UNSCleric.com

Add another title to the long list of games scheduled for the PS3 that have been canceled or delayed due to the PS3’s architecture.  It was revealed a couple months ago by EA that they had discontinued work on the PS3 version of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, but now we know what the cause for it was, and it’s a shocker.

“We actually announced a PS3 version early on but that was when we were still doing a lot of technical exploration of the architecture,” explained Ajami. “PS3 is a very powerful system but as you guys know it’s very exotic and tough to develop for and our engine really at the time wasn’t designed for PS3.” Couch commanders need not give up all hope, though, as Ajami notes EA “might go back and do something with the PS3 later on.”

The only good that can come from this, is that hardware companies like Sony and Microsoft see the problems that developers are having with their consoles, and work hard next-generation to put developer’s needs in front of their quest to cut corners or shove in proprietary hardware that is not gaming friendly.

Oh, and speaking of gaming hardware, Amazon.com has the new 60GB Xbox 360 in-stock already.

Finally, we know why countless games have been delayed or cancelled for the PS3.  The President for Sony’s Worldwide Studios knows the secret:

“They (the third-party developers) massively underestimated the effort that was needed to re-architect the game to properly take advantage of the PS3’s multi-core architecture.”

Yes, it’s now the developers fault that the PS3 was built so horribly for them to make games on.  I wonder what Gabe Newell (the director of Valve) would have to say about this? 

I think the PS3 is a waste of everybody’s time.  Investing in the Cell, investing in the SPE gives you no long-term benefits. There’s nothing there that you’re going to apply to anything else. You’re not going to gain anything except a hatred of the architecture they’ve created…I don’t think they’re going to make money off their box. I don’t think it’s a good solution. - October 2007

It seems Gabe is not the only one who thinks the PS3 is not worth his time.

Valve has also gone on to say that the PS3 will not be getting a version of Valve’s blockbuster Left 4 Dead, at least not a version developed from Valve.

Back in May 2005, when the Xbox 360 was revealed, all we heard from Sony and their followers was, “Wait till the PS3 comes out next spring”.  Then, when the PS3 was delayed until the fall in March of 2006, all we heard was, “Wait till the fall, then you’ll see the power of the PS3″.  Then it launched…and had one of the worst launch line-ups in history and every single multi-platform game was rated lower than Xbox 360’s version, with many of them having critical flaws.

Then all throughout 2007, we were told, “Wait till MGS4, Home, and LittleBigPlanet come out”, and then all of those things were delayed, and now it’s mid-2008, nearly two years since the PS3 launched, and we’re still getting the, “Just wait and see” line from Sony. 

Here’s the latest:

Next year will be the ‘year of differentiation,’ claims Yoshida - PS3Fanboy.com

Shuhei Yoshida isn’t wasting any time getting his PR machine in prime condition. As the new head of Sony Worldwide Studios (he took over for Phil Harrison recently), he’s got a lot of responsibility under his belt, but also a lot of knowledge. He admits the first year of the PS3 was riddled with growing pains because developers built their games on the 360’s architecture. This was the developers error, since releasing the game on the PS3 involved more effort than thought to take advantage of the multi-core processor — leading to delays or sub-par ports.

This was also Sony’s fault, he says, but now that good tools exist to assist developers and many have gotten their hands into the PS3, the trend may change soon. “Moving forward I’m totally confident that developers will start to use more from the PlayStation 3 platform. This year is the year of parity, next year is the year of differentiation in favor of the PS3 platform,” he said. With the clear difference in power between PS3-based games like Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid 4, we hope more devs take his advice and start their projects on the PS3 in the coming years. It will prove easier in the long run, since moving PS3 titles to the 360 is supposed to be much simpler.

Related: Development will favor PS3 in 2009, says Yoshida

All I have to say is, keep it up buddy.  In another two years, when Sony is desperately telling everyone just to wait till next year, it’ll be even funnier than it is now, three years since they started this desperate attempt to stay on top.  Instead, they’re in last place, and will be staying there for quite a while.

