Stuff being worked on…
I wanted to quickly jump on and let you all know that I’m not dead. 
In fact I’ve been fairly busy. After almost a year of trying, my wife and I are finally expecting.
Which to say the least has me busy around the house trying to fix the place up. Lots of work to do in a very short time.
There will be new stuff incoming in the upcoming weeks as I get time, a new design (and reasons as to why), and the first signs of a couple of projects I have been working on.
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far.
PSP go Leads a Huge Wave of PSN Content
A Playstation marketing centric information dump for the PSP Go and new PSN content. If your interested.
Online and live with OnLive
A brief impressions by Joystiq on the OnLive video game streaming service.
The Grinder (Wii) – 1Up Preview
Left 4 Dead Wii style.
Well, if Valve is not going to do it why not?
Shigeru Miyamoto Spills Beans On “Kind Code”… Almost
I have my own ideas on save systems, but I’m very interested in seeing how this one fully works. Like the idea of being able to jump around in the game and not able to save if done in that fashion.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box – E3 Trailer
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box:
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles – E3 09: Conference Trailer
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles:
Square Says Final Fantasy XIV Not Necessarily PS3-Exclusive
Motherfucker! I knew it!
The biggest part is that it is on the PC. I knew Square Enix would not be stupid enough to shrug off that market. I had a poor opinion of Jack Tretton’s presentation skills before, now I have a poor opinion of his marketing skills as well!
New Motion Control Schemes Will Lengthen Hardware Cycle
I really disagree with this. I don’t think the new peripherals will be what extends the current hardware cycle. If anything, those where already going to last longer then the 5 – 6 year cycle we have seen in the past.
If anything, all these new peripherals, and the different take by each of them, will only lead to more confusion in the “HD” cycle.
Sony Makes AILive LiveMove 2 Free To PS3 Devs
When I saw the PS3 motion controller demo during their press conference, I had a feeling that they did not quite take it seriously enough. It seemed too geared for gimmicky, childish play (nothing wrong with that to a point).
This changes my mind though. They seem to want all of their developers to be able to use the new controller with little, or no, R&D involved.
Nicely played Sony.
Miyamoto Reveals New Zelda for Wii
This is very cool.
Actually, it’s pretty big news, especially the part where it very well could have been shown at E3 except (probably to the dismay of Nintendo investors everywhere).
Perfect Dark Confirmed for XBLA, Coming This Winter
Very cool. Though personally, I hope this comes to Wii Virtual Console as well.
Windows 7 Versus Mac OS X Leopard: The Feature-by-Feature Showdown
The only reason I’m actually linking to this is because I love how this is being put out just less then a week before Snow Leopard will probably be shown in full!
The kicker is that he even knows this is not a truly fair comparison:
Note that I’m basing my observations on the Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate 1 (Build 7100) and Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7. You could argue that I really should be comparing Windows 7 to the upcoming Snow Leopard, and you’d be right.
He does point out that it is his opinion only and so to take it with a grain of salt.
Purported Revenue for Apple’s Fifth Avenue Store: $440M
Apples WWDC is next week, so you will slowly see some things concerning Apple as we gear up (yes even in the middle of E3).
Anyway, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a link to an interesting story, but what he said caught my eye:
As a quick point of reference, Palm had $1.3 billion in revenue for 2008.
Wow!
The Witcher: No Sequel Yet, But More Stuff
After the whole fiasco with the “postponement” of the Witcher on consoles, I was not expecting updates.
Well, at least they can keep the PC version alive and kicking!
Introducing ModNation Racers: Play, Create, and Share on the Race Track
While I like Little Big Planet, I was not really “into” the whole thing. ModNation Racers I would say I’m much more looking forward too. Sadly, this is mostly for the very cool track editor that it has. Man, I wish more games, especially RPG ones (like Neverwinter Nights) had awesome editing tools like this. Imagine being able to make a quick scenario in 5 minutes?
Now that’s awesome.
Nintendo Press Conference
In case you missed my tweets, here is a summary of the Nintendo Press conference.
As usual they started out teasing what they will talk about, and put out some basic sales. In effect something we already knew about, but they wanted to highlight that the games industry is bigger than any other entertainment industry and in some cases bigger than some combined (movies and music for example).
They start off with a nice surprise, New Super Mario Bros for Wii (think better version of the DS game from the other year). It includes upto 4 player co-op play (you can even be the mushroom people – Toad basically), and the complexities of everyone going for the coins! Looks cool.
