We take a fond look back at the design classic that was the Motorola Razr. 130 million sales made it the most popular flip phone of all time. Seven years ago it was the best Christmas present you could hope to receive.

It has been almost seven years since I left the house without a mobile phone in my pocket. Seven years since I unwrapped a Christmas present from my wife and set eyes on the Motorola Razr. It was my first proper cell phone. My wife had an ugly blue thing that looked like a wireless house phone before then, but I had avoided getting a mobile on the grounds that I couldn’t be reached on the weekend for overtime requests provided I was out of the house.

The Motorola Razr was the first cell phone that I can remember seeing that kindled some desire. This phone was so stylish it was worth extra overtime. It was a sleek, black design with a dual display and it flipped open to reveal a futuristic nickel-plated keypad. It came in a black leather holster with Bluetooth accessories. The aluminum body felt reassuringly tough. It was also really comfortable to use – the fact that it flipped open and had a hinge in the middle meant that your mouth was naturally at the microphone and the speaker could be held to your ear, something that still feels odd on candy bar designs.

I eventually replaced it with a Nokia pic6131 (which was the first phone to have NFC), but while the Nokia is long gone, I still have the Razr. Even with the cracked front display and worn keypad, it still looks pretty good. I loved my Motorola Razr and I wasn’t alone.

Razr on the cutting edge

Before the smartphone and iPhone revolution, there was a period in time where the Motorola Razr ruled all. By the summer of 2006 Motorola had sold over 50 million Razr handsets and the manufacturer was continuing to churn out new variants with subtle improvements every few months. There was a hot pink version, new models to support GSM and EDGE, and various hardware improvements to the displays, the camera and the internals. The line would eventually account for 130 million sales at the end of its four-year run. That made it the best-selling flip, or clamshell, phone of all time.

The Motorola Razr was first released in 2004 and it wasn’t intended to be a mass market phone. It was a high-end fashion conscious release designed to show off Motorola’s skill and style. It cost around $600 when it first hit the market, but by the time I got one for Christmas in 2005, the price had come way down and Motorola had a massive hit on its hands.

Motorola’s monster

There’s no denying the Razr was a fantastic phone, although beyond calls and texting, the early versions were limited. The V3 had 5.5MB of storage and a VGA camera. You could send and receive email, and browse the web … slowly. For a feature phone it was actually pretty light on features so Motorola just kept adding to it while retaining the iconic design.

You could argue that the Razr’s success ended up hobbling Motorola because the company was afraid to move on to new designs. When the BlackBerry and then the iPhone started to take off in 2007 Motorola was still flogging the Razr and by 2008 it was definitely the proverbial dead horse. In fact, a 2008 report revealed that 24 percent of new iPhone owners in the U.S. switched from the Razr.

Motorola was slow to the smartphone party. A revival for the Razr brand in the shape of the V13 in November 2009 didn’t go as planned. It had a touch screen and a 5-megapixel camera, but demand for the clamshell form factor was gone and it wasn’t coming back. Increasingly big touchscreens were the new trend and Motorola had to get with the program.

It was back to the drawing board and the modern candy bar, Android smartphone, the Droid Razr came out in October 2011. It was a solid release, but all it really shared with the original was the Razr name and that didn’t prove to be enough to capture major consumer attention. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Google last summer and despite some good-looking devices with a focus on solving the battery life pain point, Motorola is lagging way behind market leaders, Samsung and Apple.

Remembering the Razr

The Motorola Razr V3 deserves its place in the pantheon of great phones. Not many phones break through that 100 million sales barrier, so to sell 130 million was a pretty amazing achievement for Motorola. That anodized aluminum body, just half an inch thick with gentle curves, was a true design classic.

Taking a look on eBay as I write this, I see that there’s still a bustling trade in Razr V3 sales. The top result is a pink, mint condition Razr V3 and 26 bids have pushed it over the $100 mark. Not bad for a phone that’s seven years old.

Check out our Motorola Razr V3c review from December 2005.

Digital Blend closes out the year with a look back at the best of what 2012 had to offer in under-$20 gaming.

This final Digital Blend of the year breaks format to bring you our best games in the under-$20 gaming from 2012. There’s little in the way of new releases in this post-Christmas week. And while the news is light, you should definitely take a peek at our interview with American McGee, creator of two Alice in Wonderland-themed games, the episodic series based on the writings of The Brothers Grimm, and the recent browser based game Akaneiro: Demon Hunters. Also take note of the fact that mobile developer Supercell – creator of Clash of Clans and HayDay - has officially overtaken Electronic Arts as the top-grossing iOS developer, thanks almost entirely to the daily $500,000 take that the studio sees from micro-transactions. The final bit of Blend-worthy news for this week: the Wii U will get its first taste of free-to-play in 2013 when Namco Bandai offers up Tank! Tank! Tank! with a free foundation and a pay-per-feature unlock system.

