PSN suddenly a threat; would M$ be so stupid as to raise the price of Live?

With Sony’s suddenly reasonably-priced PS3 massively outselling the 360 in September, and Uncharted 2 (which everyone’s bought) giving those new customers a taste of online gaming that is both decent and free, Microsoft’s finally got some competition to worry about.

It’s not bad, actually. And you can tell how much something costs, because it’s in real money, not Microsoft banana dollars.

And, courtesy of some English analyst, here’s a good way of making sure they lose that fight:

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter expects Xbox Live Gold membership prices to rise significantly over the next couple of years.

Speaking in a video interview with GTTV, Pachter said that Microsoft would raise the cost of access to the Xbox 360 online service in a bid to drive profits.

That should go over really well. Suddenly many more of us have PS3s, and we’re questioning why we’re paying $50 to $100 a year for something that’s free on PS3s and PCs. If Microsoft wants to keep us paying for Live, it should be helping us to forget how much it costs. Suddenly raising the already indefensible price is the best way I can think of to encourage gamers to finally jump ship.

Let’s hope, for Microsoft’s sake, their common sense will outweigh their legendary greed. We’ve all just seen what happens when it doesn’t.

UPDATE: Microsoft says it probably won’t, but won’t rule it out, either.

A deserved failure

Unsurprisingly, given that it’s an over-priced, under-featured ripoff, Sony’s PSP-that-won’t-play-your-existing-games, the PSP-Go, isn’t doing well:

Sony’s new PSP Go video game console is struggling to gain any real traction in Australia, with weekly sales across the country languishing in the hundreds rather than thousands, sources say.

That’s fantastic news for consumers. If Sony had managed to get away with gouging us even more than our overseas counterparts, and Australians had just handed over their cash anyway, then other companies would follow suit. It’s vital that ripoffs fail, or we’ll see more of them.

Sony won’t admit to making a mistake, of course:

Sony admits sales are slow but says new features are on the way that will let the device act as an e-book reader and video player.

It plays video already, doesn’t it? The same as the existing, $150 cheaper ordinary PSP? And my phone reads e-books.

You’re clutching at straws, Ephraim.

ELSEWHERE: Engadget’s post prompts a thread of suggestions for what the PSP-Go should have been.

When Microsoft sucks

This shameless attack on competition by Microsoft doesn’t come as a great surprise, but it’s one more reason why they deserve to lose the console war.

Microsoft has announced that the coming update for the 360 will ensure that only authorized memory units function with the 360. This means that after your 360 is updated you won’t be able to access any saved games on any form of memory that is not officially authorized.

Unfortunately, Sony and Nintendo have also done incredibly dickish things to their customers, and they deserve to lose it, too.

Maybe we should be keeping score, drawing a line in the relevant column each time they behave like the aggressive and anti-consumer arseholes they are, and the company with the most check marks at the end of the generation officially loses. Of course, by then it’ll be by definition a bit late to refuse to buy their console, so I doubt they’d care. Dammit.

UPDATE: Datel responds:

“If the Major Nelson blog is to be taken at face value then we’re disappointed to see that Microsoft are taking these steps to prevent customers from exercising their freedom of choice,” a company spokesperson told CVG. “Everyone is looking for ways to make their cash go further at the moment and we believe that Max Memory offers a good value, high capacity, alternative to the official memory unit.”

Duh. That’s why they’re arbitrarily sabotaging you, silly.

FURTHER: This is Microsoft’s pissweak excuse:

According to the rep, Microsoft is looking to “protect the Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE service from cheating, which is the primary purpose and use of these unauthorized MUs.”

What utter bullshit. How do you cheat with a memory unit?

3D Dot Game Heroes – please tell me we’ll get it here

Releasing on November 5 in Japan, no English translation or Western release has been confirmed for 3D Dot Game Heroes. But I can’t tell you how excited I am to play it. It’s like the original NES Zelda cartridge had a baby with what it looked like in our imaginations (inspired by images of a model Hyrule in the instruction booklet). It’s beautiful.

I just hope it’s not too much like original Zelda for the courts – the world, the characters, the weapons, the music… It shouldn’t be, but you never know when a large corporation like Nintendo starts firing around lawyers’ letters at smaller developers. Maybe it will scare them off spending the money to translate and distribute it.

If this doesn’t come out here, I will want bloody vengeance on whoever is responsible.

UPDATE 28/10: Looks like there’ll be an English translation, at least.

Need new podcast

Australia could definitely do with a few more videogame podcasts. I’m not aware of any well-established ones, apart from the one occasionally done by Yug and Matt (and, even more occasionally, Yahtzee) at Australian Gamer.

