If you are a modern day SNK fan like me, you know the company has done absolutely squat to promote its games. The only one of recent memory to get a serious push was the original Maximum Impact, which featured a collectors edition, classy packaging, and ads during sporting events. Everything else, including MI’s far superior sequel, has had anywhere near the publicity. Every game has been a near silent release, to the point where people aren’t even sure of a solid release date. I have heard the faintest of buzz about Neo Geo Battle Colliseum, but this is completely the doing of fans and curious people who have been wondering why it has taken years for a port of it to show up. → Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.
United States
DS games on the go!
So you have a DS but you don’t have the time to sink into long playing sessions. Or in my case, you have the attention span of a seven year old on crack. The whole concept of the aging process bringing patience is a lie and I’m living proof. When I was ten I could sit for hours and rock Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES, now I can barely sit through a thirty minute session of Phantom Hourglass. I think I am turning into more of a casual gamer and I know for sure that my mind is usually elsewhere when I flip the switch on my black-as-my-soul DS.
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This does not mean that I don’t enjoy games anymore; I just don’t get overly involved in most of the games I play. → It’s dangerous to read alone, take this.
Numbers are fun – November ‘Nihilation
There has been a lot of good sales news for the industry over the past month. Enough numbers have been released that PR people from all three console manufacturers are able to claim some victory. We have all grown accustomed to hearing that Nintendo’s grandparent-friendly hardware is setting the world ablaze, but recent information has shown that its competitors may be gearing up to offer a viable challenge. The biggest headline probably has to be the fact that Nintendo DS sales set the record for most systems ever purchased in a single week with 653,000. This, combined with 350,000 Wiis sold during the same period adds up to…a lot of stuff sold by Nintendo during Thanksgiving week. The Wii is still supply constrained so it’s tough to say how many units Nintendo could be moving, but the Wii reached five million units in the US sold faster than any other system in history, doing so in a mere 12 months. → Read more? No, I’ll read it all.
Are you ready to rock? … well you can’t.
Way to go EA / MTV. Way to f up the launch of what should have been your biggest title this Christmas season. Rock Band launched today, or so gamers were told. In reality it seems like there were only a handful of units shipped to retailers with little or no warning about the shortage. The only press release I’ve seen even hinting at production shortages was unearthed yesterday, in which the EA spokesman said that there might be a little supply crunch … until MARCH OF 2008!
Best Buy held midnight launch parties at about two dozen locations across the US and reports are coming in that a large majority of those stores got shipped a paltry number (one store in Kentucky received two PS3 bundles, and that’s it) or no games at all. → Theme Postital
videolamer Votes aka Should Tyson Sell His PSP?
The amount of handheld consoles I have had over the years is nutty. I’ve laid the smack down on Tetris, old school style with the original Gameboy. As I suspect color television enthralled people in the 1950s, I popped a gamer boner when the Gameboy Color rainbowed its way on to the scene in the early 90s. And no, rainbow should never be used as a verb unless I O.K it… and I just did. Come to think of it, the only Gameboy iteration I have never owned is the Gameboy Pocket. I also own a GP2X and a PSP. I like my handhelds.
Despite my undying love for pocket-sized gaming machines, I have never fully accepted the PSP into the fold. → Prince of Postia: Article Within
Time to Give to a Good Cause
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We all know Gary Coleman. How could you not love a 4′ 8″ guy that appeared in one of the 80s most iconic shows, Diff’rent Strokes? Back in the day, he was a veritable one-liner machine, churning out gimmicky quips in the blink of an eye. Lately though, it seems that Gary has fallen on hard times and is forced to part with his Gamecube. Hard times for Mr. Coleman means an Ebay auction for us and an autographed Cube for the winning bid, which is currently just over $500.
Just looking at that pitiful mug makes me want to bid a few bucks just to help the guy out. I mean you know he is in trouble when the very table he is signing away his Gamecube on is littered with a bottle of pills, an empty beer bottle, what could either be another beer or cough syrup, and a US passport. → Hey, hey, hey, it’s time to make some crazy reading!
Gaming Meccas of Japan Pt. 2 — Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan
Every hobby and every religion has their sacred place. Baseball fans have Cooperstown. Gamblers go to Las Vegas. Catholics go to the Vatican. Maple syrup lovers go to Canada. For us, the nerds, the geeks, the otaku, we have Akihabara. It is here that we can fulfill our wildest, dorkiest dreams. If we feel like buying the newest video game, Akihabara. If we have a craving for that awesomely drawn manga, Akihabara. And, if we just must be called “Master” by a cute little maid while we have our morning coffee, you got it, Akihabara. There are very few places in the world where a video game lover can come anytime of the year and feel at home. And just like home, Akihabara also has plenty of porn. → Apply directly to the forehead.
Politicians aiming to censor games have an uphill battle
Unless you spent the last year hiding in a cave playing Gears of War and Elebits, you’ve probably noticed that video games continue to be a great way for politicians to score points with the obsessively-worried-with-no-rational-basis constituency (I usually just call them “crotchety old people,” where, since this is a legal article and I’d hate to be vague, old is defined as “belonging to any generation that is unable to recognize the sequence ‘up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start’”).
Of course, what could be wrong with censoring video games? As spokesperson for New York State Senator Leland Yee, the sponsor of the latest video game censorship law, points out, “we prohibit children from smoking…we regulate driver’s licenses. → All this can be yours, if the read is right.
Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.21.07
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).” → NiGHTS into REaDS
Dreamcast Mania! – Great games you can’t get anywhere else
Videolamer noticed that in our attempts to keep Dreamcast Mania! alive, so very many of our articles were about the things we missed out on, rather than a celebration of what we had. That changes now. Today we will be going over some of the absolute best games the DC (and only the DC) has to offer. These are not only the reasons why we loved it, but while we still do. These are the games that make it a system still worth owning and playing (meaning you won’t find games like Third Strike, which has a superior PS2 port).
Oh, and I only have a paragraph to describe each game. Prepare for distilled glory.
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Soul Calibur – As far as I am concerned, the only game in the Soul series that you can argue was better than this one (and have me actually listen to you) is Soul Blade. → Ring of Read