Introducing Call of Duty: Monthly Subscription

Bang! That's not the sound of a headshot from an AK-47. It's the sound of Activision, publishers of the world-storming Call of Duty franchise coming up with an idea that will change not just the company's fortunes, but the gaming landscape forever: Call of Duty: Elite.

Activision's new subscription model, which offers Call of Duty players bonus content in return for a monthly subscription fee is sure to spark a war of words as much as a gaming one.

Starting with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the latest entry into the blockbuster FPS franchise which releases this autumn, players will be given the option to sign up for a subscription to Call of Duty which will work with MW3 and all future COD games. In return for the monthly payment, players will get access to extra, exclusive maps as well as a stats service which shows them in depth which weapons they are having most success with.

It’s not known how much the charge will be yet, but this idea is, of course, from the company which runs World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game which can take £10-15 a month from each subscriber on top of the cost of the game.

Considering that MW3 costs an eye-watering £55 just for the disc, it seems more than a little excessive to start charging to play online, too.

Yes, the free service will stay in place. Players can still get online and shoot seven shades of shellshock out of one another for nothing. But the fact is, come this autumn there will be an exclusive section of the online community cordoned off – maps only subscribers can play, rooms teeming with pay-per-month customers who don’t want to mingle with the cheapo users.

It’s a worrying direction for gaming. We already have games which last at best, 5-10 hours in single-player, devoid of any split-screen multiplayer, with developers insisting the online modes (most of which are soulless clones of every other game’s online play) make up for the lack of meat elsewhere.

 As recently as five years ago, that wouldn’t have happened. PS2 games, for all their low-res, offline antiquatedness, had to deliver a compelling, lengthy experience and often a good split-screen mode to survive.
Fast forward to 2011 and we have games with content on the disc which you have to pay to access – DLC packs which were made as part of the main game, then locked out. Then they sell you the digital key to your own disc for £7.99. It’s absurd.

Now, Activision want to split the market entirely, into payers and non-payers. Sure, currently it’s only a few measly map packs and some data tracking. But if the idea catches on, expect what’s offered in the free zone to slowly diminish whilst the pay-for section gradually begins to resemble exactly what we used to get for free.

Sure, Activision are more than within their rights to do it. It’s a free market – and if people will pay, then Activision can – and in a pro-business sense sort of way – should offer it.

But embrace this future and we could suddenly see the glory years of free online play slide into yesteryear, much like PS2’s meaty single-player campaigns did. Show that we’re willing to stump up for one game, and every game developer will want to sell us a 12-month contract as well as a game.

Eventually, we’ll all buy one shooter (COD), one racer (NFS), one sports game (FIFA) and one action game (GTA) every year, subscribe to their online play and to hell with originality, innovation or indeed, free online. We’ll no be longer gamers, we’ll be loyal, contracted subscribers.

This may all sound like a ludicrous, exaggerated over-reaction. But MW3’s subscriber model is one small step away from this disastrous new reality. Don’t take that step. Step back, and throw up a middle finger, not a credit card.

Has PSN's downtime ruined the PS3?

At some point last week, PSN finally came back online after 22 days of PS3 gamers being left in the cold, offline wilderness.

It's back, but it's still a bit broken. Playstation Store is closed. The servers seem a bit jumpy, and my PlayStation Android app doesn't really, er, work.

Sony have promised that when PSN is fully functioning, owners can choose two of five free games to make up for that rather unfortunate matter of everyone's credit card details now sitting on the hard drive of some dark room dwelling borderline sociopath somewhere in Ohio.

On top of that, Sony PS President Kaz Hirai and his fellow executives apologised publically with a bow; a deeply significant gesture in Japan's culture of humility and integrity.

Too little, too late? Well, it might be. But we can't even get our free games yet, because the Store is still down.

The whole sorry episode has seen Sony shambling through problems like these. It's no wonder that PS3 trade-ins have increased an astonishing 200% since PSN went down, according to EDGE magazine, based on official retail figures.

PS3 had been having a good year until last month. Between exclusives like Gran Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet 2 and the Uncharted 3 announcement, the PS3 was hot property. It even threatened to topple the Xbox 360's dominance, often overtaking it in sales.

They say a car is only as fast as its driver, though. Give Vettel a Red Bull F1 car, you get victory. Give me a Red Bull F1 car, and I'll give you an explosive, bloody mess, not a world championship.

Well, Sony ain't Vettel. They've driven the PS3 machine from a stable, advantageous position into the dirt track, and it may take a lot more than a couple of hand-outs of old games (LittleBigPlanet 1? Really?) to restore gamers' faith.

At the end of the day, we're all grown ups here. We don't hold certain companies or consoles in some beloved, quasi-weird position of love. We just want to game. It's understandable that many have probably defected to Microsoft's Xbox, where the online is always on and the credit card details always un-leaked.

To win over the gaming crowd again, Sony need to do something special - and I'm not sure they have it in them, any more than gamers have it in them to trust the company again.

E3, the annual games convention usually bursting with announcements, is only a couple of weeks away - and for PS3, it could be do or die.

Can we trust the internet with a credit card?

If a supposedly secure, world-wide service can be hacked, should we really be shopping online at all?


Somebody 'may' have got hold of 70 million peoples' credit card details this week, according to Sony.

Yes, the Playstation Network (PSN), which allows millions of PS3 and PSP owners to play games online has been hacked, causing the service to be suspended for over a week, but more worryingly, for the card numbers, date of birth, email and physical addresses of all of its users to potentially be compromised.