The Digital Blend focus will always be on the best in under-$20 gaming, but we’ll be pulling from a much more diverse assortment of offerings as 2013 unfolds. New hardware means changing systems; Sony and Microsoft have both already begun edging toward console-based F2P content, and the importance of that business model is likely to expand in 2013 as the next-gen dawns. Continually improving mobile hardware and new technology like the open-source, F2P-driven Ouya console only promise to further complicate the landscape for established competitors. Apple alone looms large as a constant game-changer threat; if the company put just one percent more effort into establishing itself as a force in gaming, it could potentially be a competitor.

That’s all in the future though. For now, let’s look back over 2012. So read on for our top picks of the year, broken down by content delivery system. 

Journey :: PlayStation Network

Journey‘s… err… journey is stunningly beautiful and immediately memorable. The graphics, the music, the anonymous multiplayer gameplay… every shred of this game drips with creativity and outside the box thinking. There were many great games released on PlayStation Network in 2012, both for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita platforms, but none comes even close to capturing the artistic flavor and sharp design of Journey.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition :: Xbox Live Arcade

Minecraft was a bona fide PC sensation long before it made its bow on Xbox Live Arcade earlier this year. Give credit then to developer 4J Studios for capturing the essence of the ever-malleable original in a technical package that the Xbox 360 console can play nice with. Console Minecraft is not without its concessions, chief among them being a significantly smaller world size and a lack of feature parity with the PC edition. 4J has been great about delivering updates that add necessary features from the PC game. The UK-based studio also did a stellar job of making this very mouse+keyboard-friendly game an absolute joy to play on a gamepad. It may embrace a different set of strengths than its PC-exclusive predecessor does, but Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition delivers the same sort of highs while taking full advantage of Xbox Live’s exceptional multiplayer support.

TIE: FTL: Faster Than Light and Hotline Miami :: PC

The great thing about being in charge of a “best of” list is the ability to bend the rules when necessary. Thanks be for that, because you can’t force us to decide between FTL: Faster Than Light and Hotline Miami. Both are exceptional games whose principal joys stem from their sense of randomness. The emergent elements feel very different between the two games, but the result on the gamer’s end is the same: open-mouthed bliss. FTL accomplishes it through a never-ending supply of random obstacles that pop up as you keep your patchwork ship together while it zooms across the galaxy. Hotline Miami is much more about embracing the moment; the map layouts never change but enemy placement does. The most effective strategy is to simply nut up and carve out a gory path of destruction while relying primarily on reflexes and quick tactical planning.

Crashmo :: Nintendo eShop

Mallo is back! The late-2011 puzzle game Pushmo got a late-2012 refresh as Crashmo. The focus is largely the same, tasking players with pushing and pulling large blocks around an arena with the goal of creating a route that allows you to jump your way to the top. Crashmo stands apart from its predecessor for adding gravity to the mix. Blocks can now tumble down when there’s nothing beneath them, adding a significant wrinkle to the way you must approach each challenge. The physics aren’t always true-to-life, but this is a game that rewards those with the patience to trial-and-error their way through an assortment of puzzles. You’ll either hate it or you’ll lose so many hours playing that you’ll find yourself starting to frequently miss your bus/subway/commuter rail stops.

Angry Birds Space :: Mobile

The unfortunate truth is that there isn’t a mobile platform out there right now that is capable of competing with Apple’s iOS, at least when it comes to catering to the tastes of gamers. Android and Windows Phone both have different issues that they’ll need to tackle in 2013; Ouya and other gaming-dedicated devices will help the former while the continued proliferation of Windows 8 will help the latter.

With that caveat out of the way, let’s get back to celebrating. Rovio continues to sail along on the success of its Angry Birds franchise, but 2012′s Angry Birds Space proved yet again that there’s some intense creativity happening in the developer’s offices. Space takes the Angry Birds formula and evolves it for a range of zero-G, low-gravity, and airless environments. Those ideas further coalesced in Angry Birds Star Wars, but the evolved gameplay of Angry Birds Space is what nets it top honors.

The Walking Dead :: Multi-platform

Here’s a telling piece of information: We were tempted to call this feature “The Best Games of 2012 That Weren’t Called The Walking Dead.” So outstanding were Telltale Games’ efforts that it’s starting to feel like The Walking Dead is hogging all of the attention away from other, equally excellent and deserving games. Thousands upon thousands of words have been written about this revolutionary interactive narrative and its episodic execution. You know why you need to play it. You’ve probably played it already. So let’s all give it up one more time for Telltale: The Walking Dead elevates the medium, and it’s the best video game of this and many other years.

