Fight Night Round 4 – Vicious Uppercut

So I picked up Fight Night Round 4 this week and I have to say I’m loving it so far.  I’m a huge boxing fan and this game doesn’t disappoint.  There have been a lot of haters out there complaining because EA took away the use of face button controls, but I find “Total Punch Control,” i.e. controlling your punches with just the right analog stick, to be more than adequate.  There’s a bit of a learning curve but once you figure it out it’s a bunch of fun.

One of the coolest new features is the ability to replay and upload videos from your fights to EASports.com.  Below is a 4 second clip of my latest knockout.  It was a “flash knockout,” which is a new feature in FNR4 as well.  What it means is basically if you land a perfect punch even if you’re getting beat pretty badly you can instantly knock down your opponent, just like in real boxing.

E3 2009 – Rumors and Such

It’s that time again.  This year’s return to the E3 of yesteryear should produce some exciting news.  This post is really just a roundup of some of the rumors I’ve heard and what I’m looking forward to most.  We’ll start with Microsoft and the Xbox 360.

Not much is known about what Microsoft is going to show this year.  You can bet that Halo 3: ODST will play a big role, but otherwise they don’t have the laundry list of announced megaton games to talk about like they have in years past.  One rumor going around is that they’re working on a motion controller (in fact, the same rumor is going for Sony) so we may see the debut of a new motion controller initiative to compete with Nintendo’s ridiculously successful Wii.  There’s also a rumor that the 360’s dashboard will see another massive update similar to the “New Xbox Experience” we saw last holiday season.  This might be tied into the Zune / Xbox Marketplace integration that was announced this past week (along with the new Zune HD).  However, as far as games go, I’m kind of at a loss.  Some folks are saying that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be debuted during Microsoft’s conference despite the fact that it’s traditionally a PC franchise.  I’m not sure about that but Episode 3 is definitely a game I’m interested in seeing.

The Sony press conference is the one I’m the most excited for because they have the biggest list of announced games to look forward to.  There has also been some interesting information leaked about possible revisions to their hardware which have me excited.  Let’s start with the games, though.  Currently the games they’ve announced that I’m interested in:

• Uncharted 2 - A sequel to my second favorite game on the console.  What I’ve seen so far looks even better.  Can’t wait for this game.
• Heavy Rain - Should be interesting, comes from the same folks that made Indigo Prophecy.  The gameplay seems to rely heavily on quick time events but the visuals are great as a result.
• Project Trico - This game isn’t technically announced yet, but some footage was released not long ago and it looks promising.  Unfortunately I wasn’t around for ICO on the PS2, but I’m looking forward to playing my first game from Team Ico.
• God of War 3 – This one’s obligatory.  Another game from a series I haven’t had the opportunity to try out yet but if nothing else the gameplay looks extremely fun and the visuals are amazing.

So that’s just the software, how about the hardware?  I’ve been flirting with picking up a PSP (for the second time, I might add – I bought the original when it was first launched but there were no games so I traded it in to put towards my 360), and all rumors point to an announcement of a new version of the PSP this year during Sony’s press conference.  Apparently called the “PSP Go,” this new portable console will be focused on digital rather than physical media.  You’ll be able to download games from a PSP store which is very appealing to me, and very appealing to Sony because it should cut down on some of the rampant piracy issues associated with the device.  A lot of folks are pointing to this as the rebirth of the device, and I know that if it’s announced I’ll buy one, plain and simple.

There’s also the question of the Playstation 3.  Despite having a solid line-up of games Sony is still struggling in this department.  Some shots were recently leaked of a PS3 “slim” redesign, and originally these images were scoffed at.  There is a bit of a twist however – sites that put these images up were contacted with cease and desist notices, giving this rumor some credibility.  Could Sony finally be making a big push to put the PS3 on the map?  A slim and sexy version of the console could do the trick, though a price drop wouldn’t hurt either.  We shall see.

As for Nintendo?  Who on Earth knows.  They maintain that they’ll have games for core gamers (i.e. gamers who aren’t interested in doing exercises on a balance board or playing their Wii remote like a pretend saxophone) but we’ve heard that before.  All I know is that it really doesn’t matter what they do at this point, the Wii and DS combined will continue to sell like gangbusters and completely outshine the 360 and PS3.  My only concern is that Microsoft and Sony will begin to think that motion controllers are “where it’s at” and give up on traditional gaming as we know it.

