Archive for January 9th, 2007
Gates: “Nintendo Is Our Toughest Competition”
Veiled jab at Sony or flat-out contradiction?
Gates Talks Nintendo [Go Nintendo]
Nintendo: We Will Sell 21 Million Wii Games
Nintendo expects to sell 21 million Wii games for the 2006/2007 period, a bump of 23.5 percent and six million consoles.
The also said today they expect to sell 23 million DS and 100 million DS games. Thanks to the DS, Nintendo readjusted its annual net profit estimate by 20 percent.
Nintendo Co., the world’s biggest maker of handheld video-game players, raised its full-year profit forecast by 20 percent on sales of its DS portable device and increased targets for Wii console software.
Net income will climb to 120 billion yen ($1 billion) for the year ending March 31, compared with an October estimate for 100 billion yen, the Kyoto-based company said in a preliminary statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange today. Nintendo reported 98.4 billion yen profit a year earlier.
Nintendo’s two-year-old touch-screen DS player and titles such as Nintendogs, an interactive pet game, are helping the company fend off competition from Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Portable device. Nintendo is also making inroads in the home console market after it sold twice as many Wii players as Sony’s PlayStation 3 in Japan last year.
The company today raised its sales forecast for DS players this fiscal year by 15 percent to 23 million units and software by 22 percent to 100 million games. Sales of Wii games will reach 21 million games this year, compared with an earlier target of 17 million. The company left its target for Wii console sales unchanged at 6 million units.
Sales this year will probably rise to 900 billion yen, compared with 740 billion yen forecast in October and 509.2 billion yen a year earlier, the company said. Nintendo also raised it full-year dividend forecast to 480 yen, from the October estimate of 400 yen and 390 yen a year earlier.
Money, money, money, moooooney, MAAAAAAA-ney.
Nintendo Raises Profit Forecast 20% on DS Game Sales (Update1) [Bloomberg]
Iwata Presser in 30 Minutes
Now don’t get too excited, but Reuters is reporting that Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata will be talking to the press in about 30 minutes about a revision to Nintendo’s earnings outlook.
Company president Satoru Iwata, who told Reuters last month that Nintendo may beat its own earnings forecast on strong sales of its DS handheld games, will attend the briefing.
Yes, yes, the DS prints money.
I suppose he could make some surprise non-financial announcements too, but I sort of doubt it. I do suspect he might be touting Wii numbers. That’s right: Touting!
Nintendo to brief on earnings outlook revision [Reuters]
CES: I’ve Been Reduced To “Exergaming”
The Sands Expo Center isn’t quite as bad as E3’s depressing Kentia Hall, but it has its own share of WTF product booths. They’re manned by bored staffers desperately hoping someone will ask about their vibrating gaming chair or subwoofer enabled beanbag.
Sadly, I got suckered into pedaling my way through a tortuous ten minutes of Need For Speed: Carbon only to realize I’m terribly out of shape and despise being on display. Plus, I found myself irrationally jealous of the man who got to play Oblivion on the nice bike. Avoid this hall at all costs if you hate being the subject of humiliation gaming!
Kotaku Swagu: Microsoft Press Goodies
I lugged around this box for a good eight hours yesterday. Combined with a MacBook Pro, snacks, a pair of Nintendo handhelds and my tiny frame, it made for a gruelling nerd challenge. I never really paid much attention to it, but random people would come up and ask me, “Did you get a copy of Vista?” After responding with “I dunno!” too many times, I decided to crack it open.
In the interest of full disclosure and satisfying my curiosity, let’s see what’s inside!
Uh oh. Vista mouse pad? I’m scared to look further.
Huh. Not too bad. That’s not a copy of Vista, mind you, merely a Windows Vista Launch Kit CD. But that is a full retail copy of the crtically acclaimed Company of Heroes. Score! Plus, there’s a 2GB Sandisk pen drive, a Vista branded pen drive of unspecified capacity, a Belkin Easy Transfer Cable and two cards for free Office Live Basics. That last one is going right in the trash!
At least I’ll have plenty of storage space.
Oh, by the way, another pen drive was just brought to my hotel room, courtesy of AMD. These things are worthless!
PS2, Xbox 360 Face Off At XRocker Booth
Let’s see. Xbox 360 is represented at CES by Gears of War. PlayStation 2 by… Elton John?! What exactly is it you’re trying to say about our beloved PS2, XRocker? Your gaming chairs may be comfortable, but your misrepresentation of the PS2 doesn’t sit well!
