The Stupid Gamer

Today it was confirmed that there are price drops hitting each version of the 360 console. The drops are as follows:

• Xbox 360 Core system drops by $20 to $279
• Xbox 360 Premium drops by $50 to $349
• Xbox 360 Elite drops by $30 to $449

The price drop is probably going to give sales a nice bump here in the slow period of the summer just in time for Halo 3 to hit. I really don’t see how the PS3 is going to manage to close in on 360 sales any time this year with the new price points. At $350 the Premium is a pretty dang good deal.

Update: Here’s the official Bungie news post: Click to read.

The news post contains the details of the 4 player game and talks about the two new characters that will join the Master Chief and the Arbiter in co-op play. This sounds incredible.

In a press conference today in Amsterdam (yeah, Amsterdam), it was confirmed that Halo 3 will feature cooperative play for up to 4 players at a time via Xbox Live. No specific details have come out yet, but more is sure to follow real soon. I don’t know why this wasn’t touched upon at E3, but it’s sure to set Halo fanboys running in circles of joy and glee.

More to come.

Drop by your game store and check out the price on God of War 2. Starting tomorrow it should run you $10 cheaper. While some stores might be slower to reflect the price drop, specialty stores should have it ready to go.

I still haven’t picked up God of War 2 and I never completed God of War. With the summer slump coming to an end I might pick the two titles up soon and try to finish them both off before the heavy hitters release. With both games being a tad bit on the short side, I shouldn’t have trouble accomplishing just that.

EDIT: I nixed the pic because it was causing the blog to freak out for some reason.

Every year it’s the same story. We get all these previews and early impressions of NCAA Football (or Madden) and it gets talked up like it’s the next big thing in football video games. This year a huge portion of the hype came from the 1up guys as they were claiming that EA did a great job fixing this and fine-tuning that. In the end, however, it’s the same story: NCAA Football disappoints once again.

I understand that Madden is EA Sports’ biggest focus from year to year, but why can’t a developer as large as EA put a bit stronger effort behind the NCAA team? Sure, they hear our complaints and promise to address them each year; but usually that fix is a terrible overcompensation or it manages to break some other aspect of the game.

Here’s what drives me nuts about NCAA Football 2008:

• A typical game can see 6 or 7 interceptions between the two teams; an obvious overcompensation for terrible DBs in past games
• Kick returns happen a lot. In five games I already have 3 kickoff returns and two punt returns for TDs. Ridiculous.
• Ball spotting is sketchier than an artist’s notebook
• Running is easy, even on the hardest skill levels. Expect to chew up 4-5 yards per carry at minimum.
• The play calling still isn’t as deep as it ever has been on the 2K football games
• Lots of fumbles by the AI QB
• Turnovers almost always lead to easy TDs because of the stupid momentum built into the game
• The AI still cheeses you out of wins at times
• Glitches lead to screwy on the field happenings

I thought I was alone in my criticisms of the game when I had heard so many positive impressions. To my surprise, however, I found forums around the Internet were full of topics with my same complaints. To address the cyborg-like capabilities of the defensive backs, players are setting their Interceptions and Knocked Down Passes sliders to 0 and it’s still providing 3 to 4 interceptions per game. So instead of addressing the actual issue of sketchy AI, EA just ratcheted up the ability of players in the secondary to close on the ball and snag it. This is just lazy, and it’s as transparent as can be.

He’s frowning because he knows he’s about to throw an INT.

So can NCAA Football 08 still be enjoyable? Yeah, it can. You’re just going to have to deal with plenty of moments of frustration along the way. If you’re thinking about picking the game up, try playing online rather than dealing with the computer. You’ll still have to deal with the cheesy defensive secondary and some of the glitchy moments, but somehow it’s less annoying when you’re playing against a friend or online buddy.

For the love of all that is good and holy EA…don’t shovel out another sub-par effort next year. Deep down inside, however, I know that it’s going to be the same story again. NCAA Football 09 will come out with initial praise and promises of a slew of fixes but two weeks later we’ll all be online discussing ways to circumvent the newest pitfalls and overcompensated “features.”

Consoles/Handhelds

With the rumors of an Xbox 360 price drop heating up, it looks like the Xbox 360 is finally going to see an official price drop. Right now ads for Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us are floating around showing a a possible $50 drop for the 360 Premium pack. While these ads could just be the work of photoshoppers, it seems that the price drop is still going to hit regardless. The real significant part of all of this is that the drop will most likely be in effect far enough ahead of the Halo 3 release that the new price point will be common knowledge to the general public.

If this price drop hits soon, it could really go a long way toward helping Microsoft out. While it’s not as big as the $100 price drop the PS3 is currently seeing, seeing the 360 at under $400 is a big deal; especially since this price drop will be permanent.  The drop will most likely give the 360 a much needed bump in sales leading into the Fall when the big games are set to hit shelves and will set the 360 up to have a huge holiday season. It will be very interesting to see how a $350 Xbox 360 fares against a $500 or $600 PlayStation 3 this holiday season. If the gap in the install base continues to grow, Sony is going to have to react quickly…which is only good news for the consumer.

