@Omega - That's not untextured, it's an attempt to replicate the style of the ancient world. We think of columns as being bare stone, but it was common in the ancient world to use paint on the columns to give them a color like blue or red. Occasionally there would be detailing near the top and the bottom of the columns.
This game seems to be a fusion of ancient Egyptian and Greek styles, giving it the more unique look you see in the game. (Realistically, why would there be so many columns just sitting there in the desert? And for that matter, why are these relatively new structures broken up as if they've suffered damage from centuries of neglect?)
@hobbes - See, that's the subversive version of the line. There's no such thing as a vodka martini. It was effectively invented by the filmmakers because they had a Russian Vodka maker as a sponsor for the movie. (Oddly now British owned. Go figure.)
Anyway, the joke is that MI6 is Britain's spy service. ("Secret Intelligence Service" if you want to get technical.) Peter has just the perfect look on his face to pull off the whole spy thing.
I don't think Nintendo wants to be releasing all these shovelware titles. But they rushed the DSi through development so fast that they don't have anything prepped. (Remember how the Wii was nearly 2 years in before it got WiiWare?)
The problem is that they don't want to not release DSiWare games. Otherwise it would appear to the market that they're not committed to the platform. On the other hand, Nintendo has a variety of policies in place that prevent many of the Indie games from getting ported quickly. Or at least getting more "tech demos" out the door.
Take that crayon-based puzzle game that's so popular. That game would be perfect on DSiWare. But because the guy is basically a college student living in a dorm, there's no way he's going to get a devkit. Which is sad, because those are the types of people that Iwata actually wants.
In any case, I'm starting to ramble. My point is that good DSiWare is coming. But it will probably be 3-6 months before we see DSiWare come into its own.
(As an aside, I wonder what the reasoning was for pushing the DSi through so fast. Doesn't that seem a bit odd?)
@Corbie - It probably all relates back to the NES in the 80's. Remember the crash of '83? And how Nintendo got around that problem by limiting the number of NES releases per year? Same idea, methinks. Except that this idea doesn't fit Iwata's vision for Indie gaming on the Wii.
Interestingly, there are a lot of parallels between the NES and the Wii. Not all of which are still applicable...
@Dazza & @Corbie - If you have info that we're not aware of, then I can accept some developers haven't met the targets. However, I would still reiterate that they are making no money, regardless of Nintendo's policies. If you can't hit 6,000, you've got very deep problems.
That being said, I do think there needs to be more of an advertising push. I've seen plenty of Wii owners who can't seem to be bothered to hook their Wii up to the Internet. Drives me batty. Especially when I sit there and tell them about all the great games available. Often times they have a 360 or PS3 hooked up, why not their Wii?
Bah, probably too many things to keep track of. The core message of the platform comes through Wii Sports and Wii Play. I suppose that message obscures the idea that the console has a relatively sophisticated online presence.
This is a flagrantly unfair policy that punishes earnest indie developers who have often made great personal sacrifices to release their wares on the WiiWare service.
Seriously? This entire story is the biggest non-issue in history! We're talking about a service that is growing in popularity by the day. A service where (by the admission of the source) provides far more than enough revenue opportunity to meet these fairly mediocre goals.
I hear rumours within the dev community that Nintendo recognises a problem here, where occasionally an entirely legitimate game just doesn't make it, and is looking for a way to make exceptions, to ensure small devs are paid even if the threshold is not reached.
I don't think this is about "not making it". We're talking about a 2 year period in which to "make it". If you can't make 6,000 sales in 2 years, you've got problems far worse than Nintendo's policies. For one, you've got no revenue to speak of. Even without Nintendo's policies.
More likely, exceptions to the policy would be about supporting the small developers. Providing the otherwise mediocre funds might keep such a developer up and running long enough to supply enough games to make them profitable. They'll still meet Nintendo's goals eventually (probably inside a few months of each release), but the exception might allow them to produce more content while they wait.
That being said, I don't see that happening much. Maybe someone like BPlus would fall in that category. But otherwise, can't think of anyone who would thread that needle.
If you really want Nintendo to support the small time developer, get them to change their office policy & their lengthy review policies for devkit access. Even a cut-down devkit with easy access could be super-useful for a small-time developer looking to do an innovative 2D game.
@KDR_11k said... It's the other way around, larger games have to sell more.
I believe Starwolf was referring to a possibly correlation between size and pricing. If Nintendo set the price of <16MB games lower than >16MB games, then it might make sense to make the game larger. That way the game will reach its sales projections in $s faster than if it were smaller. Nintendo's sales floors never come into play.
If that were true, my concern would be intentional bloat. We've seen several games that don't appear to be nearly as optimized as they could have been. Could the pricing be the reason?
@StarDust - None of the Flash games load on WiiCade. WiiCade has deployed several Javascript games. (Currently 3 of the 7 featured games are Javascript-based.) Those are probably the games that you see working.
Note that there is now a DSiCade.com where DSi-compatible games are going to live.
65/35? I wonder if Nintendo updated their contracts? Previously I heard of developers seeing much higher returns. BTW, I crunched some numbers on the minimum earnings for US sales. Thought you guys might find these interesting.
>16MB (1000US) - $39,000 <16MB (1000US) - $26,000
>16MB (800US) - $31,200 <16MB (800US) - $20,800
>16MB (800US) - $31,200 <16MB (800US) - $20,800
>16MB (500US) - $19,500 <16MB (500US) - $13,000
That's not a lot of money, any way you cut it. So I would hope that developers are selling a lot more than their minimum. Otherwise we'll be seeing markedly fewer WiiWare games.
@deadly.by.design - Beer Pong was a chart topper. I would be surprised if it hasn't raked in the dough for its publishers.
@Toddr - Again, it's not really a guitar. Last I checked at least, you don't strum the frets.
The truth is that Activision/Neversoft have a tough road in front of them. They've set the bar rather high on a DS experience. It's unlikely that they or their customers are going to acept something less.
@Toddr - The biggest issue with something like that is that it's not really guitar hero. It's keyboard hero. We're just pretending it's a guitar.
GH:OT managed a surprisingly good solution by using the attachment to provide fret buttons in addition to a strummer. Replicating that is going to be a challenge.
I wonder if Activision & Neversoft are going to do a DSi Guitar Hero? Nintendo really screwed them with the removal of the GBA slot. Now they're going to have to go back to the drawing board and start over.
Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I haven't exactly been impressed with the DLC concept on most consoles. It makes a lot of sense for something like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but for most other games it's either stuff they held back or it's cutesy stuff that just isn't worth the payments.
In result, I'm not exactly disappointed by the lack of DLC in The Conduit. I'd rather see HVS doing everything in their power to make the base game an incredible experience.
If you're not selling at least 10,000 copies, I can't see how it could possibly be worthwhile anyway. A few thousand is hardly going to pay for the game's development. Especially since Nintendo does not allow one-man garage developers.
