One of the headlines making rounds this Monday comes from Gametrailers.com’s Bonus Round program where Wedbush & Morgan analyst Michael Pachter supposedly suggested that EA could delay the release of GTA IV to the 4th quarter. Let’s be clear about this because I’ve already seen the story distorted on at least one site. First of all, EA cannot delay the release of GTA IV even if they want to at the moment because they have no control over the game’s publisher Take Two. And although EA has offered to buy Take Two, the chances of that actually going through are looking increasingly slim as EA has made it clear that they want to do the deal before GTA IV’s release and Take Two has made it clear that they don’t want to sell until after GTA IV’s release.

Secondly, Pachter did not actually say that EA would delay the release of GTA IV even if they did own the company. All he said was that they would have a financial incentive to do so. In a nutshell, when given the choice publishers almost always release their games in the 4th quarter because that’s when they sell the best. However, Take Two is a bit strapped for cash at the moment so they can’t afford to hold on to a multi-million selling title for an extra 6 months just for the hell of it. EA, on the other hand, is a much bigger company which could afford to do so if they wanted. This is all Pachter is saying, no more, no less.

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Today I’m announcing a new direction for DualAnalog.com. Up to this point Dual Analog has been just a general gaming blog. The problem has been that there’s little general gaming news that I can write about that is unique or compelling enough to get me to post with much frequency on the site. So starting today I’m taking the blog in a direction that will focus on the business and analysis side of the games industry.

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A while back I did a mini review for the Sins of a Solar Empire Beta.  Now that the full version is out and I ‘ve had time to digest the final product I wanted to revisit it with a full review.

First off, let me say that whatever you think Sins of a Solar Empire is you’re wrong.  This is not  Galactic Civ 2, nor is it Homeworld.  Sins is something almost entirely unique, the likes of which you have never played before.  While technically a real time strategy game, Sins resembles traditional RTS titles as much as a game like Civilization 4 resembles Advance Wars.  In terms of pacing, it most closely resembles the Total War games.  A full game can take you anywhere from 3-10 hours and up, and you can spend 20 minutes managing a single large scale battle.  Yet while the Total War games split combat and growing your empire into two neat little containers, Sins presents you will all of it at once.

The game takes place across as few as a handful of planets and asteroids in smaller maps to hundreds of planets in multiple solar systems in larger games. Yet Sins manages to keep its focus by limiting play to the planets themselves and small “gravity well” around them.  Between planets is nothing but empty space that must be crossed through phase lanes.  Sins is remarkable in its scale.  A fighter is dwarfed by a capital ship, which itself is suitably dwarfed by the planets and stars it travels around.  Managing this scale would be difficult were it not for the inclusion of two fantastic features.  The first is a zoom that puts Supreme Commander to shame, not only because it scales so much further but also because it’s actually serves a purpose in game.  Zoom all the way in to micro manage a 10m fighter in a battle, or zoom all the way out to view multiple solar systems and plan your grand strategy.  It’s both seamless and breathtaking.

The second feature that has been much talked about is the empire tree, a sort of graphical representation of your entire empire laid out along the left hand side of the screen.  I say much talked about because I haven’t actually used the empire tree yet.  In a way though, I think that speaks all the more about the game that it presents you with so many different options for how to play it and manage your empire.

Starting your first game, this can be more than just a bit daunting.  The depth to this game is astounding, and the learning curve is steep.  Talk to anyone who’s struggled blindly through that first 2 hours or so of the game though and they’ll attest that it was well worth it.  Once you’ve acquainted yourself with the world that Ironclad has created, the depth and complexity stops being something you struggle against and becomes one of the game’s greatest assets.  It’s this depth that manages to keep you constantly on your toes in a game that’s paced so slowly.  It’s this depth that keeps you up to 3 in the morning completely engrossed in the game.

And it’s this depth that really set Sins apart from other games out there.  In a time where games are increasingly being simplified in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, Sins takes it the other way.  The game is unapologetic in its complexity and depth.  This is a strategy game made for strategy gamers, not for the huddled masses.  And while to some it may seem a crime for a game to not strive to be everything to everyone to those who have witnessed games continually get stripped of features in the name of greater market share it’s a breath of fresh air.

I’ve only just started to scratch the surface of Sins.  There are numerous other aspects of the game that I could talk at length about.  Such as the ability to save multiplayer games and return to them later, or perhaps the staggering visual quality that a game of this scope manages to achieve.  But I believe I’ve already made the case for this game.  It’s not for everyone, the depth and complexity will surely scare some people away.  But if you’re a fan of strategy games, or games with depth then you owe it to yourself to try out Sins of a Solar Empire.

