GAME CASA .NET

Trying to reason out the $10 hike when looking at the big picture — Sean Murphy

Xbox Live is now 7 years old and while some may have heard of some pricing changescoming its important to realize just how much the service has grown in the last 9 years. When Xbox Live launches people said it would either make or break the console. The Xbox itself was doing well in sales thanks to Halo but didn’t have much else going for it at the time. Gamers were already using tunneling services to trick the system into doing LAN parties across the world so there was a market for online gaming. Many people felt that it wasn’t going to work however, especially with an annual fee. The Dreamcast which launched 3 years before the service and its online service was mainly for Phantasy Star Online. Xbox Live also required a broadband internet connection which was not nearly as widespread as it is today. Today we know Xbox Live is a huge part of the Xbox 360 but it wasn’t always like that.

When Live launched in 2002 it enforced some basic standards like support for voice chat, anyone who purchased Live got a microphone to use for chatting online so everyone had the ability to communicate. Later in 2003 Live was updated so you could have access to your friends from the Xbox itself and not through the games online menus. You were also able to check who was on through your PC a service Microsoft called LiveWeb. 2003 also was the year DLC came into play with updates to games like Mech Assault that started as free but later content would require a small fee.

In 2004 project Tsunami was released which allowed gamers to send voice messages in friend request. This was also the year the Live hit 1 million users. Having obviously shown that this was a big party of the future of video games Electronic Arts finally caved in and started supporting Xbox Live in the fall. Not surprising considering how they are currently handling online multiplayer for their games. Just before 2004 came to an end Xbox Live Arcade was launched with classic arcade titles like Dig Dug, and Pole Position were released for download. While add ons for games were starting to become the norm purchasing an entire game, even if it was a “classic” title was new for gamers and the start of much bigger things. No one new what Xbox Live Arcade would turn into years later but it had a lot of potential.

2005 and 2006 were 2 of the biggest years for Live as Halo 2′s release helped bring its user base to a staggering 2 million doubling its numbers in just a year. Microsoft also announced the future of Xbox and Xbox Live with the Xbox 360. Where Live came after the Xbox’s release it was ready one day one for the 360 and the functionality was built directly into the UI from day one.  Xbox Live arcade ended up becoming the mecca for indie developers who wanted to get on consoles with out a massive budget. Microsoft also announced Xbox Live silver which would allow a base level of features for all Xbox 360 owners. Knowing that live would be the backbone for the 360 Microsoft was sure to make your account easy to transfer over, sadly you lost the ability to use your original Xbox but you gained achievements and gamer points and with the backwards compatibility people were able to play titles like Halo 2 until only recently when the original servers were finally shut down. DLC for the 360 was a bit of a  joke in 2006 when titles like oblivion release meaningless content like horse armor for $2.50 but when two exclusive downloadable episodes for GTA4 were announced everyone knew that worthwhile products were going to be available for DLC.

Xbox Live had grown to over 7 Million users in 2007 a number that was helped with the juggernaut that was Halo 3 since Halo 2 was still very much the game of choice for Xbox Live at the time. Microsoft started to look a little beyond the “core” gamer when they released the Xbox Arcade model which was aimed at people who wanted an Xbox and would likely pick up a few of the smaller arcade titles which would fit on its 256 meg storage. Far smaller the the 20 gigabytes the 360 launched with. It wasn’t until 2008 that Xbox Live really started to have appeal beyond that of just Halo and other popular titles. This newer model also came with a price drop to help combat the Nintendo Wii which was easily outselling the 360. With packed in titles like Uno which supported online play Microsoft was making their stance clear on wanting to be just as family friendly as a game of wii sports.

The Xbox NXE (new experience) was released in 2008 a streamlined UI that made navigation much easier then the multitudes of blades the original dashboard had. With this new update gamers were blessed with  support for Netflix, while Microsoft had offered DVD play back and even offered an failed HD DVD add on this was finally the non gamer killer app for the system. Now anyone with a gold membership and a Netflix subscription could stream movies on their TV with out having to hook up their PC or purchase an additional set top box. Avatars were also new MS’s answer to the Nintendo Wii’s player created Mii’s these were a 3D representation of your gamer tag and visible to anyone on your friends list. Sadly some lessons are quickly forgotten and Microsoft starts charging for avatar clothes and items though some are available for free with games. The summer of 2008 was also the first “Summer of Arcade” which released several high profile downloadable games to help make the summer drought of gaming much more bearable.

Last year with Xbox brought more social aspects to Live with Facebook and twitter, Last.Fm was also brought on for music streaming a great compliment to anyone’s Netflix account for tunes on demand. In the summer of 2009 Live started to feature games that were currently available only on disc for download as their games on demand service. Microsoft also attempted to have their own online game show 1 vs. 100 which  would offer prizes to gamers who won. Sadly this feature was  discontinued 8 months later but with over 17 million users Xbox has shown no sign of slowing down.

