The Gamer’s Quagmire #48: Console Track & Field Disaster
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Last week, in case you missed it, E3 was debuted in its new format. That is, it debuted in its new, trimmed town, invite-only, debut. For gamers this is like football fans needing the NFL giving them permission to purchase tickets to the Super Bowl. One of my must-do items in my life was, at one point, to take the trek over to the West Coast and attend this event. Getting knocked off of my feet with an overload of gaming was one of those things that just felt like it needed to be done. Some other form of gaming event is going to have to take place instead. To tie me over until I figure out what this may be, I decided to hunker down on my couch after a ton of meaningless housework (repairing some electrical wiring, doorbell repair, deck cleaning, weeding, etc.) and go back to Final Fantasy XII. This was never going to be a monumental event for me, but it has been making my skin crawl that I have not completed this game yet. So I spent the next day and half leveling all 6 of the characters in the game to almost level 60… and nothing else. Good times all around, right?
Unfortunately, E3 did force me to think about something during this gaming marathon. Watching all of the coverage from G4, including the commercial break in the middle of the new Halo 3 trailer on Day 1, I got some pretty big messages from each of the console developers. Being the person that I am, it wasn’t the message they were intending. Let me share with you my impressions of where each of the consoles is going over the next few months:
Xbox 360: If you ask me by now Microsoft should know exactly what is going on with their hardware difficulties. One of its hardware consultants even posted on his own web log (or perhaps it ran in a tech journal… who cares?) where the heat problem came into play with the console. Good news right? The Elite version that was announced recently is going to solve this problem? Okay, the timing was a little off. Fine. There is an announcement from Microsoft that makes us think they have a good idea what the problem though, right? Well, they did announce eating $1.5 billion in warranty costs. Luckily for us, who are still nervous about their console dying at any second, that there’s no end in sight.
If there was a way to transfer saves off my hard disk for when the new console comes in this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m not going to replay all of my old games so I can go after the bigger achievements, are you? Wait, they still have no meaning, so why even bother caring? Well, then perhaps that is one problem solved.
On the plus side their online services are still a major selling point and they do have several intriguing games coming around the corner. Mass Effect, the new BioWare RPG, looks especially mouthwatering. Granted, you may not have much to look forward too if shooters or RPG’s are not your thing, but game selection for a lot of people is not an issue. Still, it should bother everyone who pays attention to games that Microsoft is too (ignorant?) to see that if they solved their hardware problems then they would own the U.S. market and perhaps the European one as well. It’s tough to love a console that you are scared to death of will die any second.
PS3: We just started to get a glimmer of hope that Sony was going to start to turn their PR image around. The firmware updates have dramatically improved the functionality of the console, their price drop felt like an admission of guilt and a decent market correction, and even working on getting the rumble functionality back into the controller made many people feel good about what Sony has been doing since Katuragi left with his tail between his legs. People wanting to like the PS3 were just starting to feel good about themselves.
Fear not- the recent price drop has been a liquidation of what is now a hardware configuration that is no longer in production. It is now time to make room for the 80GB model because… well… um… the extra 20 GB is the next step in the console’s evolution? Did Sony forget how awesome it was that they allowed people to take out the hard drive of the PS3 and swap it in for any hard drive we wanted? Microsoft wants strict control over their hardware and doesn’t allow this (and they’re the ones who still have the hardware failures- neat, huh?). I can pop in a 400 GB hard drive at any time into my PS3. The manual that comes with the PS3 tells me how to do this.
Nobody should be buying a console for this reason, and while technical superiority should never be the top selling point of a console (games should always be #1, in case you are lost), it should at least be able to be a selling point. It is rather pathetic when you are unable to point to such a powerful piece of hardware and convince people that you know how to sell it. The price dropped by $100, and while it is not enough for everyone it was enough to get plenty of people jumping at the console. Now the price is back to $599. Does anyone at Sony with a brain have an MBA?
The positive news for the PS3 is that there are a good set of games coming out soon and a ton in development. The current PS3 library pales greatly in comparison to the 360, but it is not hard to see that the library is growing at a good pace. If the good games do not come out for it soon then it is very possible that the consoles will never start selling. You can’t ride the PS2 sales forever (which, remarkably, are still selling quite well).
