EA Console Announced by 2012

Do you think a fourth gaming console could enter the market and have all four survive? Many were surprised with the fact that three could survive after the last generation ended. All were profitable last generation and even now, with the start of a new generation, all three companies are making (or starting to make) profits in their gaming divisions. But how would a fourth entry in the gaming industry compete?

If the fourth console was backed by Electronic Arts (EA), that's how.

At first thought it would be easy to think that a fourth console would fail in an already crowded market. Microsoft and Sony are dueling with blades it seems, each trying to one-up the other, while Nintendo is trying to create a new audience. Thrown in the mix of things are third-party companies trying to figure out which of their games will succeed on which systems. EA is one of the only third-party companies large enough to structure an entirely new strategy.

Electronic Arts, the largest third-party developer in the industry, is about to take things into their own hands. No longer will they be forced to decide which existing console to put their games on. No longer will the decisions of their future be made by other companies. In the very near future, EA will have successfully purchased a company by the name of Take-Two (the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series).

In the last few years EA has purchased multiple developers (listed below) putting them in a prime position to call the shots. All they need now is Take-Two.

• Bioware
• Pandemic Studios
• Black Box Games
• Studio 33
• Mythic
• Criterion
• Maybe Ubisoft

There are some smaller game development and networking companies not in the list above but it's plain to see that just in the last few years alone EA has managed to gather up a hefty sized list of developers. Dare I say EA has enough development power to sustain an entire system on it's own. Just imagine the sheer mess it would make for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo if EA decided to stop producing games for their systems.

If you are curious, here is a quick list of games (or series) that would soon be exclusive to the EA PSWiiBox (name copyrighted).

1. Madden Football
2. Grand Theft Auto
3. FIFA Soccer
4. All other sports titles
5. Bioshock
6. Sims (all versions)
7. Spore
8. Rock Band
9. Burnout
10. Battlefield
11. Medal of Honor
12. Skate!
13. SSX
14. Black
15. Need for Speed
16. Command & Conquer
17. BOOM BLOX (I had to throw that one in there)

Halo 3 Totally Dominates Records

Halo 3, in a total massacre of the entertainment industry, successfully sold enough units to bring in $300 million to Microsoft. Announced today by Microsoft, and touched on by big-wig Bill Gates, Halo has successully accomplished the biggest first week sales numbers in the entire entertainment industry. By that I mean that no movie, CD, or other videogame has ever generated as much money as Halo 3 did in its first week. To put this into perspective for you Spider Man 3, this summer's highest grossing movie, ended with $336.5 million in sales. The difference here is that Halo 3 sold just shy of that number in the first week. Also of note, according to Microsoft, more than 2.7 million gamers played Halo 3 over the internet in the first week.

Halo 3 Setting Benchmarks

There are two things of interest to note regarding the most highly anticipated first-person shooter of all time: Halo 3. The game was released to customers today (some last night), so many of your gaming friends that are into shooters may very well vanish off this good Earth for the next couple of weeks. The most important thing to bear in mind is that Microsoft announced yesterday the game had garnered an incredible 1.5 million pre-orders. To put that in perspective the brand new Super Mario Galaxy, the next game in the highest selling series of all time, has currently only sold 400,000 pre-orders. Granted that game isn't out for another 2 months (I doubt it will come close), that is quite an impressive feat for Halo 3.

The next thing to point out is the fact that last night at 3 a.m. there were over 1 million people playing the game online. Many stores opened at midnight last night to give their die-hard customers the game early. So that means Microsoft have already sold over a million copies of this game by 3 a.m. this morning. That is an amazing accomplishment for any game. I would imagine by the time you read this the other half million pre-orders will have been picked up and there will most likely be another 200 to 300 thousand being sold throughout retail outlets around the country.

