The “Incest Map” and Other Interesting Things

1. The Seattle Times brings us a hefty PDF (12MB) of the “Incest Map”, a diagram showing the relations between scores of Seattle bands.

2. It’s official: Dead Space 2! The original was one of my favorite games of 2008.

3. Also from The Seattle Times, the infuriating story of how the IRS spent tens of thousands of dollars to audit an impoverished single mother of two in order to squeeze her for $1,400 in (questionable) unpaid taxes:

4. The Federal Trade Commission has issued its annual report on Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children:

“The Commission finds that the video game industry has made great strides in restricting the marketing of violent M-rated games to children. Although there remains room for improvement – particularly in the area of Internet advertising – the video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries in the three key areas that the Commission has been studying for the past decade.” (Hat tip to Dubious Quality)

5. Finally, here’s today’s examination of the Amazon Top 100 sellers in video games. Yet again, New Super Mario Bros. Wii took the top spot. Wii titles accounted for 34 spots on the list, up from 30 for most of last week. Xbox 360 had 11 titles while the PlayStation 3 had just seven. Interestingly, of the Wii games, eight of them, or nearly one-quarter, were music or rhythm games.

As for the hardware, the Wii was still the top-seller, coming in at No. 2, while the low-end PS3 was No. 18. However, the Xbox 360 Elite bundle saw a big jump, to No. 30, while the Modern Warfare 2-themed ”Super Elite” system was No. 84. At No. 91 was the 250-gigabyte PS3.

Xbox 360 Returns to Amazon Top 100

Yesterday I was surprised to see that the Top 100 items on Amazon’s video-game store did not include any model of the Xbox 360 console. Today, Microsoft’s gaming machine makes not one, but two appearances. The top game is still New Super Mario Bros. Wii, with the Wii console holding it’s sales position at No. 2. The lower-end model of the PlayStation 3 moved up a few slots to No. 14, though the higher-end version with a 250GB hard-drive fell a few to No. 85. At No. 90 is the Xbox 360 Elite bundle, and the Modern Warfare 2 “Super Elite” bundle registers at No. 95. Wii games dominated the list with 30, followed by PS3 titles with 11 and then Xbox 360 with nine.

“DJ Hero”: A Worthy Addition to the “Hero” Lineage

This is a review I just submitted to Amazon as part of their Vine program:

When the Guitar Hero franchise burst onto the pop culture scene, flooding living rooms everywhere with fake plastic instruments, hip-hop fans could do nothing but look on enviously and ask if such a concept could ever apply to their favorite music. (Yes, Konami pioneered this concept with Beatmania, but it never really caught on with home console owners, and Activision’s marketing muscle means DJ Hero will be the first title to gain mass-market awareness.)

Activision has finally answered that call with — surprise! — DJ Hero, what is apparently a well-polished product that should boast the right combination of great music, addicting gameplay, and gorgeous presentation to earn it a spot in the ranks of great music games.

Now for some disclosures: I obtained a demo of the product through the Amazon Vine program. The bundle consisted of a wired turntable controller and a demo disc featuring five songs: one tutorial track, one multi-player track and three for the main game. While grateful for the chance to get my hands on the product early, the demo disc was far too limited to be able to truly write a well-informed review. Hence, the weasel words in this review, such as “apparently”, “should”, etc.

Another disclosure: I am not generally a fan of rap, hip-hop or dance music. Rock, be it of the classic, blues, southern, punk, alternative, or even country variety, is where my soul lies. So it’s a testament to DJ Hero that it managed to draw me in despite a near-total unfamiliarity with the genre. The game will grab many die-hard rockers right from the tutorial, which features a mix of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”. While I’m hard-pressed to name the other tracks from memory, I found them fun and enjoyable.

Other reviews have expounded on the gameplay in great detail, so I’ll just say here that if you enjoyed having your dexterity and sense of rhythm challenged by any of the Guitar Hero or Rock Band games, you’ll probably get a kick out of trying to master the tricks of the turntable. The three finger buttons on the turntable look like the fret buttons on a guitar controller, but the similarity ends there. In the course of a song, you’ll be asked not only to hit those buttons, but to “scratch” the turntable, quickly crossfade from one part of a mix to another, and add your own effects in a way similar to the whammy bar in the Guitar Hero games. It’s an intriguing mix of actions that add up to a good challenge.