Wii: This is the most difficult console to like because I was a huge Nintendo fan for a long time. Their new controller, while somewhat scary, looks like a phenomenal idea (ignore the extra wrist strain for now). The Wii has reached into a previously untapped gaming demographic and is easily the most intriguing selling point out of any this generation. Gamers should be thrilled, not only at the idea, but that because their older relatives would actually by the Wii for themselves that they are way more likely to be getting games for their gift-receiving holidays.
While the consoles are flying off the shelves for this reason, it also begs the question- will people who never cared about gaming for the Wii buy any new titles after they get the initial box? There are going to be a percentage of people that do not get anything else. Most will probably only be a select few party games for the system and call it a day. Honestly, Nintendo could simply walk away from the Wii right now and still point to a big profit and laugh and Sony and Microsoft. I wouldn’t blame them for this at all, because at least that would explain their upcoming list of games.
This the one console that I want to like but fail to see any games on the horizon worth playing. One or two I can sort of talk myself into renting to check out, but a console needs more than that. I’m not picking up a console just to play bowling or go fishing. I have way more fun doing the real thing. Something like Smash Brothers is worth getting people over at a house and getting drunk to play, but, again, a console needs more than that to survive. E3 should have been an announcement of all the cool games Nintendo was working on, and instead we get a steering wheel, mat, and gun peripheral (the latter of which I thought the base controller handled quite well).
Give a gambler a reason to gamble and they’ll thank you for it. Gamers are a similar breed, and each console is struggling to give me a reason, although honestly the PS3 is giving me the best reason… assuming that I can focus on the upcoming games list and not the business decisions. If Microsoft can solve their hardware issues and Nintendo can solve their software issues than we would finally have a good battle of games between all three consoles- something that Nintendo would probably win. Instead, we have three hurdlers knocking over several gates past the first turn in the race. In other words, things are hardly a pretty sight.
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June 25, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #47: Alert: Zombies Invade Manchester
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
One does not necessarily beget the other, but in this case I thought it was particularly amusing that the time it took to put my next mini-rant here together, while it felt like an inordinate amount of time, was still microscopic in comparison to the amount of time it took the Church of England to file suit (or at least threaten to) against Sony. For those of you not in the know, suing Rockstar has become much too passé.In the Resistance: Fall of Man PS3 game the Church of Manchester was a setting for one of the many in-game battles. Naturally this serves as grounds for a lawsuit because that area of England is plagued with gun violence. Now that the game has sold over a million copies worldwide it’s time for a baseless lawsuit against a company for a successful game. The wide array of specious reasons include bad taste complaints from anti-gun campaigners (because pixelated guns are always evil and promote actual gun violence) and slants against Christianity (because the gaming industry is always anti-Christian but pro-Islam and Judaism).
Using bad taste as a reason to complain about something is the current mechanism for professing an inability to deal with reality. That statement is probably far too discourteous but using that type of language is my way of saying that people really need to come to grips with reality and accept that certain forms of expression in the artistic world can be ignored. Just as most people can ignore an infrequent web article they can also ignore a video game that they will almost assuredly never play. Everybody can name something that greatly annoys them and wishes it would go away. Debra Messing is still around and I can cope with it. If you are unable to deal with differing forms of expression then there’s nothing this world can offer you.
We have been dealing with this long enough to realize that as long as a problem exists in the real world its depiction in video games is always cause for concern. Video games are the next major form of entertainment and society is going to struggle with dealing with this new entity for a long time. Stand up comedy had its era of ridiculous censorship and movies had it too. It should not be that surprising that people don’t know how to deal with gaming rationally yet. I understand what gun violence can and does do to a community, so my aggravation towards this situation is not out of a slanted view against those people in Manchester. The problem here is that people want to be protected from reality in almost every aspect of life. Video games have been a popular target for a while, so when game artists and designers were able to research and create a very impressive digital representation of the Manchester Cathedral their efforts had to be picked on.
