Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 5.19.06

Get it? It’s hacked? With an axe?

Xbox 360 hacked to play pirated games, err backups
That didn’t take too long, but it won’t work for everyone and if you get caught Bill Gates will devour your soul.

Analysts worry PS3 price will hurt the game industry
While somewhat obvious, it’s good to see analysts voicing thoughts that not everyone has had. The reasoning behind the suspicion Sony is hurting the industry is such a high price point for the PS3 will prevent growth. Installing new users each successive generation is very important if game development costs are going to continue to grow and a $500 price tag prevents this. When thought of in terms of accessibility versus cost and hardware versus software, the gap between Sony and Nintendo seems even larger. →  Europa Universalis IV: Articles of War

Only Bill Gates can afford a PS3

$500 for a stripped down system? And if I save up after buying it I still can never have all the features the full $600 version has? When Phillips launched the CD-i at $800 it was clear they were insane. The PS3 will be cheaper but not by enough to make it clear that Sony are in their right mind.

Sony justifies the cost by saying there is a Blu Ray player in the system. Guess who designed the console. No, it wasn’t me. It was Sony. So they decided to put a Blu Ray player in the system. The Blu Ray players cost a thousand dollars so we are all getting a great buy, Sony says. If the PS4 comes attached to a Lexus and sells for 30 grand Sony will praise the system for being much cheaper than a Lexus without the PS4. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

A guide to selling extra content

Microsoft and Oblivion have shown the world that gamers will actually buy discreet bits of additional content for their favorite games. Designing a method that allows a game to create a constant stream of revenue is ingenious, and now that the groundwork has been laid for us all we need to do to take advantage of this lucrative business opportunity is jump on the bandwagon. So then the question is not how do we set up a system that continually milks our fans, but rather what exactly do we use to separate them from their money; what content can we sell and to whom?

Any mildly proactive person can see that things like weapons, armor, and other gear can be sold to players for additional fees. →  Beyond Read & Evil

Review – Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Developed by Starbreeze
Published by VU Games
Released 6.1.04

The guy in the purple sock thing deserves to die for crimes against fashion.

I have seen neither Pitch Black nor the Chronicles of Riddick (I like being uninformed, it gives me a unique angle). I am not sure Vin Diesel doesn’t suck, and yes, I know he likes D&D. I also know I saw the Pacifier, though that was more strawberry margarita’s fault than his. Combining my hesitation about Mr. Diesel with my general apathy for FPS’s, and the fact that most games based on movies are secretly designed by Satan, I was not convinced the Chronicles of Riddick game would be anything more than god awful. →  There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is games.