Playstation Long Live Play!-Michael Trailer

Over the last several weeks Sony has been ramping up to a big announcement for this past week.  With the news of Steve Job's passing; some things were slid on down the headlines, as was to be expected.  One of these headlines concerned Playstation's 'Long Live Play' campaign.  This wasn't anything more than a commercial; but I have to go on record and say that Playstation serves up some pretty good commercials.

Sure, a lot of people were somewhat disappointed that the announcement wasn't anything bigger.  But it was awesome.  Simply entitled 'Michael'.  We get to see some of modern gaming's most beloved characters (from the Sony consoles, so no Master Chief or Marcus Fenix, sorry).  From Kratos to Solid Snake to SackBoy; they're all their.  And a heart felt speech delivered by a soldier from Medal of Honor, we see that as much as we honor our game hero's; they honor the players behind them.  It's pretty cool.

Check it out:

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DC Universe Online going F2P in October!

This past week we received word on one of the biggest surprises from the MMO world, that I honestly didn't see coming.  It was announced by SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) that DC Universe Online is going Free to Play in late October.

So wait a minute, what?  Yep, next month the MMO that is deeply rooted within the DC Comics universe is hitting the Free to Play slopes.  And it's going to bust the myth that only older games that aren't played get resurrected with F2P options; since the game is fairly new.  It's kind of funny, because just a few weeks ago I saw this title at Best Buy in the PS3 games section and told my wife if it wasn't subscription based I might would be inclined to try it out.  Now that they are moving to a F2P model, I just might have to live up to that idea.

So, what do free players get with the F2P plan:
-Current gameplay available (Gotham, Metropolis, and current raids and alerts)
-DLC Expansions can be purchased and are optional.
-2 free character slots (more available for purchase)
- 28 inventory slots, 12 bank slots, 0 auction slot and no trading (additional slots are available for purchase).
-Maximum In-Game Currency 1500.
-6 chat messages (text) per 30 seconds of gametime.
-Can only send in-game text mail (no items attached).
-Can join a Player League (but not form them).
-And 1 free Vault Ticket per week.

They are also offering a plan if you spend at least $5 on the game a month that offers slightly more in-game currency caps, 6 character slots (instead of 2), 42 inventory slots, 5 auction slots, and double the bank slots for 24 slots of bank space.  $5 players can trade items, get proximity voice chat along with the f2p text message limits,  and can send items, and gets a free Vault ticket every 3 days.

Of course you can still go all out and subscribe to the game with the $14.99 Legendary plan which is basically unlimited everything as the retail game offered.  One advantage to the Legendary plan, is that all DLC expanions are free for those subscribers.

According to SOE's announcement page on the offical DCUO website, SOE "has listened to it's customers".  Yeah I bet they have.  Seems to me like they figured the rest of the MMO market is leaning heavily towards at least offering a scaled back F2P offerings for gamer's who either play MMO's as a casual experience or are strapped for cash and hate being tied down a $15.00 subscription fee every month.  And so far the F2P model has been a great source of income for companies like Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic.

And yes, the game will be Free to Play on both the PC and PS3 platforms.  If you recall; this isn't SOE's first F2P MMO on the PS3, as they released Free Realms to PS3 owners earlier in the year to spread the F2P love to their PS3 customers (and no doubt reaping the cash shop benefits).

So, if you would like to read the announcement for yourself:
http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/en/news/archive.vm?id=63&month=current

And to see what features are available in each subscription plan see:
http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/free/

And their main website is:
http://www.dcuniverseonline.com

I do intend of downloading it for my PS3, so be sure to look for it to pop up around late October.

Happy surfing!

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What does the new PSN Terms of Service Agreement Contain?

The other I day powered on my PS3 for the first time in about a week to play a little 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution'.  And I was greeted with a prompt to accept the new PSN TOS before I could login.  Not a big deal since 'Deus Ex' doesn't feature online play.  But I do like to browser the PSN Store on occassion to see what's new.  So I decided to be a good little PS3 owner and do as I was being told by Sony.  Like many user's, I rarely read the entire TOS agreements.  Simply put they are long and drawn out.  And in the case of my situation, I have a smaller television and the small print this agreement is typed up in (and some game text as well) makes it absolute murder to read onscreen.  So, I scroll down and click on 'Accept'.