Undoubtedly the anti-gun people would have been upset no matter what because the game is a shooter, so there’s not a whole lot that can be done there (other than ignoring people that are always going to be against gaming anyway). It’s not important that the guns are being used to take down aliens (because every living thing has rights- except vegetables and carbon, the basis of all life). What’s important is that people think that the game developers are trying to make some high-arcing statement by using Manchester as a setting instead of some fictional world. Personally I always love how people feel the need to tell writers how to tell a story. Critics are often fond of telling writers how they should have told a story. In some cases people do have a point, but when taste is criticized instead of pointing out legitimate potholes the criticism becomes nothing more than self-promoting babble (to some this is known as The O’Reilly Factor).
In a game that is centered around the fall of mankind, which, by definition, requires that the game involve humans on Earth, the developers needed to pick a place that would allow gamers to suspend belief without going too far. Why England? I really don’t care. The developers could have hit England on a world map with a dart when making a decision about the story. In a couple different fictional stories, England has been the spawning point of dragons that almost wiped out human life (Reign of Fire), the land where zombies were attacking humans in another apocalyptic world (28 Days Later), the primary schoolyard for some of the world’s most powerful and evil sorcerers (Harry Potter), and the foundation of a horror story involving a relatively young woman (Bridget Jones). Fire-breathing dragons, cannibalistic zombies, and necromancy get free passes, but killing aliens is out of the question.
You figure it out.
Regardless, my point is that this lawsuit is just another pathetic attempt at trying to gain attention to a cause by using everyone’s current favorite whipping boy (video games). Aside from the massively delayed reaction to complain about the game (it does take a long time to research all Bible passages to see if some doctrine is violated by the execution of aliens in a video game), it becomes difficult to comprehend what the Church hopes to gain by making this statement against Sony. Maybe they feel Sony is too pre-occupied with other lawsuits or maybe they’re sweating over getting the PS3 to become a marketing success like the Wii. Such things can be quite difficult to understand, but one thing I can tell you with certainty is that believing that video game violence can cause more harm than real violence is far more dangerous to real victims than video games themselves could ever could.
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January 31, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #38: Start Baiting Your Breath
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
It may have taken a couple months to catch on, but I think people are starting to find their way over to my camp on the new Nintendo console. It is entirely possible that Nintendo is going to land a haymaker on Sony and Microsoft this time around, but if it is going to happen it better start happening soon. Launch lists are always a telling sign as to what is happening with a console. Right now the only one that looks to be getting games that I am eager to play is the 360, which not so coincidentally is thriving right now (in no small part thanks to Gears of War). This situation will only improve once Halo 3 hits the market.Things are not as one-sided, however. The Wii had a phenomenal launch and continues to sell very well. Sure, the install base for it is quite impressive, but that is hardly the stat you want to point to for success of a console. It is a great way to kick things off, but you never win a war by winning the initial skirmish. You may want to ask Dreamcast fans how that one turned out (especially the bitter ones, it’s very entertaining). Still, even someone as turned off by the Wii as I am, admittedly I am thinking about picking one up to test out Zelda because a person who loves puzzle and adventure games can only hide from the franchise for so long. In some respects I feel like a caveman just thawing out from an ice chamber.
As a Nintendo fan you need to move past this initial victory. Sony is still gaining profit as a company and the PS3 is anything but dead (it is best to ignore people who think the PS3 is already dead because these people may be more deranged than the people who think NASA faked the moon landing). The 360 now has PGR3, Oblivion, and Gears of War under its belt as major gaming titles that have produced huge sales figures. Twilight Princess has done very well indeed, but looking at the Wii launch list you can’t help but wonder when the next game is coming out that will compete with these figures.
Despite my apprehension towards giving Microsoft more money, it looks like we are in the throws of the Xbox becoming the new hot console for this generation. It is the only console that is generating new franchise names without completely killing them off. Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Incidentally, I would have included Viewtiful Joe in with the household franchises had it not been whored out beyond belief on the Gamecube. I have no problem with turning successful games into franchises, but inventing a new side-scroller in this era of gaming is dumb because the staying power simply is not there anymore. Side-scrollers officially died when Castlevania, a franchise whose success is completely dependent upon 2D, switched over to 3D (Castlevania now exclusively resides in the realm of handheld gaming, the only place side-scrollers have any remaining clout).
