On his Level Up blog, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal decided to go right to EA's Jeff Brown and see what the company had to say in its own defense. The logo you see here is Level Up's own design for the EA Empire — think they should adopt it officially?

In a recent Q&A with Portfolio, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had the following exchange with the interviewer:

Is there a key to Activision's growth?

It's about really being considerate of the culture in the game studios that Activision buys. That's the biggest difference between us and any of our competitors. We built a model that celebrates entrepreneurial, opportunistic, independent values. It's almost the opposite of Electronic Arts, which has commoditized development. It did a very good job of taking the soul out of a lot of the studios it acquired.

What was the reaction of the executives at Electronic Arts when they read that quote?

The truth is, everyone laughed. In the past year EA has made radical changes to decentralize the company and put creative control back in the hands of development teams. It's too early to declare victory but if you talk to people like Patrick Soderlund at dice in Stockholm, Mark Jacobs at Mythic in Virginia or Josh Resnick at Pandemic—they'll probably tell you that it's working. They get a lot of resources and creative freedom. That freedom has already contributed new start-ups like Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Boom Blox and there's a lot of others to be announced soon.

N'Gai delved into the multiplayer aspect, too. He's looking to DLC and other online buildout to really deepen the game. "Once the Scotsmen absorb all the feedback from the millions of gamers who take the plunge into its online experience, we have no doubt that something special is in the offing," he writes.

Naturally Rockstar pumped N'Gai for the possibility of being covered in Newsweek, hard copy. (His reply: "Stay tuned.")

Partying Like A Rock Star, and Reflecting on Grand Theft Auto IV Multiplayer With Rockstar [Level Up]

I looked at the Resident Evil 5 trailer and I was like, "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game." Because I wonder, and I haven't sort of really dug into it that much, but I wonder what sort of advice Capcom gave them. The point isn't that you can't have black zombies. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery. What was not funny, but sort of interesting, was that there were so many gamers who could not at all see it. Like literally couldn't see it. So how could you have a conversation with people who don't understand what you're talking about and think that you're sort of seeing race where nothing exists?

There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. There sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they're sort of "othered." They're hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who's coming to help the people. It's like they're all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It's not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They're all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images? It's not as simple as saying, "Oh, they shot Spanish zombies in 'Resident Evil 4,' and now 'black zombies and that's why people are getting upset." The imagery is not the same. It doesn't carry the same history, it doesn't carry the same weight. I don't know how to explain it more clearly than that.

N'Gai on the RE5 Trailer [Multiplayer]

STOP STOP STOP STOP!!!!

There's have to be some kind of misunderstanding, I'm from Chile (not a pokemon) and I have to say "ponceo" had nothing to do with oral sex. What they do in this parties (thursay or fryday, between 4-5PM to 10-11PM, they are all minorage so they cant be out to late at night, alcohol sell is not allowed) is try to kiss in the mouth (not oral sex, that was a particual case, not even pokemoes involved, only 3 highschool students, 14 or 15 years old) as much different people (of the opposite sex) as they can durring the party.

Bisides, pokemones are not gender-blending nor they costume are related to Pokemones (most of them dont even play videogames, pokemon is known here for the tv animated series) they just are wierd looking.

So I hope that make things much clear and erase the vision of "orgies" with menor age student in my Country, Bye!

The reality is this: publishers generally hold the enthusiast press in utter contempt, and they have for a long time. This disdain began as scorn for the enthusiast media's roots in videogame fandom, rather than traditional journalism from "respectable" publications, but it has since metastasized into a veiled but nonetheless seething anger over the advent of the Internet and with it the rise of fan sites, forums and blogs over which publishers can exert little pressure, let alone control. The contempt emanating from the publishing community, by the way, is not limited to the enthusiast press. In our view, it extends to publicists, whom certain executives believe can and should be able to dictate the nature of their coverage and secure review scores of a certain magnitude. It even extends to their own developers, for whom Metacritic and Game Rankings scores can dangle as precipitously as the sword of Damocles, as if these executives were incapable of determining for themselves the quality of their games and taking action accordingly.

