"Talking Heads Vol 1" or "Pachter Speaks"

Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan Securities gaming analyst, has opened his mouth again, and honestly he's really starting to annoy me.

"...consoles offer a far better gaming experience, as they’re connected to a big screen TV in a comfortable setting, typically with a great sound system. Browser-based game [services like Instant Action, which delivers fully 3d graphically intense games] are typically going to be accessed through the PC, which offers a generally inferior experience. I know that the flamers will say that PC gaming rules, but the numbers speak for themselves: console gaming will be an $18 billion market this year, and PC gaming will be under $3 billion. The super hardcore PC gamer will be attracted to browser-based games, ...but I don’t see them putting much of a dent into the console market."

So consoles make more money overall, except that the console industry has several things going for it versus PC gaming.
A) Console gaming includes sales of consoles and peripherals, as that is their only use is to play games and maybe movies. You can't do the same for PCs. PC sales are not regulated to one industry or even a reporting agency.
B) NPD sales, widely used for the sales data in the gaming industry is not accurate (they don't take figures from Wal-Mart as far as I know, or online PC digital distribution channels such as Steam)
C) PC Gaming is region free for the most part, a game sold only in europe can be bought for a north american PC and vice versa, where as consoles are region locked usually, restricting their sales to specific territories. Import games are generally not reported.

"...The “core” Wii audience is a Mario/Zelda/Smash Bros./Metroid audience, not a Conduit audience. To the extent that the Wii is the only console that the core gamer owns, it’s likely because the only games he/she cares about are first party core titles. Most core Wii owners who care about shooter games other than Metroid already own an Xbox 360 (to play Halo or Gears), or own a PS3 (to play Resistance or Killzone). So when a game like The Conduit comes out on the Wii, these core gamers are making a comparison to Halo or Killzone, and are deciding accordingly. High Voltage did a decent job with The Conduit, especially given the graphic limitations of the Wii, but the game didn’t look and feel as good as games like Halo or Killzone, and if a gamer had both a Wii and either a PS3 or Xbox 360, it’s easy to see why they would pass on The Conduit in favor of a hard core game on one of the other platforms."

Everything is wrong with this statement... The Conduit has been considered a success selling over 150,000 copies in the first 3 weeks, and while that might not be up to the same levels of Halo 3 or Killzone 2, The Conduit probably took much less money to make requiring a lower sell-thru rate for it to be a financial success. Also, there is a big 'core' audience on the Wii, the problem is they are more willing to pass up C+ and B- games in exchange for the one or two A games that come out a year. No More Heroes was the best selling title for developer Grasshopper Manufacture. Call of Duty: World At War sold over a million units on the Wii, and games like Resident Evil sell very well on the system, as well as all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.

The Conduit, for all it's hype at conferences, was not the best game ever. It simply has one of the best control schemes ever created for the Wii and uses a powerful game engine. The storyline, level design, and character design are all C grade efforts, and it seems that developer High Voltage Software was worried more about the tech than it was making a cohesive game all around. Given the fact that SEGA, publisher of The Conduit see the game as a success and want to push more 'core' titles on the Wii since they do sell decently, I think we will see more 'core' games, and maybe next time High voltage will have a huge hit on their hands. (This of course assumes that The Conduit won't have a long tail and continued sales via word of mouth like other wii games seems to)

I use the term 'core' because 'casual' and 'core' are completely bullshit labels. Guitar Hero used to be core, now it's casual (especially since the Wii versions sell the best now)... Call of Duty used to be core, now it's casual (according to some)... Tiger Woods is casual, but Madden isn't (again, to some people)... obviously it's arbitrary and subjective.

You wanna know what a core game is? It's something you play because it's fun for you or you enjoy it for other reasons. you wanna know somethign that is casual? Something you play, but can easily not play it, no hard feelings. To me, Command and Conquer 3 is core, so is Myst. Call of Duty is casual, but Unreal Tournament is core. Far Cry 2 is casual, but Guild Wars is core. Mass effect is core (but only for the story and RPG aspects, not the gun play).

Casual to me are games that don't draw me in, they serve as simple distractions. Far Cry 2 might be 'core' because it has guns and great graphics and require a massive PC to run at high specs... but honestly, it's bland and boring after a few hours. It's repetitive. Same goes for Call of Duty, I can only take -kill giant group of enemies-|-more enemies spawn and take up exact same positions-|kill enemies moving slowly forward-|-cross invisible line-|-new group of enemies spawns- so many times before I grow sick of it... same goes for it's realistic multiplayer... it get's boring after a while, gimmie some huge ass guns that take out 5 people with a shot... spice it up a little.

"Wii MotionPlus" or "E3 is Next Month People"

In recent years publishers and console makers have kinda stolen their own thunder a bit in regards to the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3. There always seems to be announcements the month or so before hand showcasing games that would have been pretty big news at the conference. This year Nintendo seems to have dropped the ball a bit. Last year they had a horrible E3, showing almost no titles that a more old school gamer (I refuse to label gamers casual or hardcore anymore) could get into save for Animal Crossing, and that itself is more than a bit of a stretch.

