ps3 | Gaming, Technology, and Whatever

What Can Sony do to Win You Back?

Apr 282011

Assuming you’ve jumped off the Sony bandwagon given everything that’s happened and how it was handled, what would it take to get you back on board? Sony says it will evaluate compensation options after they get PSN back online, so now is a great time to give them some suggestions. When Xbox Live went down for a couple days around the holiday season 2 years ago, Microsoft gave everyone a forgettable XBLA game. Of course, the PSN downtime and the fallout from that is much more catastrophic.

In discussing the issue with various friends, family and colleagues, the question came up, what would it take to turn this negative into a positive? Obviously, the answer would be different for everyone, with some people actually defending Sony to the bitter end. I’d call those people foolish, but to each their own. Anyway, let’s take a look at some ideas Sony could use to “win back” and even earn some loyal customers.

From what I understand, some US states actually require companies to pay for a year (or even two?) of credit monitoring when personal data is stolen. So an easy one would be to provide this service for all of their customers. This should be a no brainer. ArsTechnica has already posted some reports of credit card fraud that could be linked to the Sony breach, but in actuality, there is no way to verify those claims. Whether it’s true or not, expect to see more stories like that for months and years to come. At least Sony offering monitoring services will help quell customer complaints and provide an nice PR image boost for them, as a gesture of showing they care. That last bit is important, since the general perception, valid or not, is that Sony does not care, as implied by their poor communication and perceived tone taken in their updates.

Other options that people will look for is some sort of financial compensation and/or free content. Giving users free PSN games, or even going as far as giving everyone a free year of Playstation Plus should be fairly easy for Sony to do, would quiet most of their customer base and allow many to quickly forget this whole unpleasant experience. Current Playstation Plus or Qriocity subscribers should most definitely get some sort of partial refund, no question.

While the options I’ve listed so far are nice, when you boil them down, they are just PR stunts to help boost a tarnished image. The one area I feel that Sony could really make a difference and go a long way into (re)building a loyal fan-base is to take this experience and use it to become a champion for customer privacy and security. They would do their customers a great service by taking the lead in providing customers greater control over their own data. Let customers delete and permanently purge their accounts from Sony’s system, if they choose to do so. Let customers permanently delete their stored credit card data from PSN. Lead the industry in system security and privacy by having users opt-in to data gathering services that are currently in place. Ditch the arcane and purposely confusing EULAs and provide clear language agreements. By becoming a dominate player in consumer rights, they can start to build a reputation of a company people can trust, and gain customers who will fiercely loyal.

While I’m on my soap box, since they are rebuilding PSN from the ground up, fix the painfully slow PS3 update process that is way too frequent and often provides no new features. Don’t forget that the past few months we saw numerous firmware updates all to bolster the security of the PS3 & PSN in their seemingly pointless war with hackers. In the end, it was their customers who got caught in the crossfire, not to mention the inconvenience of loading 30 minute updates on their consoles before they can even start to use it.

Is this all pie-in-the-sky over optimism? Probably. But that’s how I’d answer the question. Sony would win me back and keep me as a customer if they proved they were serious about security and privacy, let users control their own data, and throw a few freebies our way for good measure. What other ideas do you have that Sony could do to make things right?

Sony Admits Your Personal Data Was Stolen

Console Gaming 4 Responses »

Apr 262011

So, I totally acknowledge that we’ve done nothing but Sony/PSN stories for close to a week now, but this unfolding saga has been dominating the news. I figure one more post on the subject was important, more from a public service announcement standpoint.

Sony finally admitted that during a security breach last week, an outside source gained access to all PSN usernames, passwords, email address, mailing addresses, phone numbers, birthdays and most likely, credit card data. That’s pretty much the worst case scenario picture I painted last week. We already know that Sony has handled this crisis totally wrong, as detailed here, which is further exacerbated by waiting a whole week to notify their customers that all their personal data had been exposed. On their blog post, they even go as far to recommend users continually check their credit reports and provide info on how to do that.

