Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Tero Kuittinen

The end of November period brought just about the worst possible news for Nintendo: The latest Pokemon games sold a dazzling 1.5 million units in Japan during launch week.

It’s a massive number in a market where few titles manage to crack the 100,000 unit barrier during their debuts. The hot Pokemon rollout helped once again revive the aging 3DS portable console sales, boosting the weekly unit sales number to 83,000. This is more than seven times higher than weekly sales of Sony’s flagship PS4 console in Japan.

This toxic triumph was precisely what Nintendo did not need. The company requires shock therapy to force its hidebound executives to abandon their preposterous opposition to launching Nintendo’s beloved franchises on iPad. Instead, the ancient Nintendo properties from its ’80s and ’90s halcyon days keep performing well enough to enable the company to keep its head in the sand.

Nintendo is not crashing fast enough. The core device franchise, the 3DS, has now sold nearly 2.4 million units in Japan so far this year, which is substantially below the 4 million units it sold in the same period last year. But the erosion is simply too slow to force the company to change its mind about getting into the mobile app market. The strong Pokemon sales numbers from its home market just gave the reactionary wing of Nintendo’s management a new argument to stay the course and keep hanging onto its slowly sinking game console platforms.

While Nintendo’s console sales slide, the mobile game market is about to hit $22 billion in 2014 and is poised to balloon to $30 billion in 2016. So many of the most famous and lucrative game franchises are sitting out the tablet and smartphone game explosion completely – Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Pokemon, etc.

Animal Crossing would be a perfect fit for the iPad and the monetization potential of its item collection system boggles the mind. Dr. Mario and other puzzle gems Nintendo has created could challenge the billion-dollar Candy Crush Saga empire so easily. F-Zero and Mario Kart are precisely the kind of rally games that fit the tablet format.

What could possibly be more delicious than Advance Wars for iPad? An insanely addictive, turn-based strategy game that begs for a connected, touchscreen-based device with a micro-payment system. Who amongst us would not pay $1.99 for new AW campaigns every damn month?

Nintendo is missing out on billions of dollars in totally new revenue with development costs that would be substantially below of what the Wii U requires. But with every passing quarter, Nintendo’s brand power becomes a little less valuable and relevant to younger consumers. Franchises like Castlevania and Metroid are already unknown to the new generation.

The sweet elixir of Pokemon 3DS profits are a slow venom dripping into Nintendo’s veins, numbing the mind of the company that needs to embrace change right now.

by Paul Tassi

I’ve recently taken some time out of saving the world and romancing elves in Dragon Age: Inquisition to finally fire up Far Cry 4. With both games released on the same day, and both receiving high praise, it can be hard to know which one to pick up and start first, though your past experience with the two series and their respective genres will probably lead you one way or another.

Far Cry 4, for the open world shooter aficionado, is Ubisoft’s second experiment in making their major series annual (depending on if you count Blood Dragon, in this case). We’ve seen the unfortunate results of that philosophy this month in regards to Assassin’s Creed Unity, which was released with a wide array of bugs and glitches, and a relative lack of innovation to boot.

Thankfully, Far Cry 4 feels less hurried, and though it may not excel in the innovation department (less so in many ways than Unity, as we’ll discuss), it launched mostly free of major disasters, and “rushed” isn’t an adjective used to frequently describe the game. At least not in the traditional sense.

Far Cry 4 is not a rushed game in that it’s not broken and unplayable at launch like so many other titles released these days (outside of a few fatal errors on PS3), but the year-long timetable only allowed for minimal changes to the blueprint of Far Cry 3. Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gertsman said it best when he described it as a game for those who loved Far Cry 3, and want to play more of it without having to go through the same game again.

The similarities aren’t just on the surface, they’re practically endless. In both games you, a twenty-something male hero, goes to a foreign land and is conscripted to fight in a rebel army against a surprisingly charismatic villain with a militarized occupational force in his pocket. Your first mission is to take down a radio tower and open up a section of the map, and you then proceed to do this no less than 17 times. You’re tasked with clearing out enemy outposts to relinquish their control over certain areas. You’re given assassinations, hunting missions, races, and so on meant to distract you from the main questline whenever possible. And I’m pretty sure I just burned a series of opium fields in a mission surgically transplanted directly from Far Cry 3.

I’ve almost never seen a game more derivative of its predecessor than Far Cry 4. But fortunately, Far Cry 3′s formula was such a great gaming experience, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As it stands, the Far Cry series is one of the best open world games in existence, and by simply doing what Far Cry 3 did a little better, Far Cry 4 is a hit in its own right. It’s the definition of “why fix what isn’t broken?”