Split screen wouldn't be a good fit for this type of title anyway. Can you imagine 2-4 people lined up, all trying to point at their tiny slivers of the screen? Sounds like a massive hassle.
@greyelephant - Yeah, I suppose Red Bull is a necessity before playing long shmup sessions. I don't know if Red would have any on hand, though. Doesn't quite fit the fairy tale motif.
And besides, I don't see a cooler there. Or any pockets for that matter...
It's tempting to get this game just for the Japanese zanyness! I mean, look at that artwork. There is so many things that are just plain wrong there, that you can't help but laugh out loud. Combined with this excellent review, I might just have to track this one down!
@timp29 - The Virtual Boy had to be adjusted so that the lenses were the correct distance apart for each person's eyes. Most people failed to adjust the distance properly (or didn't understand how) and ended up with headaches caused by a not-quite-right 3D effect.
@Stuffgamer1 - Zack & Wiki did the sales it did for one reason: Capcom didn't promote it. At all. Most games get huge press for months prior to release, with everyone becoming super-excited for its release. Zach and Wiki got nuttin'. If it wasn't for the word of mouth campaigns (originally started by IGN), it would have had even worse sales.
As it was, the game sold pretty well for not having a marketing budget. If VGChartz is to be believed, it moved nearly 400,000 copies. Which I believe pretty much exhausted the original print run. (I remember the game getting really hard to come by for a while there.) So nothing to scoff at. But it could have been a breakaway success if Capcom had tried harder.
@Chipmunk777 - The DSi primarily appeals to people who don't already have a DS. Myself, I've wanted a DS for some time, but not enough to actually make the effort. Now I'm actively saving up for a DSi.
Believe it or not, the tipping point is downloadable games. Cartridge games are fun, but a they're very canned experiences at a relatively high price. Additionally, cartridges are constrained by the supply & demand model, meaning that you may have trouble finding one at a price you're willing to pay.
Downloadable games solves those issues. They're available at any time, they're inexpensive, you can tote around all of them in the SD Card slotted into your system, and the platform encourages inventiveness and experimentation. That last point in particular has been missing from retail games. Retail is all about playing it safe.
BTW, I just want to point out that we're all using the term "hardcore" wrong. (I know, I know, I just did it in the other thread myself.) Technically, "hardcore" is people like Corbie. Balls-to-the-wall, crazy psycho games that make normal players cower in fear. (Shmups are a very popular genre for hardcore players.)
When we talk about the people playing Halo 3, we're really talking about the "core market" for video games. That market is the group of player ("core" players) who reliably purchase video games and thus define the popular genres.
You'll notice that Iwata and Reggie never use the term "hardcore". They always say "core". Despite the similarities, they're two different things.
@Bahamut ZERO - The problem with MadWorld is that it's a niche title. Not that many players are going to be turned on by an excessively gory game. Enough to make it profitable, but not enough to prove the market.
The Conduit is different in that it has mass appeal. Mark my words. It will easily sell 3 million copies, putting up there with the popular FPSes on the 360 and PS3.
Long story short: make a game that people who purchase Wii's want to buy or GTFO. Guitar Hero is a perfect example of a developer/publisher that got it right. Yet there's plenty of examples where companies got it wrong.
On the flip side, a lot of the small-time studios are doing really well with the Wii. A few months back, THQ reported that they were refocusing their efforts on the Wii and DS platforms. They found that their profits were coming almost entirely from Nintendo's platforms and that the other platforms were not making them money.
I used to love Mario Tennis on the VB. The 3D effect was surprisingly effective in this game, giving you the distinct impression that you were looking over a wide-open court. Since I didn't usually get the headaches that most people complained about, I always found it comforting to boot up Mario Tennis and "check out" from the rest of the world. It was like visiting another place where no one would disturb you.
The VB really was underrated. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Nintendo had put some real muscle behind it rather than seeing it as a stop-gap between the SNES and the N64. (Of course, then they might have wasted a lot of money and never seen a return, ultimately causing the company to fail. So maybe it's better if we don't know. )
Last year’s Nintendo E3 press conference was mildly painful to experience. Cammie Dunaway. FULL STOP.
Honestly, it was her air-headed delivery combined with that creepy smile that really annoyed me last year. The snowboarding was just icing on an already strange piece of cake.
Though it's not fair to place too much emphasis on Cammie. She was obviously trained by Reggie. And let's face it, Reggie is a very dull and measured public speaker. Except that he's cool, so he gets a pass.
Despite the amount of misinfo Ms. Perrin used to spout, I always thought she was a far more interesting face for Nintendo. She was friendly and personable, but also had a realistic edge to her style that prevented her from coming across as air-headed as poor Ms. Dunaway.
True. However, my point was that shortening the term of copyright reduces the total time that an author has the exclusive right to sell. Once others are allowed to sell or otherwise distribute the same work, the author will lose those sales.
Very true. My point however, is that there's not that much value to the greater economy by allowing such a long copyright term. Even the authors themselves rarely see long-term sales on their works. Out of tens of thousands of books written, maybe one will be successfully republished 20 years later.
However, U.S. copyright law still requires registration before you can enforce any copyright claim in court. As a result, if someone does ever attempt to enforce their copyright, it's getting deposited in the Library of Congress one way or another.
This is correct, but it ignores the greater issue. The vast majority of works are never protected this well. So they are never deposited in the LoC, Yet if you attempt to revive the work, more often than not a legal troll will do the work to obtain the rights, file the registration papers, then sue you. Is there anyone it would be worth it to, to lose millions of lawsuits over just to ensure that copies exist in the LoC?
The thing is, one of the goals of Copyright law and the Library of Congress is exactly that...to preserve those works that the free market allowed to wither away. Copyright law offers a solution to this problem...lure authors into registering their works with promises of huge infringement awards if they file their copyright registration.
Again, the problem is that copyrights are NOT being registered nearly as much as they should be. With electronic works the problem is getting worse, since the LoC only requires representative snippets of code rather than the entire work. And that's assuming that it was registered in the first place, which usually it isn't.
So the solution then is more copyright registration, not less.
I agree with this statement. Which is why I suggested short automatic protection, with requirements to file thereafter. That way the work can either be preserved by the public, or by the filings to the LoC.
Whoa now...did Mickey Mouse really do all that?
Obviously there were a few other interests along with Disney that helped push the 1976 extension and the 1998 extension. The 1998 act gained the moniker of "Mickey Mouse protection act" from the fact that Disney was one of the biggest and most visible lobbyists for the act. An act that honestly had almost no real-world economic benefit. The primary reason why Disney (and I'm sure many other Incs) wanted the extension was so that the image of Mickey Mouse would not be available in the public domain.
Interestingly, other popular characters (e.g. Superman, Popeye, etc.) have fallen into public domain, but have not significantly harmed the core trademarks of those companies. Thus the lobbying was mostly a defensive act for which the American public paid the price.