It would be a sad day if that were to happen.

Are game demos good for profitability?

I was listening to the Listen UP podcast earlier today, formerly 1UP Yours, and they brought up a very interesting topic: are demos always good for the success of a game?  Off-hand you’d think absolutely, it’s always better to get your product out there and a game demo is a form of advertisement.  Take movies for example, all movies have trailers right?  That’s the main way most people learn about and get excited for movies nowadays.  If a film studio considered foregoing the circulation of the trailer for their latest hit I’m sure most people would advise against it.

However games and movies are entirely different.  In a movie trailer a director can explicitly pick and choose what the audience sees.  Generally they’ll fill the clip with action, big laughs or scares, or whatever else they want to portray in order to entice the viewer most effectively.  With a game though, it’s much easier to know right off whether it’ll good or bad based on things like controls and gameplay.  If a game has terrible controls there’s really no way a developer can hide them in a demo.

When I think about it there are very few instances where a demo persuaded me to purchase a game, and even fewer examples of demos that attracted me to games I wasn’t already interested in.  For example, most people consider the Bioshock demo to be one of the best of all time – it helped a ton to introduce the game to casual gamers who might not have already known about it.  It was a perfect demo because it had been made specifically to be a demo. Rather than just pulling out a level from the full game and slapping the demo sticker on it, they mixed gameplay from a couple different parts in the game to give a good impression of the scope of the gameplay.  However, when Bioshock’s demo came out on Xbox Live I already had the limited edition of the game preordered, so I can’t really consider that a contributing factor to my purchase.  In fact, after reviewing the subject in my mind, the only instance I can recall where I bought a game based solely on the demo was Fight Night Round 3.

On the other hand there have been plenty of times when trying out a demo has killed any interest I had in a particular title.  The example that sticks out in my mind the most would have to be Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.  It’s a first person shooter based in an alternate reality WW2 scenario where Germany invaded the United States.  Admittedly I’m a huge fan of WW2 games so the premise intrigued me, and when the demo dropped I made sure to snap it up as quickly as possible.  When I played the game though, the controls were absolute garbage and so I crossed it off of my list of games to buy.  This is just one example but I can think of many more.

One thing I will say is that a demo of a game is usually a very poor way to judge that game as a whole.  There have also been plenty of times where I played a demo and was so-so on it, but then later I played the full game and liked it quite a lot.  Just a couple of examples that come to mind are games like Resistance: Fall of Man and Heavenly Sword.  I didn’t like either game’s demo, but I enjoyed the full finished product more than I expected.

There’s no doubt that demos are good for consumers because it gives us a chance to sample a product before we spend 60 dollars on it.  Still, if I was a game developer and my game was getting pretty good buzz I’d hesitate when it came time to put out a demo for it.  Maybe the best of both worlds is to just hold the demo until a week or so after the game hits the streets so you can capitalize on that first wave of hype.  If your game has problems then they’ll be widely known after that first week so it won’t matter as much if the demo is out there, and you might inspire some people to buy it despite its flaws.

What do you think?

Area 5’s Co-op show

I was (and am) a huge fan of the 1UP Yours podcast.  Unfortunately 1UP was hit by the economic downturn like most other companies these days, and so a lot of the guys who I’m used to hearing every week suddenly found themselves out of a job.  Fortunately a few of them have banded together to start a new video series, and in so doing have given new life to the now deceased 1UP Show.

This isn’t really news but I just wanted to give them a plug, as little as it may mean from my minuscule blog.  If you’re into gaming at all I can’t recommend their videos enough.  They’ve set up a YouTube channel, so if you have an account go ahead and subscribe like I have: http://www.youtube.com/area5media

If you’re not sure what the whole thing is about you can catch the latest episode of CO-OP below.

Xbox 360 – the new SNES?

Not too long ago I was reflecting back on this generation of consoles.  Of course to an outsider it’s clearly evident that the “winner” in terms of console hardware sales would have to be the Nintendo Wii, and I don’t question that for a second.  Still, there’s a lot to be said of the Wii’s lack of software – i.e. games worth playing.  When it comes to strictly software I’d have to say that the Xbox 360 wins hands down.  In fact it might just be the most complete lineup of any console I’ve ever owned.

