Archive for March 21st, 2008
March 21, 2008
The Wii is still outselling the PlayStation 3 4-to-1 in Japan, despite stock shortages–but has the Wii reached the market saturation point? Analyst Hiroshi Kamide from KBC Securities Japan seems to think so, as the company downgraded Nintendo stock from “buy” to “hold” today, reports Bloomberg.
KBC also reduced its 12-month share price estimate by almost a third to ¥57,500 ($588), and its outlook for net income next fiscal year by 8 percent to ¥391.6 billion ($4 billion). Kamide is concerned that demand for Nintendo’s hardware–the DS handheld and the Wii console–will slow down, and that sales in the US and Europe have reached their peak. KBC downsized its sales predictions, with DS handheld shipments down 6 percent and Wii software sales down 5 percent from their previous forecasts.
The analyst said that he believed the company had seen “amazing growth,” but from now on “it is reasonable to expect a tougher trading environment.”
Nintendo stock has dropped 22 percent so far this year, after seeing phenomenal growth in both 2006 and 2007. The company’s shares have also been battered by the tumbling US dollar, which is near a 13-year-low against the Japanese currency after falling below 100 yen earlier in the week.
Nonetheless, shares in Nintendo climbed five percent to ¥52,100 ($530) on the Osaka stock exchange yesterday.
March 21, 2008
We’ve already reported at length on Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy, a promising shooter for the Wii that will ship with only a handful of graphically spartan premade levels. Why are we excited for it, then? The focus of the game isn’t its included missions, but rather the extremely varied missions you’ll be able to create using what looks like a pretty powerful set of in-game editing tools. Using simple geometry, you can put together a bunch of Cubist monstrosities or get a little more creative and build animals, pirate ships, flying skyscrapers, or whatever else you might imagine.
The game’s basic polygon-based graphics should be easy to fine tune in the included editor.
The customization doesn’t stop there. Once you’ve built an object–say, a flying flower pot with purple tentacles–you can define its flight behaviors or even the way its bullets will spread out as it fires. You can also build entire level backgrounds in this editor and even play with the way the level scrolls to achieve different effects. (Majesco reps said a Star Wars-style trench run level wouldn’t be out of the question with the available tools.)
However creative you think you are, it wouldn’t be very fulfilling if you could only play with your own designs in Blast Works ad nauseam. Luckily, the developers have gone way overboard with their online sharing and community features, an early version of which we got to see in a recent demo. You’ll be able to upload any object you’ve created, along with its associated behaviors, to blastworksdepot.com. That doesn’t just go for single objects–you can upload a level background or even an entire prepackaged mission to your account on the site.
Blast Works’ Web interface will offer all the Web 2.0 sorts of features you’ve come to expect from such sites as YouTube: friends lists, per-item ratings, per-user ratings, messaging, and so on. Our favorite feature is a Web-based download queue, which lets you flag items you want to download entirely from the site (if you’re at work, for instance). Once you come home and flip on your Wii, Blast Works will download all of the content you requested automatically. Luckily, for the two of you who own Wiis but do not own computers, you’ll be able to access all of this content from within the game itself as well.
There’s literally no end to the nonsense you can create.
Majesco says it will offer extra incentives for would-be designers to come up with ever more innovative creations. For one, the site will offer its own brand of achievements that will only be awarded to the most prolific and popular creators. Plus, there are the simple bragging rights that go along with seeing your pixel-perfect re-creation of Defender at the top of the most-popular list.
Blast Works is due out on the Wii in May.
-If Its Games
March 21, 2008
The glory days of pinball are back, at least according to the packaging for Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. That’s not true, no matter how much we’d like it to be, but there’s no denying that this collection of 10 tables has plenty to offer for anyone with a penchant for pinball. Not all of the featured tables can be considered classics, but if the lineup was chosen specifically to offer plenty of variety, then it’s most definitely a success. Older tables like 1970’s Jive Time bear little resemblance to the likes of Whirlwind and Funhouse that were released 20 years later, and playing through this collection in chronological order is a fun way to see how Williams’ offerings evolved during that time.
Jive Time is the oldest table in the collection.
Pinball Hall of Fame’s horribly compressed intro movie makes a poor first impression, but once you step into the virtual arcade that serves as the collection’s menu system things instantly start looking up. You can choose to practice on tables in a mode that awards you tokens based on your scores and the completion of table-specific goals; you can play against up to three friends in tournaments that span multiple tables; or you can take on the time-consuming Williams Challenge. The challenge mode tasks you with achieving target scores on all 10 tables in a single play session. You get three attempts at each table, and if you fail you have to go back to the first table again. The scores really aren’t tough to beat once you learn your way around the tables, which is just as well given that your reward for completing the mode is disappointing to say the least. What do you get? You get a score that you can tell your friends about, and a ranking based on how much you beat the target scores by. Being told that you’re a “Tommy wannabe” is a nice reference to The Who’s dark, pinball-themed rock opera, but it really isn’t what you want to hear after taking the time to achieve high scores on 10 tables.