Actually, what you describe sounds a lot like the system we had in the U.S. before the Berne Convention.
I'm not quite sure what gives you that idea. There were no automatic copyrights in the US prior to the 1976 Copyright Laws. (A fact that Nintendo mercilessly exploited when they were sued by Universal over Donkey Kong.) There was the concept of a single 28 year extension to the 28 year term (originally 14+14 prior to 1909), but the purpose and implementation was a bit different from what I'm suggesting. And it was still incredibly easy to lose copyright protection by forgetting to properly mark an item as copyrighted.
But the benefits of bringing our laws into conformity with the rest of the world won the argument.
That has always irked me. Why was it so important for the world to "harmonize" their Copyright systems? Is it really so terrible that copyrights could expire in one country before another? (Don't answer that. It will lead to a 20 page dissertation on the topic. )
Well, for better or for worse, we're now going to have to solve the problem holistically. We need to get Europe and the US back to the table and force them to work out a solution that doesn't cause so much of the world's culture to get lost to time. Trying to solve the issue at the level of an individual country probably won't get very far. But we can at least raise the awareness and encourage them to open a new Copyright Convention.
Personally, I agree with you. A renewal system such as you describe would neatly deal with the problem of works that are abandoned or orphaned. Let's start a petition!
1) Copyright protection creates the issue of piracy. Without copyright protection, it wouldn't be piracy. It would be legal.
2) Extending the period of a copyright has not traditionally lead to greater sales. Most products have a relatively short shelf-life. However, the EU is a bit more liberal in their interpretation of the purpose of copyright and are fine with the ides that a copyright can potentially be used for a lifetime wage, plus a potential inheritance for descendants.
The US Constitution spells the matter out a bit differently. It provides for both Copyrights and Patent, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
At this point there is little argument that "limited times" was never intended to cover a period close to as long as the US has been in existence! (Lifetime + 75 years) Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has copped out on the issue, stating that the Constitution does not define "limited time", therefore they don't feel they have the power to overturn the current copyright law.
3) The Berne Convention revokes the requirement to register copyrights in order to receive copyright protection. Currently, every work is automatically granted a copyright upon creation. Which can create no end of headaches. For example, this post is copyrighted material unless I explicitly disown that right. If NintendoLife wanted to create a book of the "Best Comments Ever", they'd have to contact me and every other poster to obtain permission before using our comments.
The other problem with this change is obvious: Quite a bit of work is lost over the years because the copyright is not registered. There were some PC games that I remember as a kid which simply don't exist anymore. They were too low budget for a wide audience to take note of, and copies were not registered with the copyright office. So just like that, the information is lost to the sands of time.
Sean's argument essentially boils down to this: he wants a shorter copyright term for video games.
I think he wants a shorter copyright overall. It's not just videogames that are negatively affected by long copyrights. Books, films, and photographs have also been lost to time. All because Mickey Mouse was going to become public domain. (Disney lobbied for the copyright extensions to prevent Steamboat Willy from falling into public domain. Thus the act that extended copyrights is often referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".)
IMHO, there is a valid concern that Disney has. Not that impressive of a concern, but a concern nonetheless. My own opinion on copyright is that the best way out of this mess is a tiered copyright scheme. i.e. When a work is created, the copyright is automatically assigned for 15-20 years. At the end of that period, the copyright holder can obtain a 5-10 year extension by registering the work. The copyright holder is allowed to maintain the copyright for up to 100 years by filing for a new extension at the end of each 5-10 year reregistration.
This scheme would have far reaching benefits over the current system. First off, orphaned copyrights will have an opportunity to fall into public domain. No more expensive hunts for the copyright holder of a long-dead property. Secondly, it would ensure that the property is being actively maintained by some entity. This would ensure that it would not be lost to the sands of time. Thirdly, it simplifies the problem of finding the copyright holder. Finally, it walks the fine line between the needs of mega-corporations like Disney and the needs of the public in encouraging the Arts.
Excellent article, Sean! I've found that many gamers intuitively understand the problem of, "it's 20+ years old, why shouldn't I be able to download it?" but struggle with the actual legal framework surrounding that question.Your article provides readers with the tools they need to attack the issue head-on. Kudos!
It's easy to tell that the DSi was rather rushed to market. 90% of the titles are pulled from existing games, leaving the platform with a whole lot of 'meh' available. Hopefully developers will pick up on it quickly enough, though.
It's good to get some confirmation on Cave Story and Icarian. I was starting to think they'd never come out!
Overturn looks kind of cool, too. Reminds me a bit of Virtual-On. (That game was so friggin' cool. ) And what's SpaceBall? The link just goes "Not Found, BAM!".
Despite it taking me a bit to figure out what "Cardboard Axel Mush" was, these things are hilarious! I just hope the gameplay matches the humor. I'd hate to be greeted with a 1000 point game consisting of a Game and Watch Collection sans the upgrades.
Edit: I just noticed, 500 points. At that price it might be worth getting even if it's bad. We'll see, I 'spose...
Most people only remember it for how much it sucked, and the ridiculous idea of buying a gaming cell phone.
NGage was a perfect example of a good idea done poorly. Most players who obtained the second generation device were fairly happy with it. But the first generation made a variety of critical mistakes that made it the laughing-stock of the industry. From the Side Talkn' "feature" to having to remove the battery to replace games (!), the system was a jack of all trades, master of none. Compounding the issue was that the games were okay, but they were primarily rehashes of PC titles from pre-GPU days.
Had Nokia designed the system better and had a better plan for rolling out titles, it might have been a serious competitor. The core of the gaming hardware was certainly well designed. (If there's anything Nokia gets right, it's the hardware balance of their devices.) It was simply a matter of not knowing WTF they were doing.
iPhone seems to be a nice middle ground
iPhone is a good example of properly approaching the problem laterally. They first designed a good phone, then slowly found new uses for the technology. Each new use of the technology was deployed only after thorough vetting of its effectiveness. Thus Apple avoided the myriad of mistakes made by Sun with J2ME.
Interestingly, Nintendo sees the iPhone as a strong competitor not just because of games. As you said, the iPhone has really created new markets rather than stealing from Nintendo's. Why Nintendo sees the iPhone as a competitor is that they overlap in the area of creating a nextgen PDA. Both companies want to position their systems for deploying useful and interesting non-gaming applications. In that respect, Apple has a huge head-start, despite Nintendo working in that direction for longer. Eventually the two will collide head-on, with the loser retreating back to their core competency.
The funny part is that it's not that the Power Glove was such a horrible idea. In fact, it was very popular in VR circles of the time. (I still have my parallel port converter that I built!) The biggest problem with the Power Glove was that it was a 3D input device trying to make a go of it in a 2D world. When playing games in 2D, the device simply wasn't that useful. (Ok, so point left to go left, right to go right, twitch your fingers for buttons... GAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! Center, center, center...)
