Sunday Supplement – 27th November

Comic courtesy of Fat Gamers.

Housekeeping

First, some housekeeping. I don’t have it in for Microsoft, as regular readers of this column might have assumed. I’m the first to admit that recently the Sunday Supplement has bashed Mr Gates’ little company. Sharper eyes might have noticed one recurring theme – 360 shortages. At the end of the day, I can’t see any justification for them.

And the US launch of the 360 on Monday night confirmed what most commentators had predicted – not everyone who wanted a 360 could get one. Various snippets of evidence pointed towards a rushed launch. People who had queued for hours started fighting. A minority of customers reported faults – I stress minority, and not a glut like you may have read about – and the launch games, including bright hope Perfect Dark Zero, lack the killer-app spark that the Xbox had in Halo. Disappointing, you might say. The more experienced among us would offer par for the course.

Feedback for the 360 has, in general, been positive. Of course, with the help of the Internet, an aggrieved minority have been given a disproportionately loud voice. What must be remembered is how ambitious a launch this is: First the US, ten days later Europe and then Japan. The scale is extraordinary, but there are some key questions that remain unanswered:

1. Are the shortages genuine or manufactured? For their part, Microsoft

insist they are doing all they can to get 360s to the masses. But it remains a puzzling, and intriguing, conundrum.

2. Why are there shortages in the first place? Throughout the whole 360 saga, no-one has even come close to answering this question. It can’t be a money issue – Microsoft has plenty of that. Could it be logistics? Manufacturing issues? Distribution? If gamers, many of whom will have stood in the cold for hours on end only to be turned away by hapless retail staff, were offered an explanation for their hardship, it might be easier to take. Come on Mr Gates. Let us in on the secret.

3. Has anything been rushed? Of course Microsoft will never admit any product of theirs has been rushed, but some of the first-hand accounts that have cropped up on the Internet since Tuesday suggest a rush job. Crashes on a small number of 360s suggest a poor batch and most gamers would admit that PDZ would be a lot better if it had enjoyed another few months of development. Have Microsoft dumped quality for that coveted “first mover advantage”?

Despite these peculiarities, I’m very much a fan of the 360, and can’t wait to get my hands on the futuristic next-generation wonder box. The continuing expansion of Xbox Live, downloadable indie games and the thought of Halo 3 are very exciting. But if my 360 crashes, I’m not going to be happy. If my PDZ feels like a half arsed effort, I’m not going to be happy. Worst of all, if I queue for five hours in the freezing cold outside GAME in Oxford Circus and get turned away, even though I’ve pre-ordered one and have been told I’ll get one, I’m going to be furious. This, dear readers, is my only problem with Mr Gates’ little company. That aside, sterling work chaps.

Jack Thompson V. 2.0

I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I saw this one. Reports from the Chinese media said the parents of a 13-year-old Chinese gamer who killed himself re-enacting a scene from massively popular MMO World of Warcraft were suing Blizzard. Turns out anti-Internet addiction advocate Zhang Chunliang may have made up the World of Warcraft bit in a shameful act of media manipulation. Remind you of anyone?

The game the poor boy played was in fact classic RTS Warcraft 3, not the MMO WoW.

WoW wasn’t even released in China at the time of the tragic incident. The case doesn’t really make sense unless the offending game is WoW, which has been in the spotlight recently because of concerns over the addictive qualities of MMOs.

Just as our favourite lawyer Mr Thompson is having his hand slapped by his own profession, a potential successor is showing glimpses of the hysterical scaremongering and media manipulation that we’ve seen too many times before. In China, which is at a crucial crossroads in terms of game regulation and censorship after a number of high profile Internet addiction cases, the last thing you need is Mr Chunliang telling porkies to grab some headlines. Blizzard will certainly be watching him closely over the coming months, as will we.

I’m in the wrong job

This week the world’s most famous gamer, Jonathan Wendel, aka Fatal1ty, won the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour Grand Final in New York, and a cool £87,000 to boot. He pipped arch rival Sander Kaasjager, aka Voo, to the top spot. The win brings Fatal1ty’s earnings from the tour in 2005 to £134,654. Not bad eh?

