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Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 10.5.07

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Dream team created to make MMO
One of the three guys behind Fallout and 17 ex-Blizzard guys all in one development team? You know these are going to be amazingly well crafted fetch quests that change absolutely nothing in a static MMO world. And think of the grinding!

Halo 3 is the biggest event in human history
The release of Halo 3 makes John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald look like footnotes in history. The moon landing is dwarfed by Bungie’s newest game, which sold approximately thirty thousand times more than any other product ever created. There are now significantly more copies of Halo 3 than wheels, and just about the same number of grains of sand.

This game topped the charts in Japan last week, proving that in a tepid market environment an American game can actually sell well in the East. Microsoft still didn’t sell many 360s so it’s likely most Halo 3 owners bought the game in order to read the manual and gawk at the pictures on the back of the box. →  Read more? No, I’ll read it all.

The Hardware Honeymoon Is Over, Bring On The Games!

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I just took a quick peek at the Japanese console sales charts and I think it is safe to say that the newness is starting to fade from this generation of consoles. This is by no means a doom and gloom statement, it just means that now some game developers need to step up to the plate and convince people to buy into all of the new hardware floating around.

Microsoft will again be the loser in the Japanese console market. The Xbox 360 just does not have titles that Japanese people are interested in. Halo 3 will most definitely boost sales in the United States and Europe but not many Japanese gamers play Halo. I am positive I will be able to walk into any store here on the day Halo 3 is released and walk out with a copy of the game if I so desired. It is a shame for MS that they can’t find some way to connect with the inhabitants of this little island country because the 360 is a very solid console. →  Ys: The Article of Napishtim

Dreamcast Mania!: What did we miss? – Headhunter

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What Happened?: Headhunter was supposed to come out at the tail end of the Dreamcast’s life. It still did – in Europe. Its US cancellation was a big enough deal for IGN’s Dreamcast channel to review the import, meaning it was as important to them as Shenmue 2. Eventually Americans got a chance to play it on the PS2.

The Game: Allow me to get bold and assertive for a minute. 1998 was the beginning of a new little period in which a flurry of Important Games were released. They reinvented series, changed genres, and refined 3d game design. It ended with the release of Halo in 2001. It isn’t that innovation or good games ended there, its just that, six years later, we’re still copying Halo’s formula. Where we once only had Metal Gear Solid for stealth and Medal of Honor for WW2 shooters, we now have countless games in each genre. We rebuilt some franchises, and then franchised the fuck out of the rest. →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Sony’s Jamie Macdonald lies to Spong

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Digg led me to a hilariously bad review of Bioshock today. The site the review is on is called Sony Defense Force and, luckily, the entire site is hilarious. It may be a parody but it’s hard to tell, especially after the All I Want For Christmas is a PSP debacle.

Browsing the SDF page, I came across this gem of a story: PS2 still outselling Wii in all Major Markets. The bloggers own comments are excellent – “Looks like Wii won’t even be able to catch PS2. Get ready for another Sony dominated generation.” More importantly, the quote from Jamie Macdonald is an obvious lie:

“Jamie Macdonald: Could I just point something out – that PlayStation 2 is still outselling Wii in all the major markets.”

Unless he delivered this interview from last year, he is wrong. The PS2 has been trumped by the Wii every month of this year except for March. The Wii has outsold the PS2 in Japan since launch. →  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this post!

Second helpings of the DS list article

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Yesterday we covered 65 DS games as something of a jesting response to a PSP Fanboy article. Some readers decided to ignore the point of our piece, which was that games are, at least by our standards, the real reason to buy or not buy a system. For those people, we now present a second reason (in their view) to buy a DS — backwards compatibility.

The entire GameBoy Advance lineup is available to a proud DS owner. While a majority of games on that handheld were licensed kiddy garbage, it was still home to some excellent titles you should make sure to play.

After some GBA games, we will then take a look at 10 upcoming DS games that look promising. Like the GBA games, it didn’t seem appropriate to include these yet to be released games on yesterday’s list. But how can we ignore some of the powerhouses coming soon? So here we go, once again in no particular order at all…

Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga
If this game weren’t hugely entertaining, it’d still be a mandatory buy simply for Fawful’s dialog. →  I regret learning to read.