So that brought a very important question to my mind…is the Xbox 360 this generation’s SNES?  If you’ve been involved in the gaming community for any length of time and are roughly my age (or better yet, a bit older) you’ll know that most gamers consider the SNES to be the epitome of game consoles.  It had a ton of great games, ranging from established first party franchise titles to lesser-known newcomers in the form of 3rd party titles.  The SNES was on the cusp of the gaming revolution in the United States, coming just before developers and publishers started pandering to wider audiences in order to cash in and just after the technological advances necessary to take the gaming experience to another level.

The Xbox 360 is also in such a period.  With the 360 we’ve seen the standardization of online gaming services.  Xbox Live on the original Xbox was just a nice addition to the gaming experience, but the 360 (as well as the other consoles, though none have achieved to such a high degree as the 360) has made online services, including multiplayer and community features, a necessity.  I cannot imagine playing games without being able to join up with my friends, play cooperatively online, or download arcade games and add-on content for the games I already own.  This has become the rule rather than the exception.

Of course as I mentioned, it’s all about the games.  On the 360, including first and third party titles, we’ve had a steady flow of quality games since the launch.  Sure there have been dry periods but on the whole I can say I’ve always had a game to look forward to no matter what time of year it was.  Right now for instance I’m looking forward to the GTA4 expansion, FEAR 2, and Resident Evil 5.  That’s a total of three huge releases in the typically slow late winter period.  In the busiest time of the year, the holiday rush, we’ve been buried consistently in great games and each year has been proclaimed the “best year in gaming.”  There are almost too many games to play, and even if there’s nothing worth playing that came out recently you can always visit the back catalog of games you probably missed.  That’s far more than I can say of the PS3 (which I own), a system that seems to get a couple quality exclusive titles a year.  Those games are great but they’re too few and far between…hopefully that’ll change this year.

So what do you think?  Ten years from now will gamers be looking back at 2005 – 20?? and  proclaiming it as the best era in gaming because of the 360?  It’s possible.  It’s also possible that the whole “greatest console” or “greatest era” thing is just generational.  Since I played SNES as a kid that’s my favorite era, but since kids growing up today are playing the Xbox 360 (or Wii, PS3) this will be their favorite era.  With all that having been said, nostalagia be damned: this is one hell of a time to be a gamer.

The future of music games

If you know anything about the gaming industry, you know that music games have been extremely successful lately.  Whether Rock Band or Guitar Hero, this new peripheral-based spin on gameplay has garnered a ton of fans over the past year or two.  Me personally, I’ve started to get over the “fad.”  I don’t necessarily think these games are just a fad, but the appeal has worn off on me after playing 3 successive generations of Guitar Hero, and 2 of Rock Band.  I’m not sure how many more times I’ll be asked to purchase new plastic instruments to keep up with the games as they evolve, but I’m sort of ready to hang up my guitar and retire at this point.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially because a lot of my friends still play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, and I’m wondering what could keep people like myself interested moving forward.  First off I think they need to standardize instruments.  Perhaps each console maker could cut a deal with the developers to create first party peripherals, and give a cut of whatever money they make back.  All I know is that I can’t be bothered to buy a new set of instruments every few months…I’m already running out of room to store all of my plastic instruments in.  It seems like a bit of a scam, doesn’t it?  First we had wired guitars, those were fine.  Then wireless, that’s a desirable upgrade.  Then Rock Band came out with the drum kit, microphone and a new guitar with solo buttons.  Now Guitar Hero has a full kit as well (thought it should be noted that you can use these cross-platform) including a guitar with a slide on it.  It seems like almost every time there’s a new game released we get new, slightly improved instruments which have some new janky feature.  I’m the kind of person who wants to buy this new revision because I feel like if I don’t have solo buttons or a guitar slide I won’t be getting the most out of the game.  But no more!

The most important part about music games is, of course, the music.  The only problem is that the music is getting more and more obscure as the well-known artists become tapped.  The first few Guitar Hero games plus the first Rock Band game already have a lot of the songs that I’d want to play in a music game.  I was playing Rock Band 2 a while ago and I thought to myself “man, these songs are okay to play but I don’t know who half of these artists are.”  Not only that but there’s a lot of overlap between the two franchises – you’ll find songs in Guitar Hero that were already in Rock Band, and vice versa.  How can Harmonix and Neversoft keep things fresh as more and more games are made, especially with the requirement of downloadable songs not included on the initial disc?  One way might be to lock up artist-specific versions of the game.  The Guitar Hero franchise is already headed in this direction with Guitar Hero: Metallica slated for early this year.