If the death of the side-scroller bothers you at all you should be upset that there was never a ceremony to bury the icons of the genre. Contra, Gradius, Mega Man, and Castlevania each deserve a fond farewell. Mega Man transitioned into the Battle Network series that is now more overplayed than the Macarena. Castlevania was able to find a home on the handhelds. Contra III was the last memorable installment and the two soldiers were put out to pasture. Gradius and the rest of the space shooters, let’s face it, as popular as the once briefly were, just met natural selection.
All this is not to say I hate the Wii. This is far from the truth. I may hate the name. I may hate the naming scheme that generated for the Wii’s peripherals. I may hate the Nintendo fanbots more than anyone else. The problem is that it is hard to ignore generations of really enjoyable gameplay and the new controllers are relatively intriguing. What is preventing me from jumping in, aside from a heavy and potentially lethal World of Warcraft addiction, is that past Zelda I cannot see myself playing any of these games. Maybe the new major Mario title would be worth checking out. I say this because after having a lot of fun with Mario Brothers 1, 2, 3, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 seeing the new Mario adventure game with a fresh control scheme would be entertaining. The only problem is that two games does not make buying a console worthwhile. We have a term for where that purchase makes sense, and it’s called a garage sale.
Not knowing any people firsthand who own a Wii I am forced to rely on everything I can find online to formulate an opinion on why people love this console (or any console or game for that matter). Filtering out all of the expected posturing, warped logic, bandwagoning, and straw men I am left with a pretty good idea as to why Nintendo is doing so well. And so you know, it has nothing whatsoever to do with why the PS3 is doing so poorly (that reason, in case you’re confused, is cost). There is more than one reason at play here, so this will not be quick. The primary reason is the innovation in the control scheme. Right now I do want this to succeed because controllers may be the next part of gaming whose development truly evolves even past the Wii controller. The graphics capabilities are going to level off very soon, so controls seem like the next logical step with the possible exception of AI.
I think there is another driving force at play that people seem to be ignoring. This ties in with a lot of the negative press video games have been getting and the swarm of anti-gaming legislation that a plethora of state legislatures are looking to pass. Nobody is ever going to accuse Nintendo of producing a violent game or one that sparks enormous controversy (or not in the foreseeable future at least). No, I don’t think that gamers are really worried about that part of it. Swarms of people talk about the fact that over the Christmas holiday season, something that all consoles look to capitalize on, they were playing the Wii with their parents, relatives, girl friends, and friends who would put about just as much stock into gaming as they would Euro Disney.
What I am struggling with is why would I even care about that? When have I ever purchased a game so that my family would want to play games with me? Call me crazy, but when my parents were purchasing games for me I had no troubles playing with them. I was also under 10 at the time so it also helped that the games that appealed to me then were the much simpler ones. They bought at least two games every year that we all could play and have fun with, but the number of people that purchase consoles so that they can play games with their relatives is miniscule. I’ll be honest, having party games like Wii Sports is a good thing and party games are, for the most part, underrated. When you have several friends over the party game is almost always a great option. However, if you’re going to venture out onto a limb with that as a reason to buy the console you are going to plummet to your untimely demise.
A console with family entertainment is a market, but it is hardly, at this point in time, the dominating or sustainable market. Maybe these games will catch on and maybe the controller will too. Right now it is just a fad with a bunch of people making excuses. If you think a company like Sony would not get raked over the coals for making a controller whose wrist strap kept breaking thusly causing the controllers to be winged across the room then you are in complete denial. Maybe the games will become more appealing for someone like me. Anything’s possible.
As a closing thought, I will state that I was in this exact position around a year and a half ago with the DS and the PSP. The DS felt more innovative and the PSP had more potential. The only difference was that the DS had the game library because of the GBA cartridge input. Now, if anything, the PS3 will eventually have the games advantage. Both handhelds basically failed in terms of promise. Despite the overwhelming sales advantage for the DS the stylus simply isn’t going to take off as a good gaming peripheral. When I can read my own writing at the supermarket checkout with a stylus then, maybe, I’ll believe it is a good thing for gaming. In the meantime, enjoy the next several months as we will get a crystal clear view of which consoles are going to deliver the gaming experiences we hope to enjoy.