At this point, the footnote to the story is that PSN will be up in about a week. The real story is that this was a complete and total failure by Sony. A few recommendations: If your PSN username/email and password combo is used on other sites (i.e. you’re one of the many who reuse the same password with different sites) now is a good time to change passwords to at least some of your most critical sites like email accounts, banking accounts and anything else that is super-sensitive. Using a browser plugin and mobile app like LastPass is great for managing passwords and generating unique passwords for each site. It is less convenient to have different passwords for all your sites and services, but Sony has taught us a valuable lesson: your data is not safe with anyone. Also, it should go without saying that you should closely monitor your accounts for any anomalous activity. Plus, now’s not a bad time to start looking in to enabling two factor authentication on sites like Google and Facebook — something that’s automatically enabled on Steam now.

To wrap up my words on the Sony issue, I wonder where it leaves consumer support on current and future Sony products. While security breaches can happen anywhere and at anytime, Sony’s complete mishandling of this major incident will be hard to forget. Do I want to reward a company by continuing to purchase their products and services who not only lost my data, but at first lied, then delayed telling me about it? Not really. That doesn’t mean I’m throwing out my PS3. That won’t accomplish anything. Sony already has my money and the data is long gone, but it will be hard to support that or future Sony platforms going forward. How about you? Has Sony made your “must avoid” list as a consumer or has this debacle left you unfazed?

Sony Through the Looking-Glass

Console Gaming, Gaming 4 Responses »

Apr 262011

I want to follow up on yesterday’s post with a question: What would the past week have looked like if Sony actually understood the current research into effective, real-world crisis management? How could Sony have handled this situation if they’d wanted to, you know, do a good job?

Let’s see how things might have turned out differently.

Rewind

Within an hour of the outage, Sony posts an official statement on its PSN blog and Twitter feed – maybe something like, “PSN is currently down. We hate downtime, and we’re working as hard as we can to get things running again. A lot of new games came out this week, including PS3-exclusive SOCOM 4 and Valve’s Portal 2, which has exclusive multiplayer with PC and Mac gamers. We want you to be able to get back to your games, movies, and other entertainment as quickly as possible!”

Regular Twitter updates are posted every few hours throughout Thursday, reinforcing the message that Sony network engineers are working around the clock. Each update is another opportunity to acknowledge additional, specific customer frustrations, like the lack of Netflix availability in the US. This focus on Twitter updates also affords Sony PR staff the time to begin networking with gaming journalism sites, so that the company’s viewpoint will be fully represented in blog posts and news stories going forward.

By the end of Thursday, Sony realizes that the situation is more complex than originally hoped. A more detailed statement is needed: “Our engineers are still working on restoring PSN, and they think this might take an additional day or two. They’re doing the best they can, but we’re frustrated by this delay because we know it has a big impact on all of our customers. We know you’re waiting on us so you can play games like SOCOM 4 online, or participate in the beta program for upcoming PS3 exclusive Infamous 2. You want to access your music through Qriocity or your HD video streaming through Netflix. We know this is frustrating for a lot of our 70 million customers worldwide, and we’ll keep working around the clock to restore all of the services you rely on.”

At this point, company PR staff arrange for journalists to interview Sony execs and team leaders. All spokespeople follow the same message playbook, while still contributing unique perspectives from their individual roles. For example, a lead network engineer is available for interviews alongside a top company executive. This shows the world that Sony is addressing this challenge at all levels, and that everyone inside the company recognizes the negative impact on customers.

This is also the right time for the company to contact all of its PSN users by email, with a more formal version of their Thursday night message. The important thing is for Sony to broadcast its message via all available outlets, including direct contact with customers. The latter medium will be especially vital once Sony recognizes that private data – including credit card numbers – may have been compromised for tens of millions of customers worldwide.

Because Sony responded to the outage immediately, accurately, and consistently, they’ve built credibility for their continued handling of the situation. They’ve showcased their concern for customers, and they’ve cultivated relationships with journalists to ensure that the unfolding story will centrally feature Sony’s perspective. Sony has a strong foundation for its evolving response to the crisis.

Reality check

I could go on, but it’s pretty tiring to see the vast gulf between efficient, effective handling of this situation and Sony’s actual response.

My point is that this stuff isn’t rocket surgery. Sure, it might help to have a little bit of management training and experience, but Sony is one of the largest multinationals on Earth. It’s crazy to think they don’t have the resources or know-how to do this right.

