Nintendo

What is Nintendo waiting for?

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Nintendo has a chance to regain some market share this generation. The Wii is still hard to find five months after launch and there are reports that Nintendo’s stated mission of expanding the market is succeeding. But for every smart move they make, a dumb one — like keeping the friend code system intact — is soon to follow. I have compiled a short list of things Nintendo really should do sooner rather than later.

The most grievous sin Nintendo has committed is their neglect of online play. What were they doing while Xbox Live took off? It’s as if they only started thinking about the structure of Wii online after the system launched, instead of seven years ago when SegaNet showed us how cool online gaming could be. Personally, I think the lack of online capability (for gaming right now) is what makes the Wii feel a little old, not the weaker comparative processing power.

Neglecting the online component doesn’t only hurt the consumers, though. →  Monster Reader 4

The Hardest of the Corest

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Welcome everyone, to the very first (and hopefully not last) installment of “The Hardest of the Corest.” In this oddly-named (and therefore cool) segment , we’re going to tell you a story from someone that shows just how hardcore they really are. We’re talking about stuff like not going to the bathroom for 72 hours to raid some dungeon in WoW. Yeah, stupid stuff that questions our intelligence. And who knows, it may be your embarrassing story that gets featured on videolamer. But more on that later.

So, to kick it off old-school style, I’ll give you my most hardcore story. First, a little background info. I try to use my game consoles for as many things as possible. Take this for example. The most hardcore thing that I’ve been doing lately has been using my DS as my alarm clock. Sure, I can use my normal alarm clock if I wanted to, but I just can’t say no to a video game console. →  Ask not for whom the game plays, it plays for thee.

GDC: D is for Developer

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Wooh boy, it’s been one hell of a week. GDC was filled with some crazy announcements. We had Sony’s “Home” thing, LittleBigWorld, and Peter Molyneux’s “dog” in Fable 2. It started to look like GDC was turning into E3’s successor in some respects. That is, until the Miyamoto conference.

Basically, Shigeru Miyamoto, the one person everyone was looking to for some steamy Nintendo megaton, denied the raving rabbid press and talked about, you guessed it, developing games. No big game announcement or anything of the sort. Just tips on how to make good games.

Apparently the press (or at least Game|Life) wasn’t too keen on how the big show turned out, almost calling it a complete waste of time.

Funny thing is, the damn show is called the Game Developers Conference, and is meant to help developers with their unreleased wares and brewing ideas. It’s not the Game Press Conference, so no one should have expected to hear anything as big as an E3 announcement. →  Now bear my arctic post.

Two Gamecubes duct taped together

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Chris Hecker angered a lot of people by calling the Wii a piece of shit at this years Game Developer’s Conference. The thrust of his “argument” seems to be that games are art and Nintendo is focusing solely on making entertainment, not art, and therefore Nintendo is bad. It’s worth noting that on his website Chris says he is the Editor at large of Game Developer magazine, yet their website and the february issue I hold in my hands neglect to mention he holds any position there. But back to the issue at hand – some of the videolamer staff have been kind enough to tell us their thoughts on the situation.

Pat says:
This speech took place during a “rant” session, which seems to encourage hyperbolic, polarizing comments. So while my first reaction was “Who cares?” my second reaction was about his argument that the Wii does not have the processing power for complicated AI. I know nothing about hardware specs, but that does seem like a potential problem. →  You lost me.

Numbers are fun: January 07 edition

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There has been a decent amount of industry news in the gaming spotlight recently. A next gen system (Wii) was finally the best selling piece of hardware over a month (January) in the United States with 436,000 units. While the DS (239,000) still outsold the PSP (211,000), Sony’s machine has started to close the gap. All it took was a few original titles and sales have started to pick up. In terms of raw sales numbers, 2006 was a great year for the industry, and, in the US at least, terrific January sales have started 2007 off on the right foot. Japan sales last month were lower than those in January 2006, but this is hardly troubling. There are reporting problems with both the US and Japanese numbers that make it difficult to tell anything very specific, but it does seem as though the industry is alive and kicking.

At some point I mentioned somewhere that industry professionals are concerned about Wii sales staying strong throughout the year. →  Castle Readigami 2

Achievements: Crack for Gaming

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Hey guys. Sorry I’ve been a little lax on the whole “blogging” thing, but I swear, I have a good reason for it. In the last week or so, I’ve become addicted. To Achievements. Ya know, that thing on the Xbox 360 that gets you to play your games more? You know what I’m talking about. You’re probably going through the same thing right now, but are still in the denial stage. Don’t worry, it will come to you soon.