The Web can be a scary place when it comes to finding methods for downloading YouTube videos. Check out our how-to guide to help make downloading YouTube videos a snap so you can watch them whenever and wherever, free of an Internet connection.

It’s an understatement to say that YouTube is kind of a big deal. Since the launching of its first video in 2005 (the riveting “Me at the Zoo”), the site has grown to be a phenomenon, bolstered by its passionate community and accessed by hundreds of millions of people each day. However, how do you watch YouTube videos when you leave your network behind? Maybe you just absolutely need to watch the music video for “Gangnam Style” or Bieber’s “Baby” while on the go, without eating up all your cell phone data. Or maybe you just want to compile those cute, cuddly, can’t-get-enough-of-them cat videos for your personal enjoyment when your Wi-Fi is on the fritz.

Should you decide to trudge the grey area that is downloading YouTube videos for your untethered enjoyment, let us be your guide. Tempting? Yes. Legal? Not necessarily. Either way, here’s everything you need to know to about downloading YouTube videos.

Choose the software

While YouTube is undertaking a pilot project to allow content owners the ability to make their content legally downloadable for free or for a small fee, the bulk of videos on the website are not as fortunate. Luckily there are a handful of software programs – from popular browser add-ons to stand alone programs – that will allow you to download videos regardless of whether the content owner has made the video available.

NOTE: See disclaimer below for the legality of downloading YouTube videos.

Some websites, browser add-ons, and programs simply take the URL associated with a particular video and download the videos in their original Flash format (FLV). However, most will convert the files into a more accessible format such as AVI or MP4 so you’re able to play them in the media player or device of your choice. The following are some of our top contenders and suggestions for the ultimate YouTube video downloader.

aTube Catcher (Windows/Free)

This software shines among the arsenal of the free downloaders for multiple reasons. First off, it allows you to download videos from YouTube, Comedy Central, Dailymotion, Google, and a plethora of other sites with ease. Secondly, the videos can be directly converted into more than 20 formats, from WAV to MP3, all from within the program. The software also hosts a variety of other built-in features including a voice recorder, a screen recorder, and a DVD burner.  Oh, and did we mention the software is completely devoid of ads? That’s always a plus in our book.

MacX YouTube Downloader (Mac/Free)

MacX YouTube Downloader is one of the better downloaders exclusively for the Mac. The program is simple to install, navigate, and use. The default settings are great for beginners, but there is also a level of flexibility and customization that gives more experienced users a bit more to play with. The downloader is quick, efficient, and offers a variety of formats and resolution choices for playback on everything from Android phones to Apple iPads. It also sports a sleek interface as well as the ability to simultaneously download and preview multiple videos at once. It’s definitely worth a look if you tend to stray from Windows-based software.

Easy YouTube Video Downloader (Web-based/Free)

The Mozilla Firefox extension is the go-to option when it comes to video-downloading browser add-ons. While Google Chrome and Safari both offer similar extensions, Easy YouTube Video Downloader is the most integrated and straightforward. The download and conversion speed is admirable and the HD video download option is a nice a touch – not to mention the extension works right within the YouTube page instead of utilizing external software.

KeepVid (Web-based/Free)

There doesn’t seem to be a clear winner when it comes to video downloading websites, but KeepVid tries its best. The website is compatible with all standard browsers and allows users to download videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, and others. It also provides a variety of formats and quality options to choose from. The drawback? It’s a bit slow and chock full of commercial advertisements.

Check system requirements and download

This one is a no-brainer, but it can easily be overlooked. Once you’ve chosen the software you wish to use, make sure the system requirements are met before you attempt installation. Some only work for Windows operating systems. Some only work on Mac OS X. Be sure to do a quick check before you proceed.

Find that YouTube link

Most YouTube video downloaders simply want you to provide the URL address for the video you wish to download. Simply cut and paste or copy and paste the YouTube link in the specified field. Pasting the URL may not be necessary if a browser add-on has the download function built directly into the YouTube website.

Choose the format and quality level

Choosing a file format is a matter of personal preference as well as convenience. While those gorgeous, HD videos may look great on your tablet or smartphone, they will cost you a good deal more in space and download time. The bulk of YouTube video downloaders have a drop-down menu from which to choose a format type and quality level. Many programs also show the corresponding media players and devices associated with the different formats for further clarity.

For instance, if you want to download a video for your iPhone or iPod Touch, there is an option for “IPOD TOUCH/IPHONE MPEG-4 320×240” when downloading and converting videos using aTube Catcher.

