Of course, it's only just a patent. We've no idea about the possibility of this device actually becoming a product on retail shelves.
[Via Engadget]
Apple comes up with their own Wiimote
Of course, it's only just a patent. We've no idea about the possibility of this device actually becoming a product on retail shelves.
[Via Engadget]
Move over Vii: introducing the 7-in-1 console
[Via Engadget]
The hidden emotional depths of Super Mario Galaxy
Cory Barlog may have sneered at what he deemed to be Super Mario Galaxy's "vapid story," but game researcher and designer Douglas Wilson couldn't feel more differently. Writing for GameSetWatch, Wilson argues that Galaxy is not only the first Mario title to produce an engaging story, but that it addresses human tragedy more expertly than most other games.To illustrate his point, Wilson draws on the story told by Princess Rosalina, whose life story is recounted throughout Galaxy. Although this narrative thread starts life as the kind of standard fare you'd expect from a Mario title, Rosalina's tale quickly becomes tragic, as she recalls how she realized her mother had passed away -- or, as she touchingly puts it, is "sleeping under the tree on the hill." Sad face.
As Wilson points out, this surprisingly poignant turn of events creates a pretty weird dichotomy. After all, Galaxy is a game where you fight a giant piranha plant in a diaper.
Nyko reveals Energy Pak for Wii Fit [update]
Nyko wants you to know they've come up with a solution for the Balance Board's power consumption, making sure they get in on the cash cow others think it will be. It's a rechargeable battery pack that will release on May 19th, for a MSRP of $19.99. The cool thing about this rechargeable battery pack is that, in order to recharge it, you won't even need to unplug it from the Balance Board. You can charge and play at the same time.
Hit up the gallery below for some screens of the accessory at work.
[Via press release]
Miyamoto: Link's Crossbow Training is FPS Training
Now that Link's Crossbow Training is coming out in the region that matters (Japan), Nintendo has begun promoting it with one of their "Iwata Asks" interview series. This time, Shigeru Miyamoto is back in the hot seat -- and at the beginning of the interview, he expresses surprise that producers Takashi Tezuka and Eiji Aonuma aren't there as well. Right away, the surprises begin. Describing his motivation for Link's Crossbow Training, which he sees as an introduction to the FPS genre, Miyamoto reveals himself to be an FPS fan: "I've always been into first person shooter (FPS) style games, 3D games in which you can walk around freely and see things from your own point of view. " He describes the perspective as "more comfortable, more natural," and then upturns the interview's tea table, saying that he originally wanted The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be in first-person.
Since this is an interview between Iwata and Miyamoto, you know that can't be the only awesome quote. There's a bit in there about explaining Link's gun use with a Terminator-esque story. You should really just go read the whole thing.
VC Friday: Cho Aniki and the return of the Neo Geo
We were already totally pumped about getting Cho Aniki on the European and Aussie Virtual Consoles, but our faces lit up when we saw what else was lying in store for us this morning. Metal Slug is the first Neo Geo game to appear on the download service since December 14th, but what a comeback!
From a value-for-money perspective, we'd still recommend picking up Metal Slug Anthology (especially now that it's so cheap), but it's great to see SNK's classic series represented on the VC (and this version even has Classic Controller support). Puyo Puyo 2 and TurboGrafx billiards title Break In complete this week's line-up.
- Cho Aniki -- TurboGrafx-16 -- 900 Wii Points
- Metal Slug -- Neo Geo -- 900 Wii Points
- Break In -- TurboGrafx-16 -- 700 Wii Points
- Puyo Puyo 2 -- Mega Drive -- 900 Wii Points
Continue reading VC Friday: Cho Aniki and the return of the Neo Geo
Hiroshi Yamauchi rolling in gold coins
After coming third last year, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi is now the richest man in Japan, according to Forbes. Current estimates place Yamauchi's net worth at $7.8 billion, a figure that would see the 80-year-old place 40th in the equivalent U.S. list, and 149th in the world. You would think he'd have bought some new glasses by now.
It's pretty obvious that Nintendo's recent success with the Wii and DS have inflated Yamauchi's fortune massively; though he left the company in May 2002, Yamauchi retained stock in Nintendo, which was founded by his great-grandfather in 1889. "... Yamauchi's net worth soared $3 billion in the past year and has tripled since 2006, thanks mostly to booming sales of the Wii gaming device," notes Forbes.
"It's truly incredible," added Chris Greenhough, seventh richest blogger on the Wii Fanboy team.
EA plans Western-style exercise game for Balance Board
EA Sports' new "Freestyle" brand will feature more casual sports games than the Madden-type stuff found under the main EA Sports brand -- think EA Sports BIG, but in 2008. The first game to come out under the brand will be FaceBreaker, the cartoony boxing game. EA Sports president Peter Moore has already revealed a second Freestyle game, though an official announcement has yet to be made. The new exercise game will support Nintendo's Balance Board peripheral in much the same way that Wii Fit does.