The only solution to this problem is for the editorial divisions of these enthusiast outlets who are being strong-armed by publishers and/or their own business operations to shine a light on these practices, much as Kotaku did with Sony earlier this year. Of course, it's easy for us to call for this sort of resolute bravery when Newsweek isn't dependent on videogame advertising and our livelihoods are not at stake. We recognize that some companies literally can't afford to alienate their advertisers, so far be it from us to knock another publication's hustle.

Two of my good friends and colleagues have put up thoughtful pieces on their respective blogs about how we play videogames. On Level Up, N'Gai posted a column about how our saved game files are actually worth more than a $60 game. N'Gai calculates that his Mass Effect saved game is worth $122.10. His point: We should back up our saved games more often. And at MTV's Multiplayer Blog, Stephen Totilo posted a fascinating essay on how Rockstar's removal of the scoring system in Manhunt 2 changed the way he played through the final version. Was Stephen a tamer killer with scoring or without? Go find out!

Level Up Expansion Pack
Multiplayer Blog on Manhunt 2 Scoring System

But, hey, where in the hell is Metroid Prime 3, Reg? It's going to miss his projected "early 2007" release date to ensure that the next sci-fi first-person adventure meets expectations, he says. A high profile Nintendo release pushed back? What's next, a plague of locusts?

Fils-Aime also talks about LittleBigPlanet, iNiS' new Ouendan sequel and some juicy Nintendo marketing philosophy. Hot. Michael McWhertor

Loot: Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime on the Future of Nintendo's Third Party Support, Part II [N'Gai Croal's Level Up]

It is, I would think, no big secret that MTV's Stephen Totilo and Newsweek's N'Gai Croal are two of my favorite gaming writers. (Clive Thompson would be the third, in my trinity of game writers)

So N'Gai's latest feature over on his Newsweek blog is for me, quite a thing to behold. In Vs. Mode Totilo and N'Gai take one another to task over their feelings on God of War 2.

I'll summarize, poorly, their takes on the game here, but you really, really owe it to yourself to go over there and read the whole thing because it's the sort of game critiquing that you will almost never find.

Totilo comes down on the side of liking God of War 2 but not really being blown away with it. It is a marvel of game creation, he argues, but it's also very much more of the same. And not just because it's a sequel that uses some of the same sorts of setting and themes, but because the game, like its predecessor, uses "level design to define a character's personality", the personalilty of Kratos. And the sequel relies heavily on this same sort of trick.

While he doesn't come out and say it, I think Totilo might also be trying to say that this not only fails to move the development of the game forward, but the development of the character of Kratos forward. He remains fairly unchanged from the first game. And I have to agree, that is a disappointment, though one I didn't totally grasp until just now.

N'Gai comes back swinging, pitting Totilo's encyclopedic knowledge of games against his skills at comparative media analysis and using it to try and pick apart his gaming sensei's arguments.

N'Gai argues that referencing your previous game, either in story or in design, is an acceptable form of homage often used by music producers and rappers. Intratextuality in games is a good thing, he says. He goes on to point out that David Jaffe freely borrowed from the cannon of video games to create his magnum opus, so why shouldn't Cory Barlog do the same.

He conclusion places me squarely on N'Gai's side of this argument. Sometimes a good game is just good, it doesn't have to shake the bounds of its genre or reinvent something. Or as N'Gai put it, misquoting screenwriter and journalist Cheo Hodari Coker talking about P. Diddy's music: God of War II may not be perfect... but it is unquestionably a game that will make you shake your ass.

Damn straight. Brian Crecente

Read this, or you can't call yourself a gamer [Newsweek]

Pretty awesome news? Hell yes. This, alongside titles like Assassin's Creed and the rumored Senko no Ronde, mean Ubisoft is going to have a very interesting release list year. Michael McWhertor

Exclusive: Ubisoft to Publish Jam Sessions, an Improved Version of Japanese Cult Hit Guitar Game, in North America This June [N'Gai Croal's Level Up]

Harrison, careful not to leak details on unannounced games, responds:

I'd like to believe so, but it's impossible to predict ahead of time. I don't think Super Rub-a-Dub is going to be that game. I don't think it's an analogy for the human condition. Maybe not games in their entirety, but storylines or characters within games should deal with topics of substance.

