Also, if you want to read a great article about the 5 year experience, check out Ozymandias’s blog.

1) The majority of Xbox 360 owners right now are the hardcore gamer, and are typically the gamer that will buy Halo 3.

2) The base price of Halo 3 is $10 higher than Halo 2 was.

3) There are a $69.99 version and a $129.99 version of the game. All signs right now point to some incredible sales numbers for the $129.99 version, known as the Legendary Edition.

When you add up some of these things, you can see Microsoft doesn’t even need to sell close to 2 million copies and easily achieve the $155 million dollar mark. Microsoft is already guaranteed AT LEAST 60 Million Dollars in sales from pre-orders alone. And that would be if and only if they preordered the original version.

So will Microsoft hit the $155 million dollar target? My guess is they break $160 million.
Variety.com – High ‘Halo 3′ hopes

technorati tags:halo3, microsoft, money, lots, of

The rumor goes that once all existing inventory is cleared out, you’ll begin to see specially marked boxes of Xbox 360 units on the shelves showing that it comes with an HDMI port. On top of this, these new boxes will be using the cooler running 65NM processors as well as quieter DVD drives. Good news all around!

Update: This is now officially confirmed. All models will begin to have the HDMI port. The HDMI cable is not included in the package, but Microsoft will be offering an “official” HDMI Cable for $49.99 which will include the adapter to split the audio out via Optical. Systems that include the HDMI version will have the HDMI logo on the package. The HDMI models should hit Europe “in a few months.”

I do have 43 purchased Live Arcade games. So that’s not bad. $340 isn’t even 6 “regular” games. Plus I’ve purchased a few songs and albums through the Zune Store on PC which shares the MS Point system with Xbox Live. I think I’ve maybe purchased 2 themes and 2 picture packs total.

But wow. 27,200 MS Points. That was more than I expected.

As you may or may not know I’ll be attending the brand new E3 Business and Media Summit this year representing Evil Avatar.com. The ironic thing of this is the exclusive nature of the event this year, being invite only. While in the past the staff at EvAv.com had a bitch of a time getting official access.

The first event of the show will be Microsoft’s Press Conference on Tuesday July 10th. I just confirmed my registration for the event, and they decided to ask some odd questions. Confirming involved telling them my favorite game, favorite achievement, favorite band and my gamer zone. Odd. But the bottom line is I’m going.

Next up is Nintendo’s Press conference on Wednesday morning. The big 3 Press Conferences are Invite only (like the event) so I’ve been trying to gain access. Nintendo responded with a “We’ll do our best, but won’t know until closer to E3″. Um…ok…gee thanks.

And then last of the big 3 is Sony. Sony. Dear Sony. What the fuck are you doing? I’ve sent out no less than 5 Emails to 4 different people without even the courtesy of a fucking response. Either they don’t have their shit together, or they just don’t give to shits about EvilAvatar.com. Ah well.

The good news this years is James Young aka Fitbabits from EvAv will be coming as well. This should help us provide better coverage. I’m looking forward to finally meeting him, hell we’ve been working together for over 3 years now.

More as it becomes available…

Stephen Totilo of MTV and N’Gai Croal of NewsWeek have decided to do an email exchange of sorts discussing the recent Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta. I’m not putting these guys down as gamers, they are both gamers in every sense of the word. But the entire transcription is somewhat of a bitch fest on how they aren’t exactly good at multiplayer games, and how they want Bungie, or whoever, to make them more easily accessible. A valid complaint I suppose. In fact, the tone of the articles really change with the final part of the series.

Of course the graphics issue comes up. N’Gai even references the Reuters Article I was quoted in. Yes…I’m gloating.

Anyway, before we go any further, do yourself a favor and read both articles. I’ll update this article when part 3 is finally released.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

OK…done? A bit long winded eh? That’s ok. There are a lot of good points there, and the articles themselves are a very fresh take on games journalism. So lets dissect shall we?