Download and save

Now just click the download button and specify a place to save the resulting file. Some downloaders will save the converted file to a default folder they’ve created. Others will ask you where you would like the file to be saved. Just make note of where the end result is going either way.

Enjoy

Sit back and relish in your own personal copies of your favorite videos. Most will open automatically when they finish downloading. Others require you to open the file manually. From here, you can upload them to different devices or watch them directly on your desktop or laptop.

Disclaimer
It is generally legal to share and embed YouTube videos on the Internet, but downloading them for your own personal use offline is a different story. Downloading videos or using an external application to download videos that lack an official button or similar link is a violation of the YouTube Terms of Service and the video owner’s copyright. Proceed at your own risk.

Self-destructing messaging apps Snapchat and Poke aren't as "safe" as you thought. A loophole that allows users to save videos to their computer has been discovered.

Snapchat messages aren’t as fleeting as we thought. While we all know photos can be saved via screen shots, videos hadn’t yet aroused much concern. But Buzzfeed discovered a loophole that will allow you to retrieve, save, and rewatch both Snapchat and Poke videos.

Just when you thought there was the perfect app for self-destructing messages, it’s too good to be true. When the recipient of the message takes a screen shot to save an image sent through Poke and Snapchat, the sender is alerted. This isn’t the case if the recipient decides to access the temporary file. So how does it work?

Even on your computer, files are stored locally as a temporary file and the same goes for files sent to and from your smartphone. These files though aren’t visible unless you download an iPhone, iPad, iPod file browser to your desktop, like iFunBox — which for the record doesn’t require you to jailbreak your phone either.

When you’ve received a video through Poke or Snapchat, don’t open the file. If the video is opened when using Poke and played, the temporary file disappears and there’s no way of retrieving it. Instead connect your iOS device to your computer and open up the iPhone file browser where you can view all of the files inside of your phone.

To access Snapchat videos, access the Snapchat folder. Within this is a folder is a subfolder labeled “tmp,” which stands for “temporary.” You’ll find the temporary files of the videos here.

To view and save the temporary files from Poke, you’ll have to navigate to Poke/library/caches/fbstore/mediacard.

Buzzfeed notes that while Poke videos disappear after viewing it, Snapchat’s videos instead linger around. And the loophole doesn’t work for photos since they’re not cached.

Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel doesn’t appear to be fazed enough by this loophole to patch it and chalks it up to the nature of the app. He tells Buzzfeed, “The people who most enjoy using Snapchat are those who embrace the spirit and intent of the service. There will always be ways to reverse engineer technology products — but that spoils the fun!”

Facebook, on the other hand, is working on a fix.

Loophole or no loophole, there really is no panacea for protecting users from duplicating content sent to and from any of these “self-destructing” apps. If someone really wanted to record a video or photo without alerting the sender, most would opt to use another device and record the clips or take a photo of the image. If you’re under the impression that these apps have your privacy in mind, consider this a wake up call. 

The PlayStation 2 ends its historic run in Japan just shy of its thirteenth birthday as Sony finally stops shipping the console in its home country. It is the best selling home gaming console ever made.

After nearly thirteen years, the PlayStation 2 is finally starting its slow ride into the sunset. The best selling home console ever made is still a sales force around the world getting new releases like FIFA 13 in countries across Europe and Asia. In its homeland, though, the PlayStation 2 is at the end of the road.

Famitsu magazine announced on Friday that Sony will officially stop shipping new PlayStation2 consoles to the Japanese market. The PlayStation 2 made its first public debut at a pre-E3 Sony event in April 1999. Early games like Namco’s Tekken Tag Tournament and Squaresoft’s (the previous incarnation of Square-Enix) The Bouncer wowed audiences with their high-end graphics. When the console released in Japan on March 4, 2000 it was an immediate sales success though its launch line up of games received a critical drubbing. The same was true following the console’s release in the United States in October 2000. Though game makers accused Sony’s hardware of being cumbersome to design for and struggled to port Sega Dreamcast games to the system, within a year the PlayStation 2 played host to some of the most creative and exciting games of the decade, from sequels like Metal Gear Solid 2 and new titles like Devil May Cry.

The potency of the system endures today. Though Sony is stopping shipments of the PlayStation 2 in Japan, new games for the system will continue to be released by major publishers. Square-Enix will release the latest expansion for its popular MMO, Final Fantasy XI: Seekers of Andoulin, in March 2013.

The system will also continue to ship around the world. The PlayStation 2 was only released in Brazil in 2009, a country where the console still enjoys brisk sales. The PlayStation 2 remains a dominant force in India as well. Over the July to September quarter of this year, the 12-year-old console contributed to more than 3.5 million home console sales for the company.

