The obvious choice aside, we can't think of many game designers who are better qualified than Masahiro Sakurai to discuss how to make fun videogames. Which is a good job, really, because the Smash Bros. and Kirby creator has been booked by DiGRA, Japan's Digital Games Research Association, to deliver a talk on what makes games enjoyable.
Don't go getting excited, though. Sakurai's speech, entitled 'Game-ness,' will be delivered at the Fukutake Hall Running Theatre at Tokyo University's Hongo campus, and to an audience of only 150 people. If by some chance you are located near to the venue, know that DiGRA members get in free, while student non-members pay ¥500 (roughly $5) and all other non-members ¥1000 (approx $10).
We wonder what games he'll use to convey his message? Bringing up Brawl or Kirby might seem a little conceited, but those are two of the titles we would use.
Now that a weekend (and a holiday weekend at that) has come to an end, we thought it might be a good time to ask: when was the last time you got together with friends and/or family for a little group Wii gaming? Do you get together on a regular basis for a little Mario Kart, Smash Bros., or Wii Sports? Do you rarely play together with folks? We're curious about how much multiplayer action you're getting.
Ah, remember Link's Crossbow Training? The game that was bundled with the Wii Zapper last November (December, for PALs)? It was only released in Japan last week. If sales are any indication, though, Japanese gamers were clamoring for the goron-junk shooter rail shooter, as it claimed the third place spot.
Even so, Link had to hail to the king (baby), as Mario Kart Wii still dominated the charts. The other big news for Mario Kart Wii? It passed one million sales in the Far East, denoting its success. Meanwhile, Deca Sports clamored back into the top ten, but Brawl only slipped further downward, thus answering our question from last week. Also proving that the Japanese love their sports games for the Wii, Bandai Namco's Pro Baseball Family Stadium debuted at spot twenty.
The Wii triumphed in hardware last week as well. While the console continues to trail behind Sony's handheld, Wii sales went up almost 30,000 units from last week -- perhaps from the Link's Crossbow boost. Go on and check things out for yourself after the break, if you feel so inclined.
According to an apparently reliable, but unnamed, source, Vooks reports that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be released in Australia on June 26. That's just one day before Europe's release (and still several months after both the U.S. and Japan, of course) but what a difference a day makes.
For that one glorious day, Australian Wii owners will be able to feel the pride of not being the last to receive a game. And it's such a big game! Of course, Aussie Wii fans got a taste of not-lastness with Mario Kart Wii, but timeliness is addictive.
Congratulations, Australia. That is, if it's real. If this turns out not to be true or if Nintendo delays Brawlagain, we can only say sorry, Australia.
Were you one of the easily offended, outraged souls who took umbrage with Zero Punctuation's more-than-scathing review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl? If so, then Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has some feedback to your feedback. That's right: rather than dedicating this week's Zero Punctuation to the usual misanthropic, ranting reviews that we love so much, Yahtzee has answered the numerous critics of his Brawl review, which attracted over a thousand comments on the Escapist's site (and quite a few on here).
Hit the break for the full, NSFW version, and prepare yourself for a chilling insight into the minds of the most irrational fanboys.
Next week is going to be hard on your wallet. Circuit City is going to be having a big sale, according to DVDTalk, and our favorite Wii game is going to be available for insanely cheap. Supposedly, you'll be able to nab Suda 51's No More Heroes for only $19.99 (or you can try your luck at nabbing it from us). If, for some crazy reason, you haven't gotten the game yet, you need to do so next week.
Aside from that, the deal is further sweetened through the retail giant offering buy one, get one %50 off on select games. These games include:
Last week we mentioned that we wanted to feature a DS-related stage. Reader Chris stepped up and sent us two Tetris levels, one of which we chose to feature.
Called "Sziltoj 2," this stage is meant to represent "a Tetris game in progress," according to Chris. Considering the limited amount of tools that you're given in the stage builder, we think he pulled this off pretty well. Come check out how after the break!
Mario Kart Wii continues to top the charts in Japan, but a lot of movement happened with the Wii's other software. Because a bunch of new games came out last week, Wii Sports, Deca Sports, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl were all knocked out of the top ten. We know that Wii Sports will return to top ten fame soon enough, since it always does, but we'll be interested to see whether the other two titles can pull that off as well.
On the hardware side of things, the Wii got sandwiched by the two portables as it jumped up into second place:
PSP: 92,411
Wii: 48,796
Nintendo DS: 42,435
PlayStation 3: 9,107
PlayStation 2: 7,108
Xbox 360: 1,283
To see the software sales, just bring your super smooth moves past the break.
Welcome to Nintendo Wii Fanboy's Brawl Stage of the Week feature, in which we showcase some of our favorite Smash Bros. Brawl stages. We'll have some themed weeks, some contest weeks, and some "whatever we damn well please" weeks to help you keep your Brawl experience fresh.
This week we're featuring a completely original stage, made by SoshiKitai. Called "The Web," Soshi considers this one his masterpiece -- and we can see why. The picture doesn't really translate how fun and crazy this stage actually is. In fact, "The Web" is so massive that not even the warp star trick can fully capture it. Luckily, you can experience it for yourself by downloading it here, but check on after the break for some more details on the stage and instructions on how to play it.
