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Playstation 3 - Marvel brings digital comic subs to console

Wednesday 19th of August, 2009 - 20:17:03 GMT

The other interesting announcement was from Marvel, which is tightening its association with Sony by bringing the comics, such as Spider Man which the company has already made into successful movies, and the rest of their mutated highly colourful collection of heroes and villains, to the console in book form. It's a service Marvel already offers directly over the internet, so its influence on the console remains to be seen. DC, owned by Time Warner, has yet to strike a similar deal.

I can't see indie comic sellers being too pleased about the news, they have enough problems sustaining their business as it is, and it's a move that serves to turn the PS3 into a gaming version of Amazon's Kindle and the comics as the loss leader. The collector's market would basically revert to the hardest core of professional collectors and I would love to see anyone sit through the 104 pages of the recent 600th Anniversary issue of Spider-Man - by flicking through it at their flatscreen television.

The other issue is, the pricing model. If it's fixed like iTunes and never changes according to story length as the print editions do, then unless the price is right for the UK, buyers will forever lose out on the good side of exchange rate fluctuations with the US dollar or eBay resales of back issues. The same question remains of the price of trade paperback collections of entire stories. At least this latter market could happily survive Marvel's digital competition with itself, as they are sold like proper books on the internet and at retail.

Patience is at the heart of the concern with the monthly releases; the largest titles are now released twice monthly to counter impatience and piracy. For an enclosed digital service to suceed, the same release pattern would have to be maintained, or even made fortnightly depending on the series. Even then, like downloaded music, legally or otherwise, there would have to be some cachet in having files on a hard drive, as opposed to the comics in a bag.

For all the celebration of gaming technology meeting an 90-year old storytelling medium, the stories have to be engaging in the first place, which is debateable when reading the latest volume of, say, Iron Man compared to the separate War Machine strand, or your chosen series of Spider-Man. We'll bring you more details when pricing and subscription methods are properly explained.

- Ken

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Playstation 3 - Going down by GBP 50

Tuesday 18th of August, 2009 - 21:41:54 GMT

The day after Microsoft elected to raise the price of the Xbox 360, Sony went in the other direction by previewing the first PS3 price cut - the first since the console's launch, by a comparatively massive GPB 50 to £249, and USD/EUR 299 in both currencies. Previously the company elected to change hard drive sizes and discriminate by backwards compatibility rather than drop the price. This marketing tactic proved successful in the years before Blu-Ray won the final disc-based film and PC storage format war.

Now that Blu-Ray films are flying off the shelves and the hi-fi players are down to GBP 100, Sony doesn't wish to lose too many film fans that play games - not even to sales of its own players. At the same time, the PS3 refresh, heavily influenced by that of the PS2 slim model, has become as long awaited as a 360 with a reliably cooled chipset. The 34per cent drop in power consumption will do well to reverse the image of environmentally unfriendly consoles compared to the firm's VAIO laptops, which are regularly celebrated by green groups as allowing power computing with fewer dangerous chemicals going into the machine's manufacturing. The slimming of the design will sell itself when placed next to a (presumably Sony) television.

The price cut will let the PS3 easily round off its worldwide sales total to 24 million units, as it currently stands 300,000 consoles short of this total. Given its poor critical image, nearly 53 million PSPs sold is a tribute to the company's tenacity with formats and its small-scale screen design quality.

The slimmer PS3 will arrive to attract the back to school/half-term-to-Christmas market from September.

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - Back up on iTunes

Monday 17th of August, 2009 - 01:12:36 GMT

We've resolved the RSS listing bug which meant that #15 and the E3 special podcasts were failing to download to iTunes listeners. Another podcast was recorded today and when it's edited and finished, we'll let you know as always and it should be ready to hear wherever you get it.

Visit the relevant section at the Magazine and pick the right hand arrow to access the Itunes listing, but if you're already signed up, the delayed files should download by the end of Monday 17th August or whenever you choose "Refresh".

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - E3 Podcast Released

Thursday 2nd of July, 2009 - 12:30:36 GMT

For those of you who don't read Gaming Discussion, you can now download the two-part E3 Podcast from the usual FTP Section.

As ever, any of the usual sound issues, or download access problems, please let us know.

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - E3 Podcast Released

Thursday 2nd of July, 2009 - 12:28:55 GMT

The most recent podcast to be recorded was all about E3, following up issue 3 of the PW Magazine. It's in two parts, both of which are downloadable from the usual FTP Section.

As ever, any of the usual sound issues, or download access problems, please let us know, and if you're an iTunes listener you will receive it automatically in a few days.

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - Episode 15 Reminder

Sunday 28th of June, 2009 - 15:24:49 GMT

For those who don't frequent the Gaming Discussion forum, Podcast 15 has been released and you can obtain it from the usual FTP site here.

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - Episode 15 Released

Sunday 28th of June, 2009 - 14:03:54 GMT

The 15th Preys-World Podcast has been released, covering the events surrounding the death of Duke Forever contrasted with Activision's fortunes, Madworld on the Wii as reviewed in the magazine, the reviewing spat regarding the Darkfall MMO and videogaming fashion.

To contrast the larger E3 podcast, this is 40 minutes and a quick 46Mb to download. You can obtain it from the usual FTP site here otherwise it'll come down to iTunes subscribers in the next few days.

As ever, if there are linkage problems to the podcast files then please get in touch at the following address:

nethlyn AT preys-world.com

- or post in the forums.

- Ken

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Ghostbusters - Idiotic Release Schedule begins tomorrow

Monday 15th of June, 2009 - 07:50:45 GMT

We have to say that we don't share the views expressed in the BBC article last week about the release of this game

Even if Ghostbusters might have to be re-sold to the newest generation of gamers, there's an army of them across the world that remember the 80s and the 8-bit editions of the game, who will want to play the modern version in all its glory with with orchestral quality sound.

Atari is inviting piracy on the PC at best and slow console sales at worst by delaying the UK and European release of the PC, 360, DS and Wii versions of this game until "later in the year" from retail outlets. Given that the game was canned and picked up again, it's a shame the successful bidder is now messing around an almost guaranteed hit. This is a re-run of Disney Interactive's similar bungled launch of Tron 2 in late summer 2003 across the rest of the world.

The big chains with established online presences like Game, including its wholesale Ebay operation, will still be able to sell the title. Similarly, shops which buy in and sell on games like CEX and/or Gamestation will still be able to sell the game without a problem as these grey imports are completed and jettisoned, but the indies will certainly get hurt and you have to wonder how serious Atari is about the games business following greater success on Steam for Unreal Tournament III, than for its retail edition.

- Ken

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Mirror's Edge 2 - Confirmed in development

Friday 12th of June, 2009 - 15:40:12 GMT

The original Mirror's Edge developed a hardcore following rather than achieving mass market appeal and was only released in January this year on the PC.

Fans will be happy to hear that EA gave the green light to a sequel. The work began before E3 when the announcement was made but it's also good news for developers Dice, not to be permanently associated with the Battlefield franchise.

Most players would hope the sequel is simply longer, which would mark an immediate improvement over the first game.

Read the comments about the game over at videogamer.com here.

- Ken

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Preys-World Podcast - 13 and 14 Reminder

Sunday 7th of June, 2009 - 07:58:11 GMT

For people not listening to the podcast through iTunes, if no.14 has failed to appear in your RSS list then go direct to the FTP Folder for 12 onwards to download it. We'll let you know when any issues with the iTunes linkup have been rectified in the meantime.

- Ken

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