So what was in it that was so noteworthy I needed to accept it now?  Simply put, a little 'cover-their-butt' strategy by Sony.  In layman terms, the new Terms of Services agreement will prevent customer's from filing class-action lawsuits against Sony.  If you digg around enough there are a few loopholes to the new agreement, but if you want to play on their device you have to accept it.

So what about those involved in lawsuits for this past summer's PSN outage and data leak?  Those people aren't covered under this new TOS for that lawsuit since it occured before the new TOS was issued and put into action.

Here is where the red flag jumps out to me.  After this summer's issues that impacted not only Sony, but game publisher's market wide and customer's alike.  What has Sony discovered (if anything) that would cause them to go out of their way to issue this TOS now?  I would fully expect either something crazy to hit the headlines soon about a new internal issue or a drastic change to existing services that may impact customer's experience with their products?  Time will tell.

I love my PS3, and haven't had any real issues or qualms about Sony (with the exception the events from April/May 2011).  And one reason I jumped ship from the Xbox 360, is Sony doesn't charge for online access.  But with all the controversy flying around the last several months, I have to ask myself: "Is a single, dedicated platform for any service really that good of an idea?"

And my answer is "No".  It only benefits the companies behind the platform.  As demonstrated in April and May, a dedicated platform can be brought down and can greatly impact not only transactions and business conducted via the product, but also completely shut down the online portions of games people just wanted to play.  This is where PC gaming is mostly different.  Most PC games feature hosts for online playing.  Where the game servers are not dependent upon a e-commerce platform to operate.  So you may not be able to by a player skin for your character, but at least you can play.  I completely understand that this is not how Sony or Microsoft has setup either of their platforms, but moving forward maybe it is something that should at least be considered.

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Sony 720p Headwear....Fashion or Flop?

Sony has decided to unveil a new product.  It seems somewhat familiar by design.  And I can't help but think Keanu Reeves should make a movie sporting this headset.  It looks like something straight out of the Virtual Reality craze from the 90's.  So what's the deal?

It is called the HMZ-T1, which will create a 720p 3D display inside the glasses.  This will be done by utilizing two OLED displays.  There has to be an effect, right?  Yep.  Seems to be with this setup Sony has managed to simulate a 150 inch 3D TV screen as if viewed from about a 12 foot distance.  There is a bunch of other technical jargon that honestly makes you go almost crosseyed when reading it.  But I bet Sony is placing bets on this device.  However, I expect it to be pretty costly.

In other words, it's as if someone mounted a 3D movie screen right infront of your eyes.  Cool right?  Sure, if you don't get a cramp in your neck while wearing the headset.  Word is Sony is readying it for the end of the year (around the holidays).  If you're looking for a similar offering, albeit cheaper and only 2D checkout MyVu.  They appear to be out of business, but you can still find some of their products floating around on sites like eBay.

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Sony Network Pass? What the crap?

Hey PS3 owners, are you looking forward to getting Online Pass codes in your games?  Well, looks like it's going to happen.  Later this year (with the release of Resistance 3) games part of the Online Pass program will include a code that will grant you access for the online components of the games you buy.  If you buy new games, no big deal.

But if you are buying a used game, get ready to pony up around $10.00 for the online code to let you play the rest of the game you just bought.  Much like they did with Mortal Kombat (which included an online pass code for online play).  If you bought it as Used, visit the PSN Store and purchase the access pack for $10 (USD).

So why the drive for this Online Pass crap?  Simple, game publisher's get no money from the sale of a preowned (used) game.  So while your local Gamestop is pressing for preowned game sales, the publisher's are smacking gamer's on the hand when the buy a used game.  So look at it this way, 2 years into the future, Mortal Kombat may be marked down used to $15.00 (purely for example).  So you buy preowned and wanted to play online, so you'll spend another $10 for the code.  You just spent $25 on the game.

Now look at this way, you buy a preowned copy of Resistance 3 with your Christmas money later this year for $49.99 (marked down from $59.99 new) from Gamestop.  But in order to play online against your friends, you have to visit the PSN Store and purchase the Online Pass code for $10.  Guess what?  You just paid the same amount as compared to buying it as New.  And let's face it, with online play being such a big deal with many of the current gen games.  If you are looking to get the total value from your games, than you need online play to do so.

Publishers have been trying to circumvent used game sales for some time.  Most recently Capcom decided to lock game save data in one of their new Resident Evil titles for the Nintendo DS so you can't restart the game.  Meaning, if you buy it as preowned; you also get the previous owner's game state.  Better hope they saved before that last boss.  LOL

And it will be seen how this will affect game sales at preowned game stores like Gamestop.  But it's clear that the world is changing in all aspects (business, economic, and video games to name a few).  This will make cloud based options like OnLive look all that much better.

