Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 7.21.06

New Sony patent for motion sensing camera
We’ll have to wait and see if Sony releases a peripheral with this technology for the PS3. The patent refers to older similar technology Sony has designed so it provides a good defense to the claims that Sony is merely copying Nintendo. The question now becomes is Sony rushing these technologies to market in response to Nintendo.

Both Sony and Nintendo have advantages in how their products are being sold. If Sony’s new motion sensing technology sells well, games that make use of it will follow. But the product is statistically likely to be another throwaway peripheral with minimal support. If Nintendo’s gamble pays off their motion sensitive games will likely far outnumber the PS3’s and be superior in quality. Conversely, if the Wiimote concept doesn’t work then they have a much farther fall than Sony.

And am I the only person who doesn’t want to have to look at himself while playing an Eye Toy game?

“We need more blood coming from the crucified guy’s brain, and can we make his chest wounds a little more pusy? Oh my god, is that a penis?! I am so offended, remove that right now!”

Analysts asked if Microsoft needs Japan’s support
Part of the first analyst’s dumb response — “I don’t think that American gamers are enamored [with] Japanese product because it comes from Japan; rather, I think Americans like good games, regardless of the country of origin. Microsoft doesn’t need Japanese development to succeed in the U.S.; it needs good games, period.”

This is wrong. If you’re reading news from a Japancentric site written by a Japancentric guy like me, you probably already know this. “Good” is an absurdly subjective term. Doom 3 is good to most Americans. I thought Doom 1 was more fun. The problem is I think nearly every JRPG is better than Doom 1.

The guy isn’t entirely wrong. I am in the minority and MS can do fine in the US without Japan’s support. But he is over simplifying the problem to a painful degree. The genres that come out of the two countries aren’t exactly the same. As just mentioned, FPS come out here as frequently as West Virginians get trapped in mines. This isn’t so in Japan.

I dread the day when a console manufacturer finally says, “Screw Japan, we don’t need them,” and am even more terrified of the prospect of multiple manufacturers saying that (or cutting down drastically on importing titles). Many gamers in the States (and other less significant places) don’t just need “good” games, they need good Japanese games.

The second analyst confirms my fears — “They [Microsoft] definitely need Japanese developers for Japan-based games. I don’t think they need it for games outside the Japanese market. Games are best created when they are born out of the culture they are developed in, and it is those games that I think do best in those markets.”

Time Killers is Street Fighter 2 made by an American company and it proves the analysts right: A game made for our territory is better than a game made for somewhere else.

Oh, are they? That’s why Final Fantasy 6, Super Mario 3, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star 4, Metal Gear Solid, Contra, Street Fighter 2 and Resident Evil 4 suck so much ass then.

Was Wii kept a secret for too long?
An analyst says that 3rd party publishers didn’t know enough about the system to start work on games until it was too late. Nintendo seems to still be shooting themselves in the feet when it comes to dealing with 3rd parties. I believe the solution is for the company to buy up some developers and next generation make a cheap console that only plays Nintendo games. They clearly want to be the only developers making games for their systems so why not just follow through with it?

David Jaffe doesn’t want to tell stories anymore
The first thing I noticed in this, the world’s longest blog post, is that Jaffe’s tastes are very different than mine. Syphon Filter, Tomb Raider and Oblivion? I guess that’s ok. But then when he lists the types of pure games he’s been playing, he lists sports, multiplayer and racing. What the hell is multiplayer? And how can he not be playing shooters?

On to the actual content of the post. Jaffe is tired of telling stories through games. It sounds like he is also reading Chris Crawford’s latest book on game design when he embraces interactivity over all else (look for a book review later this year). But then some of Jaffe’s post seems to just point to the fact that he is tired. He complains about how much effort it takes to make a single cool moment in a game. I recommend he not work on Shenmue 3.

One day, I will be that black woman.

Flat screens dropping in price
Despite what the Golden Jew’s immense wealth seems to imply, most of us at VL are quite poor. I have been watching flat screen prices for a long time and eagerly await the day I can get a nice TV that doesn’t weight a thousand pounds.

Labor suit hits Activision
Another sucky publisher hit with a lawsuit. I’ve long argued with people about how I wouldn’t take a job at EA because I dislike them. Anyone whose head isn’t up their ass knows that liking a company is beside the point. A job is a job and everyone needs to start somewhere. Well, now I have an additional argument for why I shouldn’t take a job at a mega publisher I dislike — They seem to abuse their employees, or at least not always pay them properly. That compacted with producing a shit load of shitty games is a winning argument.

DS hinge cracks
GAH! My hinge is cracked, too! Fucking Nintendo. God damn them.

I’m not sure how I feel about this situation. The crack doesn’t change the functionality of the unit, so I shouldn’t care. But then I didn’t crack it, it was designed poorly (at least in that one quarter inch of plastic area). I like to pretend that how a handheld looks only matters to people with self esteem problems so I shouldn’t care about this crack. But wasn’t the main reason Nintendo redesigned the DS to make it look visually appealing? How can they say a cosmetic defect doesn’t matter when they sold millions of systems solely on its sleek look to people who already had the old DS?

This means war.

Maybe I’ll send mine in to be fixed. The latest news seems to confirm they’ll do it for free. I still don’t know, though, how vain am I?

Consoles waste a lot of energy
I mostly posted this story because I wanted to respond to someone on a blog but don’t remember where I read his dumb comment. The guy argued something along the lines of most energy standards are a sham. What’s more important than what he said was that my good liberal alarm went off and I read it as him saying, “Fuck the planet.”

Well, not entirely. He also said that if consoles didn’t have standby modes then players would just leave them on all day. Maybe I’m far less lazy than the average American (impossible, I often refuse to breath) but it seems shutting off a system isn’t difficult or too much to ask from people. It also seems like anyone whose first console wasn’t a PS2 should be familiar with the concept of turning a system off. Scratch that, anyone with a light in their home should be familiar with the “on / off” mechanic.

Porn prefers Blu Ray
Bad news for Microsoft; Porn studios seem to support Blu Ray. The support of the porn industry is regularly cited as a significant factor in VHS’s dominance of Beta. With Blu Rays extra storage, can we expect eight hour porns?