And I’m suddenly much less willing to forgive that podcast’s flaws, after this week’s episode. I pop it in today, and suddenly there’s Matt abusing me as being “someone with no idea spouting off shit he doesn’t know anything about”. (Because I pointed out that the state AGs do actually have the power to go around Atkinson on R18.)

The fact that it pretty quickly became obvious that I did (Yug: “So in that case it could be possible to subvert the attorney generals in different states?”) and that Matt had no idea (“Yeah, different states can actually have slightly different legislation, um, classification, why and how I’m not quite sure, um…”) didn’t really undo the original abuse. Which was rather surprising and unpleasant.

So, yeah. Not so keen on listening to Matt any more.

Any other suggestions?

UPDATE: While we’re there, I’m thinking of starting my own podcast on games. What I was thinking was a Love/Hate theme: where the majority of the show would be talking about gaming experiences we’ve loved (either that week or previously), and five-ten minutes at the end would be on the things that piss you off (like this blog, only with jokes). Anyone interested? I’m in Melbourne, but I gather these things can also be done over Skype.

Wrong music

I’ve posted before on how well an online match of COD4 goes with the soundtrack to to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Well, on the way back from dinner tonight I had the mp3 player on mega happy random shuffle mode, and it started playing some music from Holst’s Planets suite. Which brought back some strong gaming memories indeed.

You see, when the original X-Wing PC game came out, I still had a 386DX40 (if I’m remembering right) without any sort of sound card. Being a penniless university student, it was some time before I got around to buying a Soundblaster 16 – and in the meantime, games were enjoyed with an entirely arbitrary accompanying soundtrack courtesy of my rather limited CD collection. Holst seemed like the closest thing to John Williams’ Star Wars score (not surprisingly, given how much Williams borrowed from it), so I played my way through the entirety of X-Wing to The Planets. “Mars” for the Death Star trench run. “Neptune” for escort missions in the empty black of space.

So that’s what I associate with that classic, brilliant X-Wing game. I’ve played it since with the synthesised Williams themes that were supposed to accompany it, but it wasn’t the same.

My significant other tells me she played through all of Morrowind with David Gray’s “White Ladder” playing. I suspect you have had similar experiences.

What “wrong” music have you tied in with a particular game?

Seems odd

Quick question: why is it that the only video series available for free on Xbox Live is “The Guild”, a comedy about World of Warcraft players? As in, a hymn to a game THAT IS NOT ON THE BLOODY XBOX!

Seems very weird. What’s next – a live-action drama about Metal Gear Solid? A paean of love to iTunes?

Creepy, but fun

I didn’t ever really get into Battlefield: Bad Company – although it looked pretty, and those outdoor areas were fun to stalk around, it just didn’t feel like it controlled as well as Call of Duty. (Also, snipers can’t lie prone in it, which is bizarre.)

But playing a little bit more online recently I’ve discovered one mechanism I hope all other FPS games steal (particularly COD): the dog tags. When you take out an opponent by stabbing them with the knife rather than shooting them, you get a tag with their name on it. And you build up a collection of everyone you’ve managed to take down in this humiliating way.

It is, surprisingly, incredibly satisfying and addictive. My collection of ghoulishly-earned trophies is growing quickly, and I can’t wait to add yours to the pile. See you online.

How stupidly restrictive copyright laws will kill the PSP-Go

You would think, in a sane copyright system, that once a consumer has paid for content – video, music, text, whatever – that they would be permitted to view that content on whatever device they like. The creator has been paid once, end of story. But that’s not the case under our ridiculous copyright regime, and the effect is, more often than not, to make sure everyone misses out.

Take the PSP-Go. Here’s Sony’s explanation for why people who’ve bought a PSP game in the UMD format won’t be able to play that game on their new PSP Go without purchasing a second copy:

There is currently no way for a Playstation Portable owner to transfer their library of UMD games to the download-only PSPgo. Yoshida told us that Sony “seriously looked into solutions” but that legal and technical issues prevented them from coming up with a system that would work.

Lempel says that the biggest issue was not just about the games, but rather the game’s music and other royalty issues.

That’s just beyond stupid. What difference does it make to the musician whether the game’s digital or on a UMD, provided that the user has paid for it? How has this confused, messy system – where the rights to various parts of a game may be held by a whole raft of different people – helped anyone? The upshot will be one more shot at the heart of a model the publishers and Sony would massively benefit from promoting – and the further alienation of their customers.

Restrictive copyright laws: bad for consumers – bad for creators.

Valve wasn’t “allowed” to release Crash Course for free on 360? Really?

Hang on a second – Microsoft clearly does let companies release DLC for free on Live. Maps for Battlefield: Bad Company, for example.

So why was Valve allegedly prevented from doing the same with “Crash Course” on Left 4 Dead?

Something about this doesn’t add up.