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January 22, 2007
The Gamer’s Quagmire #37: 2007 Gaming Sabbatical - Part I
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
Adventurer’s Perfectionist Disorder, it’s back! The 2007 year kicked off with one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life. Being a gamer at heart I know that if I had it my way I’d be out in California as a game tester and all of my money would go towards an apartment and my entertainment system. It’s an interesting experience to be at work year-round and then take almost two weeks of your life and just sit on a couch and play video games. It honestly feels like a vacation.Sure, you can travel, learn some history, go to an amusement park, visit relatives, go camping, live it up on beach, enjoy a cruise, or whatever suits your fancy. Any real vacation should only be about one thing- avoiding everything about your normal life and just doing something you want to do. I’m always amazed by people that bring laptops on trips and make sure they don’t fall out of the loop while they are away from the office. The last time I had the opportunity I forced someone to leave the laptop at home by convincing them it was in the car when it really was back at the apartment. I’m a good friend that way.
What does any of this have to do with APD? Allow me to bring you on that journey. The last two weeks of 2006 were a vacation from the office for World of Warcraft where I was making leaps and bounds leveling my new character. It’s rough being in a guild where the only way to keep up with the top players is to not have a job, but I still enjoy it immensely. After another week and a half my gaming sabbatical took place in Seattle, something which I hope turns into an annual tradition. During this sabbatical the perfect mix of gaming past and present took place.
Let me present to you my experience of the Playstation 3- it matches what the X-Box 360 brings to the table with the exception of the online play system. I realize that expecting Sony to match Live with their first go at an online delivery system is just insane so that’s okay, but there is a problem. Considering the cost of a fully loaded console with hi-def playback, the 360 is noticeably cheaper than the PS3. I have yet to characterize why. The cosmetic issue of the 360 requiring a peripheral for their HD-DVD drive pushes the aesthetics trophy over to the PS3, but that that can’t be everything can it? If the 360 could handle HD-DVD at launch then the 360’s look would be the best of any of the consoles. The PS3’s design is average at best, same for Nintendo.
Microsoft does not nearly get the beating they deserve for their HD-DVD peripheral. A console having an attachment is inexcusable, reprehensible, sacrilegious, nauseating, and unforgivable. In the age of hi-def entertainment this type of lunacy just shouldn’t happen. It’d be like serving ice cream in a bowl and then bringing along a cone 10 minutes later (you know, because that is what you really wanted and refuse to admit it). That’s not even why they deserve a flogging or two. They announced that the 360 was not about hi-def entertainment, that consoles don’t need it, and Sony was doing too much with their console which is why their launch was delayed so much. Hypocrisy is a major irritant, and this statement reeked of it.
Anyway, the pricing issue is the primary reason why the PS3 is getting crushed right now in the console wars. The 360 is established (for those of you keeping score at home, you need to now admit that the early launch was a good idea) and the Wii offers something that nobody else has. Of course the Wii’s success is based on a gimmick. Zelda is the only game with any good depth to it and the console will not survive on titles like Wii Sports, whose popularity will diminish quicker than the Macarena. Trust me when I tell you that unless a host of good games come out for Nintendo the console will crumble and fall. If the PS3 gets a couple good games out for it then people will eventually flock over to it once the inevitable price cut occurs.
What scares me about my gaming sabbatical was that despite playing good titles on the PS3 and 360 the highlight of the trip involved one of the old classics- Final Fantasy VII. Okay, perhaps it was destiny that picking to play through this game one more time after writing how that was the defining game of the PS2 era for me that VII would once again highlight a gaming weekend. For what was perhaps one last time, our small little group from Gettysburg which set out on the Final Fantasy VII voyage together took the vessel out for once last spin.