Nintendo Wii Takes First Place

VG Chartz, a site that gathers unofficial sales numbers for the videogames industry, has announced that Nintendo has taken over the first place position in worldwide market share for the next generation with the Nintendo Wii. I emphasize worldwide market share because the Wii is still about 3 million or so behind the Xbox 360 in market share in North America. The key to Nintendo's success is the fact that they have sold well in all three major regions (North America, Japan, and Europe) rather than extremely well in one region, decent in the other, and totally awful in the third (Japan). According to VG Chartz, the Nintendo Wii holds just over 41% total market share while the Xbox 360 holds right at 41%. The PS3 is currently holding third place with about 17%.

There are a few things to mention with these numbers though. Microsoft's Xbox 360 just released a huge game in Bioshock (receiving rave reviews) and they have the massively selling Halo 3 coming out in September. Granted Nintendo has a decent line-up for the next few months but I could very easily see the next few months going back in favor of the Xbox 360. This holiday season looks to be more trouble for the PS3 with their biggest seller Grand Theft Auto IV being delayed until next year and their next biggest games being Heavenly Sword and Haze, both new IPs that tend not to sell quite as well. This generation seems to be a total flip of last generation. It will be interesting to see where the rest of this battle leads us.

Grand Theft Auto IV Downloads Cost Microsoft Millions

I was listening to an EGM Podcast a few weeks back and for some reason never thought to mention anything about a blurb I heard while listening. The news that I speak of has to do with the recently delayed Grand Theft Auto IV. The Xbox 360, in case you haven't heard, has some exclusive downloadable missions and whatnot that the PS3 version will not have. This, however, did not come to Microsoft's system without a cost. According to the EGM Podcast obtaining these exclusive extras cost them a hefty $25 million.

I would imagine, despite the fact this seems like a major amount of money, this will come back to them very quickly. I know quite a few people personally who are going to purchase the Xbox version of this game simply because of these extra missions. In all reality, unless you were a single system PS3 owner already, I would find it hard to buy a version of the game that I know will have less gameplay. I wonder how Sony will fight back, or if they will at all.

Microsoft Must Enjoy Losing Money

Today was the day Microsoft released its financial numbers for the 2007 fiscal year (the Xbox division) and let's just say this: it's a good thing Microsoft isn't a games only company. By the end of the fiscal year, which ended on June 30, Microsoft had posted a loss of $1.9 billion. That's no typo, it's billion. Apparently the fourth quarter was the cause of $1.2 billion in loss so the fact that they can't keep a system working consistently isn't helping them.

So here's my question for Microsoft. How much longer can you afford to "buy" your way into this growing gaming market until you just cut yourself from the race?

When to Expect an Xbox 360 Price Drop

One of the main things that happened at the Microsoft Conference during E3 was actually something that didn't happen: a price drop. According to Microsoft execs the company needs to increase the number of games in Japan and decrease the price in America in order to be successful; but yet there was no price drop announced. Which leads me to the topic at hand, when will it happen?

Basically the rule of the game is patience. If you can hold off for about a month after the release of Halo 3, and a little longer after the release of GTA IV, then you should be able to pickup the great "little box that turns around" (Xbox 360 for the slow) at a discounted price. There's really no reason for Microsoft to drop the price of the system right before they're ensured to sell hundreds of thousands of systems with games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto. A price drop right before the huge holiday rush will get those "parents with no clue" more incentive to pick up the machine without losing all the potential revenue from the two biggest Xbox releases of the year.

After the most recent speculation on the PS3's price drop, as if no one saw it coming, perhaps Sony should take a que from Nintendo and learn how to properly do a price drop. And by that I mean actually drop the price, not just upgrade the system and tell people it's cheaper. And I don't mean to pick only on Sony here because if you recall, Microsoft just recently released the more expensive Xbox 360 Elite a few months ago. When will you guys realize you aren't Apple? You can't release a new version with one new feature and have people clamor over it. Video games are a much different beast than the portable music industry. And by the way, anything above $400 is way too much for a home video game console.

Disappointing E3, Did This Year Start a Trend?

