Politicians aiming to censor games have an uphill battle

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Unless you spent the last year hiding in a cave playing Gears of War and Elebits, you’ve probably noticed that video games continue to be a great way for politicians to score points with the obsessively-worried-with-no-rational-basis constituency (I usually just call them “crotchety old people,” where, since this is a legal article and I’d hate to be vague, old is defined as “belonging to any generation that is unable to recognize the sequence ‘up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start’”).

Of course, what could be wrong with censoring video games? As spokesperson for New York State Senator Leland Yee, the sponsor of the latest video game censorship law, points out, “we prohibit children from smoking…we regulate driver’s licenses. We prohibit alcohol. We prohibit lots of things from children, and we think it’s logical that kids should not be able to purchase these games on their own.”

Assuming you haven’t already lost hope for humanity and slit your wrists, you may take solace in the fact that while the legislative and executive branches of the government are complete tools, they still have to answer to the higher calling of the constitution as interpreted by the judicial branch. →  I am become game, destroyer of words.

A deeper look into Nintendo’s bling

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Nintendo’s recent ascension to become the second largest company in Japan has been making news on a few sites which track the business aspect of video games. While it is true that a company’s market capitalization (basically a measure of what the stock market thinks a company is worth) has grown by leaps and bounds of late (as will happen when the price shoots up as much as Nintendo’s has) some of the underlying financial numbers are even more fascinating than the headlines.

By market cap, Nintendo is substantially larger than Sony (Nintendo is worth about $75 billion, to Sony’s $47 billion). In truth, this metric is only one way to judge the size of a company. What’s another, you may ask? How about sales, I answer. Sony’s sales are leaps and bounds higher than Nintendo’s. During fiscal year 2007 Sony recorded over $34 billion in net sales, while Nintendo brought in $7 billion. So in terms of sales, Sony is more than four times the size of Nintendo. →  Secread of Evermore

Review – Persona 3

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The PS2 may have looked as if it were on its last legs – a lame duck with no good new releases. I almost believed this, but Persona 3 has proven it wrong, and because of it, I’m still playing my PS2 more than my Wii.

Granted, this RPG is not for everyone. It’s about 70 hours, sometimes difficult, and very Japanese. But I do recommend it to anyone who’s interested in the genre, for a couple reasons.

First off, this game has a plot and ambiance that surpasses standard RPG fare. Like the original Persona (which didn’t get much exposure), Persona 3 involves modern Japanese high school students fighting demons. It is done in an anime style, but differently enough to separate it from the rest of the pack. Also, like its predecessors, Persona 3 has excellent music (and the soundtrack included has some of the better tracks). Surprisingly, much of the voice acting is good as well, with only one exception. →  The Adventures of Cookie and Read

Nintendo is waiting for shoes to be eaten

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So guess who is the second largest company in Japan as of now?

NCL, otherwise known as Nintendo.

That’s right, the same Nintendo that countless people asked to drop out of the hardware business for the entirety of the Gamecube generation.

I’m sorry, but I have to vent a little about this one. There came Nintendo with its crazy ideas that everyone scoffed at, while Sony was praised for making “sexy” consumer products, quite possibly one of the most asinine descriptions I have heard in the world of business. Everyone had their mind set on the victor, and apparently sluggish Gamecube sales surely meant Nintendo had no money in the bank.

Well I guess they did after all. And I guess their crazy ideas worked pretty well too. You can disagree with what they are doing, but the fact that so many people put themselves in what seemed to be a state of self-imposed denial because (god forbid) the “kiddie” games company wasn’t being beaten to a bloody pulp has been one of my biggest pet peeves of the last seven years. →  May God smite me if I stop reading here!

PSP-2000: Two years too late

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Last month saw the introduction of the new PSP Slim. I gave my personal impressions on the silver unit earlier, but I wanted to go more in-depth with what the system means for Sony overall. In the last few years, Sony has been on a constant downward spiral in terms of consumer popularity. With a $600 system that has very few games and a handheld system that’s been out for more than two years and still has a less than stellar software lineup, Sony’s Golden Age has clearly been tarnished.

But I will say this: Sony has restored my faith in them with the PSP Slim. It’s an amazing piece of tech, no small thanks to the newly added video-out option through separate component video cables. If you were on the fence about the the first model, I can wholeheartedly recommend getting the Slim model.

You’re fat and nobody likes you.

