Fall 2006: Where's the Beef?
Where are the exclusives? What is Microsoft doing? Will it take the console market?[/b]
November 29, 2006 - The cacophony of games that normally spills forth in the lavish months of October and November is over. The well rapidly dried up. The big surge of games, the one we always complain about being so hard to cover because they all ship at once? That ship has sailed. The big holiday rush, the giant storm of games, the exploding crunch of discs and bits and exploding heads? It's over. And boy, was it quick.
I did get the giddy feeling of a little rush, a tiny window of exaltation when I scurried back from the hospital four days after my first baby was born to buy a copy of Gears of War. Epic's third-person tactical gore fest of familiar sci-fi movies satiated my lust -- for a short while. But I'm used to giant game orgies. Long-unending waves of great, or at least good, games rolling in like swells, like big wave sets during storms, one after the other after the other. That's what September, October and November bring to my life, unadorned game lust that doesn't subside for a good long time. When December comes, I want to feel drunk with games, wasted, happy, and woozy with images of videogames pouring through my brain when I go to sleep at 4 am every morning. If I just owned an Xbox 360, and right now, that's the only next-gen console I own, the game orgy didn't really happen this year, did it? Is holiday 2006 just a quicky for Microsoft?
I could go out and buy a Wii this Thursday. In fact, I plan on it. As for the PlayStation 3, I'm not fighting to buy that system just yet. There has to be a truly great game to compel me to buy a $600 game machine. Maybe buying a new game console will keep the orgy going for a few more weeks. But as of now, all I have is a 360. That means my list of "A" titles, or at least "A" and "B" titles, is diminutive.
Let's take a look at this year's lineup of fall games. What have we got? The big guns of fall in 2006 comprised two Microsoft games and one half-dozen non-exclusive third-party endeavors. There were a few exclusives, mind you, but not enough to do a double take. There just weren't enough original or new games. And the multi-console games such as Tony Hawk's Project 8 and Call of Duty 3, for instance, were much better on the Xbox 360 than the PS3. But were they that good at all? Here is what shipped since September on Xbox 360.
Xbox 360 Exclusives
Gears of War
Viva Pinata
Dead or Alive Extreme 2
Three Burger King games (Sneak King, Big Bumpin', Pocketbike Racer)
On Xbox 360 but not PS3
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent
WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007
Released on Xbox 360 Before PS3
F.E.A.R.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Need For Speed Carbon
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Tony Hawk's Project 8
Call of Duty 3
Did we just get a repeat of the year 2003? When Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia and True Crime were all we got? Isn't Microsoft's second holiday season supposed to the crushing blow, the fat homerun, the knockout punch that one year allows developers? I think not. This holiday was a decent one, but it's over for good games. All that's left is Star Trek Legacy, which is what it is, Rapela Tournament Fishing, and some Cabela Hunting games. Big whoop.
I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again because it's true. Where are the big guns? Where are the exclusives? New, original games? In 2001, Sony smote the brains out of Microsoft and Nintendo with the greatest fall line-up ever -- it had everything, from Ico to Metal Gear Solid 2 to Devil May Cry to Grand Theft Auto III and Final Fantasy X. This fall, we've got Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Dead or Alive Extreme 2, Splinter Cell Double Agent and three Burger King games. Are you psyched or what? Was it foolish for Microsoft to "delay" a bunch of games (Too Human, Forza Motorsport 2, Crackdown, and Mass Effect)? Was it simple trickery to even state they were coming this fall? Or is it just more poor developer management?You know, just like in the Xbox days, when all the big games were delayed every fall?
This is not the voice of a Sony fanboy secretly venting. This is the sound of an Xbox 360 diehard gamer getting mad and
worried. I truly don't think Microsoft delayed those four games because it genuinely thought they better served gamers in 2007. Those games were tardy, late, unfinished. Or in some cases, not even close to complete. Was Forza Motorsport 2 ready for a fall release? No way. At E3, Forza Designer Dan Greenawalt said he didn't know when the game would be ready (and in his defense, that team is very ambitious). What about Crackdown? Why was it delayed? What is the strategy there? Does it need even more polish? Then there is Mass Effect. Everyone knows that Mass Effect wouldn't come out this fall, but in its initial statements Microsoft said fall 2006 (while BioWare winked). Clearly, that was just a bluff to "scare" Sony. That game is almost assuredly shipping in fall 2007. And there is Too Human, which at E3, genuinely looked like it needed more work. Too Human should have been delayed.
