Self-Conscious Gaming?

Self-Conscious Gaming?

Repercussions of Nintendo's Re-Branding.

Like most of my generation, my first console was purchased in the Nineties and was manufactured by a certain Japanese company known as Nintendo. As my introduction to the magical world of video games, I've always had a soft spot for Nintendo and everything that comes with it. Years and hundreds of hours of Mario, Samus, and Donkey Kong later, my love of the company has diminished, but, while I was puzzled by the Gamecube and cringed for the Wii, I've still held high hopes for the future of “hardcore” gamers with Nintendo consoles. With the announcement of 3DS details and the launch of the system looming on the horizon, though, I've been doing some thinking about Nintendo and more specifically on the question, “Why don't I want to play DS in public?”

I'd like to think that I'm a well-versed gamer: I've played my share of most genres, and I'm comfortable with my nerdy trivia knowledge of games past and present. If I play DS in public, though, I feel like I've got to show the screen to everyone around me just to try to convince them that I'm not playing one of the many movie tie-ins or kids' games that have been released for the handheld. Perhaps the very fact that my youth was punctuated by the Gameboy chime makes me think feel slightly childish while playing, and it doesn't help when games require me to pull out the stylus or blow into the mircophone. In the self-conscious world we live in, Nintendo seems to have fallen from the cool side to the less than cool side.

When you look at the sales numbers, the DS won the handheld console war with no questions asked, but while those numbers don't lie about the total sales, one has to wonder how many of those were sold to “actual” gamers. How many soccer moms and grandparents were lured in by Brain Training or Crossword DS? How many bright pink systems were sold to gradeschool-aged girls? If I had a nickle for every seven-year-old walking around with a DS, I might be a rich man. Nintendo has made millions by appealing to a new audience, but they've diluted their customer base to the point that there's no way that they can make everyone happy. The problem is that when the casual gamers don't see something interesting in the new system, they melt back into the teeming masses of non-gamers, while the unhappy hardcore will grumble as they play their Kid Icarus and assortment of remakes. Nintendo knows where the big money is, and they're going to go after it whenever they can.

It will be hard for me to pass up the 3DS when it comes out in a few months, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Nintendo is slowly but steadily moving toward the casual market, and those of us on the fringe are going to have to start moving one way or another. We'll either have to start playing those Brain Training games, or we'll have to move on to bigger and brighter things. It should be interesting to see how Nintendo will respond to Sony's announcement of the NGP, or what amounts to the PSP 2. Will Nintendo take this as the chance to win gamers back over with an experience that puts them back into competition with Sony's software support. I never though I would say this, but Nintendo has some catching up to do.

--Tom

Beamed Into Your Home By The Onlive Overlords!

 Beamed into Your Home By The Onlive Overlords!

It's Out There, But Does it Matter?

Granted, the cloud-based game streaming service Onlive never really set the gaming world on fire when it was announced almost a year ago, but I expected a little more press and interest when the possibly revolutionary system finally launched. For those not familiar with Onlive, imagine Steam mixed with Youtube. The service allows you to download and play games a variety of triple- A titles through the power of cloud computing. When you make a controller input, the signal is sent to some distant Onlive HQ via the power of the internet (a series of tubes, remember). Onlive then streams the game's visuals back to your computer. The game itself runs, not on your system, but on the powerful computers supplied by Onlive, and this means that even a standard non-gaming laptop like mine can run resource intensive games without breaking a sweat.

From what I've seen, though, Onlive has been met by little more than sniff from those all-important gaming journalistic cabals with three letter acronyms or names ending in “spot.” I suppose that we've all been complicit in this collective neglect, though, and I'm among the offenders. I downloaded the Onlive client over a month ago, but never bothered to open it or look at it until just this afternoon. The shortcut icon blended into my desktop, and it was only by coincidence that I remembered it was even there. Before I'm too hard on myself, though, I should say that it wasn't for lack of trying that I've left Onlive alone. Honestly, it's just a little hard to deal with: I can't connect to the service from my home internet. Despite being fast enough for nearly every other online activity, my connection was found wanting by Onlinve and rejected. The only place where I can get the thing to work is at my school, and that clearly makes bringing a gamepad and finding the extra time a little harder.

When everything is going well, however, Onlive is a joy to work with. Not only can you purchase some of the latest games for prices that compare well to Steam, you can also play a 30 minute demo of any game before you decide to purchase. Onlive also allows you to post short videos of you playing a game to their “Brag Clip” section where other players can view your “leet skills” and whatnot. In compliment to this feature, there is an “Arena” section where you can spectate other players live. All around, I like the atmosphere of the application: it feels sleek and streamlined, perhaps even more so than the somewhat awkward Steam.

What Steam does have, though, is selection. While Steam is the established digital distribution service for PC games, Onlive is just a startup, and they're going to have to put in a lot of work if they plan to mount a successful challenge to Valve's brainchild. In the seven months since its release, Onlive has added just over 60 games to its library, while, in the same amount of time, Steam has added over 100 games to its already sizable library. What Onlive has that Steam doesn't is a ten-dollar-per-month deal that gives you access to a group of some of the most recent games added to the service. Right now, though, the “PlayPack” includes such gems as F.E.A.R. 2, Prince of Persia, and Unreal Tournament 3, but those aren't exactly the most recent titles. Most of the other options in the Playpack are games you've probably never heard of, so the value of the deal will really depend on how willing you are to play games just because they're there.

Admittedly, the usefulness of this platform is somewhat limited by the necessity to be connected to the web at all times. If you're got problems with multiplayer lagging, now you'll be getting the exact same problems in all portions of the game. I probably won't be using Onlive just because of the inconvenience, but if you don't mind the drawbacks, Onlive could very well be a glimpse of gaming future.

--Tom