thomas fitzgerald.net

Charles Arthur: Time for Microsoft to show some guts | Technology | Guardian Unlimited:

Looking at the insides of a console can be revealing, but still nobody can work out what the Xbox 360’s problem is

So Electronic Arts, or as they’re more commonly known EA Games have been pissing a lot of people off lately. Fist off, they blamed Sony for their rather poor ports of games to the PS3, even though other studios seem to be getting to grips with developing for the platform just fine.

It was a rather pathetic cheap shot at Sony and even worse PR on their own part because they openly admitted one of their products is inferior.

Then they went and backtracked a promise they made at WWDC to release new games for the Mac, all of which seem to have been delayed. A fascinating article on Appleinsider has some classic quotes from EA:

“When pressed for an explanation, the EA spokesperson said there were no definitive reasons available for the delay but alluded to a possible lack of experience with Mac development. This was possibly prompted in part by the company’s years-long absence from the platform.”

Oh come on, so you can’t develop for the PS3 because of Sony’s hasn’t given you development tools that are exactly the same as your xbox development tools, and now you can’t get mac games out the door because you’ve no experience with that platform either.

but wait, it gets better.

In the same article….

“In speaking to AppleInsider, the spokesperson nonetheless claimed that four ports of previously released titles — Battlefield 2142, Command and Conquer 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Need for Speed Carbon — were already available in stores. As of press time, however, EA was unable to provide the name of a single store at which customers could purchase any of the titles.”

What the hell is going on over there?

If I was paranoid I would think that perhaps EA has taken a sudden and dramatic shift to being overly pro-microsoft, and saying and doing some rather inexcusable things with regard to platforms that might compete with said company. But I’m probably just being paranoid, right? I mean, it’s not like the former head of Microsoft’s Game devision just took up a job as the President of one of the major devisions at EA Games….. Oh , no, wait…..

(Hey, I’m just sayin’)

Sony has posted a demo of Colin McRae DiRT on the US Playstation store. I have this game on the xbox 360 so I was eager to try out the PS3 version. A lot of PS3 ports of 360 games have been somewhat disappointing. Fortunately DiRT is not one of them. The 360 version suffered from some serious frame rate tanking. It wasn’t so bad playing the game but it was still noticeable. On the replays though it was horrible with both the frame-rate dropping to 15fps or worse and with noticeable horizontal tearing.

The PS3 version is perfect. Well, at least when it comes to frame-rate. The game is noticeably smoother and the replays are perfect. A big “thank you” to the folks at codemasters for putting some effort into porting a game properly rather than just moaning about it.

[Update:] Ok, maybe I spoke a bit too soon. I was so excited this morning playing it I just couldn’t help myself. I had another try this afternoon and It’s not quite as good as I thought at first on the replays. However, I do definitely feel it’s better than the 360 version.

Anyone who has been a long time mac user will remember the dark days of owning an Apple product. There were times when you would be ridiculed by complete strangers just for reading a mac magazine in public. Such was the level of childishness and arrogance of the PC community that they felt it was their civic duty to humiliate anyone who they felt was using one of those “toy” computers. Online discussions about anything mac related were frequently flamed by windows users posting immature, insulting and often offensive commentary.

Much of this has passed now with Apple’s recent success. Rather than see the mac as a curious oddity, most people now see it as something to aspire to. The same community of diehard PC nerds who ridiculed mac users now complain about being treated unfairly by those same users who talk about the advantages of the mac platform. The great pc flame wars have pretty much subsided, relegated to the dark days of the dawning of the internet age, for ever a memory of those of us who walked the line in those early days of dial up and gopher. Or have they? Perhaps they’ve simply moved elsewhere. Enter the Playstation 3.

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Inside Mac Games News: Epic Confirms Gears of War, UT 3 For Mac:

In a “Game Head” video posted on Gametrailers.com, Epic Games’ VP Mark Rein announced that a Mac version of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 are heading to the platform. Rein enthusiastically announces in the video, “And don’t forget, we’re also doing Macintosh. Yes, Gears is coming to the Mac and so is UT”.

If anyone has played Gears of War on the Xbox you’ll know how impressive visually it is. It will be interesting to see how well it translates to the Mac and PC but this will certainly be one of the most visually impressive game titles on the platform, along with Unreal Tournament. Cool.

Wired Magazine has an interesting article on the unexpected success of the Nintendo Wii at the Expense of higher priced consoles

Rather than pursuing high-def graphics, Nintendo made Wii smaller and cheaper, leaving the graphics capability nearly identical to the GameCube’s. Then it redesigned the game controller to look more like a one-handed television remote control. Built-in motion sensors meant that a game of tennis or bowling felt just like the real thing.

Triumph of the Wii: How Fun Won Out in the Console Wars:

It’s an interesting article although I think price plays a factor too, and Like others I have to wonder how long the wii can remain a big hit when there is little development for the platform that capitalizes on the products strengths, mainly it’s intuitive control system. Still, time will tell, but I certainly think its way to early to declare Nintendo “The Winner” in the console wars.

Coming rather soon for Plastation 3 and Xbox 360: (And yes, I am an obsessed Transformers fan)

Despite what some 360 fans would have you believe the Playstation 3 is doing quite well in Europe. Game Spot Reports that they have sold over a million units in the Pal region:

“After a low-key midnight launch at Virgin in London’s Oxford Street, a long European launch delay, and the latest news that Nintendo’s Wii is outselling Sony’s PlayStation 3 five-to-one in Japan, this week finally sees some good news for the console. The latest sales figures show that the PS3 is enjoying a healthy success in PAL regions including the UK, the rest of Europe, and Australia.

Across PAL territories the PlayStation 3 has now sold more than a cool one million units since its March 23 launch–just ten weeks ago. This makes the console faster-selling than either of Sony’s previous living room machines, the original PlayStation or the PS2.”

And yes, I know the 360 has sold more but then it has been out for considerably longer. Hopefully the European success of the PS3 will spur sony to put a little more effort into the European Playstation Store