Sony

Review – Lair

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So, the critics have called this game unoriginal and unplayable due to its extra 21st chromosome technology control scheme. Harsh. They say the game’s opening monologue may as well have been ripped from the Fellowship of the Rings DVD. However there is a significant difference which qualifies this as “not a rip off,” when I’m-supposed-to-be-Cate-Blanchett gets to the part of the prologue where she introduces the uber-evil force that we’ll be up against. It’s not the giant fiery eye of Sauron or even a giant fiery uvula, but rather a volcano. Holy shit, volcanoes weren’t even in Lord of the Rings for at least two movies. How can those dicks over at every other game review site say this is unoriginal?

lair11.jpg
That’s right, the evil that has torn apart the peaceful world of Dragonslairville is – volcanoes.
 →  Phoenix Write: Just Posts for All

A deeper look into Nintendo’s bling

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Nintendo’s recent ascension to become the second largest company in Japan has been making news on a few sites which track the business aspect of video games. While it is true that a company’s market capitalization (basically a measure of what the stock market thinks a company is worth) has grown by leaps and bounds of late (as will happen when the price shoots up as much as Nintendo’s has) some of the underlying financial numbers are even more fascinating than the headlines.

By market cap, Nintendo is substantially larger than Sony (Nintendo is worth about $75 billion, to Sony’s $47 billion). In truth, this metric is only one way to judge the size of a company. What’s another, you may ask? How about sales, I answer. Sony’s sales are leaps and bounds higher than Nintendo’s. →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

Nintendo is waiting for shoes to be eaten

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So guess who is the second largest company in Japan as of now?

NCL, otherwise known as Nintendo.

That’s right, the same Nintendo that countless people asked to drop out of the hardware business for the entirety of the Gamecube generation.

I’m sorry, but I have to vent a little about this one. There came Nintendo with its crazy ideas that everyone scoffed at, while Sony was praised for making “sexy” consumer products, quite possibly one of the most asinine descriptions I have heard in the world of business. Everyone had their mind set on the victor, and apparently sluggish Gamecube sales surely meant Nintendo had no money in the bank.

Well I guess they did after all. And I guess their crazy ideas worked pretty well too. You can disagree with what they are doing, but the fact that so many people put themselves in what seemed to be a state of self-imposed denial because (god forbid) the “kiddie” games company wasn’t being beaten to a bloody pulp has been one of my biggest pet peeves of the last seven years. →  Keep it warm.

PSP-2000: Two years too late

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Last month saw the introduction of the new PSP Slim. I gave my personal impressions on the silver unit earlier, but I wanted to go more in-depth with what the system means for Sony overall. In the last few years, Sony has been on a constant downward spiral in terms of consumer popularity. With a $600 system that has very few games and a handheld system that’s been out for more than two years and still has a less than stellar software lineup, Sony’s Golden Age has clearly been tarnished.

But I will say this: Sony has restored my faith in them with the PSP Slim. It’s an amazing piece of tech, no small thanks to the newly added video-out option through separate component video cables. If you were on the fence about the the first model, I can wholeheartedly recommend getting the Slim model. →  Disaster Readport

TGS 2007 — Fear and Loathing in Tokyo

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Living in Japan allows me a certain freedom when it comes to my nerd-hood. Video game playing is all but encouraged, anime is the norm, and if you were to tell someone your life goal was to build and paint model robots, they would smile understandingly at you. Japan is indeed a land in which technology and entertainment hold hands and lovingly caress one another. As I type this, I am coasting at a leisurely 175mph on a bullet train as I watch scenery adorned with lush greenery and neon zoom by. One of the many nerdy perks to living in Japan is the knowledge that once a year, all of the big names in gaming (minus one) will converge in Tokyo and allow the public a glimpse of their brand new wares. →  READ3R

Matt gets his PSP to run on TV, nearly wets himself

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Woohoo! I finally got my PSP Slim component video cables in the mail on Friday. I was a tad disappointed to find out that Sony held the release of the cables until only recently (the Daxter bundle with the Silver Slim unit was released much earlier in the month), but the wait has been worth it. I promised my impressions on the video-out option, and I always keep my word. So here they are.

First, a little disclaimer: games cannot be displayed without the component cables. Sony has released composite cables, but you can only view movies, music, and photos with them. To play games on your TV, you need the component wires, as the games are developed with a progressive scan-enabled screen in mind. They’re the same price, so it’s not really a problem. →  The happiest post on Earth.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.21.07

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PSP outsells DS in Japan
Square’s Final Fantasy VII spin off for the PSP, Crisis Core, sold half a million copies last week. It also sold PSPs. Possibly not all of the 95 thousand Sony sold in the week, but likely around 80 thousand, which is how many more units were sold than the previous week. Sony’s business strategy should be clear – simply release a spinoff of one of the most beloved games of all time once a week and the PSP will handily outsell the DS in Japan 1.2 to 1.

Or, to quote someone from a forum I read:
“If DS stopped selling and PSP continued at this rate, it would catch up in 139.7 weeks (May 21, 2010).”

Does anyone else feel nauseous?

Home delayed till Spring
Good for Sony. →  50 Cent: Readproof

Dual Shock 3 please, with a side of rumble

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Well, it’s official, rumble is back. Officially dubbed the Dual Shock 3, Sony has “listened” to its fans and added the most basic of features to their much scoffed-at SIXAXIS controller. Isn’t it amazing?!

Yeah, not really. This should have been implemented with the PS3 before it even came out. This is Sony playing catch-up, but it’s not the cool kind, especially when they make people spend $600 on something that lacks an integral piece of the gaming equation.

And why did I surround the word listen with quotation marks in my introduction, you ask? It’s simple, my dear reader. Other than being clever/snooty, I was trying to point out that Sony knew not having rumble in their PS3 controller was a serious problem the entire time. They didn’t need to listen to their consumers to see if it was a problem or not. →  Speak softly and carry a big post.

Discs based gaming and you – Luddites and grognards

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I have something to admit. It will sound strange in this day and age, but I still get a bit weirded out playing games on optical media.

It really makes no sense, considering just how long I have been popping discs into trays to get my game on. My reasons are a combination of upbringing and perception, and if you’re bored or curious, I’d like to share them with you.

Reason One – Music

Very early on, when CD’s were becoming mainstream, I was young enough to make the false assumption that they were like cassettes and vinyl before them, intended only for playing music. Of course, young Christian had never played with a computer using a tape drive, so I was wrong on two accounts. In any case, thinking of a CD as a storage medium rather than as a vessel for music took a little while, but I came around eventually. →  U R Not lamE.

PS1 games you may have missed: The RPGs

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As you all may be aware, Sony is finally picking up the software side of backwards compatibility for its shiny new system.

Since the PS3 doesn’t have any good RPGs or strategy games of its own yet, I would like to take this opportunity to recommend a few rare games that may actually be compatible with the PS3 by now.

I won’t lie; some of these games are inordinately expensive by used-game standards. But even the most expensive doesn’t cost twice as much as a new PS3 game.

My intent with this is to show you all that the PSX was, in some ways, an incredible system; it may not have had the sturdy character of the N64, but even though I am fascinated with obscurity, I hadn’t heard of several of these games a few years ago – well after the PS2 had taken over. →  Games are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.