Final Verdict: 9/10

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A while back I was frequently blogging on a, now somewhat defunct, site called Evil Avatar Analysts.  Since nobody has posted on that site in over 6 months now, I’ve decided to repost my own articles here mostly for archival purposes.  I’m particularly proud of the most recent one from back in June.  Although I was off on the PS3, I pretty much nailed the Wii and Xbox 360 price and hardware changes.

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Note: this article was originally posted on evilavataranalysts.com on 6/13/07

With E3 almost over there’s a lot of news to talk about right now. One of the more interesting stories has been the issue of the Sony ‘price drop’. At the beginning of this week, the news broke that Sony would be dropping the price of the 60gb PS3 to $499 and introducing a new 80gb model at $599 with a copy of Motorstorm, but sans the hardware BC. Sales immediately jumped on Amazon, and the general gaming community cheered Sony for making such a move so early in the console’s life. Not everyone was particularly satisfied with the move however. Representatives at Konami and Square both proclaimed that the price cut didn’t go far enough. That sentiment was later echoed by Peter Moore, who pointed out that, while there was more value, the PS3’s price points were the same as they were at launch.

It appears that all the reactions were a bit premature however. On Friday, both Kaz Hirai and David Reeves revealed that the PS3 price cuts were not quite what Sony had originally presented them as. The 60gb version would still be dropped to $499, but production would cease on that model and once the inventory had sold through Sony would be left with a single $599 model. While there was some initial confusion about the accuracy of such statements, they were eventually confirmed to be true. The backlash was, understandably, heavy.

Additionally, the original Sony announcement was followed up by rampant speculation regarding an Xbox 360 price cut as a response. That speculation was further fueled by a Microsoft press release detailing their new 65nm chip (now named Falcon) which would help cut production costs. Unfortunately, no price drop came and gamers were left with a vague promise from Shane Kim that it would happen eventually but not during the week of E3.

So what’s my take on all of this? Read on to find out

Obviously, Sony totally screwed the pooch on this announcement. But PR bumbles aside this is the second time Sony has phased out the cheaper model of the PS3. With Sony being outsold in the US 2-1 by the 360 and 4-1 by the Wii it’s quite clear that $599 is just too much for the average customer to spend on a gaming console, no matter how much functionality it has. For the PS3 to achieve any kind of significant install base, they need to lower the price. If they keep upgrading the system they’ll never make it to a reasonable price point, and they definitely won’t beat the 360 there. On the ‘bright’ side however, stripping the hardware BC out of the PS3 will help lower costs and streamline Sony’s production worldwide, which will eventually set the stage for real price cuts. However, it’s extremely unlikely such cuts will happen in ‘07.

On the Xbox 360 side not much has changed. Sony has failed to really put any pressure on Microsoft to lower their prices. However, while Sony might not be much of a competitor at this point, Microsoft has to be feeling the heat from the Wii on the low end. I expect Microsoft will lower their prices when they finally get around to rolling out Falcon. As for what those prices might be, I can only speculate. Some have suggested that Microsoft may drop the core bundle, but I don’t think so. The Core allows them to extend the bottom end of their price range down into the Wii’s territory. However, I wouldn’t expect it to go any further than the Wii’s $249 at this point. Given the significant difference in hardware and the kind of customer Microsoft is targeting, they don’t have much need to actually beat the Wii on price. A 360 running one of it’s better looking games, like Gears of War, next to a Wii for the exact same price is a pretty compelling image for all but the most casual gamer.

I would expect the Elite to drop by $80 to make it a nice even $399, and I estimate the Premium would drop somewhere between $50 and $80, depending on how Microsoft wants to position its value relative to the two other systems. I would also expect a bit of a shuffling of features between the different models. The Halo 3 special edition console is essentially a Premium with an added HDMI port, so it seems reasonable to suggest that the Premium will also be getting HDMI. I’m not so sure about the Core however, since they might keep it fairly feature lite in order to encourage people to move to the next step up the ladder. I can also envision the Core system gaining a bundled flash drive if Microsoft wants to compete with the Wii and if the Core isn’t getting as steep of a price drop as the others. As for when will this all be announced, my guess is X07. They aren’t in any rush and that’s Microsoft’s “all eyes on us” moment every year, exactly the type of place where they like to make these kinds of announcements.