Agreed, Phil! Don't miss the second portion of the chat which also touches on Mr. Harrison's take on Motorstorm now versus Motorstorm, the Wii's Miis, and drug abuse in games. Michael McWhertor

Loot: The Phil Harrison Interview, Part II [N'Gai Croal's Level Up]

Oh, the internet drama. Phil Harrison's said many stupid things, but he claims he's been misquoted by a game site. Just listen to what he tells Newsweek's N'Gai Croal:

I want to clarify something. You put something on your blog about how comments from videogame executives can come back to haunt them. Of all the things I've said—and there are plenty of things should come back to haunt me—what you quoted was not one of them. The quote in question actually came from the GDC Europe interview that I did onstage with [Game Developers Conference director] Jamil Moledina a couple of years back. He was asking my view on Microsoft's two SKU strategy. The point that I made, which was not clearly reported in the Gamasutra piece [that Level Up cited], was that Microsoft had introduced two SKUs, they were effectively two different products: one with a hard drive and one without. And that while I wasn't going to talk about our particular SKU strategy at that time, whatever strategy we would adopt would not confuse developers and publishers, because the underlying platform would be with the hard drive in every machine. So I stand by what I said.

Yup. Phil Harrison, a very tall and powerful man, is attacking a game site for its journalistic integrity. For a quote from 2005. Gamasutra's Simon Carless took it personal and put up the defense over at blog GameSetWatch, clearing laying out why the original Gamasutra article was not totally off base and even talking about the Pope. Swing by GSW for the gory details. My take: Happy to know the execs are finally reading the sites. That, and "hi" Phil. Brian Ashcraft

Harrison Takes On Gamasutra [GameSetWatch]

Almost as surprising as my ability to read the whole interview with Celine Dion was seeing the subject of the mini-interview turn to video games and Celine's home-schooled son Rene-Charles' current obsessions: rock music and Wii.

From Newsweek:

Does he sing, too?
He loves heavy rock and the Doors. It's the first song he hummed to me. I think it comes from the videogames. The Wii is the hottest thing on our TV right now.

How did you get a Nintendo Wii?
My best friend in the whole world, Robin, waited in line at 4:30 in the morning.

Since you're already awake at 4:30 in the morning, you could've just gone yourself?
I know but I didn't even see it coming.

Now, most conversations with Dion seem like a crudely deciphered alien transmission about love crystals or something, but I think what she's saying is that she was quite surprised by the success and/or the gameplay of Nintendo's latest box.

But seriously, can you imagine Celine Dion camping out for a Wii? In the unlikely event that she would leave her stasis chamber to go shopping, being recognized by the unwashed, bug-eyed masses in line at Best Buy would probably result in her instantly exploding into a billion gilded butterfly wings. That's how I picture Celine dying, in my mind. Michael McWhertor

Let's go straight into it.

Some people were saying these questions were written in advance. Phil has never seen these questions. Phil thanks for doing this.

Thanks for indulging our little experiment here. Just backstage he said can you give me a little steer at the first question, and he just laughed at me. We can't talk about two things, I'm told. We can't talk about things that affect the stock price and we can't talk about my personal life. Which I found strange. No questions about my jail sentence or my stint in rehab.

In North America the price of the PS3 is $500 and $600, what kind of games will you have that will convince gamers to buy in at that price point?

Plenty is the short answer. Something that we've done in Europe is social aspect gaming, Singstar has sold over 7 million units and we're developing Singstar in PS3. I did bring a PS3 with a couple of game demos on it. If Ngai asked a bunch of boring questions, we could just play Motorstorm. We've got this concept of the Singstore, I can see a preview of the track, streamed off the server. Some of you will notice that we have background downloading now. [Applause]

You can save video performances.

[N'Gai points to the SingStar attract screen featuring a sunset.] Are those ducks flying by?