In a stroke of genius by developer FreeStyleGames, a second person can join using a guitar controller to play the guitar bits of the mixes. This is a great way to get other people to jump in since there’s a good chance you or someone you know already has a guitar controller. It not only up the game to rock-oriented folks who aren’t interested in working a turntable, but it also allows people to play together without requiring another pricey turntable accessory.

A word about the turntable. Rarely does a new controller boast this level of sturdiness and attractiveness. It’s a handsome little unit that turns heads and feels solid and well-built. The on-screen visuals are also top-notch, featuring different house-party and club settings from around the globe. Again, since this review was limited to a demo disc, I was unable to check out the bulk of locales and playable characters. In another nice touch, the game also features an autoplay mode that will just play the music for a party or whatnot. That’s a great feature and one that needs to come to Guitar Hero. Hopefully it will also support tracks you add via download.

So in the end, does DJ Hero work? It does, and it will be interesting to see if the title can succeed in expanding music games to other genres, attracting new audiences and fans as people tire of the rock-based games. If you are a fan of hip-hop who couldn’t get into “Guitar Hero”, this is could be your game. If you’re a huge fan of music games in general and want a fresh challenge, this could be your game. And if you’re simply looking for something to liven up your next party, this could be your game.

Are Publishers Really Selling More on PS3 Than Xbox 360? No.

Last week, one of the biggest video-game publishers, Electronic Arts, reported quarterly results. In its reports, the company always gives a breakdown of revenue by gaming platform. Several enthusiast outlets, such as MCV, reported that EA’s revenue from PlayStation 3 games was bigger than that from Xbox 360 games. This would be unusual since the Xbox 360 installed base is substantially bigger than the PS3 installed base. In fact, Xbox 360 game sales continue to outpace those for PS3. Here’s why.

(Full disclosure: I work for Microsoft’s Xbox division and have no formal training in accounting or financial analysis. What follows is my understanding of the situation based on my 12 years as a business, technology and economics reporter for Reuters, and on recent informal conversations with financial analysts who cover the video game industry. This is also my personal opinion and does not reflect the view of my employer.)

Publishers report two sets of numbers in their quarterly reports: GAAP and non-GAAP. GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the set of rules that U.S. companies must follow when reporting financial information. The intent is to give investors and regulators a set of consistent, objective data that is comparable across companies and industries. But due to the circumstances of each industry, GAAP numbers often obscure, rather than illuminate, what is happening with an underlying business.

First, let’s look at EA’s GAAP revenue numbers for each platform (A side point: these are revenue or sales figures, not profits. Some reports have confused the two terms. Profit is what is left after a business deducts operational, marketing, administrative and other costs from its sales).

Wii: $161 million
PS3: $121 million
Xbox 360: $73 million

Sure enough, it looks like PS3 games are outselling Xbox 360 games. But here’s the twist. Because so many games now include a substantial online component that is maintained for several years, GAAP rules require a portion of revenue from the initial sale be booked over the life of the online service. So, in a purely hypothetical example, let’s say a $60 game is deemed to have half of its value come from online play. The company will then book $30 over a period of, say, two years, or $3.75 per quarter.

Game companies aren’t the only ones who do this. Apple does it with the iPhone because it delivers ongoing updates and services to the device. So of the $200 you pay for an iPhone, Apple records $25 of that each quarter for two years.

The thing is, this all happens purely on paper. In reality, EA gets that entire $60 all at once, and your $200 for an iPhone goes straight into Apple’s cash pile. Analysts pretty much ignore these GAAP numbers because they want to know what total unit sales were and what total revenue was. Indeed, here’s a line from The LA Times’ coverage: “Most Wall Street analysts say they pay attention to EA’s non-GAAP accounting as a measure of its financial performance.”

So let’s revisit EA’s numbers and look at the non-GAAP statement, which takes out the effects of the deferred online revenue.