With that said, I’m not sure this is a card Ubisoft can play more than once. Depending on their sales data, they are undoubtedly trying to imagine the next exotic animal-filled wilderness locale they can set a future game in (the Amazon! the African plains redux!) and what kind of eccentric villain they can cast (a logging executive with a handlebar mustache! a warlord who loves Taylor Swift albums!). I’m just not sure they can continue to play it safe to this degree.

Far Cry 4 is Far Cry 3, and the two share 99.9% of the same DNA. It’s like if Far Cry 4 was simply Far Cry 3 DLC that ran a bit long and ended up being 150% bigger than the original offering. By taking the huge leap forward for the series that was FC3 and simply refining it (resettable outposts! elephant riding!) all they essentially had to do was make a new map (the hardest bit of an open world title) and write a script with vaguely the same outline as the first game.

It’s genius, and it worked, given how good the game is. Ubisoft has stumbled upon yet another formula that delivers, but if the differences between 3 and 4 are any indication, Far Cry may evolve even less with each new iteration than Assassin’s Creed does.

Fortunately, Far Cry has inherent fun working in its favor where Assassin’s Creed, sadly, does not. While occasionally AC comes up with a mechanic that breathes life into the series (pirate ship battles!), when it comes to plain old stealth and intrigue on the streets of Paris, the only wacky fun you’ll have is stumbling into one of the game’s face-removing glitches. But with Far Cry? Even if you played 40 hours of the last game, you can turn on Far Cry 4 and within 20 minutes set an elephant loose in an enemy encampment and be giggling like a little girl.

And yet, without further evolution, I don’t think Ubisoft can luck out like this again. My fictional Amazonian Far Cry 5 or African Far Cry 6 may indeed come to pass, but players will get tired of the formula. I suppose that can be said of many series, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sequel change less about its plot and core gameplay than I have moving between Far Cry 3 and 4. It’s an impressive trick, but I’ll be amazed if it works again.

by Steve Bowler

Everyone had always assumed that Disney was going to buy Pixar

During one of my regular business chats with my father, who is a retired CEO, I predicted that Pixar was going to buy Disney and turn the company around. The value worked better going the other way. While Disney needed the magic of Pixar at that point in the company’s life, Pixar didn’t exactly need Disney.

My father was incredulous but, when Disney bought Pixar in 2006, I called my Dad with the news. Because holy shit, I had called it.

“As part of the deal, expected to be completed this summer, two Pixar veterans will head Disney’s animation efforts. Ed Catmull, who had served as Pixar’s president, was named president of the combined Pixar and Disney Animation Studios,” CNET reported. “John Lasseter, the Pixar executive vice president who is widely regarded as the studio’s creative leader, was named chief creative officer. Pixar will remain in its San Francisco Bay Area headquarters. ”

It gets better!

“Though Disney is issuing $7.4 billion worth of stock, it’s paying closer to $6.3 billion after factoring in Pixar’s cash holdings of slightly more than $1 billion,” the story said. “Pixar shareholders will receive 2.3 Disney shares for every Pixar share they own, a move that will make Jobs the largest individual shareholder of Disney.”

Pixar won in every important way in that deal, from the cash to the power. So today I’m making a new prediction: Disney’s next acquisition will be Nintendo.

This would be expensive

Nintendo would be Disney’s second priciest intellectual property grab to date. A fairly straightforward way to ballpark a company’s worth is to multiply their net revenue by three to four times. This puts Nintendo somewhere in the neighborhood of a $11 to $22 billion buyout based on the numbers of fiscal 2014

This is the lowest it would cost to buy Nintendo in seven years, since the company is in a slump and bleeding cash. If Disney were to buy the company, this is the time. Things are looking up for Nintendo in some ways, but coming off a long stretch of losses and struggling hardware sales there’s only so much big games can do to help the company. Nintendo is at a historic weak point, making the company very attractive for acquisition at a good price.

It would still cost a ton of money. To put the $19 billion-ish price into an easy to digest number, buying Nintendo would cost Disney more money than they paid for Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel, combined. It’s a huge purchase, unless you’re Disney.

Disney’s current Net Worth is hovering around the $142 billion mark, and the profit they made from the last two fiscal years would allow them to buy Nintendo with cash, if it came to that. And it wouldn’t.

The last time Disney made an acquisition this size was when they paid $19 billion for ABC in 1996. With inflation, that purchase would have cost about $29 billion today. Disney is no stranger to huge, ambitious acquisitions.

Disney — using the same game plan they used for Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars — could recoup that cost within five years. The secret is that Disney wouldn’t be investing in the video game business, they would be furthering their already near monopoly on characters.

Disney wouldn’t be buying the Wii U, they’d be buying Mario

Disney is a marvel of intellectual property, and this is one area in which Nintendo excels.

