The new SSX game was spoken about today during the EA Gamescom press conference. Creative director Todd Batty annouced that SSX will have quite a few features that are similar to the recent Need for Speed titles. For example, using the Autolog engine, “Ridernet” will allow gamers to “like” certain drop points and recommend new drops to others. In addition, the service tracks your friends, and will let you vote them up or down based on their performance. Finally, every time a player records a personal best on a track, a ghost of that run can be uploaded for their friends to race against. Plus, you can set up customized events, which can be global and have up tp 100,000 other players competing simultaneously in real time in them.
The preorder bonus items for SSX were also revealed.
At GameStop, you’ll get legendary SSX character Eddie Wachowski, his Elite snowboard, and a bonus boost.
Preorder on Origin and receive Elise’s Elite snowboard and a bonus boost.
If you go with Amazon, you get Mac’s Elite snowboard and a bonus boost.
From Best Buy, receive Zoe’s Elite snowboard and a bonus boost.
If you use Walmart, Kaori’s Elite snowboard and a bonus boost will be included in your preorder.
The price of games, something that affects pretty much all of us gamers, be it the latest Call of Duty instalment at more than a day’s wages, or a curious indie title at just a few bob, pricing is something that all publishers and studios have to decide on. Sometimes the price is based on prestige or brand, sometimes it is low enough to be an impulse purchase, and sometimes it appears to be nothing more than a reflection of a publisher’s greediness, but this variation does little to answer the big question; what should a game actually cost?
To an independent developer, who may have spent years and years slaving away on their creation, this can be a very tough decision indeed. Should the price be high enough to reflect the effort they put into the project, but raise the risk of a flop? Or low enough to guarantee sales, and in doing so undermine the passion that went into actually making it?
Two things made me think about this, for one, I have spent the last twelve days in Switzerland, a country with a comparatively stable economy and wealthy populace, and resultantly a place where everything is expensive, and I mean really expensive. A can of coca-cola costs you three or four times what it would at home, and the prices of games are mad! For example while wandering around in Bern today, I saw a used copy of Modern Warfare 2 priced at one-hundred pounds! One-hundred pounds! That’s insane! I know that prices on games in the UK aren’t exactly the lowest in the world, but I could buy at least three AAA titles for that much! And double that again if I bought them on Steam!
The second reason I was thinking about this was the news of the new “Resurrection” map pack for Call of Duty, in which the original Nazi Zombies maps can be played in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Now, as a franchise COD is already known for milking its fans rather relentlessly as far as prices are concerned, but fifteen pounds for maps that fans have already bought once just strikes me as immoral, and even more so given they know for certain it will sell.
Now, despite this rather foul play on the part of Activision and Treyarch, I think this actually says less about them and more about the Call of Duty fans. I know I’ll make no friends by saying this, but COD fans, if you truly are prepared to happily buy this content you already own (and not for the first time I might add), just because the publishers have decided it’s once again time to relieve you of your hard earned cash, then you are essentially labelling yourselves sheep, and I guarantee you will continue to be exploited as such.
On the other hand, this does actually give one answer to the dilemma of pricing, albeit a woolly (no pun intended) and somewhat tricky one to apply. Simply put; a game is worth whatever people are willing to pay. Just as the people of Switzerland continue to fork out (what I consider to be) far too much for their games, so too will your own customers, as long as you can somehow convince them that they should, be it through marketing, customer loyalty, or some other method; if you convince them, they’ll pay gladly.
You could also do it the easy way, and stick the words “Call of Duty” on the box, since we already know that works.
One Mr. Ken Rolston has informed the gaming community at Gamescom that 38 Studios will be releasing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on February 7, 2012. In Europe, the launch date is on the 10th. So, you’ll have about 9 months to play it before there are no video games left upon this Earth. Well, there may be video games, but no humans left to play them… Or something like that. 2012 is still a thing, right? Regardless, the action-RPG that EA is publishing certainly looks like it has some awesome elements to it, and we can’t wait to play it. How about you?
A man who was allegedly charged twice for one year of membership to Xbox Live Gold (GASP!) has recently filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft. Ryan Graves says that although his credit card was expired and his subscription was null, Microsoft charged him twice on a new debit card.
“Microsoft cannot just charge a consumer’s credit or debit card whenever it wants without authorization. Mr. Graves signed up to play games on his Xbox, not to allow Microsoft to play games with his debit card,” stated E. Michelle Drake, Mr. Grave’s attorney.
Graves said that many Live Gold members have “similarly experienced Microsoft’s unauthorized charges.” In addition, his suit against Microsoft claims that they disobeyed the federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act, and that the Terms of Service, which allows for “the right for Microsoft to decline to refund users,” is “onerous and unfair.” Mr. Graves expects that “hundreds, if not thousands, of Defendant’s subscribers satisfy the definition of the Putative Class.”
As the title suggests, the latest horse racer from Tecmo Koei, Champion Jockey, has had a new selection of screenshots released for it. These screenshots feature events, breeding and night time racing.