Yes, CELL rendered ducks. [Laughter.]

I can upload my video performance captured via a USB camera and other users can rate and review my performance. Thanks for letting me show this.

Do you have any examples of a users homepage?

You can see user info, themed weeks, who's the best Elvis singer this week. We call this "my SingStar", you can imagine this applying to a lot of products and services.

Do you think that kind of interface should be done on a game basis or on a higher level, like the friends section of the XMB?

This is I think the best integrated example we have. We do need to expose this to that layer of the XMB. We have some initiatives to move to that.

Many developers have said that Microsoft's support of development, from documentation to tools, has been better than Sony's. How does Sony plan to narrow this gap?

We can always provide better tools, documentation, service. I think its a myth that we provide documentation in Japanese. Many components were made all over the world. The CELL was made in Austin, Texas. We did in the past, in the PS1 days, work with Japanese documentation and translated docs from Japanese to English. We can always do better, its not something under my management, but we need to take those comments on board.

Programmers feel that while Sony platforms have more power, they feel that coding for them is generally a pain in the ass?

PlayStation One was the first platform to ship with an integrated OS, that integrated library, where we extracted the developer from the metal. They said, we want to work directly with the system. On PS2 we gave them access, they said no, we want the OS again! We want that abstraction. We are always struggling to get that right.

I think David Jaffe put it well, "You can have a development environment that does everything for you, but it will abstract you so much that you won't be able to get the full power of the machine."

The programmers that do the best work are the ones that like to get the deepest into the technology. That's why I think we have the right approach with the CELL design.

When Ken Kutaragi announced a PS3 worldwide release date in 06, why did Japanese developers still get special treatment in the form of dev kits?

That's not true. The first dev kits that were purely CELL based went to American developers.

I stand corrected.

EA also got a head start on dev kits. When is there going to be equal footing for all developers?

There was no preferential treatment. Some of the EA folks drove up from Redwood to get theirs from the office, so maybe they got them a little faster. [Phil defers to EA dev in the crowd for clarification.]

[Croal summarizes the audience member's comments] In his opinion he thinks the dev kits were equally distributed this time around.

The major distinction between PS2 and Xbox was that Xbox Live was superior than the roll your own approach Sony took with the online experience. Why didn't the PS3 online service match Xbox Live?

The day you buy the console is the start of a long term relationship that will evolve over time. The chipset stays the same, but the software will change over time. The features we have for delivering online content today, which are free of charge, are an open platform for developers to customize as they see fit. We'll add features over time.

My friends at Redmond say you can't offer the feature set because it's free.

No that's not true. While it may be free to the consumer, we know there are revenue streams for us to earn in other ways. We have a number of things that we'll announce shortly that will add clarity to that statement.

What do you see as the key features of Xbox Live and what is Sony's timetable for meeting those features?

PlayStation 3 shipped with content that delivered a pretty compelling online experience. Resistance 40-player multiplayer on day one was amazing. Thanks, Ted. Motorstorm is shipping in the next few weeks and someone has said that twelve player races in Motorstorm is as much fun as humans should be allowed to have with their clothes on.

What's the timetable for some of those features to the PSP?

We've got some interesting plans that we want to share at the right time.

Gabe Newell told Game Informer that "The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It's really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted. 'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a 'do over'. Just say, 'This was a horrible disaster and we're sorry and we're going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.'"

It's a great quote.

He isn't the only developer who wanted me to ask you this. Why wasn't the launch postponed until many of the launch issues could have been resolved?

I have deep respect for Gabe's output, not so much for his comments in the press. He and his company have made two of the best games I've ever played. I have to ask this, though. By what measure is the launch unsuccessful? We had people lined up in stores in three continents for days. We sold everything we shipped into the marketplace. We continued to supply week after week. We have supplied more products in Japan, Asia and the US, and more software than we did for the PS1 and PS2. "What's wrong with this picture" is my view? We can always sell more, have more software.

The European launch is on track for the 23rd of March. The supply is on its way from China to European ports as we speak.

I just hope the Suez Canal doesn't get closed, otherwise we're all screwed.

