Microsoft, as a huge company, is no different than any other company in that they’re going to have more than their fair share of good trends and bad trends. Right now it seems they can’t do much of anything right. Their mobile OS is loved by the few who find it useful and despised (or […]
When it comes to board gaming I’ve been at it a long time. The same is true for my sports-based gaming. I go back to card-based sports gaming including old classics like APBA Baseball, Cadaco’s All-Star Baseball, Strat-O-Matic Baseball, Sports Illustrated’s Statis Pro Baseball and several others covering basketball, auto racing, boxing and more (including […]
I’ll never forget the fervor I encountered at a major game convention when Guitar Hero was first shown. The software developer, Harmonix, was known for a few mildly successful products and had coupled with RedOctane, a peripherals company, to produce the title. The booth I first encountered was RedOctane’s so it was, of course loaded […]
MTV and Harmonix, the makers of the highly successful game series Rock Band, have finally figured out the biggest reality in their market segment—that is that they were the biggest logjam to taking this concept to the stratosphere. In my post of just over a year ago called, It’s Time For A New Music Standard, […]
Today there’s a headline in Kotaku (a popular gaming site) entitled, “In Defense of the Classic Controller“. The story is about the demise of the classic gaming joystick/controller due directly to the popularity of Nintendo‘s Wii console. It’s so popular that both Sony and Microsoft are moving to similar, or even more advanced, designs taking […]
Okay, I’ve had enough of this one…. This past Easter I was at a family member’s house and we all had a blast playing Rock Band. I mentioned it to a few people today, and how much fun we had, and got into another in a long list of debates with people (musicians mainly) who […]
Last week saw the release of information noting a record year for game sales in 2005. This week securities firms are recommending caution as they predict dramatic slowdowns for 2006. Even with the solid numbers last year, PC game sales have fallen off and many keep wondering why. I bought substantially fewer PC games in […]
I’ve been fighting the copy protection war since the very first days of my computing experience. In all that time I’ve never seen firm evidence that copy protection achieves the goal it sets out to meet. Instead, what I’ve seen are examples that stand in stark contrast to the perceived problem of illegal copying. Don’t […]
It appears to be quite clear to me that Firaxis was pushed to rush the release of Civ IV by their publisher, 2K Games. However, it should also be noted in 2K Games defense that Sid Meier is notorious for his games being dramatically late, in some cases by years (Anyone remember Magic?) Of course […]
I eagerly awaited the release of the latest incarnation of the Civ series, Civilization IV. I stopped by the local GameStop and was surprised to find none of them on the shelves. Thankfully I asked a worker there who promptly pulled the “Special Edition” version from a newly opened box. I then got it home […]