To differentiate between Wii Fit and the new project, Moore describes a "Western," cardiovascular style of exercise, as opposed to the tai-chi-like anaerobic "holistic fitness" in Wii Fit. Which sounds like a great idea.
IGN pretty much confirms Kid Icarus
There's a big game coming for the Wii this holiday -- we know this because Reggie said so -- and IGN's Matt
So there you go -- can't say we're hugely surprised to hear of Pit's return, but that doesn't mean we're looking forward to it any less. Casamassina refused to reveal who was behind it, but we hear the folks at Retro are currently kicking back and taking a break from the Metroid universe ... *
* Wanton speculation.
[Via Joystiq]
Glenn Beck proves how much of a jerk he is
Also, what else comes off as comical to us is Glenn's recollection of his remarks that game bloggers are losers. He says it was a joke, that he said it in a joking fashion, yet, when we watch the video again, we don't see a smile, a smirk or even hear a chuckle. Glenn looks pretty darn serious when he says it. But, then again, we're often busy losing at life and converting our parents' basement into the bridge of the Enterprise, so we're not really sure how emotions or human interaction work. We are gamers so that's how it goes, right Glenn?
Hit up the link below to download the segment for yourself. Around the 6:50 mark is when Steven calls in.
EA sets focus on Wii-exclusive versions of sports games
If you're in the gaming industry on the development end, odds are you've had plenty of meetings talking about the success of the Wii platform and how your company needs to get its own slice of the pie (well, unless you're Epic). EA has decided that they want a fairly decent slice of that pie, and are doing so with special Wii versions of their sports games. EA expects that sales of its sports games will account for $1.3 billion in its fiscal year (which just ended in March), coming to a third of their total revenue. The model for them (like others) has been Wii Sports. Peter Moore, head of EA Sports, commented that EA has "no intention whatsoever of dumbing down the experience that we all love and that drives this multibillion dollar business ... we need to make sports games more approachable." He then comments how Wii Sports became so popular "and we saw that and decided we needed to redefine what our sports games were about." These new accessible Wii versions of EA's popular sports games will have an "All-Play" label attached. Moore explains it as "like how swimming pools have a deep end and a shallow end. EA Sports has really only built a swimming pool with a deep end. It's intimidating for a lot of people to jump right in the deep end. With All-Play, we're building a shallow end."
Maybe with all this Wii support, Reggie will finally send Peter one.
Grab some real-life Boom Blox with the game
Although it lacks a ball to knock your blocks down with once you've finished building, assembling this puzzle is probably the perfect way to pass the time while your family plays on Boom Blox and you stubbornly refuse to admit that you might have been wrong. Bah. Oh, one word of advice, though: handle with care.
A history of zealous Earthbound fandom
Members of the Mother series fan site Starmen.net may be celebrating now, with Earthbound recently rated on the ESRB's web site, but just getting to that tenuous victory (as Ys I & II can affirm, ESRB rating is not the same as a Virtual Console release) has been the culmination of years of agonizing effort and constant campaigning that may not have actually had anything to do with the news. Shacknews has posted a great retrospective of Starmen's 11-year campaign to get something related to Earthbound to happen outside of Japan, from a Game Boy Color release of Mother to localized versions of Mother I & II on the DS to (of course) a U.S. version of Mother 3. They've carried out insane plots like creating a beautiful book of fan works to show Nintendo how much they care about the series. Nintendo's response has ranged from politely dismissive to nonexistent, though the feature reveals that somewhere within Nintendo, Starmen's efforts were at least attracting attention.
Wii Fit preorders jog away from retailers
Not only has Amazon stopped taking them for Nintendo's popular fitness game, but IGN reports that GameStop has also suspended preorders for the title and Game Crazy is nearly tapped out. GoNintendo notes that Toys R Us (dot com) has run out of preorder stock, too, leaving Walmart's online store as one of the few options left -- although we're sure it's only a matter of time before that ends, as well.
This sounds eerily similar to what happened in the UK a few weeks ago, and now retail copies of Wii Fit seem to be more scarce than holy grails there. The one lesson that we can take away from all this? Nintendo is really good at printing money.
Gallery: Wii Fit
Rubik's World looks neat, is presumably a game of some kind
The press release accompanying the game refers to stuff like living "Cubies" you can interact with, music composition, and unspecified puzzles of some kind, as well as the classic Cube gameplay. We hope that whatever this turns out to be is as cool as it looks, because we could spend quite a bit of time staring at what basically amounts to 3D pixel structures.