They go onto WiiFit, how it has sold over 15 million worldwide (closing in on Sony’s PS3 total worldwide numbers which are around 20 million).
They show off WiiFit Plus which is a newer version of WiiFit which allows for custom workouts and has new exercises and games.
Even though they spent time last year showing off Wii Motion Plus, they do it again this year and show off more of Wii Sports Resort (end of July). They also talk about third party support for the add-on and some of the upcoming bundle packs that will include the add-on over the next couple of weeks (Tiger Woods)
Up comes a new trailer for Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers which looks goo.
Now onto DS.
There will be a Kingdom Hearts DS, and it looks like it will include 4 player wifi play.
Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story will come out this year as well.
Big game announce, Golden Sun returns after 6 years! Golden Sun DS in 2010.
Womens Murder Club will be showing up on DS soon as well. Cop: The Recruit (action FPS game), Style Savvy for DS rounds out that platform.
Now, the DSi. Since launch 2 months ago, DSi has sold over 1 million in the US, and the DS has sold over 400,000 in that same time period.
Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again is announced and includes the ability to make your own levels and share them with friends.
Also announced, you will be able to upload your DSi photos to your facebook account!
They rounded off DSi with a mention of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Now, Iwata comes on stay and talks business and makes some really good arguments. He mentions that for every 2 active gamers, there is still 1 potential gamer out there. That the bar keeps jumping up as gamers progress, which puts out newcomers. So Nintendo is still trying to bring the play into balance by introducing games that both can play at the same time. For example Mario Kart and the just announced New Super Mario Bros.
He goes onto a new bit of plastic, the Wii Vitality Sensor which is basically one of those finger tip clips that monitor your heartbeat. He eludes that this is for helping with relaxing. Wii Yoga sometime in the future maybe?
Now comes the hit! They show off the trailer to Super Mario Galaxy 2! The first time a main Mario game has shown up twice on the same Nintendo platform. Plus, it includes Yoshi!
Reggie takes a moment to show us trailers to 3 third party exclusive Wii games that are more core. The Conduit, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and Dead Space: Extraction.
Plus, the final touch! A game that Nintendo and Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden fame) teamed up to introduce a new, darker, feel to an existing franchise.
Metroid: Other M!
And that wrapped it up. Overall it was good. Better than last year, but not spectacular. Than again, they don’t need it to be.
Star Wars: The Old Republic – E3 09: Jedi vs Sith Cinematic HD
Star Wars: The Old Republic:
Splinter Cell: Conviction – E3 Trailer
Splinter Cell: Conviction:
This game is looking very promising. I like what I see in how they do the “movie” style credits and mission details on the walls and such. Hopefully it plays out as well as it shows here.
E3 Day One Reactions: Cameras Are the New Waggle
A nice post up over at GameLife.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is in full swing here in Los Angeles, and not one but two camera peripherals have already been announced. Microsoft’s big announcement at its Monday press event was Project Natal, an accessory for Xbox 360 that tracks the movement of your body in 3-D space and can recognize faces. Hours later, game publisher Ubisoft took a swing at Microsoft, saying that it would cut out in front of Redmond to deliver the first camera for next-generation consoles this holiday season with its fitness game Your Shape for Wii.
And Nintendo and Sony haven’t even thrown their press briefings yet.
Microsoft “Not Ready” to Discuss Natal Release Yet
I’m going to go out and say it.
This goes to prove that Microsoft has no good intentions with this technology, or even getting it out in due course (since we are probably looking at seeing the first trailers for the first of this games at next years E3. Hey wait, the 720 is estimated to release the year after that right?!). Not to mention that no mention of a release date means they don’t know when it will come out, plus no mention of a price, probably means it’s way to expensive to any matter.
They only showed it today to try and drum up so much hype and good will that they hopefully shine above anything Sony will show (and to a much smaller degree Nintendo). I mean really, developers are getting the SDKs now? Yet you’ve managed to give one to Lionhead at least and keep it fairly quiet this long?
It’s all a trick by Microsoft and their marketing crew. It’s an old one too. “Hey! Hey! Look over here! SHINY! (and stop looking over there!)”
Microsoft announces Avatar Marketplace, unlockable apparel
This is cool for the fact alone of adding in more customization. I don’t mind skimpy options as a basic default, but over time allow us to have more. I’m looking at you Nintendo Wii!
EA reveals Team Builder, web tool for customizing NCAA teams
I mentioned this within an earlier post, but this is really a cool web tie-in to video games. I hope this works out, and that we see more of this style of integration.
Visit the Archives for older posts.