Up until this December, the PlayStation 2 was the best selling devoted video game hardware ever released but it was finally surpassed by the Nintendo DS. Nintendo’s handheld hit 153.69 million units sold, just beating out the PlayStation 2’s 153.68 million. 

Blizzard announced player-versus-player modes for Diablo 3 years before the game actually released, but delayed the release of those modes for months into 2012. With days to go until 2013, Blizzard has killed the game's Team Deathmatch mode.

Diablo 3 is unfinished. Blizzard promised the game would release with player-versus-player modes, then said those modes would be released shortly after the game in 2012. With days left in the year, those modes still haven’t been released and now Blizzard is saying one of those modes won’t ship at all.

There will be no Team Deathmatch in Diablo 3. In a Thursday update on the official Diablo 3 website, director Jay Wilson explained why PvP modes for the game haven’t been released yet, how far along in development they are, and why there will no longer be Team Deathmatch in the game.

“Our original intent with PvP for Diablo 3 was to profide more formal support for the dueling community that existed in Diablo 2,” said Wilson, “This is how Team Deathmatch mode emerged, and it’s been instrumental in making a lot of improvements to Diablo 3. But in continuing to develop this mode, playtest it, and put it infront of other developers within the company, we’ve found that it falls short of our expectations for a high-quality Blizzard experience.”

“For us it comes to a few issues, one of which is depth. Simply fighting each other with no other objective or choices to make gets old relatively quickly,” Wilson went on, “Another is class balance. Like Diablo 2, Diablo 3 was designed to be a PvE-first kind of game, where we never compromised on player abilities in the name of future PvP balance.”

While dueling will make it into the game with patch 1.0.7 at an unspecified date in 2013, Team Deathmatch will not. Wilson explained that the studio plans to replace it with something and may eventually release the current version at some point, but for now there will be no Team Deathmatch.

Few games better represented the modern video game industry in 2012 than Blizzard’s Diablo 3. Every aspect of the business is in this sequel. The unchanging reliance on franchises for big sales; the volatile nature of monetizing games; piracy protection; the difficulty of embracing creativity while also satisfying an audience in constant dialogue with the creators; and the shifting expectations for single player games. Love it or hate it, Diablo 3 is the essential modern game, a lavish product with a severe identity crisis. It’s also been a changing game, updated consistently since its release despite more than four years of development and balancing. 

Starting out with 10,000 Windows 8 apps at its October launch, Microsoft heads into the new year with over 35,000 apps in its Windows Store.

According to stats by MetroScore Scanner, the Windows Store has exceeded 35,000 available Windows 8 apps. The marketplace is currently adding about 415 new apps daily, an even steeper rate than the 362 apps being added each day back in November. 

The official tally now stands at 35,167 apps for the new Microsoft machines, 22,000 of which are available in the U.S. According to The Next Web, Windows 8 started out with 10,000 apps on October 30, jumped to 16,000 apps by November 14, and reached the 20,000 mark on November 22. It’s also important to keep in mind that many of the apps are free, meaning that revenue is not growing at the same exponential rate. 

As the first Windows OS to offer an app store, it makes sense for all the companies that had programs and software for old Microsoft computers to push to get their wares up in the most appropriate format for the new system. Growth for the marketplace has been on a consistently positive trajectory since the OS debuted in October. But not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon for the app store; Google said it will not be developing any apps for the Windows 8 computers. 

Considering the dire predictions that faced Microsoft when the new OS came out, a rate of 415 new apps a day is reflective of the high level of interest developers are showing in the platform. If the store keeps up its current rate of new apps, the Windows Store will surpass 50,000 apps on February 1. Windows 8 has sold more than 40 million licenses so far, so it appars that Microsoft will begin the next year with a solid position. 

Image via Kevin Jarrett

Check out our list for the best car apps for the Apple iPhone.

Apps might seem cheap, with a majority pricing in at $0.99, but over time that money adds up. Next thing you know you’ve emptied your coffers and littered your screen with icons you barely use.  In an effort to help you save some coin — and sift through the overflowing amount of digital junk on iTunes — we present to you this list of car apps for the iPhone that won’t waste your time or money.

Only a short while after Nokia launched its new Lumia family of smartphones, prices are already beginning to drop.

Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone 8 device hasn’t been on the market for too long, but the Lumia 920 has already seen a significant price drop. The AT&T exclusive debuted in November for $100, and the phone is now available on Amazon for as low as $40.

The $100 price point still stands when purchasing elsewhere, but the online retail giant has slashed a significant amount off the device’s price tag. Its sister phone, the slightly lower-end Lumia 822, was originally made available on Verizon’s network for $100 as well. However, the carrier is now offering it for free with a two-year contract.