It’s also crazy to think they weren’t prepared for this outage before it even happened. I don’t just mean on the technical side, tho that’s obviously a fair point. I mean that Sony should have had a detailed crisis management plan in place, ready to execute at the proverbial press of a button. Crises are a common fact of global business, and Sony’s approach has been bush-league.

Especially now that customer privacy may be at stake, this situation perfectly illustrates one of the basic rules of crisis management: respond early and often. Customers and journalists decide within hours whether the crisis is your fault and whether you’re acting in the public interest. Once the story gets written without you, good luck getting your spokespeople any significant airtime until the lawsuits hit.

Oh, and failing to plan might just be planning to fail, epicly.

What is Sony doing?

Console Gaming, Gaming 4 Responses »

Apr 252011

More to the point, actually, might be the question: What is Sony not doing? One no-brainer answer is “effective crisis management”.

It might seem a little over-entitled for a bunch of relatively affluent gamers to whine about being locked out of one online network for a few days. From Sony’s perspective, tho, this is a massive crisis – one of the biggest hits to their brand in a decade or more. The PS3 has long struggled in the marketplace, especially in the US, and Microsoft seems to have lost little time in capitalizing on Sony’s most recent problem. Destructoid reports that a Microsoft spokesperson commented, “Of course it’s regretful that Sony is encountering issues at such a busy time, and Microsoft takes no joy in the problems gamers are having playing their favourite games online…. That being said, we are expecting Microsoft’s robust online network to see an increase of traffic from those gamers who own both systems.” (To be fair, sourcing on the original article at Electronic Theatre is a little sketchy. Even if the quotation turns out be to a hoax or a mistake, tho, there are at least a few dozen leaders in Microsoft’s XBox division who desperately want to say something like that. And if they haven’t already, they will.)

What have we seen from Sony? Very little communication at all – when they weren’t actually lying to us. (Don’t forget that they originally claimed the outage was due to “maintenance”.)

Dispatches from Sonyland

To appreciate the extent of this crisis for Sony, keep in mind their motto for the PS3: “It Only Does Everything”. Sony wants you to see the PS3 not as a gaming machine, but as a media server and digital entertainment hub. They want the PS3 to be your platform for hard-copy games and Blu-Ray video, but also your platform for digitally-delivered games, music, TV, and movies. They want you to access all of this digital stuff through Sony services like Qriocity, as well as through third-party services like Netflix (which, as Sony was happy to note, offered HD streaming to the PS3 before the XBox 360). Funk did a great job of covering all of that yesterday.

What do these digital services have in common? They’re almost entirely dependent on PSN. (Sure, some people have had success with Netflix after allowing the program’s login screen to repeatedly timeout, but this isn’t a universal fix. It’s also not a reasonable fix for any mass-market rollout.) The potential damage to Sony’s brand is nicely summed up in today’s Penny Arcade strip.

On top of all that, it’s important to recognize other impacts this might have – on customer data and security, not just on entertainment. Sony has now admitted that PSN was brought down by an “intrusion”, but they still won’t confirm whether PSN customers’ private data is secure. I’m one of millions of people who have given Sony my credit card information in order to purchase content over PSN, and Sony’s current word is basically “Your data may or may not be secure – we really don’t know. But hey, we’ll tell you as soon as we find anything out.”

Crisis management and Sony

Instead of rehearsing the crazy things that have come out of Sony’s various, not-always-identifiably-human PR mouthpieces, I want to focus on what they might have done instead. Let’s take a quick look at effective crisis communications, based on the work of Timothy Coombs, one of the current leaders in academic research into this area.

According to the work of Coombs and others in the field of crisis communication, there are some clear commonalities in effective crisis management. The Institute for Public Relations publishes a freely-available whitepaper/summary by Coombs, focusing on the current (ca. 2007) research in the field. Based on his own research and that of others, Coombs identifies the following traits of effective crisis communication:

Be quick and try to have initial response within the first hour.
Be accurate by carefully checking all facts.
Be consistent by keeping spokespeople informed of crisis events and key message points.
Make public safety the number one priority.
Use all of the available communication channels including the Internet, Intranet, and mass notification systems.
Provide some expression of concern/sympathy for victims.
Remember to include employees in the initial response.
Be ready to provide stress and trauma counseling to victims….