The Marvel Universe Films have blown away just about everything comic-book-related save the most recent Batman films and now here comes the new Star Wars films and the Rebels TV show.

Disney has always been an impressive company, but the way it has managed its intellectual property in the post-Lasseter era has been amazing. Even the direct-to-video model has seen a huge jump in quality and organization.

It’s a huge purchase, unless you’re Disney

Disney has evolved into an unstoppable Juggernaut of intellectual property. They’ve bought Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars in the past ten years, and were even rumored to be in pursuit of Studio Ghibli at one point in 2013. What these companies have in common is a stable of characters that audiences love, that could be leveraged in multiple ways.

If you want to look at what Disney can do for a character, look at the mainstream’s acceptance of Iron Man. In 2008, Iron Man was known mostly to comic book fans and was considered to be something of a B-List hero in comparison to someone like Wolverine. Now Iron Man is one of the best known, and most profitable, characters in Marvel’s impressive arsenal. All it took was a few great movies and a huge marketing push.

Disney wouldn’t see Nintendo as a hardware company or even a software company, just as they didn’t see Marvel as a comic book company. Nintendo holds some of the best intellectual property in the world, from Mario to Link. Kids are still wearing Mario and Luigi shirts next to their classmates wearing Minecraft and Iron Man logos.

There are incredible properties, from Metroid to F-Zero, that would offer Disney huge opportunities in everything from film to theme park attractions. Nintendo, when looked at through the lens of an acquisition, is a bundle of amazing, well-known characters and worlds that are criminally underused.

Nintendo is the last company that owns characters that could compete with the worlds that Disney already controls, and adding Mario to the Disney original characters, Marvel superheroes and Star Wars would mean that Disney all but owns entertainment as a whole.

Disney would benefit in many ways

This also represents a growth opportunity for Disney. Its current success has created a monster, and it’s a very hungry, publicly traded monster.

Investors want to see their stocks grow, and that means the company has to grow. New IP is always risky — which is one of the reasons Disney leans on the “Princess” model; they’re familiar even when they’re new — so one of the safest ways to grow your company is to grab existing characters. You can’t create and grow something as big as Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars overnight.

Nintendo is a company that’s at risk due to its reliance on hardware that isn’t selling, but that hasn’t diminished the value of the games and characters themselves. Disney doesn’t need to sell Wii U hardware for the acquisition to make sense, it would merely need to find better uses for these characters.

Growth would happen when Disney takes Samus Aran and crafts a high-quality PG-rated CGI film about her adventures. It would come from Mario Kart raceways in Disney World and Disney Land. Fold Peach into the world of Disney Princesses, and create interesting toys and collectibles to be sold in Disney retail stores.

Nintendo offers the same upsides that Disney saw in Star Wars: A hugely popular cast of characters and products that are surprisingly under-exploited. If Disney does for Nintendo what it did for Marvel, the company will continue to grow, giving shareholders the bump they need to keep the stock price up.

This is a great fantasy, but it will never happen

Nintendo is suffering the same malaise that was strangling Star Wars, and it’s a failing of politics and company culture, not the products or value of the worlds themselves.

The Wii U is stagnant at retail. Sales of the portable systems are slowing down. It’s unclear where Nintendo goes from here, but Disney could provide them a way out of all these problems, while continuing to support Nintendo’s software development and bring its stable of characters to the mainstream.

Disney has a proven history of accomplishing all of the above with Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. We have no reason to believe that if they maintain the leadership and teams behind the Nintendo games themselves that they couldn’t repeat the same level of success all over again with Nintendo.

Nintendo also has a company control that resists change, and it’s sitting on a huge mountain of currency that means the company doesn’t have to do anything for a long time.

“Buried in reams of financial data is the revelation that Nintendo have 812.8 billion Yen (£6.7/$10.5 billion) in the bank — enough for it to take a 20 billion Yen loss (£163/$257 million) every year until 2052,” UK’s Nintendo Gamer Magazine wrote back in 2012. “Then there’s almost 469 billion Yen (£3.8/$6.0 billion) held in premises, equipment and investments. When that runs out — we’re in the year 2075 by this point — they’ve got some of the most valuable intellectual property in gaming to sell off before the company goes out of business.”

In most situations Disney would be able to pick Nintendo up for a good price, and the most would benefit both companies. What’s more likely is that Nintendo will continue to lean on its savings to insulate itself from having to make any drastic changes.

If things don’t improve, however, the asking price will only go down, and I have no doubt Disney will be paying attention for the perfect time to make an offer.

