"Gamercard" spotted at Edinburgh Interactive Festival

by Jem Alexander { Aug 14th 2007 at 6:00PM }

During the Unreal Tournament 3 screening at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival today (that's in Scotland, by the way) Games Digest noticed something strange in the game's menu. The option, "Gamercard", was quickly covered up by Mark Rein, who was giving the presentation. "Oops," he said, "you shouldn't have seen that."

Due to the "no camera" rules there is no photographic evidence, but we're still happy to commence the speculation. Especially since Mark was so secretive about it. Is it a UT3 feature? Is it Sony's answer to the 360's Gamertag? We're not sure, but we'd definitely like to know. No doubt we'll hear more before the release of Unreal Tournament 3, at least. We'll try and contact Mark for a statement, but expect him to remain extremely tight lipped. What do you suspect it could be?

Tags: gamercard, rumors, unrealtournament3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Xoonaka @ Aug 14th 2007 6:06PM

Or, even more embarrassingly, he was playing a 360 build.

M @ Aug 14th 2007 6:10PM

^ yea thats wat i was thinking too

Enon777 @ Aug 15th 2007 3:57AM

Yup! A 360 build...that would be absolutely embarrassing.

Jason B. @ Aug 14th 2007 6:14PM

There is a Gamercard in Home. You walk up to someone and the X button shows above their head, you hit X and you can check their gamercard and some other stuff. It is currently inaccessible, but it has been there since the beta started.

Ian @ Aug 14th 2007 6:24PM

Being the cynical type I would suggest an intentional 'mistake' in showing the menu option. A little hint here or there of a new improvement to the PSN/Home and these rumours quickly turn in to wanton gossip and hype. Oooh, hush my mouth.

mat parker @ Aug 14th 2007 6:25PM

if this isn't a 360 build and it is a Home thing expect lawsuits

pete @ Aug 14th 2007 6:34PM

@5 why. ppl 'borrow' ideas, concepts all the time, as long as it isnt the same thing. gamercard is not the same as gamertag. if that where the case sony would use achievem... i meant trophies eitehr due to a lawsuit

pete @ Aug 14th 2007 6:38PM

or nintendo would own everyone for using their button layout in any controller after the super nintendo, oh and same goes for the shoulder buttons, and i am pretty sure someone thought of those buttong and shoulder buttons before nintendo as well...

Edge @ Aug 14th 2007 6:39PM

Couldn't be a "Gamercard". That's what MS calls the part of the 360 dash that shows gamerscore, gamerzone, etc and that wonderful signature that permeates even the Playstation Underground forums. Sony would be called a copycat if they did that. We can't have that, now can we. [/sarcasm]

I think that too much will be read into this and what is better than what will be drawn based on ridiculously incomplete data. He was playing a 360. Woohoo.

bos6268 @ Aug 14th 2007 6:42PM

I hope it wasn't for 360 something plz for home p.a. When does home come out

Edge @ Aug 14th 2007 6:44PM

My mistake. He was playing a Playstation, since you use triangle to use it.

Wow. Gamercard. That's...lame.

And a word on "trophies", too. Lame. Gamerscore is what makes Achievements work, not 3D trophy things.

x silence x @ Aug 14th 2007 6:51PM

The "Gamercard" is for the XBOX 360

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/myxbox/mygamercard.htm

Looks like he was playing it on a 360... what a suprise!

Xoonaka @ Aug 14th 2007 6:52PM

I disagree. Points are stupid, meaningless, and in no way encourage me to play.

Cool animated 3d models would, however, have a better chance to feel satisfying. Especially for games like Lair. Seeing a nicely rendered 3D dragon that I can rotate around and admire the art for... that's something to work for, not for some 32x32 bitmap that might be funny but generally is generic.

But to each his own. For all I know, the trophies won't end up being as impressive as I hope. They might be just as unsatisfying as getting 30 meaningless hacked points. We'll see.

WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 14th 2007 6:57PM

yup, sounds like a 360 build to me.

pete @ Aug 14th 2007 7:09PM

ppl this is a tea/coffee debate no one will win so dont opine if you feel your stance is the only correct one and everyone else is stupid for not aggreing with you. some like gamerscore, i like xoonaka think they are meaningless and in no way encourage me to keep playing a game.* but im a coffee man, sissy can keep their tea. LOL j/k

* had a 360 at launch clucked it a while ago.

Ste @ Aug 14th 2007 7:10PM

Whatever it is, it's not a 360 build. First, the title of the article is "‘Gamercard’ spotted in UT3 demo – is this PS3’s answer to the 360’s Gamertag?". Secondly, the article itself says you press Triangle to access it, and none of my 360 controllers have a Triangle button on them - my PS3 controllers, however, do.

Niyx @ Aug 14th 2007 7:20PM

I really should have got tickets to go to this thing.

Its less than 5 minutes away from my house.

Wonder if i can just show up and look like a poor little gamer and ask to play free demo's of stuff...

sectionz @ Aug 14th 2007 7:33PM

it was actually an in Home image .. its not what you all think .. you want a gamer card like microsoft go here www.ps3tag.com

RalphMuchachio @ Aug 14th 2007 7:57PM

My foam has been downgraded to a regular Cliffy B froth.

optimusprime @ Aug 14th 2007 8:16PM

If I was going to do an achievement based system, I would do it a la insomniac. Unlike some stupid number that you brag about to your friends, Insomniac has skill points in their games, which when you achieve unlock bonus content for you like making of videos and screen shots. Imagine every game was forced to have that kind of bonus content based on skill.

x silence x @ Aug 14th 2007 8:15PM

@Ste

When we run PS3 builds where I work it shows all the X360 information because it's ported from the 360 to the PS3. Here's an example: When I look at the controller configuration page on the PS3 it will show a placeholder image of a 360 controller. This because it's made for the 360 and gradually ported over to the PS3. So maybe it was running on a PS3 but it's being made on the 360 and ported to the PS3. How many times can I say ported to the PS3? It's never a good thing when that happens. Looks like 30 FPS for the PS3... uh oh!

GL @ Aug 14th 2007 8:16PM

I don't really care what they call it. Call it a PSNID. Or GamerID. Whatever...

By the way, the US Military is going to sue Microsoft for using the word "tag."

GamerTAG is too too close to DogTag. :P

x silence x @ Aug 14th 2007 8:18PM

Also as a reminder…

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/myxbox/mygamercard.htm

I would bet that the name "Gamercard" is owned by MS/XBOX.

GL @ Aug 14th 2007 8:23PM

I heard that "Fair and Balanced" is "OWNED" by FOX NEWS...

Sigh...

Dudes! It doesn't matter. Change it to something else. We already know about PSNID. Do you honestly think that Sony hasn't checked these things out? Besides, I don't want them to use anything that sound like Xbox Live anyways. Anything that mimics xbox3sh*tty is a unoriginal at least.

Wouldn't it be funny if this was an Epic idea. But of course xbots will try and blame Sony. Oh well. That's what life is like as the best console (PS3 Tripple!).

Anthony Pittarelli @ Aug 15th 2007 12:53AM

the gamercard is supposed to be part of home isnt it?

Brian Spence @ Aug 15th 2007 7:32AM

x silence x is a moron troll

Brunno @ Aug 17th 2007 1:08AM

For those who think "it was as 360 build", know that the Home Beta already has "gamercard" in it since launch in early May. It's not available yet, and it might suffer a name change, but it´s been planned for a long time though.

Someone already said that before, but looks like some dudes don't read what others say and keep on going with the "360 build" gossip.