My heretofore unexplored lack of interest in online multiplayer didn’t change much with the release of the PlayStation 2 or the Xbox. Apart from playing a handful of games with publicists and fellow journalists at industry events and online hands-on sessions (i.e. “SOCOM,” “Halo 2,” “Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory” and “Doom III”), or dabbling with a few more titles shortly after they shipped (mostly “Madden,” “Burnout” and “NBA Live”), I was pretty much M.I.A., or AWOL, depending on you look at it. And with the exception of a few quick bouts of “Gears of War” and “Resistance: Fall of Man,” the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 simply haven’t forged in me the love of online multiplayer that warms the hearts of so many gamers, like Level Up’s own Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling. But in the interest of Vs. Mode, I’m willing to use the “Halo 3″ multiplayer beta as a springboard to see whether there’s a place for me somewhere in this vast connected arena.

So N’Gai goes into a 6 paragraph spiel about his past, and limited, experiences with multiplayer gaming. Each one can be summed up as – “No sir…I don’t like it” Yet here he is about to write a 3 part article centering on a multiplayer only beta title. Odd.

I think it’s fair to say that someone can give a critical assessment of something they don’t like, but is it fair to say they can give a…well fair assessment?

Stephen then replies to the email and goes on to take a few jabs at N’Gai basically dodging the subject of actually discussing Halo 3. He begins to talk about the passage of time pointing out that these email responses clearly take place over days and even weeks. Regardless of this they are well thought out, probably edited, pieces of spoken mind.

Stephen goes on to talk about multiplayer games, and how a strict standard must be followed. Rules. Regulations. Measurements. Balance. He compares them closely to sports.

The difference between “God of War” and “Halo” multiplayer is that one is an adventure of narrative and gameplay. The other is enjoyed as a sport. I crave constant re-invention in the former. I assume perfection and stability is possible in the latter.

Sometimes a sporting formula just works. Take baseball. About a century ago someone figured out that 90 feet was a good distance between home plate and first base. Since then pitchers and batters have gotten stronger. Runners have gotten faster. Baseball strategies have changed. Pitchers’ mounds have been modified. Yet nothing has ruined those 90 feet. It still is just long enough — and just short enough — to make for exciting plays. The dimensions just work.

Is “Halo” baseball? Has Bungie already nailed the 90 feet?

Or maybe “Halo” is basketball back in 1953, just before the introduction of the 24-second shot clock. Before the clock was added basketball was played at a slower pace. The sport was still about tossing a bouncing ball through a hoop, but the shot-clock forced play to be much more swift.

This is one of the smartest analogies I’ve heard. Why reinvent the wheel when it’s already working. Competitive online gaming IS a sport. With several pro gaming leagues popping up and TV broadcasts becoming more popular, gaming is legitimizing itself has a competitive sport much like Poker did in the early 2000s. A lot of the complaints of the Halo 3 beta have been about the lack of change, or rather, the lack of significant change. But Bungie has a 14+ million selling franchise in their pocket, why would they want to significantly change it?

Stephen’s sports argument does have its flaws. What were those sports like before the insert defining feature was created? What if the rules committee, or whoever it was, never took that chance and decided to try a 24 second shot clock. They weren’t changing the core of the game, only one aspect of it. If there is change in something, it must be incremental. Look at Hockey over the past 20 years. The sport was in its glory days in the mid 80s to early 90s. But when Gary Bettman joined the league as commissioner and decided to make changes to rules and regulations, he changed the style of play, the game got stale. It alienated fans, and in turn, alienated TV Networks cutting off precious revenue. The same could happen to a franchise’s fans.

It’s definitely a conundrum. It depends on your target audience. It depends on your goals for the game. Do you only care about sales, or do you care about quality. Do you care about consistency or flexibility.

In part 2 of the series N’Gai admits that both him and Stephen are a bit of the newb category. He realizes they aren’t trying to fool anyone, and in fact I think the goal of these articles is to try to show how to expand the franchise to be more accessible to newer players.

We’re both newbs here, dammit, and we should fully engage the experience of that newbitude (yes, I’m bringing back my neologism grenades for this Vs. Mode sequel) rather than simply draw parallels between “Halo 3″ multiplayer and single player games, sports and television shows.

