Industry
Deep Thought: Those April Nintendo NPD numbers…
Wasn’t it just last month that the enthusiast press was predicting Nintendo’s downfall in the wake of the PS3 finally “beating” Wii in Japan for a whole entire month? [NPD numbers]
Seriously Nintendo? We’re sending ‘journalists’ cakes now?
GameIndustry.biz, as observant as ever in their latest weekly newsletter, rails against the lazy games media for building up the GDC conference into something it’s not. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Nintendo, in this particular case, is actually part of the overall problem.
So which is it, Reggie?
When a doofus says a developer needs to sell X number of games on the Wii to be profitable, I all laugh accordingly. However, when Reggie says developers need to sell 1 million copies, on the record, in an interview with the New York Times, I first scratch my head and pray that this is not accurate, for it has dire implications for the entire video game community. Today, in a follow up to those NY...
Another take on OnLive
In their latest email newsletter, GameIndustry.biz takes a far less alarmist approach to dissecting OnLive than I did. There is simply no readily available comparison for what OnLive is suggesting here. Streaming high-definition video services, even hugely popular ones like YouTube or the BBC’s iPlayer, are several orders of magnitude less demanding – because all they’re really d...
An early look at Nintendo’s next generation console
The weekly GameIndustry.biz newsletter that arrived in my inbox this morning was all about the future of the TV, and how its hyper-connected online future relates to gaming as a whole (widgets, streaming, the cloud, oh my!). It was a fascinating read, but I couldn’t help but think about Nintendo the whole time.
Watch out video games: Beer is no longer recession-proof
Video games have long been described as “recession proof” by those in the know, and that sentiment has held true up until at least the end of 2008, when even the mighty Nintendo saw numbers slip, ever so slightly. But this news about beer today is a terrible harbinger of things to come. Apparently, the equally recession-proof suds market is starting to falter alongside the rest of econ...
Bethesda developer calls Wii a “toy”
Now, I like Bethesda games, especially Fallout 3 (until I got slightly bored after reaching about level 15 or so), but when developer Todd Howard says the Wii is a toy not worthy of his development time I can’t help but think how buggy Bethesda games are for the Xbox 360 and PS3. They’re good games, mind you, but I think all that storage space and horsepower has led Bethesda to become ...
Iwata gently chides third party developers, ‘welcomes’ them back to Nintendo platforms
I don’t recall many times where the soft-spoken Satoru Iwata has gloated about Nintendo’s current run of incredible success, but he came awfully close today. Like a don from a Godfather-type flick, Iwata basically “forgave” third party developers for not supporting the Wii and DS earlier on in their life cycles, and welcomed them back into the fold. “It’s ok, we...
Microsoft cuts ground Flight Simulator series for good
This post has nothing to do with Nintendo, but because we lost such an important industry icon today in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator series, I decided to write about it anyway. It’s true. As part of Microsoft’s “restructuring” plan today (layman’s terms: 5,000 layoffs), almost the entire Flight Simulator team was let go in one fell swoop. I’ll never forget...
Experts: 3-D movies threaten the very foundation of the industry
Movie critics and other film aficionados were up in arms today over B-movie slasher horror flick My Bloody Valentine 3D, which released just this past Friday to little fanfare, acclaim or a even a noteworthy box office draw to speak of. Nevertheless there was an uproar over the flick that continued today. The problem? The movie was in 3-D. “The new-found interest in 3-D film making is unfort...
Analyst: Recession-proof Nintendo saved Christmas with more than 50% of sales
There’s no doubt that Nintendo is currently the king of video games, but news this morning about just how important the company has become to the industry as a whole is amazing, to say the least. How amazing? Well, if the sales preview from analyst group Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) is to be believed, Nintendo literally saved the gaming industry from the “full w...
EGM shuttered in massive Ziff Davis game division sell-off
Happy 20th anniversary, Electronic Gaming Monthly! You’ve been discontinued, and a number of video and podcast departments at 1up have joined you. It’s a sad day for print, but an inevitable one, as online is the future, much like digital distribution. The current EGM on newsstands is the final one, and next month’s, already completed, will be delivered digitally online. With the...