If there had been more games designed with the Power Glove in mind, it might have been a more interesting peripheral. Unfortunately, the library pretty much started and ended at Super Glove Ball. Which was exceedingly boring. Worse yet, it proved that the NES just wasn't a powerful enough system to be contemplating 3D. That would have to wait until at least the next generation and something called the SuperFX chip...
IMHO, the PSP is possibly the most dangerous portable competitor that Nintendo has ever seen. Unlike its predecessors, the PSP is far better engineered. It has a solid internal design, excellent screen, decent (but not great) battery life, a solid handheld grip, an exclusive-packed library, and a good size.
Like it's predecessors however, it's doomed to failure. While Sony avoided many of the technical problems that plagued GameBoy competitors in the past, they stepped squarely into the key failure of those systems: The PSP is not truly portable.
Just try whipping out a PSP to screw around for 5 minutes. The power-on time and UMD load times both eat up a solid chunk of potential play time. With the DS, it's power-on and go. The UMDs are relatively fragile, preventing players from slipping a few in their pocket. In result, you need to carry around a properly padded case or a bunch of plastic shells to bring with your games. With the DS, simply slip all the memory cards you want in your pocket. Downloadable PSP titles are so large that they easily chew through the (expensive!) memory sticks. With the DSi, you can store your entire library on an SD card conveniently stashed in the unit itself.
In the end, the DS supports on-the-go gaming far better than the PSP. The PSP is designed more around the idea of being able to bring a feature-rich console with you to new locations, with less of a focus on playing on the bus or while waiting at a restaurant. The PSP's design philosophy has been failing since the days of the Atari Lynx. Meanwhile, Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" has been making the GameBoy and DS lines a smash success in the market since the introduction of that black and white little beasty 20 years ago.
Facebook however doesn’t work at all and logging on results in a rather odd message from the DSi stating that there is “insufficient memory” to view the website.
That's probably correct. The DSi's 16MB is much better than the 4MB of the previous DS Lite (which required a memory upgrade to run the Opera browser!), but we're still talking about a very constrained amount of memory. Any website that drives large numbers of images, scripts, or overly complex CSS/HTML is going to run into memory problems. The browser may be able to use Virtual Memory, but there's a limit to how much that can help. Web Browsers are (unfortunately) memory hogs.
Because of the memory constraints, don't expect tabbed browsing any time soon. Rendering one page is more than enough for the poor browser to deal with. You'll note that the more popular Wii browser still lacks this feature, and it has 64MB of memory at its disposal. (Though Flash programs can easily cause the dreaded "Out of Memory" error.)
@Versus22 - I wouldn't count on Flash for two reasons. The first is the aforementioned memory constraints. The second is that Nintendo appears to be deemphasizing Flash support. While the HTML engine has been upgraded several times for the Wii browser, the Flash plugin has not been upgraded at all. In fact, I fully expect that the Wii's successor will also lack Flash support.
If you're looking for Youtube or similar services, write them and ask that they create a custom program for the DSi. It's already within their power to do so (they have MP4s of all the videos for the iPhone), thus it's just a matter of convincing them. (Assuming the DSi has sufficient processing power to decode video in real-time, that is...)
Anyone who's interested in the Gulf War GameBoy should visit the Nintendo Store in New York. They have the GameBoy on display there. And it's still running Tetris in attract mode!
@Ninomojo - That would be a fair argument if we were talking about XBLA. But we're not. We're talking about PSN, which isn't quite the runaway success that XBLA is. Also, we're talking about individual games.
Using World of Goo as a case study (mostly because they publish numbers), 2DBoy has claimed that 60% of their sales came from the Wii. The game is also on Steam and PC direct download, so that's saying something right there.
While a small percentage of owners may use Wii Shop, we're still talking about a significant chunk of the market. Enough to where developers who make a concerted effort can see significant reward.
Downsampled textures is an interesting point, but ultimately neither here nor there. Downsampling is as easy as running a script, and most versions of games are often developed in parallel anyway. Of course, they might be developing in a more serial manner, but inevitably creates different games.
Of course, the fact that the versions are probably being developed in parallel suggests that it doesn't matter what order they're released in from a technical perspective. My complaint is that it simply reinforces this impression that developers take a dump on the Wii as an afterthought rather than treating the Wii as a first priority. Which also suggests that the controls might end up as some horribly tacked on waggle scheme. (I hate those.)
Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that impression. Developers tend to see the Wii as a necessary evil and nothing more. The fact that the most money can be made there if they'd put a bit more focus into their Wii titles is lost on most developers. They keep treating it like the GameCube ports that they used to do and are suffering for it.
Must be the fault of those casuals. Yeah, that's it. No one buys real games on the Wii. </sarcasm>
Comments 551
Re: Peter Moore at MI6 Conference: Capturing the Wii Audience with Original Content
@Stuffgamer1 - Think "80's". i.e. Back when they had the cube, sphere, cone logo.
Re: Game Play Trailer - Icarian: Kindred Spirits
@Omega - That's not untextured, it's an attempt to replicate the style of the ancient world. We think of columns as being bare stone, but it was common in the ancient world to use paint on the columns to give them a color like blue or red. Occasionally there would be detailing near the top and the bottom of the columns.
This game seems to be a fusion of ancient Egyptian and Greek styles, giving it the more unique look you see in the game. (Realistically, why would there be so many columns just sitting there in the desert? And for that matter, why are these relatively new structures broken up as if they've suffered damage from centuries of neglect?)
Re: Peter Moore at MI6 Conference: Capturing the Wii Audience with Original Content
@KDR_11K - MI5 is national security. MI6 is secret spy stuff. Both are very real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI6
Re: Peter Moore at MI6 Conference: Capturing the Wii Audience with Original Content
@hobbes - See, that's the subversive version of the line. There's no such thing as a vodka martini. It was effectively invented by the filmmakers because they had a Russian Vodka maker as a sponsor for the movie. (Oddly now British owned. Go figure.)
Anyway, the joke is that MI6 is Britain's spy service. ("Secret Intelligence Service" if you want to get technical.) Peter has just the perfect look on his face to pull off the whole spy thing.
Re: Peter Moore at MI6 Conference: Capturing the Wii Audience with Original Content
Caption for Moore's pic: "I like my martini shaken... not stirred."
(Our British friends should get the joke. )
Re: Sony: We Own the Living Room, Nintendo Owns the Closet
Sony's press conferences are far more entertaining than their console. And considering the number of PS3 players I know, that's saying something!
Re: Game Center CX Looks at the Virtual Console
Don't forget his Star Force escapades!
1. Famicom Star Force (subs)
2. Virtual Console Arcade Star Force (no subs)
Re: Review: Master of Illusion Express: Deep Psyche (DSiWare)
I don't think Nintendo wants to be releasing all these shovelware titles. But they rushed the DSi through development so fast that they don't have anything prepped. (Remember how the Wii was nearly 2 years in before it got WiiWare?)
