RPad.TV

Sunday Housekeeping

– Last week was pretty big for RPad.tv. Tuesday was the best day the site ever had, with a bunch of traffic coming from N4G and a little bit from Gamekicker. Overall, it was the best week ever (or evar!!!) in terms of traffic. To everyone that reads the site regularly, thank you so much! If there’s a particular article you like, I encourage you to plug it in the two aforementioned sites, Digg, Twitter, Facebook, etc. With your help, the site is growing!

– Last night at the Spike TV VGA after party, Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski punched me. Unfortunately, I only have one witness and she’ll side with him.

– If you still have holiday shopping to do, Amazon.com is way better than going to the mall. If you do use Amazon, kindly use any of the links you see on my site. That would help me out a bunch…especially if you bought like 12 LCD televisions. Ha!

Continue reading “Sunday Housekeeping”

Square Enix Busts Out Facebook and Twitter Pages for FFXIII

Square Enix has released official Facebook and Twitter pages for Final Fantasy XIII…because that game needs more hype. *snicker* Seriously though, it’s interesting to see how game publishers are using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to promote their games. I know some of you hate Twitter, but it can be an incredibly useful marketing tool and a fantastic way for fans to keep tabs on their favorite games/athletes/celbrities.

Will any of you be following the game on Facebook or Twitter?

Fake Steve Jobs Speaks on the Fail Whale That is AT&T

I hate to keep picking on AT&T — actually, I don’t — but I found this excellent blog post by Fake Steve Jobs talking about a recent call between Apple and AT&T regarding the iPhone. His Fakeness wrote:

And when I say that “we” have a hit on our hands, I’m really giving you way too much credit, because let’s be honest, the success of iPhone has nothing to do with you. In fact, iPhone is a smash hit in spite of your network, not because of it. That’s how good we are here at Apple — we’re so good that even you and your team of Bell System frigtards can’t stop us. You know what it’s like being your business partner? It’s like trying to swim the English Channel with a boat anchor tied to my legs. And yes, in case you’re not following me, in that analogy, you, my friend, are the f&*(&*g boat anchor.

That’s just awesome stuff.

Source

AT&T Sucks in San Francisco, After it Promised to Stop Sucking

AT and T Fail Yesterday I wrote about AT&T president and CEO of mobility and consumer markets Ralph de la Vega vowing that the company would stop sucking in New York City and San Francisco. Perhaps he meant starting next week…. AT&T suffered a major outage in downtown SF today. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler wrote:

This afternoon I started getting an abnormal number of messages from friends over email, IM, and Twitter because they apparently couldn’t text or call me. I tried to use my phone, and sure enough, no dice.

Calls are working sporadically, but the AT&T data network in San Francisco seems to be completely borked right now.

Siegler later reported a customer receiving the following 411 from the company:

Just got off the phone with AT&T — data + SMS in San Francisco is down. It will take 24 to 48 hours (!!!) to fix.

Apparently the problems are (mostly) fine now, but the timing of this latest AT&T failure is hilarious, to which I say, “Ha!”

Source

Sony Close to Breaking Even with the PlayStation 3

PS3 Slim 3

A recent teardown analysis from iSuppli revealed that Sony loses about $31 per PlayStation 3 console sold in the United States. Here’s the skinny:

The new PlayStation 3 with 120GByte HDD model is priced at $299 in the United States — which means Sony sells each PlayStation 3 in the United States for $31.27 less than its materials and manufacturing cost.

In comparison, iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service determined that Sony sold the previous-generation PlayStation 3 for $49.72 less than its manufacturing and materials cost, based on pricing from October 2008.

So even though the PS3 Slim costs $100 less than last year’s model, it loses less money per system than its forerunner. Keep in mind that iSuppli’s analysis does not factor in “software, box contents and royalties”. As it continues to make its manufacturing processes more efficient and parts continue to come down in price, it’s possible that Sony can sell the PS3 at a profit come this time next year.

Source via CNet

EA’s Tiger Woods’ Sim Adultery 2011

With Tiger Woods’ endorsement deals in a precarious state of flux — Gatorade has already dropped a Tiger-branded beverage, while Pepsi, Gillette, Tag Heuer, and others are considering dropping the star golfer — I think EA Sports ought to be proactive and flat-out humiliate him. It would be the ultimate cash grab that would satisfy analysts and shareholders that are only interested in the company’s short-term future. Since EA has been getting dinged for taking risks and launching new IPs for the last two years, it might as well try cashing in on one of its star’s woes, right?

