Depressingly, sexual harassment in a development studio is once again the lead news item this week, and from a studio most gamers would never think it could happen. That, and major seismic shifting in the power structure of the digital storefront landscape.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Major Nelson outlined some of the new features coming to Dashboard and the Xbox 360. Besides the avatar feature, which is cute, we’re going to have the ability to install games directly to the hard drive and play them.
This feature explains the recent press release about the 60GB Xbox 360 and the price drop on the old 20GB box. Once we can install on our hard disk we’re going to be able to watch our disk space fade away just like we can do, today, on our PC.
You’re going to need to keep the disk in the drive, however, to play the Xbox 360 games you’ve purchased. This will continue to be Microsoft’s solution to Digital Rights Management (DRM) with their console. The end goal, however, is a faster load and a much quieter gaming experience as the 360 DVD player is tremendously loud.
Pretty soon this system is going to be no better than a PC if it keeps getting features like this!
Circuit City seems to have a problem paying their bills or so it seems, as Sony stopped their shipments mid-transit and returned them before hitting the distributors command center. In this unfavorable market climate, with the holidays around the corner, it seems bad for Circuit City to lose the trust of Sony.
Sony is afraid, “Circuit City couldn’t pay for the shipments” so the merchandise was turned around and returned home. Considering Sony, more than likely, wouldn’t have shipped the products to start with unless Circuit City was in good standing suggests things might have been “learned” after the shipment left the docks.
Circuit City’s been in some bad situations before, having a rough time dealing with competition in a very low margin, high volume, world of electronic retail. I’ve witnessed CompUSA disappear after the local Best Buy moved in and now Best Buy sits about 80 yards from Circuit City.
This is unfortunate because Best Buy can use some competition before they take over the bulk of this industry leaving only Wal*Mart and a few smaller stores to keep them in check. Considering I just purchased a 2-year warranty on my Rock Band 2 drum kit at Circuit City I’m fearing I’ll have to break the hardware sooner than later!
(Thanks, Gizmodo)
Apple’s iPhone and iPod platforms have been great stages for launching some hot casual game titles. Besides the slick sexy look the platforms play games well, have great user interface features and, as developers are concerned, offer great support and turn around speeds.
While Nintendo and Sony own a lot of the market in terms of hand-held devices, Apple is growing in the space and offer developers an easier time getting their titles to market. Ironic considering Apple has never been a huge gaming platform for their primary computer architectures.
Although Apple is the upcoming shining star in this area, it’s important to remember they’re the underdog. It’s often in the best interest of the “little guy” to kiss up to developers and make their migration to the platform as easy as possible. Once Apple becomes the top dog in the industry, will they forget the “little guys” that made their platform so great and become just another big company in the mobile game space?
Hopefully Apple won’t forget about those developers that are making their platform great by turning their back on them once they’ve become a market leader. We don’t need another Montreal Screwjob.