The problem is that they don't want to not release DSiWare games. Otherwise it would appear to the market that they're not committed to the platform. On the other hand, Nintendo has a variety of policies in place that prevent many of the Indie games from getting ported quickly. Or at least getting more "tech demos" out the door.
Take that crayon-based puzzle game that's so popular. That game would be perfect on DSiWare. But because the guy is basically a college student living in a dorm, there's no way he's going to get a devkit. Which is sad, because those are the types of people that Iwata actually wants.
In any case, I'm starting to ramble. My point is that good DSiWare is coming. But it will probably be 3-6 months before we see DSiWare come into its own.
(As an aside, I wonder what the reasoning was for pushing the DSi through so fast. Doesn't that seem a bit odd?)
Re: WiiWare Threshold Is Really About Quality Control
@Corbie - That's only because one of them RRODed.
(I kid! I kid! Ow ow ow ow ow!)
Re: WiiWare Threshold Is Really About Quality Control
@Corbie - It probably all relates back to the NES in the 80's. Remember the crash of '83? And how Nintendo got around that problem by limiting the number of NES releases per year? Same idea, methinks. Except that this idea doesn't fit Iwata's vision for Indie gaming on the Wii.
Interestingly, there are a lot of parallels between the NES and the Wii. Not all of which are still applicable...
Re: WiiWare Threshold Is Really About Quality Control
@Dazza & @Corbie - If you have info that we're not aware of, then I can accept some developers haven't met the targets. However, I would still reiterate that they are making no money, regardless of Nintendo's policies. If you can't hit 6,000, you've got very deep problems.
That being said, I do think there needs to be more of an advertising push. I've seen plenty of Wii owners who can't seem to be bothered to hook their Wii up to the Internet. Drives me batty. Especially when I sit there and tell them about all the great games available. Often times they have a 360 or PS3 hooked up, why not their Wii?
Bah, probably too many things to keep track of. The core message of the platform comes through Wii Sports and Wii Play. I suppose that message obscures the idea that the console has a relatively sophisticated online presence.
Re: WiiWare Threshold Is Really About Quality Control
This is a flagrantly unfair policy that punishes earnest indie developers who have often made great personal sacrifices to release their wares on the WiiWare service.
Seriously? This entire story is the biggest non-issue in history! We're talking about a service that is growing in popularity by the day. A service where (by the admission of the source) provides far more than enough revenue opportunity to meet these fairly mediocre goals.
I hear rumours within the dev community that Nintendo recognises a problem here, where occasionally an entirely legitimate game just doesn't make it, and is looking for a way to make exceptions, to ensure small devs are paid even if the threshold is not reached.
I don't think this is about "not making it". We're talking about a 2 year period in which to "make it". If you can't make 6,000 sales in 2 years, you've got problems far worse than Nintendo's policies. For one, you've got no revenue to speak of. Even without Nintendo's policies.
More likely, exceptions to the policy would be about supporting the small developers. Providing the otherwise mediocre funds might keep such a developer up and running long enough to supply enough games to make them profitable. They'll still meet Nintendo's goals eventually (probably inside a few months of each release), but the exception might allow them to produce more content while they wait.
That being said, I don't see that happening much. Maybe someone like BPlus would fall in that category. But otherwise, can't think of anyone who would thread that needle.
If you really want Nintendo to support the small time developer, get them to change their office policy & their lengthy review policies for devkit access. Even a cut-down devkit with easy access could be super-useful for a small-time developer looking to do an innovative 2D game.
Re: WiiWare Sales Targets: More Details Emerge
@KDR_11k said... It's the other way around, larger games have to sell more.
I believe Starwolf was referring to a possibly correlation between size and pricing. If Nintendo set the price of <16MB games lower than >16MB games, then it might make sense to make the game larger. That way the game will reach its sales projections in $s faster than if it were smaller. Nintendo's sales floors never come into play.
If that were true, my concern would be intentional bloat. We've seen several games that don't appear to be nearly as optimized as they could have been. Could the pricing be the reason?
Re: Nintendo DSi Browser
@StarDust - None of the Flash games load on WiiCade. WiiCade has deployed several Javascript games. (Currently 3 of the 7 featured games are Javascript-based.) Those are probably the games that you see working.
Note that there is now a DSiCade.com where DSi-compatible games are going to live.
Re: WiiWare Sales Targets: More Details Emerge
65/35? I wonder if Nintendo updated their contracts? Previously I heard of developers seeing much higher returns. BTW, I crunched some numbers on the minimum earnings for US sales. Thought you guys might find these interesting.
>16MB (1000US) - $39,000
<16MB (1000US) - $26,000
>16MB (800US) - $31,200
<16MB (800US) - $20,800
>16MB (800US) - $31,200
<16MB (800US) - $20,800
>16MB (500US) - $19,500
<16MB (500US) - $13,000
That's not a lot of money, any way you cut it. So I would hope that developers are selling a lot more than their minimum. Otherwise we'll be seeing markedly fewer WiiWare games.
@deadly.by.design - Beer Pong was a chart topper. I would be surprised if it hasn't raked in the dough for its publishers.
Re: More Guitar Hero Spin-offs are on the Way
@Toddr - Again, it's not really a guitar. Last I checked at least, you don't strum the frets.
The truth is that Activision/Neversoft have a tough road in front of them. They've set the bar rather high on a DS experience. It's unlikely that they or their customers are going to acept something less.
Re: More Guitar Hero Spin-offs are on the Way
@Toddr - The biggest issue with something like that is that it's not really guitar hero. It's keyboard hero. We're just pretending it's a guitar.
GH:OT managed a surprisingly good solution by using the attachment to provide fret buttons in addition to a strummer. Replicating that is going to be a challenge.
Re: More Guitar Hero Spin-offs are on the Way
I wonder if Activision & Neversoft are going to do a DSi Guitar Hero? Nintendo really screwed them with the removal of the GBA slot. Now they're going to have to go back to the drawing board and start over.
Re: High Voltage: No DLC for The Conduit, More WiiWare on the Way
Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I haven't exactly been impressed with the DLC concept on most consoles. It makes a lot of sense for something like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but for most other games it's either stuff they held back or it's cutesy stuff that just isn't worth the payments.
In result, I'm not exactly disappointed by the lack of DLC in The Conduit. I'd rather see HVS doing everything in their power to make the base game an incredible experience.
Re: Some WiiWare Developers Won't Get Paid
If you're not selling at least 10,000 copies, I can't see how it could possibly be worthwhile anyway. A few thousand is hardly going to pay for the game's development. Especially since Nintendo does not allow one-man garage developers.
Re: Online MultiPlayer talk with The Conduits' Rob Nicholls
Split screen wouldn't be a good fit for this type of title anyway. Can you imagine 2-4 people lined up, all trying to point at their tiny slivers of the screen? Sounds like a massive hassle.