Ah finally…they are going to talk about the game. But not quite yet, first we go through another long winded list of something by Mr. Croal. This time we get a song comparison to Halo 3 analogy. It isn’t until the middle of the 3rd song that we finally get some meat about N’Gai’s experience.

After the couple of minutes it took me to get my sea legs, I gleefully gave myself over to the Hobbesian ecstasies of King of the Hill. The genius of this match type is its just-the-right-side of barely-controlled chaos: you rush to get to the “hill” as quickly as you can; you hold it for as long as you can; you terminate all of your rivals with extreme prejudice; your final scores is based on the cumulative amount of time you were able to hold the hill.

So if “Halo” single-player is built around the pockets of action that Bungie refers to as “Thirty seconds of fun,” King of the Hill is 15 seconds of fun, washed, rinsed and repeated ad nauseam, mercifully stripped of the various tensions necessary to make the more structured game types work. There’s no need for teamwork, patience, affordance, strategy, thought. Everything tactical is removed, but the presence of the hill gives it a focus — both in terms of the geography and the gameplay — that makes it more memorable and rewarding than a pure dog-kill-dog game of Slayer, a.k.a. deathmatch.

That paragraph really proves a point that losing is never fun. In the previous times mentioned, when N’Gai was actually losing at Halo and other multiplayer titles he mentioned how he wasn’t having fun. But once the tides turned, and he started winning; the game suddenly became fun.

I’ll admit, losing isn’t fun. Fuck. I’m as competitive as the next guy, maybe more so. I love to compete at everything. Hell I just bought a $300 Grill from Lowes because it was bigger than my neighbors. Yeah, I’m like that…I went there. What is fun during competition, even in losing; is exactly just that. The competition. The grueling nature, the frustration, the torment of fighting and clawing your way that when you do get that win, that oh so sweet victory, it’s just that much better.

Stephen’s retort talks about about teamplay, or lack thereof that sometimes accompanies online play. The moments in which teams work together, like a flock of birds changing direction, is a beautiful thing. It’s swift, concise and satisfying. It takes repetition (or luck), and communication. Something apparently N’Gai and Stephen didn’t have…as they couldn’t figure out the team chat function. The suggestion from Stephen is to have some sort of training program, or even a buddy program where someone can help you learn the system. I like to call these people friends. After realizing this isn’t really the responsibility of the developer, but rather his own personal social responsibility, Stephen decides on this training regiment.

I do have an idea that would help us neophytes. You know how in single-player games you often learn one ability at a time, gain one new weapon or tool every few minutes but never have everything thrown at you all at once in a situation in which you’re expected to excel? Imagine bringing that kind of pacing to multiplayer. Imagine being able to play multiplayer in training tiers: first maybe a map where jumping is disabled, then a map where jumping is enabled but shooting without both feet on the ground is not, then turn on a couple of extra weapons in the next map, then some heavier weapons in the one after that. Some of that map customization is already in the game, but not all of it. I think that kind of training routine could help a lot of players.

So what Stephen is suggestion is sort of a guided practice system. A really good idea, though I’m sure development time could be used elsewhere. Perhaps by building something like this into the already extensive custom game type system, Bungie could leverage existing code, as well as create a practice routine set of gametypes.

In fact, in the Final Part of the Series, N’Gai quotes Mr. Allen Iverson in regards to practice after several similar posts hit blogs around the net.

I mean listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game last it’s my last but we’re talking about practice, man. How silly is that?

Both Stephen and N’Gai seem a little more excited about Halo 3 in the last part of their article, but continue to lay on the suggestions on how to make it more accessible. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but when push comes to shove and the bottom dollar rules all, I’m not sure (and neither are the authors) whether Bungie has the time to pull off something major.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But the solutions aren’t exactly cheap. They will require more money, time, manpower and genuinely inventive thinking. And given how successful the Halo franchise has been to date, I’d be surprised if the brain trust in Redmond feels that any of the following additions are in order. Still, it can’t hurt to try, and I think that each of my ideas will actually appeal to the hardcore as well as the newbie. Moreover, none of these concepts take away anything that the core gamer likes; they’re all additive.