Make sure to check out my archive with Phil Harrison while you wait for 2009 (and PS3’s utter dominance) to come.  Mr. Harrison was the genius who said things like rumble was “last-gen and no longer needed.”

The PS3 fanboys are going crazy over this one. 

As if the Metal Gear Solid games hadn’t already become a joke even to themselves, they’re now being used as weapons in Kojima’s xenophobic hatred of American companies and their products.  Ironically, the only games I can think of for the Xbox 360 (or any other system) that are more than one disc, are games that originate from Japanese developers.

I’m curious though, does Otacon ever mention the fact that to play a game on the PS3, you have to install it, due to the read times on the Blu-Ray being so incredibly slow?  I guess we’ll have to wait until gamers have a chance to sit through all the game’s two-hour cut-scenes later this week to find out.

In summary, the Xbox 360 beat the PS3 in hardware sales, GTA sales, and Microsoft jumped from a little over 10 million Xbox Live subscribers, to 12 million, which is double what it was last year.  GTA’s sales numbers are from only five days of reporting, since the cut-off for the April NPD occurred just a few days after its launch.

April Software

1. GTA IV – Xbox 360 – 1.85 million
2. Mario Kart Wii – Wii – 1.12 million
3. GTA IV – PS3 – 1.00 million
4. Wii Play w/ remote – Wii – 360K
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl – Wii – 326K
6. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue – PS3 – 224K
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness – DS – 202K
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time – DS – 202K
9. Guitar Hero III – Wii – 152K
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Xbox 360 – 141K

April Hardware

- Wii: 714.2K
- DS: 414.8K
- PSP: 192.7K
- Xbox 360: 188K
- PS3: 187.1K
- PS2: 124.4K

(Below: Microsoft Press Release)

By the numbers: Xbox 360 is the most significant contributor to industry spending and growth

- 188,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in April. (April NPD data)

- Xbox 360 has a record-setting attach rate of 7.6 games per console, the highest attach rate in history for a console at this point in its lifecycle. (April NPD data)

- Consumers have spent more than $9.7 billion on the Xbox 360 experience. (April NPD data)
 
- *Xbox 360 titles accounted for $186 million of all third party game sales this generation, or 53% of share. (April NPD data)

- *Xbox 360 games accounted for three of the top ten games in April, and secured the #1 spot with “Grand Theft Auto IV.” (April NPD data)

- *Not only are we selling more games, games play better on the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 has 91 titles with a Metacritic review score of 80 or higher, compared to just 50 for PS3 and 22 for Wii.

(For the rest, click here.)

EA Sports extends NFL deal through 2012 season
Peter Moore announces gaming division will keep monopoly on top US sport through 2013 Super Bowl; “further investment” could bring back NFL Coach series.

Just over three years ago, Electronic Arts tackled the sports genre by announcing it had signed a multiyear exclusivity deal with the National Football League and the NFL Players, the players’ union. Under the agreement, EA Sports’ Madden NFL franchise was the sole official licensee for the US’ most popular sport, forcing rival 2K Sports to get creative with its own pro-football series.

Today, EA Sports announced that it has extended its contract with the NFL and NFL Players through the 2012 season. That means the Redwood City, California-based publisher will retain exclusive game rights to all NFL teams, stadiums, and player likenesses and information through until the Super Bowl XLVII champion is crowned in 2013.
Though Madden NFL is its most famous franchise, EA Sports also publishes a variety of other NFL games, including NFL Street and NFL Tour. However, part of the renewal agreement is to “look at different ways to bring more consumers in,” according to EA Sports president Peter Moore.

One way Moore is hoping to lure more Americans into the Madden fold is through the incorporation of content from the NFL Films production company and the NFL Network cable channel into the “Madden game experience.” Other new EA Sports initiatives include a continuation of the “family play” option for Wii games, expanded investment in the wildly popular fantasy football phenomenon, and undefined initiatives to court football fans during the spring and summer months.