Nintendo expects to double profits this year
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Business
Reuters reports that Nintendo believes they’ll make a lot more money this year than even they expected. The company raised its profit estimates by 28% to $1.5 billion more than doubling its leftovers from the previous fiscal year. Nintendo also raised its total revenue forecast by 22%, increased its sales target of DS games by 15%, and is planning to sell 21 million Wii games on the year. And you probably already guessed it; mo’ money problems were blamed on “the strength of the DS” and Wii that is “off to a flying start,” as one analyst so aptly put it.
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Hands On: Castlevania Symphony of the Night For XBLA
The PlayStation and Saturn classic may be an unexpected choice for the Xbox Live Arcade platform, but it’s not unwelcome. The already classic Metroid-vania adventure really should be played by everyone, so we’re thankful that Digital Eclipse is bringing it to Live.
I spent some time with the port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night today and came away very pleased. The game plays nearly identical to the original, with almost nothing to distinguish it negatively from the 32-bit original.
The game controls very well with either the analog stick or digital cross pad, with the only control change being that the castle map is now displayed with the left trigger. Graphically, the game looks like it did in 1997. Players can choose either original (pixelated) or enhanced (filtered) graphics modes, with the option to stretch the screen vertically and horizontally to fill a 16:9 display. I’d recommend against that, as the game looks far worse stretched out.
Musically, the rich soundtrack seemed intact. However, some voiceovers from a conversation with Maria sounded a bit choppy and the ambient noise of Central Hall was fairly loud, so don’t take this as confirmation that the redbook audio is perfect.
There are ten achievements for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, all of which veterans or noobs should have little trouble completing. Some are as simple as defeating certain bosses, some as time consuming as completing 200.6% of the map, but nothing too extreme awaits future downloaders.
The game is due to be available on Live “soon.” I highly recommend anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of securing a copy do so when it hit. This is still a great game.
The Biggest Disappointment of CES
There’s nothing more disappointing than the promise of gawking at dozens of pornstars after having played Need For Speed: Carbon on an exercise bike and being denied. If I’d have known the above, I’d never have come to this hellhole.
Finally! A Wii-proof lamp built to survive Wiisports
Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Sports, Peripherals, Exergaming
Looks like reports of Wii damage aren’t going away anytime soon: people are still damaging their television sets, lamps, windows, pets, and selves as they flail about living rooms designed more for lounging than energetic indoor video games.
Rather than fight it, flow with it. The KNOCK-OFF LAMP’s beautiful, white polyproylene exterior echoes the Wii aesthetic, and it’s made to be knocked over. At just $22.00, it’s also probably cheaper than non Wii-proof lamps, too.
[Via funfurde]
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Hands On: Lair For PS3
Last time I was presented with the opportunity to get my hands on Factor 5 and Sony’s Lair, I had to rush it. Not out of disinterest, mind you, but pure time crunch. The Tokyo Game Show floor is thicker with meaty gamers than even E3 was during its busiest days. Later, during my time at the PlayStation Lounge at Sony HQ, I opted to hound Phil Harrison and Ken Kutaragi for caught-on-tape potential embarrassment instead of actual gaming.
What I had played, I’d liked. It had a few rough edges, but hope they’d be smoothed out.
So when given another chance at CES to try out the dragon-flying PS3 exclusive I jumped on it. Unfortunately, my latest impressions were underwhelming. From an artistic standpoint, the game looks fabulous. You are given huge areas within which to fly, with typically no HUD whatsoever obscuring the screen.
The game starts to lose its luster is in a number of places. The framerate is just not up to par. During the training missions and the initial fly through, it held up at an decent level. But during dragon-to-dragon battles and the scorching and clawing of thousands of troops while on foot, it sank to rates that I’d consider bordering on unplayable.
The game also appeared to be heavily aliased, with jagged edges most noticeable on dragon wings and when viewing the hordes of troops from above. This may have been due to the monitor set up, but these were Sony Bravias. Not exactly entry-level.
Now, the PlayStation 3 is being asked to render literally hundreds of armored knights, in addition to fire effects, as well as detailed architecture in a truly massive environment (the expanse is breathtaking), so some drops in frame rate are unexpected. But when those horned tank beasts were dropped by enemy dragons, I had difficulty staying in control. During dragon-to-dragon fisticuffs, the frame rate made the combat look silly, instead of as cool as two dragons biting and clawing eachother to death in midflight should be.
Speaking of controls, while the SIXAXIS-only control system works well, I occasionally had difficulty keeping my dragon on the ground. Taking off from certain ledges off the main bridge were also frustrating. Flying and mid-air combat were easy to pick up, with the motion control feeling very natural after only a few minutes. Still, can we please get an option to use the left analog stick, Sony? It’s currently doing nothing.
The gameplay is varied, from flying, targetting enemy dragons, engaging them in combat, it’s frantic and fun. The satisfaction from burning to death dozens of hapless pawns gives the dragon a real sense of power.
