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Numbers are fun: Year end edition

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Heading into the holidays the question on the collective mind of the industry was which seventh generation system would emerge with the lead. For Xbox 360 this meant continuing to sell some units despite the fact that Nintendo and Sony were releasing their competitors in the market. For Nintendo and Sony, success meant shipping as many consoles to store shelves as possible and then selling all of them. So, now that the dust has settled, who has accomplished their goals, and who may be in trouble? It’s obviously too early to call the generation for one system or another, but the numbers do tell an interesting story. For our purposes, all the numbers below (unless otherwise noted) are US sales.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had a year head start on both of the other consoles. →  Lamers so loved the world that they gave their only article, so that everyone who believes in reading won’t perish but will have eternal lives.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 1.12.07

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Analyst who predicted PS3 shortages till June worries about units on shelf
I generally support any news that doesn’t support Sony but my disdain for analysts trumps even my resentment towards Sony. The analyst in this case has already predicted Sony’s triumph this generation but is now “troubled” by recent news of PS3s sitting on shelves. At least Captain Obvious makes four times as much as the average American.

This one is called “Don’t be a 2nd player hater.”

i am 8 bit exhibit = awesome
If you are a game buff and have some money to blow on crap to hang on walls, check out i am 8 bit. “I’ll have one art, please!”

Kaz Hirai talks shit
Kas says a few things that are worth contemplating. First, is the technology in the PS3 actually cutting edge like he claims? →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

What we hope to see in 2007

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With a new year comes new hope and a new opportunity to have our dreams crushed.

Stefan —
Saturn Games on the Virtual Console: I know, there are significant disk space problems – seeing as a single game could use up the entire internal memory of the Wii. But if a way can be found, I’m holding out hope for Shining Force III and a NiGHTS re-release with a _real_ 3D Controller.

Panzer Dragoon Saga with motion sensing controls Second coming of Christ

Sony opening the PS3 Graphics hardware to Linux users: This is another one that’s not likely to happen. And by not likely, I mean no way in hell. Allowing direct access to the graphics chipset would essentially let anyone circumvent the price of their dev kit – and would deprive them of licensing fees for game sales. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Microsoft to Buy Capcom: Tssyeah, Right!

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Rumors were running rampant this week with the prospect that Microsoft (i.e., evil-incarnate) was going to buy Capcom, developer of the Resident Evil series and this week’s big 360 release, Lost Planet. This rumor is, in fact, not new. It was first started almost three years ago when Msoft was looking to get a better foothold in the Japanese market. They still need the foothold over there, but Capcom has been out its sights for sometime now. So once again, no, Microsoft is not buying Capcom.

But let’s think about that for a second.

Obviously, Msoft would get a huge surge in the popularity rankings by having Capcom in its portfolio. They’d get the rights to Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Dead Rising, Phoenix Wright, Megaman, Devil May Cry, and one of my personal favorites, UN Squadron. →  You do not simply walk into reading more.

HD-DVD is the Bob-omb!

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A few weeks ago, Joystiq ran an article that linked to an in-store flyer with an Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive priced for only $99. The actual price is $200. That’s a steal if I ever saw one. In my warped little mind, I couldn’t afford not to buy it.

So, with a little underhanded deviousness, I lied my way into getting the HD-DVD drive for half the MSRP. Obviously I giggled like a little school girl the moment I walked out of the store. But was it still worth it?

First off, the drive is very easy to setup. You just connect it to the 360 through a USB cable. You then update the 360 with the driver that comes with it. To then access the drive, the 360 will break the DVD Tray option into two different categories, letting you chose the DVD tray or the HD-DVD one. →  Hell is other gamers.

Can gaming magazines survive?

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Super corporation Ziff Davis has seen better days. Both Electronic Gaming Monthly and 1Up are being sold because they have been losing money, which the ZD accountants claim is bad for business. Forget that 1Up is also failing for a moment and think about the printed gaming magazine. Has the internet replaced the need for EGM and Game Informer much like literacy replaced the need for PSM?

It’s almost hard to believe that at one time EGM was popular enough to sell two magazines.

Once upon a time, game mags were the only place to get video game news. The concept of waiting for your mailman to bring you breaking news is comical today; speed of communication is the internet’s forte. Similarly, attempting to contact a writer or respond to an article by writing a letter is almost silly, especially for tech savvy gamers. →  U R Not lamE.

Best Game Ever – Master of Orion 2: The Battle at Antares

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Master of Orion 2: The Battle at Antares was probably the defining game in the 4X genre (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate); it set the standard for a decade of games. Featuring a robust tech tree, intricate ship design, active ship combat, a big, goodie filled universe, and intense colony management, MOO2 had it all. Despite being well over a decade old, the game still has a level of depth that has been unmatched by its successors. Additionally, even though Microprose is long out of business (gobbled up by whomever), the game’s support has been taken over by fans (Lord Brazen, for those interested), who have kept the game playable on KALI and have steadily eradicated the last remaining bugs in the game. As exciting as it is to have a game so old with such a following, it also depresses me that the industry has yet to produce a worthy sequel. →  All you need is read.

To Rumble or Not To Rumble?

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After getting into a small discussion over at 10-hit Combo on the lack of a rumble in the PS3 controller, I started to wonder if rumble is really all that useful. Does having your controller vibrate at certain points in a game make the game better, or are we lying to ourselves, making it seem more interesting than it really is?

After much mental and spiritual discovery, I came to the realization that it probably depends on the game. For FPS’s, I really need a rumble. If I don’t feel the controller shake when I pull that trigger, I cannot connect emotionally with a game. The rumble for me is the closest thing I can get to actually “feeling” a game. I can attain a higher level of immersion in a game with a rumble feature than I could if it didn’t include it. →  Max Post 2: The Fall of Max Post

Best Game Ever – Cave Story

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When I was considerably younger, I had no disposable income but way too much free time. So I did what any sensible young gamer would do: I looked for free games on the internet. Back then, pickings were pretty slim, and the only downloadable games worth playing were severely limited shareware. Most of those, if they were any good at all, were not worth the registration price.

A dozen or so years later a truly great freeware game had finally come out. The game was Cave Story, and it had been painstakingly designed by one individual (who goes by Pixel) and later translated by Aeon Genesis. It comes across as a game that might have come out for the NES in its prime; simplistic graphics and basic music may lead you to believe this. →  The post still burns.

Digging our own grave

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This Friday, videolamer accomplished something it’s been striving to achieve for the past few months – an article of ours made it to the front page of digg.com. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a chance for a much wider audience to read our work turned into a minor debacle. Ah, the cost of success.

You may have noticed the 40 hours or so where the site was completely down. Turns out Host Gator, our not so competent host, suspended the videolamer account after the digg traffic crashed their server and took out other non-gaming sites with it. Why their server couldn’t handle the thousand or so page views is beyond me, but we have been forced to upgrade our plan to a semi-dedicated server.

This means you can feel free to sit at home and reload the front page 46 times a second, eagerly awaiting our wit and wisdom. →  Eh, I’ve got nothing better to do.