Re: Review: Game & Watch Collection (DS)
It's only $800 if you paid full price for all your games. I don't know about anyone else, but I like to keep an eye out for deals.
Re: Review: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (DS)
@greyelephant - Yeah, I suppose Red Bull is a necessity before playing long shmup sessions. I don't know if Red would have any on hand, though. Doesn't quite fit the fairy tale motif.
And besides, I don't see a cooler there. Or any pockets for that matter...
Re: Review: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (DS)
Bring your own blaster? Yeah, that might be a good idea. But I think "lil' Red" might be able to put out if you need one.
Re: Review: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (DS)
@greyelephant - I think it's more like an "OMGWTFBBQ" type of thing.
Re: Review: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (DS)
It's tempting to get this game just for the Japanese zanyness! I mean, look at that artwork. There is so many things that are just plain wrong there, that you can't help but laugh out loud. Combined with this excellent review, I might just have to track this one down!
As usual, great job guys!
Re: Review: Mario's Tennis (VB)
@timp29 - The Virtual Boy had to be adjusted so that the lenses were the correct distance apart for each person's eyes. Most people failed to adjust the distance properly (or didn't understand how) and ended up with headaches caused by a not-quite-right 3D effect.
Re: Analyst Reckons Wii Investment is "Fools Gold"
@Stuffgamer1 - Zack & Wiki did the sales it did for one reason: Capcom didn't promote it. At all. Most games get huge press for months prior to release, with everyone becoming super-excited for its release. Zach and Wiki got nuttin'. If it wasn't for the word of mouth campaigns (originally started by IGN), it would have had even worse sales.
As it was, the game sold pretty well for not having a marketing budget. If VGChartz is to be believed, it moved nearly 400,000 copies. Which I believe pretty much exhausted the original print run. (I remember the game getting really hard to come by for a while there.) So nothing to scoff at. But it could have been a breakaway success if Capcom had tried harder.
Re: DSi Has a Strong Opening Weekend
@Chipmunk777 - The DSi primarily appeals to people who don't already have a DS. Myself, I've wanted a DS for some time, but not enough to actually make the effort. Now I'm actively saving up for a DSi.
Believe it or not, the tipping point is downloadable games. Cartridge games are fun, but a they're very canned experiences at a relatively high price. Additionally, cartridges are constrained by the supply & demand model, meaning that you may have trouble finding one at a price you're willing to pay.
Downloadable games solves those issues. They're available at any time, they're inexpensive, you can tote around all of them in the SD Card slotted into your system, and the platform encourages inventiveness and experimentation. That last point in particular has been missing from retail games. Retail is all about playing it safe.
Re: Nintendo Looking to "Re-energize" Game Market
BTW, I just want to point out that we're all using the term "hardcore" wrong. (I know, I know, I just did it in the other thread myself.) Technically, "hardcore" is people like Corbie. Balls-to-the-wall, crazy psycho games that make normal players cower in fear. (Shmups are a very popular genre for hardcore players.)
When we talk about the people playing Halo 3, we're really talking about the "core market" for video games. That market is the group of player ("core" players) who reliably purchase video games and thus define the popular genres.
You'll notice that Iwata and Reggie never use the term "hardcore". They always say "core". Despite the similarities, they're two different things.
Re: Analyst Reckons Wii Investment is "Fools Gold"
@Bahamut ZERO - The problem with MadWorld is that it's a niche title. Not that many players are going to be turned on by an excessively gory game. Enough to make it profitable, but not enough to prove the market.
The Conduit is different in that it has mass appeal. Mark my words. It will easily sell 3 million copies, putting up there with the popular FPSes on the 360 and PS3.
Re: Analyst Reckons Wii Investment is "Fools Gold"
If that was true there wouldnt be all of us hardcore Wii owners on this site posting comments right now.
I have a feeling that The Conduit will be smashing all preconceptions about the Wii and hardcore gaming very shortly now...
Re: Analyst Reckons Wii Investment is "Fools Gold"
Long story short: make a game that people who purchase Wii's want to buy or GTFO. Guitar Hero is a perfect example of a developer/publisher that got it right. Yet there's plenty of examples where companies got it wrong.
On the flip side, a lot of the small-time studios are doing really well with the Wii. A few months back, THQ reported that they were refocusing their efforts on the Wii and DS platforms. They found that their profits were coming almost entirely from Nintendo's platforms and that the other platforms were not making them money.
Re: Review: Mario's Tennis (VB)
I used to love Mario Tennis on the VB. The 3D effect was surprisingly effective in this game, giving you the distinct impression that you were looking over a wide-open court. Since I didn't usually get the headaches that most people complained about, I always found it comforting to boot up Mario Tennis and "check out" from the rest of the world. It was like visiting another place where no one would disturb you.
The VB really was underrated. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Nintendo had put some real muscle behind it rather than seeing it as a stop-gap between the SNES and the N64. (Of course, then they might have wasted a lot of money and never seen a return, ultimately causing the company to fail. So maybe it's better if we don't know. )
Re: Dunaway: No E3 Snowboarding This Time
Last year’s Nintendo E3 press conference was mildly painful to experience. Cammie Dunaway. FULL STOP.
Honestly, it was her air-headed delivery combined with that creepy smile that really annoyed me last year. The snowboarding was just icing on an already strange piece of cake.
Though it's not fair to place too much emphasis on Cammie. She was obviously trained by Reggie. And let's face it, Reggie is a very dull and measured public speaker. Except that he's cool, so he gets a pass.
Despite the amount of misinfo Ms. Perrin used to spout, I always thought she was a far more interesting face for Nintendo. She was friendly and personable, but also had a realistic edge to her style that prevented her from coming across as air-headed as poor Ms. Dunaway.
Re: Talking Point: Copyright and Video Games
True. However, my point was that shortening the term of copyright reduces the total time that an author has the exclusive right to sell. Once others are allowed to sell or otherwise distribute the same work, the author will lose those sales.
Very true. My point however, is that there's not that much value to the greater economy by allowing such a long copyright term. Even the authors themselves rarely see long-term sales on their works. Out of tens of thousands of books written, maybe one will be successfully republished 20 years later.
However, U.S. copyright law still requires registration before you can enforce any copyright claim in court. As a result, if someone does ever attempt to enforce their copyright, it's getting deposited in the Library of Congress one way or another.
This is correct, but it ignores the greater issue. The vast majority of works are never protected this well. So they are never deposited in the LoC, Yet if you attempt to revive the work, more often than not a legal troll will do the work to obtain the rights, file the registration papers, then sue you. Is there anyone it would be worth it to, to lose millions of lawsuits over just to ensure that copies exist in the LoC?
The thing is, one of the goals of Copyright law and the Library of Congress is exactly that...to preserve those works that the free market allowed to wither away. Copyright law offers a solution to this problem...lure authors into registering their works with promises of huge infringement awards if they file their copyright registration.