The field of crisis communication/management looks at a broad range of challenges – from issues like the PSN outage, to last year’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of Coombs’ points don’t apply directly to the current situation with Sony, obviously. For example, my girlfriend and I probably won’t need trauma counseling because we haven’t been able to watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer via Netflix. But keep in mind what that list represents. It’s not a prescriptive list of tactics that egghead professors think companies should use. Instead, it’s a set of approaches that have shown real-world effectiveness. That list is based on research into hundreds of real-world crisis situations, looking at what worked and what didn’t.

Where does Sony fit into this? Well, you tell me. As far as I can see, they’ve failed on every single applicable category. Maybe they’ve come closest to expressing sympathy (“Provide some expression of concern/sympathy for victims”), but even those statements have sounded pretty insincere to me; Sony spokespeople have only spoken generically about gamers’ “frustration”, rather than acknowledging any specific problems caused by this outage. Overall, Sony’s record over the past six days has been unambiguously dismal. They responded late, they lied early, spokespeople have been inaccurate and inconsistent, the company buried updates in a Twitter feed or a PSN blog, and they just don’t seem to understand the magnitude of their problem – nor its effect on all of Sony’s customers.

Or, as Tycho over at PA wrote,

[Sony] have a serious problem here, and as serious as their technology problem might be, it’s not the biggest one they have. Their problem is that they don’t know how to communicate about anything but their legendary prowess. … They need to find a human being, or hire one, and start an actual dialogue with users.

They need to do this last Friday.

PSN Down for 4 Days and Counting, Sony Blames Hackers

Console Gaming 8 Responses »

Apr 232011

So it’s all over the internet about how the Playstation Network has been down for 4 days with no indication as to when it will come back online. Some may not express much concern about it, by just dismissing it as some whiny gamers not being able to play online, and state the fact that PSN is free compared to Xbox Live…what’s the big deal?

It’s actually a fairly large deal, if you look at the whole picture. No PSN has lots of ramifications. Let’s start with the easy ones. No PSN means that the heavily-used-by-many Netflix app is completely useless. The MLB.TV app, much like Netflix, refuses to work unless you are signed into PSN. Other services like the oddly named Qriocity music service is unusable, not to mention a fair amount of games that require a PSN sign-in just to play single player or local co-op. If you bought into Sony’s marketing tag lines that the PS3 just does everything, you are probably shocked and dismayed to learn that without PSN, the PS3 doesn’t do much of anything. One could make an argument that being locked out of these subscription services could warrant some sort of compensation for lost time — and definitely would seem appropriate at least for Playstation Plus subscribers.

But what about other, less obvious problems this has caused? Consider the developers who released games on the Playstation Store this week. Developers and publishers usually pick specific release-date windows and rely heavily on first-week sales for revenue. It’s hard not to imagine it negatively affecting sales dollars for these games like Telltale’s Puzzle Agent, or Fancy Pants Adventures, made by an indie developer and published by EA. Then there’s free Easter weekend promo Q-Games’ had planned to celebrate a big update to Pixel Junk Shooter 2 that had to be canceled. Also don’t forget Valve’s PSN to Steam integration for Portal 2, the new Mortal Kombat and the PS3 exclusive new SOCOM, all released this week. Will Sony be compensating these developers?

While Sony has vaguely placed blame on hackers in their latest update, the amount of communication has been stunningly sparse. Many people do understand that problems happen, but being kept in the dark about the issues and no rough estimate of service restoration is not good PR. With this outage beginning to reach epic proportions and the apparent nonchalant attitude in what few updates Sony has given on the issue will lose good faith with end users and developers. And then there is the unknown. If PSN has been fatally breached, what type of information has been exposed to these nefarious hackers? Credit card data, names, addresses, usernames, passwords and emails could all be potential targets. Of course this is all worse case scenario, and I hate to start fear-mongering, but things like that are very real possibilities, especially when an outage lasts this long. However, at this point, can we really trust what Sony says? First they started off by saying it was maintenance. Then they changed that and said they were investigating it, which later became an “an external intrusion.” Would Sony admit their own internal maintenance went wrong and ended up in days and days of downtime? They’d have a lot to answer to from customers, developers and content providers if it was their fault. Even if it was nebulous internet hackers, I’m startled that a billion dollar international company who supposedly specializes in internet entertainment delivery cannot recovery in less than 4+ days from a breach.