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Tech News: PS4?, Duke Goes for The Gold, Speaking of Gold...Farming? And More!

It was confirmed today that Sony is working on what they call a "future platform".  This comes as no surprise since in all reality it is probably getting time for the "Big 3" to announce their "next next-gen" platforms and consoles.  Sony has already been dropping info on their NGP (next gen portable) system.  Nintendo has been teasing the successor to the Wii, and Microsoft is claiming their next console is slated for 2015.  So don't fret too much about not having the latest and greatest in console gaming, because the new stuff won't be coming for a while yet.

However, a note to Sony: how about you make sure your existing platforms are buttoned down before making to big of plans for the next big thing...Just something to think about.
Sources:
PS4 http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/712993/playstation-4-sony-confirms-it-is-working-on-future-platform/
NextBox http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-looking-at-releasing-next-xbox-in-2015-2011-3

For fans of Duke Nukem, go ahead and get excited.  Because this week the Duke went Gold!  That's right.  The date is locked down, gamer's all over have literally waited over a decade for this.  So for those of you lucky enough to have early beta access look for the demo on June 3rd.  For the rest of us, June 14th is our day!  And in the word's of Duke: "this game better be good."
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/228552/duke_nukem_forever_goes_gold.html

While we are speaking about "gold", if you have ever played an MMO (massively multiplayer online game) you have probably seen and no doubt heard of gold farmers/sellers.  This has typically been a huge business behind the scenes.  The market for gold selling within MMO games has been the bane of the game developer's and players.  Due to in-game gold being ill gotten and trading hands by means of real world cash, the in-game economy can go crazy.  Which causes things to go nuts for those in game who are actually playing.  Players who are in the practice of buying this in-game currency will usually purchase the gold from the seller, who would transfer the currency to the buyer's character accounts.  The buy can then use this currency to progress through the game at an unfair advantage.  Developer's have been cracking down on these practices, but it is near impossible to actually halt this operation.  Other questionable methods of playing are "power leveling", where a player pays a service/website to level up their characters so the actual player doesn't have to.  Both gold farming and power leveling are unfair, and usually are huge account security risks for the owner of the character accounts in question.  Now that the principle behind gold farming/selling and why it is bad for games has been cleared up.

We go on to why we're talking about it.  It appears as though some Chinese prisoners are being forced to be gold farmers in some MMO games at a labor camp in China.  The former prisoner stated that among 300 other prisoners, they were forced to play online games in 12 hours shifts.  This would be after a days worth of physical labor in the camp.  Apparently the guards were using the in-game currency as a means to sell and make money off of the prisoner's online labor.  And if they didn't meet their "quota" they would be punished or beaten.   For more of this man's story, swing by The Guardian for the full article.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

Sony has now made the free theft protection for PSN user's available.  If you are a PSN user, you should be getting an email soon about this service.

And on a final note, swing by The Deadbolt News for some quick previews an video footage of X-Men: First Class!  And yes, they are awesome!
Source: http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/1000082/x_men_first_class_5_new_previews.php

Until next time.  Happy Surfing!

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PSN Is Back Up...Partially.

Well, Sony has finally pulled through.  Looks like the PSN is back up as far as online play is concerned.  Other features like the Playstation Store are still down.  But I'm sure it'll be following very soon.

So, what now?  Well I'm sure there will be plenty of people ready to flame Sony over when their free games are going to be available.  But as far as I am concerned I can now return to Unreal Tournament 3 and Mortal Kombat's online play.

So what's required to get online now that PSN is back up and running?  Simple, a fairly quick console update is required, and once installed it will require you to change your PSN password.  After that, you're done.

So go forth and play to your hearts content PSN users!

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Ventillation over PSN...Part 2

Okay, my last blog post was on April 29th, 2011.  That was 3 days before I went on a cruise for vacation.  In the time I was gone, I had high hopes that PSN would be restored when I returned.  However, upon my return after a week away, that PSN was still down.  As I was thinking on the whole PSN outage, I got to thinking a little outside the box.

All of us gamers are asking, "When will PSN be back up?" or "What is Sony going to give us for our troubles?". But to be fair, without vendors making software for the PS3 (or utilizing PSN services), what good is PSN?  Think about it from a business aspect.  Business are in a certain market for a reason.  Companies make video games because we buy the video games to play.  These games and software don't just fall out of the sky.  Real time and real money has to be invested into this software in order to make it something we will want to play.

