News and Crap

There are tons of news stories every week about the video game industry. Naturally, we don’t really care about most of it. So we edit each week’s volumes of boring news into a convenient size and focus only on the biggest stories and stuff we personally care about. Then we complain about it.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 1.5.07

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Crappy developer buys crappy developer
Traveler’s Tales, the awesome company behind such classics as Sonic 3D Blast, Crash Twinsanity and Muppet Race Mania has purchased Embryonic Studios, which is responsible for the all time great Looney Toons: Back in Action. Traveler’s Tales aren’t too bad, really, I’m just bitter over their multiple attempts at killing excellent franchises (Super Monkey Ball Adventure came from these guys).

I’d rather see a headline that reads, “Boring studios who make predominantly licensed crap go out of business due to the general public’s lack of interest in Disney for the past decade.” It’s always possible these companies are consolidating due to a shrinking market, much like the Great Abacus Consolidation of 1174.

Rare founders leave their company
The Stamper brothers, reportedly media shy partly due to their ugliness, have left Rare. →  Ask not for whom the game plays, it plays for thee.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.22.06

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Resident Evil 5 not coming in ‘07
1up has reported that the next proper sequel in the Resident Evil franchise will be coming in 2008, if not later. I don’t know where I’ll be living or working in six months and I’m supposed to care about a game that may not be out for three years? Human life probably won’t even exist by that point, and if it does, we will surely have evolved gills and other radical changes that will make gaming obsolete. Capcom might as well just say that Resident Evil 5 is never coming out.

Good games coming to the Virtual Console this Christmas
Some people have bitched about the low quality of Virtual Console titles. For every Zelda, Nintendo gives us a Solomon’s Key, Altered Beast and Tennis. →  Read Theft Auto 4

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.15.06

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Wii breaks records in PAL territories
American developers tend to focus on American gamers. Japanese developers are more split, but many still focus primarily on local customers. Do Australian and European developers give a shit about gamers in their own countries or do they instead focus on North America because that’s where the cash money is?

The answer to this question may have a large impact on this generation of consoles. If the PAL developers focus mostly on Americans, these record breaking sales are good news for Nintendo. If, though, these territories developers do care about the local gamer, this means that the Wii should be getting a good number of Australian and British developed games. This could be bad news for Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo: Did we say one million Wiis? →  Phoenix Write: Just Posts for All

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.8.06

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Analyst predicts doom for blu-ray
A study has found that HD DVD has more positive buzz than the Blu-ray, at least partially because Sony is backing the Blu-ray format. I will now do my part to add to the negative Blu-ray buzz — Boo Blu-ray!

Maybe real issues would be taken seriously if there were violent video games about them.

Democrats focused on what really matters – videogames
“We all share in the responsibility of making sure our children play age-appropriate video games, and I’m pleased that the ESRB and retailers are working together to educate parents about the video game ratings and make sure they are enforced. As we enter the holiday shopping season, it is important that parents have the information they need to make informed choices that are right for their families,” said Senator Clinton. →  A reader is you.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.1.06

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Analyst predicts Sony will leave the hardware business
This may be completely stupid and absurd, but then it just may make sense. The recent management shuffle at Sony, some believe, is an indication of things to come. Kutaragi, the Sony hardware guy, has been promoted out of the way and now Kaz Hirai, a software guy, is in charge of Sony’s game division. The theory goes Kutaragi has fucked things up too much and the PS3 may cost Sony money, so by removing their hardware guy and putting in a software guy, they can transition out of hardware and focus on developing software only.

This is slightly hard to believe if only because I was completely unaware that Sony has a significant software division. Ueda and Jaffe aside, what does Sony have to offer gamers? →  Read like G did.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.17.06

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Sony losing money on each PS3 sold
Selling consoles at a loss is nothing new; it nearly put Sega out of business. But selling a console for a loss of $240 or $300? Those are some big numbers, especially considering Microsoft and Nintendo are making profit on each console they sell. There are a few ways to look at Sony’s situation.

Now if the PS3 had looked like this, it would be worth the money.

The optimistic person would say, “Sony are giving us an awesome bargain and we should thank them by paying homeless people to wait in line for a PS3.” The pessimist would say, “If I want to play PS3 games, I’m forced to buy a friggin super computer with a disc drive that costs over $100 tacked on so they can get a leg up on the upcoming format war.” →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.10.06

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One of the worst Top Ten Worst Games of All Time lists
Top 10, 25, 50, whatever lists are one of my worst enemies. They are vacuous and a cheap excuse for content. Even an unnumbered list is significantly better because from the outset the author wasn’t just trying to fill a number of slots. This link is to one of the dumbest Top 10 lists I’ve seen in a while but since it’s posted on a major site, many big blogs picked it up. Oh, the injustice!

Significantly worse than Postal.

It seems as if the author of this list may not play games. He acknowledges that peoples’ opinions will differ and that it’s hard compiling a list of the worst games ever made, but that caveat doesn’t save him. →  Finger lickin’ read.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.3.06

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Halo movie indefinitely stalled
That a Peter Jackson backed Halo movie probably won’t get made despite the fact that Uwe Boll continually releases game based movies is beyond hilarious. Clearly, if there is a god he is evil, or maybe he just has a great sense of humor.

A scene from the upcoming Castlevania movie.

Castlevania movie coming
Odds are, this movie will be slightly better than Van Helsing. The problem is that Van Helsing is solidly on “so bad it’s good” ground, and so Castlevania, by being better, will be worse. Castlevania’s only hope is to be crappier than Van Helsing (or actually good, but let’s not get crazy) and therefore better. This all makes sense, right?

PS3 launching in Hong Kong and Taiwan on November 17
As an American, it is my god given right to believe I am more important than any damn foreigner. →  Are anyone else’s nipples hard?

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 10.27.06

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The proud owner of four Xbox 360s.

360 breaks all sorts of records in Australia
Watch out Master System, there’s a new kid in Australia. By selling over 100,000 units, the 360 has become the fastest selling console down under. The first European settlers in Australia were criminals and we have Australians to blame for those rambunctious reptile lovers, Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter (“that’s not a terrible accent, THIS IS A TERRIBLE ACCENT”). Clearly Microsoft must take these facts into account before celebrating the good news.

Gamasutra interview Clover’s Inaba
Prepare yourself for an only marginally related rant. Oh, and read the interview, it’s interesting.

The way the games media goes from one golden boy of creativity to the next is pretty odd. Why do gamers get three or four different interviews from Inaba but not one from Takahashi, Ueda, or Mizuguchi? →  You think about everything.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 10.20.06

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PS1 games downloadable on PS3
Actual good news for Sony? It seems so. The company plans to have their entire PS1 catalogue available, sans the games that are too messy contract-wise. What are the odds they port some Japanese only titles for American downloading? Yeah, zero, I know.

Have stock in Sony?

Sony profit forecast not very encouraging
Among the reasons for the lowered forecast were lower than expect PSP sales, higher than expected Cell processor costs and the lowered PS3 price. If they really needed to stabilize themselves, why not just put out a 360 clone? If the PS3 cost $400 and had the PlayStation exclusives the PS2 had, Sony would’ve easily maintained their #1 position. I guess big risks sometimes pay off, but how about Sony release more big risk games instead of a big risk console? →  Welcome to read.