way to solicit help. This could evolve into a job-board style mechanism.
• Expand the Creators Club to include libraries (graphics, shader libraries, etc).

Bottom-line: I think the idea of community games is fantastic. But I would love to see the whole community be engaged more. XNA Creators Club has the potential to provide a fantastic social experience for creating games, let alone playing them.

 

Update: I posted the above feedback in the XNA Creators Club forums and other folks gave their feedback.  The conversation, which can be seen here, spawned some additional thoughts.

Posted Jun 3, 2008 @ 10:00:28 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Site News

Well, it has been a year since my last post but this blog isn't dead. In the past year a lot has transpired. Family and work have been a big focus of mine, and while they continue to be I found blogging is great relaxation tool for me.

One of the main reasons I stopped blogging was because of the amount of time it took to research, write and edit my series of posts; I am going to cut-down on the number of analysis style series and keep my posts shorter (though it turns out I have a few large posts I had started but never finished).

While I expect a majority of what I write about to be gaming focused I will expand my focus. I tend to play with different pieces of software/technology and blogs are a good forum to provide other users and the product groups with feedback.

At the moment I've been playing with a variety of Microsoft products including:

• Live Mesh
• Zune Software Player 2.5
• XNA Creators Club
• Wireless Laser Desktop 7000
• World Wide Telescope

Expect to see more posts soon!

Posted Jun 5, 2007 @ 6:00:21 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: PlayStation 3

This post is a continuation of a series that takes a look at the state of the major home consoles. I have previously covered the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360, so today I look at Sony's PlayStation 3.

Where Nintendo changed the gaming landscape and put out a strong launch, and Microsoft had clearly laid out a long roadmap of things to accomplish, Sony's approach has, so far, lacked the same finesse.

Sony Invests in their Future

Let me be clear, I'm not saying that the PS3 is a bad piece of hardware. On the contrary, it is both impressively designed and manufactured. I'm saying that Sony's approach has affected its ability to easily sell an otherwise solid piece of hardware.

So when you look at Sony's and the PS3's strengths, they don't as much lie in what you see now, but what you will see over the lifetime of the console.

It's all about Content

Sony is an entertainment company first and that really shows. Of all the console makers they have the largest number of game developers and have a rich set of intellectual property and publishing rights. This includes God of War, Gran Turismo, Ratchet and Clank, and SOCOM, along with new properties such as Resistance:Fall of Man, Heavenly Sword, Lair, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Folklore.

As an entertainment company Sony is willing to spend money to experiment with how to entertain. I've commonly used the ethereal flOw and gorgeous game/game-maker LittleBigPlanet as examples, but other games such as the off-the-wall Pain and the Eye Toy-based game Eye of Judgment are more great examples. While obviously Sony wants these games to sell well, even if they don't they still paint Sony as a company looking to bring innovations in gaming.

But games aren't Sony's only content strength, which is important as consoles expand to become media hubs; Sony is a movie and music powerhouse. While not eliminating Sony's need to negotiate with other content producers, this gives them a huge leg up in providing content over their yet-to-be-announced, but undeniable download service (along with specialized games like SingStar).

New Technologies

In a market where technology still follows Moore's law with products that have a minimum of a 5 year life span, console makers do what they can to limit how dated their consoles feel as they mature. With that in mind Sony invested heavily by banking on new technologies, mainly the Cell microprocessor and Blu-ray optical drive.

The Cell processor is a departure from the more traditional concurrent processing abilities of both SMT and multi-core CPUs. While the Cell's abilities are less general purpose than, say, the Xbox 360's triple-core SMT CPU, the theoretical peak floating point performance of the chip is staggering. As developers discover the ideal ways to use the PS3's components, I have a strong feeling we are going to see some extremely beautiful games over the next few years that will be hard to duplicate on the Xbox 360.

Blu-ray's advantage is more immediately obvious. While DVD9 is generally sufficient for most games now, the Xbox 360 has already seen its first multi-disc game and more will undoubtedly come over the next few years. While Blu-ray discs are currently more expensive to produce, they provide more freedom and less constraints for the game developers. This eliminates any engineering efforts that would otherwise be required to optimize game content to fit on a single disc.

Updates

Where Microsoft makes updates to the 360's Dashboard every 6 months, Sony has preferred to do near monthly updates. While many of the updates are minor, a few such as 1.60 and 1.80, have added some important and truly interesting options. What is clear is that Sony is working hard to provide new features and to get them out to the consumer as quickly as possible.

Even if the number of changes in a 6 month time period only equaled what is seen on the 360, the continual releases keep the core platform feeling more fresh. Add to this the idea of Home and you see Sony not only extending the platform features but attempting to innovate with how people use their console.