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Morning Glory Issue 001

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In this first ever issue of Morning Glory, we see the typical setting of two gamers talking. One day we might see three gamers talking, or even four. This morning only required two though, so only two there are. Bring forth gamers one and two.
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It’s the typical setting of a conversation. There are two people. One fellow clearly favours the food, whilst the other obviously doesn’t favour it as much.

Porky decides it’s his turn to start off a deep and meaningful conversation. His expression suddenly turns sullen, and he takes in a deep breath.

“Hey man.”

“Hey.”

Porky fucks up starting a deep and meaningful conversation. Nevertheless, he ploughs on with vigour. He takes another deep breath, as if launching into a long speech.

“Have you heard about Manhunt 2 being banned in Europe? That shit’s fucked up man. It shouldn’t happen. I can’t believe it also got an Adults Only rating over here. It’s going to seriously dampen the sales of what could have potentially been a runaway adult hit.” →  Xenoblade Articles X

PS3 Gets Boatload of PS1 Titles…in Japan

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Through their newest 1.70 firmware update for the PS3, Sony has bestowed upon the Japanese buying public a cornucopia (25 to be exact) of PS1 titles for purchase through the Playstation Store. This will also mark the very first time that PS1 titles are playable on the PS3. Before today, they were only playable on the PSP, which makes absolutely no sense.
Blocky characters in 1080p: totally worth $600.

And sadly, not all of the titles that are being released tomorrow are playable on the PS3. You can check out the complete list at PSPFanboy.

Now, although this is only for Japan, it does seem that Sony is at least somewhat trying to do what Nintendo has been doing with their Virtual Console Mondays. Nintendo has been on the ball ever since the service started a week after the Wii’s launch, and after seeing how much profit they stand to gain from doing nothing releasing their old wares, Sony has decided it’s their turn to milk their customers of their hard-earned money. →  Is that an article in your pants, or are you just happy to read me?

Review – Soul Calibur 3

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Soul Calibur 3’s is like a reunion tour, featuring every character in the franchise, as well as classic stages and songs. It also boasts a huge level of customization, right down to the ability to create your own character. It seems to be everything you could ask for, but in order to experience it, you’re going to have to play by the game’s rules, very strict rules that state that if you want to enjoy some of it, you’ll have to slave through all of it.

Soul Calibur 3 is the Square-Enix of fighting games, so proud of its accomplishments that it doesn’t give you a choice about whether you want to see it all, so ashamed of its old school roots that it hides them far away from the player, as if to scold them for ever wanting to dig them up. It’s a lazy and pandering game that should be so much more.

The first thing you will notice about Soul Calibur 3 is that the menus are a mess. →  Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Post

Numbers are fun: Super awesome stock update

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While at work today, and trying to justify thinking about video games, I became curious about the recent performance of the three companies gamers (probably) follow most closely. Thus you now get to read a rundown of how Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo stock has performed since the launches of the 360, PS3 and Wii respectively. But first a few caveats. With nothing besides perception to back this up, I’m going to say that Wii sales are more important to Nintendo than either of the other consoles are to the their companies. While I’m not sure, and I would be willing to listen to arguments to the contrary, I would say Microsoft is least reliant on its games division, but Sony obviously has diverse business interests as well. This means that stock moves could have nothing to do with game sales, and I am completely spinning my wheels. Maybe it will be a fun ride anyway.

In any event, on to the stats. →  Now is the winter of read this content.

Wii Shortages Will Continue

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Next-Gen has reported through an interview with Nintendo of America’s Perrin Kaplan that it may be awhile before the Wii Shortage of ’07 ends. Perrin stated that they are at maximum capacity right now in terms of manufacturing the system, but the demand for the system is still at a fever-pitch, making it very hard to keep an amble supply on store shelves. The Internet community has known about this situation for some time now, but it’s surprising to see that even Nintendo themselves can’t predict when the shortage will come to an end.

But let’s think about this for a second. Even though the Wii is doing gangbusters right now, you can’t call it a complete success when the demand for it far exceeds supply. It isn’t good to have virtually no stock of your product on store shelves when everyone and their grandma wants one. Someone made a poor judgment call when deciding how many factories to subcontract out of (or whatever they call it these days) to make Wii’s. →  All your posts are belong to us.