Rock Band on the other hand has a huge library of songs ready for download.  It seems they’re more prepared to supplement their current games with downloadable content moving forward.  This is more appealing to me.  I’d rather buy one disc every 2, 3 or 4 years and then just buy the songs I want as DLC in the time between major releases.  I’d also like to see the DLC bundled in with future releases, something they didn’t do with Rock Band 2.  If, with Rock Band 3, I could pay an addition fee and get all of the DLC released between RB2 and RB3 I’d jump on that in an instant.

Ultimately though I’d just like to be able to choose which songs I want from the get-go.  Rather than having Harmonix or Neversoft choose what songs will be included with their game, why not just let me ask for what I want to play?  I know, it sounds ridiculous.  What, they’re going to make a custom version of the game just for me?  With all of the legalities involved it’s an impossible task.  Still, a little personalization wouldn’t hurt.  That way I wouldn’t be stuck playing Mighty Mighty Bosstones tracks (no offense if you’re a fan), asking myself all the while why there hasn’t been a Deftones song available yet.

What I really want is a version of Rock Band or Guitar Hero with all Irish folk songs though…Folk Hero?  Folk Band?  Get to work on that. =)

Now Playing:
Silversun Pickups – Future Foe Scenarios
Prince of Persia, Left 4 Dead (PC)

Holiday gaming rituals

It’s that time of year, and as we move towards the Christmas holiday my mind is always flooded with great games from Christmases past.  It’s a rather commercial outlook on things, but for any gamer it’s hard not to remember some of the great games you’ve played in the years prior.  For that reason I oftentimes find myself revisiting these games leading up to Christmas, and this year is no different.  For the past couple weeks I’ve found myself playing the original Call of Duty, probably spurred on by the fact that I just finished the latest title in the franchise just before.  From there I moved on to the cel-shaded shooter XIII, a game which wowed me back in 2003, and still holds up quite well 5 years later.

It’s an odd habit, I suppose.  For whatever reason I get in certain moods for certain games throughout the year…a sort of “jonesing” if you will.  Sometimes the urge to play a game will pay dividends (with Call of Duty and XIII, for example) while other times I’ll revisit a game and wonder what I was thinking.  I just think it’s fun to replay games that tend to get thrown by the wayside so quickly these days by checking out my back catalog.  Last year for example, I played through Thief 3: Deadly Shadows for the first time since 2004.  The game was great, and it’s an excellent way to kill spare time while on break from school and work.

I suppose the only question is will my stint into the archives continue?  Probably.  So do you have any holiday rituals?  Something that makes you perk up this time of year as you relive a tradition?  The 1UP Yours podcast has done a segment where gamers send in their own past holiday stories, and I can definitely relate to a lot of them.  As a child there was nothing like the anticipation leading up to the big day, and although some of that magic has faded over the years it’s always fun to reminisce.  Leave a comment and share a story!  It doesn’t have to do with video games, and can be about absolutely anything.

After all, despite my passion for gaming a lot of my favorite memories involve just having fun with the family.  Although this is a little early, I just want to wish any and all readers happy holidays and a merry Christmas!

Now Playing:
Jay-Z (feat. Nas) – Success
Castle Crashers

LittleBigPlanet and the holiday rush

There’s been a lot made of LittleBigPlanet’s sales numbers lately.  LBP was supposed to be a huge release for the PS3, the trademark hit of the season that would not only sell a lot of PS3s but also further Sony’s gaming brand.  Leading up to the launch of LBP the marketing blitz (beginning at E3) hinted at the potential for Sackboy, LBP’s main character, to take the helm as the PS3’s system mascot.  Now the November NPD sales numbers have been released and it seems that sales are rather dismal.  LBP was outperformed by SOCOM: Confrontation on the PS3, slipping out of the top 10 completely with only around 200k units sold.  So…what happened?