If PSN can be hacked, and card details (like mine) obtained, then what about other websites? Amazon is completely secure. It displays that little gold padlock in the corner when you buy something. So does Paypal, and eBay, and Play.com. I've used all these sites and never have I received a phone call from my bank asking why I've started bulk buying iPods and Bulgarian porn. But the risk remains.

I must stress that these sites are secure, and I have heard no reports of them being hacked. But it could happen, theoretically. If PSN, a 70-million user service from a world-recognised corporation, can be hacked open, why not one of these sites? If there is even a slight risk, why shop online at all?

Well, some don't. And they aren't all old fogeys who don't know what an internet is. My 18-year-old brother refuses to shop online because he doesn't trust a computer to feed his money digits down a webpipe to some company in the hope he'll receive something in the post four days later. There are plenty who feel the same way.

But we've come a long way since the early days of the internet. The fact is, there is virtually no risk at all in buying from a reputable, recognised website. The level of security is beyond military standard. People's lives are one thing, but if there is money involved, the security goes up to another level.

Yes, PSN was supposed to be that secure, and it might have been compromised. That's a huge error on Sony's part. But games console networks are in their infancy. The Playstation 2 didn't have any sort of network, and the PS3 has only had one for five years. Now that it has happened, future games consoles will be doubly or triply secure.

Sites like eBay and Amazon have years of security experience behind them. If we can't trust them now, we probably never can.

So, can we trust them now? Well, it's up to individuals to determine if it's worth that risk. In my eyes, I take a larger risk of having my card details stolen every time I leave the house than I do when I shop online. Shopping on Amazon is the equivalent of using the cash machine with an army of fifty bodyguards by your side. Out on the street, I'm a scrawny white bloke who couldn't fight a paper receipt, let alone a paper bag or a mugger.

But it is up to the companies who run these websites to persuade people how safe they really are, though. Sony has a lot of damage control to do, and if peoples' accounts do start emptying, it could set web shopping trust back years.

If Sony is the weak link that ruins internet shopping for the rest of us, then it will have a lot more to worry about than the Playstation Network.

Internet shopping should be treated with a heavy dose of caution, but it's as safe as anything else in life: 99%. Nothing can ever be totally safe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to wait for a possible phone call about some Bulgarian videos.

Wii 2: HD, Blu-ray - What if the rumours are true?

The sequel to Nintendo's world-storming Wii console is close. Very close. That's what rumours bursting from inside the industry would have us believe, with most tipping an unveiling at this year's E3 convention - the annual games industry shin-dig where new tech has always been shown off.

It will be HD - but that's a given these days. What's more interesting is that the rumours say it will have a controller with a HD touchscreen, as well as use Blu-ray and a meaty quad-core processor to deliver graphics which are ahead of PS3 and Xbox 360 levels whilst still remaining innovative.

Whilst these rumours should be treated with caution, it is intriguing that the French site which revealed these specs - 01.net - also leaked the final specs of Sony's 'PSP2', the NGP, before the device was made public.


If the rumours are true, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo manages to market the console to its more recent target audience of families and social gamers as opposed to the Modern Warfare, dark room, headset types who will no doubt be more at ease with a high-spec, high-price console than the mums who just want to play Wii Fit.

It would mark a serious departure from Nintendo's low-graphics, high-innovation approach which has seen it sell 225 million DS and Wii consoles in six years.

If Nintendo does return to targeting a more typical gamer audience, it might at once alienate its most recent fans whilst struggling to claw back old fans who grew disillusioned with Wii Play and Brain Training and moved to Xbox or PS3 to get their fix.

The new 3DS might give us some idea. The handheld may not be the most powerful thing ever created, but it does smash the PSP and deliver graphics capable of beating Wii - and in 3D. And with games like Pro Evolution Soccer, Ridge Racer and Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D promising deep experiences rather than light family fare, it marks a shift in focus for Nintendo back to its more traditional roots. The price - £230 - is more than double the launch price of the £99 DS, leaving all but the most fanatical for the device unlikely to open their wallets.

A console which delivers the likes of Zelda, Metroid and Mario Galaxy in glorious HD is a dream to any Nintendo fan, but where does it leave the new crowd?

The controller may provide the answer. While I'm not sure why you'd need a HD screen on a controller (the aspect of the rumour I'm most suspicious of), if it were true that the Wii 2 will use a controller with a touch screen, it would be a way of marketing the console as something a bit different.

Cue adverts of families playing Monopoly on their Wii 2 with their money laid out on their remote screen, or playing 'silly' mini-games whilst smiling un-naturally. Even if it weren't the controller, but some other gimmick (a projector has been rumoured, meaning the console wouldn't need a TV to be played), there is likely to be something to make the console stand out.

There is a danger, though - as there is with 3DS' 3D screen - that the headline feature, the touchscreen controller, thrown in to make the mainstream take notice simply won't do the trick.

That would leave Nintendo in a vulnerable position. PS4 and NeXtbox will likely beat Wii 2 graphics, leaving most developers to make games for that pairing, leaving Wii 2 with only ports of old games (even if those 'old games' are today's PS3 and 360 titles) and the likes of Mario for owners to play. Except they wouldn't have the mass market to fall back on.

On the flipside, it could take the mass market while bringing in the 'hardcore', too, capturing both markets just like the mighty PS2 managed.

Either way, it's going to be an interesting 12 months for the industry's most unconventional of companies.