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Show your Wii and Beatles fandom with a “Biitles” shirt
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Culture, Nintendo, Portable/Mobile, Wii,
Sometimes an item appears that’s so spectacularly nerdy and off-the-wall that it just HAS to be blogged. This is definitely one of them… if you happen to be a fan of Nintendo and the Beatles, and think it’s a good idea to represent John, Paul, George and Ringo in Mii form, then this is definitely the shirt for you!
If you’re a little more surreptitious about your fandom, you can still enjoy having Mii-ized version of the Beatles on your Wii. Over on the NerdyShirts website, they’ve got their Wii number posted on the description and their “Biitles” are ready to mingle! I might be adding them as friends later this evening… maybe I can even convince them to perform in the background while I’m Wii bowling.
Read More 
| NerdyShirts.com
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NYTimes Crosswords heading DS-ward, Older Gamers Rejoice!
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Casual, Nintendo DS, Puzzle, Release Dates,
Nintendo stated for a long time that they were hoping to open the gaming market to new consumers (read: old folks), but ever since the release of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes A Day, there hasn’t really been a title that I could see either of my grandparents sinking their dentures into. Sure, Big Brain Academy was great, and it revolved around the same concept as Brain Age, but stylistically it was a little more gamer-oriented. And even though they’re under the Touch Generations line, I can’t really see G’pa Cardiff spending much time with Tetris DS or Elite Beat Agents.
Enter The New York Times Crosswords, a game practically screaming for attention from the new “older gamer” set. The New York Times Crosswords will feature, you guessed it, crosswords - and lots of them by the look of it. The cart will include over 1,000 real crosswork puzzles and will allow you to write in answers or use a touch-screen keyboard. It even features both cooperative and competitive 2-player games (no word on whether that will be single-cart based yet), so that G’ma and G’pa can work together or duke it out. Also no word yet on whether the game will be incorporating any features of the Nintendo WiFi Connection,although the ability to download and solve new puzzles would be pretty sweet!
Majesco has a mixed record on the DS, creating such acclaimed titles as Cooking Mama and Age of Empires, but they’ve also released a fair number of quick profit-makers like Brain Boost: Beta Wave and Brain Boost: Gamma Wave (read: one game divided into two equally priced carts). We’re hoping for the best with NY Times Crosswords, though, as it sounds like a game that really has the potential to recapture the casual gaming market when it launches this spring.
See the full press release, after the jump…
Click to continue reading NYTimes Crosswords heading DS-ward, Older Gamers Rejoice!
Read More | Majesco
Has Microsoft Turned The Corner In Japan?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Xbox 360,
Microsoft has perennially struggled in Japan in the console market. The original Xbox did miserably in Japan and for the first year of its launch it seemed like the Xbox 360 was going to follow in its footsteps. However, the past few months have seen some fairly high profile titles hit the console along with some extremely aggressively priced hardware and software bundles. Gamasutra is reflecting on these releases to try and determine if Microsoft has indeed turned things around in that territory.
The site looks to the recent launch of Blue Dragon and its related hardware bundle as well as the release of Gears of War in Japan to try and find out where the truth lies. Blue Dragon was probably one of the strongest releases, but after the initial release spike, the game dropped off the sales charts fairly quickly. Similarly, Gears of War broke the top ten in sales for the week it was released, but very next week had the game dropping off the top 30 entirely. Reports in Japan had Microsoft badly undershipping the title, which would effectively kill sales, if true. But overall this seems to reflect on efforts by a company that still doesn’t really understand the culture, and this is quickly killing any temporary successes. Much of the feedback that Gamasutra received for their article seems to show a company that is badly out of sync with their target market, putting marketing money into badly conceived campaigns that fail to reach the consumer.
Read More | Gamasutra
Sony Considers Potential PS3 Price Cut
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 3,
An Associated Press report suggests that Sony may be weighing the pros and cons of a Playstation 3 price cut during the next fiscal year. The report has Sony Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara discussing the company’s strategy to bring the games division to the break even point. While stressing that no price reduction has been set, Yuhara did say that “We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right.” One can’t really make a leap from that statement to an actual price cut, but it is interesting that price cuts are on the table for the upcoming fiscal year as a means of driving sales; Sony may be pinning its hopes on high-profile software releases in Japan to spike demand and save them from a costly price-reduction.
Read More | Associated Press
Saints Row Heads To PS3
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, THQ, Xbox 360,
After rumors that the Xbox 360 sandbox game Saints Row would be coming to the Playstation 3, THQ confirmed the rumors to Gamespot. The company announced that Saints Row would be available on the Playstation 3 in the second quarter of 2007. Gamespot notes that a number of high profile PS3 titles have been announced for the Xbox 360, now titles are flowing the other way. Given the high cost of developing next-generation titles, it seems unlikely that most “exclusive” third-party titles would stay that way without serious monetary incentive from a console manufacturer.
Read More | Gamespot
While the Xbox 360 is a great game machine, apparently DVD movie playback leaves a lot to be desired. By many accounts, the HD-DVD add-on plays back high definition content well, but according to a report on ExtremeTech, the DVD playback engine has horrible playback flaws. Many argue that the DVD playback on the Xbox 360 is good enough, and since the technology is essentially included for free, there is little room to complain. However, ExtremeTech details the flaws with specific examples, starting with the failure of the Silicon Optix HQV benchmark disc. A “perfect” device would score 130 points for the tests on the disc, but ExtremeTech indicates that the Xbox 360 scores a meager 20 points total. In contrast, the Home Theater Blog review of the Playstation 3 gave the console 120 points for DVD playback.