“Both EA Sports and the NFL agree that we need to look at different ways to bring more consumers in,” Moore told GameSpot. “Traditionally, when the Super Bowl’s over, our football business is over, and there’s research that shows there are millions of people out there that can’t get enough football 12 months a year.”
EA Sports’ newest attempt to court those football fans, NFL Tour, wasn’t treated kindly by critics, but is “doing OK” at retail, according to Moore. However, the former Xbox 360 marketing chief isn’t satisfied with just pumping out more NFL Tour or NFL Street. “I think we need to be more innovative,” he said. “For years, we’ve done Street versions of games, and I think it’s time we looked at online models and perhaps doing something that’s truly contra-seasonal.”

According to Moore, one promising possibility for expanding EA Sports’ NFL portfolio is to resurrect the NFL Head Coach series, which debuted in 2006 but has laid fallow ever since. “Things like Head Coach…well, for me, I love the X’s and O’s,” he said. “It’s something that I would love to do if I wasn’t in this business. When we look at the success of the Football Manager titles in Europe, there’s no reason we can’t do the same thing here. We’ve kind of tiptoed into it so far, but I think you’ll see continued investment in things like Head Coach.”
But although he was quite loquacious about the renewal of the NFL deal, Moore was downright reticent about EA Sports’ plans for its other exclusive US football agreements with the NCAA and the Arena Football League. “We’ll get to those when we get to those,” he said.

Ever since the delay last year, most people with common sense realized that GTAIV was ready to be released on the Xbox 360, but was being held back by Rockstar due to an agreement they had with Sony to release the game simultaneously on the PS3 and Xbox 360.  Sony did this because they knew Rockstar would have problems developing for the PS3, just like everyone else.  Nearly every week another game is delayed for the PS3 while the Xbox 360 version releases exactly when it should be.  Some games that come to mind right now are SDvs.RAW07 being canceled for PS3’s launch (one of the many), Stranglehold being delayed several weeks last fall, and just recently Frontlines: Fuel of War was delayed from Feb to Late-08 for the PS3-version only.  There are many more examples, but that is not the main story at hand…Rockstar has finally admitted that the PS3 is the the cause of the delay.

Rockstar’s VP of Product Development Jeronimo Barrera:

It’s really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to the delay.

He continues:

Now, we’re neck and neck. That’s not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the PS3 version. It’s awesome. They’re both identical.

At this point, it doesn’t really matter, since we had plenty of other games last fall.  It just gets old to see the PS3 blatantly harm the gaming industry with its horrible design.  Games are not coming out when they should, and aren’t as good as they should be (for those playing on a PS3) due to Sony’s arrogance when creating the console.  Hopefully they have learned a lesson with this, and will actually work with developers, as closely as Microsoft always has, for the PS4.

Along with that, they have released the date for the game, April 29th.  I’m going to be steering clear of most screenshots and videos of this game to make the actual game even better for myself, so don’t expect a ton of coverage leading up to it’s release.

Due to its corporate corruption of course.  I haven’t talked about GameSpot since they fired one of their most dedicated employees for writing an honest, negative review on a game that just so happened to have a multi-million dollar advertising deal coming up with the CNET-owned company.  You can read all the details about that story, which occurred in late November 2007, here:

11.30.07: More Evidence Of Mainstream Gaming Media Corruption

12.02.07: More Coverage On GameSpot’s Corruption

Here is today’s story:

“It was a tough decision to let go of something [I've] been so thoroughly attached to for this many years,” he said. “It’s a crying shame that things went down the way they did, but like I said, I think my time had just come, the time to let it go.”

Joystiq has confirmed with longtime Gamespot staffer Alex Navarro that he will be resigning his position at the CNET gaming site in response to the controversial firing of editorial director Jeff Gerstmann.