I suspected that the Lair demo may have been an older version of the game (possibly from TGS), but a Sony rep confirmed the game was a “refined” build and that it’s still expected to ship in the spring. As someone who has had Lair on his must-buy list since the game’s debut, I hope that the frame rate issues and graphical hitches are resolved. The game seems like fun, maybe a bit shallow, but still fascinating. While Lair is most likely not the type of game that can be fully absorbed in fifteen minute chunks, I’m hoping to spend even more time with the game in the future.
I just hope those graphical hitches get resolved. Keep your fingers crossed.
Dell, Blizzard Auction Off Unique WoW Laptops
I sat in on the Michael Dell keynote this morning at the Venetian, hoping to hear something gaming related. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of Dell acquiring Ziff-Davis gaming mags and 1UP.com. There was also no mention of Michael Dell talking about investing in Altantean property or putting research funds into why unicorns are so magical.
What he did talk about was continuing to target the 12.5 million MMO players worldwide and the success of World of Warcraft. He brought Blizzard’s VP of Game Design Rob Pardo on stage to share the corporate love and show off some new hardware.
In addition to the product announcements made earlier, Dell announced that two custom airbrushed Dell M1710 laptops would be auctioned off on eBay soon. The proceeds of that auction would go to the Second Harvest organization. The WoW fanatics with deep pockets out there should be on the lookout to score bragging rights and send your expendable income to those in need.
And Ashcraft’s Xbox 360 Doesn’t Croak…
Right after I got off the phone with Xbox Japan’s Support Center, I got the infamous red ring of death, which actually is kinda pretty. In a sick way.
Eds Note: As some of our commenters pointed out, this 360 isn’t dead. Freezing up, but not dead. Good to know.
Today’s yummiest game video: Cooking Mama Wii ’soup’
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii, Simulations, Video
Now you’re cooking with gas. Er, the Wii. We initially joked on that there were several games you wouldn’t see on the Wii, and yes cooking was one of ‘em. Now we stand corrected, because Cooking Mama actually looks … well, delicious. Fun, too. We never thought we’d be saying that about a cooking video game, but here it is. Next up, games based on cleaning and doing your homework.
Check it out after the jump. You can practically smell the soup from here, and maybe we’ll actually learn something while we play this one. When’s Quantum Mechanics Mario hitting the shelves?
Continue reading Today’s yummiest game video: Cooking Mama Wii ’soup’
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Slamgate: More Games Drop From Fest
I’m trying to keep all of the news updates, barring major ones, in one post. So I’m going to send you there to comment and read the details. But to summarize, more finalists have dropped out of the festival and more people have written up lengthy objections and treatises on the subject, including our very own John Browlee aka Florian.
Hit the link for the backstory and an updated list of the fervor.
Developers Protest Slamdance Game Festival [Kotaku]
Today in Joystiq: January 9, 2007
CES & MacWorld Coverage
IBM pimps gaming at its first CES appearance in 10 years
E for All advertised at Macworld Expo
Joystiquery
Joyswag Photochop: Lost Planet, found entries - Day Three
Readers pick best webcomic: Fanboy reflections
Today’s most geometric game video: Geometry Wars PC ‘Vista’
Why we can’t wait for iPhone gaming
News
British Army recruits gamers to pilot dusty Apaches
Horror film Blu-ray disc plays only on PS3
Mastering disguise in new Wario DS
Nerdcore Rising throws down with trailer
8GB PSP Memory Stick priced at $300
Virtual torture experiment revisits classic psych obedience test
Assassin’s Creed nominated for Visual Effects Society awards
Asus XG Station external GPU, it works
Nyko’s Wii-chargeable station
Gamestop holding WoW: BC midnight launch
Enough talk, have at this Castlevania XBLA video
NY Times: Strong holiday for new consoles
John Carmack taps DS for latest game
Xboy’s revenge: Zune to play games by July 2008
Activision looking up
THQ stock option investigation over
Super Columbine supporters shun Slamdance
Konami wants your music for the next DDR
Lionsgate joins Xbox 360 Video Marketplace
Dull Dashboard update today, Gears patch too
Minter talks Space Giraffe, cuddles sheep
Heavy Weapon next week on Xbox Live Arcade
Molyneux, others join GDC lineup, Fable ‘talk’ imminent
Bethesda mum about Oblivion expansion
Game violence stimulates ‘textspeak,’ concludes study of 12
Oops! Sony declares SIXAXIS Emmy, Emmys say “uh-uh”
Maple Story: 2D side-scrolling MMORPG is DS-bound
Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: Virtua Fighter 5 is 1080p
Guitar Hero: distortion pedals on the way?
Culture
Game designer turns geek mafia
Massive Link to the Past hack released
1: open the box … 2: put your games in that box … 3: now just carry the box … and that’s the way you do it!