When we announced the Emotion Engine, people said it would be too hot, too large, that we could never make it in high volume. People said the CELL would be too hot, it could never be made in volume. But we're exceeding targets.

Why do you think there's so much amneisa or skepticism in publishers and developers if that's the history?

I don't know. It baffles me. We haven't done a good enough job in sharing the issues with our stakeholders. But having said that, the challenges we had when launch PS1 and PS2 were quickly forgotten. I think we'll be the same on PS3.

With all the PSPs features why do you think it's taking so long for developers to create great, unique PSP expereinces?

I think we can go deeper, we can explore more capabilities of the machine, rather than borrowing trends in TVs and consoles.

What are you playing that's not on your platform?

Personal or professional? I've looked at many for competitive analysis. I was recently playing Loco Roco's next version. There's plenty of content on the PS3 and PSP to keep me entertained. Actually I've been playing a lot of this...

[Phil fires up duck demo. Super Rub A Dub.]

People say I have an unhealthy like of ducks. This is a title played entirely with the SIXAXIS. It requires no buttons. It will be available in a few weeks from the PlayStation Store.

One of the most powerful things about the PS3 is the "Install Other OS" option. It won't be Vista. It'll be Linux.

Do you have plans to have homebrew on the PSP?

The system doesn't really lend itself to having a secondary OS.

[N'Gai moves to questions from the audience.]

With Renderware off the market, and UE3 the de facto standard, is there any kind of alarm at Sony that you really need to start providing more compartmentalized tool sets?

Linux is for the non-professional game community, its not for games that will ship on the PlayStation Network or Blu-ray. It clearly takes time for developers to get all the functions of PS3, but if you look at Motorstorm, these distributed architectures work. As far as the rendering pipeline is concerned, there are other solutions besides Unreal Engine. If developers and publishers, don't want to use Unreal, don't buy it.

Time runs out, and Phil and N'Gai leave the stage. Now to hunt down Phil and ask about Killzone! Michael McWhertor

Not only is he hanging with the beautiful people during the lead up to the Super Bowl in Miami, he got a chance to share a Playstation 3 with Deanna Brooks, Playboy's Miss May 1998, and have his ass handed to him in Madden.

"That was impressive defensive pressure, if I do say so myself."

The founders of Level Up are all seated in a private room overlooking the pool of the South Seas Hotel in Miami's raucous South Beach district. We've got a Sixaxis controller in our hands, a Bravia LCD television staring us in the face, and a Playstation 3 with a copy of Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 07 all fired up. But sitting right next to us is Playboy playmate Deanna Brooks—Miss May 1998, according to Google—with a grin-verging-on-a-smirk lighting up her face. And she's gleefully trash-talking our weaksauce Madden skills as her virtual Colts squash another attempt by our digital Bears to move the chains downfield.

In the story Croal talks a bit with Brooks about her gaming habits and in particular, her PS2 addiction. Brian Crecente

Double Life: Playboy's Miss May 1998 and Level Up Face Off In Madden NFL 07 On the PS3 [Level Up]

Newsweek's Steven Levy bemoans the fact that nowadays hopeful guitar heroes don't need to sell their souls to the devil to obtain otherworldly chops, they just need to turn on their Playstation 2.

The fear Levy has is that if teens can feel the power of jamming without ever learning the skill, will they take the time.

Clearly, Guitar Hero is fun. But by bestowing the rewards of virtuosity to those who haven't spent years to earn it, is it dumbing down musicianship? If a teenager can easily become a make-believe guitar hero, does that mean he won't ever bother to master the real thing?

Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, says that the intent of Guitar Hero is to provide the thrills of real musicianship to those who would not otherwise have the opportunity. "Almost everyone who takes up guitar quits after a few months," he says. "For me, learning to play the guitar solo to 'Bark at the Moon' would take five years, and even then I couldn't do it right. But spending two or three weeks learning to do it on Guitar Hero is not too much time—and I'll really be able to feel like I'm playing it." In that sense it's no different from other experiences made virtually accessible by the computer, from being a World War II sniper to playing golf like Tiger Woods.

