Once again, in lieu of a regular article, I’m going to address a couple of the topics going around these days:
- In the spirit of Versus’ article yesterday, here’s how I cope with crunch: I sleep less, I do less at home. Thank god I have very little social life, or that would also somehow start to suffer. Fortunately for me, I plan ahead, and make sure to alienate my friends and any potential romantic interests months in advance so my company can have as much of my time as possible. Seriously though, working extended long hours, week after week, completely kills any emotions I may have towards the game I am making. I simply start caring about the game anymore. I just want to see it done and out the door. Yes, I will still make an effort to polish, but more than anything I will do my best to end the agony that is having a life that is completely and consistently revolving around making a video game. I just want to get it over with and out the door. That’s too bad because I used to really care about the game.
- Nintendo made several announcements late last week, one for each major region. Already looking forward to the launch and to the console, the actual announcements left me ambivalent. I expected (or perhaps hoped for) a lower launch price. $250 is fair, and it’s good that they actually make a profit from each sale. People fault them for being only $50 cheaper than the core Xbox 360 model, but perhaps they didn’t want to come across as too cheap. I don’t know what I was expecting beyond what’s already been announced…perhaps some sort of mind blowing feature. I guess the Wii-mote can already be considered revolutionary…Perhaps I was expecting too much. Regardless, when I watched the promo video on Nintendo’s site, any misgivings I had were washed away, and the Wii was put on pre-order (but I’m still not happy about the region-locking)
- TGS (Tokyo Game Show) is coming up this week. Expect a very strong showing from Sony, as they undoubtedly attempt to make up for their sub-par showing at E3 and their absence at Leipzig. Sony’s going to sell out for the first few months regardless of what happens, but the momentum they will hopefully gain at TGS will feed its sales well into next year, once the initial launch frenzy settles down. It would also help improve Sony’s image in the hardcore gamer’s eye…And Sony could definitely do with some positive press coverage right about now. This week-end we should see some near final PS3 games on display. Hopefully a few of them will have something that blows away consumers because, after all, the PS3 is supposed to be the most powerful console out there, and should at least shine on the technological side of things. Let’s see what happens.