“I felt like it was just time for me to go,” Navarro told Joystiq in an exclusive interview. ” Certainly [the decision to leave] had a lot to do with the whole Jeff [Gerstmann] situation. … I wouldn’t have left if this situation hadn’t gone down the way it did. … Sometimes you just realize a place isn’t for you anymore, you know?”

Navarro has been a mainstay on the site since early 2003, writing hundreds of reviews and appearing regularly on video podcast The Hotspot. His last day at the site will be Jan. 24.

——–

This news comes just one week after Frank Provo, another long-time writer for GameSpot, quit the site as well:

Frank Provo, a freelancer and major contributor to the site for nearly eight years, recently announced he would no longer be contributing to the site.

Provo made no bones about the reason for his departure. “I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons,” he wrote. “I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.” And Provo is in a position to know, according to an earlier post on his LiveJournal. “All the proof I need is in the way the staff reacted to Jeff’s dismissal and to what went on in the closed door meeting that took place on November 30th,” he said. “Any staffer that continues to work there once this fervor dies down does so with the fear that, one day, management will ask them to soften up their tone and scores… and they will either have to swallow their integrity and abide, or risk taking a stand and being let go,” he added back in December.

I’ve removed any links to GameSpot in the above articles, because there’s no reason to ever give that corrupted site’s owners anymore ad revenue.  If you care anything about restoring honesty in the mainstream gaming media someday in the future, I would advise you do the same, and never hit up that site again.

Also posted on Xbox.com

There’s been a lot of talk about this situation in my comments section, but as more time passes since the announcement of Warner Brothers (along with New Line Cinema and HBO) going exclusively to Blu-ray, more details are found out why  First was the fact that Sony and the Blu-Ray Association paid Warner $500 million dollars, and now this:

Economic concerns drove Warner to Blu-ray

Fears of a deteriorating U.S. economy and falling DVD industry sales helped drive Warner Bros.’s decision to back Sony’s Blu-ray next generation DVD format exclusively, a top executive told Reuters on Monday.

Hollywood’s biggest seller of home movies tipped the balance of power on Friday in favor of Sony in a fight for the next generation of DVDs between the electronics giant and Toshiba Corp., developers of the HD DVD format.

“We’ve typically been recession proof,” Warner Bros. Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara said in an interview at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“But the thing that we saw in the fourth quarter … was gas prices beginning to affect sales. And since we’re considered an impulse purchase, it’s beginning to impact us,” he said.

Tsujihara said the company needed to quickly erase consumer and retailer confusion over dueling DVD formats before economic conditions deteriorated.

Toshiba vowed the format war was not over, but Warner’s move was seen as a major setback, at least, in the race to develop a potentially multibillion-dollar market for high-definition discs.

Warner executives said the consortium of companies backing Blu-ray, including five of the seven big Hollywood Studios, could spend more than $50 million in 2008 to convince consumers to upgrade, or more than the amount spent by the backers of both HD DVD and Blu-ray in the 2007 holiday season. Budgets have not been finalized, Warner Bros. said.

The movie division of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc., out of respect for Toshiba, has kept a low profile at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the neon-lit gambling oasis in the Nevada desert not known for its subtly.

Even Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer kept his remarks about Warner brief in public presentations.

Warner’s decision is seen cementing Blu-ray’s victory in what could possibly be the last physical format for movies and TV shows as technology and Internet companies race to build online distribution channels, according to Citigroup analyst Tony Wible.

A 2007 decline in DVD sales, which account for half of Hollywood’s profits, and anticipated further declines in 2008 sped Warner’s decision making process.
Merrill Lynch said on Monday the United States had entered its first full blown recession in 16 years.

The economy had little impact on the fourth quarter’s higher sales of high definition televisions, which in turn helped boost sales of next generation DVD players, Warner Bros. Home Video President Ron Sanders told Reuters.

——————–

The reason why Time Warner and Sony’s Stringer were quiet was because the switch was actually a breach of contract with HD DVD.  Good thing the $500 million will easily pay that off. 