Wiirotic
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Buggy Burning Crusade Patch Released
In preparation for next week’s big Burning Crusade release, Blizzard has gone ahead and released the 2.03 patch. Druids and Rogues get talent point refunds, items have been nerfed over level 60 to avoid having them be useful, blacksmithing and leatherworking have undergone changes, and much more. Also included in the patch are world events leading up to the big opening of the Dark Portal upon launch, including invasions and a random raid boss spawning throughout the lands of Azeroth.
So far the patch is pretty damn buggy. The warriors in my guild cannot seem to pull up a target window for the mobs they attack, making them use the ‘click and pray’ method of fighting. Others have reported their quest logs suddenly going blank.
Say what you will about random group-wiping bugs, I think it is extremely considerate of Blizzard, having made us wait so long for BC, to go ahead and get the horrible glitches started a week in advance. I’d post the full patch notes, but damn they’re long this time around. Hit the link for details!
World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.3 (01/09/2007) [World of Warcraft]
Joyswag Photochop: Lost Planet, found entries - Day Three
Filed under: Culture, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, Online, Joyswag
It was hard to tear ourselves away from watching video repeats of Steve Jobs’ Apple keynote that took place this morning, but we managed to do it so we could judge the Lost Planet entries that keep pouring in. We’re going to eventually have to put up a gallery of these, because we have a lot more than ten awesome entries. Thanks so much for giving us such great stuff to look at and choose from. Hopefully some of you are pursuing careers in graphic design with those mad skillz.
Our first winning entry comes to us straight out of the annals of history, bringing you an extremely retro gaming dosage of John Milton. This has to be the most highbrow entry we’ve received yet, and that’s including the large number of Lost Pants entries we’re getting (some of which have been great). Nice work Shaun, you’ve both impressed and shamed us at the same time, since we read the Cliff’s Notes version of this in high school.
Check out the second winner after the jump, and refresh your memory on all the contest details. Keep ‘em coming, because we’re loving everything you’ve been sending.
Continue reading Joyswag Photochop: Lost Planet, found entries - Day Three
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First Warmonger Art
I just got my hot little hands on this first piece of teaser art for the upcoming blow-everything-to-bits PC shooter Warmonger, Operation: Downtown Destruction. Yeah, that’s it. No news here, though I am begging them for some images with a bit more substance to them.
Hands Off: Crackdown for Xbox 360
You might remember that yesterday, during my Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 playtime, I was offered a chance to play some Crackdown. Well, I was offered a chance to look at some Crackdown. After a genuinely excited build up by Blake, the Microsoft rep, he fired up the executable. As it loaded, he was quick to point out that this wasn’t just some GTA clone with cel-shading tacked on. He really loved this game.
Since I wasn’t given the chance to actually put my hands on the controller, I can only report that was I saw, I really liked. The art style is definitely different, a strange mix of brightly textured, cel-shaded characters and environments—kind of like a cartoon about acid droppers living in a permanent sunset—but it helps the game stand out. It ran at a pretty smooth clip, even with heavy traffic and well populated streets.
I was shown a handful of save points across different profiles. The first area we explored was with rather stock abilities. Our hero hadn’t had a chance to level up or build skills by collecting “energy orbs.” (Yes, we’re still collecting orbs!) His SUV was rather standard, by ramp-jumping, truck-rolling video game terms. Blake from MS took out a dozen or so of the Los Muertos by turning them from gang members to road stains. The rest he took out with a standard pistol.
When he revisited the level later, he was armed with a handheld rocket launcher, which made short work of everyone in his path. At the level loading hub, as he entered his vehicle, the protagonist’s driving skills made themselves very apparent; the car flexed and expanded, transforming into a buffed-out muscle truck, with meaty wheels and (seriously) the ability to squat down and jump. He launched his truck over the clogging traffic while telling me about the option to add a cow catcher blade to the front bumper which will scoop other cars out of your way. My childhood fantasies for supercars were coming true.
I’ll admit I was mostly sold on the game at this point—it was at least worth a rental. But what I found most interesting was the Mega Man-esque system of bosses and sub-bosses. Go up against a boss without taking out his lackeys and you’re probably going to fail. However, if you take out his gun runner, he’ll have less guns. Take out his recruiter, he’ll have fewer soldiers. A handy menu lets you know which sub-bosses are out of play and radio transmissions detailing your objectives will update you on your likelihood of success when going after the gang leader.
What can I say? I was easily sucked in. This isn’t normally my type of game, but it’s something I’m going to keep an eye on. The unique look, sci-fi theme and varied leveling system have piqued my interest. I’m going to try to get some time at a kiosk today to see how it feels.
