DanPremo.com

When Bungie releases Halo 3 sometime next year, I’m hoping that the user colors/emblem system gets some upgrades. I have tried again and again to find the perfect emblem and the perfect color scheme, but I’m just not sure it’s possible with the options available. My wish list:

1. More colors to choose from. In Halo 2 we are given 18 colors to choose from. And they are all washed out. The white is more of an off white, and the black (”steel”) is gray. Steel and brown are almost the same color. Red and crimson are almost the same color. Modern consoles render millions of colors. Given the broadband connection required for Live, it’s not asking too much that users get a color picker for 24-bit color depth. Or at the very least 256 colors.

2. The ability to choose more than four colors. Yep, we only get four colors in Halo 2. Primary Player Color (main armor color, icon background 1), Secondary Player Color (armor trim, icon background 2), Primary Emblem Color, and Secondary Emblem Color.

3. More emblems. We get 64 in Halo 2. Ten of these are single digits, 0-9. Some of them are too similar to each other. Some of them are too obscure for anyone to recognize or understand. Some are just too hard to make out on the screen. And Bungie could release more as time goes on. It could hold contests — users could submit new emblem designs.

4. More emblem backgrounds. How about a sunburst background? Or a background consisting of more than two colors?

5. Armor patterns. Tiger stripes. Leopard spots. Racing stripes. You can customize your team’s uniform in Madden — why not in Halo? Halo 2 gives the user the trim (Secondary Player) color, but it’s not enough. Besides — in team games, your personal color choices get wiped out — your only unique identifier is your icon. Why not white arms or white shoes or a white helmet? This should be kept in check so that a user’s team affiliation is obscured, but it could be done.

6. Numbers in addition to emblems. The NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL do it. And let’s make them double-digit numbers. I was number 25 in high school.

7. Adjustable armor appearance. The Arbiter has different armor than a standard Elite. A Helljumper has different armor than a Spartan. Or maybe just gives a few tweaks.

I could go on. Heck, maybe I’ll add more later.

Yesterday, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) changed the rating of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from M (Mature) to AO (Adults Only).

This is a setback and a wake-up call.

It’s a setback to Take Two Interactive, publisher of GTA games, and Rockstar Interactive, developer of GTA games. It’s a setback to the video game industry, an industry that many wish would receive respect as an art form on par with music and film.

It’s a wake-up call to the ESRB, and also to the public, society, the government, fans, parents, gamers, whatever.

Part of me wants to talk about Rockstar and say, “What the hell were they thinking?” But then I think it through. A game like San Andreas contains millions of lines of code and hundreds of thousands of man-hours. The content in the game that caused this whole mess in inaccessible through normal means. It’s stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor, to bust a cliche. But a cliche that represents an excellent metaphor.

When it comes to film, material cut from theatrical release but available on DVD is referred to as “bonus material.” The rule is also that when you buy a DVD with bonus material, you’ll often find text written on the back of the case, somewhere near the bottom, that says, “bonus material not rated.”

And you know what? Wal-Mart sells that DVD.

Of course, we’re not talking about X-rated or even NC-17 films. Wal-Mart doesn’t carry them. But there is a significant jump from R to NC-17 (or at least in theory). The jump from M to AO is, apparently, three words. Please examine the lengths to which the MPAA goes to explain its rating system, and then examine the lengths (or lack thereof) to which the ESRB goes to explain its own system.

It seems that for a game to warrant an AO rating rather than M, it must feature one or more of the following: prolonged intense violence, rather than (brief?) intense violence; graphic sexual content, rather than (nongraphic?) sexual content; or nudity. I find it interesting that nudity is one of the taboo items, because nudity certainly does not warrant an automatic NC-17 in film, and actually doesn’t even warrant an R; Please see PG-13 rated film Titanic. Also, please see M rated game God of War, which featured full-frontal female nudity, and a nongraphic (but easily accessible) sexual mini-game.

So with the revised rating of San Andreas, the ESRB is telling us that minus the sexual mini-game, San Andreas contains intense violence, but not prolonged intense violence? An average player can expect to spend 20 to 40 hours playing San Andreas. Missions involve sniping, drive-by shooting, setting explosives … and these do not make for prolonged intense violence?

The distinction between the M rating and the AO rating is neither large nor distinct. If it’s small and hazy, we really have to wonder if there is any distinction at all. The fact is, the point of AO is not to protect children from those horrible, ultra-violent, ultra-sexual games. The point of AO is so that no matter how offensive an M rated game seems, you can always say, it could have been worse. It’s not the worst possible thing out there. AO protects everyone — developers, publishers, retailers (Wal-Mart), and consumers (parents). No matter how bad a game is, retailers can say, “Well, at least we don’t sell AO games to young, impressionable children,” and parents can say, “I made sure that little Jimmy never played any of those nasty AO games.”

