Microsoft | The VidZone Network Blog

May 23, 2011

Something for Nothing: Premium Editions Didn’t Always Charge a Premium

Now that I’ve indulged in Amazon Prime’s everything-ships-free plan instead of having to find filler to reach the $25 mark for free shipping, I get a lot of individual movies or games in the mail–small, light boxes instead of larger, denser boxes with three or more things packed inside. On Friday, I received one such large, heavy box and couldn’t remember what I could have possibly ordered that would result in a package of this heft. Once I opened it, I realized it was my copy of The Witcher 2.

At the time of pre-order for the game, there was no “standard” edition; there was the choice of “premium” at the normal PC game price of $50 or the “collector’s edition” at a much pricier $130. Even this “base-level” package was packed with the sort of things we’d normally pay a price-premium for to upgrade to a collector’s edition: behind-the-scenes DVD, soundtrack CD, strategy guide, map, coin. Atari and CDProjekt spoiled their fans for $10 less than the price that even the PC versions of popular console games charge. Heck, even the PC-only Starcraft II retailed for $60. (more…)

Carl @ 12:33 am
Filed under: Film,Games,Techniques — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , —

August 21, 2009

“Squircle” is not the sound it makes when you touch it


Image credit: RussellHeimlich.com

I recently upgraded from my original Zune 30 to a Zune 80 thanks to a phenomenal sale price online. I love its smaller body, longer battery life, and of course the more than doubled capacity.

Aside from non-tactile feedback, I also dislike touch-based controls on portable devices due the the additional battery drain the technology introduces.

After trying out the new touch-sensitive, swipable squircle for a while, I ultimately turned it off in favor of sticking with traditional 5-way d-pad control. I operate the MP3 player blindly in the car, tracking forward and backwards in songs and skipping tracks. I didn’t want to inadvertently jump around or alter the volume level just by keeping my thumb on the squircle.

I was experiencing some unresponsiveness and unintentional (often opposite) behavior sometimes. Why won’t it read my clicks? Why is the volume raising instead of skipping a track? Why’s the track restarting instead of skipping forward?

I’ve since figured out the mystery. It turns out the Zune Pad’s touch setting only deactivates swipe gestures. Otherwise the touch-sensitivity is still active, and in fact determines the action taken when the squircle is depressed. In fact, I don’t it’s a traditional 5-way d-pad at all; I believe there’s a single microswitch under the big button. The Zune uses it’s touch sensor to determine whether your finger is in the up/down/left/right/center zone when the button is depressed. If you press any direction with a fingernail, nothing happens since there’s no skin contact to send electrical signals. And if you put a finger on one direction but press the opposite direction with a fingernail, the action activated is the one where your skin is making contact with the pad.

Clever implementation…but sometimes annoying. Fortunately, my battery life is phenomenal, though I haven’t put the unit through a multi-day endurance trial yet.

Carl @ 5:42 pm
Filed under: Gadgets,Techniques — Tags: , , —

July 13, 2009

E309: Forza Motorsport III impressions

In a nutshell:
Take one of the most exciting sim-style racers, fix what few problems it had, and add in even more goodies.

What I played:
A short two-lap race around a mountain track in a Lotus Evora. I also played it in the super-deluxe cockpit with triple-screen panorama, new Fanatec Porsche force feedback wheel, 5.1 audio, and motion base. The motion base is custom and does not utilize the already consumer-adopted D-Box motion code. It is uncertain if it will be an option in the final game, but it obviously received a lot of interest and attention.

Like:
Graphics overhaul: FM2 was very disappointing to me because it looks like an up-res’d Xbox 1 game. It ran smooth, but the textures and lighting were a bit muddy. Now everything is absolutely crisp and easily rivals the high bar Sony has set with its photo-realistic Gran Turismo series.

Aggression: Despite being a sim, the other AI racers don’t necessarily act like gentlemen all the time. They’re just as hungry to win as you and aren’t afraid of a little bump ‘n grind.

Unlimited rewind: At any point in the game, you’re able to hold down the Back button to rewind your race up to five seconds at a time. And unlike Grid with its tokens system, you’re allowed to use this feature as many times as you want. Considering that some later races last upwards of six minutes, this allows you to strive for a perfect run without throwing away half of your play time. However, I think this “instant gratification” system could hinder the less-dedicated drivers’ abilities to learn the track.

Dislike:
Loading: Again, this is an early build, and maybe there were some additional complications introduced by running on a triple-console/triple-screen, motion-base setup, but I was twiddling my thumbs for what felt like a quarter to half the time I actually spent on the racetrack. The results were well worth it, though, and the new rewind feature will drastically cut down on any need to completely reload the current race.

Carl @ 8:03 pm
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , , —

June 11, 2009

Back from E3: Quickie wrap-up

Highlights:

Zephyr attention: Tremendous turnout to check out our project. Met and chatted with a lot of people, from studio devs wandering the show, other indie devs, media outlets large and small, digital distribution portals, and senior/executive staff from mega-publishers.  Interestingly, we received a notable amount of interest from composers.  I’m sure most of them were just looking for a project to work on, but I asked a few of the more exciteable ones what drew them to our project in particular.  Our aesthetic had a lot of fans.  People love steam-punk and/or pirates.  They also noticed our Skies of Arcadia influences.  Unfortunately while we were out at lunch on the third day, a trio of Japanese SEGA folk demoed our game, each taking one of my cards.  Boy, that would have been a stellar group to talk with.

Forza Motorsport III: There were a trio of cockpit setups with three-screen panorama, 5.1 audio, and force-feedback wheel. One of them even had a full motion base that MS custom-rigged.  I spoke with one representative and he said he wasn’t familiar with the consumer-standard D-Box that’s already being used for Blu-Ray and PC; I directed him toward their booth.  One of my biggest peeves with FM2 was the sort of lackluster graphics.  That is no longer a concern, and I’m sure everything else will be great as always.

