Before we indulge with details, I would like to say I hate Sony’s last minute marketing for their gaming exclusives. For this time in particular, the PS3 exclusive MAG hasn't yet released a TV spot in anticipation of the game(that I've seen). Sony’s overall quality in their PlayStation ad campaigns have improved thanks to the absence of crying robot babies, but they still market way to close to release dates for their prized exclusives. A game of MAG’s magnitude should have been advertised much more than it has been. The possibility of a 256-player FPS is mind boggling to most casual players who haven’t heard of MAG; when they finally get to see the commercials it may be too late to capture that market.

The late marketing problem has been around for a while regarding PlayStation products; Sony doesn’t seem to prefer anticipation for their games; they’d rather post advertisements on release which can be a problem. Lets be honest here; if you go to any gaming retailer and nobody is talking about your product a week before release it’s likely to fail in sales due to lack of marketing. It’s sad to say that MAG may be heading down the dreaded route of titles that were great but the community wasn’t there. Don’t get me wrong, MAG is an excellent game, the technical achievement in 256 players online simultaneously is astounding; it is just sad to see the game possibly go under appreciated.

When MAG was shown at E3 2009 it looked decent; of course nobody believed Zipper could pull off 256 players on 1 battlefield. The differences between MAG’s early beta and current build are “night and day”. When I first took part in September's MAG beta it really didn’t interest me much; the game was choppy, and it had very poor graphics. The current beta 5 build of the game improved on many of the complaints for MAG, it became much smoother and the graphics improved; I also took part in my first 256 player battle completely lag free. Zipper took all the criticism for their title and improved it dramatically; the retail build of MAG should even succeed the final beta.

It is possible that MAG can rely on Zipper’s Socom fans to support the game regardless. Over the years many have been waiting and hoping for a Socom 3 successor from the famed developer; instead Six Slant developed Socom Confrontation which didn’t have a smooth launch. This will be Zipper’s first title released on a next gen console. Due to MAG’s epic scale battles the game will need a dedicated community to compensate for 256 player matches. Other FPS(s) won’t have the problems MAG will likely have because many of them typically have less than 32 players in one room.

when i saw that you had 1337 vbux, i couldn't help but +rep you :p