So how are these companies losing out?  Easy.  Once a game is released, it is common that the public release is just the first stage in a game's life cycle.  A lot of companies then role out DLC (Downloadable Content) for player's to purchase and enjoy.  The rollout of this DLC content is solely dependent upon services like PSN or Xbox Live.  If those platforms go away, so does the access and availability of that content.

On another side of the plate, say a game company makes a game that heavily relies on online multiplayer experiences.  That online aspect is lost when it's host service is disrupted.  So why would someone buy a game on a system that would rely upon an online experience that isn't currently available?  After all, we all want what we want, and we want it now; right?  Especially since households having multiple consoles are so popular now.  You may say: "Well, regardless of the platform I buy a game for, I'm still buying it.  The still get money right?"

Sure, that's a correct statement.  However, back to basic Business 101: "Provide in the market where the demand is."  High sales go towards one particular platform, guess which platform gets better support for that title...The one that made them money.  So not only does this whole PSN fiasco trouble us as gamers.  It screws the game makers as well.  If game makers are losing money on a game, label, or brand they have invested millions of dollars on in hopes to make back that money plus some.  Guess who gets the bad end of the stick now?  We do.  The price of games go up.

So when you're trolling the Playstation Blog please try to keep it in mind that Sony had better be busting a$$ to get PSN back up.  I'll be the first to say they haven't been as "transparent" as they should have been.  But at least their are trying to be honest.  Today's post basically reads:

"I know you all want to know exactly when the services will be restored. At this time, I can’t give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this process."


Is it good for their business?  Nope.  Is there anything we can do about it...Nope.  But, it is what it is.


On another note, Sony is saying that we will have a choice of 2 games from a list of 5 games (that's not that bad, as I am fairly new to the PS3 and probably can find 2 games on the list I haven't played yet).  They are also offering a year of credit/identity monitoring, supposedly offering a free month of PS+ access, and offering a free period of the newly launched music streaming services.  So don't worry fellow PS3'ers, Sony has heard your cries as well.


Now it's unfortunately a waiting game.  Sony is still touting that the service should be back up in a few more days.  But it feels like all along they have been saying: "Just a couple more days."  It'll be interesting to see how the general public handles this in the long run, and don't 
be surprised of any changes that they may make to PSN in the meantime...


Happy Surfing!

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A little ventilation over the whole PSN Scenario...

Here is my take on the PSN Outage.  Please read the post all the way through before jumping to conclusions.

Last week millions of Sony Playstation 3 gamers became shocked to find out that the beloved online service 'PSN' (Playstation Network) was offline. And not only was the service down, but it was apparently suspended without any time frame for when it would return. As of this writing (4-29-11) the service is still offline.  But don't be fooled into thinking that is as bad as it gets.

The service interruption for PSN seemed to follow awfully close to Sony dropping the lawsuit they brought against Geohot for modding the PS3 console.  It was very apparent that Sony wanted to make a rather large example out of George Hotz (dubbed 'Geohot').  For those who don't know Mr. Hotz is very well known within the modding communities.  Sony agreed to drop their lawsuit if Hotz would quit modding Sony's products.  The whole GeoHot lawsuit took the web by storm.  There was a distinctive line where loyal PS3 owners felt they shouldn't alter the hardware because it promotes piracy, which in turn drives up the price for services, games, and consoles for everybody else.  Meanwhile, the modding communities were sounding off to the tune of our products should work the way we want them too.  Why buy a product if you are restricted to only doing what the manufacturer allows.  Both sides honestly have very valid points. However, neither will be appeased regardless of what Sony does (reference back to Sony removing 'OtherOS' from the PS3 to see what I'm talking about).

Now, fast forward to the current PSN outage.  What do we know?  We know Sony realized their system had been compromised on Tuesday, April 19th.  The next day the service went offline (both PSN and Qriocity services are affected).  Sony still didn't tell their customer's that the services had been compromised. It wasn't until April 22nd  that Sony posted what had actually happened to their system.  I realize that they had to have time to investigate what the intrusion involved.  But seriously, a system that contains not just personal information but also credit card numbers for online transactions; and they didn't disclose this to the public?  That's crazy.  And better yet, the daily updates Sony was giving were about as vague as they could be.