For Sony to save face, they’ll need to have a lengthy description of what went wrong, what data, if any, was compromised, and what they’re doing to prevent it from happening again. Also, I think they’ll need to offer their customers something of a peace offering. Maybe it’s not direct financial compensation, but something along the lines of free content that Microsoft offered when Xbox Live went down for just over a day a few years back. Something to help restore faith in all parties involved in the PS3 platform.

PSN Down for a “Day or Two”

Console Gaming 5 Responses »

Apr 222011

Ah, Sony. As if annoying us with frequent, slow as molasses updates that provide no additional functionality wasn’t enough, they give us vague explanations as to why PSN has been down, and nonchalantly tell us that it’ll be down another “day or two.” Yeah, you read that right. The “hacker group” Anonymous claims they played no part in this recent outage, and had previously vowed not to attack any Sony services that would effect end users, so something else is going on over at Sony HQ. Good thing there wasn’t any new releases this week that Playstation users would want to play, except for Portal 2, the new SOCOM and the new Mortal Kombat.

While we are investigating the cause of the Network outage, we wanted to alert you that it may be a full day or two before we’re able to get the service completely back up and running. Thank you very much for your patience while we work to resolve this matter. Please stay tuned to this space for more details, and we’ll update you again as soon as we can.

Source: Playstation Blog

Portal 2, PS3 and You

Console Gaming, PC Gaming 3 Responses »

Apr 132011

Next week, 4/19, to be exact, marks the release of Portal 2. Valve has already unlocked Steam pre-loading for the game if you pre-ordered directly from there. If you were one of the many who held out for the PS3 version, which also includes access to the PC and Mac versions, you may have wondered how exactly that whole process would work and how Steam would interact on the PS3. Maybe you have no intentions on playing it on the console, and were just a savvy shopper who figured that Amazon’s $20 credit on the PS3 version actually turns out to be less than the PC version. Hint: [amazon_link id=”B003O6E3C8″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]that deal is still available here[/amazon_link].

What’s interesting is that they are bringing pretty much the full Steam overlay to the PS3 (you press the “select” button in-game to access it). When you link your PSN to your Steam ID in game, you’ll also be able to see and chat with all your Steam friends. While it’s great to see Steam branch out, I can’t help thinking that it’s a bit odd to have an additional, duplicate functionality layer on top of PSN. So now you’ll have your PSN friends and separately your Steam friends. You’ll have Steam achievements and PSN trophies, which, if you’re playing on the PS3, will unlock both sets of “cheevos” simultaneously. Playing on the PC or Mac, however, does not unlock any PS3 trophies. Cheevo whores take note.

If you did buy the PS3 version only for the cost savings mentioned above, and could care less about the PSN interaction, you’ll be happy to know that each PS3 copy includes a one-time use code which you can activate on Steam. Valve does indicate you will have to link your PS3 account to your Steam ID before you do that — so don’t buy the PS3 version if you don’t actually have a PS3. Duh.

Also, the PS3 and PC/Mac interaction doesn’t stop there. The co-op game can be played across those platforms without any issues. The Steam Cloud save game feature is also available on both the PC/Mac and PS3, however save games between platforms are not compatible, so no starting the game on the PS3 and finishing on the PC — each system will have separate saves.

Lastly, those who were looking to do local co-op with one copy of Portal 2 will be disappointed to hear that this is not allowed (unless it’s split-screen on 1 PS3). You’ll need two copies of the game if you had ideas of playing with a local friend on the PC and the other on a PS3 in the same house. Too bad, it would have been nice to see that supported.

I think Steam on the PS3 is an interesting experiment for Valve. It’s fairly obvious that this is the next step towards them trying to make Steam become a de facto standard across multiple platforms. Since it’s clear that Microsoft would never let an additional layer be bolted onto games on the Xbox, the PS3 was the next best thing and allows Valve to showcase their Steamworks package to console publishers as well.

Valve PS3 Steam support page

MLB.TV and its Apps

Miscellaneous, Technology News 1 Response »

Apr 042011

Now that the baseball regular season is finally here, it’s time to take a look at all the ways you can consume as much MLB content as possible!