Great eats: The show allowed for a sort of FIEAn mini-reunion, and we were escorted to a slew of great dining spots.  There was heavenly Italian at C&O’s Trattoria, melt-in-your-mouth lamb french dips and spicy garlic fries at Cole’s, and a table-filling assortment of dim sum at Empress Pavilion.  Lastly, we made a pit stop at In & Out burger before catching our flights out.

Disappointments:

Being clueless: We spent the vast majority of our time demonstrating our game at the IndieCade booth, and we’re absolutely flattered and grateful for the attention.  However, that duty and the lack of a fast, reliable internet connection meant I couldn’t really read/watch what was announced, and we couldn’t spend too much time going hands-on with what was on display.  People at home knew a lot more about E3 goings-on than I did.

Activision booth: Where were all the games?  It was an impressive booth thanks to the massive screens running a loop of trailers plus the stage for celebrity appearances and DJs, but the only noticable play stations were Tony Hawk: Ride and Blur at the front.  I was really looking forward to getting hands-on with DJ Hero.  Most stuff was being show behind closed doors.  However, it was funny to see the Ghostbusters standing in line to meet Stan Lee.

God of War 3: It wasn’t that it sucked, it’s that I didn’t see anything new or noteworthy after spending a combined hour or so of my limited “goof-off” time budget standing in line and playing the demo.  The presentation continues to be fantastic, now using a lot more depth-related effects.  However, it failed to showcase any of the sense of scale that was teased by the early trailers.  (For that, Bayonetta‘s bridge battle helped make it Best of Show for me.)

Carl @ 1:21 am
Filed under: Games,Personal — Tags: , , , , , , , , , —

June 6, 2009

Xbox Live 1 vs. 100 beta impressions

1 vs. 100 (XBLA)

This could be a problem.  I’m a trivia fiend, and I could easily see myself becoming addicted to this game.  Similarly to Grid, you can earn points simply by participating.  Even if you’re a complete dolt, you’ll still be making positive progress.

There are one of three groups you could wind up in: The One, who is the active contestant; The Mob, who wins prizes if The One gets stumped; and The Crowd, who consists of everyone else participating.  The Mob starts off as a group of 100 players.  As individual members fail to properly answer a question, The One climbs their way up the prize ladder.  The One has a few “lifelines” which include polling the highest scorer, accepting the majority answer of The Mob, or accepting the majority answer of The Crowd.

What frustrates me is what I think I can attribute to lag or being physically too far from a server.  When answers are presented, less points are awarded as time clicks down until the player finally buzzes in.  Even when I know it’s the final choice and mash the button well before it’s revealed, I can’t ever score higher than 190 (out of a possible 200).  Those milliseconds absolutely do matter.

Players are given the ability to cheer, jeer, or dance by tapping the Y button and scrolling through various actions.  Behind you is also interactive lighting, which I call the “hype meter.”  It rises as you perform an action, but for a while I couldn’t figure out how to enter the last bar.  Or how one of the other players was dancing.  It turns out you’ve really got to mash on the button quickly, however once the dancing is initiated, you can slow down again.

Favorite thing: Xbox Live Primetime brings with it the ability to schedule pop-up reminders for events.  It’s fully integrated with the Xbox Dashboard, just like download and friend notifications.

Least favorite thing: The outcome of this question:  (Note: the answers are labeled to match the Xbox controller’s buttons in order from left to right.)  “What is the 24th letter of the alphabet? X. A A. X B. B”  Of course I hit the X button intending for the answer “X.”  About 1/3 of the mob also made the same mistake.  Stupid trickery!

Carl @ 10:41 pm
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , , , , —

May 28, 2009

The alphabet X to Z

Or, rather, Z to X, as the case may be.

Alongside the announcement of the Zune HD (to take on the iPod Touch), Microsoft has announced that the Zune video marketplace will supplant the current Xbox Live Video Marketplace on the console. No word on if the music store will follow or if Xbox-related videos will now be downloadable to through Zune’s PC software.

I think this integration has been a long time coming. Consider that ever since the Zune launched, it shared the same servers as Xbox Live content, shared the same “gamertag,” and used Microsoft Points from the same pool. (The last point makes Nintendo’s division of Wii-only points and DSi-only points an odd decision.) J Allard and many of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices group went from working on the Xbox to the Zune. It’s always all been in the same family with what seems to me minimal political hiccups getting in the way of synergy between the two brands.

The justification I’ve been using to explain that lack of cross-over was in the licensing terms. I’d figured that maybe some time early on when the umbrella terms were drafted, they called for media playback specifically only on the Xbox 360, not taking into consideration portability to other devices.

With the video store, it’s possible, though hopefully unlikely, to have purchased the same video on both the Zune and Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The smart user with a network would have only bought from the Zune storefront and streamed the video to their Xbox 360.

Personally, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to download all the gaming videos from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace to my PC, where hard drive space is more plentiful. I have a 120GB hard drive on my console, and it is chock full of gigs upon gigs of trailers, developer’s diaries, press conferences, and concerts. I need to regularly delete older demos just to make room for a new one, and there have been occasions I didn’t even have enough space to download a new Rock Band/Guitar Hero song.

Carl @ 2:41 am
Filed under: Gadgets — Tags: , , —

April 9, 2009

A good copy of a good thing, though a copy, is still good

I’m a big fan of Microsoft’s recent “so easy a kid can do it, so eat it, Apple” ads, and I think this new one for the Xbox 360 is another winner. Sure, it’s a little too Hitchhiker’s/Stephen Fry/LittleBigPlanet, but it still has its own authentic charms.

Carl @ 11:20 am
Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , —