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Game site Infendo looked at a report by Spanish site Revogamers on a recent Wii demo and discovered something interesting. The Wii remote shown in the recent post differs from the controller shown at E3. Instead of the “plus” and “minus” buttons, the remote shown at the recent demo displays the “return” and “pause” buttons from an earlier configuration. If one looks at other pictures from the recent demo, however, the remote shown with the classic controller has the “plus” configuration.
It is possible that Nintendo is still playing with the layout of the controller. Another explanation might be that there is a limited supply of the demo controllers, and the recent showing was utilizing older control hardware. In any case, one hopes that the controller design has been finalized at this point, and will be ready for gamers this holiday season.
Read More 
| Infendo
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Red Steel Control Scheme Being Overhauled
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, Nintendo, Reviews, Wii,
Red Steel is one of those games that Nintendo fans really really want to see succeed. The idea of a first-person game alternately utilizing the Wii to do gun-shootin’ and sword-swingin’ sounded like a dream come true. Unfortunately that dream was shattered (or at least slightly cracked) when E3 rolled around. Red Steel proved to be perhaps the poorest showing in Nintendo’s wildly popular Wii booth, mainly due to a flawed control scheme that made gunplay somewhat jittery and (more importantly) didn’t actually simulate your sword-strokes during onscreen saber battles.
Well blessed be Ubisoft - the company has actually taken the criticism to heart. TheGameFeed.com has reported that Ubisoft recently told the French press they will be making “significant changes” to the game-play before the game hits shelves, presumably sometime around November. Here’s hoping that it will be much closer to the free-form sword swinging we were all hoping for!
Read More | TheGameFeed.com
EA’s Bing Gordon Opens Casuality Game Conference
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Internet, PC, Wii, Xbox 360,
Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Electronic Arts opened the 2006 Casuality game conference as keynote speaker. The three day game conference opened June 27, in Seattle, and focuses on the growing role that casual gaming is playing in more and more people’s lives. Gamasutra provided coverage of the keynote.
Gordon opened by underscoring the vast numbers of people playing casual games; members of EA’s Club Pogo gaming service logged over 225 million hours of game time in 2004. While casual gaming appears to be a growing category, playtime was still dwarfed by Blizzard’s MMORPG, World of Warcraft. The market also doesn’t monetize as well as larger media like TV, the former averages “6.6 hours watched a day at 21 cents an hour” while casual games pull “24 minutes played a day at 5 cents an hour.”
Gordon also emphasized the roles that scoring systems play in establishing the community, and encouraging further game play. Club Pogo’s two status symbols are game “badges” and points. The game badges are highly sought after within the Pogo community, and appear to be a pre-cursor to the “achievements” offered over Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Similarly, point counts “provide a sense of place and rank in a community.” Pogo users can trade their points for real-world items, but many don’t, preferring to keep their status levels.
On casual game development, in Gordon’s eyes, game playability and accessibility rules over the games “beauty.” The advantages of the casual game development cycle and the relative simplicity of the play mechanics makes it easier to experiment with game play balance through rapid prototyping. This allows developers to quickly iterate through play styles.
Gordon clearly seeks to emphasize the importance of community in the casual game sphere; when a game is easy to pick up and play, there are low barriers to entry for new offerings in the category. If a publisher can lock in users through community, this will help succeed in the casual gaming sphere.
With casual gaming garnering more attention, online, in places like the Xbox Live Arcade, and with Nintendo’s Touch Generations offerings, the competition for gamers will only become more intense.
Read More | Gamasutra.com
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Microsoft’s In-Game Advertising Strategy
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
A few months ago when Microsoft purchased Massive, a video game advertisement agency that specializes in serving ads to online games, many wondered what direction in-game advertisement would take. Recently players in PGR3 have seen a new blitz advertising Cadillac cars through in-game models. Gamedaily reports that Microsoft is viewing in-game advertising as an important revenue stream for the next-gen gaming platform. Microsoft is looking to sign up 80 more advertising partners by the end of the year and expects to recognize a “25-30% bump in profitability”. The most surprising fact revealed by Gamedaily was that Microsoft could in the future offer the in-game advertising service to Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft hopes this would ease the trouble of serving up ads 3 different ways for a PS3 version, 360 version and a Wii version. If all of the manufacturers hopped on the Massive advertising train it would in essence create another monopoly owned by Microsoft by locking out the 2 main competitors in online gaming ad delivery. My thoughts about in-game advertising are that, if done unobtrusively, then more money goes to Microsoft and maybe, just maybe the savings will be passed down to me, the gamer. What are your thoughts on game advertisements?
