Motion-sensing, role-playing games and the rise of Nintendo

Thoughts on E3 2010

E3 2010 is now over and now that I’ve recuperated from all the news and announcements, it’s time to make up the balance. It’s a shame I couldn’t witness it first-hand, but luckily we live in the age of internet, so I got my daily updates of game trailers, interviews and what not. And from what I saw, the E3 didn’t disappoint as much as I initially feared: in fact, I’m quite satisfied. My expectations before hand weren’t especially high, but I crossed my fingers and hoped Nintendo would redeem itself and make up for the lost years. And for me, they did. Nintendo stole the show. I’ve seen so many good things from them this E3 I don’t know where to start. I got the feeling Microsoft really wanted their Kinect thing to be a big deal, but from what I saw, it’s pretty dull. You’d almost fear they follow in Nintendo’s footsteps and try to be popular with all target audiences except gamers (I don’t think they will, fortunately). Read more

Sony Press Conference E3 2010

The games I saw at the Sony Press Conference this year were  nothing new:

All the footage consisted of trailers from games that could have already been seen on the internet for weeks or even months. Examples are: Dead Space 2, Medal of Honor, Little Big Planet 2 and many more more…

Of course, Playstation Move was showed and demoed again, and took center stage at the press conference. Games which support Playstation Move are definitely not any better than Nintendo Wii’s games, which pretty much do the same thing. Though the Move controller might be a lot more accurate than the Wii Remote with Motion Plus, one Playstation Move controller and the expansion sells for 80  dollars   ( $49,99 for 1 controller + $29,99 for 1 expansion device you’ll sometimes need to play certain games). When you compare this to $30 for a Wii remote, there’s a pretty big difference, and is the motion control really worth the investment? Who knows. Read more

Killzone 3 first impressions

It is time to escape the nuclear aftermath of pyrrhus city and attemt to leave the planet of helghan all together.

the same as in killzone 2 you will be plasing as: ISA Sergeant Tomas ‘Sev’ Sevchenko fighting against the helghast on their own accord but this time it’s not about winning the war, this time it’s just a matter of pure survival.

as a result the games feels way more varied, as you are running from one encounter to another, while the new enemy types keep you constantly aware and won’t give you even a second of rest to think the whole thing through again. One of the new enemy types is: the jetpack trooper a helghast soldier who flies through the sky while letting it rain machine gun bullets.
These aerial encountes add a new dimension to the normal battles on the ground, Especially when you get the jetpack yourself! it is pretty much a exaggerated jump: you fly into the air and can use two forward thrusts before you need to land down again. not only does this open up lots of battle opportunities like: gaining a vertical advantage over your enemies or dropping in behind on a enemy. but ofcourse lots of gameplay like having to go that little spot you just cant reach. Read more

The fall of Nintendo

“Nintendo, out of all these game companies?” you might wonder, and yes, it’s a seemingly odd thought at first, but let me explain this to you as we go along.

After the great video game crash in 1983, during which the entire gaming industry collapsed, Nintendo established the software licensing model that we all know these days; game developers pay money to Nintendo, and in return they get the development tools and hardware to create games. On the flip-side, Nintendo can perform a quality-check on the games for their platform, and make sure that all games live up to a certain quality criteria. You will never see nudity, or any sexually-flavored games on Nintendo platforms because of this (though, that being said, there are extremely rare exceptions). It mainly serves to keep junk out; which was the cause of the earlier mentioned great north american video game crash.

Since establishing this model, every developer and their cat has jumped aboard the bandwagon and Nintendo and it’s platforms and games have flourished, creating the birthplace for the likes of Mario, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Metroid, and F-Zero, games that many of use have come to love over the years. One thing that has always been clear to developers, though, was that Nintendo likes to favor well-established technology that’s cheap to come by, and has proven itself, as opposed to being on the cutting edge. The gameboy link cable for example has a striking resemblance with Firewire cables.

When looking across their product line, you can see they have been very consistent in using this approach with your very own eyes; The Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, and Wii (just to name a few), are prefect examples of this interesting habit. I also think it’s safe to say that as a result of this, they have always been in second (or third) place in terms of hardware. Fortunately, we all know that their exclusive games have always been where their game platforms made the difference. The gamecube wasn’t special, but The Wind Waker and Metroid Prime were, the Wii wasn’t all that interesting, but Wii Sports and Mario Galaxy are, and the GBA was just a Super Nintendo, but then we saw Golden Sun, Advance wars, and Metroid Fusion. It’s all coming back to me now!, good stuff. Read more

ModNation Racers Gets A New Trailer

Giant camels , barrel launchers and and huge castles are the things you can encounter at ModNation Racers. That on top of the free creation of your own track and the ability to share your tracks with all your friends ModNation Racers has our attention.