Steve Bowler has worked on animated feature films, Emmy award winning animated TV series, video games on just about any recent gaming hardware from mobile to console to PC. Currently a Lead Designer at Phosphor Games helping teams to create awesome stuff.

by Dave Thier

You have to hand it to Rockstar: it just made GTA new again. When GTA 5 launched last year, the developer gave us the most fully-realized and detailed world it had ever built, and yet it was hard to not feel something missing. Not only was its story mode badly written and mostly boring, its odd brand of comedy was tired at best and it once again found itself doing a whole bunch of random stuff with very little at its center. That bizarre anarchy that had seemed so intriguing and dangerous when GTA 3 first came felt just, somehow, lame. Well, the game is coming out for PS4 and Xbox One, and this time you can play in first person mode. What fresh hell is this?

Take a GTA story as old as time: you walk down the street, you pull out a shotgun, and you shoot an innocent person to death in the street. Boring, right? Shocking a decade or so ago, but we’re all used to it by now. First person mode makes that entirely different. That person fills your entire field of view. He’s big enough so that you can see the expression his face. He was texting. Who was he texting? You’re not the puppeteer controlling an agent of violence anymore — it’s one step closer to being you. It seems like this is what the developer intended all along.

Rockstar introduced a hatchet weapon for this version, and it’s hard not to imagine that this is how they intended it to be used. I won’t embed the video, but you can watch it on youtube here.

Or take another GTA classic — the prostitute scene. This isn’t just a vague view of the back of the car, anymore. You see her face. You see your own hand. For obvious reasons, I’m also not embedding the video, but you can watch the sort of NSFW link here.

It’s almost as if Rockstar saw how humdrum the violence had become and said no, no, no. This is truly as terrible as you imagine it. Look at it. Look at what you’ve done. Look at what we’ve done. It’s as if they’re hungry for the same sort of evening news that it used to get and they’re pursuing it with as much fervor as ever. And they’ve done something striking in that quest. Good job?

Of course, it’s not all about the sex and violence. First person also makes skydiving all that much more exhilarating, makes driving that much crazier, makes mountain biking down an exquisitely rendered Mt. Chilead that much more gorgeous. It makes the game’s trademark LA sunsets that much more staggering. It short, it makes everything more. First person mode makes GTA more GTA than it’s ever been: more brutal, more beautiful, more open, bigger and wilder. That’s the thing about it: for better, for worse, it’s an incredible success.

But I’m not convinced about all that other stuff. GTA 3 was a landmark exploration of open world development, but we’re lousy with gorgeous open world games now. A select few of them are as pretty and dense as GTA, but nearly all of them have a better sense of their own identities than GTA. For all its faults, Assassin’s Creed: Unity just delivered a fully explorable, drop-dead gorgeous rendering of Revolutionary Paris — it just means something in a way Rockstar can’t muster. It’s true, GTA 5′s Los Santos is probably the most detailed open world I’ve seen yet. But that just makes Rockstar the guys with the deepest pockets, not the guys with any ideas.

Just the fact that I still feel constantly compelled to compare this game to GTA 3 reminds me of when the actual innovation with this franchise happened.

It leaves us with Rockstar’s only real trick left up its sleeve: the same old approach to misanthropy and violence. Shock value still feels like the biggest thing this game has going for it, and this series burned out on that a long time ago. It’s more real than ever, and it’s more horrible than ever, but less than making the game seem more relevant it just reminds me of the slick, fancy dinosaur it is.

by Mike Minotti

I want out.

I was playing a lot of Destiny, the online multiplayer sci-fi shooter that came out in September for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Sure, it had its immediate problems (lame story, uninspiring missions), but I really enjoyed fighting endless waves of weird aliens with my brothers and friends. We would do the daily bounties, missions, Strikes (three-player cooperative endeavors that are harder than missions), and multiplayer together. We even beat the The Vault of Glass raid, the hardest co-operative experience that Destiny currently offers.

But I think I’m done. Here’s why.

I’m seeing the same content over and over

Destiny’s endgame essentially has you replaying story missions and Strikes for currency and reputation so that you can get better gear. After a couple of months, I’m really tired of fighting through the same dungeons and bosses. Destiny only has six Strikes(and five if, like me, you’re playing on an Xbox console). That is not a lot of variety, especially when the Weekly Strike and Weekly Nightfall Strike have you playing the same missions.

Even Destiny’s raid, The Vault of Glass — while cool — loses its luster after you beat it once. Sure, it takes a lot of teamwork and effort to beat its two bosses the first time. But, after that, you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into. Yeah, you can play it on hard mode, but it’s still the same thing. Basically, I’m starving for more content. It’s a good thing that the first expansion, The Dark Below, is coming out on Dec. 9, right?