T-Mobile is offering a similar deal for its subscribers. T-Mobile USA is selling Nokia’s Lumia 810 for free a contract as well.

“Pricing is always a carrier decision, but holiday season promotions are fairly standard at this time of year,” Nokia spokesperson Doug Dawson said to The Wall Street Journal.

While Nokia has not released any official sales figures for its new Windows Phone 8 Lumia line, sales in the second quarter of 2012 reached four million, Mashable reports. This may sound like a lot of phones to sell within three months, but the number pales in comparison to Apple’s iPhone sales. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company sold 35.1 million units of its smartphone during the same time period. That’s more than eight times the amount of Nokia Lumia devices sold.

This price drop could work to Nokia’s benefit. Its Lumia line will now target an entirely different sector of the market, providing another smartphone alternative for budget and value smartphone shoppers. At the same time, it maintains its $100 price point aimed at smartphone buyers willing to shell out a few more bucks.

Amazon is no stranger when it comes to offering sizeable discounts on smartphones. While purchasing a Nokia Lumia 920 for $40 may be one of the biggest bargains on the Web, Amazon has also slashed Samsung’s Galaxy S3 down to the same price range. Sprint users can purchase the 16GB Galaxy S3 via Amazon for $50, Verizon users can buy it for $60, and AT&T subscribers can snag it for a slightly higher cost at $80.

We take a moment to consider what's ahead for gaming software and hardware in 2013.

How many of us cried because of a video game in 2012? I’d wager that the figure is a lot larger than most may expect thanks to the incredibly involving story that Telltale Games’ writing staff crafted for The Walking Dead. What does the monumental success of a genre that was pegged earlier in 2012 as “a bit of a lost art form” – by adventure game authority Tim Schafer no less! – mean for 2013?  

How about the looming console war? Nintendo’s Wii U is here, the first shot fired in the eighth console generation. Next-gen follow-ups from Microsoft and Sony are all but assured, even if neither company has officially revealed anything. Will 2013 bring news of their plans? Perhaps even a hardware release? What other sources of competition must the two industry titans worry about? Is the Ouya a threat? Or Valve’s rumored “Steam Box” hardware?

The fact is, there are a lot of question marks swirling around 2013. The coming year may well be a landmark one in the realm of video games, with changes large and small speaking to the wider acceptance of different interactive entertainment forms. With the global New Year’s Eve party only days away, we’re taking a moment today to consider what we know, what we don’t know, and what all of it means as we look ahead to 2013.

The Next-Gen Conversation

There’s no topic that will be more widely discussed in 2013 among video game-loving folk than the coming of next-gen hardware. The current generation of games is still delivering on all fronts and even raising the bar in places, but the console hardware from Sony and Microsoft is starting to creak. You can’t play the PC version of Far Cry 3 and not immediately feel the difference between it and the console versions – in visual execution, in AI capabilities, in any number of elements. Nintendo’s Wii U is out and you don’t have to be an industry analyst to recognize that it won’t be long before Microsoft and Sony (and perhaps others) follow suit. In fact, there’s compelling evidence right now that Microsoft specifically has some big plans for 2013.

But first let’s look at the start-of-year release calendar. The list of releases hitting stores between January and May 2013 is truly daunting – even just the three-month period that is Q1. DmC: Devil May Cry, Ni no Kuni, Dead Space 3, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Crysis 3, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Rayman Legends, SimCity, Tomb Raider, God of War: Ascension, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, Gears of War: Judgment, and BioShock Infinite are all fully confirmed for release in Q1. Not to mention the successfully Kickstarter’ed, Android-powered Ouya console.

Subsequent months will see the release of highly anticipated titles like The Last of Us, Tom Clancy Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Grand Theft Auto 5. The concentration of major franchise releases in early 2013 is heavier than it has ever been before that same time period in previous years. Even Gears of War, what is traditionally a fall-releasing franchise, puts in an appearance, albeit as a spin-off story.

Now consider the rumors. We’ve heard a lot of unconfirmed talk about Microsoft’s next-gen plans. The coming Xbox 360 successor could be arriving before or by Thanksgiving 2013. It might simply be called “Xbox,” and it will support Blu-ray playback. It will be released alongside a 7-inch Surface tablet that is dedicated to Xbox gaming. The hardware is likely to be an expensive purchase, but Microsoft will continue to offer smartphone-like service contracts for price-subsidized alternatives. So many rumors. The latest is that there will be two Xbox models, both set-top boxes, with one geared toward casual audiences and the other geared toward serious gamers.