Heavy Rain lacking innovation, doesn’t deserve the hype

Do you ever feel like you just don’t get it? Like everybody is running around you is going crazy over something, and all you see is garbage, yet you’re staring at the very same thing? Well, that’s the kind of feeling I’ve been getting recently with Heavy Rain. I saw the game at GamesCom, played the demo, read a lot online, and watched a ton of trailers, but I just don’t get it. Read more

PS3 Down And Out! #Update 8 Its “fixed”

All around the world, PlayStation 3 consoles simply aren’t working like they’re supposed to, with an error preventing people from not just going online.

UPDATE - Sony has updated, saying “We’re narrowing down the issue and continue to work to restore service to all. Updates as soon as we have them.”

UPDATE 2 - A mass story-telling session on internet gaming forum NeoGAF points towards the issue potentially being related to a calendar bug in older PlayStation 3 consoles, not the PlayStation Network as was first suspected. Bear in mind this is mob science, however, and is by no means official confirmation on the cause of the problem.

UPDATE 3 - Citing unnamed “developers and studios”, British site Develop say that the issue is affecting titles currently in production for the PlayStation 3, with debug consoles – used by developers to actually make games – thrown “into a rebooting cycle, due to an endlessly-looping error message”.

UPDATE 4 - PS3′s still aren’t working, and there has been no official update from Sony in over 9 hours. Their last Twitter update says that they believe the issue does not appear to be impacting PS3 Slim consoles.

UPDATE 5 - Sony Twitters Rest assured, we’ve many people working on fixing this issue. As soon as we have some news, we’ll let you know.

UPDATE 6 -As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

• The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
• When the user tries to sign-in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
• When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”
• When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
• Users are not able to playback certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, Please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologise for any inconvenience caused.

For the latest status on this situation please check either PlayStation.Blog, Twitter or PlayStation.com.

UPDATE (And final) 7 -According to the official U.S. PlayStation.blog, the issue has been “resolved.” Patrick Seybold, senior director, corporate communications writes:

We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.

If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet. If we have new information, we will update you through the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com.

UPDATE 8 – Its “Fixed”

Industry choosing iphone, abandoning wii?

I think the iPhone makes a difference in the videogame space in a sense where it allows the industry to re-invent itself. Let me explain to you why.

If anything over the past few months stood out to me in terms of news and announcements, then I’d have to go with this trend of big developers and publishers seemingly losing interest in Nintendo’s white box of fun and starting to show their love to Apple’s iPhone. We’ve all seen big name publishers statements, thought mostly informal, with regards to the slow game sales on the Wii. And where some developers switch to PS3/360 development, others turned to the iPhone (or both). EA, Sega, Capcom, Square Enix and others have all started creating iPhone games in one form or the other. Read more

Uploader Gets A Fine Of $1.5 Million For Uploading NSMB Wii

This person was allegedly the first to upload New Super Mario Bros. Wii to the internet, doing so on November 6, one week before the game was released (an act that facilitated creative works in addition to piracy).

Not only is this bad news for this one guy, it should also serve as a warning to other would-be pirates. “Upon the game being uploaded to the Internet, Nintendo was able to employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution,” Nintendo said in a press release. “On 23 November, 2009, Nintendo obtained a Federal Court search order in respect of the individual’s residential premises. This led to the seizure of property from those premises in order to gain further evidence against the individual.”

Seriously, guys, do not duplicate that disc.

Analysis: Matt Matthews says Xbox 360 Software Leads as Nintendo Falters

Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews looks at the changing U.S. software landscape as part of their November NPD analysis, finding that Xbox 360 software is surging into the sales gap left by a declining Nintendo market.

According to Michael Pachter, an industry analyst for Wedbush Securities, Wii software revenue in November 2009 declined 18 percent from the same time in 2008. The only systems to see more dramatic decreases were Sony’s PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable (PSP), which were down 69 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

But that’s not all,

After 12 months, the picture has shifted dramatically. As the following figure shows, software revenue from the Wii now accounts for under 30% of the market. Combined with the share from DS software, Nintendo now holds only around 40% of the market – a drop of 7 points from the previous year.

Be sure to read the whole article on Gamasutra.com if you’re interested. I sure found it an interesting development.

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