The Wii, of course, isn’t going anywhere on price for a while. Nintendo can hardly keep them in stock at the price it’s at. There’s really no reason for them to even consider a price drop at this point.

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Note: this article was originally published on evilavataranalysts.com on 6/1/2007

Last week, Sony put out a, rather hefty, update for the PS3. Among some of the highlights for the update were the ability to remotely play video on a PSP, stream content across a home network, and upscaling support for PS1 and PS2 games. More importantly though, it was completely free and practically painless to the consumer. The funny thing is, people barely even noticed.

Since the beginning of the current generation, we have seen a major shift in the console industry. Suddenly, game companies not only have the ability to periodically update their consoles, they’re expected to. Five years ago, the idea of waking up to a system that was actually better than it was the night before was practically unthinkable. The console a company launched with was practically the same console when they replaced it 5 or 6 years down the road. Sure there were occasional updates, such as the Sega CD and the N64 memory upgrade. However, those were rare, expensive to the customer, and often doomed to failure. This new wave of updates is entirely different in that it’s all focussed on software. Since the launch of the current crop of consoles we have seen video stores, internet browsers, virtual worlds, messaging services, and a host of other major and minor features added or announced, all for free and all painlessly downloaded over the Internet.

When people discuss a console’s online services, they generally focus on the side that they have to pay for. However, in their efforts to get those services online and open up new revenue streams, these companies have experienced a unique side effect. They are now in perpetual competition with each other, and I am a big fan of competition. Competition pushes companies to be efficient, innovative, and to strive to better than there competitors, and it almost always benefits the customer. Every time one company releases an update, the others must try to top in in their next updates, lest their systems fall behind.

Some might say that these features are unnecessary or frivolous, and many of them are. Yet it’s hard to argue against getting something for nothing.

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Note: this article was originally published on evilavataranalysts.com on 5/16/07

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the disconnect between what Microsoft’s game division actually costs them and what customers value it at. Today, Sony released a report that makes Microsoft’s recent losses look paltry. In a nut shell, Sony’s game division lost $2 billion for their fiscal year, doubling most predictions. Nearly half of that was in their 4th quarter alone. To put this in perspective, Microsoft is estimated to have lost only $4 billion over the entire, 4.5 year, life of the original Xbox.

As with Microsoft, these numbers clash considerably with the general consumer consensus that Sony is charging too much for their hardware. Unlike with Microsoft, the cause of this disconnect for Sony is quite clear. The PS3 simply costs too much. It costs too much for Sony to produce and it costs too much for customers to buy. The fact that it’s not selling well even after Sony shoulders a loss is a sign that the technology just isn’t ready for the mass market. The general public simply does not view gaming hardware as worth $600 regardless of how powerful that hardware is, and regardless of whether or not it is being sold at a loss.

Microsoft and, especially, Sony are both learning a very hard lesson. Expensive hardware alone does not make a successful console.

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Note: This article was originally published on evilavataranalysts.com on 5/3/2007

While the exact outcome of this generation’s 3-way battle royal for console domination is still uncertain, there are two things that are have quickly become quite clear. First is that, whatever the PS3 is, one thing it certainly is not is anywhere near the success that its two predecessors were. Second is that Nintendo is back in the console race and, along with the success of the DS, well on their way to becoming the major force in games today.

I’m not entirely sure of what to make of this changing of the guard. The economist inside me is absolutely thrilled. Few industries function optimally when as utterly dominated by a single company as Sony has dominated gaming for the last decade. A shakeup was long overdue, and this will introduce some much needed competition into the market, maybe even make room for some more newcomers. Additionally, Nintendo’s new approach to the casual market has huge implications. For the last two decades, video games have been a niche market. It was a large niche, but nevertheless a niche.

If Nintendo is successful in its mission, the next decade will bring about more change in the industry than the previous two combined. The meteoric growth of the industry during the ‘Playstation eras’ could very well pale in comparison to what’s in store for it in the near future. Such growth also means a massive influx of new talent and ideas. Anyone who’s become bored with the current offerings from this industry certainly has a lot to look forward to.

However, the gamer in me has a completely different take on the situation. As a, slightly nerdy, 24 year old male, I’ve been pretty much the poster child for the game industry’s target audience my entire life. If you’re outside of that demographic, it’s hard for me to convey just what it’s like having an entire $12 billion industry pretty much market every single one of their products directly at you. Needless to say though, it’s been very nice. It is no surprise then that I find very few games on the DS and the Wii that interest me personally.