So How Did We Get Here?

While the PlayStation 3 is a solid piece of hardware from a strong entertainment company, the PlayStation 3 is not selling anywhere close to what Sony is looking for. So what has gone wrong?

Public Image

This is the least of the issues, particularly when the PR issues made Sony look bad mostly, though not entirely, to the hardcore gamer (and those issues are largely behind us).

So instead of digging deeper I'll note a trend. The recent image being portrayed by Sony, at least in North America and Europe, is much less Japanese; in fact it feels British. Perhaps it is meant to distance itself with Ken Kutagari's outlandish comments, but with Howard Stringer at the helm and Phil Harrison being the new PS3 front-man things have definitely proceeded down a smoother PR path. Sony has successfully turned the staggering number of false promises, bizarre statements and variety of false steps into a thing of past.

New Technologies

New technologies are risky. They tend to be harder to manufacture, have lower yields and tend to cost more to produce.

Spring 2006 was suppose to be the world wide launch of the PS3, but with Cell yields low and the Blu-ray drive's blue LEDs hard to come by Sony was forced to not only delay the Japanese and North American launches until November 2006, but Europe and Australia saw an entire year delay.

Independent of delays, new technologies tend to increase retail prices. With a $600 US price tag some analysts are suggesting a $200 price cut to the PS3 before mass market acceptance begins to kick in. While Sony has been working hard to reduce costs by moving to more yield friendly 65 nanometer chips, removing PS2/PS1 compatibility chips, and decreasing the cost of Blu-ray drives, with recent SCE losses in the $1.9 billion range Sony has continually echoed that price cuts will not be coming any time soon.

Even if Sony doesn't want to price cut, the competition is likely to force it this holiday season and both Nintendo and Microsoft should both be able to maintain their lower prices this entire generation.

Where are the games?

For owning the most number of gaming studios it seems odd for Sony to be in a situation where there aren't a lot of titles, particularly when you consider the original notion of a Spring 2006 release.

This obviously has an impact both on console sales and attach rate. The following statistics from VGChartz is perhaps the best illustration. In Japan, Sony's home territory, lower than anticipated hardware sales have still allowed Sony to sell, in just over 6 months, nearly 2.5 times the number of PS3's as Microsoft's 18 month old Xbox 360 (934,800 vs 391,231), but Sony has yet to sell more games (1,195,052 vs 1,310,161). In particular, this shows that the average PS3 owner in Japan has only 1.2 titles.

Even with the solid set of releases coming as we head towards holiday 2007 there are some concerns. Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid were heavy system sellers for the PS2. Grand Theft Auto is not a timed exclusive, Final Fantasy is confirmed to be a 2008 release and Metal Gear Solid is looking like a 2008 release. Let alone FF and MGS continually attract rumours that they will not remain exclusive. People tend to buy well established franchises and new titles with a lot of buzz. Unfortunately for Sony this holiday season's most anticipated exclusives are in the hands of Microsoft and Nintendo.

Summary

Sony has used the word 'potential' to describe the PS3 and that is an appropriate word. There is no denying this is a solid, well engineered piece of hardware. However, mass market acceptance isn't going to hit until the price is much lower and a larger set of anticipated games are released. Unfortunately for Sony it doesn't appear that this is going to happen until 2008. That puts a lot more market capturing potential in the hands of Sony's competitors.

I'll close up this series in the next article which takes a look at the changes in the industry and how those changes have an impact on what winning means.

 

Articles in the series:

• The Nintendo Wii
• The Microsoft Xbox 360
• The Sony PlayStation 3
• A Look at What Winning Means (coming)

Posted May 22, 2007 @ 8:45:38 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Accessories , Xbox 360 , Xbox Live Arcade

I just returned from the Gamerscore Blog Road Tour stop here in Toronto. The location was great and there were a good number of stations to try what was mostly unreleased games.

Here are my quick thoughts on what I saw.

Xbox Live Arcade Games

Track and Field seemed to be a favourite with many folks, though retro games just aren't my thing. I was shocked to see the 360 controller survive the abuse it was receiving. It certainly looked like it played similar to the original title.

I had some good fun with Mad Tracks. The dynamic of monitoring and controlling the spring that allowed the car to move was a nice twist and there was some nice variety in the game types. This felt like a fun quick game to play with friends.

Undertow was not quite my game. It is a 2D scrolling arena shooter in a 3D environment. I found myself dying all too often (against enemy AI) and sometimes it was hard to tell where you could move about on the screen (though familiarity is probably key here).

I didn't get to check out Carcassonne, though someone was always playing it. Regardless, this is an instant buy for me. I love this trend to add board games to Xbox Live Arcade.