Still, as much as I love the new system (Lumines 2 on an HDTV is fucking beautiful), I do have some reservations. →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen

TGS 2007 — Fear and Loathing in Tokyo

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Living in Japan allows me a certain freedom when it comes to my nerd-hood. Video game playing is all but encouraged, anime is the norm, and if you were to tell someone your life goal was to build and paint model robots, they would smile understandingly at you. Japan is indeed a land in which technology and entertainment hold hands and lovingly caress one another. As I type this, I am coasting at a leisurely 175mph on a bullet train as I watch scenery adorned with lush greenery and neon zoom by. One of the many nerdy perks to living in Japan is the knowledge that once a year, all of the big names in gaming (minus one) will converge in Tokyo and allow the public a glimpse of their brand new wares. This year is no different and I decided to make the pilgrimage from my home in rural Kyoto to the fluid craziness that is Tokyo and The Tokyo Game Show to see what was in store for gamers in the near future. →  Ikari Warriors 2: Postery Read

Finishing the Fight

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Sorry folks, but I need to put videolamer’s bold blend of criticism and cynicism on the back burner and brew a fresh pot of Game Fuel. That’s right – we need to talk about Halo 3.

Rest assured, we will be featuring a review of the game in some form or another, despite the fact that it is rather useless to review the biggest-game-of-the-decade-until-GTA4-comes-out. Though perhaps I am wrong about that – if vl’s readership is anything like its staff, there may be some of you who are unsure about this franchise, in which case we’ll have lots to talk about. But before a proper review is done, we have to play the damn thing. And before even that happens, there are a few things we should get out of the way.

How do you feel about Halo 3? Are you sick and tired of all of its hype? Are you sniping at fans the way I did with Harry Potter fans during book 7’s release? →  All this can be yours, if the read is right.

Matt gets his PSP to run on TV, nearly wets himself

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Woohoo! I finally got my PSP Slim component video cables in the mail on Friday. I was a tad disappointed to find out that Sony held the release of the cables until only recently (the Daxter bundle with the Silver Slim unit was released much earlier in the month), but the wait has been worth it. I promised my impressions on the video-out option, and I always keep my word. So here they are.

First, a little disclaimer: games cannot be displayed without the component cables. Sony has released composite cables, but you can only view movies, music, and photos with them. To play games on your TV, you need the component wires, as the games are developed with a progressive scan-enabled screen in mind. They’re the same price, so it’s not really a problem. You just have to make sure your TV has component inputs (most HDTV’s have them at this point).

So now we get into the nitty-gritty. UMD movies look surprisingly good. →  Hot Shots Post 3

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.21.07

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PSP outsells DS in Japan
Square’s Final Fantasy VII spin off for the PSP, Crisis Core, sold half a million copies last week. It also sold PSPs. Possibly not all of the 95 thousand Sony sold in the week, but likely around 80 thousand, which is how many more units were sold than the previous week. Sony’s business strategy should be clear – simply release a spinoff of one of the most beloved games of all time once a week and the PSP will handily outsell the DS in Japan 1.2 to 1.

Or, to quote someone from a forum I read:
“If DS stopped selling and PSP continued at this rate, it would catch up in 139.7 weeks (May 21, 2010).”

Does anyone else feel nauseous?

Home delayed till Spring
Good for Sony. I’d rather they take the extra time to polish Home than release it early. Nintendo’s Reggie recently mocked Home by saying something glib like, “I think that exists already, it’s called Second Life.” →  Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty article.

Dual Shock 3 please, with a side of rumble

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Well, it’s official, rumble is back. Officially dubbed the Dual Shock 3, Sony has “listened” to its fans and added the most basic of features to their much scoffed-at SIXAXIS controller. Isn’t it amazing?!

Yeah, not really. This should have been implemented with the PS3 before it even came out. This is Sony playing catch-up, but it’s not the cool kind, especially when they make people spend $600 on something that lacks an integral piece of the gaming equation.

And why did I surround the word listen with quotation marks in my introduction, you ask? It’s simple, my dear reader. Other than being clever/snooty, I was trying to point out that Sony knew not having rumble in their PS3 controller was a serious problem the entire time. They didn’t need to listen to their consumers to see if it was a problem or not. Sony isn’t THAT dumb (which is debatable, I’m sure).

What they did need to do was get rid of that pesky lawsuit they had with Immersion, the company responsible for the rumble tech that Sony used in their previous Dual Shock controllers. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match