Live Arcade

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 2.16.07

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Virtua Fighter 5 sells well in Japan despite reports to the contrary
Despite my rants about how shitty game journalism is, I am often too lazy to be the change I want to see in the world (paraphrased Gandhi quote FTW!). Last week, a little short on stories, I decided to post something that was both very specific to my tastes and not really news. The second part should’ve been blatantly obvious since the story was on kotaku.com.

So now I would both like to apologize for the lapse in quality journalism and for the story being just plain wrong. I have brought shame to videolamer and to my family. If my parents hadn’t stopped speaking to me years ago because I am a horrible disappointment of a son, I am sure they would be ashamed.

Artsy enough to have his own clothing line, but not so artsy he is beaten to death in a dark alley.

Marc Ecko forms game studio
Vin Diesel is the only celebrity I know of who seems to actually be talented. →  May God smite me if I stop reading here!

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 1.26.07

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Wii games channel coming…some time
Nintendo has confirmed that they will offer new games for download on the Wii, no doubt inspired by Microsoft’s Live Arcade. Since the Wii is already being positioned as the console to develop for if you have a small budget, it should be interesting to see what kind of games are distributed through the games channel (not the official name). Will it be home to crappy Flash games or is this the beginning of the 2D renaissance on home systems? I’m hoping for the latter but won’t be surprised if it’s the former.

Gears of War sells well in Japan
Well enough to break the top 10 list, in fact. Now American developers know breaking into the Japanese market is possible; all they have to do is make one of the best games of the year.

Silicon Knights President blogs about Too Human’s cold E3 reception
Denis Dyack describes how last E3 felt with a story from his college days. →  Xenosaga 2: Jenseits von Gut und Pöst

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 7.7.06

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Japanese game market doing better
The market is up 33% in the first half of the 2006. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo played a large role. While I prepare the next news point, you pick one of the two following arguments:

– The Japanese game market is being revitalized by innovation. The success of the DS is a sure sign that the Wii will do well in Japan.

– The Japanese game market is being revitalized by handhelds. This does not mean their interest in consoles will pick up.

Ok, now find a friend who picked the argument you didn’t. Found someone? Excellent, now debate.

“Damn, I really need to shave my head and lose some weight.”

Microsoft’s iPod killer coming this Christmas
Funny, MS Word doesn’t recognize iPod as a word. A lot of powerful companies have gone up against Apple and none have taken the portable MP3 player market from them. Knowing that J. Allard is spearheading MS’s music player also makes me want it to fail. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 6.2.06

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E3 awards
Wii wins best in show award. So this justifies Nintendo’s actions. When they eventually get trampled in the free market they can at least say, “Oh well, other industry people thought it could work, too.”

Spore won best PC game and best original game. Gears of War picked up a few awards, and the DS Zelda won best handheld. I’m happy to see Bioware’s Mass Effect won something, too, as I am in love with that company. I’m totally having their babies.

Analyst specultes on MS handheld
The Marketeer already broke the news that Microsoft was entering the handheld market.

Peter Moore has started a list of every backwards compatible Xbox game.

Backwards compatibility not a priority for MS
How convenient. Promise backwards compatibility, do a so so job (no Soul Calibur 2?), then after a good number of systems have been sold announce that people aren’t really interested in backwards compatibility and that you aren’t really interested, either. →  Contains 10% more consonants than comparable articles.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.14.06

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Video game skills do not usually transfer to real life skills
Man in his 30s attempts to outrun cops in a car because he did it in GTA. Instead of putting age restrictions on games, there should be an IQ test. Is anyone else waiting for the guy who played too much Trauma Center to show up in the news?

photoshopped

Too good to be true?

Two Revolution games announced
Red Steel is coming to the Revolution, and check out the fake screen shots. Maybe they’re not polished, who knows. The game seems to be another attempt by Nintendo to convince gamers that they can appeal to an older crowd. The choice of a FPS is slightly odd, though. They tend to do terribly in Japan and if the Revolution is to stand a chance, my guess is that it’d have to repeat the DS’s and Allied Forces strategy of dominating the homeland.

In addition to Ubisoft’s Red Steel (the sword and gun fighting FPS) another title has been officially announced for the Revolution. →  The fuck does Cuno care about reading?

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 3.24.06

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PS3 to be region free.
Woohoo. Now I can buy RPGs I can’t play without getting the system modded. I expect this will increase the number of gamers who import titles from Japan, but also eat into sales of Western releases by a little, which is part of the reason console manufacturers always used region encoding.

GameStop makes huge profits.
Buying your competitors and selling used games as new really works.

Errrr
This pic of Representative Keeley is really a stronger argument against her position than anything I could write.

Jack Thompson and Delaware Representative try to brand violent games as obscene, thereby getting around that pesky First Amendment.
According to them games are not speech so they shouldn’t be protected. Since when did artistic expression need to be in the form of spoken words? Since stupid religious conservatives saw an issue that would make them rich and famous.

PS3 will come with a hard drive.
Last weeks jokes are taken back by 75%. →  Just read it.