Here’s the really interesting part though. Microsoft is not a company that is known for entertaining rumors. The standard company response for any media queries relating to unconfirmed news is: “Microsoft does not comment on rumors and speculation.” Yet when The Verge reported on the rumored set-top Xbox console plans and reached out to the company for comment, the reply was – very surprisingly — not that. Instead, Microsoft offered a non-specific statement that confirms nothing but says a lot. Read it for yourself:

Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend the console lifecycle by introducing controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention.

Given all of this, the smart assumption is that the next-gen iteration of the Xbox, no matter the form it might take, is coming in late 2013. Between the total lack of confirmed holiday 2013 game releases — very unusual at this point in the year — and the rush of rumors, it seems almost a certainty. Microsoft’s break from the norm with the above statement merely reinforces that line of thinking. Don’t forget that every word of this is speculation, but I’d be very surprised if the next Xbox didn’t show itself in 2013.

Things are considerably less clear on the Sony side. While there’s little doubt that the company is working on its next-gen PlayStation offering, it seems unlikely that the plans include a 2013 launch. “Orbis” is the name that frequently floats around in relation to the next PlayStation hardware, though “Thebes” was also recently revealed as a possible codename. Various unnamed sources indicate that Sony’s plan calls for a spring or fall 2014 release, though again, nothing is confirmed.

Sony is historically known for its news leaks. Word of the PlayStation Vita, the PSP Go, and the various PlayStation 3 model updates slipped out well in advance of the company’s official reveal, often with supporting images. The fact that we’ve seen nothing of the sort for the next Sony console hardly confirms anything, but it’s definitely a factor to consider. Company president Shuhei Yoshida has been pretty clear in his public statements that the company isn’t ready to talk about the end of the current hardware generation.

The only thing we can really gather at this point is that Sony’s next console won’t be called “PlayStation 4.” The Japanese word for the number four is “shi,” which does double-duty as the word for “death.” While a name like “PlayStation Death” might foster favor with the action-loving gamers of the world, it’s not exactly the best route to follow, from a PR perspective. So while it’s unlikely that you’ll see the “PlayStation” brand go away, it’s probably safe to expect something other than “PS4,” especially in Japan.

Then there are the upstarts. Expect to see continued growth for Nintendo’s Wii U platform, which shows a lot of promise in its current form. Some patching will need to be done, but the real test will come on the content side. Nintendo has to make up a lot of ground among serious gamers due to the Wii’s ever-shrinking relevance as a platform for blockbuster releases. Motion control endures as a useful gimmick, but the Wii’s real success as a mainstream audience-pleasing toy was quickly outdone by the rise of smartphones. The Wii U is more competitive with current hardware than its predecessor, but we’ll have to wait and see if it can measure up against the next-gen.

Mobile gaming is a beast unto itself. Where many gamesmiths on the console/PC side work to enhance the artistic qualities and capabilities of the medium, mobile platforms are (mostly) content to deliver low-price, low-impact eToys. Some might call it “Kleenex gaming,” the sort of experiences that you can pay a buck for, play for the length of a bus ride, and promptly forget about. That’s not true of all mobile games of course, but it is definitely the case for the vast majority.

The thing is, mobile tech advances at an incredibly rapid rate. It’s mostly just playing catch-up with the current generation of PC (as in “personal computer”) hardware. If rumors of a Surface tablet built specifically for Xbox are true, our concept of mobile gaming could broaden considerably in 2013. It is a virtual certainty that tablets and even smartphones are going to achieve performance parity with heftier PCs and consoles one day. 2013 won’t be the year for that, but it’s coming, and soon.

Ouya is yet another wrinkle in the Kleenex gaming puzzle. The Kickstarter success story is arriving before anything else – as soon as March 2013, provided the developers stick to their previously set schedule – but it’s also the biggest question mark of this bunch. We know that the tiny box contains the power of a mid-to-high-end Android tablet. An open-source approach makes the console completely hack-able by design. The concern is that tablet tech advances very quickly, and the Ouya’s Tegra 3 chip from NVIDIA may well be outdated by the time the console arrives in backers’ hands. It’s an affordable HD console that plays tablet games, but is the tablet gaming audience really asking for Angry Birds on their TV? How is Activision’s console release of Angry Birds faring?

Ouya will have a lot of big-screen comptetition, between the dedicated consoles and Valve Corporation’s plans for a more hybridized approach. Various rumors surfaced throughout 2012 that suggest the company has some hardware plans in the works. The idea of a “Steam Box” was outed earlier this year as a gaming dedicated PC spec that hardware manufacturers can conform with for guaranteed Steam games support. Your average gaming console is fundamentally a gaming-dedicated PC, and the concept of a “Steam Box” takes that line of thinking one step further.