As you would expect, simply walking through the game would not be enough. Goals were to capture everything we possibly could before the final dungeon ending in the showdown with Sephiroth. We captured the Gold Chocobo during the final hours of the trip. This felt like the proper ending, but something was wholly unsatisfying about the achievement. Do not misunderstand my apprehension to call it a success. Three people obtaining Knights of the Round in 4 days while playing other games at the same time was a remarkable achievement. What bugs me was that due to a wireless controller issue North Corel was not saved from the train wreck. The blue Huge Materia was not rescued from the spaceship despite me somehow recalling that circle-square-x-x was the password (seriously, I entered the password and picked it up… it was weird). The scales required to put out the fires in the Wutai mountains were missed. Several key Enemy Skills were not uncovered. The Mime materia was not located. The Earth Harp remained a complete mystery. The Battle Square was not conquered.
I’ll be honest with you, as a gamer I was impressed that I remembered certain things about the game. Remembering the song for the piano in Tifa’s house and the spaceship combination was quite prolific (for whatever reason checking my mail every day is still something I forget to do). The fact that so many important items were missed along the journey may making one more last run through the game necessary despite still having my perfect save on a memory card that still remains in my possession. This is a direct effect of a severe case of APD. I should be able to let something like this go. The game has been defeated multiple times with precision, but because my previous run failed spectacularly, in my eyes, it warrants another potential run.
All of this ignores the fact that I still have not made my way through Final Fantasy XII, a game which I claim may be the new champion of the franchise. Vaan, it’s nothing personal. Cloud is a much more compelling hero. Sephiroth is the quintessential villain, something that Vayne cannot claim. It’s not that I think VII is a better game, it’s just that the story in the game is perhaps the best of them all and the Materia system has its place etched in gaming history. Also, not being able to cope with missing several key spells and abilities is eating away at my conscience. Not even Full Cure will ease the pain- only completing the game one more time will. If you have ever played through one game multiple times then you understand my pain. You also understand that there will be one more inevitable article about Final Fantasy VII.
After all, Aeris does deserve a proper burial.
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November 20, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #34: Freelance Advertising For Games
Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.
by Jamison DeLorenzo
If you are entertained by mindless yammering then the last several weeks has been a lot of fun for you. Anyone lucky enough to experience the incessant political advertisements over the past couple weeks understands. If you like gaming as well then so much the better. It appears as though we are at the peak of the fanbot (I am coining a term here and I doth not care if it catches on- I choose bot because it has no gender discrimination, most arguments sound exactly the same, and all of them have been programmed to repeat said arguments) era before our current generation of gaming. Once the consoles start coming out people can no longer make endless comments loaded with conjecture about how much fun a console is going to be.So I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I struggle with my inner sadist (something I am hoping that Jerry Springer can resolve in his “Making Peace With Your Inner Sadist” special). Sure, peace of mind will start to set in once the games start coming out and everyone can play them. All of the pre-launch hype will be gone and we will finally be able to see where all of the consoles truly stand. Mostly I am feeling relief because then the consoles will finally rest where they should- on the merits of the games. Ever get the feeling that a merit badge system is in order to judge these consoles properly? Give me through Christmas and we may have something in that arena.
Enough game trailers, pictures, press releases, and articles have been written to convince me of one thing- if you want to dislike a console you will nitpick everything you can dig up. If you spend enough time reading about these consoles you will start to wonder if people in this country care more about which console is better than their state representative (who, ironically, is more than likely is working on pushing an anti-gaming bill). If there are not any console advertisements that use political attack ads there should be. In fact, that is my motivation for this week’s rant: advertisements we all want to see that nobody is showing.
The reason I think these things up, other than to entertain myself, is because advertising is a major pet peeve of mine. Advertisers, along with sports referees, are among the worst at doing their job right now (I stopped making fun of politicians and lawyers long ago- it is way too cliché). Advertisers make tons of cardinal sins: they rely too much on meaningless clichés, are too in your face (local car dealers are experts here), make up unbelievable lies (like Circuit City’s ad that they eventually pulled where they mentioned they were the only site that showed consumer ratings of products), do something way too abstract (like that PS9 ad when the PS2 was introduced), or make something that makes absolutely no sense (there’s a drug commercial for a sleeping pill with an actual listed side effect of drowsiness, which is basically equivocating the pill to those hair-growing drugs that only work by sheer coincidence).