Champion Jockey is set to be appearing on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii later this year.
Champion Jockey is the spiritual successor to the G1 Jockey series, recreating the horseracing world through a variety of immersive races, intuitive gameplay with simple controls. Utilising the latest motion controllers, being a jockey is no longer just a dream. The new standard in horseracing is here.
Over in the Land of the Rising Sun (most commonly known as Japan), the Nintendo 3DS has seen a surge in sales between August 8 and August 14, according to Japanese publication Nikkei. In that period of time 207,000 units were sold.
The reason for this surge was, of course, was the massive price cut Nintendo announced for the Nintendo 3DS. That came in to affect on August 11th. The price went down from ¥25,000 ($321) to ¥15,000 ($187).
Media Create, who also tracks hardware and software sales in Japan, will release their figures on the 18th of August. Those figures would be interesting to see considering the price drop. Media Create tracks the sales a little differently than Nikkei.
If the 3DS price cut created this positive effect, then could it be repeated worldwide? We shall see.
The next big trade show for video games is right around the corner. Gamescom 2011 is set to give us, the consumer, the inside scoop on what Europeans (and to a certain extent Australian and New Zealanders) should expect in the upcoming year. So, what will Sony offer for Europe?
Well… what the consumer should know is that Uncharted 3 and Resistance 3 will be expected. Both shown at the Electronic and Entertainment Expo (E3), Sony would be flexing these two once more as we near the busy autumn/spring schedule of major titles. Resistance 3 is only around the corner for that part of the world. Next month I believe.
Another expected guest would be the Playstation Vita. Despite the early 2012 release, the only other appearance would be the Tokyo Game Show, which mostly caters to the Japanese market. In order to compete with the increasingly growing smartphone option, Sony should pique our interest in this delightful handheld, until TGS. I think what we will get is a showcase of games but no release date (Europe’s pricing was announced at E3 this year at €249 Wi-Fi and €299 Wi-Fi + 3G).
So we got the three most important things out of the way. However, I do think we should be seeing more of the quieter games that have fallen by the wayside. Anyone remember a game called Sorcery for the Playstation Move? It was announced back at E3 2010 and hasn’t been heard of since. Maybe Sony could put it back in the spotlight. I would also like to see some PSP games as well.
So, that’s what I think Sony shall focus on at Gamescom. It will be interesting what they do reveal and the demos they will show.
After a rumor broke just last week that Super Mario Galaxy, Punch Out, Super Mario Strikers, and Super Paper Mario (that is a lot of SUPER!) would be heading to the discounted line of Wii titles via the Nintendo Selects, The big N finally dropped a confirmation on twitter that these reprints and drops would indeed be happening.
Starting August 28th, retailers will start selling these four titles at their newly discounted prices. I am pretty happy with this news, as I can finally get around to actually playing Super Paper Mario. What do you think of the big price drops? Got anything from this batch you will be picking up?
Five days after Crime City’s release on iOS it has been announced that it has topped the Free Apps Chart and ranked in the Top 10 Grossing Apps Chart. How does one manage to be a free app and yet also be the highest grossing app? Well, like its original Facebook version it actually charges players for in game content such as gold or cash that can be sued by the player to buy new and shiny things. With a mixture of violence, capitalism and the social aspect of shooting someone else in the face, its no surprise that Crime City has done so well.
Since its release on Facebook last September Crime City has experienced huge amounts of success, becoming one of the top five Facebook games (beware Farmville), with more than 1 million daily active users and 7.5 million monthly players, as well as a rating of 4.9/5. It was no wonder that this game completely blew up when it reached the app store, having over a million downloads in less than a week.
Crime City was also one of the first games available on Google+, so it only seemed natural for it to progress onto iOS. The fact that the developers kept the game free was probably a huge draw for the audience and was a good move on Funzio’s part. Obviously as previously mentioned, there is in game content which can be purchased for real dollars, but that is up to the discretion of the player.
Funzio are probably quite happy with themselves at this point and they deserve to be, in less than a week they’ve taken the app store and turned it on its head. This was probably a mix of the addictive nature of the game, the good quality, the huge audience and the fact that almost everyone loves them some free apps.
Check out the trailer for the game below. What do you guys reckon, is Farmville gulping as it looks down a mobster’s shotgun barrel?
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment have announced that Batman: Arkham City will support stereoscopic and anaglyphic 3D for both Xbox 360s and PS3s, in addition to NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ for PCs.
Gamers with stereoscopic supported 3D TV’s and NVIDIA 3D Vision capable PCs will be able to be immersed as they swoop across Arkham City. For those without the 3D TV’s don’t despair, as long as you have an HDTV you can enjoy Batman: Arkham City in anaglyphic 3D with technology compatible with all high definition TV sets and visible to players wearing 3D glasses available for the video game. Obviously not as impressive as sterescopic but better than nothing!
With just over two months until one of the most anticipated games of the year is released, this news will surely excite fans even more as they count down the sleeps until October 19.