Earlier this week at CES 2008, Toshiba/HD DVD canceled their press conference after the news of the Warner’s switch hit.  The Blu-ray group on the other hand gloated that their CES booth would be, “The Best Booth of All-Time” 

Seems they were taught Arrogance 101 from Sony.

These came out a few days ago, but I finally got around to post them now.  As usual, the PS3 is in last place, even behind the 7 year-old PS2.

Nintendo DS (Handheld) - 1.53 million
Nintendo Wii - 981,000
Xbox 360 - 770,000
PlayStation Portable - 567,000
PlayStation 2 - 496,000
PlayStation 3 - 466,000

TOP 10 GAME SOFTWARE TITLES, NOVEMBER 2007
1) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - 1.57 million
2) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 1.12 million
3) Assassin’s Creed (360) -  980,000 (Over 2.5 million sold overall)
4) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2)  - 967,000
5) Wii Play (with remote) (Wii)- 564,000
6) Mass Effect (360) -  473,000 (Over one million sold)
7) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3) - 444,000
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 426,000
9) Halo 3 (360) - 387,000 (Over five million sold)
10) Assassin’s Creed (PS3) - 377,000

Are there any developers out there, that are going to look at the PS3, in last place, and say, “Hey, I want to develop a game for that console, it’ll only cost tens of millions just to begin development, and it’ll have to sell a million copies just to break even!  Let’s do it!”  The only developers doing that are the ones being bribed by Sony with large sums of money, because unfortunately for Sony, their lies and hype talk don’t work anymore.

September 2007 Sales Numbers
October 2007 Sales Numbers

“I just got off the phone With PS3 customer support who kindly informed me that my PS3 is “too dusty” to be replaced under warranty. But won’t provide pictures unless they are subpoenaed.”

(Note: This picture is not related to this story, and was actually taken by someone a couple days after the PS3 launch last November 17th.  As the guy says in this story, the PS3 is a dust magnet, and not just because it has no games.)

I have kept my 60gb PS3 in Its entertainment center since its purchase. It is known within the PS3 community that the thing is a HUGE dust magnet. I took good care of it, I have about 10 Blu-ray discs (did NOT come free with my PS3), 5 games, 5 controllers, 2 42″ Bravia LCD’s 1 50″ Bravia 3lcd Rear projection TV, A Vaio desktop, Vaio laptop, I’ve even got a psp and location free TV. One day I turn it on and put in a disc and it doesn’t show up, then it wont eject, finally I get it to eject and I try a blu-ray, nothing, CDs, nothing.

I call Customer support who originally tell me that they can do anything because I don’t have the original sales receipt, (it was a GIFT!!!), I stayed on the phone for hours explaining to them that I don’t have thee receipt as it was a gift from my parents. Finally I got a rep who said that it was strange that earlier reps hadn’t let me go through with the exchange as if it was a gift since it was policy not to require a receipt. He sent me a box, I boxed up my console and sent it in.

5 days later I have no updates on the PS3, I call in to check on it, The first rep I speak to says that it was received without a receipt, and was delayed but he was going to note that it was a gift and get the replacement sent out to me.

6 hours later I get a call from Neil saying that unfortunately they have opened the case and taken pictures of the inside and outside of the case and that it was too dirty to be eligible for replacement. I paused for a good 8 seconds, because my PS3 had not moved from the entertainment center that it sat in more than 8 months I had wiped it off before sending it out, THE WHOLE POINT of the PS3 Is that it is part of your entertainment center! I told him that was crazy and that it was a known problem that the PS3 collected mass loads of dust. That their product hasn’t even been out for 1 year and he’s telling me I’m out of warranty because there is too much dust in it!? I told him that someone needed to double check because I really took care of my PS3 and there was no way it was so dirty that they wouldn’t replace it. He said he would and he would find out about getting pictures.

