Shane Kim Responds To Shadowrun Pricing Structure Questions
Posted by Chris Pereira Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, Release Dates, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
The upcoming Shadowrun has two price points on two different systems. That’s not all that unusual in itself – we’re used to seeing PlayStation 2 versions of games cost less than those on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. But when a game is seeing a simultaneous release on Xbox 360 and PC, and being put in a position to be the flagship cross-platform title, why are Xbox 360 owners paying $60 when the game is only $50 on PC?
Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal hunted down Microsoft Game Studios corporate vice president Shane Kim to get an answer.
The $59.99 for Xbox 360 and $49.99 for Windows Vista price points are our standard pricing for each platform. This pricing structure is not uncommon in the multiplayer-only first-person shooter genre, as numerous titles have seen success at this price point and gaming model. I think it’s premature to speak to pricing for all future projects, but as of now this is our pricing structure for our marquee titles like Shadowrun. Additionally, MGS has the same development costs as other developers and publishers out there. One advantage other publishers have that we do not is that they can leverage their marketing and development costs over all platforms, while we are focused on Windows and Xbox 360 as a first party publisher.
That still doesn’t quite answer the question; is it impossible to deviate from the standard pricing scheme? This is the first real Xbox 360/PC cross-platform release, so the standard pricing being referred to is nonsensical. And that’s not to mention, of course, the fact that much of the public is in upheaval over the price already – given that there is no single player and a limited number of maps, paying a “standard” price isn’t what gamers want. The studio manager of Shadowrun developer FASA Studios, Mitch Gitelman has frequently retorted that the game offers an innovative experience that adds “verbs” to the FPS experience. We’ll just have to wait and see how gamers vote with their wallets when the game is released on May 29.
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Gallery: Shane Kim Responds To Shadowrun Pricing Structure Questions
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Chat With Guild Wars Developers Today On GameSpy Arcade
Posted by Chris Pereira Categories: MMORPG, PC,
Guild Wars has been a tremendous success since its inception into the realm of online RPGs several years ago. It has spawned two campaigns in addition to the original, but it was recently announced that future GW campaigns were being canned. In their place would be the first expansion in the series, as well as a full-blown sequel. The expansion – titled Eye of the North – will be unlike the previous releases in that it will require you to own at least one Guild Wars title to play.
Today, gamers have the opportunity to take part in a chat with NC Soft, the developers of Guild Wars. Starting at 4:00 p.m. Pacific / 7 p.m. Eastern on May 11, GameSpy Arcade will be home to an NC Soft chat session. You’ll have to head to the GameSpy Arcade LiveWire lobby for the exclusive event about “upcoming developments” in the franchise.
I’m personally a huge fan of Guild Wars, so I’ll be in attendance. The game’s focus on strategy, as opposed to number of hours played, make it attractive to a whole lot of people. And with NC Soft’s promise that future Guild Wars games will continue to be free to play, the MMORPG world and its subscription fees better be worried. ‘sup, World of Warcraft?
Read More | GameSpy Arcade
Gallery: Chat With Guild Wars Developers Today On GameSpy Arcade
Hellgate: London Subscription Multiplayer Details Revealed
Posted by Chris Pereira Categories: Action, Adventure, MMORPG, PC, Role Playing Games,
The latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine has revealed all the details pertaining to the subscription service Hellgate: London will be sporting. Luckily, previous statements proved to be true as online multiplayer will be free for all players. Beyond that, there are some perks that may warrant paying the monthly fee of $9.95 to become an ‘Elite’ player, but casual players should find the free game to suffice. If Hellgate turns out to be anything like Diablo, it’s going to suck in a lot of unsuspecting people and get them to fork over that subscription fee.
Click to continue reading Hellgate: London Subscription Multiplayer Details Revealed
Read More | Games for Windows Magazine via Voodoo Extreme
Gallery: Hellgate: London Subscription Multiplayer Details Revealed
Devil May Cry 4 No Longer PS3 Exclusive
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: CAPCOM, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
Capcom today announced that the latest game in their action series, Devil May Cry 4 would no longer be a PlayStation 3 exclusive. The company today announced that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will ship simultaneously, with a PC version coming later. The Capcom press release states that each version will be developed specifically to take advantage of each platform’s hardware, but doesn’t list how the feature sets will change. No specific ship date for Japan or America was announced. With this announcement, though, Sony loses yet another exclusive title for the platform. Part of the issue may be the fact that the PlayStation 3 hasn’t yet achieved critical mass for developers; without many consoles sold, it may be hard to justify platform-exclusivity. The larger issue may be that next-generation development costs may simply be too great for third party A-list titles to stay on one platform. Still, this has to be a hard hit for the PlayStation 3.
Read More | Capcom
Gallery: Devil May Cry 4 No Longer PS3 Exclusive
Games For Windows Live Service Coming May 8
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Microsoft’s Games for Windows – Live service will be launching on May 8th, along with the launch of Halo 2 for Windows Vista. Microsoft also confirmed the pricing for the Silver and Gold tiers for the online service; like its Xbox Live sister, the Silver tier is free while the Gold level costs $49.95 per year. There is less of a differentiating factor between the two levels than on Xbox Live. While Xbox Live silver users have no online gaming support, Games for Windows – Live Gold level members will get access to friends lists and PC multiplayer gaming only. The Gold level will basically add more comprehensive matchmaking and cross-platform gameplay.
