Nintendo

Behind the names of our favorite companies and consoles

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Gamers speak the names of companies and systems on a daily basis, but many of us don’t know what these words actually mean nor their origin. And so here is a list of many of the biggest companies and consoles and what information is openly known about their names. I speak absolutely no Japanese and have no new information to add to this planet, but I have not seen all this info neatly compiled in one spot before. Thanks to Japanmanship and others who had already done much research on the topic.

Companies


Microsoft – Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems created the microcomputer Altair 8800 and Bill Gates offered to implement BASIC on their system. Micro is either from the Micro in the MITS company name or the micro in microcomputer, or both. →  Welcome to read.

Breaking News: Big Japanese publisher to release crappy games on Wii

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According to Screen Digest, one major Japanese third party publisher said, “We’re running a business, not to win awards but to make money — if we make breakeven plus on Wii then we are happy.” This translates to “We will port a lot of PS2 games to the Wii and develop real games for other consoles. The neutrality of Screen Digest has been disputed on some popular gaming forums, but assuming this quote is accurate, it still boggles my mind.

I was an economics minor and want to pretend my parents 120k were well spent, so please roll with this haphazard attempt at a proof:

First, we must necessarily assume that profit comes first because the quote indicates this is true. This rules out the idea that 3rd party publishers are saving their big games for HD and fancy processors simply because the developers want to work on them. →  50 Cent: Readproof

What Call of Duty has taught me about the Wii

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I’m just about willing to say that Call of Duty 3 is the most important game on the Wii right now. I couldn’t even finish it, yet it showed me a lot about the console that I never thought about before (or simply disregarded as false).

For instance, we’ve all heard the complaints from lazy gamers who are afraid of being active when playing the Wii, thinking they will get tired after only a few short minutes. Even before launch this was often mocked, and once people started playing, it seemed even sillier. But it isn’t silly at all. True, most games will not tire you out – even Wii Sports won’t unless you play it like a workout. In fact I’d say the Wii makes things much less tiring by allowing you to hold the controller in a variety of positions. →  Post of Tsushima

Playing catch up: Super Mario World

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I was a Sega kid. This means different things to different people — I was deluded, I had bad taste, or maybe I loved action games? Yes, somewhat and no. Sega’s consoles gave me plenty of great games to play growing up, and I don’t regret knowing the Phantasy Star and Shining Force series as well as other gamers know the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series.

What I do regret is how little I know about the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. Everything in life costs something, even if only time, and playing so many Sega games necessarily meant I had little opportunity for Nintendo games.

Here is a partial, embarrassing list of titles I missed that I still hope to play:

Any Final Fantasy before 6
Any Dragon Quest before 7 and after 1
Link to the Past
Chrono Trigger
Metroid
Super Metroid
Ocarina of Time
Super Mario World

Before yesterday, I had never played Super Mario World. →  Final Post VII

Rumor-ium: Wii killed the hardcore gamer… star.

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There’s a new rumor running around the neighbor-net (which I sincerely hope is false) that says Nintendo’s Project H.A.M.M.E.R., the action title for the Wii, has been canceled.

And if that’s not bad enough, the main reason it was supposedly canceled was because Nintendo wants NST (Nintendo Software Technology) to develop “expanded audience” titles instead. And by that I’m sure they mean casual games geared towards non-gamers.

Dear God no.

In recent months, many people were worried that, with games like Nintendogs and Brain Age becoming amazingly huge hits, that the hardcore gaming sector would take a huge hit. I never thought it was ever really going to happen, as there are still a lot of games geared towards true gamers coming out in the next year or so, but this rumor has me worried. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

The Wii Has Won!!!! Wait, What?

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Fortune has apparently deemed the Wii as the winner of the next-gen video game console race, featuring the Wiinner’s Circle on their cover, along with a fairly lengthy article talking about everything Nintendo has done right with its system.

It’s a fascinating read [via CNN], but one thing struck me as odd though, and it was a quote from Jack Tretton:

“But if you look at the industry, any industry, it doesn’t typically go backwards technologically. The controller is innovative, but the Wii is basically a repurposed GameCube. If you’ve built your console on an innovative controller, you have to ask yourself, Is that long term?”

He does have a point, but let me ask you this: how old is this industry? It’s really only as old as the NES (Atari nearly killed it, so I’m not going to include it), and that’s about 22 years old. →  Up to 6 billion readers.

Review – Metal Slug Anthology

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Old games don’t stop aging, and when they get old enough anniversaries are certain to pop up. These are great opportunities for everyone in gaming. Publishers get a fantastic excuse for re-releasing old games from dead platforms, and despite what message board all-stars will tell you, gamers can also benefit from these “franchise-milking opportunities”. They give some a chance to play a classic they missed out on, or for an old fan to have an entire series on one neat little disc. Good times all around.

Except it is rarely the case where things work out so squeaky clean. Sometimes a company will take it too far, such as Nintendo’s audacity to charge twenty dollars a pop for NES games that had a 50% chance of being tucked away somewhere in Animal Crossing. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all come from?

Geometry Wars to break your wii-mote and DS this Fall

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Bizarre Creations, in a bizarre move indeed, has announced their plans to bring the amazingly difficult old-school XBLA shooter Geometry Wart to Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems. Handling the conversion will be Kuju Entertainment, which you might remember as the developer for Nintendo’s Battalion Wars.
I HATE those little green bastards.

Titled Geometry Wars: Galaxies, it will now include a single-player campaign, as well as a new multiplayer mode (which includes both co-op and competitive modes) and the original version that’s currently available on Xbox 360. It will also include the requisite online leaderboards, although it’s unclear if both the Wii and DS will have them. Rounding out the new additions will be Wii-DS connectivity that unlocks new content. It is scheduled to come out this Fall for both systems.

If anyone has actually played Geometry Wars, then they can attest to how fucking hard the game is. →  Do the math.

Finally, a reason to move

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I’m accustomed to a game having to win me over. It should convince me it’s fun, and if I see a way to cut a corner here or there, by all means I’ll take it. Sure I’m supposed to talk to those town folk to further immerse myself in this RPG, or I’m supposed to call out that word in this party game, but if I don’t explicitly have to, then I just won’t do it. If the designers were good enough, they’d force me to have fun.

This is at least how I felt before owning a Wii. I have become acutely aware of how my willingness to stand up and have fun affects how enjoyable many Wii titles are. Last year, I’d have refused to participate the way a game wanted me to. →  But the future refused to change.

Would the Wii be as successful without Wii Sports?

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After hearing how successful the Wii has become in the last few months (which is unbelievable for a Nintendo fanboy such as myself), I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, it’s Nintendo we’re talking about. They’ve been in third place for some time now, but to see a such turn-around in that short amount of time is literally awe-inspiring.
Wii Sports: the most expensive game on the market.

But how? How has Nintendo gone from the little unknown guy to the one that has captured even your grandma’s heart? That question is easily answered with one thing: Wii Sports. This little piece of software is the main reason why the Wii is so successful, if at all. It’s a game where anyone can play without any inhibition. People like my mom would shy away from video games, but when it comes to Wii Sports, she’s right there beside me, trying to figure out every nuance the game has. →  Tony Hawk’s Posting Ground