Here’s a recent press release issued by SCEA that gives the full details:

FOSTER CITY, Calif., July 27 — Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. (SCEA) today announced an exclusive game development deal with Eat, Sleep, Play(TM), a new software development company formed by legendary game creators David Jaffe and Scott Campbell. Under the agreement, Eat, Sleep, Play is signed on for a multi-year, multi-title deal to create titles for the PlayStation family of products, with the first slated for release in 2008.

In conjunction with today’s news, SCEA confirmed that the core members of the Incognito team responsible for Warhawk will remain within the SCEA Santa Monica Studios fold, headed up by Dylan Jobe, and will continue to produce content for this highly-anticipated title. Jobe, game director for Warhawk, is known for his work on the popular hit titles War of the Monsters(TM) and Twisted Metal: Black(R) for PlayStation 2. 

The PR definitely makes the story sound all nice and cheery, but I know from some inside sources that the move is giving many Incog formers the axe. In recent months a lot of Incog team could see this coming and have bailed to join up with other studios in the area. The new studio, however, is going to be great. I think you’ll see titles coming from the new team that are very near to what Incognito has been known for over the years. I don’t have details on how many members from Incog will be staying on, but based on what former employees have told me, it’s not a lot.

I was going to sit down this weekend and think long and hard about two things. First, I need a title for the podcast. If we’re going to keep doing this, we should be able to call it something cool and catchy, right? Secondly, I need an image to use each time a new podcast is uploaded for the summary post. Instead of wasting my weekend, however, I figured that you could waste yours! For this I just need something that looks nice, leaves some space where I can edit in the current episode number, and also edit in the title of the podcast once it has been selected. Just make sure that the image is no wider than 400 pixels or that I can scale it down easy enough. So, whoever can come up with winning entries for each of these things (or both if you’re so creative) will get a $25 gift card to a store of your choice from the list provided below. So, to recap:

• Submit a title for the Stupid Gamer podcast. If we choose your submission, you win a $25 gift card
• Submit an image to be used for the podcast posts. If yours win, you’ll win a $25 gift card
• Send your entries to jar155 [at] gmail dot com (sorry for the formatting, but it’s an anti-spam measure)
• You can select from any of these stores or websites
• Best Buy
• Circuit City
• Gamestop/EB
• GameCrazy
• Play N Trade
• Wal-Mart
• Target
• Amazon.com
• eBay
• Barnes and Noble
• Borders
• Others (email me to find out if it’s available to me)

We’ll be accepting submissions for the next week on Friday. I promise to review any and all submissions, and winners will be notified via email and announced on the blog. Send your submissions to jar155 [at] gmail dot com.

Oh, and if you want to know why I’m asking for your help, it’s because this is what Miguel suggested.

Please help.

Thanks to the NPD the sales charts are out for June 2007. Typically a slower month, June saw a few titles selling quite well. Current trends have held steady as far as the console front is concerned, but next month should be very significant as the Wii is poised to pass up the 360 in lifetime sales. This month puts them at 6.1 million for the Wii and 6.2 million for the 360 overall. The PS3 is at 2.4 million. Quantities for the top 5 selling games are included as well. So, without further delay, here are the charts:

Hardware

1. Nintendo DS - 561,900
2. Nintendo Wii - 381,800
3. Sony PSP - 290,100
4. Xbox 360 - 198,400
5. Nintendo GBA - 113,000
6. Sony PS3 - 98,500

Software

1. Wii Mario Party 8 — 426,200
2. Wii Play w/ remote — 293,200
3. NDS Pokemon Diamond — 288,400
4. NDS Pokemon Pearl — 214,700
5. 360 Forza Motorsport 2 — 197,400
6. PS2 Guitar Hero 2 w/ Guitar
7. 360 Guitar Hero 2 w/ Guitar
8. Wii Pokemon Battle
9. Wii Resident Evil 4
10. 360 The Darkness
11. PS2 Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2
12. PS2 Transformers: the Game
13. 360 Tenchu Z
14. NDS New Super Mario Bros
15. PS2 Tomb Raider: Anniversary
16. Wii Super Paper Mario
17. 360 Transformers: The Game
18. PS2 MLB ‘07: The Show
19. Wii Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
20. 360 Dirt

While I knew that the Wii would continue to roll, I didn’t think it would continue to outsell the PS3 and 360 combined. The Wii is truly a sight to behold as it steamrolls the charts. I wonder how well the system could sell if it weren’t still impossible to find on store shelves. Nintendo has warned that the shortages could last through the holiday season. It’s unheard of for a system to be supply constrained for so long after release.