Wii:  $184 million
PS3: $99 million
Xbox 360: $136 million

So non-GAAP, the number Wall Street actually cares about, shows Xbox 360 sales still leading PS3 sales. I’m guessing, speculating really, that given that Xbox 360 has the more robust and active online network, that EA is forced to record a larger chunk of deferred revenue, revenue that will be recorded over the next couple quarters.

Interestingly, Activision’s numbers are somewhat different. Here are the GAAP numbers:

Wii: $118 million
PS3: $152 million
Xbox 360: $231 million

And the non-GAAP, excluding the effect of deferred revenue:

Wii: $74 million
PS3: $105 million
Xbox 360: $140 million

Again, purely speculating here, I wonder if the GAAP is so much higher because Guitar Hero sales have been so high for a couple years, and now we are seeing a huge surge in deferred revenue from those past sales.

Anyone have any insights here?

Best games of 2008 (Part 4)

Favorite Xbox Exclusive: Fable 2

Although Gears of War 2was a strong contender in this space, ultimately it was Peter Molyneux’s redemptive masterpiece that offered a fresh, unique experience on Microsoft’s machine.

No, Fable 2 doesn’t have the best graphics or the best story, but it does offer an incredibly fun experience that genuinely gets richer and more rewarding the more you invest in it.

Fable 2 is a game that really does give you the leeway to play however you want, and doesn’t punish you for making “bad” choices. Want to play the morally upright hero? Go ahead, that’s what I did. But terrorizing the population with wanton killing and banditry is an equally valid way to play, though you can expect the world to have a markedly different feel should you turn to the dark side.

Fable 2 also offers a wealth of secondary activities. Buy a fish stall and get a steady income that lets you buy more properties, all the way up to a massive castle. Hammer away as a blacksmith, pull drinks at the local pub, or chop wood in the countryside to earn a few extra coins. Woo a local woman (or two, or three), or go nuts with prostitutes in the seedier hamlets. Buy a home and upgrade the furnishings. Win the town’s adulation with displays of heroism, or turn them off with fart jokes.

Fable 2 is an approachable, deep, and quite funny twist on the fantasy role-playing game. Its numerous innovations make it my favorite Xbox 360 exclusive ahead of more graphically rich and intense fare like Gears of War 2.

Reality check: Oddly, for a game that asks, “Who do you want to be?”, Fable 2 doesn’t give you much leeway with character creation. You can choose to be a boy or a girl at the start, and that’s about it. To be sure, your choice of diet influences your physique, and you can pay for hair styles, clothes and tattoos throughout. I also recommend reading up on how to use your repertoire of facial expressions and gestures, and, just as importantly, how to quickly gain new ones. These are essential to enjoying the in-game socializing and I only gained proficiency as I neared the end of the main quest.

 

Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing: Dead Space

EA’s creative resurgence continues with this critically acclaimedtake on the survival horror genre, with sci-fi spin. You play a mechanic sent to an orbital mining station that has lost communications, only to find that something has wiped out the thousand-strong crew.

Several things make Dead Space noteworthy. The exquisite pacing keeps you on the edge of the couch waiting for the next horrific moment to spring. Your character is just an engineer trying to defend himself with tools and objects, not some buff space marine bristling with high-tech weaponry. There’s also a great implementation of the HUD-less display. There’s no health bar, weapon icon showing how much ammo you have left, and no map screen that pauses the action. All the information you need as a player is visible right there as part of the environment.

I also look forward to what I hear is brilliantly implemented zero-G combat and a clever way to convey sound in the hard vacuum of space.

Dead Space reminds me of nothing more than Doom 3, and I say that as someone who loved Doom 3 and its creepily lit hallways, disturbingly twisted monsters, and captivating storyline that you uncovered through recordings and e-mails as you explored.

Reality check: One colleague complained to me that his biggest issue with Dead Space was that “You’re always just the engineer.” Meaning, I guess, that you don’t evolve much or grow more capable as the game progresses. I’m also half-expecting that the horror aspect of the game will translate into slow progress as I play it in easily digested chunks.

