Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Colin Campbell

Generally speaking, hardware manufacturers and games retailers are natural partners, seeking to create order and control in the universe.

The console companies make the machines and the retailers sell the machines and both profit from the sale of games for the machines.

But as the nature of retail shifts, so too does the relationship between the retailers and the hardware companies, a ripple that threatens the harmony tying these powerful forces together.

As the digital era gets into full swing, it’s Sony and Microsoft which become the chief beneficiaries, selling games directly to consumers without the need for mall store-fronts or even online retail hubs. The console companies become retailers. This puts them in direct competition with their chums at companies such as GameStop.

And if there is one thing competing retailers are most likely to get antsy about, it’s price.

In its investor call yesterday, GameStop president Tony Bartel made a comment that can only be interpreted as a criticism of Sony’s and Microsoft’s digital retail strategies. “We want to help ensure that our industry does not make the same mistake as other entertainment categories by driving the perceived value of digital goods significantly below that of a physical game,” he said, according to Gamasutra.

Both Microsoft and Sony have worked hard to tie consumers into digital subscription plans that come with generous game giveaways and discounts. PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold offer good value to consumers by delivering up digital goods with mostly nominal costs at a low price. They also offer extreme competition to retailers, whose costs are always actual and often onerous.

Retailers are worried about cheap digital games

At this time of year, retailers are looking to sell as many video games as possible to people who are buying or receiving consoles for the first time. This becomes more difficult when consumers are being offered a wide array of hardware bundles, attractively priced, and including top-branded games. Retailers do not make much money from hardware units, and rely on software after-sales to make the exercise worthwhile.

Consumers flush with big-name games bundled in with their consoles, being offered digital discounts beamed directly into their homes, are less likely to buy full-priced games. Consumers who buy digital games are also, of course, not to be seen trading games at GameStop counters, an area which brings in the company’s biggest margins.

During its call with investors, GameStop claimed that “$100 million worth of games have been digitally delivered for free in hardware bundles”  so far this year. In a retailer’s mind, this is all lost profit. Little wonder Bartel is miffed. He put the argument in terms of the overall health of the industry. “What we produce has value, and we should protect that value,” he said.

If Bartel is making these statements during investor calls, you an be certain more direct conversations are going on in Microsoft’s, Sony’s and GameSpot’s meeting rooms in Redmond, San Mateo and Grapevine.

Given that GameStop managed to bring in over $2 billion in revenues in its most recent quarter, you might think this is all a touch academic. But the company missed its profits targets. Games retailers are haunted by the terrible specters of the likes of Tower Records and Blockbuster Video, once mighty physical retailers, now absent from the strip malls of America, killed off by price-cutting and digital distribution.

For console companies, retailers must be kept sweet, while they transition themselves into an Apple-like state of sublimation, away from the mundane bonds of physical retail.

by Jacob Siegal

This weekend, the Xbox One will celebrate its one year anniversary. In order to show its appreciation for nearly 10 million console sales since launch, Microsoft is offering a wide range of digital goodies to all of its early adopters.

If you bought an Xbox One at any point between November 22nd, 2013 and November 11th, 2014 in any of the 13 launch markets, are at least 17 years old and have 10 hours of usage on your console, these are the gifts you’ll receive this weekend:
A Year One Gamer Picture
New Xbox One backgrounds: A special Year One background as well as an exclusive Day One background for those who unlocked the Day One achievement
A Year One background image for use on Twitter, your desktop, etc.
A free rental of “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” (for a limited time)
A free rental of “Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods” movie and a sampler pack of “Dragon Ball Z” TV episodes (for a limited time, available in the U.S. and Canada only)

A few lucky fans will also be selected to win bigger prizes, including Xbox One bundles, a subscription to EA Access, Xbox Live Gold 12-month memberships and several free games.

And if you happen to be signed up for Xbox Marketing emails, you should receive a personalized email detailing all of your accomplishments on Xbox One over the past year.

by Dave Thier

Last-gen megahit GTA 5 came out on PS4 and Xbox One yesterday, promising entirely revamped graphics worth of the new machines. And with that, we play the familiar game of looking at just how well the two different versions run. The results are interesting: at first, they don’t appear to point to a gigantic disparity resulting from PS4′s power advantage, but a more thorough investigation reveals that the PS4 version has more detail, particularly in the foliage department.

According to Digital Foundry, GTA 5 performs about equally on both the PS4 and Xbox One, sticking to a native 1080p resolution and 30FPS quite well. But screenshots circulating the forums suggest that the two versions achieve that performance in a different way, particularly when the player gets out of the city and out into the wilds of Blaine County. PS4 has a whole lot more foliage, leading to more realistic-looking and fully realized world.