The next day I got a call from the same guy, Saying he couldn’t get pictures, and there was no way they could replace the console unless I paid 150$ out-of-warranty replacement fee. I said I needed to speak to his supervisor and it took him a while but he eventually transferred me to yet another person who just told me from the pictures they saw of the outside of the PS3, the memory ports and the USB ports, that there was dust inside of these ports, and that there was no way they would replace such a dusty console.

I then asked for HER supervisor, who was a very rude woman named Daria Woo Ext # 55682. She basically told me if I wanted the pictures of the PS3 That they were property of SCEA, And that I would have to SUBPOENA the pictures! I told her that this was ridiculous! That in order to take the same pictures that they did I would have to open my case, and void my warranty! I asked her if I could record what she was saying and she immediately snapped a NO, And asked for what purpose, I told her it was so I could educate the entire world on the ethics of the PS3 repair center. She told me my only options were to have the PS3 sent back, pay 150$ for a replacement, or leave it there for 10 days until it gets sent back. I told her to leave it because I was going to write a few emails so that this situation could actually get resolved. She told me any email I wrote or number I called would get me transferred to her department and that she would not help. I asked her exactly what part of the warranty stated that if a unit is too dusty it cannot be replaced.

She told me that it was under “acts of god, customer abuse” section when I had clearly told her that it sat in my entertainment center acting as a blu-ray playing, folding@home computing, media center and that obviously the amount of dust inside the console is caused by a design flaw and not my quite dust-less room.

I don’t get it! Sony is including Folding@home with their consoles, The auto-start feature makes it so its running almost all the time, OF COURSE IT’S GOING TO BE FILLED WITH DUST! A few reps said that the reason they couldn’t replace it was because it looked as if it had about 2 years worth of dust in it rather than 8 months….. The console hasn’t even been out a year so obviously that is less than a years worth of dust.

I love the PS3, I’m a Sony fanboy, I have a copy of Heavenly Sword Un-Played because I’m waiting for the replacement to come back, For them to say they wont replace it because it is such a damn dust magnet is absolutely ridiculous. IM NOT paying 150$ for someone to use an air compressor to dust off my PS3 re-test it and send it back. MAYBE Sony should let their customers know that excessive dust voids the warranty, so that people can start selling air filter set’s for it, and air-sealed boxes for the PS3 to sit in.

If you look at the comments on the original site the story was posted on (and has nearly 1700 Diggs right now) you’ll see many people are aware of Sony these days, and even tell stories of Microsoft sending people new consoles even after they sent in opened and modded Xbox 360’s.

(Thanks to DavidGX for this story)

UPDATE:  He has called back, and has recorded the conversation with the CSR.

A Sony CSR admitted to reader Ive that dust should not void a Playstation 3’s warranty. Transcript and audio, after the jump.

Ive: I’m calling just to pretty much clarify the PS3’s warranty, if there’s any clause in the warranty that makes it so that if the PS3 is too dusty that the warranty is void.

CSR: No.

Ive: No?

CSR: No. The only way that it, um, voided is if it was neglected, um, abused, dropped or anything like, modificated like if you opened it up, modification, if you didn’t have your receipt, um, any power failures like mother nature or anything like that then that actually does void the warranty. Other than that any defective PS3s or anything like that is still, um, still under the warranty.

Ive spoke to several CSRs, each of whom took a similar position until they read the account notes. Apparently, a tech determined that the fearsome dust constituted neglect and presented a threat to his health.
To his credit, the CSR handled a ridiculous situation fairly well.

Notice how Ive uses Ron Burley’s trick to stay out of trouble for recording the call. If Sony wants this to end well, they should reach out to Ive, apologize, and offer to repair his dusty PS3 for free.

Make sure to go here and listen to the audio of his call back to Sony, it’s very interesting and the guy does an amazing job at getting his story across.  As usual, it looks like Sony may have to be taken to court before they do the right thing.

Related:

01.17.07 - Sony Scams Continue
07.13.07 - More Sony Smoke & Mirrors
09.04.07 - Sony Joins In On Wikipedia Corruption
10.16.07 - Sony: Still Scamming Customers