Category: Industry Health

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Nintendo Direct – Better Than E3?

“Great stuff, Nintendo really did hold back at E3!”

“Only Nintendo could royally screw up the biggest trade show of the year but absolutely DESTROY a random Thursday at midnight.”

“Nintendo doesn’t really give a shit about E3 (and maybe any press events) anymore. They love Nintendo Direct. “

“That was approximately a billion times better than E3”

“Way better than E3!”

About A Billion Times Better

I’m pretty excited about Animal Crossing and the new 3DS redesign, but the internet is just too easy to make fun of right now. Nintendo Direct had a successful community reaction because it came out of the blue and completely bypassed all expectations and hype the media likes to sling around. Nintendo found the winning formula for releasing information: talking directly to the fans.

Sorry gaming press, you fucked up and now Nintendo doesn’t need you.

Thoughts – Wii U, E3, Community Reaction

Holy shit! This is the most excited I’ve ever been about a new game console – Nintendo blew my mind with their presentation and I loved every little thing. In fact, the little things were the best part. No catchy title here; I’m just going to run through my thoughts as I watched the conference, and then afterwards when I looked around the community.

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The Next 5 Years: Naka’s Prediction

Greetings everyone, I am Yuji Naka and I have something to share with you all. This morning I woke up with a clear vision of the future. It was the first time in weeks I had a dream without my pal Sonic interrupting my fishing trip. It started this year and went all the way to the year 2017! Can you believe that? 5 years in a single night! I will have to talk to SEGA about making a new NiGHTs game with this concept. We always have great discussions when they catch me sneaking into my old office, hehe. Anyway, let me start with the year 2012, which I’m sure you all know well!

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The Tragedy of Dynasty Warriors VS

It’s just been announced via Twitter that Dynasty Warriors VS will not be coming to 3DS outside Japan. There’s no reason given, however we do know that Dynasty Warriors VS didn’t do very well in Japan, selling a mere 10,000 copies in its first week despite the heralded appearance of Samus and Link as bonus characters. Who cares, right? The game bombed, why do we care? Doesn’t that justify no western release? Absolutely not, and here’s why I think Tecmo-Koei are blowing a good opportunity.

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Ninjabread Man 2 – What’s Cooking?

After the critical and commercial success of Ninjabread Man, a press release was issued on 8th of February 2008 announcing the sequel, Ninjabread Man: Blades of Fury for Wii. More than 4 years have passed, and we still haven’t seen any screenshots or had any update on its release. Will it be a Wii U launch title? 3DS eShop game? Or will it still come out for Wii and compete with Dragon Quest X? We did some investigating and got more than we bargained for.

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I wish the TAKEDOWN kickstarter failed

With the successes of Double Fine’s unnamed adventure game and Wasteland 2, Kickstarter is the current darling of the independent gaming community and ‘crowdsourcing’ the hot new buzzword being thrown around by insufferable energetic web 2.0 conmen. Kickstarter hasn’t always been a success though, my favourite unfunded project being the criminals who developed Tony Hawk Ride failing to fund some marble madness clone they wanted to inflict on us. If only the same could be said about smug upstart Serellan’s lame sounding tactical shooter TAKEDOWN.

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Kid Icarus: Flaccid Uprising

This game is going to flop, and it’s your fault. Nintendo knows Kid Icarus: Uprising will be a tough sell, and they’ve already started a heavy advertising campaign for the game – spanning several trailers, 8 page magazine articles, hundreds of screenshots, and multiple Twitter accounts. It took the spotlight in the recent Nintendo Direct, with lengthy coverage explaining all the games features in great detail, and recently featured in Iwata Asks. There’s even going to be a special tournament event across America before the game launches, and it’s taking center stage at every event Nintendo shows up to. Why is it so important this game does well? The team developing Kid Icarus: Uprising have put the new Super Smash Bros. on hold to make this – that’s why.

Sora are pouring their heart and soul into every aspect of this game. Originally speculated as a launch game for 3DS, it’s now been over a year since the systems launch and Kid Icarus: Uprising is finally ready. It’s got an arse load of stages, a STUPID amount of custom weapons and items, and every mode under the sun including online multiplayer, StreetPass and AR Card functionality. It even comes with a stand, just in case you feel slightly uncomfortable while playing it over long sessions. They have every angle covered, so why is this a recipe for disaster? What’s wrong with the game, if it’s going to be so awesome?

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3DS Wall Update

It’s time for another 3DS Wall update.  As usual, games have their score from GameRankings, and all the games are scored together to give a general idea of the quality of the out put from these various publishers and developers.  Scores are rounded up and they must have at least 5 reviews to curtail outliers.  Games with no review score mean that the game has not been released yet or have not attained 5 reviews.

Without further ado, let’s have a look.

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Smart Phones With Dumb Games

Lately (well, the past few years) there’s been talk (viral propaganda, speculation) about handheld gaming systems becoming a thing of the past as iPhones and Androids threaten to take over the multibillion dollar industry inside your pocket. The logic behind it is that people want one machine that does everything. I understand this logic and I completely agree with it. It would make life a lot easier, more comfortable, and thus more enjoyable to only carry around one “device” and still be able to do everything. I’m perfectly happy carrying my 3DS and my phone in the rare instance I might need them together, but there are certainly benefits to this “idea” for different types of people. So how is this going to happen? Is the best approach really adding games to phones? I don’t believe so.

Currently we have two different mainstream devices competing for our pocket with their bulky presence: smartphones and gaming systems. I miss the days when we could just call everything a Game Boy, but we have Sony involved now, and Nintendo has 3D graphics and multiple screens. Anyway, smartphones are apparently “threatening” the purpose of owning a gaming handheld, as they start to accumulate game libraries of their own. Meanwhile, game machines are expanding too, but they aren’t becoming phones. We’re getting new 3D graphics and new gameplay concepts, and game experiences are expanding as we get incredible new stories like 999, and wonderful massive adventures like Dragon Quest IX. Gaming handhelds have also started to add features like internet browsing and direct downloads. It would seem that both smartphones and gaming machines are starting to become like each other in their own ways, but where is this heading?

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The Hype War

Hours ago, war broke out across the North American continent – no platform was spared as Electronic Arts invaded, attempting to seize all Activision strongholds on the continent. As we speak, more EA forces are mobilising off the east coast of Australia and there are reports of the EA navy circling Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea, preparing for an invasion before the week is out. This is of course the Great Gaming War of 2011 and just as the poster above depicts, your kids will ask you about what role you played in this pivotal moment in history.

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