Namco’s Chopin themed RPG Trusty Bell and SCi’s almost biblical Kain & Lynch, both once 360 exclusives, are now coming to the PS3 as well. Sony naysayers (me) are now faced with acknowledging neither console is safe from losing exclusive titles. Third party publishers seem unsatisfied with their platform choices. The 360 failed to dominate the market during its year lead and is currently being outsold by the GBA in Japan and the PS3 is catching on slower than most anticipated, likely due to it being positioned as a meal at a fine restaurant in the back of a Mercedes that is for everyone. Publishers could go to Nintendo, but then their triple A games look like shit and are stuck on one platform, whereas a game developed on either of the other two could be easily ported. → Read, I am your father!
Nintendo
Virtual Console offers more obscure titles
Today, a few low profile games were released on Nintendo’s Virtual Console (Gradius III, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Battle Lode Runner). Many gamers’ reaction was, “This sucks, when is Nintendo giving us Super Metroid and Super Mario RPG?” or the other side of that coin, “Ha ha, enjoy your crappy VC games losers. I’m glad I don’t have a Wii.” It’s an alarming situation but provides insight into the minds of many gamers.
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Square Enix recently announced it would be remaking every game they’ve ever thought about making. Many of us wondered why consumers will no doubt validate this developer’s decision to not develop games. This desire to play and replay the same game isn’t limited to Squeenix fans, though. → The Read Star
Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 4.20.07
Sony’s Q2 release schedule
Between the PS3 and Wii’s upcoming releases, I wish I had a 360. Though some (Matt) would disagree, it looks like adopting a next gen system early is a bad move. After Paper Mario there’s nothing I want to play on the Wii, at least nothing at the current going rates of titles. Maybe I’d pick up Metal Slug for $30, Excite Truck for $25 and only ask to be paid $20 to take Wii Play.
At least my stupid investment only cost $250 and there are plenty of good Virtual Console games to play. If you’re one of the few rich people with a PS3, look on the bright side — you’ll be able to download Joust soon. → Tony Hawk’s Posting Ground
Numbers are fun: Super awesome stock update
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. → To be this lame takes ages.
One Thing Right, One Thing Wrong: Microsoft Edition
Continuing our week-long series of “One Thing Right, One Thing Wrong,” today we turn our attention to Microsoft and it’s rather sleek-looking Xbox 360 console. Compared to the original Xbox, the 360 is leaps and bounds better, but still isn’t exactly perfect, which we’ll now discuss.
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Xbox 360: So smart, yet so stupid.
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In a move that Nintendo should probably take a lesson from, Microsoft gives each person a Reputation rating on their Gamercard, which is represented by a 5-star rating. It lets players that play games online know what kind of people they are playing with. The lower the rating, the more obnoxious the player will be while playing with him/her. All you have to do is view that player’s Gamercard and check the Reputation rating, which is to the right of their Gamer pic. → You reading at me?
Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 4.13.07
Bethesda buys Fallout IP
Anyone who thinks a series can change developers and still be the same series is encouraged to pay me to write the fourth Lord of the Rings book.
Cheap PS3 discontinued
No more 20 gig harddrive PS3. This makes some sort of sense because Sony loses more on each of the 20 gig sold than on the 60 gig. But it also doesn’t make other kinds of sense. Specifically, the “release two models for absolutely no reason,” and “eliminate the cheaper model because the console is too expensive in the first place” kinds of sense.
To make matters more hilarious, Sony is considering releasing a third model of the PS3. Some magical hardware that could play PS3 games (which are on Blu Ray) but not come with a Blu Ray player was what I was hoping for, despite the obvious impossibility. → Katamari Damaread
One Thing Right, One Thing Wrong: Nintendo Edition
This week I’m going to introduce a new segment on vl. Called “One Thing Right, One Thing Wrong,” I’m going to talk about about two things, one good, one bad, that a respective console maker has going for with their current generation console. And to start it all off, I decided to go with fanboy heaven, Nintendo and its Wii system.
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Wii: next-gen home for Channel surfing.
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First, the good news. In keeping with this whole “non-gamer” kick that Nintendo’s been on, they’ve implemented the now-famous Channel system with the Wii. Essentially, you have upwards of 48 “channels” that can be viewed on the Wii’s main menu, be it specialty programs like the “Everybody Votes” channel, or full-fledged games from the Virtual Console service. → They’re reading her… and then they’re going to read me!
Console Predictions from a Gamer
After what felt like three bajillion years (which seemed to be filled with pointless bickering), all three systems are finally out on the market, waiting for whomever wants to jump into the next-generation console war. The last few months have been a very telling period for gaming, with the PS3 not performing as well as some would hope, and Nintendo’s new console coming completely out of nowhere with some amazing numbers, especially considering it’s coming off the heels of possibly the worst performing Nintendo console ever, the GameCube. With that in mind, we can get into the nitty gritty: the future. What’s in store for each player in the console war? We can’t say for sure exactly, but we can have fun predicting. → Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing memory cards.
The Worlds of Power book series
Strange as it may seem, video games and reading have always been closely related in my mind. When I was four years old, I would watch my older brother play RPGs and other text-heavy games. After a year or so of observation, I could more or less understand what was going on. Eventually, I figured out that letters written on paper were the same as those shown in Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, and thus I “learned” to read all at once (naturally, my kindergarten teacher took the credit).
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Astonishingly, terrible game cover art is also terrible book cover art. |
Back in the NES era, there were a lot of random game-related paraphernalia. Nintendo had merchandising on its side, and Super Mario towels, sheets, lunchboxes, etc. → Read more, before it’s too late!
Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 4.8.07
Resident Evil games coming to Wii
Capcom loves to remake and rerelease Resident Evils. Resident Evil 1 was released first on the PS1, then the Saturn, and PC, then the director’s cut came out on the PS1. This was followed by the remake for Gamecube and the slightly modified Deadly Silence version for the DS. Somewhere in there a mobile phone game was released, but at least Capcom had the sense to scrap a GBC version. Some PS1 games don’t look good on an NES — who knew?
Good news for people who have only played this game eight times — the Umbrella Chronicles game coming to the Wii looks very much like a recreation of the first game (with some of the second thrown in to placate whiners like me). → Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about huffing paint.