What's more, as digital technology becomes deeply integrated into "real" instruments, we can expect the shortcuts to virtuosity that we see in Guitar Hero to become commonplace in music. "One of the issues that musical instruments have is that they're difficult to learn," says Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson Guitar, which is aggressively integrating computer technology into new product lines. "Building calluses and painstakingly learning all the musical fingering is not creative, but is the discipline to get the creative rewards ... In the future we want to reduce the crap you have to deal with to allow people access to that creativity." It sounds great—just as the Devil's offer must have struck Robert Johnson at the crossroads.

Bah! Brian Crecente

The Low Cost of (Guitar) Heroism [Newsweek]

Don't let Mario's overalls fool you, Nintendo likes money just as the next console maker. No surprises there — Memories do come flooding back to when Nintendo announced Wii pricing and many flipped out at parting with US $250 as opposed to the rumored $199. Newsweek's got a piece up on the Wii about demand for the machine, the radio contest fiasco and a few blurbs from Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan. Regarding the contest, Kaplan offered her condolences and stressed that Nintendo had nothing to do with it. Regarding the shortages, she said:

We produce a healthy number, with more shipments coming weekly. We're not sure what more we could have done to meet such overwhelming demand... We try to minimize that [airlifting in consoles as Sony did with the PS3], as air is costly. We're a profit-oriented company.

Yup, that you are. And turning a pretty penny from what we hear! Brian Ashcraft

Thanks Batmundo for the scan!

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal pinged us with his take on how the iPhone will shake things up. He blogs:

The iPhone isn't a direct challenger to Sony's portable gaming ambitions—that would be the wildly popular Nintendo DS—but it most certainly is a threat to Sony's mobile media and communication ambitions. After all, the iPod has iTunes (with music, movies, TV and games); while the PSP has the Playstation Network (for PS2 games that can run on the PSP's emulator and...nothing else right now—more than two years after its launch.)

But what about the DS? Croal says:

The iPhone won't stop the DS from selling like ice on a hot summer day, but it could cause a lot of casual DS owners to put it in a sock drawer and forget about it.

But for now, it looks like the only thing that's being shaken up is Apple as the company gets entangled in a legal dispute over trademark infringement. Portable gaming, for now you are safe! Brian Ashcraft

iPhone Gaming Threat? [Newsweek]

... I think that they became quite insular and quite inward-facing, and they missed some of the trends that were going on in the business generally. Now also, if you sell your company to Microsoft and get hundreds of millions of whatevers, currency in the bank, it does tend to defocus management a little bit. But Rare, and prior to Rare, Ultimate, are responsible for some of the best games ever made.

A very diplomatic, insightful answer, Mr. Harrison. Croal also takes time to wax realistically on the real reasons why the Stampers jumped ship. Maybe they just wanted to take some time to focus on their lighting of cigars with 50 pound notes. Michael McWhertor

Critical Hit: Playstation Studio Chief Phil Harrison's Prescient Requiem For Rare [Newsweek]
Rare Founders Leave Company [Kotaku]

Newsweek's resident game guru N'Gai Croal pinged us about a pledge Nintendo honcho Reggie Fils-Aime has made. The company president has promised no "Nintendo drought," which typically follows between first party games. While Twilight Princess is out and about, sites such as CVG rumor that the next two big titles Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Mario Galaxy won't see the light of day until late next year.

In a sit-down interview from October, Reggie told Croal:

Metroid Prime 3... is a from-the-ground-up creation of Metroid for the Wii system. That title is going to come out early in 2007. That will give us fantastic momentum coming off of the launch, and will certainly be an example of how there will be no new game drought for this system.

Mario Galaxy... another from-the-ground-up Wii game that we are strategically timing the launch to make sure that we continue driving momentum through 2007. So N'Gai, how do I answer the question, "Will there be no drought," and "How will we make sure that there are fantastic titles for Wii?" The answer is Zelda, Metroid and Mario. Which is a pretty darn good lineup.

"So are you willing to make a 'Read my lips' pledge right here?" Croal fired back. Reggie's answer?