Full Disc Games

I played a fair amount of Forza 2. It was the release version of the game, so for those curious, no the graphics are not improved from the demo. The gameplay was solid, different cars behaved and sounded very different, and yes there was damage. Anyone who likes racing games will definitely find this a solid purchase.

Shadowrun was constantly in play both on the 360 and the PC. The graphics seem improved from the beta and the gameplay, from the little I did both here and on the beta, seemed roughly equivalent. But I didn't get enough game time to truly test it. I'm curious to see how well this one sells.

While I didn't get to play Project Sylpheed, it did look like fun. I definitely want to check this one out more.

In addition there was Halo 2 for Vista and Guitar Hero II. I didn't try Halo 2 at all (I have my Halo fill via the Halo 3 Beta). While I didn't try Guitar Hero, it was, not so shockingly, in constant use.

The Chatpad

As reported yesterday over at Gaming Nexus, the Chatpad is indeed a nice piece of hardware. It snapped into place snuggly, never really got in the way and felt nice and light. While obviously I didn't have a prolonged gameplay session with the unit, it does seem like something that can be left on a controller. I didn't see nor have a chance to check the associated headset, but the Chatpad definitely had a different connector. The Gamescore crew could not confirm a price, nor a date (other than summer).

People

The Gamescore Blog folks were a great group of people; very social and engaging. They were having just as good a time as the rest of us. It was also great to have them answer our questions and listen to our feedback. No they wouldn't let out any secrets except something about a 'teabagging' achievement in Shadowrun ... I didn't ask any additional questions.

The folks from the community were also a good jovial group. It is interesting to meet the folks behind other blogs, such as one of the fellows behind XBLArcade.

Posted May 21, 2007 @ 7:30:59 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Site News , Wii , Xbox 360

Post Delays

Another long delay between posts; sorry folks. At scanR we have been working diligently to finish our latest upgrade to the service, which we released at the end of last week. If you are curious about what I do and if you have a mobile phone with a camera I recommend you check out the service. There is both a 'PC' site and mobile site.

With the release done I have a little more time to complete my XNA Thread series and Console Evaluation series, so expect some posts soon.

Gamerscore Road Tour

This week I'm up with the development team in Toronto. This happened to coincide nicely with the Microsoft Gamerscore Road Tour which I'll be attending tomorrow night. Should be a good time and I promise to report on the evening's festivities.

Console Shopping in Toronto

Today I spent some time looking to purchase an Xbox 360 for the Toronto office. I went to both an HMV and an EB Games and I noticed a few interesting things:

• The price of a Premium Xbox 360 was $500 CDN while the Elite was $550 CDN. The Premium did come with a game but the game was uninteresting (in my opinion).
• Non-bundled 360 Premiums were not offered for sale.
• The 360 Elite was sold out at both locations.
• HMV actually had a couple of Wiis, the EB Games did not.

Forcing a bundle seems a bit ridiculous and meant I went to the hotel empty handed (I would have taken an Elite if available mind you). The fellow in HMV said the Premiums came that way though he had no idea if Microsoft Canada or the store's HQ were forcing this.

Not allowing stand alone console sales or choice of games forces the consumer to make a decision which may result in no sale. Obviously if the price is right a bundle will get bought. When I was up in Toronto this past Christmas I bought my in-laws a 360 Premium with a full game and some Arcade titles for only $400 CDN. These kind of deals were pretty common at the time (before and after Boxing Day). It is pretty disappointing to seem them raised $100 CDN.

Posted May 1, 2007 @ 12:00:35 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: News Picks , Xbox 360 , Xbox Live Arcade

There was some coverage on sites Ars Technica and Kotaku today talking about how Xbox Live Arcade games are not fully transferable to the Xbox 360 Elite. This was mentioned on the Gamerscore Blog last week.

This has to do with a form of digital rights management (DRM) on the 360. The DRM allows:

• Any account to play the full Arcade title on the original Xbox 360 that the game was purchased on. Meaning: The whole family or visiting friends can play the full version.
• The original purchasing account to play on any console, as long as that account is logged into Xbox Live. Meaning: You can play full versions when visiting friends.

But, if your 360 is replaced or if you buy an Elite and transfer the titles over then all Arcade games previously purchased will require you to be logged into Live. No Live connectivity then the game plays like a demo.

Obviously not ideal. But listening to Major Nelson's latest podcast they state they are going to fix the licensing issue (approx. 21 minutes and 10 seconds in). Major said:

'Yes, we know the licensing isn't perfect. We know that. We are working on it.'

Given the bold lettering from the Gamescore blog and Major's podcast comment, they clearly knew this was going to upset some people. It is good that they are going to address it. I have a few arcade titles that require me to sign-in to play.