A few things.  First the ones that aren’t as noticeable.  I think that LittleBigPlanet should have been released a month or two earlier.  Obviously nothing can be done about a development cycle, and it’s optimal for a developer to hold onto their product until it’s absolutely ready to go out to the public, but around the game’s release date it seemed a lot of the hype died down really fast.  In August and September there was a ton of buzz because the media had their hands on the beta and the game was showing a ton of potential.  In the weeks leading up to October 27th (LBP’s North American release date) there seemed to be a decent amount of buzz from gamers.  Then a week after the game came out, poof, the buzz died.

There has been some claims that this happened because the online service backing LittleBigPlanet didn’t work straight out of the gate.  As with most popular game launches there was a huge amount of stress on the game’s servers, and with LBP the case was doubled as a lot of the online functionality has to do with uploading user-created content so other users can then download and try out what you make.  Another possible reason for the slow sales could be that people got distracted.  I know this happened to me despite having purchased the game.  When I got LBP I played it for about a week, and then Fallout 3 came out.  Because Fallout 3 was a mastodon of a game including hours and hours of story-based campaign gameplay, I put LBP on the back burner assuming I’d come back to it when I had time.  I justified this move at the time because there really isn’t a story holding LBP together, and it’s the perfect game to pop in and play every now and then without having to dedicate large amounts of time to it in succession to get through.  Perhaps people wanted to pass up on LBP so they could get through the more traditional campaign-based games first?  If that’s the case then we’re facing a dilemma.

The question is, why are there still so many damn games released from October to December every year?  Obviously the holiday rush is important, but I think the number of games coming out quickly reaches a saturation point, especially considering the crappy economic situation we’re in.  There have been around 10 purchase-worthy games released between October and December of this year:

1. LittleBigPlanet
2. Fallout 3
3. Gears of War 2
4. Call of Duty: World at War
5. Mirror’s Edge
6. Resistance 2
7. Far Cry 2
8. Prince of Persia
9. World at Warcraft : Wrath of the Liche King
10. Left 4 Dead

That’s over $600 worth of games alone, and I’m leaving out biggies like Guitar Hero World Tour, Wii Music, portable games (PSP or DS), and some others I’m sure.  A lot of people don’t have $600 to spend paying bills let alone buying games, so gamers have to pick and choose.  If however, game studios and developers finally realized that gamers don’t just play games during the last quarter of the year, but year-round, this problem could be easily remedied.  For instance had LittleBigPlanet come out next March I’m positive it would have sold much better.  In March chances are good that there won’t be nearly as many games to play because that’s typically the beginning of the Spring to Summer drought.  Because of this people would be more willing to jump into a game that has a ton of content considering the ability to create, share and play content in LBP.  When you’re 1 of 3 big games coming out you’re going to sell more than when you’re 1 of 15.

There is hope, however.  We have seen some big games slip to different times of the year – Bioshock comes to mind most memorably.  There’s hope for LBP too.  What I think will happen is that a lot of late adopters will end up picking LBP up through the middle of next year when they don’t have much to play and when they’re ready and willing to spend time creating and downloading levels.  By that time I’m sure a lot of the online issues will have been resolved as well.  Anyways, sorry for the extremely long post.  This is just something I kind of wanted to get off my chest.  Let me also say before wrapping it up that LittleBigPlanet is an awesome game despite the disappointing sales so far.  It’s a game that I can’t wait to jump back into when I make it through some of the more linear games I’m working on right now.  If you own a PS3 you should definitely give it a shot.

Now Playing:
Young Dubliners – McAlpine’s Fusiliers
Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: World at War preview

So I’ve been playing two betas a bit lately, and I figured since I don’t have anything else to talk about I’d go ahead and devote my two posts this week to doing previews.  Today’s game is, as you may have guessed, Call of Duty: World at War.  I got into the CoD5 beta by preordering the game at GameStop (so if you’re interested I suggest you go do the same) and have had enough time to put a couple hours into the game so I figured I’d just share my thoughts.  The beta is competitive multiplayer only.

First let me say that Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer portion of the game was awesome.  It introduced quasi-RPG elements which allowed you to earn levels, skills and guns as you played.  If you liked CoD4’s multi then you’ll love CoD5’s.  It’s basically the same system, with the main difference being that the game takes place in World War II.  Obviously that means you’ll be playing in different environments with different weapons and different skills.  I was a little concerned about that since it’s a devolution in technology, and so after having used modern weapons I was afraid that the older weapons would feel out of place.  Fortunately that’s not the case.  The game feels great and the perks work really well.