I thought I just did.

Continuing, Croal added "I'll be checkin in with you when these titles actually ship." To which Reggie replied, "Exactly." And thus the bet was sealed, bringing back memories of bald Jallard refusing to wear a wig. Unfortunately, no such deal was inked with Reggie. Two words: Missed opportunity. Brian Ashcraft

Reggie's Promises [Newsweek]

N'Gai Croal, that lucky bastard from Newsweek, got a chance to hang-out with Will Wright backstage prior to the developer's appearance on the Colbert Report.

In fact, he even got to hitch a ride in the back of a black town car to the show.

Wright told Croal that Spore, expected to hit in the second half of 2007, is currently in pre-alpha five, a stage of development for the game that means that EA employees outside the development team can play it from beginning to end, though the game is still quite rough in spots.

The game is expected to hit Alpha next spring.

Croal, while seated in the certain luxury of the Colbert Report's green room, asked Wright if he felt pressured by EA head Larry Probst's recent statement that Spore could be EA's World of Warcraft. To which Wright replied, that everyone at EA's making that claim right now in hopes of getting their project green lighted.

Croal watched the show from the stairs next to the audience seats and thinks that Wright held his own. I still think that Colbert wasn't at his best game, and that Wright seemed scared stiff. Brian Crecente

Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of Will Wright's Visit to the Colbert Report [Newsweek]

Where part one and part two of N'Gai Croal's interview of Electronic Arts CEo Larry Probst was lecture and brimstone, part three is much more Probst dancing around the harder questions.

It's interesting to see the head of EA trying to avoid talking about the microtransactions issue that has so many gamers ticked off.

There's been a good deal of controversy in the enthusiast press and on message boards about the microtransaction practices of EA and other publishers. There's even a blog called GamerFeast, that has an Xbox 360 Microtransaction Tracker. As of early November, EA's fully loaded games—calculated by taking the price of the game at retail and adding to it all of the various microtransaction costs—held 3 of the top 5 spots, with Need for Speed Carbon topping the list at $94.97. Isn't there a concern that EA may be strip-mining its most avid consumers with these strategies, even if it does extend the life of the game additional content?

We're working our way through that. With some of the initial titles, we did hear complaints from consumers, but I think we learned. We did a better job on Need for Speed Carbon, and we're not hearing those same kinds of complaints or negative feedback about that product. It's generating a lot of money through microtransactions. So it's a learning process, it's iterative and we'll get better about it as we go. Need for Speed is the first example of getting smarter about it.

The other complaint that gamers have is that with the next-generation versions of some of your biggest franchises, like FIFA and Madden, they're paying more money for fewer features—fewer leagues and stadiums, no owner mode, etc.—yet those features can be found on the lower-priced current-generation versions. How do you justify the price difference, and how soon should gamers expect feature parity across both generations?

We heard that complaint more frequently on the first generation products. As we get into the second and third iterations, I think that's not so much of a problem. It's more expensive to develop on these [new] platforms. We've got to figure out some way to defer and recoup those costs. The real answer is, when you get these first iterations, it's a rush to the finish line to get these things ready for the launch windows. In year two and year three, we start to catch up and deliver more than what the consumers expect in terms of features.

Better still, though, is Probst's response to EA's dipping innovation. Croal points out that EA is often criticized for a lack of innovation despite coming out with some very innovative titles.

EA is often criticized by gamers and the enthusiast press for not being innovative, that your company only puts out sequels, licensed products and annual sports games. But you're also making games like Spore and Army of Two; there are the Steven Spielberg games which have yet to be shown; and a number of your executives have been talking about the importance of new IP. Why do you think EA doesn't get credit for its innovations?

Because we don't have journalists like you writing articles about us. [Laughs.] Look, I think you're absolutely right. Last year, about 40 percent of our business was wholly owned intellectual property, and our goal is to move that up to 50 percent or better. We've got some great things in the pipeline. You mentioned Spore, there's Army of Two. We're resurrecting the Command & Conquer franchise.