ExtremeTech follows up with specific DVD examples of the flaws in the DVD playback, and some of the examples are stark. The comments for the article are also somewhat illustrative, highlighting some possible issues with the review itself. There are some just complaints; despite ExtremeTech’s claims that the Xbox 360 fails to outperform cheap DVD players, all of the comparisons come against an $800 Denon DVD player. In fairness to ExtremeTech, the Denon serves as an example of the gold standard DVD player that gets things right, but some examples against a lower cost DVD player would have been nice. Other complaints stem from the fact that some of the source material might be unfair due to flaws in the mastering process; perhaps the article’s author will clarify some of these issues. Overall, though, the flawed DVD playback sticks out only because of Microsoft’s excellent execution in gaming and HD content, and given Microsoft’s responsiveness in the past, highlighting the issue may mean that a future system update will fix the problems.
Read More | ExtremeTech
Compete: Wii Interest Led Xbox 360, PS3 This Holiday
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Hardware, Internet, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Microsoft’s Andre Vrignaud linked to an interesting study of online next-generation console interest published by online metric provider Complete. The analysis shows relative online interest in the three next-generation consoles as tracked via the Compete toolbar technology. According to the tracking numbers, both the Wii and the PS3 peaked around their launch date, with the Wii running up slightly more user interest. The Xbox 360 hit its popularity peak for the three months from November to January right around Thanksgiving, which would tie in somewhat to a number of promotions run around the Xbox 360 at this time. After the holiday season, all three consoles tail off in online click-through. The Wii still leads, but the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 match nearly exactly. Further, it appears that Playstation 3 searchers are transferring to either the Xbox 360 or the Wii.
Overall, though, it is hard to gauge how accurately this tracks real-world purchasing. First, given that Compete gets its tracking numbers though the number of users that have installed the Compete Toolbar, it is hard to say how accurately this reflects the general Internet public. Secondly, given the difficulty in acquiring either a Playstation 3 or a Wii and both consoles’ lack of availability online, one would have a hard time tying an online visit into a retail conversion. A longer period of observation tied with real-world sales numbers as all consoles become readily available at retail will give a better indication of the correlation between online visits and actual sales numbers.
Read More | Compete via Ozymandias.com
FASA Talks Shadowrun On Vista, Xbox 360
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PC, Xbox 360,
With Vista launching today, Microsoft is taking the opportunity to highlight some of the projects they have in the works for their “Games For Windows” initiative. Mitch Gitelman, manager of the FASA Studio at Microsoft talked with Dean Takahashi about the upcoming release of the cross-platform Shadowrun. Shadowrun, along with Halo 2 for Vista promise to be the first titles to feature multi-platform Live support, allowing PC users to intermingle with their console counterparts. Gamers have had limited access to this functionality in the past; the Dreamcast version of Quake III Arena allowed console users and PC users to fight online. Still, this will be the first time that there has been broad architectural support for this combination. Unfortunately, Mr. Takahashi’s feedback is not that positive about the game itself. Graphically, he felt that the game was a throwback to Halo 2 and that the control was awkward. For a high-profile release, it would appear that there is fairly large amount of polish left to do in the game. Coupled with the negative feedback the title has been getting from the hardcore followers of the Shadowrun universe might mean less than success for this entry in the franchise.
Read More | Mercury News
10 Classics to Hit Xbox Live Arcade in February
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Corporate News, Puzzle, Retro, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace,
Microsoft today announced a slew of classic titles that will shortly be making their way to the Xbox Live Arcade. The titles announced include:
- 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
- Alien Hominid HD
- Band of Bugs
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Catan (Settlers of Catan)
- Eets: Chowdown
- LUXOR 2
- Paperboy
- Root Beer Tapper
- Worms
Specific release dates or prices aren’t available yet for these games, but assuming the prices are fairly reasonable, I expect we’ll see a lot of sales on XBLA next month. Castlevania is the obvious contender for most popular retro title, but Worms, Settlers of Catan and Alien Hominid are also titles that you should definitely check out for your retro library.
Read More | Gamespot.com
Sony Profits Drop 5% On PS3 Launch Costs
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP,
Sony’s 3rd quarter financial results reflect a 5% drop in net profit year-over-year largely due to costs incurred launching the Playstation 3. A BusinessWeek report on the financial results indicates that despite this loss, Sony has raised its guidance for the year due to its successes in the flat-panel TV and digital camera arenas. While the games division used to be a huge profit center for Sony, lately gaming has been dragging the company down. Sony missed its shipment targets for the Playstation 3, but still believes it is on track to ship 6 million consoles worldwide by the end of March. Still, Playstation 2 and PSP unit sales were down. Third quarter sales of the Playstation 2 were down 1.25 million units to 4.11 million sold, a decrease of roughly 30%. Sales of the PSP were down even more; the company moved only 1.76 million handhelds compared to over 6 million sold during the third quarter of 2005, a decrease of nearly 75%. Sony seems to be losing battles on two fronts right now, with lost opportunities on the Playstation 3 side leading to conversions to either Nintendo’s Wii or the Microsoft Xbox 360. The PSP is getting beat up horrendously by the Nintendo DS; while Sony’s handheld had held its ground for quite some time, its popularity now appears to be fading. Sony hopes to get things turned around with the Playstation 3 soon; console availability doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as a lack of exclusive titles.
Read More 
| Sony Financial Release [PDF]
Read More | BusinessWeek
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