The expansion isn’t giving me enough content

Sadly, The Dark Below isn’t giving me as much I was hoping for. It adds one new Strike (two for PlayStation owners, but I’m playing on the Xbox One, so that’s pretty annoying), one new raid, three new multiplayer maps, new story missions, and new gear.

If the story missions show the same lack of creativity as in the base game, you’ll excuse me for not getting too excited about them. New multiplayer maps are fine, but the player-vs-player stuff has always felt like a distraction next to the co-operative missions, the real meat of Destiny. I expect new gear. So, I’m left with one new Strike and one new raid. How long will it take me to get through that?

The Strike will take one try, and then it’ll get thrown into random playlists with the others. The raid will take longer, but will it really last me until the next expansion comes out next year? An expansion, I’m assuming, that will offer the same amount of content.

Really, the word “expansion” is what’s bothering me. That usually signifies a lot of new content. Diablo III’s expansion, Reaper of Souls, added a new campaign chapter, a new class, new skills, a new endgame mechanic, and tons of other gameplay tweaks. World of Warcraft next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, gives players updated character models, a level increase from 90 to 100 (The Dark Below increase’s Destiny’s max level by just two), the garrison building, and multiple new dungeons and raids.

Sure, Destiny’s expansion is cheaper ($20, while Warlords of Draenor costs $50 when it comes out on Nov. 13), but that’s not the point. I’m not looking for a deal, I’m looking for content. The fact is that I’m bored in Destiny. It’s not the giant world of endless gaming possibilities that I was hoping for. All I have is player-vs.-player combat and missions, and I’ve already done it all multiple times. Adding one Strike and one raid is not enough to keep me engaged.

So many other games are coming out

I think a big reason I played Destiny as long as I did was because September and October were relatively quiet months for new gaming releases, but November is changing that. Already, a lot of my Xbox One friends have moved on to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and I’m sure more of them will get Halo: The Master Chief Collection when that comes out Nov. 11. And then comes Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Little Big Planet 3, and more.

I feel like most of the people I played with already moved on from Destiny, and I don’t think that The Dark Below’s meager offerings will bring them back. Frankly, with so many other games to play, I’m probably joining them.

Destiny’s future seems unclear. How many expansions will it get? Just the two we already know about? And now we know that Bungie is already making a sequel. When does that come out? Will my character and progress transfer over? Is that a part of Bungie’s “10 year plan” for the franchise?

Maybe I will jump back in when the sequel comes out. But, as far as the original goes, I’m done. Sure, I guess I got my “money’s worth,” but I still feel oddly unsatisfied about the whole experience.

by Dave Thier

Here’s the thing about the world of video games right now: there are actually three competing consoles. I know! The console war is all about Microsoft’s MSFT +0.61% Xbox One going up against Sony’s Sony’s PS4, about Nathan Drake vs. Master Chief and all that good stuff. But while there’s no denying a certain binary quality to modern consoles, one would do well to remember Nintendo’s Nintendo’s Wii U. Nintendo’s odd little box had a perfectly fine launch back in 2012, but it’s struggled since. During those two years, however, it has built up a solid library of first-party titles and, in its own way, more than justified its asking price. Arguably, even more so than its competition. The gamepad remains a terrible idea, but that hasn’t really held back Nintendo’s development teams.

Nintendo has always followed a software-first strategy, and while the Wii U’s hard/firmware is weird at best, its game library makes up for that. So in keeping with Nintendo’s philosophy, Wii U’s five best reasons are all games — there are other reasons to get a Wii U, of course, but that’s where the focus lies today. Check out five reasons for the PS4 from yesterday and five reasons for the Xbox One from the day before.

Mario Kart 8:

Oh, Mario Kart: king of kart racers, ever young, ever changing, and always one of the most fun racing experiences to be had anywhere. The insane world of flying shells and bananas may lack the precision of super-serious racers like Forza, but I’ll take Mario Kart over something with real cars any day. As an added bonus, huge numbers of non-gamers I talk to tell me they “only play Rock Band and Mario Kart,” so this is a good way to get more people in on the action.

You’ll notice a theme here, as we go through: local multiplayer. The Xbox One and Ps4 have more or less surrendered themselves to the world wide web, but Nintendo’s Wii U is an important bastion of couch-based competition, which is more fun anyway.

Super Smash Bros:

Technically, this game isn’t out yet, but we have a very clear idea what it’s going to look like from the 3DS version that’s already on shelves. Nintendo’s brawler has grown considerably since over the years and its extensive roster of first and third-party heroes provide the sort of manic nonsense that provides a much-needed counterpart to the legions of gruff games found on other platforms. Beneath the strangeness rests a fighting game complex and precise enough to have developed a loyal hardcore base.