Again, the problem is that copyrights are NOT being registered nearly as much as they should be. With electronic works the problem is getting worse, since the LoC only requires representative snippets of code rather than the entire work. And that's assuming that it was registered in the first place, which usually it isn't.
So the solution then is more copyright registration, not less.
I agree with this statement. Which is why I suggested short automatic protection, with requirements to file thereafter. That way the work can either be preserved by the public, or by the filings to the LoC.
Whoa now...did Mickey Mouse really do all that?
Obviously there were a few other interests along with Disney that helped push the 1976 extension and the 1998 extension. The 1998 act gained the moniker of "Mickey Mouse protection act" from the fact that Disney was one of the biggest and most visible lobbyists for the act. An act that honestly had almost no real-world economic benefit. The primary reason why Disney (and I'm sure many other Incs) wanted the extension was so that the image of Mickey Mouse would not be available in the public domain.
Interestingly, other popular characters (e.g. Superman, Popeye, etc.) have fallen into public domain, but have not significantly harmed the core trademarks of those companies. Thus the lobbying was mostly a defensive act for which the American public paid the price.
Actually, what you describe sounds a lot like the system we had in the U.S. before the Berne Convention.
I'm not quite sure what gives you that idea. There were no automatic copyrights in the US prior to the 1976 Copyright Laws. (A fact that Nintendo mercilessly exploited when they were sued by Universal over Donkey Kong.) There was the concept of a single 28 year extension to the 28 year term (originally 14+14 prior to 1909), but the purpose and implementation was a bit different from what I'm suggesting. And it was still incredibly easy to lose copyright protection by forgetting to properly mark an item as copyrighted.
But the benefits of bringing our laws into conformity with the rest of the world won the argument.
That has always irked me. Why was it so important for the world to "harmonize" their Copyright systems? Is it really so terrible that copyrights could expire in one country before another? (Don't answer that. It will lead to a 20 page dissertation on the topic. )
Well, for better or for worse, we're now going to have to solve the problem holistically. We need to get Europe and the US back to the table and force them to work out a solution that doesn't cause so much of the world's culture to get lost to time. Trying to solve the issue at the level of an individual country probably won't get very far. But we can at least raise the awareness and encourage them to open a new Copyright Convention.
Personally, I agree with you. A renewal system such as you describe would neatly deal with the problem of works that are abandoned or orphaned. Let's start a petition!
Amen brother!
Re: Talking Point: Copyright and Video Games
@Gabbo - A few corrections...
1) Copyright protection creates the issue of piracy. Without copyright protection, it wouldn't be piracy. It would be legal.
2) Extending the period of a copyright has not traditionally lead to greater sales. Most products have a relatively short shelf-life. However, the EU is a bit more liberal in their interpretation of the purpose of copyright and are fine with the ides that a copyright can potentially be used for a lifetime wage, plus a potential inheritance for descendants.
The US Constitution spells the matter out a bit differently. It provides for both Copyrights and Patent, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
At this point there is little argument that "limited times" was never intended to cover a period close to as long as the US has been in existence! (Lifetime + 75 years) Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has copped out on the issue, stating that the Constitution does not define "limited time", therefore they don't feel they have the power to overturn the current copyright law.
3) The Berne Convention revokes the requirement to register copyrights in order to receive copyright protection. Currently, every work is automatically granted a copyright upon creation. Which can create no end of headaches. For example, this post is copyrighted material unless I explicitly disown that right. If NintendoLife wanted to create a book of the "Best Comments Ever", they'd have to contact me and every other poster to obtain permission before using our comments.
The other problem with this change is obvious: Quite a bit of work is lost over the years because the copyright is not registered. There were some PC games that I remember as a kid which simply don't exist anymore. They were too low budget for a wide audience to take note of, and copies were not registered with the copyright office. So just like that, the information is lost to the sands of time.
Sean's argument essentially boils down to this: he wants a shorter copyright term for video games.
I think he wants a shorter copyright overall. It's not just videogames that are negatively affected by long copyrights. Books, films, and photographs have also been lost to time. All because Mickey Mouse was going to become public domain. (Disney lobbied for the copyright extensions to prevent Steamboat Willy from falling into public domain. Thus the act that extended copyrights is often referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".)
IMHO, there is a valid concern that Disney has. Not that impressive of a concern, but a concern nonetheless. My own opinion on copyright is that the best way out of this mess is a tiered copyright scheme. i.e. When a work is created, the copyright is automatically assigned for 15-20 years. At the end of that period, the copyright holder can obtain a 5-10 year extension by registering the work. The copyright holder is allowed to maintain the copyright for up to 100 years by filing for a new extension at the end of each 5-10 year reregistration.
This scheme would have far reaching benefits over the current system. First off, orphaned copyrights will have an opportunity to fall into public domain. No more expensive hunts for the copyright holder of a long-dead property. Secondly, it would ensure that the property is being actively maintained by some entity. This would ensure that it would not be lost to the sands of time. Thirdly, it simplifies the problem of finding the copyright holder. Finally, it walks the fine line between the needs of mega-corporations like Disney and the needs of the public in encouraging the Arts.
Re: Talking Point: Copyright and Video Games
Excellent article, Sean! I've found that many gamers intuitively understand the problem of, "it's 20+ years old, why shouldn't I be able to download it?" but struggle with the actual legal framework surrounding that question.Your article provides readers with the tools they need to attack the issue head-on. Kudos!
Re: More DSiWare Titles Revealed
It's easy to tell that the DSi was rather rushed to market. 90% of the titles are pulled from existing games, leaving the platform with a whole lot of 'meh' available. Hopefully developers will pick up on it quickly enough, though.
Re: Nintendo of Europe Announces April-July WiiWare / DSiWare Lineup
It's good to get some confirmation on Cave Story and Icarian. I was starting to think they'd never come out!
Overturn looks kind of cool, too. Reminds me a bit of Virtual-On. (That game was so friggin' cool. ) And what's SpaceBall? The link just goes "Not Found, BAM!".
Re: Review: Odama (GCN)
@Lode Runner - You should have seen the X-Play review on this one. They were dropping the Obama jokes left and right.
Re: Squibs Arcade - LCD Madness From Alten8
Despite it taking me a bit to figure out what "Cardboard Axel Mush" was, these things are hilarious! I just hope the gameplay matches the humor. I'd hate to be greeted with a 1000 point game consisting of a Game and Watch Collection sans the upgrades.
Edit: I just noticed, 500 points. At that price it might be worth getting even if it's bad. We'll see, I 'spose...
Re: A DSi You Cannot Object To
OVERRULED! DSi games contain region locking.
Re: Sony: PSP is Better Than The DSi
@deadly.by.design sez... Remember the NGage?
**Holds banana to ear** I have no idea what you're talking about.
Most people only remember it for how much it sucked, and the ridiculous idea of buying a gaming cell phone.