Read More | GameDaily.Biz
Nintendo Producer Takashi Tezuka Talks
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: E3, Nintendo DS, Wii,
GameDaily was able to talk with Takashi Tezuka, General Producer for Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (NEAD) at E3. In his career with Nintendo, Tezuka has worked on, in some capacity, a great number of the most popular games in the past twenty years. Including the Mario, Zelda, and Yoshi properties, and titles like Animal Crossing. He offers insight into the Wii, particularly the unique controller, and the reasoning behind including a speaker in the hardware. Tezuka also talks about Mario on the DS, stating that New Super Mario Bros. had been in the works since Super Mario DS was in development. He also lets slip that another 3D Mario game on the DS is a possibility. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was also discussed, and how its origins came largely from a desire of the developers at Nintendo to create another game in the distinct Wind Waker style.
Read More | GameDaily.biz
Happy 15th, Sonic the Hedgehog!
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PSP, Release Dates, Wii, Xbox 360,
Sonic the Hedgehog, SEGA mascot and one-time rival of Mario, will be celebrating his 15th birthday today. Whether or not you love the little blue blaze, you have to admire Sonic’s contribution to the gaming world in terms of encouraging fast graphics processing and simple, intuitive play mechanics. To milk
celebrate the event, SEGA will be releasing 4 new Sonic-based games this year, including Sonic for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as Sonic Wildfire for the Wii, Sonic Rivals for the PSP, and a “special edition” of Sonic the Hedgehog for the GBA.
Sonic’s career has certainly gone a bit downhill in recent years - from the heyday of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis and Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast to the less-favorably-received current-gen Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Riders. Perhaps someday soon we can look forward to a New Super Mario Bros.-esque 3-D/2-D hybrid that will return the little fur ball to his former glory.
Read More | BusinessWire.com
Immersion Announces Next Generation Force Feedback
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PC, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Immersion corporation today announced the availability of their next-generation vibration feedback systems which they hope will result in better force feedback effects with better power consumption profiles. Some of the main points they address include compatibility with motion and tilt-sensing controllers; Nintendo users are already aware that Wii will support both motion-sensing and feedback, and perhaps this will give Sony the ability to add this functionality to their wireless controller. Overall, the new feedback system appears to be a more streamlined, better defined system for including force feedback in a console or PC. Hopefully, their work on the feedback APIs will make force feedback more prevalent on the PC. The effects in the few PC games that supported the force feedback mice from Logitech and Saitek were interesting, but never really gained acceptance in any significant way. If backward compatibility is really supported as well as Immersion suggests, then adoption of the new technology this late in the next generation console cycle won’t be an issue. With the Xbox 360 already shipping, and Sony pretty much leaving force feedback behind, this would seemingly only be a possibility in either the Wii console, or in third party controllers. And, it remains to be seen (or felt) how much better this new technology really is.
Full Press Release after the jump.
Click to continue reading Immersion Announces Next Generation Force Feedback
Mercury Titles Announced for Nintendo Wii
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Nintendo, Release Dates, Strategy, Wii,
In a move sure to excite Wii owners to be, Ignition Entertainment has updated their release list to include two Mercury titles for the Wii. Previously Mercury was a Sony exclusive, and a great asset to the PSP catalog. The first installment, Mercury Meltdown, will be released in November followed shortly after by Mercury Type R, before the end of Q4. The Mercury series includes hours of stimulating puzzles in which you move a blob of mercury around an environment through various gates and around obstacles. The movement of your blob is controlled by tilting the platform that the blob is on, making the Wii-mote a natural choice. This is a strong launch title for the Nintendo Wii and signals more support by third party developers.
Read More | Cubed3.com
Nintendo Registers New Wii Trademarks
Posted by George Hatzidimitriou Categories: Nintendo, Rumors, Wii,
Nintendo of Japan has registered three new trademarks relating to the Nintendo Wii today: Wii Pointer, Wii Culture and !!M. Although the meaning behind these trademarks are unknown so far, speculation is widespread among Nintendo fans online. The first, Wii Pointer, could very well be a finalized name for the Wii remote, while Wii Culture might be the name of the Wii’s online service that was announced. Finally, !!M, which looks very much like an upside down version of the Wii logo, is theorized to be an instant messaging client due to its striking similarity to the acronym “IM”. Keep in mind that the above are simply rumours and nothing more at this point, but we’ll keep you updated as more information is revealed.
Read More | GameFront
Build Your Own Racing Game Chair
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Driving, Nintendo Gamecube, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360,
Do you feel full of jealousy any time you spy an arcade racing setup being used to own others in Ridge Racer or Project Gotham Racing 3? Store bought racing chairs are often poorly constructed and expensive or good quality and even more expensive. Over on the ToolMonger blog there is a how-to for making your own racing chair setup for just $80 in parts. All you need after parts is the racing wheel and pedals for your particular system. The project requires welding and isn’t for everyone. If you decide to tackle the project, the original makers recommend a $380 welder, which is quite cheap for a quality welder. Judging from all the required welding it is a good thing that video games are good for hand eye coordination.
If you don’t have the hands on ability to make your own, or are just too busy playing video games, ToolMonger is giving one away! To enter, just post a comment somewhere on their site by July 31st.
Read More | ToolMonger
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