As far as perks go (perks are skills you unlock as you play) there is a lot of old favorites and some new ones as well.  From what I remember, some of the older perks include:

• Martyrdom (drop a grenade on death)
• Deep Impact (higher bullet damage)
• Juggernaut (take more damage without dying)
• Last Stand (before dying you get to pull your pistol to try and get a kill)
• Sonic Boom (higher explosives damage)

The newer ones I’ve been most anticipating are:

• Toss Back (resets grenade fuse so you can throw grenades back at the enemy that’s thrown it)
• Second Chance (lets you revive downed comrades)
• Shades (decreases intensity of signal flares)
• Reconnaissance (reveals artillery and tank locations on the map)

There’s also a whole new list of vehicle perks, which applies to another new feature of the Call of Duty 5 multiplayer – vehicles.  In the beta there’s only one map which features vehicles, but I was really interested/concerned to try them out.  The problem with vehicles is game balance.  If you have a ton of vehicles the whole game becomes a Twisted Metal spin-off with players driving around all over the place causing havoc and ultimately detracting from the infantry experience.  From the one map that has maps in the beta I’m really happy with the limited amount of vehicles they’ve placed.  The map is called RoundHouse and is basically an old destroyed train yard.  On the map there are only two vehicles, one tank for each team (this is for the Team Deathmatch and War gametypes, it may vary otherwise).  Have just one tank per team is great for a couple reasons.

First, it makes the tanks menacing.  If there’s 10 tanks and everyone has a tank you aren’t really concerned about crossing paths with one.  However when the other team is dominating with their tank but yours has been destroyed, you’re much more cautious.  Sure there’s a perk to carry a bazooka, but you only get 2 shots and unless you hit the tank from behind you won’t destroy it.  Another cool thing about single tanks is that because it’s so menacing it’s a great distraction.  I can see strategies being developed where one or two people hop into a tank and then the rest of your team flanks the enemy while they’re distracted.  I’ve tried a similar strategy on my own and it has worked quite well, so that adds value to having vehicles.  Rather than just being another way to get around the map and kill opponents it can be worked in tactically.  Great stuff.

The other two maps are Castle (a Japanese village) and Makin (a seaside village at night).  All three are original maps which is good to see, since I remember playing Call of Duty 2 and 3 and being a little unhappy that they had maps from the original Call of Duty in them.  That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like to see updated versions of those maps (Carentan was a favorite) but it’s always good to have new ones.  There is some bugginess still though, particularly on RoundHouse where I’ve run into some people who are able to glitch their way under the map and kill everyone without being vulnerable.  Hopefully that will be patched but this is a beta so I can’t critique it too harshly.

Another weird thing about the game is how weapons are earned.  In Call of Duty 4 you started with an M16 and worked your way up from there.  In Call of Duty 5 (this is the primary rifle/assault class) you start with an SVT-40 which is a Russian weapon.  From there you get a Gewehr 43 which is a German weapon.  Maybe the problem is that I know too much about World War II-era weaponry, but it just feels weird playing as an American soldier using a traditionally German weapon.  By the same turn it’s weird playing as a Japanese soldier and using an American Thompson sub-machine gun.   I guess the same argument sort of applied to CoD4 but since it was all modern weaponry I guess it was easier to justify that anyone could be using any weapon.  Dunno.  It’s a weird and very nitpicky problem and doesn’t really matter much, it’s just something I noticed.

Despite having spent a decent amount of time with this beta there’s still more multiplayer scenarios for Call of Duty 5 that I’m looking forward to.  First, CoD5 will be the first time that co-op play is introduced to the Call of Duty universe.  You’ll be able to play through the entire campaign with your buddies.  That’s obviously very appealing.  Second, and this is a much more recent development, Treyarch has revealed a cool new cooperative zombie mode which looks to be a lot of fun.  It takes cues from Left 4 Dead, one of my most anticipated games this year, and applies them to World War II.  Like I always say, the only thing worse than a nazi is a zombie nazi:

‘Nuff said.  CoD5 is shaping up to be a multiplayer powerhouse.  Add to that the undoubtedly stellar singleplayer campaign and I think the game might end up being a “sleeper” best-seller this holiday season.  Gears of War 2?  Fallout 3?  It’s entirely possible that they won’t hold a candle to CoD5.

