Nintendo

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. →  Sonic the Readhog

An even more Smashingly little amount of information to Brawl about: Music

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Recently, the Smash Bros Dojo has opened its doors officially. Though much of the information is not new, updates are guaranteed to be coming every weekday from Masahiro Sakurai himself!
Unlikely to be the last surprise waiting for us inside a box.

Most of the information is stuff any fan of the games would know by now – such as how to play or information about the one stage that has been revealed.

However… if you look at “Music” there is a list of composers that is nothing short of formidable. Absolutely amazing.

The list itself gives examples of games the composers worked on, which is helpful for several names I didn’t recognize. Let’s take a look.

The usual suspects:

  • Koji Kondo
  • Masaaki Iwasaki
  • Minako Hamano
  • Shogo Sakai
  • Toru Minegishi
  • Yuka Tsujiyoko
  • Hajime Wakai

These are all composers who worked on several Nintendo games in the past or recently worked on big-name Nintendo games. →  I’m so excited, my braces are tingling!

Best Buy needs a better selection

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Tonight I scoured the earth for a copy of Etrian Odyssey. A painfully difficult game with music by Yuzo Koshiro sounds like heaven to me. Apparently, Best Buy thinks it sounds like a nerdy Japanese RPG doomed to rot on the shelves. I was hurt that the store didn’t carry the game, but what they do carry is infinitely more infuriating.

Cars…OK, maybe the movie was cute.

Cake mania…I guess it’s some flash game, whatever.

Bratz: Diamondz…No, there is never a reason to stock this game. If you buy your children Bratz merchandise do the world a favor and smother them while they sleep.

Dogz…Nintendogs ripoff meant to take advantage of stupid children and ignorant parents, fine.

Horsez…Nintendogs ripoff meant to take advantage of stupid children and ignorant parents who cannot tell the difference between a dog and a horse, fine. →  Keep it warm.

Paranoid Identity Crisis!

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Fanboys unite! Constant squabbles echo among Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox loyalists, but the real battle is elsewhere. It’s a battle between the different ways people choose to spend their free time and their extra dollars. Games are a big and growing part of this battle and they have taken a bite out of that tasty aged 18-34 male demographic. Can games hold onto it? Do they even want to?

Nintendo has set itself the challenge of trying to hold onto some of gaming’s biggest loyalists while making appeals to nontraditional audiences like retirees. And it’s well known that Sony and Microsoft have had their eyes on a bigger prize ever since they stepped in the ring. They both want to eventually establish their brands and platforms for the mythical must-have TV set-top box. →  Readlevania

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 5.14.07

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Starcraft 2 is coming
Golden Jew was wrong. He is hereby stripped of one hundredth of his massive pile of gold coins, crowns, and swords. I’ll give it back when the Starcraft MMO comes out in two years.

Rare to broaden 360s audience with all age friendly games
But also don’t rule out that they will make mature games, says Microsoft’s Peter Moore. They will or they won’t. They may and they may not. I’m glad Moore cleared that up.

Rare is fascinating because Microsoft seems to think Rare can change the Xbox brand image and because I have a theory that Nintendo makes their second parties what they are. On the first point, Rare will fail. Microsoft is taking the same attitude towards appealing to the mass market as they took when attempting to appeal to the Japanese — “one or two games should do it, now let’s sit back and wait for the money.” →  One must imagine video games happy.

Rumor Factory: Music Downloads on Wii?

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If you’ve been keeping up to date with your voting on the Everybody Votes Channel on the Wii (which you should be, btw), then you have seen a particularly interesting question that Nintendo is asking all of its American users:

“How do you prefer to buy music?”

The possible choices Nintendo has supplied are a) download or b) CD. Now, this can just be labeled as a seemingly innocuous question that tries to get more users to vote on the channel, but what if this were the first indication that Nintendo might be in the planning phases for a Music Download Channel, something akin to Apple’s iTunes store?

The Everybody Votes Channel is the perfect venue for Nintendo to better understand its customers, as well as to test out any ideas it has up its sleeve for the future. →  I’ll get a job later, for now I’m going to read this

Miyamoto could make Halo, but doesn’t wanna

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In a pretty enlightening interview on EW.com, Shigeru Miyamoto openly says that he could design a game like Halo for the American market, but that it’s just not what he wants to do.

Miyamoto says he tries to bring something new to the end-user experience, something that fans didn’t even know they wanted. That may sound a bit egotistical, but it makes perfect sense. Most people want a game that they’ve played before because they know it was fun, like someone saying they want a sci-fi FPS. But if developers always followed what the consumer wants, we would never get something like Katamari Damacy or the Wii.

That’s what Miyamoto was trying to say. It’s not like he thinks Halo is a simple game that anyone can design. →  Romance of the Three Articles IV: Post of Fire

Nintendo – Honest designers or Japanese super ninja thieves?

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Today I stumbled upon my bag of E3 2005 crap. I hadn’t remembered it was under the bed right next to the box of Chick Tracts (kids love them!) A quick look through the pamphlets and goodies made me recall how much of a bloated orgy E3 was. Just how many more Sony key chains, FFVII Before Crisis monitor wipers, paper Sly Cooper 3D glasses, and Phoenix Wright branded cans of coffee did they expect to give out before the whole thing collapsed under the weight of hastily thrown together demos, rabid consumerism (yes, I fought someone for that can of coffee, and no, coffee should not be in cans), thudding bass and barely dressed women?

The answer was “one years worth.” →  SaGa Frontier Readmastered

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 5.4.07

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Sony markets to teens
Sony decided this was a smart business move after analyzing the figures:
Selling games to 10 year olds = totally lame (Nintendo sux LOL)
Selling games to 14 year olds = awesome to the max (we rulz)

The All I want for Christmas is a PSP, Sony’s first attempt to market to teens, went over slightly better than September 11th. Most failed ads don’t bring in more customers, this failed ad led to current customers donating their PSPs to their walls at 15 MPH.

EA noticing Wii and DS appeal to kids, plans bad mini-game game to cash in
EA Playground appeals to “the kid in everyone.” How exactly did EA deduce this? There are the obvious things that appeal to kids but not adults, like finding the opposite sex disgusting and eating chalk. →  I’m readin’ here!

Xbox to make its first dollar in 2008

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Yeah, seven years after the original Xbox was released. If this was the plan all along, there would’ve been no way in Hell that the Xbox project would have been green-lit had it been anyone but Microsoft. It has cost the company billions already, which isn’t a very favorable position when dealing with shareholders.

From eWeek via Next-Gen.biz, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, states that through peripherals, software sales (1st and 3rd party titles), and Xbox Live, the Xbox platform will finally see a profit next year. Welcome, Microsoft, to the club that Nintendo has been a part of since, well, forever.

This fact just goes to show you how much money Microsoft can afford to waste on something like a gaming console. →  Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 5: Golden Post