What else have we announced that I'm allowed to talk about? Skate is a really cool-looking game. That should give Tony Hawk a run for his money. Tony's getting old.

I like how Probst mentions Command & Conquer as an example of innovation. Hello... that's an example of EA milking an IP, not being creative. Brian Crecente

Larry Probst Interview, Part III [Newsweek]

The most intriguing comments from Probst on the matter come after the CEO says that the Playstation Portable needs to be cheaper and in a different form factor for EA to change their current, port strategy for the portable.

I think what moves the needle is a new form factor that's smaller than the existing unit, at a lower price, and hopefully that price is $100 lower. This is pure speculation, we don't know what Sony's plans are. But it would not be hugely surprising if they had that lower priced unit at $149 and then a more fully-featured upscale unit that retails at $249 or $299. Again, that's pure speculation. We don't have any inside information on that.

Probst goes on to say that it would help to have more interoperability between the PSP and "other platforms". Amen. Let's get that PS3 PSP hook-up in overdrive already.

In this chunk of the interview Probst also touches on EA's next break-out hit (Spore, of course) and the chances of Warhammer Online posing any sort of threat to the MMO goliath World of Warcraft. Brian Crecente

Loot: The Larry Probst Interview, Part II [Newsweek]

Newsweeks' N'Gai Croal has a fascinating interview up with David Jaffe about Sony's version of Xbox Live Arcade, called (oh, so poetically), e-Distribution Initiative or eDI.

In it Jaffe talks about how he now wants to concentrate on making pop songs (small downloadable games for the service) instead of operas (Twisted Metal and God of War). While he also talks about his most recent game Criminal Crackdown for the PS3, the most interesting and intriguing bits of the interview are where he starts to talk about what he feels are the differences between the Xbox 360's Live Arcade and the PS3's eDI.

I would say that there are pop songs by Ashlee Simpson and pop songs by the Beatles. My goal is to write pop songs like the Beatles, not like Ashlee Simpson. If you want Ashlee Simpson pop songs, go to Xbox Live Arcade. Actually, they're the oldies station, because all you're getting is Scramble and Pac-Man.

Most suprising is just how into these smaller games Jaffe is. When asked if he would go back to making operas like God of War or Twisted Metal, Jaffe says no, unless someone made him.

One day, I may have no choice. Phil [Harrison, president of Sony Worldwide Studios] is a really big believer in this service. It's not just a place to put shovelware. It's our version of HBO original programming. Not everything is suited to a 50-megabyte Blu-Ray disc. It doesn't mean those games don't deserve a platform. This is probably the first time since the arcade days that games of this type have had a viable home. So far, Sony seems really supportive of me staying in this space.

I don't completly agree with Jaffe's assessment of Live Arcade, though recently it has been getting flooded with retros and ports. This is why I love competition. If Sony really is trying to turn their eDI into the next HBO, then Microsoft is going to have to up their game to stay competitive and it's the gamers who win. Brian Crecente

The Artist's Way: Sgt. Jaffe's Lonely Hearts Club Band [Newsweek]

Two years after release, Newsweek has finally discovered World of Warcraft and written an excellent little three page primer for the hopeless, draconian cubes who have never even considered spending the vast majority of their leisure time prancing around as an effete, imaginary elf.

It's a pretty good article, though nothing really new here. Those who are familiar with World of Warcraft will get a bit of a chuckle as they read again about the slaughter of a guild honoring one of its deceased members, or the infamous "Horde is Evil" debacle. And heck, I didn't know about the march of a thousand naked gnomes on Ironforge to protest for "more power." Is this political power or gay power? It's very hard to say, given the description.

The lead is cute: "In the physical world we vainly scrounge for glory. Bin Laden still taunts us, the bus doors close before we reach them and leave us standing in the rain," Levy notes. Was Bin Ladin in that bus or something? He continues: "But in the fantasy realm of Azeroth, the virtual geography of World of Warcraft, the physical pain comes only from hitting a keyboard too hard." Or from not emptying your bladder in a timely enough fashion. Florian Eckhardt

World of Warcraft: Is It A Game? [MSNBC]