The Wii had a good week in Japan, as far as sales are concerned. With Mario Kart Wii continuing to champion the cause, the little white console almost nabbed second place in hardware:
PSP: 85,421
Nintendo DS: 44,551
Wii: 44,241
PlayStation 3: 7,438
PlayStation 2: 6,545
Xbox 360: 1,076
Even in software, five of the top ten games were Wii titles. Wii Sports found its way back into the coveted ten once again, managing to coexist peacefully with Hudson's Deca Sports. Wii Play, meanwhile, performed the worst in relation to the rest of the Wii games in the top thirty, but still ended up in spot twelve.
Check after the break to see just how well Mario Kart Wii did last week in Japan.
The latest Nintendo of Europe release schedule contains fairly awesome news for the neglected continent, as there's finally a concrete release date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Nintendo's wildly popular fighter is hitting stores in the region on June 27th, and there's more happy tidings, with WiiWare and Nintendo Channel set to launch on May 20th and May 30th respectively.
There's little else in the list that both interests us and has a specific date (de Blob and Blast Works have both had a vague "Q2 2008" slapped next to them, though it appears that Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors will be out on May 9th), but heck, why are we yammering to you about this? Check out the latest European dates for yourself past the break!
Oh dear. This isn't going to be pretty. We're going to hazard a guess that Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's opinion of Super Smash Bros. Brawl doesn't exactly coincide with the view taken by most of our readers -- frankly, it sounds like he hated every minute of Nintendo's scrapper.
But before you start punching out that hate-filled, trembling-with-rage email to the man, stop right there and hear him out, because you may just find yourself agreeing with some of his points -- even we had to concede that a number of his grievances have bugged us in the past. With that in mind, take some deep breaths and head past the break for one of the most venomous Zero Punctuation reviews to date, and the usual dose of NSFW language.
Refuting perceived negative statements against your console of choice is usually a very petty, fanboy kind of thing to do, but the New York Times' recent coverage of the Wii's terrible attach rate deserves it. The article has some problems that make the Wii seem to be in a worse situation than it is, though we don't know whether it's an intentional angle or a bit of haphazard reporting. John Scalzo of the Video Game Librarian blog identified some of the issues.
Scalzo identifies the paper's dependence on numbers from VGChartz (a "a team of analysts who study video-game sales"), their claim that Smash Bros.sales have tanked, and their spurious analysis of Guitar Hero III sales as noticeable problems with the coverage. The last is especially startling: the NYT claims that "Guitar Hero, for example, sold 2.2 million copies for the Wii, but 2.8 million copies for the Xbox 360 and almost 5 million for two versions of the PlayStation," bringing in the PS2 to make its point. "The only way the author could get the numbers he was looking for," Scalzo said, "was to combine the sales of Guitar Hero III on the PS2 and PS3 to push it past the Wii."
Hit the break for some of our own thoughts on the article.
This just in: Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold a lot. That's an observation that is neither new or particularly exciting, but put it in graph form and Brawl's phenomenal success is capable of wowing us all over again.
At first glance, we presumed those blue bars represented the first month sales of all three Smash games in the U.S. But no: those are lifetime sales of Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee respectively, while the red bar is Brawl's first month sales. That's right: in its opening month alone, Brawl not only bypassed the lifetime sales of the first title in the franchise, but has already reached 70% of its predecessor's all-time sales. Our flabbers? Consider them gasted.
Welcome to Nintendo Wii Fanboy's "Stage of the Week" feature, in which we showcase some of our favorite Smash Bros. Brawl stages. We'll have some themed weeks, some contest weeks, and some "whatever we damn well please" weeks to help you freshen up your Brawl experience.
This week's featured Brawl stage offers a generous serving of nostalgia. Although we're sure it won't be the last classic game scene that we'll showcase here, we chose this as the first because of the creativity and execution that went into it. We're not sure where the very talented Anthony got the idea to recreate Yoshi's House from Super Mario World, but it looks absolutely smashing.
Not only that, but the stage is also fun to play on. It seems simple enough, but the multiple platforms and tiers add some variety and depth. You don't have to take our word for it, though, since you can download it for yourselves here. (Instructions for playing on the stage are located after the break!)
If you want to see one of your favorite fan-made stages (or one of your own creations!) featured here, be sure to email it as an attachment to smashsubs@nintendowiifanboy.com. From the hard, to the ridiculous, to the incredibly awesome, to the even more ridiculous, we want to see them all!
Note: Sorry for the noticeable photoshopping -- unfortunately, the Brawl camera doesn't allow you to take big enough pictures. Image credit: Anthony's site.
The obvious choice aside, we can't think of many game designers who are better qualified than Masahiro Sakurai to discuss how to make fun videogames. Which is a good job, really, because the Smash Bros. and Kirby creator has been booked by DiGRA, Japan's Digital Games Research Association, to deliver a talk on what makes games enjoyable.
Now that a weekend (and a holiday weekend at that) has come to an end, we thought it might be a good time to ask: when was the last time you got together with friends and/or family for a little group Wii gaming? Do you get together on a regular basis for a little Mario Kart, Smash Bros., or Wii Sports? Do you rarely play together with folks? We're curious about how much multiplayer action you're getting.