Best Unfinished Game: Fallout 3

Considered a Game of the Year contender by many outlets, Fallout 3 is in many ways “Oblivionwith guns”, a reskinning of Bethesda’s excellent fantasy-themed role-playing game from 2005. Oblivionis still one of my favorite Xbox 360 games and still ranks as one of the most evocative gaming experiences I’ve enjoyed.

Indeed, the basic Fallout 3 mechanics will be instantly familiar to Oblivion fans: the sense of movement, the placement of objects in the world, the basics of the inventory system have all essentially been carried over.

Fallout 3 makes two huge strides forward.

The first is the area of gameplay with the introduction of the VATS targeting system that lets you single out specific parts of an enemy’s body when attacking. It’s an immensely satisfying feature that never grows old.

The second improvement is in narrative. Oblivion, for all its considerable charm and intriguing side-quests, suffered mightily from a main story that forced players to go on cookie-cutter missions that quickly lost their appeal. That is the reason I never finished Oblivion despite falling in love with the broader world it took place in.

So far, and I would guess I am halfway through the main storyline, the Fallout 3 narrative has suffered no such missteps. Every quest is unique and there appear to be multiple ways to complete them. For instance, it is possible to obliterate the first town you come across with an atomic blast. I opted to save the town, figuring correctly it would be an important home base for resting, healing and restocking of supplies. But the choice was mine to destroy it, and I can only imagine the impact it would have made on the story arc.

Reality check: Fallout 3 offers up more of the grey and brown color palate that has so imbued recent games. It requires constant inventory management — repair of gear, making sure you’re not over your weight limit, switching weapons, and taking medicine to ensure you survive your next fight and the radioactive environment itself.

Tomorrow: Favorite Xbox Exclusive, Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing, and Best Unfinished Game!)

Rock Band 2 tracks

I bought Rock Band 2 yesterday, my resolution to hold off a month until the bundle of new instruments was released lasting all of two hours.

Veryinitial thoughts: I loved how it quickly and seamlessly integrated all the tracks I’d downloaded for the original game. I haven’t yet transferred the songs that were on the Rock Band 1 disc, but the download transfer came off perfectly.

However, I’m a tad disappointed that the avatar creator didn’t get updated with more detailed models or additional choices. It’s basically the same graphical look as the original.

Of course, the real star of the game is the setlist. I’ve only played the first couple venues, but here are my impressions:

FAVORITE SONG SO FAR: “Alive” by Pearl Jam. One of the best tunes from the grunge era, the note chart on this song is interesting and rewarding.

FAVORITE PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN SONG: “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill. An angry yet catchy song from a grrl punk band out of Olympia, Washington, of all places. Wikipedia says they hit their heyday about the time I was in college, but I somehow missed them entirely.

FAVORITE FORGOTTEN SONG: “Hungry Like the Wolf”, by Duran Duran. Loved this staple of 80s rock when I was wearing topsiders and turning up the collars of my pink Izod shirts in middle school. Forgot how really good it is.

SONG I HATE THE MOST, SO FAR: “PDA” by Interpol. Unquestionably the worst piece of whiny emo garbage yet to be released on a music rhythm game. Yes, worse than My Chemical Romance. Even worse than AFI. Yes, that bad. If there was a way to delete songs from the game, this would be the first one to go.

Anybody else out there play the game yet? What are your thoughts on the songs?

The week in review

Wow. What a busy week. I’m going to just do sort of a link dump here, with additional comment exclusive to you Command-K subscribers. Premium stuff, and worth every penny you pay for it. This should also mark the resumption of regular blogging, now that I have a couple days to breathe and collect my thoughts.

There is this little companythat makes these cute little digital music players. And computers. And something called the iPhone. Everyone was wondering how they had held up amid the worsening economy. Pretty well, as it turns out.

Oh, and in the meantime, they boughta microchip design firm. That sort of threw everyone for a loop. The initial reaction was along the lines of “WTF does Apple want with a semi design shop?” Some of the speculation was that P.A. Semi’s low-power microprocessors could be modified for the iPhone or iPod. As it happens, I was briefed by these guys more than two years ago in my former life as semiconductor beat reporter. Ironically, their chips are based on IBM’s Power architecture, which Apple dumped from the Macs a while back in favor of Intel’s x86 chips. P.A. Semi’s products are aimed at hi-po computing: servers and supercomputers and the like. Not too likely that those will end up in an iPhone any time soon. But apparently, Apple does employ a number of chip designers who work with partners to tweak features to meet certain capabilities Apple’s product engineers have in mind. Still, it’s a curious play since if they wanted a bunch of chip designers, why not just hire them from the job market. Why pay a couple million per headcount to buy a whole company?

