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“Scientists say video games can reshape education”

Having just recently picked up a copy of Big Brain Academy for the DS Lite, this article comes as no surprise: “Not playing around: Scientists say video games can reshape education.”

“The theory is that games teach skills that employers want: analytical thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress.”

What is a surprise though, is to hear that there are still people who are skeptical about using games for education. I mean, where would my mad dance floor skillz be without Dance Dance Revolution? Ok, bad example.

Looking back though, I fondly remember going to my elementary school library to play typing tutors and Oregon Trail (which taught us the value of 4×4 vehicles.) But past elementary school, educational games went away. At home, I was slingin’ LOGO and playing Zork, but my in-school computer use evolved into using spreadsheets and, eventually, programming Pascal.

The article does mention one important fact though:

“The gaming industry has already figured out that educational games don’t make money in the consumer marketplace. The new approach would instead market them directly to schools.”

This is key. You definitely don’t want some “education council” designing the games — they’re going to suck. You need professional game designers. And if you can organize enough of our tax dollars into funding such development, then you give the gaming industry a reason to take the educational market more seriously.

Numbers stations…

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this before today:

“Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast people reading streams of numbers, words, or letters (sometimes using a phonetic alphabet)…” (Via wikipedia.)

Preferans, PyDict, and s60-compat for PyS60

Some of this will be more useful for those Russian-speaking Python hackers out there, but http://amigo12.boom.ru/ (English) has some excellent examples of robust and unique mobile applications written with Python for S60:

Preferans card game on Python for S60:

Python Dictionary for Series60:

amigo12 also has done some work to add emulation of the graphics module to the PDIS wxWindows-based PyS60 emulator, and has been discussing these projects on the discussion boards.

XBox 360 sales below target

Joystiq is reporting that XBox 360 sales were below projections in November, coming “80,000 [units] shy of the company’s 400,000 expected.” What I find interesting here is that it matches my (and the folks I’ve talked to’s) buying plans. Even though I do actually plan on picking up a 360, I didn’t want to deal with the short-supply and first-gen hardware problems, so I decided to hold off on purchasing and wait until the new year.

(Via: “Microsoft sells below 360 targets“)

Austin Game Conference

I’ll be at Austin Game Conference tomorrow and Friday (Oct. 27-28 2005), primarily in the Mobile and Wireless Design track. I’ve been to Game Developer Conference a few times, but this will be my first visit to the local conference so I’m not sure what to expect of it. Hopefully there will be at least a few active mobile developers, as I’m most interested in hearing what tools and development processes are being used to produce Java games targeting entry- to mid-level mass market devices. (Of course, if anyone wants to talk about Python for Series 60, I’m happy to do that as well ;-)

[Update: Here's a short bit about the conference in Business Week: Austin Game Conference Preview.]

PS3 launch videos

If you haven’t seen the Playstation 3 press videos yet (and you’re interested), this torrent has some pretty decent videos. I read a few articles that expressed concern over whether these are pre-renders or actual real-time game footage and the verdict was that these are pretty darn close to what games can look like on the PS3. Which is jaw-dropping.

And now the PS3…

Sony has now announced the PS3, and as expected, it’s processing power dwarfs the new XBox. These two consoles are touting technical specs that you simply cannot get in a desktop PC for anything near the expected street prices.

The original XBox is younger then the PS2, so it’s had the upper hand in graphics capabilities. But the third generation consoles will flip the status quo with the PS3 holding the lead position in raw power. That’s certainly a good thing for Sony, being the leader in the console industry. But is it enough? Obviously both consoles have the potential for some amazing game play, but Microsoft is positioning their device as more then a game console and building value with their XBox Live network.

I read a few scarce bits about a “PlayStation World” network that will offer an online retreat for PS3 owners, but nothing about improving their online game play business model. As I mentioned in my last post, Microsoft has a serious advantage with it’s unified online service and a media strategy built around their console. They are taking advantage of the position the console fills — being online and connected to consumers’ televisions. They are turning it into a media device to be used for games, music, and movies.

The irony is that Sony *is* a media company but they seem to be forgetting it. The PS3 has the power to be the center of my home media system if it can just get music and video from my file server (running OS X) and the internet without proprietary DRM. The XBox claims to pull media from Windows machines on the network, which doesn’t help me out, but at least they’re trying and hackers will get it working from other OS’s soon enough. I’m afraid the PS3 is going to be an ultra powerful video, sound, and graphics machine siting idle while some other device handles my movies and tunes (and it sounds like a Mac Mini is still the most capable option for the money.) It’s unfortunate, but there’s still hope. The PS3 isn’t shipping anytime soon and Sony still has time to announce and evolve it’s online and media strategy for the next gen console. Hopefully they’re thinking big.

Free goes a long way

I read through some of the XBox 360 announcements last week, and the one bit that really caught my attention was that all XBox 360 owners will get free weekend access to XBox Live. That’s a killer feature. Microsoft’s online strategy has dominated Sony’s (even if Sony has sold more hardware) and Sony will have to announce some very serious, well thought-out plans if they want to compete in the online space with the PS3. I’m generally not a Microsoft fan, nor do I own an XBox, but I certainly plan on picking up one of these new units when they’re released.

The Xbox Live online experience is stellar. There are a few reasons for this, but one of the main one’s is that Microsoft “owns the login.” All games must authenticate users through the same system, which leads to a consistent user-experience. Members have one bill, one login, and one system to deal with. It also means that Microsoft can build value-add services like social networking — something they are really pushing with the 360.

In contrast, the Playstation strategy requires game developers to manage their own online offering. Everything from the connection, to account management, to authentication, to billing, to game play must be built by each developer. This empowers a developer to build exactly the experience they want; But unless a shop can guarantee the needed volume of subscriptions to cover these costs, it just isn’t feasible to do. Because of this, smaller titles don’t get online features on the PS2. (Heck, most games don’t get online features on the PS2.)

The 360 is also being positioned as an always-online media center. It let’s owners chat online (voice and video), watch game and movie trailers, listen to music stored on your PC, etc. It’s a digital hub, to use a marketing term, that brings the internet and the media on your PC to your television. Building on that, it doesn’t take much of an imagination stretch to see online music and movie sales coming through the 360 either (although sadly, probably not via iTMS.)

There’s always a negative side though, and in this case I’m guessing that the media center functionality is designed to work only with Windows PC’s, locking out other OS’s and devices. It would make sense coming from Microsoft, but would be a poor choice if they really seek to “own” the home network experience. Furthermore, Microsoft’s history of poor security makes the thought of leaving the 360 powered-on and connected all the time a bit scary (and wasteful.)

I suppose we’ll have to wait until the holiday season to find out how well all of these ideas actually work. There have been a lot of services trying to bring the net to your television, but most of them have sucked. In the past, and likely still true for most consumers, the television did not offer the screen clarity needed to realistically read text. The technology was designed for moving pictures, and works very well for that. If you’ve ever tried designing TV-based software interfaces, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Characters bleed and twitch, and the resolution is terrible. But for video chat, movie trailers, and game previews, the television is perfect — and that’s where the 360 has an edge. Done right, the content will be interesting, and services designed specifically to run on this infrastructure have the potential to be huge.