Admittedly I am almost without a doubt the last person who should be running an advertising campaign, but if nothing else the point would get across and it would be entertaining. My style is this- commercials that are direct, memorable, and funny. Last year I made up an advertisement that involved a bunch of stuffed animals being destroyed in various ways, pretty much stealing the snowman idea from Calvin & Hobbes, in an attempt to demonstrate what would happen if violent games were taken away from kids without any other changes in their lives. The memorable shot of the commercial was a teddy bear with a noose around its neck attached to a slow-moving ceiling fan. I set it all to some eerie piano music also for irony. Like I said, I am almost without a doubt the last person who should be running an advertising campaign (sometimes what people think is funny is nothing more than disturbing). Nonetheless I still think it’s a good idea.
So, in no particular order, are some ideas for commercials. Any statement with a ‘+’ next to it indicates a positive advertisement that I would make based on pretext while, not surprisingly, a ‘-’ refers to a negative advertisement (and if you think I won’t resort to relying on some scary-sounding voice to deliver some of the attack ads you obviously haven’t figured out what I do here yet). Also remember, if you see anything on television or a website that resembles these ideas who know whom to thank!
Online Content:
If you believe that the XBox 360 has been coasting on its online system, Live (XBL for short), you would be right. The controllers are not much different, the multimedia support is only marginally better, and Live is improved but not a whole lot. Granted, there was not a whole lot to improve with Live as it is an overwhelming success in connecting anyone with an Ethernet connection to the outside world. Sony and Nintendo cannot say anything right now about their online stuff without getting served by XBL, so trying to make an ad for either of them would just not be worth it.
+ (360): Considering Microsoft laid the groundwork for online console gaming while nobody else has an established infrastructure for it, the required ad is a group of friends, maybe 5 people, playing together in a FPS and having a good time. After someone mentions not being able to do a 3×3 team game, somebody asks where X is, panning to some guy holding a controller in the obvious shape of a Sony DualShock controller staring at a blank TV sitting on the couch for several seconds. Simple and to the point.
I also think that if you were Microsoft you should have added Bill Gates to the end of several 360 ads- you know- “I’m Bill Gates and I approve this message” during the election timeframe. This would have killed.
- (360): Even easier, but you need to take two different angles. First, because Sony at least tried to incorporate an online element with their last console, you have to resort to obscure hyperbole. Sony doesn’t want you to be online would be good. Definitely toss in a 6 year-old kid who is trying to convince his dad that he can get online too with the dad smiling and nodding. As for Nintendo, there’s always room for a Britney Spears joke. Just make a bunch of people dance around like idiots and talking incoherently into a headset and that should do the trick. Oh, for those of you that inexplicably missed it, Britney pulled a Milli Vanilli at all of her concerts. She claimed it was because the dancing prevented smooth singing while I still maintain that she is wholly unable to carry a tune.
Games:
Only one company has the edge here also, mostly because only one console has been established so far. It is true that there are exclusive titles on the horizon that people cling to, and there is nothing wrong with that, but if you look at what’s out there now Microsoft has a lot going for it. Here are a couple ideas:
+ (360): Elder Scrolls IV, Project Gotham Racing 3, Gears of War are out now and are fantastic. Later on you will see Halo 3. All of these are 360 exclusives and are major sellers. If Gears of War catches on like I think it should (I see it as leaps and bounds, pun intended, better than Halo to date) then you are looking at 4 powerhouses that no other console has. I’m not sure of the best way to flex that muscle as you do have to be careful due to competing titles on other platforms (Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy to name two), but Halo is considered the flagship series for the XBox, so using that is a must. Something like the Master Chief blowing up a bunch of nasty aliens with a series of heavy weapons, diving into a room, seeing the other consoles, standing up straight, and then dropping a grenade and walking casually out of the room with an explosion in the background after strolling down a hall or something. That might work.
+ (Wii): Mario is the most globally (I recently stopped using universally because, well, I’d feel way too guilty if an alien ever read this article… clearly my caffeine intake today is higher than normal) recognizable video game character and we know that Nintendo is pushing hard towards families being able to game together. So it’s simple- anyone that uses another console must be in a dysfunctional family! Show a family of 4 in front of a television with a Nintendo playing some Mario game together. You want a light set for this. After that switch to some teenager sitting by himself in a room with the lights off playing something similar to Manhunt. The father in a wife beater T-shirt comes in and rips the console out from the wall with the kid whining and yelling. Follow this with a camera outside capturing the front door opening and the console being tossed onto the street and shortly thereafter a truck crushing it while driving by. A little dark of an ending for Nintendo, so better switch back to the family thinking they hear something outside only to go back to playing Mario. Fun for the whole family!