The argument of bots always comes up with Multiplayer titles. Should a title have bots? Do bots hurt the quality of the title by taking development time away from other core things? In multiplayer only titles like Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike it makes sense to have bots. You simply don’t have the offline component to fall back on. There is no single player AI because the single player AI becomes bots. But for a game like Halo, one with a strong campaign and a strong multiplayer component, does it make sense to add bots?

At the first stage of the campaign, rookies would be start out by being matched against bots to ease their way in. Subsequent stages would give gamers the option of to complete some requirements against bots rather than humans, but as the multiplayer campaign continues, the ratio of Achievements that can be completed against bots as opposed to humans would keep tipping towards the latter, because the campaign’s ultimate goal is to propel players online, with the confidence and the skills required to make Halo 3 a genuinely enjoyable experience. Think of it as Halo Age: Train Your Trigger Finger In Minutes a Day, with the disembodied heads of Dr. Frank O’Connor and Dr. Luke Smith encouraging us to stick it out. I’d sign up for that. Wouldn’t you?

I’m going to have to disagree. With an already extensive and deep matchmaking system that Bungie is continually improving on, beginners and newbies should (in theory) be matched up with people of similar skill from the get go. As long as someone would at least START the campaign of the game, they should get all the training they need with the controls and feel of the game. There is no need to go even further.

It all comes back to the losing statement. Losing sucks. And in multiplayer games where your losses are somewhat public it can make them even less appealing.

I think the difference is that offline games have long given me the sensation that I’m in control. I make a character move. I input commands. I own an inventory. I take missions. I deal with things. Video games put me in a driver’s seat, or at least create that illusion.

The jarring thing about playing Halo 3 and getting aced in it again and again is that it represents the opposite feeling: when I’m getting schooled on the Valhalla map I feel like I have almost no control. The skill disparity between my betters and me is such that I feel like I’ve got no handle on the situation. I’m not dealing with things. And that kind of experience, well, I’ve got enough of that in real life. It’s not an experience I look for in games.

But the opposite still holds true. With multiplayer games your victories are that much sweeter. In team games the victories are shared with your friends. There’s nothing like an adrenaline rush when you become the hero of your team. Being the last man standing, facing an insurmountable onslaught of human opponents only to take them all down and win the match? Sounds sort of like a single player game doesn’t it? Except now you have spectators. You have people to share in that moment. These people congratulate you, give you praise. That is why multiplayer gaming is good. That is why regardless of what skill level you are, or how many matches you lose, when you DO get that first win, that special win, that team win, it becomes that much more rewarding.

Here’s what you do:

1. 1. Click the Windows Button, and type in userinit in the search box.
2. 2. Click Organize->Folder and Search Options->View and then Uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files
3. 3. Go to C:->Program Data->Microsoft->Windows->DRM and rename the folder to something else. You MAY have a Program Data->DRM Folder. This needs to be renamed also. This was where my problem was.
4. 4. Go to this link: http://go.microsoft.com/flink?linkid=34506 and click Upgrade.
5. 5. Restart the Zune Software or Windows Media Player 11.

You should be good to go now. The plus side of this is this should fix any connection issues you might be having with your XBox 360 as well. Good luck!

I arrived home yesterday to find a nice surprise on my doorstep, one of those new swanky Halo 3 Zunes.

The packaging is all decked out Halo style, and the Zune itself is packed nicely in it’s little box. I haven’t seen a packaging set-up this nice since my iPod. The Zune itself comes with a pair of headphones, case, usb cable and install CD. This special edition one comes preloaded with tons of Halo content including: 10 Halo related videos including Episodes of Red vs. Blue, all 3 Halo soundtracks, and over 100 Halo related images and concept art. In fact, it looks like some of the concept art might give away some clues as to what is going to happen in Halo 3.

The Zune software and marketplace seems solid. One really great thing is for those of us with an XBox Live account, you can simply sign in with this account and associate your Gamertag to your Zunetag (sorry..no Achievement points…yet). You can then use any MS Points from XBox Live to purchase songs and download alblums.

Of course the defining feature of Zune is the ability to transfer songs wirelessly between Zunes. Unfortuantely I wasn’t able to test that out as I don’t know anyone WITH a Zune. There are rumors that the newest firmware will allow you to hit up the Zune marketplace wirelessly from various hotspots which would make it a much more attractive feature.