Microsoft announced three titles that will be supporting Games for Windows – Live; Halo 2, Shadowrun, and UNO. With only Halo 2 promised at launch, its hard to recommend that PC gamers without an Xbox Live Gold account already pay out the money for the full fledged service, particularly since Halo 2 won’t support cross-platform play. Of course, this will somewhat depend on how well developed a matchmaking service the game offers at the Gold tier. Still, the slate of games promised for this online service is really short right now; it almost feels like the ideal target customer for this is a current Xbox Live Gold member with an Xbox 360 that also has a decent gaming machine running Vista.
Microsoft’s full press release continues after the jump.
Click to continue reading Games For Windows Live Service Coming May 8
Gallery: Games For Windows Live Service Coming May 8
Live For Windows Pricing Revealed?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Microsoft has apparently revealed the pricing structure for their Live for Windows Vista gaming platform, according to Game Informer Online. Xbox 360 gamers should be familiar with the price structure; Gold accounts on Live for Windows Vista will cost the same as an Xbox Live Gold account. A one year subscription will sell for $49.99, with one month options selling for $7.99, and three months sell for $19.99. Also, those gamers that have both and Xbox 360 and a PC won’t have to subscribe twice, as a single subscription will work for both accounts. This pricing structure would seem to be great for Xbox 360 gamers, not so great for PC gamers. While Xbox gamers have gotten used to paying Microsoft for the privilege of playing online, this will be a new experience for PC gamers. It also remains to be seen if there really is a value proposition in Microsoft’s Vista offering, considering the competition in the PC space. For those PC gamers looking to play online against their Xbox 360 brethren, Live for Vista may be the only option, but consumers may find that mere online access to this competition plus Achievement and Gamerscore support my not be worth it.
Read More | Game Informer
Gallery: Live For Windows Pricing Revealed?
Extremetech Dissects Vista Gaming Performance
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PC,
It has already been reported that there are some games that have problems under Microsoft Windows Vista, some due to compatibility problems with the OS, others with driver issues. Even for games that run correctly under Vista, often there is a performance hit taken by the OS. Extremetech has looked at a suite of game titles with some of the highest hardware requirements and run them all under Windows XP and Windows Vista across three high-end video cards to see what the performance hit actually is. Overall, Extremetech’s findings show that both nVidia have some room for improvement in their driver sets. Generally, the ATI card took a bigger performance hit in testing, but generally across the board, the cards dropped framerates by as much as 40%, but generally more in the range of 5 – 20%. The lack of maturity on Windows Vista video card drivers and the lack of DirectX 10 games on the platform suggests that the best option for gamers at this point is to wait for the software situation to firm up a bit more before upgrading.
Read More | Extremetech
Gallery: Extremetech Dissects Vista Gaming Performance
Bethesda Clarifies Oblivion PS3 Rumors
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PC, PlayStation 3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Xbox 360,
IGN’s preview of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion for the Playstation 3 seemed to trigger some debate about the release, particularly regarding the rendering engine upgrades and optimizations and the fact that many of the downloadable modules for the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game would be missing. Pete Hines, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda tried to clear up some of the issues.
First, Hines clarified that the missing content for the PS3 version was not due to any technical limitations of the console. His explanation was that some of the content was not appropriate for the balance of the game for a new player and that for other content, Bethesda simply hadn’t had time to look into developing content for the Playstation Store; he believes that Bethesda will be making some content available at a later date. Bethesda’s decisions here seem a little flakey; saying that delaying the release of content so that gamers could have a better experience seems a little odd considering that an Xbox 360 or PC user that buys Oblivion this week can have the content on day one. Still, given the choice between having Oblivion in PS3 gamers’ hands earlier without Playstation Network support or facing further delays while Bethesda works on implementing downloadable content, one would certainly want to have the game sooner rather than later.
On the new hardware optimizations, Hines admitted that the PC and Xbox 360 would see the shader improvements in an upcoming release, but indicated that certain vague Cell-specific enhancements would be exclusive to the PS3. Specifically what those enhancements are were left undefined.
Read More | IGN
Gallery: Bethesda Clarifies Oblivion PS3 Rumors
Half-Life 2: Episode Two Delayed Again
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Electronic Arts, First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
EA and Valve Software officially announced the Half-Life 2: Episode Two packages that will be available at retail for the PC, Xbox 360, and the Playstation 3. Gamespot reports that two retail SKUs will be available, the Orange Box, which will include Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 & 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. This box will be available on the PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. The Black Box, only available for the PC will include Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. Pricing was not discussed for either set. Slipped into the announcement was a change in the release date; the game is no longer set for a summer release and is now targeted for the fall or winter quarter. One of the supposed advantages of the episodic release format was a shorter development cycle between releases; now it appears that Episode 2 will hit retail around 18 months after the release of Episode 1. We know Valve likes to release things when they are ready, but the continued delays are getting to be tiresome.
Read More | Gamespot
Gallery: Half-Life 2: Episode Two Delayed Again
Blizzard Makes Burning Crusade Downloadable
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, MMORPG, PC,
For those gamers who might be trying to avoid the time-sink that is The Burning Crusade, Blizzard just pushed the crack pipe a little closer. Some addicts might try and keep themselves away from retail stores to avoid the temptation; Blizzard has eliminated that excuse by making the new content available for download. Gamers can now simply log into their accounts online and click to download. If there is already a credit card account stored, then a simple click on a link and $39.99 will get the download started.
Read More | World of Warcraft
Gallery: Blizzard Makes Burning Crusade Downloadable
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