Between Big Picture Mode and the addition of non-gaming software to Steam, it’s clear that Valve is looking to broaden its appeal to a wider audience. The company’s own Gabe Newell even said straight out earlier this month that Valve will be releasing its own, Steam-loaded hardware. He revealed that the company’s hardware offering “will be a very controlled environment” designed specifically to cater to the Steam experience. He added that a more general-purpose PC will accomplish the same thing, with the added benefit of full PC functionality.

With all of this going on, you have to wonder where dedicated cloud gaming services are going to fit in. OnLive isn’t in the best shape following its late-summer implosion, though we saw a small sign of life in November when an update added support for the service to LG’s Google TVs. Gaikai was looking like a solid OnLive competitor until it was purchased in July. Sony was the buyer, which raises many questions about how content delivery will work on the company’s PS3 successor. The biggest mystery of them all is Spawn Labs, the official Cloud Gaming division of GameStop. The brick-and-mortar retailer faces grave threats in the rising popularity of digital distribution and the efforts of Spawn Labs should become visible in the coming year.

Trends In Gaming

Hardware rumors are fairly common, but early reports on actual games is much more an exercise in guesswork. It seems pretty clear that games like Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs and LucasArts’ Star Wars 1313 are bound for next-gen hardware, but there’s very little beyond the realm of hearsay to work with. Assuming that the next-gen console conversation is fueled with official confirmations in the first half of 2013, you can expect some major news on launch games and new IPs to start churning out between the 2013 Game Developer’s Conference in March and E3 in June. All that said, let’s speculate a bit.

The runaway success of Telltale’s The Walking Dead coupled with the Kickstarter behemoth that is Double Fine Adventure means that we’re almost certainly going to see more of a push from major publishers for adventure games. Madden and Call of Duty are virtually guaranteed multi-million-sellers every year, but The Walking Dead has the same sort of crossover appeal that makes AMC’s TV series such a monumental hit. Between the episodic release structure, the user-friendly, story-driven gameplay, and the piles and piles of accolades and honors, there’s little doubt that giants like Activision and EA will try to hop on the bandwagon.

Episodic ongoing stories also get around the rising sense of sequel exhaustion among gamers. It’s telling that Dishonored was one of the year’s most talked about games. Unless you’ve got an established universe like Star Wars or Marvel’s multiverse to lean on, you run the risk of burning gamers out with annual releases. Call of Duty is the clear example here, a yearly franchise release that is constantly dogged by fans for its focus on expansion over innovation. Sales numbers for the series seem to have reached critical mass, and while The Walking Dead hasn’t come anywhere near the same level of sales success, there’s some magic at work in Telltale’s release formula. The real test will come when the adventure game’s second season launches, but you have to believe that bigger publishers are already looking for way to emulate that success story.

It’s also impossible to ignore the rise of free-to-play in 2012. It seems that the traditionally subscription-based approach for massively multiplayer online role-playing games is on its way out. The year has been riddled with commentary on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and the fact that its popularity seems to be in decline. The 2004 release peaked in 2010 with roughly 12 million subscribers, but in the time since those numbers have dropped to below 10 million. The success of the subscription-free Guild Wars / Guild Wars 2 no doubt inspired studios like Funcom and BioWare to re-define their recent MMOs – The Secret World and Star Wars: The Old Republic, respectively — as free-to-play propositions.

Free-to-play has also now extended well beyond the MMORPG genre. Games like League of Legends and the recently released Hawken come immediately to mind, as does the FPS action of PlanetSide 2 and even the mobile gaming joys of The Simpsons: Tapped Out. There’s little doubt that F2P will see continued growth in 2013, even just looking at the releases we know about right now. Crytek’s Warface carries a silly name and a ton of potential. Dean Hall’s standalone DayZ continues to promise great things, provided it can offer a more accessible experience than the ArmA 2 mod it was born as does.

Even consoles are moving in that direction, as exemplified by 2012′s EVE Online tie-in Dust 514 (a PS3 exclusive) and 2013′s upcoming multi-platform Spartacus Legends. Activision is getting set to release it’s own F2P offering for Call of Duty in the People’s Republic of China, called Call of Duty Online. The China-exclusive multiplayer FPS is founded on the same principles that drive the adversarial multiplayer component of the annual boxed releases, only it’ll be free-to-play and supported by microtransactions. You can probably rule out the possibility of CoD Online coming to current-gen platforms, but next-gen? That’s certainly a possibility. Looking back at the bigger picture, you can likely expect official next-gen hardware announcements to be quickly followed by news of console-based F2P options, especially with Valve angling for Steam to have a place in gamers’ living rooms.