Editorial #43: Going Nowhere - Editorials

Random ramblings from Omni.

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Editorial #43: Going Nowhere*

*Working Title

As I type this on February 10, it finally feels like the 4th Quarter of 2005 is over. There's always a flood of games in the dying months of a calendar year but this year saw the release of the Xbox 360, and its accompanying launch titles. That was back in the middle of November 2005 and only recently was I able to sit back and say, "I'm finally done with these friggin' 360 games!"

I reviewed 13 of the launch titles and it took me nearly three months. It was a frustrating experience. Not because some of the titles were less than what I expected -- NBA Live 06 I'm looking at you -- but because I was the only one on staff with a 360, which necessitated lumping the review duties on my shoulders. In the last few days two of AE's writers -- Kurt and M. Enis -- report finally scoring a 360. Oh, the humanity! It certainly peaked my interest in hunting down information regarding just how many 360 units were ready for the North American launch of the console and pondering the wisdom of attempting to launch the console "worldwide" practically simultaneously. (I put "worldwide" in quotes because North America, Japan, and Europe doesn't compute as a worldwide launch -- it should have been labeled as the less-sexy "Northern Hemisphere launch!" or more accurately "Three region launch!") I've not been so successful in establishing exactly how many units have been shipped or purchased to today's date, but as of December 31, 2005, Microsoft had shipped 1.5 million units. If my memory serves me correctly (disclaimer: The writer's memory has been known to be incorrect on occasion), Microsoft wanted to ship upwards of 3 million units in the first few days of the launch.

In retrospect it was probably a mistake to make such grandiose marketing plans and if the Gaming Age forums are anything to go by -- never believe anything you read on a message board -- what Xbox 360 units that were available were the goat-child Core Systems, which lack a hard drive and wireless controller. And even if someone was lucky enough to stumble across a supermodel "regular" Xbox 360, complete with wireless controller, remote, and hard drive, they were held as defective pieces of garbage that scratched discs, over-heated, and basically brought financial ruin and, in one case, the plague to those "unlucky" enough to get their hands on one.

According to the BBC (December 6, 2005) a class action lawsuit was launched claiming "the power supply and processors in the Xbox 360 overheat, causing it to freeze." This is another one of those lawsuits that comes about in an attempt to make a company pay for damages like "pain and suffering" so I'm really glad the article includes this tidbit:

"The US is historically extremely litigious and highly opportunistic in these types of class action," said Forrester Research analyst Paul Jackson.

"If you are going to go after a company, you might as well go after one with lots of cash," he told the BBC News website.

I'll admit that the 360 tends to run on the warm side of things and the mammoth power supply is, well, mammoth, but I've played games on the thing for hours and spent many hours more watching movies and seeing what the console is capable of without a hitch. (Customized wallpaper? I love it.) But class action lawsuits like this always get my imagination churning on what class action lawsuits of my own that I

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could launch. I'd sue Nintendo for the many times I've missed my bus stop and been late coming back from lunch thanks to their GameBoy. No, not just GameBoys, all their handheld devices. If the lawsuit was slow to gain traction I'd extend the scope to include Sony for its PSP. How many lost hours of productivity have we suffered from addictive handheld games? Hundreds? Thousands? Collectively it must be in the millions or billions! Let's smack Nintendo and Sony!

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The other class action suit I would file would be against any company that fails to hit a release date for a high profile game for "false advertising" and "pain and suffering."

Anyway, it's likely that everyone will forget the stumbling that went along with the launch of the 360. Most everyone has forgotten about the Playstation 2 launch, which wasn't without its own problems and a mediocre launch line-up. (Remember those conspiracy theories that Sony purposely shipped less units to drive up after-market price and grab news headlines?)

Writing of stumbling, it seems that all the game companies (except Capcom apparently) are reporting losses to some extent and some companies like Majesco and Atari being in real danger of folding or being forced to restructure (i.e. a massive round of firings) their operations. Atari (the North American wing of Infogrames) reports a 50% fall in sales revenue and is in trouble with its creditors. Problems at Atari can be traced back to any number of factors, but the biggest one is that the companies games haven't been selling well. Majesco is in major trouble and has fired 20% of its staff and is now focused on handheld and value-priced games. Majesco's problems are tied to the failure of GBA Video to catch on and the retail kick-in-the-crotch that was given to Aeon Flux, Advent Rising, and, *sniff* Psychonauts (one of my favorite games ever). Refocusing itself on value-priced games and selling off properties in the making, like Ghost Rider, Majesco might just pull through. Atari on the other hand...

I think it was sometime in 2004 that AE's own Mr. Nash noted that the gaming industry was ramping up for a major shakedown and it looks like 2006 is when we see it explode and take a few publishers and more than a few developers with it. (Even EA is feeling the pinch; they recently laid off a bunch of people amid reports of an 11% decrease in revenue from the same period a year before.) Gizmodo has pretty much flat- lined now, Acclaim bought the farm a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure it'll be so bad as the Crash of 1983 but... E3 2006 is shaping up to be a low-key event, that is, if Sony and Nintendo fail to show anything worth noting, which is unlikely at this point.

Like it or not, Microsoft was the star of last year's E3. Though the final hardware wasn't quite there yet, playable 360 games were on the floor. Sony made people line up for a couple of hours to see a quick video of what might, possibly, maybe be do-able with their new hardware; Nintendo announced the Revolution, showed the GBA mini, and made people line up even longer than Sony to play a demo of Twilight Princess. This year there's much hope that we'll see Sony's PS3 hardware in action rather than contained in a swanky and tightly-edited movie; and Nintendo has already said they'll be putting the Revolution, with its freaky nunchuck controller, front and center. Most of the people I correspond with about the upcoming event are predicting an exciting show. But it goes without saying though that there will be more floor space available on the show floor, which unfortunately can't be filled up by scantily clad models and strippers to promote companies and their various products if the ESA follows through on their promise to crack down on the dress code for so-called "booth babes", which apparently has always been in place but never enforced.

At any rate, the Xbox 360 launch wasn't without its bumps, trivial lawsuits should be thrown out of court, E3 2006 will be a showcase year with lots of room for calisthenics, and money can buy lots of things but it can't buy happiness. Until next time when I explore what alcohol would be mixed to create Journalistic Integrity, keep on gaming.

- Omni

(February 14, 2006)


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