Controllers:
It is pretty safe to assume that Nintendo has put the most work into this arena this time around. I still refuse to believe Sony was able to put together a tilt controller with full range of motion as a reaction to the last E3 but I guess anything’s possible. Either way as Nintendo you have to push this angle because the Wiimote’s form factor lends itself much more easily to tilt control gaming.
- (360): Clearly you have to try and sell the whole notion of tilt controlling not being that fun considering Microsoft is the sole company not integrating that into their console experience. Show people using the Wiimote and the Sixaxis controllers while clearly frustrated. Show some game footage of characters dying in spectacular fashion and the player getting mad or putting the controller down while upset. After enough sequences a character stopping on screen and placing a couple question marks in a bubble over their head would be good too. Show a split-screen shot of both controllers with red X’s and the buzzer sound effect. Finish off with a stick-with-what-works motif and you’re all set.
- (Wii): Nintendo is the only company willing to use a controller that looks different this time, so that needs to be the target. You should be thinking what I’m thinking- kids insulting each other at their friends house! Hey, they’re doing it online anyway, so the transition is smooth. Show up at house A with a 360, have one kid yell at the host with something like “I can’t believe you’re still using that same old controller!” He gets up and leaves, the friends follow, and the host just sits there with a dumb look on his face. Everyone makes it over to the house with the Wii, they start playing, then somehow this kid pulls out a PS3 controller and have the 360 host grab the controller and throw it on the ground. He stares at the kid, who now has a shamed look on his face after everyone else is shaking their head at him for even bringing it into the house. You can’t lose as long as you decry the other controllers.
+ (PS3): The current ad Sony is doing with the PS3 controller isn’t bad although it is borderline too abstract… the one with the controller moving objects around the room, not the exploding Rubik’s cube. The only reason I mention it here is because it is actually pretty good, which is a rare thing given my skewed taste.
Cost:
Clearly one of the only non-subjective topics in the battle. The only possible controversy is that if you want to be an early adopter for high-definition DVD then the PS3 does indeed save you money. However, most people do not want to spend that much money for what for them is largely just a gaming console (although it’s funny that when the PS2 came out, the additional DVD feature was popular… now it’s pure evil).
+ (Wii): I have yet to use women effectively in any of these advertising ideas, and I think I have one of my really good ideas for this one. Show two men in separate frames taking $600 with the girlfriends giving them an evil look. Both go into a mall. One buys a PS3 and comes home to a slap in the face with the girl storming out the front door. The other buys a Wii and some jewelry, keeps the Wii in the trunk and brings in the necklace. Everybody wins, and don’t you just love happy endings?
+ (PS3): We need something similar here, except you have to sell the idea that the PS3 is much more than a gaming console. The multimedia capabilities are quite impressive, so if you care about such things then this ad will work wonders for you. I thought about going the same route as the previous commercial with this one. I wanted to use the college angle because I enjoyed it so much, like watching HD movies and having another $300 in Ramen noodles in boxes behind the couch, but no college kid low on cash is going to spend $600 to save on a hi-def DVD player. The best way t go if you’re Sony for this is to have two guys standing in separate but adjacent lines in an electronics store. Customer A is struggling to hold a 360, HD-DVD player, and a multimedia hub. Customer B is just holding a PS3. They look at each other, then look away, the PS3 customer smirks, swipes his check card and gets out the store quickly. For added effect the customer behind the Customer A asks him why he’s holding all those boxes, Customer A turns around and throws all the boxes at him, knocking him over (physical humor still works like a charm), and leaves.
There are many more ideas, but that seemed like enough for the week. With any luck you were able to picture what I was trying to describe. Who knows, if a company uses one of these ideas then there just may be a future for me in advertising. Wouldn’t that be fun?
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