The potential for eight player multiplayer also makes this what could be one of the more absurd experiences to be had in videogames today. Pick it up in time for the holidays and Christmas break won’t be boring.

by Chris Morris

Today’s 3D technology can make games a lot more immersive, but it could be making players angrier, too.

A study from Ohio State University examined the anger levels of players after they had played games on either 2D or 3D screens. Researchers concluded that adding one measly dimension can stir up some seriously negative emotions.

“3-D gaming increases anger because the players felt more immersed in the violence when they played violent games,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State. “As the technology in video games improves, it has the ability to have stronger effects on players.”

It’s worth noting that the study’s definition of 3D isn’t necessarily the same one many gamers think of. Researchers looked not at game engines that rendered a virtual recreation of three dimensions, but simply the effects of playing on a 3D screen.

A group of 194 college students played Grand Theft Auto IV on a 17-inch 2D screen, a 96-inch 2D screen, or a 96-inch 3D screen (while wearing dorky 3D glasses). Half were told to pay the game violently, while the other half were told to play a nonviolent bowling mini-game. After each session, they were asked to rate their feelings using a number of adjectives on a 1-to-5 scale.

The players who were instructed to play the game nonviolently were pretty relaxed no matter what screen they were playing on. But those who were allowed to immerse themselves in the game’s mayhem saw significant anger spikes after playing on a 3D screen.

The study is less a condemnation of 3D TV than it is of violent games in general. Bushman himself sounds the alarm.

“The combination of violent content and immersive technology like 3-D can be troublesome. This is something that needs to be considered by everyone involved — electronics manufacturers, video game developers, consumers, parents, and content ratings agencies,” he says.

What the study ignores, though, is that 3D TV has largely flopped, and gamers have never embraced the technology. Sony tried to push it by making an affordable 3D monitor specifically for the PlayStation. No one bought it. Even Nintendo, the standard-bearer for 3D with its 3DS portable system, has downplayed its 3D capabilities.

by Patrick O’Rourke

When I first saw the trailer for “Hatred”, I didn’t believe it was real game. I thought to myself, “Why would someone go through the effort of creating a game like this? It has to be a parody.” But no, Destructive Creations’ Hatred is a real video game and its all male Polish development team decided to announce their first title at what might be the worst possible time, just a day after a second female developer had to leave her home following death threats stemming from GamerGate, and popular feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a speaking appearance because of a school shooting threat.

The game’s website describes Hatred as follows: “It’s a horror, but here YOU are the villain,” says Destructive Creation’s website. “Wander the outskirts of New York State, seek for victims on seven free-roam levels. Fight against law enforcement and take a journey into the antagonist’s hateful mind. Gather equipment of the dead ‘human shields’ to spread Armageddon upon society. Destroy everything on your way of hunt and fight back when it’s disturbed…” “…just don’t try this at home and don’t take it too seriously, it’s just a game. :)” No, I didn’t add the smiley face. They added the smiley face. It’s almost like the game’s development team is trying to make light of their title’s extremely dark subject matter.

Hatred’s trailer starts off with a man who says his name isn’t important. He’s wearing a Matrix-style long black coat, his head is covered with dreadlocks and he’s assembling weapons. He discusses how the world is pointless, spouts a few horrible one-liners that feel like they’ve been pulled right out of a ’90s action movie, and then engages in his grotesque killing spree.

For decades the gaming industry has tried to defend itself against claims that video game violence inspires school shootings and, now, a group of developers is creating a game built around the idea of slaughtering innocent people. There’s no artistic justification for the violence in Hatred. Its main character has no real motivation. The game’s violence is over the top, unnecessary and offensive. Will Hatred actually inspire a mass shooting? Probably not. But does the game need to exist in an industry constantly trying to get the outside world to take it seriously? Also no.

There’s a place for violence in gaming and it can add a lot to a game’s experience. Shadow of Mordor’s crazy finishing kills are spectacular and fit perfectly into the game’s Lord of the Ring’s universe. The Grand Theft Auto franchise lets players assume the role of a criminal but the game also is an interesting commentary on North American culture. It’s important to point out that in the GTA series, players also have the ability to go on a killing spree just like in Hatred, but that’s not how the game is designed to be played and there are consequences for those actions.

Grand Theft Auto V tells a compelling story and gives players moral choices. In many ways, it’s almost satirical. Hatred is designed to be a giant people-killing simulator and nothing else. So, how does Destructive Creations justify their game’s existence? “The question you may ask is: why do they do this?” says their website, knowing we’d be here anyway. “These days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment — we wanted to create something against trends. Something different, something that could give the player a pure, gaming pleasure. Here comes our game, which takes no prisoners and makes no excuses. We say ‘yes, it is a game about killing people’ and the only reason of the antagonist doing that sick stuff is his deep-rooted hatred.”