It’s an interesting take on the power disparity between the two consoles, and one that I can thoroughly get behind. Usually, we just see developers cranking either the resolution or the framerate on PS4, which renders a smoother, but in my opinion, only slightly better looking game. I’d much rather a developer looked at that extra processing and figure out how to cram a little more detail into the world. The outdoors, in general is one of the places that the improved GTA can really show off those fancy new graphics, and the results on PS4 are hard to argue with. It’s not the biggest difference in the world, and it doesn’t make it a different game, but if you’ve got a PS4 it can’t help to look at all that pretty grass and feel good about that GPU humming beneath your television.

The re-release is every bit the game it was on Xbox 360 and PS3, except better looking and with one major difference: the first person mode. Not only does first person give developers a chance to show off an incredibly detailed world from an entirely new perspective, it also makes a lot of that violence and sex that the franchise is known for visceral and immediate in a way the series hasn’t managed in years. It’s the most GTA that GTA has ever been — if that’s what you want, it’s quite something. If not, it can certainly be jarring. Which is sort of GTA’s thing.

by Ben Kuchera

The Woojer sounds like a stupid gimmick, and it arrives with a sales pitch we’ve heard before.

The product itself is a small box that plugs into the 3.5mm audio jack of any device, and then you connect your headphones to the Woojer. The hardware works with any device that outputs audio, from your phone to your 3DS.

You can attach the box to your clothing using the included — and surprisingly strong — magnetic clip. I found that it works best when placed directly in the middle of my chest, and it had the secondary effect of making me feel a tiny bit like Iron Man. This is one of their promotional images showing one way to wear the device.

Getting things set up is a goofy experience. I connected the device to the audio jack on the bottom of the PlayStation 4 controller, and then connected my headphones to the Woojer. Then you have to remove the back of the magnetic clip and snake it up the inside of your shirt before connecting it to the hardware on the outside.

The 2.5 ounce device may also make your T-shirt sag a bit, so it takes a few seconds of adjusting to get things comfortable. You’ll get around 3 hours out of each charge of the internal battery.

And then it rumbles. That’s it. When a bass signal is sent through the Woojer it converts the sound into a deep rumbling effect.

One of the strengths of the device is how it knows to ignore treble and even light bass in favor of the deeper sounds of your game or music. You won’t feel anything when a character talks to you, but you’ll know when you fire your gun or you’re in the middle of an explosion.

How does it feel?

The effect is similar to the feeling in your chest when you’re watching a good fireworks display, or when you’re sitting in a revving car. It’s a tiny device, but it fools your body into thinking something big is happening around it.

The combination of the rumbling in the controller, the Woojer, and the sound blasting from the headphones was impressive; it gives you a sense of being close to the firefights. It was interesting to “feel” the difference between the rapid “patpatpat” of submachine guns and the “WHOOM” of a shotgun blast. The deep “THUD” of the most powerful explosive weapons became much more satisfying.

It’s definitely cool, and it’s something I’m going to use when playing action games moving forward. The problem is that it requires a 3.5mm connection to work, and my computer headphones are all either wireless or USB; using the device on my gaming PC would require a major change to my setup, and I doubt I’m alone in this fact.

The Woojer is a neat device, and fans of first-person shooters or even racing games will likely get a ton of us out of it, but the $100 asking price may be a hard sell for the mass market. I paid for my unit by backing the Kickstarter with my personal funds before I worked for Polygon.

Sound-based haptic feedback always sounds like bullshit, we’ve all seen those goofy chairs with speakers or other “thumping” peripherals, but the Woojer is able to give you subtle, changing effects based on an effective bass threshold. In other words, it works.

by Giuseppe Nelva

Microsoft’s Xbox Division head honcho Phil Spencer went all out recently in responding to questions from the fans, giving quite a lot of information on upcoming games, events and more.

He started by talking about Black Tusk Studio’s work on Gears of War:

“I’ve been really impressed with the work of @GearsViking [Black Tusk’s Studio Manager Rod Fergusson] and the team so far. Hard to tell long term what @blacktuskstudio will be doing but for now they are busy on GoW.”

He also gave a rather important hint about Rare’s new and unannounced game:

“I’ll say this, Gregg Mayles was the one presenting the game. If you know Rare, you know Gregg is true Rareware.”

For those unfamiliar with the name, Gregg Mayles worked on Banjo-Kazooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Star Fox Adventures, Viva Piñata, directed Banjo-Tooie and more.