One great thing about the MLB is they make their content more accessible than any of the other professional sports in the US. Aside from watching directly on the MLB website, they have apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, PS3, Boxee, AppleTV, Roku, and probably your toaster oven. Only one other entertainment company comes to mind as being so widely available, and that’s Netflix. I find it refreshing that the MLB mostly gets it right, and I often find myself wishing the other pro sports would follow their lead. They don’t try to lock a customer into one source for watching or listening to games and reasonably price their content. This is in stark contrast to the NFL, which only provides access to all of their games through DirecTV at insanely high prices — not to mention having an exclusive video game deal which ensures that Madden will be the only NFL video game. Ever. Yes, I’m still bitter about the untimely death of the NFL 2k series.

I have to admit, the MLB At Bat app for iPhone is one of my favorite apps. It was one the first apps I bought when I got my first iDevice, a second gen iPod Touch back in 2008. Through the years it has progressed and added more features. The app costs $15 and offers live game day audio for every game in every market, with both the home and away feeds. While it’s one of the more pricier apps I’ve bought, it’s great even for people who are only fans of one team, in that you can listen to the games anywhere, and provides a live game tracker that shows each pitch and the scoring. You’ll also get the latest news and highlight clips from every game, along with customized push notifications that can alert to game starts, end of game scores and highlights. As an added bonus, for the month of April, you get free access to MLB.TV in the app, which gives you live video of all games, however, the dreaded “blackout restrictions” apply, which means don’t expect to watch your local team on anything other than the actual TV channel that’s airing on. This year has a new feature, called “Live Look-ins” which provides a quick-look of a game where something interesting is going on like a late-inning rally. These live look-ins are blackout free, and are reminiscent of the NFL Red Zone channel. For full gameday video, anything outside your “market” is available. It’s worth noting that video quality is very good, even when viewing over a 3G connection. The app also has “check-in” abilities when you actually go to a game, which can sometimes offer special deals and other incentives.

To go along with the iPhone app is a separate iPad app. When I say the MLB “mostly” gets it right, this is one area that is a bit disappointing. The iPad app is a separate app that also costs $15. It would have been nice to see it as universal app, even if they bumped the price to $20. The features are similar to that of the iPhone version, but with a different layout and accurate replicas of the real stadiums in their “Game Day” game trackers, using assets from Sony’s great MLB The Show game. If you’re a MLB.TV subscriber or a baseball junkie, you’re probably going to want both apps, but if you’re only interested in the game day audio, it’s probably best to stick with just the iPhone version.

I also had a chance to take a look at the free “apps” on Boxee, PS3 and AppleTV. These apps don’t do much aside from showing scores, unless you’re a MLB.TV subscriber. No gameday audio is available in a “lite” or free option. Being this is the first year I’ve subscribed to MLB.TV since I received it as gift subscription, I was excited to check out each option.

The PS3 version is definitely the most feature rich. Not only can you watch the games in HD, but you can rewind live games and zero in on highlights, as the video timeline is identified with markers and short descriptions of key plays like home runs, extra base hits, strikeouts, etc. While the interface is the nicest, I found the video and audio quality a bit problematic on the PS3. It frequently skips and stutters to the point where I didn’t want to use it, despite all the features it has that can’t be found elsewhere. It almost seemed as if the PS3 was struggling to keep up and acted like it was CPU stressed. Hopefully Sony and/or the MLB updates the app soon to fix those issues. Sony has a video tour of their MLB.TV app here — it’s very impressive.

In checking out the AppleTV version, it’s not quite as robust as the PS3 version, but provided me with perfect HD quality, and timeline markers that indicate the start of each half inning, but no highlight markers. A very nice interface and a great way to watch the games, I can see this as my preferable way to watch MLB.TV on the big screen, at least until the PS3 version gets smoothed out. Lastly, I took a look at the Boxee app, which is probably the most stripped down, but provided perfect HD quality and worked well. After all, fancy features aside, watching the game in great quality is the most important aspect.