Regardless of which table you’re playing, you’ll find that Pinball Hall of Fame’s emphasis is on giving you controls that make sense rather than on trying to do anything too clever with motion-sensing. The trigger buttons on the Wii Remote and Nunchuk are used to activate the right and left flippers, respectively, the analog stick launches the ball, and gently flicking either controller nudges the table. The flippers on these tables never feel unresponsive or sticky, as their real-life counterparts sometimes do, but realism is definitely the name of the game and the all-important ball physics are nigh on perfect. Furthermore, the tables’ various targets, bumpers, slingshots, switches, and ramps are every bit as believable as the ball that you’re trying to hit them with, which ultimately makes Pinball Hall of Fame’s gameplay difficult to fault.
Camera options can be problematic in pinball games, and Pinball Hall of Fame takes a “less is more” approach by presenting you with only two options. The first is a static camera positioned roughly where you’d expect your head to be when playing, which affords you a view of the entire table at all times. The second is a dynamic camera that adopts a similar position but zooms in on certain areas of the table when it’s appropriate to do so. We really can’t say enough about how intelligently and smoothly this camera does its thing, though an option to play from a traditional top-down perspective that really showcased the tables’ artwork would still have been a welcome addition.
Are pinball tables art?
All of the tables in Pinball Hall of Fame look and sound authentic, right down to the labels detailing how much it costs to play and how many balls you get for a single credit, and the loud knocking sound when you earn an extra ball. It’s not always easy to see where some of the table features are because the artwork on raised areas blends in with that on the playfield, but these rare occurrences of confusion can mostly be addressed by turning off the “reflections” option that attempts to simulate the qualities of the glass covering the table.
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection doesn’t really have any competition, so saying that it’s the best pinball game currently available for the Wii wouldn’t really count for much. This is one of the better pinball games to be released for any platform in recent memory, though, and it’s a lot more affordable than a pinball table to boot.
March 21, 2008
Reuters - Neal McDonough has joined the ensemble cast of “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li,” the film adaptation of the popular Japanese video game.
March 21, 2008
Reuters - Fans of anti-terrorism tactics can lock and load this week with the return of the popular “Rainbow Six” franchise, which returns to Las Vegas promising fine-tuning of its realistic, fast-paced formula.
March 21, 2008
AP - The next update of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 console, slated late this month, will include features that let users download games, video and ring tones.
March 21, 2008
PC World - With the next firmware update, the PlayStation 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player to get BD Live support.
March 21, 2008
Reuters - Activision said on Thursday it will release a version of its “Guitar Hero” video game for Nintendo’s (7974.OS) DS, bringing its blockbuster musical series to the most popular handheld gaming device.
March 21, 2008
TechWeb - The upgrade to PS3’s BD-Live will add interactive features to movies and also allow users to download video content, ring tones, and games.
March 21, 2008
One company has lowered Nintendo\’s stock investment rating from \”buy\” to \”hold\” because it fears that demand for the Wii & DS is slowing. The company even cut its price target by 30 per and said \”that it is reasonable to expect a tougher trading environment,\”.
March 21, 2008
IGN\’s Matt Casamassina said in a podcast that Kid Icarus would \”absolutely\” be on the Wii in 2008. Its unclear what his source is but he says that \”the rumors are out there\”
March 21, 2008
Peter Moore has revealed that EA Sports currently have eight whole titles in development for the Wii. There was little else information revealed, but Moore couldn\’t resist to reveal that he got to see Liverpool beat Inter Milan in the Champions League.
March 21, 2008
Atari UK today announce the forthcoming release of a new title for the popular Nintendo DS handheld console, Driving Theory Training, giving players the unique opportunity to revise, practice and take virtual tests on driving theory and Highway Code whilst on the move.
March 21, 2008
Taku Imasaki, a producer at SCEA, has said that they are already working on some cool new features for Gran Tursimo 5 Prologue. \”private races with buddies and in-game chat are all in the works
March 21, 2008
None of us should expect in-game messaging in the upcoming PS3 firmware v2.20. A blog asked a SCEE rep, if the respective feature would make an appearance in the firmware and Sony blunty replied \”No\” and that if it was, then it would has been stated in the press release. However, we can all still look forward to the major upcoming feature of BD-LIVE options.