NGage was a perfect example of a good idea done poorly. Most players who obtained the second generation device were fairly happy with it. But the first generation made a variety of critical mistakes that made it the laughing-stock of the industry. From the Side Talkn' "feature" to having to remove the battery to replace games (!), the system was a jack of all trades, master of none. Compounding the issue was that the games were okay, but they were primarily rehashes of PC titles from pre-GPU days.
Had Nokia designed the system better and had a better plan for rolling out titles, it might have been a serious competitor. The core of the gaming hardware was certainly well designed. (If there's anything Nokia gets right, it's the hardware balance of their devices.) It was simply a matter of not knowing WTF they were doing.
iPhone seems to be a nice middle ground
iPhone is a good example of properly approaching the problem laterally. They first designed a good phone, then slowly found new uses for the technology. Each new use of the technology was deployed only after thorough vetting of its effectiveness. Thus Apple avoided the myriad of mistakes made by Sun with J2ME.
Interestingly, Nintendo sees the iPhone as a strong competitor not just because of games. As you said, the iPhone has really created new markets rather than stealing from Nintendo's. Why Nintendo sees the iPhone as a competitor is that they overlap in the area of creating a nextgen PDA. Both companies want to position their systems for deploying useful and interesting non-gaming applications. In that respect, Apple has a huge head-start, despite Nintendo working in that direction for longer. Eventually the two will collide head-on, with the loser retreating back to their core competency.
Re: 20 Years On, The Power Glove is Still Awesomely Bad
The funny part is that it's not that the Power Glove was such a horrible idea. In fact, it was very popular in VR circles of the time. (I still have my parallel port converter that I built!) The biggest problem with the Power Glove was that it was a 3D input device trying to make a go of it in a 2D world. When playing games in 2D, the device simply wasn't that useful. (Ok, so point left to go left, right to go right, twitch your fingers for buttons... GAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! Center, center, center...)
If there had been more games designed with the Power Glove in mind, it might have been a more interesting peripheral. Unfortunately, the library pretty much started and ended at Super Glove Ball. Which was exceedingly boring. Worse yet, it proved that the NES just wasn't a powerful enough system to be contemplating 3D. That would have to wait until at least the next generation and something called the SuperFX chip...
Re: Sony: PSP is Better Than The DSi
IMHO, the PSP is possibly the most dangerous portable competitor that Nintendo has ever seen. Unlike its predecessors, the PSP is far better engineered. It has a solid internal design, excellent screen, decent (but not great) battery life, a solid handheld grip, an exclusive-packed library, and a good size.
Like it's predecessors however, it's doomed to failure. While Sony avoided many of the technical problems that plagued GameBoy competitors in the past, they stepped squarely into the key failure of those systems: The PSP is not truly portable.
Just try whipping out a PSP to screw around for 5 minutes. The power-on time and UMD load times both eat up a solid chunk of potential play time. With the DS, it's power-on and go. The UMDs are relatively fragile, preventing players from slipping a few in their pocket. In result, you need to carry around a properly padded case or a bunch of plastic shells to bring with your games. With the DS, simply slip all the memory cards you want in your pocket. Downloadable PSP titles are so large that they easily chew through the (expensive!) memory sticks. With the DSi, you can store your entire library on an SD card conveniently stashed in the unit itself.
In the end, the DS supports on-the-go gaming far better than the PSP. The PSP is designed more around the idea of being able to bring a feature-rich console with you to new locations, with less of a focus on playing on the bus or while waiting at a restaurant. The PSP's design philosophy has been failing since the days of the Atari Lynx. Meanwhile, Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" has been making the GameBoy and DS lines a smash success in the market since the introduction of that black and white little beasty 20 years ago.
When oh when will the competitors get it?
Re: Review: Rhythm Heaven (DS)
**Looks satisfyingly at the score and leans back into chair**
Ah, it's a good time to be a Nintendo player.
**chair breaks**
Ahhhhgggg!!!!
Re: Review: Nintendo DSi Browser (DSiWare)
Facebook however doesn’t work at all and logging on results in a rather odd message from the DSi stating that there is “insufficient memory” to view the website.
That's probably correct. The DSi's 16MB is much better than the 4MB of the previous DS Lite (which required a memory upgrade to run the Opera browser!), but we're still talking about a very constrained amount of memory. Any website that drives large numbers of images, scripts, or overly complex CSS/HTML is going to run into memory problems. The browser may be able to use Virtual Memory, but there's a limit to how much that can help. Web Browsers are (unfortunately) memory hogs.
Because of the memory constraints, don't expect tabbed browsing any time soon. Rendering one page is more than enough for the poor browser to deal with. You'll note that the more popular Wii browser still lacks this feature, and it has 64MB of memory at its disposal. (Though Flash programs can easily cause the dreaded "Out of Memory" error.)
@Versus22 - I wouldn't count on Flash for two reasons. The first is the aforementioned memory constraints. The second is that Nintendo appears to be deemphasizing Flash support. While the HTML engine has been upgraded several times for the Wii browser, the Flash plugin has not been upgraded at all. In fact, I fully expect that the Wii's successor will also lack Flash support.
If you're looking for Youtube or similar services, write them and ask that they create a custom program for the DSi. It's already within their power to do so (they have MP4s of all the videos for the iPhone), thus it's just a matter of convincing them. (Assuming the DSi has sufficient processing power to decode video in real-time, that is...)
Re: Original Gameboy turns 20 years old!
Anyone who's interested in the Gulf War GameBoy should visit the Nintendo Store in New York. They have the GameBoy on display there. And it's still running Tetris in attract mode!
Re: Curve Officially Announces Explodemon!
@Ninomojo - That would be a fair argument if we were talking about XBLA. But we're not. We're talking about PSN, which isn't quite the runaway success that XBLA is. Also, we're talking about individual games.
Using World of Goo as a case study (mostly because they publish numbers), 2DBoy has claimed that 60% of their sales came from the Wii. The game is also on Steam and PC direct download, so that's saying something right there.
While a small percentage of owners may use Wii Shop, we're still talking about a significant chunk of the market. Enough to where developers who make a concerted effort can see significant reward.
Downsampled textures is an interesting point, but ultimately neither here nor there. Downsampling is as easy as running a script, and most versions of games are often developed in parallel anyway. Of course, they might be developing in a more serial manner, but inevitably creates different games.
Of course, the fact that the versions are probably being developed in parallel suggests that it doesn't matter what order they're released in from a technical perspective. My complaint is that it simply reinforces this impression that developers take a dump on the Wii as an afterthought rather than treating the Wii as a first priority. Which also suggests that the controls might end up as some horribly tacked on waggle scheme. (I hate those.)
Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that impression. Developers tend to see the Wii as a necessary evil and nothing more. The fact that the most money can be made there if they'd put a bit more focus into their Wii titles is lost on most developers. They keep treating it like the GameCube ports that they used to do and are suffering for it.
Must be the fault of those casuals. Yeah, that's it. No one buys real games on the Wii. </sarcasm>