After opening weekend with an MLB.TV subscription, I’m enjoying it a lot. At a cost of $100 per year, it’s affordable when you compare it to other sport subscription and other entertainment options (i.e. Netflix is about $96 per year for a streaming-only sub). If you’re a fan of a team other than the local team or just enjoy watching games all over the country, then MLB.TV access is a must have. If all you enjoy is watching your local team and could care less about any other teams, consider the iPhone or equivalent smart phone app for the game day audio when you’re not at home and leave it at that. Being a bit of a baseball junkie and now having access to so many other games no matter where I am, I can definitely see myself being a regular MLB.TV subscriber.

PSN Down for a Whopping 11 Hours Today

Console Gaming, Gaming 1 Response »

Mar 092011

The Playstation Network will be down for what seems to be an inordinate amount of time today — 11 hours — for “maintenance.” Sony says the downtime will start at 8:00am Pacific and will come back online at 7:00pm Pacific. During that time, the Playstation Store, online games, friends and messaging will be offline.

Read Sony’s details here.

Any bets the maintenance window running longer than expected? I’ll take the over.

Games on our radar for 2011

Gaming No Responses »

Mar 072011

Here’s an unscientific, fairly lazy list of gaming-related titles that caught our eye for 2011. Inclusion in this list is not a stamp of approval. We’ve listed hotly-anticipated titles right alongside games that we absolutely dread, games whose mere prospect may knot our guts in a clenched ball of searing terror.

We do our best to keep this updated as new games or release dates are announced, but feel free to post any corrections – or suggestions of games that we missed.

2011 hardware!
Nintendo 3DS: 3/27

Confirmed
Released:
Lost in Shadow (Wii): 1/4
Little Big Planet 2 (PS3): 1/18
Dead Space 2 (PC/PS3/60): 1/25
Breach (PC/360): 1/26
Magicka (PC): 1/26
You Don’t Know Jack (PC/PS3/60): 2/8
Dungeons (PC): 2/8
Bulletstorm (PC/PS3/60): 2/22
Killzone 3 (PS3): 2/22
Dragon Age 2 (PC/PS3/60): 3/8
Shogun 2: Total War (PC): 3/15
Yakuza 4 (PS3): 3/15
Homefront (PC/PS3/60): 3/15
Okamiden (DS): 3/15
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (PC): 3/17
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime (PC/360): 3/18
Crysis 2 (PC/PS3/60): 3/22
Battlefield Play4Free (PC): 3/31
Darkspore (PC/PS3/60): 4/1
Hoard (PC/OS X): 4/4
Magicka: Vietnam (PC): 4/15
Sanctum (PC): 4/15
Portal 2 (PC/OS X/PS3/60): 4/19
IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover (PC): 4/19
The Conduit 2 (Wii): 4/19
SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs (PS3): 4/19
Section 8: Prejudice (XBLA): 4/20
Outland (XBLA): 4/25 (and to be released for PSN once service is restored)
Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword (PC): 5/3
Section 8: Prejudice (PC): 5/4
Hydrophobia: Prophecy (PC): 5/9
My The First Templar (PC/360): 5/10
Brink (PC/PS3/60): 5/10
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC): 5/17
Fable 3 (PC): 5/17
L.A. Noire (PS3/60): 5/17
Dirt 3 (PC/PS3/60): 5/24
Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale (PC/PS3/60): 5/24
Hunted: The Demon’s Forge (PC/PS3/60): 5/31
Red Faction: Armageddon (PC/PS3/60): 6/7
Infamous 2 (PS3): 6/7
Operation Flashpoint: Red River (PC): 6/7
American McGee Presents American McGee‘s Alice: American McGee’s Madness American McGee Returns (PC/PS3/60): 6/14
Outland (PSN/XBLA): 6/14
Duke Nukem Forever (PC/PS3/60): 6/14
Dungeon Siege 3 (PC/PS3/60): 6/17
Might and Magic: Heroes VI (PC): 6/21
F.E.A.R. 3 (PC/PS3/60): 6/21
Shadows of the Damned (PS3/60): 6/21
Air Conflicts: Secret Wars (PC): 7/1
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (PS3/60): 7/5
Panzer Corps (PC): 7/11
Bastion (XBLA): 7/20
From Dust (PC/XBLA): 7/27
Limbo (PC): 8/2
Section 8: Prejudice (PSN): 8/2
Bastion (PC): 8/15
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (PS3/60): 8/16