Destructive Creations says their title exists merely to be violent. There’s no artistic merit to the game and it isn’t trying to say anything important. But gaming has evolved beyond titles designed as solely entertainment and games like Hatred push the industry back to the early 90s. Epic Games, the creator of the engine Hatred runs on, has distanced itself from Destructive Creations stating, “Epic Games isn’t involved in this project,” and that the, “Unreal Engine 4 is available to the general public for use for any lawful purpose.” In response, Hatred’s creative director Jarosław Zieliński has removed the Unreal 4 logo and any Epic Games branding from the trailer.

Violence in games will always be a contentious issue and it’s something I often find myself divided on. For me, violence is acceptable if it makes sense within the game’s universe, isn’t senseless and helps a game tell its story or convey some sort of message. Hatred does none of these things. It features an angry guy who hates the world and is killing simply because he wants to. The gaming industry is better than this and has come so far over the last five years.

It’s almost as if Hatred is being created by the masses behind the misogynistic and reactionary campaign that is Gamergate. In an indirect way it seems stand for everything they believe in – maintaining the status quo old senseless games and not helping the gaming industry to evolve and tell interesting stories.

by B.M. Garrett

In November the PlayStation 4 will celebrate its first birthday (it really has been one year already) and a lot of gamers across the globe have been nothing but impressed with the new generation. But with the better games, graphics, and improved functionality has come a growing demand from gamers looking for the best PS4 hard drives to upgrade the PS4.

Gone are the days of the PS2, when a 128MB memory card was enough. Now even the 500GB HDD included with the PS4 can seem small. Installing games is compulsory and that means up to and above 50GB is taken per title. On top of that there’s also DLC, apps, music and videos. It’s now the case that 500GB is the bare minimum.

Upgrading the HDD of your PS4 to a 2TB (TeraBytes) drive is highly recommended. It’s going to provide a huge chunk of extra space that will allow you to get the most from your PS4 – plus a little extra on top of that. Here are just a handful of the reasons why you should upgrade your PS4 hard drive to 2TB.

The main reason why you need to buy a 2TB hard drive for PS4

One of the biggest reasons to buy a 2TB hard drive for PS4 is pretty obvious. Now that games can’t be played without prior installation, the stock hard drive can run out of space pretty quickly once you build up a collection of great PS4 games.

If you choose not to upgrade, the process of uninstalling a game just so you can play another can be a real pain. It doesn’t seem like an issue at first, but it doesn’t take long before the original 500GB of memory begins to fade away.

To put things into perspective, the upcoming PS4 edition of GTA V
is expected to take a minimum of 50GB. That may only be 10% of the included HDD, but when you consider the amount taken up after installing several games, a 2TB drive is 100% necessary.

Upgrading will eradicate the problems that come with a growing game collection and allow you to have at least 30 games installed at any one time with no issues.

Apps taking up space on your PS4 hard drive

For several years now, PlayStation consoles have offered more than just a gaming experience. Dozens of apps are available on the PS4, from Amazon Instant Video and Netflix to Hulu and the IGN app.

Sure, these might not take up the same amount of memory that installed games do, but once a few apps have been downloaded they start to make a difference. It’s also the case that more and more apps are being made available as Sony continues to expand their services.

Given that the new generation now offers an all-round entertainment experience, this is yet another reason to upgrade the hard drive of the PS4. Doing so is going to ensure nothing can stop you getting the most from your system.

Whether you’re streaming sports or your favorite shows and movies, upgrading your PS4 hard drive means there really is no reason to miss out.

DLC becoming more of a storage problem

Like the games themselves, downloadable content plays a huge part in choosing to expand the hard drive. DLC is no longer something that mainly appeals to the most dedicated gamers.

It’s rare now that a title will not offer some extra content, and bonus content can start to take up that stock 500GB pretty quickly. A good example is the Devastation DLC for CoD: Ghosts, which alone takes up 5GB.

A couple of downloadable extras for each of your favorite titles can quickly add up to a good portion of space on your PS4 hard drive.

Then there are all the full games that can be purchased from PlayStation Store

It’s really not worth settling for the bare minimum of memory when all this extra content – most of which is unmissable – is available. A 2TB hard drive means no more picking and choosing which content needs to be deleted to make room for more. You’ll be able to have it all.

Entertainment can easily eat up your PS4 HDD storage space

Like apps, enjoying other forms of entertainment – including movies, music, photos and more – is a great way to get more from the PlayStation 4. But these perks can also be a big drain on storage space.