A trend seems to have started at this year's, no (significant) new games were really announced. Aside from that Mario Kart Wii announcement, which wasn’t really all that surprising, there wasn’t a new game announced with any importance to us gamers. The new Wii Channel was promised by Miyamoto months ago and we finally get a name for it. How is this news? Release the channel, don't name it. That channel should honestly have launched this week, not been named. Nothing new came out of Microsoft or Sony's conference either, just a bunch of news about the upcoming holiday games that were all announced a few years ago. And maybe that’s what E3 is becoming, just final info and dates for already announced games. I certainly hope this isn't the case because that would be a real shame.

Looking around at various news sources, the two biggest pieces of news seem to be the "dropped" price of the PS3 and the new game announcement by Nintendo, WiiFit. As a gamer I'm not really all that excited for the game, if you can call it that, but moreso in the technology that could be used in a more traditional game. In the end this is a media event and the media craves new things, they crave what we like to call "news." They could honestly care less (at least the mainstream media) about slightly upgraded visuals in Game X, or how Army of Two uses aggro technology. They want new, and that is not at all what we got this year.

In the end, I was quite disappointed in this year's E3. Could the reason be the fact that games are so complex these days that it takes 3 years to make a game look decent? Could it be that last E3 was a major system launch year so they announced everything they had to show up the competition, leaving nothing new for this year? Whatever the reason, as a gamer, I wasn't all that satisfied.

Microsoft E3 Conference

Microsoft's E3 conference happened last night and there wasn't a ton that's worth mentioning today, live blog right here. There were a slew of Disney movies announced to release on the Xbox Live Marketplace, some new trailers for Resident Evil 5 and Halo 3, and a few gameplay snippets of Project Gotham Racing 4 and Assassin's Creed, but that's about it. Now don't get me wrong, there were some really sweet games shown and some great looking stuff to play later this year, but in regards to new announcements, there wasn't much.

Does an E3 conference need to have surprises to be interesting? Well no, as long as the rest of the presentation is good, but it does alert people to the news a little better. Let's say Microsoft announced an $80 price drop on all SKUs, rather than Viva Pinata: Party Animals, and you could imagine how much more interest there would be in the show.

If I were to rate the Microsoft Conference (which is what I'm doing right now) I would give it a 6/10. The game selection was just too darn good to give it any lower than that.

E3 Conference Schedule

Well here it is, the all-important E3 conference schedule. There are many other mini-conferences going on during the next three days but these are the bigger ones.

7/10/07: Times in Mountain Pacific

9:30pm - Microsoft Press Conference

7/11/07:

10:00am - Nintendo Press Conference
12:30am - Sony Press Conference
3:00pm - Electronic Arts conference
4:15pm - Activision conference
5:30pm - Midway conference
6:45pm - Konami conference

7/12/07:

9:00am - Take-Two conference
10:15am - THQ conference
11:30am - Ubisoft conference
2:00pm - Namco Bandai conference
4:30pm - Disney Interactive conference

Online Censorship: Is It Possible?

I was playing a little bit of Gears of War online last night and something hit me, how can you give Gears of War a Mature rating? I find it extremely humorous that game companies can put a little sticker on a game box that says "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" and not be responsible for a complete shift in gameplay content. Play about five games of UNO on Xbox Live with random strangers and I guarantee you will see someone's privates using the Vision Cam. Play any shooter game (and most other games too but especially shooters) and you can't have your ear piece in for five minutes without hearing profanities and racial slurs.

I've seen plenty of R-rated movies in my time and hung out with plenty of people who curse up a storm (we call 'em sailors), so I've become pretty good at shrugging off curses and ignoring idiotic remarks. With the whole Manhunt 2 debacle with the ESRB a question has come to mind, how can you truly rate games with online features? Shouldn't you still be responsible for supplying an avenue for such things, or is that off your shoulders because it's online.

Not that I agree with Nintendo and their online plans (because for the record, I think game-specific Friend Codes are a complete waste of time) but they do have one way of helping these games get rated, or at least censored. Nintendo does not allow any player to have any verbal communication with anyone that they have not already exchanged Friend Codes with. So this stops random cursing from anyone that you don't, presumably, already hear it from. But this also cuts you off from a ton of the fun of online games, meeting new gamers within the confines of the game and "talking shop" with them.