If Nintendo continues with its recent success, and most signs indicate that it will, then it will be only logical for other companies to follow suit. In fact, I’m often puzzled that the game industry has limited itself so much for so long. Obviously, such changes won’t necessarily be bad. Diversity in this industry is something that is long overdue, and as this medium matures we will surely see some truly great games. However, for those of us who already loved games for what they were, something will most definitely be lost.

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Note: This article was originally published on evilavataranalysts.com on 5/1/2007

Recently Microsoft announced their 3rd quarter earnings. While the company took in a record $14.4 billion in profits, its Entertainment and Devices Division, which the Xbox makes up a large portion, lost some $315 million for the quarter. While the company attributed this loss to the launch of the Zune and the extension of the Xbox 360’s warranty, there’s more going on here. The E&DD has been a sinkhole for Microsoft ever since the launch of the original Xbox way back in 2001.

I find this is particularly interesting because Microsoft is often lampooned by gamers for over charging for their products. The word greedy, among others, is often thrown around pretty liberally to describe their hardware and software pricing, even by this very site. The point is that somewhere there’s a disconnect between what it costs Microsoft to produce the Xbox 360 and the games that go with it and what consumers value it at. As I’ve mentioned before, I think part of the problem is that they’re not charging the right amounts for the right things. They overcharge for things like their hard drives and undercharge for the actual console itself.

It’s hard to pin down just where Microsoft is going wrong without plenty of data to back it up. Perhaps they’re not marketing the value of the product quite right. Perhaps their failure in Japan is pushing up their operating costs for the entire division. However, the fact of the matter is that either Microsoft’s costs for producing the Xbox 360 are too high, or gamers aren’t realizing what they’re getting for their money. Honestly, I think it’s probably a little of both.

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Note: This article was originally posted on evilavataranalysts.com on 4/22/07

The March NPD numbers are in and they’re telling a rather curious tale. PS3 sales are up 2% at 130k units, 360 sales are down 13% to 199k units, and Wii sales are down a 23% to 259k units. Deciphering just what exactly any of these numbers indicate is rather difficult.

Let’s start with the easy one. If the 360 is anything at this point, it’s steady. Omitting holiday months (ie Nov. & Dec.) the 360 has sold an average of 232,000 units a month, with a standard deviation of about 40k units. Aside from holiday months and the release of a certain high profile game, I don’t expect the 360 to stray too much from this trend and March was no exception.

The PS3 is still trailing well behind its two rivals. What the PS3 really needs at this point is a big name title. Last year, the releases of Oblivion, GRAW, and Fight Night pushed the Xbox 360 sales up from 160k units in Feb to 190k units in March and then 300k units in April. Unfortunately, the next semi-high profile PS3 exclusive, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, isn’t slated for release until the end of June. My guess is that GTA IV will be the game that finally lifts the PS3 out of the doldrums. Granted, it’s not a PS3 exclusive, but many gamers have come to associate the GTA series with the Playstation platform. GTA IV will be Sony’s first true system selling title.

Lastly we have the Wii. The Wii has the most enigmatic sales number of all. The Wii’s drop from 335,000 units in Feb. to 259,000 units in March tells us absolutely nothing about the demand for the Wii because it was pretty much completely sold out the entire month. Demand could still very well be at 300k, 400k, or even 500k a month. There’s just no way to know from these numbers. It does tell us something else though, perhaps something much more important.

For some reason, Nintendo shipped 75,000 less units in March for a console that is still selling like hotcakes. Those units were undoubtabley still made; manufacturing capacities don’t just randomly drop 23% in the space of a month. so where did they go? One place they didn’t go is Japan. Shipments to Japan actually declined from 302k units in Feb to 263k units in March, another 40k units unaccounted for. That leaves Europe. Unfortunately weekly and monthly numbers are not available for Europe. However, it is unlikely that Nintendo would shift over 100,000 units from the two regions where the Wii is in highest demand to the one where demand is lowest. These missing units lend some serious credence to allegations that Nintendo has been stockpiling Wii’s until the end of their fiscal year.

If this is the case, I definitely have to question the wisdom of such a decision. Microsoft is still the leader in console sales by a margin of about 3-4 million units worldwide, and Sony’s success in Europe has given them a much needed boost. Two months ago, it looked like Nintendo was going to close that gap by the end of the year. Limiting their supply like this is just giving their competitors more time to catch up and/or widen that margin.

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