For example, some 1080p HD movies can take up at least 5GB, and if you use your PS4 as a multimedia hub (as many do) space runs out pretty quick – especially when there are also games and apps using valuable HDD space.

A 2TB hard drive is now the standard for most PCs, which are often filled with media, so why should your console settle for any less?

The boost in hard drive storage will give you the edge that allows seamless gaming and entertainment, without having to worry about wiping out the space needed for everything else.

Samsung’s 2TB Seagate Momentus Spinpoint is the perfect hard drive for PS4

It wouldn’t be right for us to tell you all this without recommending a sound hard drive to max out the hard drive storage of your PS4 – and none are better than Samsung’s 2TB Seagate Momentus Spinpoint .

Aside from being manufactured by one of the most trusted brands in tech, it’s one of the only 2TB hard drives currently available for the PS4. Amazon reviews for this HDD are glowing (it’s got a five star rating from 113 reviews) and most come from gamers who’ve purchased it specifically for their PlayStation 4 console.

Currently at a price of $115, down from $150, it’s a great deal. Quality is guaranteed and this model will max out a PS4 with all the space a gamer needs in their console.

If you’re still having doubts about the need to upgrade that stock 500GB HDD, trust us, you won’t regret it.

As a PS4 owner you’re no doubt already aware of the growing demand for space and, though you may not have quite maxed out your hard drive just yet, it’ll likely happen eventually. Especially with all the PS4 games coming in the near future.

Taking the plunge and picking up Samsung’s 2TB drive will mean no more storage dilemmas. There’ll be room for dozens of games, hundreds of movies and all the apps you could need to get the most from your PS4 console. What are you waiting for?

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/

by Saad Dada

Since the launch of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 last year, gamers have been talking up exclusive titles. But what most gamers forget is that exclusive titles do not always guarantee hits. Most gamers will also not buy a console solely for exclusive titles. Developers and publishers have historically preferred going multi-platform because it offers them wider sales opportunities.

When all is said and done, there is no way the Xbox One can match the success of the PS4 outside of performing a miracle. Granted it will do well as it has, recently selling 100,000 units in the first week of sales in China according to the International Business Times, but it may lose out in the long run if customers prefer multi-platform titles on Sony’s machine or opt for exclusives on Nintendo’s Wii U.

Not that we have an issue with exclusive titles, but which mega-hit game released in the last twelve months was an exclusive? Rockstar Games’ ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ was 2013’s biggest hit on previous generation consoles the PS3 and Xbox 360. Now this landmark game will make its current gen debut and expect to boost sales of both consoles.

Let’s analyze the launch titles of both the PS4 and Xbox One. ‘Knack’ and ‘Killzone: Shadowfall’ were decent launch exclusives for the PS4 but were not much better than multi-platform titles like ‘Battlefield 4’ and ‘Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag’.

Similarly on the Xbox One, ‘Ryse: Son of Rome’ and ‘Killer Instinct’ were fairly good titles but nothing worth spending $500 on a console for. Some of the upcoming PS4 exclusives do look promising such as ‘Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’, and are expected to do well due to the fact that its previous titles were blockbusters on the PS3.

There has also been lots of hype surrounding upcoming Xbox One titles like ‘Sunset Overdrive’ but we’ll have to wait and see how well it does before dubbing it ‘one worth purchasing the Xbox One for’. A timed exclusive like ‘Rise of Tomb Raider’, according to IGN, has been labeled a ‘surprise deal’ for Microsoft. Even the racing title ‘Forza Horizon 2’ is a hit, but it is aimed at simulation racing enthusiasts. Sony will rival Forza with the release of ‘Driveclub’ this month which is already rated highly by gaming sites Polygon and Destructoid.

Microsoft will need to rely on the strength of its Halo franchise including the upcoming ‘Halo: Master Chief Collection’ and potentially ‘Halo 5’. But what about ‘Gears of War’? Even ‘Gears of War 3’ would’ve made owning the Xbox One worth it, considering the success of the last two titles on the Xbox 360.

That being said the same could be said for the PS4; that it is relying on multi-platform titles as much as the Xbox One. The question we have to ask ourselves is which console would be better for multi-platform hits? The numbers do not lie. Over 10 million units of the PS4 have already been sold and the Xbox One is definitely lagging behind. IGN reports approximately 5 million units have been sold of the Xbox One. The PS4 is a gaming console designed for gamers the way 90′s juggernauts like the Sega Genesis was for its era.

For now the console war has clearly been won by Sony. The question is who will take second place? Let’s hope for Microsoft’s sake that they come up with more than a miracle to fend off Nintendo who according to GameSpot has sold 6.17 million units so far. Otherwise, it may just be game over!

http://www.gamersoutpost.net/