Professional gaming has always been a funny phenomenon. You have to be in the top five in the world to even have a realistic chance of making a living out of it. As Fatal1ty and Voo – who funnily enough won more money than his American rival this year – have shown, the financial rewards are very generous indeed. But let’s face it – top five gamers in the world? No chance for 99.999% of us.

As a career option, it’s redundant. But expect that to change, slowly but surely, over the next decade. Fatal1ty’s earnings and celebrity would have been impossible a decade ago, so we’ve already come a long way. Gradually, as gaming kicks and screams its way into the mainstream, the top fifty will earn a living, then the top 100, then the top 200, and so on and so forth, until gaming becomes as viable a career option as tennis or football.

Or will it? The financial reward of any sport is intrinsically tied to its spectator value. Can it be sold as a compelling and exciting way to spend a couple of hours in a sweat-filled conference hall, or over a few beers down the pub on a Sunday afternoon? Is gaming compelling to watch? And by that I mean, would you watch people play a game you’ve never played before? I’ve seen this problem first hand. I’ve run gaming tournaments and had to pick games that’ll look great on big screens. Games like Halo, Burnout and Pro Evolution Soccer are great to watch, but I find myself wondering if they’re great to watch because I understand what’s going on and can recognise and admire skill, or because they are, simply, great to watch?

Football matches are a good comparison. Are football matches great to watch if you don’t understand, or even like football? Probably not. Do millions of people that like it follow it every week with a passion? Yes. So maybe there’s hope for gaming. For a glimpse of the future, check South Korea, where games of RTS Starcraft are broadcast on national television and professional gamers are mobbed by adoring fans wherever they go. Certainly, professional gaming as a spectator sport is at a much more advanced stage in the US and South Korea than the UK, but things are changing. Watch this space.

This week on Pro-G

Just in case you missed anything, here’s a list of all the articles new to the site this week.

Reviews

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS)

The Matrix: Path of Neo (PS2, Xbox)

Civilization IV (PC)

The Sims 2 (PS2, Xbox and GameCube)

Shadow the Hedgehog (PS2, Xbox and GameCube)

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (PS2)

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP)

Previews

Top Spin 2 (Xbox 360)

Amped 3 (Xbox 360)

This week’s new releases

This week saw the release of two potential Christmas Number ones. The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe is favourite to take the Christmas No.1, but Need For Speed: Most Wanted will also be a contender, with the game appearing on two more platforms than Narnia. Need For Speed Underground 2 was last year’s Christmas No.1 and EA should have another big hit on their hands.

The PSP and DS each had a huge release this week, with the PSP finally getting a version of Pro Evolution Soccer 5 and Mario Kart DS hitting the DS. If you really want to take PES on the move you shouldn’t be too disappointed by this PSP version, but everyone else might turn their noses up at paying full price for a game that they may already own on PC or home console. Mario Kart DS on the other hand seems to be a must have for DS owners. We’re not quite as blown away by it as many other publications, but its online play and plethora of tracks make it a great package.

Couple of stinkers this week, though, with 50 Cent: Bulletproof and True Crime: New York City doing their best to bring shame to the industry. I can only hope that neither makes a big impact on next week’s chart, but I fear that might be a little optimistic. The sad truth is that the embarrassing True Crime ad that’s getting a lot of air time on TV at the moment will probably help it sell thousands of copies. I hope I’m proven wrong.

• 50 Cent: Bulletproof (PS2 and Xbox)
• Battlefield 2: Special Forces (Expansion Pack) (PC)
• Crash Tag Team Racing (PSP)
• The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe (PS2, Xbox, Cube, PC, DS, GBA)
• Gunstar Future Heroes (GBA)
• Mario Kart DS (DS)
• Need For Speed: Most Wanted (PS2, Xbox, Cube, PC, DS, PSP and GBA)
• Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (PSP)
• True Crime: New York City (PS2, Xbox and Cube)

Next week on Pro-G

Before the Xbox 360 arrives in Europe we’ll be taking a look at From Russia With Love, The Suffering Ties That Bind, Sonic Rush, Half-Life 2 on Xbox and more on current-gen systems. If you’re lucky, we’ll review some 360 games at the end of the week too.