Now Playing:
The Tossers – Siobhan
Little Big Planet

Will Nintendo introduce new hardware?

There has been a lot of speculation today (yesterday, by the time this goes up) about Nintendo introducing some new SKU’s of their DS and Wii systems.  Because I own a DS but not a Wii, I started to wonder what sort of improvements would push me over the edge.  Of course, as I mentioned by the time this post is actually up we’ll know what the news is, but it’s still fun to speculate.  From what I’ve read, the new DS which is supposed to be announced will be focused around multimedia.  It has been speculated that the new device will have support for playing MP3s and possibly movie files, and at the same time will have an integrated camera.

I think that the media playback functionality is an obvious upgrade.  With the Sony PSP and now the iPhone/iPod Touch as their competition, Nintendo needs to expand into this market if only to keep up appearances.  My only question about this is storage.  Even on their home console, the Wii, Nintendo has been very reluctant to add any sort of considerable storage.  In a day and age when digital downloads (Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, Steam) are becoming more and more popular and profitable, it makes business sense for Nintendo to pursue some sort of storage system.  There have been rumors that they might turn to a Mobile Me “storage in the could” sort of system, but if nothing else they need to allow microSD or a similar format.

As far as the Wii goes, a lot of people think it’s time for Nintendo to step up and put out a true HD console.  The gripe that I tend to hear most often is that the Wii isn’t an HD console, and looks relatively “last generation” when compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3.  I’m not too sure I agree with that sentiment because I kind of feel like that’s the whole point behind the Wii.  A cheap, fun game system that attracts a ton of casual players but at the same time doesn’t offer up some of the features that hardcore gamers are looking for.  I think they should consider a price cut though.  The Xbox 360 just had a price revision, and Microsoft’s cheapest SKU is now $199 (the Xbox 360 Arcade, which comes without a hard drive).  The Arcade model was always an obvious attempt by Microsoft to try and soak up some of the spillover from the Nintendo Wii market, and now that it’s $50 cheaper than the Wii I think Nintendo has to take action.  The past couple weeks the 360 has been starting to do better in Europe and even Japan, so if they want to quell this uprising before it starts there’s no better way than some competitive price revisions.

Secondarily, and this is much more important for the Wii, Nintendo has to figure out a storage system of some sort.  Whether that means they introduce a hard drive peripheral, work in a card reader for MicroSD, or implement storage in the could (the least likely alternative, considering Nintendo’s lackluster support for online anything with their current systems), they just need to get it done.  The Wii also has a digital distribution model called the Virtual Console, which makes things worse.  Using the Virtual Console, Wii owners can purchase games from a huge library of titles from previous Nintendo consoles.  The only obvious problem is that people are running out of space on the 512mb of built-in flash memory (which is also used for saved games and system files).

In the end, I’m realizing that the reason I haven’t purchased a Wii yet is it just doesn’t have the games that the other systems do.  Most of the games are first party Nintendo games that give a bit of Mario fatigue (Mario Galaxy, Mario Soccer, Mario Kart) and third parties in general haven’t adopted the platform.  That’s surprising considering how well the Wii has sold, but I guess it might be more difficult to develop a game to work with the wiimote compared to standard controllers.

As far as the Nintendo DS goes I can’t really imagine what they could improve aside from the rumored add-ons.  Like I said earlier in the post, I think the media playback is needed at this point.  The camera is a cool addition too, and anytime I can get as many gadgets combined into one without losing quality that’s a thumbs-up.  I also remember seeing some cool re-designs for the DS which incorporated a much thinner design with a wide-screen.  That would support the media functionality, and anytime you have a sexy redesign you’re bound to sell some products.  Like I said this is all speculation and, by the time you read this, all should have been revealed.  Maybe I’ll make a follow-up post to show how absolutely wrong I was. =)

*UPDATE*
Turns out Nintendo released both a storage solution for the Wii (load from SD cards) as well as the new DSi, which has two cameras and a wifi store but otherwise looks pretty similar.  You can read more here:

Nintendo Officially Unveils DSi and Online Store

Nintendo Wii Storage Solution