This fall looks like Microsoft is coasting on Gears of War. And well, if you can coast on Viva Pinata, then coast all you want. The Xbox 360 lineup is thin. Splinter Cell is a very good game, but it may not be the system shifter that Ubisoft hopes it is. And it's an exclusive by default, not by design. That was supposed to ship on PS3. Ubisoft just couldn't get it done in time and didn't have enough people. Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2 is a bummer, and it won't sell a million or even a half million in the next six months. Plus, even if it was awesome, it's a volleyball/butt bumping/tug-of-war/girlfriend simulator. It's super softcore niche material. Viva Pinata is also a very good game, but it's not going to get the hardcore gamer excited. It actually might piss them off a little. "That's a Rare game?" I hear them say. We'll see how it does to attract non-hardcore gamers and kids, you know, the broader audience.
Tony Hawk, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Call of Duty 3, well, they are all decent, good or simply just there. These aren't new games, or even new concepts, they're tried and true sequels -- as dull as you can get. Right down the middle of the road. Predictable, unoriginal, and franchise material. I like Tony Hawk, but it looks like I'm in the minority here. And the game is eight years and games old. Call of Duty 3, in my opinion, is particularly disappointing -- at least the single-player campaign is. It's buggy, has bad collision detection all over the place, and doesn't offer a single memorable mission. It feels like it wasn't developed by Infinity Ward. In fact, it wasn't. You can tell. Marvel Ultimate Alliance? The ultimate amount of Marvel characters in the same old Diablo-style button-mashing action-RPG. Fun, yes. Familiar and old? Double yes.
My gripe is that if Microsoft thinks it can win the console war with a second-year line-up like that, it's f-ed. Where are the behind-closed-door deals? Why isn't Rainbow Six Vegas exclusive to Xbox 360? Where are the exclusive Activision games? Where is the proliferation of great third-party titles "only on Xbox 360?"
My gripe is that software updates shouldn't ruin people's consoles, they should make the systems better. We already went through tough times with the hardware breaking. Now bi-annual updates are doing the same?
My gripe is that if Microsoft cannot get its internal first- and second-party games on time, it's in serious trouble. It better get disciplined like a Spartan and give us timely games that make it worthwhile to own an Xbox 360. Not shrug and say, "I'm waiting for a price drop."
My gripe? There should be a half dozen great games like Gears of War on Xbox 360 this fall. Games like Epic's will win the console market for Microsoft. Lots of them. Not just one.
My gripe? (Lots of gripes, I know!) I have heard Microsoft executives say to wait until next fall. "Oh well, wait until you see what we have next year!" Do they ever get tired of saying that? Everybody says that every year. There is always next fall. And then the year after that, there is another after that, and so on. The time is now. Microsoft, you launched one year early for a reason, right? Stick it to Sony now. Don't let them have an inch. Sony grabbed the market in fall 2001 and never let go. It pummeled Microsoft and Nintendo. Where is Microsoft in fall of 2006? It's scraping by with Gears of War, Viva Pinata and three Burger King games. Get real.
Yes, I know. Who would have thought that Microsoft would be in the position it is now? It's actually leading. Analysts are saying that Microsoft will actually take the console market in five years. But seriously, anyone who thinks they know what will happen in five years in the console market is full of sh*t. Most intelligent executives and honest analysts can barely figure out what will happen next summer, let alone next Christmas. In five years? What if Blu-ray kicks in? What if the Wii takes off? What if Sony gets its sh*t together? Lots of what-ifs. Really hard to tell, isn't it? That's because this isn't just a console battle, which is hard enough to predict. It's also media battle. A controller battle. An online battle.
And yes, I know. Microsoft is doing a handful of great things. It's breaking into new territories like India. It launched nearly simultaneously in three territories. Crazy but true. It is the definitive leader of the online console space. It's got old arcade games on Xbox Live Arcade and it's got newish movies and TV on Video Marketplace. Microsoft is innovating and it's leading. Hey, it has people like Director Peter Jackson pondering how to intelligently marry games and movies. It's been attempted before, but Digital Pictures and Rocket Science aren't companies most people remember for a reason. (They made terrible games that were supposed to marry videogames and Hollywood
and failed.) There is no doubt Microsoft has a great game plan, its own "playbook," as J Allard called it in summer 2005. Microsoft is challenging old ideas. It's on a roll. It's got Halo coming next year. It's got Mass Effect. It's got Lost Planet, BioShock, Forza 2.
So is Christmas 2006 a wash? Is Christmas 2006 really just a warm-up for Christmas 2007? Was that by default or design? Will Microsoft's delays create a fuller, better Q1 and Q2 2007 at the cost of a slim holiday 2006? (The answers are: yes, yes, default, and yes.) In my opinion, if Microsoft wants to dominate the console market, it had better get its butt into Gear.
sorry das ich abbrechen musste aber meine Inet verbindung war plötzlich weg und das die ganze nacht 