It would almost seem that the ESRB caved under political pressure. Who wouldn’t? Does deceiving consumers, retailers, and the ESRB — intentionally or unintentionally — warrant a slap on the wrist? Absolutely. Does a sexual mini-game (that features no nudity!) warrant the AO rating? Absolutely not. But the publicity surrounding this story got out of control and the ESRB had to take some concrete action. Something that would make a good headline.

This is a setback because it makes game developers and publishers look bad. It doesn’t help the ESRB, but revising the rating is the only way to save face. It’s a wake-up call because developers from now on must consider all code in the shipping version of a game, whether it is executed during normal use or not. It’s a wake-up call to the ESRB because you know someone (Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer) will be looking at video game ratings with enlivened eyes. It’s a wake-up call to everyone else because we’ve got to understand that video games are not movies, the same ratings do not apply and the same rules do not apply. It is not as simple as playing the game before allowing your children to play the game, but it is certainly not as simple as looking at the big letter on the front of the box, either. Reactionaries claim that parents should not rely on ratings to do their job for them, but let’s be realistic. It might take a person a month or a year to complete a game. Ratings are necessary. It is the responsibility of the ESRB to ensure that its ratings are realistic and reasonable, and it is the responsibility of developers and publishers to ensure that those ratings are based on a product in its entirety.

E3 wrapped up a few days ago, and I thought I’d give my post-show thoughts. The general consensus on Gamespot and IGN is that this was a disappointing year for E3, in no small part because so much info on the new consoles was released before the show itself. In particular, photos of the Xbox 360 have been leaking out for weeks or even months.

In a three-horse race, it’s hard to use the plural forms of winners and losers, so I will instead rank the console companies from 1 to 3.

In the number one slot I go with Microsoft and the Xbox 360. Sure, I might be biased because the Xbox is my current console of choice, but I give it to MS for a couple reasons. First, all the pre-pre-E3 hype was on the Xbox 360. The aforementioned leaked photos got fanboys and websites foaming at the mouth for one system only. Microsoft looks to have fully rectified the errors it made in its first stab at a video game console — the 360 is much smaller, it stands vertically, and it will play DVDs out of the box. It will also be backwards compatible (I expect that the 360 will play 95% or more of the original’s titles) — this is a feature that may not help much, but it won’t hurt at all, and any positive with no tradeoff is a plus.

Aditionally, the Xbox 360 hype machine will not cool down — ever. We are officially in the pre-launch window. There are no more holiday seasons between now and when the 360 comes out. If Sony really didn’t care about Microsoft’s head start, it would schedule its system for Q4 2006, not Q2. And it seems the the game sites are missing this — the number one reason anyone can figure out that Sony won this cycle of the console wars is because of its big head start. The secondary reason is third party support, which ties in a lot with the Japanese market. Microsoft has addressed every reason that the PS2 beat the Xbox.

Second place I give to Sony and the Playstation 3. It is seemingly a behemoth of power. A cell processor with nine (I think) cores. Two HDTV outputs. Slots for Memory Stick Duo, SD, Compact Flash. Blu-Ray DVD compatible. Two Nvidia 3D accelerators. Six USB 2.0 ports. Gigabit ethernet (with router capabilities?). Wi-fi 802.11 b/g. Bluetooth. It’s also pretty stylish, with the slot-load DVD as opposed to tray, which the 360 sports.

But with all this power comes a price. Now the reality of any — any — generation of video game console is that the manufacturer (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, whoever) sells the system at a loss. What this means is that when Sony first retailed the PS2 for $300, Sony probably paid in the neighborhood of $500 in parts to build each console. If I remember correctly, there were rumors that the Xbox cost Microsoft $600 to turn around and sell for $300. So: The PS3’s price tag. A recent Japanese article revealed that the system will sell less than the yen equivalent of $500. As we all know from years of commercials, “less than $100″ can often mean $99.99, and I have a feeling that “less than $500″ will mean $499.99.