Build quality is solid and the screen is gorgeous. The headphones out of the box lack some punch, but paired with a set of quality headphones that audio quality is noticeably better than an iPod, and just about equal with my Creative Zen Vision:M. The software works well, and one nice feature is the ability to transcode your videos on sync to the size and format needed for the Zune.

Any Halo fan looking for a new music/all-in-one player should look no further than the H3 Zune. The Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune goes on sale exclusively at Gamestop/EB Games on June 15th for $249.99.

So time goes on and the Halo 3 hypo-meter is dies off a bit. Suddenly we start to see bits and pieces of information on Halo 2 for Windows Vista. Penned for an early May release most people write it off. While not significant, this gets the Halo name out there again. Slowly but surely the Halo buzz begins to build, and message boards begin talking about Halo 3 again.

Now as we approach the actual beta period, people need to dig out those copies of Crackdown again. What better way to do that than to release some premium content. So gamers dig out Crackdown again, start playing it and realizing that it’s still fun. Along with a free download that adds a lot of missing features, a fresh content pack becomes available and quite a few of these gamers will decide to drop the 10 dollars on it. This holds them over for a week or so until….the Halo 3 beta.

So the MP beta lasts 3 weeks or so. People realize how fun Halo still is, and they still have that itch for more things Halo. What better way to solve that than to go back and play some Halo 2…or better yet the newer, shinier Halo 2 for Windows Vista which hits shelves a week into the beta. Shortly after this happen, E3 is going to come around where I assume the single player portion of the game will slowly be unveiled. The hype train continues to roll carrying it through most of the summer.

I’m not sure what Microsoft will do for the August-November time period, but I assume they won’t let Halo be far from gamer’s minds. And lets forgot tie-ins like the recently announced limited edition Halo Zune. If this doesn’t help get the word out on Microsoft’s music player….nothing will.

The point of all this is, what sometimes seems like minor coincidences turns out to be carefully planned marketing strategies. These strategies sometimes don’t reveal themselves for months, even years later when the entire spectrum of it can be realized. Microsoft is continuously creating an amazing extended marketing campaign that Synergizes multiple brands and platforms…and they are all riding on the Master Chief.

And that was just the start of the trend for Microsoft. Next up on the plate, one of Microsoft’s biggest allies, Epic Games came head to head with the corporate giant over a little issue of content pricing. Epic, being the kind hearted fellows they are, wanted to release a free map pack for their 4 million copy selling game Gears of War. Perhaps you heard of it? You know, the biggest seller on the XBox 360. Well Microsoft in their infinite wisdom thought it be better to simply not allow Epic to post this maps for free. Eventually, a compromise came to be, and the maps will eventually see the light of day for free, only after being on the Marketplace for a set period of time. And to top this all off, Epic’s Tim Sweeney didn’t have very nice things to say about Microsoft’s PC version of the Live service. In fact, some of the things he mentioned were downright scary.

And just when you think things couldn’t get any lower for Microsoft, along comes the Guitar Hero 2 Pricing Fiasco. If digital distribution is supposed to be so damn cheap, how come people end up paying more for digital content than physical media? Apparently in this situation this all has to do with new licensing fees, no doubt because of the popularity of the product.

The bottom line is Microsoft has lost a lot of face in the past 2 weeks. In a time when Playstation 3 sales are still incredibly week, and Wii’s are impossible to find, Microsoft missed a huge opportunity to widen the gap.

To combat the Guitar Hero 2 fiasco I predict we’ll see some sort of a gift from Red Octane, a peace offering of sorts. Perhaps a few previously unreleased tracks for free with the ever popular sponsored by tag attached to them. Perhaps even Microsoft sponsoring them itself.

While I don’t foresee Microsoft dropping the HD price soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if 6 months from now the price drops on both the 120GB and 20GB drive by a good 20-30%. I also think Microsoft is going to be making a few extra moves to increase the perceived value of the XBox Live Gold subscription service. Perhaps more exclusive downloads for actual content instead of demos, or perhaps some sort of discount plan.