Spencer then apologized for the problems faced by Halo: The Master Chief Collection early adopters with matchmaking and online gameplay:

“We have to do better with the matchmaking, apologies for that. Team is working around the clock. Sorry about the issues. I know our fans expect more from us. Team is making progress but I know it’s still disappointing.”

He also expressed his interest in what Sony is going to show at PlayStation Experience, mentioning that he’s focused on 2014, but there will be new announcements from Microsoft before E3.

“I know Sony is doing a fan event in Dec. We don’t have anything planned for that time. Will be cool to see what Sony shows.

Not sure yet. Right now just focused on what we are doing in 2014. I think we’ll have news before E3.”

Additionally, he also talked about his plans to celebrate Xbox One’s 1st anniversary:

“Yea, it will be a fun day. Hard to believe it’s only been a year, first year really helped me get centered for future.”

Finally, as an added bonus, Spencer mentioned that BBC’s iPlayer is coming to Xbox One “Very Soon.”

That’s quite a lot of information, and honestly my interest in Rare’s new game just skyrocketed now that I learned that Mayles is involved with it in a prominent position. Hopefully we’ll hear something about it soon enough.

by Britton Peele

It’s kind of hard to believe that Sony’s PlayStation 4 has already been out in North America for an entire year. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve, anxiously waiting for the next generation of video game consoles to arrive.

But a year has indeed passed, and for Sony it’s been a pretty good one. The PS4 passed the important 10 million units sold milestone back in August and continues to sell very well. And for good reason. It’s a solid console with a solid library of games — even if we’ve seen some of them before on other systems.

Maybe you bought a system a launch. Maybe you waited until more games were available. Maybe you’ve been putting it off and it’s at the top of your Christmas list this year. Whatever the case, if you’ve got one or are in the market for one, you need games to play on it. So here are the games that I, personally, think are the best games available for the PS4 at its one-year anniversary mark.

inFamous Second Son– “Infamous: Second Son is the PlayStation 4′s first truly great exclusive.

It’s not that the system doesn’t have good or even great games, but this open-world, super powered adventure is the first game that I’ve loved that isn’t available on any other platform. And while its gameplay basics might not demand a lot of power from the PS4′s hardware, Second Son is also one of the first games on these new consoles where it was easy for me to say, “Yes, these graphics are a lot better than what they would have been on the PS3.” I’m not usually one who cares much about how games look, but at several points during playing Second Son I just had to stop and say, “Dang, that looks so good.”

Wolfenstein: The New Order — “Without playing it, The New Order might look like any other first-person shooter, and in some ways it is. The weapons you would expect (shotguns, assault rifles, etc.) are all here, you can lean out of cover, you can dual wield guns and toss grenades… Nothing especially revolutionary there. But it’s a great blend of those modern shooter conventions with a mix of classic FPS sensibilities and a few newer twists that help keep things strategic and fresh.”

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor – I’m pretty sure Shadow of Mordor was made after someone looked into my brain and said, “This guy sure likes Lord of the Rings and Assassin’s Creed a lot. Is there a way to put those two things together?”

And it worked. Shadow of Mordor is not only a fantastic open world action game, but it’s also got a unique hook in its “nemesis system,” which results in personal feuds with a bunch of high-ranking orcs that each have their own traits and personalities — and they’ll remember you as much as you remember them.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Coming off of the relatively disappointing Assassin’s Creed III, Black Flag surprised many by just how good it was. It’s a pretty big departure from the earliest games in the series, which focused on cities dense with buildings and crowds, but this seafaring pirate adventure is a blast from beginning to end.

In an ideal world I’d be recommending Assassin’s Creed Unity here, which just came out this month. And honestly, I like Unity quite a bit (more than some other reviewers, apparently) and think it’s worth playing. But it’s got quite a few problems (both technical issues and in problems with design), and as a whole, Black Flag is a better game. No, it won’t blow you away with the kind of “next-gen graphics” you might expect out of your new system, but it’s a highly enjoyable time.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition – The reboot of the Tomb Raider series really caught me off-guard when it debuted on the last generation of consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3). I was never been a huge fan of Lara Croft’s adventures, and honestly I didn’t expect much from this fresh take. But Tomb Raider hooked me quickly with great exploration, satisfying combat and a story I actually found relatively interesting. Turns out I’m capable of caring about Lara Croft after all. Who knew?

So it’s not a new game and may not be worthwhile for old fans, but Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition earned its title with improved graphics and new features that made me more than happy to play the game again.