Five hundred dollars is unreasonable. Sure, many in the same target crowd are willing to drop $400 on an iPod, but Apple sells the iPod as a luxury item and video game console success is all about market penetration and actual systems in actual homes. A lower price would increase sales, but Sony threw so much stuff into this system that I can’t believe it can afford to go much lower than $500. They might squeeze it to $400, but that’s still going to be 100 more than the Xbox, which I would be shocked to see sell for a dollar more than 300. Further, if Sony somehow manages to retail this system for $300, I would not be at all surprised to see Microsoft drop the price of the Xbox twenty dollars immediately, or perhaps drop it fifty dollars for the holiday 2006 season.

If Sony does sell the PS3 for $500, it will be a display of Sega Saturn-era arrogance.

Finally, I give Nintendo’s Revolution the number three spot, which in terms winners and losers makes it the biggest loser. Nintendo showed no games, and no controller. I expected that Nintendo would release its new system within a month of the PS3, figuring that anything later would be suicide. Nintendo has proven to me that, eh, maybe it doesn’t care, because the system will not be playable until E3 2006, meaning that the earliest it would release is Summer 2006. I won’t be surprised if Nintendo retails the new system at $200, just like the Gamecube did at its launch. The one up I have to give to Nintendo is the fact that the Revolution not only sports a slot-load DVD reader, but the slot itself is illuminated with blue LED light, which makes that one feature even more attractive than the PS3’s. The rest of the system, however, looks entirely featureless.

Nintendo has preached innovation since it introduced the analog thumbstick on the Nintendo 64’s controller. With the Gamecube, Nintendo finally (finally) moved into the optical disc market, but didn’t introduce any new technology. Apparently the Revolution’s name will reflect a big change with the controller. Some have predicted a Nintendo DS-style touch screen. There is also the possibility of a gyroscopic controller that would translate hand movement into on-screen movement, predicted because Nintendo signed a deal with gyroscopic mouse maker Gyration. In this generation, Nintendo’s console will finally (finally) offer DVD movie playback, but not without some kind of additional accessory.

It’s like the world says, “Hi Nintendo, I want steak,” and Nintendo says, “No, you want cotton candy.” Nintendo shows arrogance like Sega back in the day and like Sony now, but it’s more of an ambivalent, “I don’t care if you buy me” arrogance, rather than a “you will buy me” arrogance.

So that’s my E3 Wrap-Up. Yes, I’m biased because the Xbox is my favorite current system. But I also own a PS2. I plan on buying an Xbox 360, and I planned on buying a PS3, but after seeing everything Sony put in there and reading about the Japanese pricing, I have a bad feeling. Nintendo continues to leave me uninterested. So that’s it. Let me know what you think by clicking on the comments link below.

Two questions. Why is the controller so weird? And — What’s with the Spider-Man (movie) font?

[UPDATE] Sony gave it a slot-loading DVD tray. I see this as the key feature that will out-cool the Xbox 360. Sony will also pack it with a bunch of slots for Memory Stick Duo, SD media, and CompactFlash.

Here’s the feature that I’m stuck thinking about. It will feature HDTV outputs for two devices. In January, I got a widescreen TV that supports HDTV. I am not going to get a second HDTV anytime soon. However, I still have a 13 inch TV. I still have my old 15 inch monitor. If I could hook one of these up to the PS3 as the second display, I’d almost certainly do it. But I’ve got to think that a setup like that would start to make my room, apartment, house, whatever look like the workstation in the Matrix. Some people might not want two TVs set up. Some people might not have that second TV. Some people might not have room for a second TV. The Xbox sold poorly in Japan. Why? Because it’s so big, and from what I understand homes in Japan are packed pretty tightly.

Now let’s extend this. If the entire Japanese market ignores this two-screen functionality, developers will ignore it. If the whole rest of the world just doesn’t pick up on this, developers will ignore it.

Let’s look at this in a wider perspective. Sony included all these media slots. Two HDTV outputs. Superpowerful processor. Built-in Wi-Fi. Slot-loading tray. What am I getting at? Cost. How much is this thing going to cost at retail? $300? $350? $400?

Looking at the Xbox 360, I’m almost certain that Microsoft will sell that sucker for $300. MS made a change from the first Xbox in that they where Nvidia owned the video processor and Intel owned the CPU, Microsoft owns everything in the 360. This means when Microsoft drops the price of the 360 two or three years from now, they will have no locked-in price with a supplier to cut into margins as they did this time around. Sony? The PS3 uses an Nvidia video processor (or two).

I have this sinking feeling that Sony is going to charge $400 for the PS3 and that it will never be able to drop the price below $200. Microsoft won’t drop the 360’s price to coincide with the PS3’s release (that’s what Halo 3 is for) — but it could drop the price, say twenty bucks for Christmas 2006. This could kill Sony. Look out for it.