So here is where I think Bungie (makers of the Halo series) has one of the better ideas in regards to online censoring, you are allowed to censor the game as you play. Halo 3 allows you the simple option to mute anyone who may be offending you in anyway. If someone says poop and you are one of those rare people who doesn't poop and is offended by even the mention of the word, then mute the person who said it and never hear them again. Does this help mothers wanting to completely censor their child's life from curse words and profanities? No. Is it a step in the right direction? Yes. You know what I would like to see, a company (and parents) actually use the Parental Controls, that's what I would like to see.

Nintendo Wii: Greatest Product Ever?

If you didn't think the Nintendo Wii was totally in the spotlight when it came to the general media, it's finally time to start believing. According to PC Magazine the Nintedo Wii is "the best product ever." Feel free to check out his reasons, and Sony bashing, right here, or you can just read the headline and understand the jist of it. I thought it was particularly funny how he compares Nintendo to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. If he's quoting Star Wars he must know a thing or two about technology right?

In all reality though, this guy almost seems bitter towards Microsoft and somewhat moreso towards Sony. I also found it interesting that he only mentions two games, Wii Sports and Tiger Woods, as his examples for why this system is the best product ever. Am I wrong or does the iPod allow you to put any song ever created on the thing, and the NES and Playstation allow so much awesome, and easy to play, gaming. Not to take anything away from the Wii, or give anything extra to iPods (not really that big a fan) but come on, the best product ever? Give it another 3 years before we start making statements like this.

Hardware Sales Comparison Chart

Over at VG Charts there's a new graph representing the current sales figures of all three next-generation consoles. I've given you a screenshot of the graph below but I would recommend checking out the graph yourself right here because they have some neat ways to compare the various systems. Needless to say, it appears Nintendo is doing well for themselves while the launch of Microsoft and Sony's consoles are actually quite similar.

Square-Enix Prefers Nintendo Systems

Apparently one of the big-wigs over at Square-Enix, home of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, has claimed the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are "over-engineered." Yoichi Wada, SE's chief executive, believes the Nintendo Wii to be a better choice for developers and the industry as a whole, especially for the next few years.

The hardware power of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are "over-engineered" and "there are too many specs -- and you also need a high-definition TV, a broadband connection, and a deep knowledge of gaming--these consoles are mismatched to today's environment. In a year or two years, they will fare better," Wada added.

This can only be good news for those of you out there that are Nintendo fans. I personally don't really ever play traditional RPGs (in fact Baten Kaitos, in only a few days when I beat it, will be the only true RPG I will have ever finished) but this is still great news for a lot of you Nintendo/RPG fans. I bet, and this isn't really all that crazy of a prediction, that Dragon Quest X will be a Wii-exclusive whenever that day comes. After all, we are still waiting for Dragon Quest IX to come out for the DS so Japan can have an excuse for another national holiday (Japan practically shuts down on the day a new Dragon Quest game comes out).

Check out the article over at Daily Tech.

Will Bioshock Actually Be Any Good?

For anyone interested my roommate decided not to keep Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 after the unimpressive reviews of the game. It's kind of a shame considering how pumped he was to get the game ever since our first play-through at E3 last year but sometimes that happens. It actually got us to talking about hype and how this game was all hyped up to be a sweet multiplayer only game and then it turned out to have more issues than fun (or so the reviews said). We also watched a few Bioshock videos last night, the new ones, and we were only mildly impressed with the actual gameplay footage. This game could very well end up being the next great game for the 360, but honestly, I was thinking it would look a little more fluid in the animation department and the aiming looked a little off for some reason. I know it's hard to tell how great the game controls just by watching videos but it does give you a decent idea. So my wonder for Bioshock is how will it turn out. Will this super-hyped game turn into the next Gears of War (exceed the hype) or the next Shadowrun (underwhelming)?