As if Apple wasn’t enough to handle, there’s a little game coming out next week that might just be, oh, only the biggest single entertainment property of the year. The Halo 3 launch last year opened the eyes of many reporters and editors to how big A-list video-game properties can be. Not only is Grand Theft Auto IV big business, it’s a game that has as much cultural relevance as The Matrix or Harry Potter.

My main preview story of the game is posted below, but before I get to that, I want to highlight two other pieces.

First is my Gameworld column on Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It’s a gorgeously realistic driving title, but only a fraction of what is promised when the full game comes out next year. Racing fans will love it, but I’m sure many consumers will see the $40 price tag as too high. 

What really interested me about my interview with Taku Imasaki, the U.S. producer on the game, was the vision that the title would become a platform for all things automotive: a driving game at the core, but augmented with videos of races and information about cars. 

Sony plans to add more features and pipe a steady stream of video content into “Prologue” in hopes that gamers’ interest will be redlining by the time the full game is released.

“Our goal is to become another medium for car companies, like magazines and TVs. We’re the perfect game for that and ideally we could become the MySpace or Facebook for auto enthusiasts,” Imasaki said.

Along with Rock Band and possibly Guitar Hero, it’s an example of how these connected consoles with gobs of processing power and storage are enabling games to become destinations/portals/aggregators for certain topics. Rock Band and GH do it for music, GT5 is doing it for cars. I’m sure there are other areas where it makes sense. Sports comes to mind. Take Madden football as an example. They already have a scrolling sports news ticker in Madden, why not buff that up to include highlights of the week’s games, interviews with athletes, and tutorials that show you how to use the video game to enhance your appreciation of the actual sport (I would love, for example, some breakdown of defensive schemes, which I only dimly understand).

The second piece I’ll highlight is an analysis of GTA4. Everybody knows this game is going to sell a buttload. The only question is it going to be serious buttload or just a regular buttload? Estimates from several Wall Street analysts range from 9 million to 12.5 million units by the end of this year, with most looking at about 10 million units. At that scale, analyzing the game’s sales is a little like speculating on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Let’s just call it “a lot” and leave it at that.

What I found more interesting was the question of what effect the game will have on console sales, and which console stands to benefit more, the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3? My expectation was that most people would say the Xbox 360. After all, Microsoft having locked in the exclusive downloadable content for later this year, combined with the superior implementation of online capabilities in Xbox Live, makes a pretty compelling argument for the machine.

It turns out that most people, from Wall Street analysts to industry observers who know far more about this stuff than me, figure the PS3 will get the biggest hardware sales boost. It basically boils down to two reasons: the hardcore gamers who dig GTA4probably already have an Xbox; those who aren’t hardcore gamers but love the GTA series probably got into it on the PlayStation 2, and are likely to stay loyal to Sony.

If you’ve made it this far, bless you. Hopefully it’s been worth it. I’ll leave you with my preview of Grand Theft Auto IV. Hit the link or go below the fold for the whole thing. It was a fun story to research and write.

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 (Reuters) – Beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and hookers. For video game fans, it can only mean one thing: “Grand Theft Auto 4″ is here, arrving with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast.

The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc is poised to be the biggest entertainment product of the year, with expected first-week sales of up to $400 million — dwarfing Hollywood’s biggest box-office openings.

The handiwork of Take-Two’s Rockstar game studio headed by British brothers Sam and Dan Houser, “Grand Theft Auto 4,” which will be launched next Tuesday, promises to crank up the thuggish drama that made previous installments the equivalent of “The Godfather” for Generation PlayStation.

“We also felt over the last few years there hadn’t been a great standout gangster movie. Maybe we could do something ourselves that would live alongside that stuff,” Rockstar’s Dan Houser told Variety magazine in a recent interview.