Upcoming:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC/PS3/60): 8/23
Tropico 4 (PC): 8/30
Rock of Ages (PC/XBLA/PSN): 8/31
Dead Island (PC/PS3/60): 9/6
Resistance 3 (PS3): 9/6
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (PC/PS3/60): 9/6
Rage (PC/PS3/60/iPhone/toaster): 9/13
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad (PC): 9/13
Sengoku (PC): 9/13
Saint’s Row 3 (PC/PS3/60): 9/15
Defenders of Ardania (PC): 9/27
Gears of War 3 (360): 9/30
The Darkness 2 (PC/PS3/60): 10/4
Dark Souls (PC3/60): 10/4
The Cursed Crusade (PC/PS3/60): 10/11
Batman: Arkham City (PC/PS3/60): 10/18
Battlefield 3 (PC/PS3/60): 10/25
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (PS3): 11/1
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC/PS3/60): 11/11
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii): 11/20

Unconfirmed dates (roughly in order)
Amy (PSN): September 2011
Hard Reset (PC): September 2011
Trine 2: September 2011
Nuclear Dawn (PC): September 2011
Warp (PC/PSN/XBLA): Q3 2011
Serious Sam 3: BFE (PC/PS3/60): Q3 2011
Sword of the Stars 2 (PC): Q3 2011
Orcs Must Die! (PC/XBLA): Q3 2011
Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC): Fall 2011
Dyad (PSN): Fall 2011
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (PC/PS3/60): November 2011
Need For Speed: The Run (PC/PS3/60): November 2011
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (PC/PS3/60): Winter 2011
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2011
Final Fantasy Tactics (iPhone): TBA 2011
Torchlight 2 (PC): TBA 2011
Dungeon Defenders (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2011 (“First Wave” already out for Android and iOS)
Toy Soldiers (PC; XBLA already out): TBA 2011
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress (PC): TBA 2011
Dear Esther (PC): TBA 2011
The Shadow Sun (iOS): TBA 2011
Tribes: Ascend (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2011
Renegade Ops (PC/PSN/XBLA): TBA 2011
ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection (PS3): TBA 2011
Scivelation (PC): TBA 2011
The Witness (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2011
Jagged Alliance 2: Reloaded (PC): TBA 2011
Lego Star Wars III: ~~Begun~~ These Clone Wars ~~Have~~ (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2011
I Am Alive (?): TBA 2011
X: Rebirth (PC): Q4 2011
Trenched: TBA 2011
Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm (expansion; PC): TBA 2011, after RO2 (duh)
Half-Life 2: Episode Three (PC/360): TBA 2011…or 2012…or…
Alan Wake (PC): Never – unless you think MS is full of hot air and will end up releasing a shoddy PC port for extra cash monies in 9 months, after they’ve convinced everybody possible to buy the 360 version

Confirmed for 2012 or later
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PC/PS3/60): 2/7/2012
Mass Effect 3 (PC/PS3/60): 3/6/2012
XCOM (PC/360): 3/12/2012
Planetside 2 (PC): Early 2012
Max Payne 3 (PC/PS3/60): March 2012
Secret World (PC): April 2012
Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC/PS3/60): Q2 2012
Bioshock: Infinite: TBA 2012
Far Cry 3 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Dishonored (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Spec Ops: The Line (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
God of War 4: War Harder (PS3): TBA 2012
Mirror’s Edge 2 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Beyond Good and Evil 2 (?): TBA 2012
A Valley Without Wind (PC/OS X): TBA 2012
Age of Decadence (PC): TBA 2012
The Last Guardian (PS3): TBA 2012
Blackout (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Prototype 2 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Silent Hill 2 and 3 HD (PS3/60): TBA 2012
Hitman 5 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Dead State (PC): TBA 2012
Zone of the Enders 1 and 2 HD (PS3/60): TBA 2012
Metal Gear Solid Collection HD (PS3/60): TBA 2012
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Darksiders 2 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Metro: Last Light (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
Fallen Frontier (PC/PSN/XBLA): TBA 2012
Prey 2 (PC/PS3/60): TBA 2012
STALKER 2: TBA 2012
Diablo 3 (PC): TBA 2012
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC): TBA 2012

Lost in Shadow (Wii): 1/4

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