Awaiting the Inevitable Xbox 360 Price Drop

Well now I've gotta get a 360. Ever since the launch of the 360 only one of my buddies had one and he was always trying to convince our other friends and I that we need one so we could play online.For the first year none of us but him had one and we were all content only occasionally playing Xbox games using his 360. But ever since the Wii came out the buddy of ours down in Texas was trying to get one but couldn't for the first few month; so he caved in and bought an Xbox. Needless to say we then found a Wii for him the next week here in Colorado so he then had both, but that's a different story all together. So now that two of us had one it lead another buddy of ours to get one too along with Gears of War (go figure). So now the tables have turned quite a bit, everyone has one but me. It appears that I must now get an Xbox 360 and succumb to peer pressure, that is whenever the time comes that I no longer have my roommate's to play. I'm just hoping by then that Microsoft decides to start lowering the price of the system rather than going the Elite route and increasing the price.

Shadowrun for 360: To Open or Not To Open

That really is the question here. I just recently received Shadowrun and my roommate and I cannot decide if we want to open it or not. It was he who bought it so I don't want to go open it up and play it but then again I am wondering why he bought it. Well we both played it at E3 last year and it was a pretty fun time, difficult to get the hang of it with all the races and weapons and whatnot, but fun nonetheless. He has been extremely excited for this game to come out and then he comes home with it and he seems undecided. No where online has reviews for this game and even the boards are very quiet about it. So what should we do? Is there anyone out there that has played this game and can give me some reason for him to open it?

Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony: The Future

This thought has continued to cross my mind ever since Sony mentioned their plans for the PS3 are for the long haul. I kept thinking to myself, how in the world could they really come back from the terrible sales they have been accumulating ever since the holiday season ended back in early January? Well a few things have lead me to believe, as far as the future is concerned, Microsoft could be the one in the most trouble. Now hear me out; I personally don’t think Microsoft is in any real trouble considering they are the current market leader and with Halo around the corner I don’t see any real issues with them for the very near future. But this is about the future, not the rest of this year.

I'm going to point some things out and you let me know if I am sitting on an island with these thoughts. If you were to ask anyone who is currently still deciding whether or not to buy a PS3 their main, if not only, reason would most likely be the price. Many feel like there aren’t any good games, but let’s be honest, there are some good games out now and some great games coming. But there are not enough great games out to warrant the high price the system is currently sporting. On the same side of the coin is the Wii, except it has a low enough price to make the number of good games currently available on the console seem like a viable decision. I would be willing to argue that Microsoft is the only console that currently has a legitimately solid lineup of games and a price point to match, one advantage to launching a year earlier than the competition.

Neither Sony or Nintendo have really shown, or should I say proven, their online strategies up to this point. There really is a chance that Sony’s Home could end up doing everything Xbox Live does but with the benefit of costing nothing to consumers and giving it a little more personal touch. I won’t try and argue what Nintendo could potentially do with their online plan because, honestly, game-specific friend codes can never be as flushed out as Live or Home. So it can be argued that Microsoft is the only company that has truly shown all it's cards when it comes to online. Now you could mention the new keyboard and being able to IM people on MSN, but in all reality, that's not really advancing consumers opinions on the 360. Someone still unsure of the Xbox isn't going to see that and think, "Hey, maybe I do want a 360." Sony's Home, however, does bring those consumer friendly thoughts to consumers minds. I'm not saying that Xbox Live isn't a selling point because it totally is, which is part of my point. It is such a well designed online gaming network and still it's not selling systems like hotcakes. Sony has sold a decent amount of hardware and they have yet to release their online infrastructure to the public.

So with Microsoft having as great a gaming library as they do, having a totally flushed out online experience, and nearing the price point of the Wii (for the Core system) do they really have much more to show? Considering they are floating around 10-11 million install base right now, which isn't much for having a year head start, could they be in trouble in the long run? Could the next 5 years really allow the unshown cards of the rival systems to overtake Microsoft's early start? Nintendo's Wii is already well on its way and Sony needs nothing less than to drop the price in a year. But then again, if Microsoft can use Halo as a new launching point, it could be too late. Obviously only time will tell but it is something to think about.