Which brings us to 2010, so far this year has been pretty boring compared to all the updates that have been released. There was an update for supporting USB thumb drives which allowed people far more storage with out having to pay the insane prices for an Xbox hard drive. There are a few changes coming up though like price hikes we mentioned coming fall, however 2 other features that were announced this year for fall release are ESPN and Hulu streaming services. ESPN’s service will offer trivia questions and stats and highlights for 3500 live sporting events! Hulu will be offering all of the functionality of their Hulu+ service as well. Murphy writes, ”Now as someone who beta tested the original Xbox Live I can look back to its humble beginnings as see what it has become. While I will gladly buy a $50 dollar one year card to keep my gaming at a lower price right now, I honestly can’t argue with the functionality and features the service has provided me over the last 7 years and I feel the additional ten dollars is pretty reasonable.  I know that many may feel otherwise but this started as a gateway to play games online, now its used for so much more and I use it for more entertainment features then my satellite provider.  The title of this article asks if this price hike is fair, with Xbox live I can use my 360 to play games, listen to music, watch trailers, download demo’s and smaller titles and soon I will be able to watch games for almost any sport and catch shows that I missed that are too new for Netflix all for about 5 bucks a month.  Xbox Live has transformed from giving console gamers a big part of what made PC gaming great, to giving us more then anyone could imagine we could access through just one box 7 years ago. Microsoft has consistently invested time and money to make it the most robust service available for what will soon be the price of your standard game. If Microsoft can continue to innovate and grow Xbox Live in the same way over the next decade I couldn’t care less if they doubled the price by the time the next console comes out.”

I have this debate every year: do I pick up Madden and get frustrated, or do I not pick it up and lament not having sweet, sweet football at my finger tips. This year, I’ll show IGN’s review (which will be notably worse than the game actually is) and let you, the Casanians, decide. Watch the review, comment and vote below.

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Thought I’d share this with you guys.  What are your opinions?  I think it looks fucking sweet and would be great for developers and consumers (both only having to deal with one platform), but I’m skeptical that it will run correctly.  You can check it out here: http://www.onlive.com

Game Casa .Net user profiles have been completely overhauled.  Now you can let other users know what online platform(s) you play and see which ones they play!!!  Here’s how you do it:

1. Sign in to your Game Casa .Net profile
2. Click your profile link (your name next to your avatar pic, top right of the site)
3. Click the Profile tab (underneath your avatar pic)
4. Click Edit Profile (underneath the Profile tab)
5. Scroll down to the categories below Bio and before Most Played Game and check off any platform(s) you use

You can also add your Online ID’s, allowing friends to easily connect with you across platform(s)!

Want to see if other Casanian’s are on the same platform(s) as you?  Now it’s easy!  Check it out:

1. Make sure to follow steps 1-5 above
2. Go back to your profile and click the newly tagged field (should say XXX XXX Enabled)
3. Browse through the list of users who play on that platform!

You now have a central database for all of your Online ID’s and a way to find other games with similar tastes.  It’s like an E-Harmony for nerds

Here’s what you do:

1. Sign in to your Game Casa .Net profile
2. Click your profile link (your name next to your avatar pic, top right of the site)
3. Click the Profile tab (underneath your avatar pic)
4. Click Edit Profile (underneath the Profile tab)
5. Scroll down and fill out the Battle.Net / Real ID field, or any other fields you want

Now your Game Casa .Net friends can easily find your online ID’s and connect with you across platform!  Easy, huh?

I am planning on buying each of these 5 awesome-looking games! You get MS points refunded when you buy 3 or more too, which sweetens the deal a bit. Regardless, 5 games, 4 of which offer co-op online, for ~ $75 (1200 MS points a peice) is a steal–especially seeing as you get 1200 MS points refunded for purchasing all 5. Anyway, check em out:

I’ll be away for the next week, lazing about at the beach. Happy posting/gaming all!

A few days ago I posted a post about the driver trailer which was released by Ubisoft about a week ago, and I said more information would be released around or at E3. Good news, well… sort of. A trailer was shown off as well as some of the gameplay, and the new driver game looked pretty awesome up until the point where they showed off a new feature called “shift”.

I can already tell that all of you will agree with me that this “feature”, no gimmick doesn’t belong in the Driver series. I want a game about being a driver because you know, it makes sense. I don’t want a shitty fucking gimmick like “shift”. Hell, the reason why he the ability is so fucking lame it’s not funny. I won’t be buying this game, but I might rent it.

This has been a serious pain in the arse for us, especially since most of the Game Casa crew use Macs.  Trying to frame up a camera on a computer/TV screen is anoying and most devices I’ve looked at (Elgato, Hauppauge, etc) don’t capture to HD, won’t take HDMI input, require a million cables, or have significant lag, meaning you can’t capture and monitor directly to your computer.  After a shit-load of research, I found a couple of devices that work a bit better; however, they are both expensive.  Below are links and a video for the *Blackmagic H.264 Pro Recorder and **Matrox MXO2 Mini.

Would love to hear from anyone else if they know of any devices/capture cards that work well for them.  Hopefully this will inspire some of  you wanna-be reviewers/editors, to start getting some more video in here

* Not available as of post date and H.264 needs to be converted (in most cases) for video editing.
** Won’t work on an iMac, as it doesn’t have the appropriate slot