This month has seen Nintendo Power spill the beans on Red Steel 2, a sequel to the Wii launch title from Ubisoft that, despite annoying controls and shallow storyline, went on to be the best selling third party title in the launch period.

Last year at E3 Nintendo unveiled the Wii Motion Plus, a attachment for the Wii remote that gives it almost flawless one-to-one interpretation of the remotes position. Techradar.com has said: "Playing a tennis game with Wii MotionPlus after playing the same game without the new, improved controller is the equivalent of taking the stabilisers off of your first bike. It is taking your first baby steps into a world in which gaming is going to be a whole lot more fun than ever before. It's like going from VHS straight to Blu-ray."

Many games announced so far (mainly sport titles), use MotionPlus. These include all of EA Sports titles for the Wii, and the aforementioned Red Steel 2. And I'm sure many many more will be announced at E3 this year. It's next month, and it looks to be exciting with all three console manufacturers expected to make very big announcements (though oddly, Sony has been talking mostly about PSP rather than PS3.)

Today the trailer for Red Steel 2 went up, I leave you now with that trailer for your enjoyment.

"Splitscreen Gaming Revisited" or "8-player Wii Racing"

A long while back, when this blog was brand new, I did a post about splitscreen gaming and how I felt that it should be brought back as a viable option for multiplayer gaming. Imagine my surprise when today, in Glenview, IL (a few miles away) a publisher announced a racing game for the Wii that supports up to 8 player splitscreen.

The Wii is by no means a graphical powerhouse, this much is true to be sure. But any console would quickly be brought to it's knees with 8 player views being rendered to the same screen. The game is currently in the ALPHA stage (as in so early it's basically the first build worth showing off at all and is by no means the final version) and the art style is simple, yet I don't know what other direction they could have gone with the art style given the number of players they want to allow. Realism would have killed this game.

The other thing that makes me interested in the game is the designer, Archer MacLean. He was the designer responsible for the successful PSP title Mercury Meltdown as well as the Wii game Mercury Meltdown Revolution (though it escapes me if he was involved in that version directly). The guy seems to favor a minimalist art style and seems to put gameplay above all else.

With all that in mind I present the ALPHA trailer for SpeedZone:

"NoA Doesn't Actually Listen?" or "What The *&$# Is Going On In Redmond?"

So a while ago I wrote a post about how Nintendo listens to consumers and gamers and delivers to them... the problem is that while Nintendo as a whole might, it's North American branch, Nintendo of America (NoA), seems to be forgetting the gamers and customers who got it where it is today.

Now it's time for examples. These following games have been clamored for by North American gamers, and have been released by Nintendo elsewhere in the world:

Disaster: Day of Crisis


Fatal Frame 4


Earthbound 3


So we have three games listed (this is a small sampling just to keep videos short) but there are others like Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for the Wii (updated controls and other features) or Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for the Virtual Console.

The problem is that the now president of Nintendo of America, a Mr. Reginald "Reggie" Fil-Aime, seems to have lost touch with the core gamer. He was quoted as saying that Animal Crossing was Nintendo's core gamer title last year, a viewpoint that is viewed as an insult to the core gamer community. This is in stark contrast to the Reggie of only a few years ago when he was "about kicking ass and taking names" at E32006.

Now the issue may lie with Nintendo Corporate Limited in Japan, but I don't think Reggie is keeping in touch with the gamers he impressed just a few short years ago. The problem is that Nintendo of America as a whole seems to be out of the loop in terms of what the core gamer wants, they are content to focus on the more mainstream crowd while giving us lip service that they care about core gamers.

There is a slight caveat here though, Nintendo delivered more iterations of their core franchises sooner this generation. Within the first two years we had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros. but the problem is those are all great games, but there are new IPs out there that can and should be introduced to North American gamers that Nintendo refuses to pay attention to.

In the end, I like the Wii, I have some great games for it, and I don't need more and more and more like some gamers who seem to always want a backlog... but I am sick of the lip service. I will definitely be watching E3 in June with great interest to see if Nintendo wakes up or not.

"What Have You Done To My Wii?" or "Holy Crap Nintendo Does Listen"

First off, please excuse the crappy quality of my pictures here, they were taken with my phone as I can't seem to find my camera, besides, off screen photos always stink.

I have not turned on my Nintendo Wii in like two months. Today i wanted to play some Gamecube games, which meant turning on the Wii. After an arduous time setting up my wireless router for the n-th time (that thing can't hold settings to save it's life), and a LONG, LONG, LONG download time for the update (almost 30 minutes!, this isn't a PS3 guys) I finally updated to the 3.4 firmware.

I realize this firmware has been out for a while but I was obviously in the dark, however I have not seen this posted anywhere as of yet.

For a long time people have been complaining about the speed of the shopping channel, the download speed of the system in general (ie. updates), the small amount of internal storage on the Wii, the sluggish speed of the SD Memory Card interface, the lack of core games, and more. It seems to me that maybe Nintendo has been hearing the cries of the core and tech elite and have started to do something about it.