The Last of Us: Remastered – Like Tomb Raider, The Last of Us isn’t new… But dang it, it’s still good. Leave it to the people behind Uncharted to make a game about zombies (more or less) that doesn’t feel horrifically tired or cliched. It may have the good dose of action like you’d expect from most major video games, but The Last of Us really shines in its quiet moments — moments that have more emotion than you might expect from the medium.

If you missed this one while it was exclusive to the PS3, now’s your chance to see what the fuss was about.

Transistor — “The second game from small, independent developer Supergiant Games, following in the footsteps of their hit Bastion (one of my favorite games of 2011), Transistor is a sci-fi RPG that in many ways is better if you don’t know much going in. The story in particular — one of the main draws of Transistor as it was for Bastion – works better if you learn as you go. It begins in the world of Cloudbank with a girl, Red, who appears to have lost her voice. The very first action of the game involves picking up a talking sword-like weapon, the Transistor, which serves as your friend, instructor and narrator, all to great effect.

And then you run. What are you running from? Why can this sword talk, and how does it know you? Who took your voice, and why? These are all questions the game throws at you immediately, and it’s worth answering them at the game’s own pace.”

Destiny — This one comes with some caveats: From a pure gameplay standpoint, Destiny is outstanding. Bungie took everything that made Halo’s combat a blast and ramped it up, making moving and shooting feel great. But its multiplayer-focused gameplay runs into some issues of repetition, and if you can’t stand playing through the same environments (and fighting the same enemies) over and over again, Destiny might not be for you.

If you’ve got a good group of friends, though, and want a little MMO in your FPS, you could certainly do worse than Destiny. It’s the kind of game that’s good if you need something you can stretch out for hours — not if you want something with a simple beginning and end.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – It feels a little weird to be recommending, as a console game, a PC RPG that originally came out in 2012. But the console version of Diablo III is fantastic, and the Reaper of Souls expansion pack content makes the entire experience much better than it was two years ago.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare — If you had told me a year ago that a Call of Duty game would be one of my favorites on the PS4, I would have looked at you funny. The series is wearing a little thing for me, and last year’s entry, Ghosts, was pretty average.

But Advance Warfare pushes all the right buttons for me. The near-future technology that gives you skills like a dash and a double jump makes the mere act of getting around the environment a blast, and the gameplay overall is nice and fast. Furthermore, the story (starring a virtual Kevin Spacey in a role that he nails) is more interesting than I expected it to be.

Other worthwhile games:
Velocity 2X
The Binding of Isaac
Alien: Isolation
Minecraft

Family friendly games:

Getting a PS4 for the whole family? Here are a few games that are more aimed at all ages.

Skylanders: Trap Team — This year’s Skylanders game is the best yet, though it might feel like more of the same if you’ve been playing them to death with every game in the series. If you need a break from the tried-and-true adventure, though, Trap Team also includes a new tower defense-esque mode that focuses entirely on fighting enemies.

The only downside? Even compared to previous Skylanders games, buying everything in Trap Team is very expensive. This is due in part to the elemental traps — small, $5 toys that can be used to trap different boss monsters in the game — as you’ll need a variety of them if you want to catch all the different types of bosses out there.

Disney Infinity 2.0 – “If you are someone who liked the original Disney Infinity and loves the Marvel universe (or have a child who does), then this sequel is a no-brainer. It’s a big improvement over last year’s solid foundation, and the character roster this time around will appeal strongly to a different kind of nerd.

It’s still not perfect. For one thing, load times for Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes tend to be exceptionally long, at least on the PS4 copy I’ve been playing on. Many of the missions in the play sets (including one based on The Avengers, which comes with the game’s starter pack) can also get repetitive, boiling down to similar “Run here, fight enemies, maybe solve a very simple puzzle” quests that don’t offer a ton of depth or originality.

But it would be hard to deny that all the improvements in this 2.0 edition of Disney Infinity, of which there are many, make for a better experience overall.”

Lego: The Hobbit — I’m naming The Hobbit here because it’s my personal favorite of the recently released ones, but really any of the Lego games are worthwhile.

Things to look forward to:

Dragon Age: Inquisition — Dragon Age just missed the “one year” window (it comes out November 18), but it’s received a great deal of critical acclaim and looks to be the a fantastic RPG for the PS4.

Far Cry 4 — Like Dragon Age, Far Cry is releasing just after the PS4′s one year anniversary. Also like Dragon Age, reviewers seem to dig it so far, though they’ve noted that it’s very similar to Far Cry 3 (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Bloodborne — The spiritual successor to Dark Souls just got pushed back from early February to March 24, 2015, but it has the potential to be one of next year’s first great releases.