For the uninitiated, Achievements are points that you unlock when you complete certain tasks in your 360 games. Things like finishing a game on hard, or getting 100,000 points in that sch’mup all unlock Achievement points. The points then go into your Gamerscore, which is basically a barometer of how badass you are at gaming.

I didn’t put much stock into it when I originally got the 360, but over time, it slowly ate at my brain. Soon enough, more than half the reason I play my 360 right now is to unlock more Achievements. →  Welcome to read.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 2.23.07

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New Virtual Console consoles
It looks like Wii owners will now have the chance to download Neo Geo and MSX games. I’d like to see the original Metal Gear, which is supposed to be significantly cooler than the NES port, and Master System favorites (that were ports from the MSX) Miracle Warriors and Golvellius. Of course the West may never get the MSX emulator because most (or all) of the system’s games are in Japanese. Maybe after Nintendo translates Fire Emblem 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 I will believe there’s a possibility they translate super obscure Japanese computer games on a system 99.8% of Americans have never heard of.

Speaking of Master System, why not give us a Wii emulator for Phantasy Star, Wonder Boy, Zillion, Alex Kidd and company? Or at least a Sega CD emulator so we can play Dungeon Exploer in style. The TG16 version looks like crap (not to mention plays like crap). With a Sega CD emulator, we could sink countless hours into Shining Force CD, Dark Wizard, Lunar 1 and 2, and maybe even Snatcher (plus I guess Vay and Popful Mail for you Working Designs faithful). →  These are the games I know, I know. These are the games I know.

Record-Setting Win Gone Unnoticed

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I usually don’t like doing this, as it seems a bit selfish of me, but I felt compelled to reveal my dirty little secret to the world. I, Matt, am the owner of the World Record for Mario Kart 64’s Choco Mountain Time Trial, with an amazing time of 1:46:400. This picture is my sole proof of the record in question. I apologize for the blurriness, but I only have a cell-phone camera.

If you search Twin Galaxies’ site, which is THE source for video game records, you’ll see the top record of 1:46:840, which is the Japanese National Record. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Japan, but it appears that your record has now been broken. In fact, it has been broken for about seven years.

Sad thing is, Twin Galaxy will not approve of the record because I never taped the record-setting run, and it wasn’t done under any referee supervision. I’ve contacted Twin Galaxies numerous times in the past about my record, but they’ve never gotten back to me. →  Lamers so loved the world that they gave their only article, so that everyone who believes in reading won’t perish but will have eternal lives.

The current state of fighting games

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At the time of this writing, Dead or Alive and Virtua Fighter have released new entries on next generation consoles. Tekken 6 was just announced, and I’m sure it is only a matter of time before we hear something about Soul Calibur 4. It seems that fighting games are doing A-okay on the next gen systems. And yet I still get a sinking feeling about one of my favorite genres. I’m not going to go and make an assertion about fighters being doomed to become as niche as the schmup, but I still can’t shake a feeling of worry. Let’s break it down by companies and see why:

Namco/Sega: These two are responsible for the three (Tekken, VF, and Soul Calibur) most popular and powerful 3d fighting franchises. All three have dedicated fanbases that will ensure they do well enough in terms of sales. This is both good and bad. Good because these three (as well as DOA) will make sure the genre stays in the public eye. →  Read more? No, I’ll read it all.

How long should games be?

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Early in the history of video games, one thing all games had in common was their length – they were all pretty short. Most games could be beaten in only a few hours. In contrast, games that we play today can exceed 80 hours. But do we always need our games to pass the coveted 40-hour mark? We weren’t having a bad time with them back then, so why fix something that may not have been broken?

Some developers will advertise the fact that their game takes 100 hours to complete, printing it as a bullet right on the back of the box. Remember when Nintendo was talking about Twilight Princess? 70+ hours was their estimated length of gameplay. But is this a good thing? The first Zelda could probably be beaten in a few hours, even without going all speed-runny on it. Does the time difference make one better than the other?

I don’t think so. There is this big misconception in the industry that longer games are better, and that no one should focus on shorter games. →  Frankly my dear, I don’t read a damn.