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

I can see it now…Tiger Woods’ Sim Adultery 2011!!! The game would obviously star Tiger, but the tone would be similar to a Leisure Suit Larry game. To keep development costs down, it would use The Sims engine and existing art assets (mostly female character models). The goal of the game would be to sleep with as many women as possible (the 18 holes) while avoiding the media, car crashes, and hot Swedish wives. Bold players would be careless with their trysts, texting sweet little nothings to their loved ones without bothering to delete the messages. Advanced players would pay an army of minions to cover their tracks (paying for hotel rooms for afternoon delight, sending text messages on your behalf, whisking you away when your wife attacks you with a nine-iron, etc.)

EA could make this game in months and cash in on all this “Tigergate” nonsense. Maybe then it could get shortsighted analysts and shareholders off its back, allowing its developers to work on original and high-quality games.

Three Ways Microsoft Will Compete with Sony in 2010

Microsoft and Sony will be more competitive than ever in 2010 with their Xbox 360 and PlayStation consoles, respectively. With the price gap closed and exclusive games more competitive than ever, next year’s console wars will be terribly interesting to watch. Microsoft director of product management Aaron Greenberg told Gamasutra three reasons he believes his console will do better than Sony’s:

We will do three things well. One, we will continue to offer a better value on hardware pricing. We will continue to remain $100 cheaper than PS3. Two, we will have more games, more blockbuster exclusives, no matter the genre. Three, you add all of the entertainment and social network. That’s our focus, to keep adding more and more value. Consumers vote with their dollars, and so far it’s been paying off, and we feel confident about next year as well.

Xbox 360

I agree on his first point; Microsoft will continue to sell Xbox 360 Arcade systems, simply because people are attracted to the price point and don’t realize that you need to buy a bunch of other accessories to make it fully functional. For games, I haven’t seen anything that indicates that the Xbox 360 will have better exclusives. That could change at E3, of course. As for value-added features, I’m sure there are some people that will buy an Xbox 360 over a PlayStation 3 because the former’s social-networking features are marketed better, but is it really a significant number? *shrug*

I’m not going to pretend to be a highly paid analyst from Wedbush Morgan, but I will ask you to channel your inner Michael Pachter. Do you think the race between the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be close? Who will win when the dust settles?!?

Source

Microsoft Confident Halo Reach Will be the Biggest Game of 2010

Halo Reach

Microsoft director of product management Aaron Greenberg is certain that Halo Reach will be the biggest game of 2010. He recently told Gamasutra, “I feel confident that there’s nothing that will compare in size. Halo: Reach will be the biggest game of 2010.”

While I have no doubt that Halo: Reach will be one of the biggest titles of 2010, I’m not sure if it will be the biggest. Globally, I’d guess that Final Fantasy XIII will sell more, especially considering that it will be available for a longer period of time and on multiple platforms. Greenberg completely dismissed Gran Turismo 5 beating out his game, saying, “Is it launching next year? I’ve seen years and years of minigames, but I haven’t seen that the game is done.”

What do you think or Greenberg’s proclamation? Is he on the money? Or do you think another game will beat out Halo:Reach?

Source

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

A lot of gaming’s best and brightest will be in Los Angeles this weekend for the Spike TV Videogame Awards (VGAs). If my leg can hack it, I’m going to be hopping around town, pestering some of my favorite developers. Even if I’m not, I’ve designated a bunch of time for Scribblenauts. I’m totally fascinated by this game. It’s as fun and imaginative as the player lets it be. Having said that, there were a bunch of times when I was wondering how much fun Scribblenauts would be to stupid people with limited vocabularies.

Scribblenauts slider

Of course I’m going to have to get some more Dragon Age: Origins time in too. It’s my fifth go round with the game and I’m still enjoying it. Off the top of my head, BioWare, Game Freak, and Square Enix are the only companies that make games that I enjoy several times over. That’s pretty remarkable.

As always, I want to know what you’re playing this weekend. Shout it out! Or maybe don’t shout…the neighbors might complain.

Sample Ten Tracks of the Final Fantasy XIII Soundtrack Now!

FFXIII soundtrack

Square Enix Japan has updated the official Final Fantasy XIII web site to include samples of the first ten tracks of the FFXIII soundtrack. The soundtrack is on sale in Japan now, with game coming on December 17th. To listen to the music, hit the “track list” tab on the soundtrack page.

Check out the tracks and let me know what you think (please)! I’m loving the music so far!