But hold on to your hat, it gets better.  Over the following weekend Sony posted on the PS3 Blog that they were actually having to rebuild their infrastructure.  So let's get this straight, Sony offers a pretty good premium online experience without cost to their customers.  This service allows customer's to purchase games and content directly through the internet.  This service gets attacked from an outside party/parties; this attack causes Sony to realize that their system needs not only a major security maintenance job done, but a complete rebuild?!  What the hell did the hackers do or have access to?

It wasn't until Tuesday, April 26th that Sony posted on the PS3 Blog that customer's information was stolen.  Over the next several days we have seen reports that this information contained credit card information along with names, addressed, and phone numbers for millions of people.  Then reports of a database containing this very information was up for sale to the highest bidder.  Now word is that some of the information contained in the database was encrypted (including credit card information).

Okay, that's a little better.  But seriously Sony; you're dealing with hackers here.  They acquired access to your system to take the data in the first place, what it keeping them from getting around this encryption too?  All the while, if you read through the numerous postings on the PS3 Blog, you'll see people more pissed off that they can't play games.  Or they are trying to guess how Sony will repay all of their loyal customers.  Seriously people, take a breath and look at the bigger picture.  Much more than access to Modern Warfare is at stake here.  Some people were suggesting that Sony "make up" for the outage and data leak by providing credit monitoring for it's customers for a year or two.  Whether that's a valid option or not, Sony is definitely in the hotseat as far as their Public Relations go.

During the whole course of this outage numerous media outlets and websites have been pointing the finger at Anonymous.  Meanwhile, somehow someone from Anonymous has said it wasn't them who authored the attack on Sony.  According to an article at: http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/85857/hacker-group-anonymous-condemns-psn-attacks/ the person said that the attack was "against the Anonymous principles".  Regardless of who is behind the attack, the attack has not only dealt a huge blow to Sony's online service/e-retail outlet, millions of customers are potentially at risk now as well.  Not to mention all of the customer's of their online MMO (which is subscription based), those guys have every right to be upset at the service's downtime.

My personal opinion, the PSN access is provided free of charge.  If the service is down, ok I won't be playing online until service is restored.  Big deal, I'm not paying anything extra for the service; so who am I to scream and jump up and down when it's unavailable.  I also understand that anytime online security is compromised (whether it be personal or business related), this can be devastating to the entity compromised and/or all of the customers or clients.  It is very unfortunate that Sony has to go through such great lengths to get their service back up and running, but on the same lines.  If you are rebuilding it, make sure it's rock solid second time around.  From a business standpoint, I don't think Sony could get away with their Public Relations if this were sort of outage were to happen again. In the meantime, Sony has made it public knowledge that they are planning on making good on this with their customers.  Somehow, I have a feeling whatever is done won't be quite what everyone is wishing for.  If you read their forum, people are asking for everything from free Playstation + access to cross game chat, and some are even asking for the return of OtherOS (personally I'd opt for either the crossgame chat or OtherOS myself).  But nothing has been confirmed yet from Sony on what they are planning to do.4

My only quarrel is how long it took Sony to publicly acknowledge the problem and to what extent the problem covered.  And I hope Sony realizes that their customer's will not forget this outage.  And before someone tries to flame me for speaking my peace on the matter, yes I have been affected by the outage.  Albeit a minor issue for me, my birthday was the weekend the outage started and my wife bought me 'Mortal Kombat' so I haven't been able to play online.  But for now, big deal.  I've been playing Mortal Kombat offline for years anyways.  So, hopefully Sony is on the upside of this issue and we can all get back to playing online again safely soon.

Thanks for listening and Happy Surfing!

-----
Sources:
http://bit.ly/jMKXye -Hacker Group Anonymous Condemns PSN Attack
http://bit.ly/lnH9HI    -Sony Considering Make Good for PSN Subscribers, Too
http://blog.us.playstation.com/ -Playstation Blog

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The verdict is in...

Ok, after my much awaited first foray into the world of Borderlands went today...The verdict is now in...Ladies & Gentlemen...Borderlands is awesome! I am waiting to level up some more before pairing up with any other players via co-op. But so far so good.

Do I believe that the SecuRom DRM may (if not already) have pushed would be players away? Yes, I firmly believe this is so. Game publishers please listen as we gamer's want to voice that we don't want or need software that is so difficult to install and use. I understand the reason's behind DRM...But really, there has to be a better way.

Anyways, until next time, feel free to catch up with me in Borderlands. Happy weekend all!

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Sony's Playstation Move: Too Funny!

Check this out:

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