Industry
Could I have a match? Try Apple and Nintendo
No, Apple and Nintendo aren’t merging, but their profits for the fiscal year are quite literally blowing investors’ minds. Seriously, I think there have been a few exploding head fatalities on Wall Street. Truly, the human brain can only handle so much profit forecasting. Apple posted 88% profits this week, while Nintendo is sitting pretty with “a group net profit of 174.29 billi...
Wii Needs – smarter third party developers
Just a quick thought about third party games on the Wii: Is the fact that there is a lack of decent third party titles on the Wii the fault of Nintendo for its decision to go low-tech Wiimote control, or do third party developers today generally suck at thinking up new ideas? Not an entirely fair question, I admit — it’s more of a blatantly biased diatribe with no basis in fact —...
Video game consoles as media centers are a failed strategy
Information Arbitrage has a few questions this morning: The runaway success of the Wii, the introduction of AppleTV and the problems encountered by both Microsoft and Sony raises more than a few questions: Does the grand “media center” vision really have legs? Are the high-priced Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles viewed as inaccessible by the casual gamer? Can you get to 100 million in console...
There are still 50-person lines for the Wii
Via the NeoGAF forums: “Q1 is looking like the beginning of an up-cycle year,” said Billy Pidgeon, video game analyst, IDC. “There’s good software movement, but hardware is stalled a bit by short Wii supply and stagnant demand for 360 and PS3. I believe the Wii will continue strong growth although supply continues to be a problem,” Pidgeon said. “I’d like ...
Nintendo, industry surge to $1.1 billion in sales
Just to build a bit on Blake’s “Nintendo dominates sales AGAIN” post from yesterday… Nintendo, in addition to dominating the sales numbers for North America with the DS, Wii, and even the GBA (which beat the PS3 in sales), has helped boost the overall sales of the video game industry to over $1 billion dollars. And yes, the PS2 and God of War 2 also helped considerably. I&#...
When will the video games industry fight back against Jack Thompson?
The worst school shooting in U.S. history happened yesterday on the campus of Virginia Tech. Thirty-two defenseless, innocent individuals lost their lives to someone we can only call a disturbed, selfish and thankfully deceased individual in Cho Seung-Hui. When I heard the account of one female student, I physically paused and felt ill. Of the 25 students in her German class, she and three others ...
Sony Patents 3D Virtual Reality Controller
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. via California inventor Tyler Jon Daniel has been assigned patent rights to a “Hand-held computer interactive device” (Patent no. 0070075966) that can manipulate objects on a display via a glove-like device that transmits the absolute coordinates of the fingers as well as providing “tactile feedback” in the form of vibration. They’re p...
Top 7 Nintendo mistakes don’t include the Wii
Games Radar has a feature today on Nintendo’s seven deadly sins (or mistakes). It’s almost as hot as Blake’s new Infendo header. Almost. The feature is a nostalgic walk through of the absolute worst of Nintendo’s storied history. The Virtual Boy; strong arming third parties to the point that the U.S. government had to get involved; all but a handful of games on the Nintendo...
Miyamoto talks Vision, Third-Party Support, and Competition in Newsweek’s post-GDC interview
N’Gai Croal’s LevelUp blog published an interview held after the 2007 Game Developer’s Conference with Nintendo’s legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Highlights and commentary from that interview follow: “I wanted to clear up some misunderstandings that some developers have about what Nintendo is trying to do, and make it really clear that we’re not saying...
Nintendo named flagship exhibitor at E For All Expo
E3‘s old lady forced him to grow up, so he can’t hang out with his weird friends anymore. E For All Expo has stepped in as the new guy with all the fun toys. Nintendo is going to E For All’s party, big time: IDG World Expo today announced that Nintendo of America has signed on as an anchor exhibitor for IDG World Expo’s newest event: Entertainment for Allâ„¢ Expo (E for All...
Note to Nintendo: Stay far, far away from Take Two, Rockstar
Wired Magazine is covering the shareholder coup going down at Take Two Interactive today, so I thought I’d revisit my post from this week about whether or not Nintendo should swoop in an buy up Take Two. Wired: As all this played out at Take-Two, the Rockstars continued their rise. Dan Houser assumed the creative reins, writing game dialog and directing star-studded voice-over sessions. Sam ...
Did Nintendo make things weird?
“What a weird era of gaming we’ve entered.” So begins IGN’s Mark Ryan’s latest blog entry. The post itself looks at how things have changed in this current generation of video gaming, all thanks to Nintendo. The same Nintendo that was once huffing and puffing in third place to the well-oiled Sony PlayStation mega-machine brand and slick newcomer Xbox is now defining w...