Not only does the Shopping channel download games much much faster than it used to, not only does everything transfer to and from my memory card faster, but the games now take up less space after you download them.

For instance, I just downloaded Paper Mario, a fairly good N64 RPG. First I was greeted by the standard download screen with mario running on the bottom collecting points and such (I should also note that I also saw a new mario animation, him and luigi swimming like the ocean levels)... and the following screen:


As the download finished (much faster than it did when I downloaded the game for the first time months ago (though I have since deleted it)) I saw the screen still saying 11 for Blocks After Download... the screen changed to the confirm screen and this showed up instead:


So it would seem Nintendo has been doing incremental updates to the Wii, and the only thing people were wondering with 3.4 was does it ruin HomeBrew Channel (HBC is a way for people to play user made games, indie titles, and games from other regions, as well as pirated games (though I doubt most people play pirated games on the Wii in the US, Japan, or most PAL countries, though I'm sure there are some.) The channel is not licensed by Nintendo and it is therefore their right to remove it from Wiis with an update, that's a risk people take when they use unlicensed software (I myself have not been able to use my Action Replay since the 3.0 update, I got over it).

As I stated in another article there are some good Wii games on the way, and I will be covering more of those soon, but Nintendo has also announced that this spring they will have an update that will alleviate the issues with the internal storage by way of the SD Card slot, which most likely means the ability to run WiiWare and such off of an SD card, which would be a godsend imho.

My main point here to those people complaining that Nintendo isn't listenting, maybe they are, maybe they just don't feel the need to toot their own horn like other companies until they do something great, not something that was expected.

'The Skies of Final Fantasy' or 'SEGA needs to make a new Skies of Arcadia'

My first JapaneseRPG (JRPG) ever was Skies of Arcadia: Legends on Gamecube, a technically unimpressive port of a Dreamcast game by Overworks, a team at SEGA. The game was, by all accounts, very cliche. However the feeling of exploration and the epic ship battles combined with a very charming and colorful world have given the game a cult following, your author included.

Japanese trailer for Skies of Arcadia: Legends... makes me want to play it again

A long time ago my friends and I sat down to attempt to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. The game was highly anticipated when first announced, this was Squaresoft breaking away from Sony and coming back to Nintendo. Some were dissuaded when the game was revealed to be an Action RPG very unlike Final Fantasy. It was a great experience but in the end was a short lived experience as the game was very shallow in terms of real storyline and was more of a party game in the end than an RPG. The game sold well, but let many people down and we never expected to see another one, or at least one worth owning.

[note: many people also had a huge problem with the game requiring GameBoy Advances for multiplayer as it made it much harder to find people to play with]

Eventually Square|Enix (Squaresoft merged with Enix in 2003 right before the launch of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles) announced a new one coming for the coming Nintendo Wii, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (yes it has TWO subtitles). You can see the trailer below.

This video was a big hit, the world which was so shallow in the previous incarnation appeared much more fleshed out and the graphics were much better than most people were used to on the Wii (more on that some other time). It also struck a chord with many of the skies of Arcadia fans because it seems to have a bit of a Skies feel to it.

Today I just saw a brand new trailer that was released in Japan for this game as seen below.

The second half is the best and first half seems like a mish/mash of gameplay snippets badly spliced and set to bad music (imho). It still looks like a good game honestly, but it doesn't have that feel that I expected. It has made the wait for SEGA to announce a sequel to Skies all the more painful. What's worse it that Skies 2 was being worked on at one point, but SEGA pulled the plug in one of their stupid corporate shuffles. Since then SEGA has begun to redeem themselves by getting some good looking and very promising projects going (save for the Sonic The Hedgehog series, more on that another time as well) such as The Conduit and Madworld for Wii.

Sadly Skies of Arcadia never did well on the Dreamcast (a system that sold less than 5 million units) or the Gamecube (a system that was not for RPG gamers). Combined with the fact that SEGAs marketers really didn't do the best job marketing the game, choosing to focus on the character ranking system (a very minor throwaway bit imho) rather than the ship battles and characters, arguably Skies best aspects.

However, The Wii, a system that is possibly the fastest selling home console ever combined with the fact that Japanese RPGs are picking up on the system. Marvelous is bringing Arc Rise Fantasia to the Wii as Square|Enix brings FFCC: Echoes of Time [a DS/Wii crossplatform title], and FFCC: The Crystal Bearers to the system, and they are just the beginning for Square|Enix as Dragon Quest X is also coming to the Wii (Dragon Quest is much much bigger than Final Fantasy in Japan by a very large margin, and is gaining steam in North america since the release of Dragon Quest VII on the Playstation.)

So come on SEGA, bring Skies back from the dead, give it a new coat of paint (NOT REALISTIC!) and give us what we all want (it should be noted that practically yearly since the Gamecube release until it's death earlier this month Electronic Gaming Monthly had a rumor of Skies 2 being in development for Gamecube, PS2, or Wii, much to the Skies fan community's constant joy and sadness.)