Watch A Nintendo DSi Tear Itself Apart
April 16, 2009 - 6:27 am - Posted by Sean
Thanks to the wonders of stop-motion, watch in awe as this Nintendo DSi proceeds to tear itself to pieces:
Man, being able to see Nintendo’s new hand-held game machine inside and out in just over 2 minutes – priceless.
Source: TechRestore
Posted in Handheld + Nintendo + Nintendo DS + Videos
Nintendo Wii: MotionPlus Support
April 15, 2009 - 6:15 am - Posted by Sean
Do you think that – like trophy support on the Sony PS3 – there is scope on the Wii for the new MotionPlus technology to be introduced for older games?
Don’t be so optimistic. Responding to speculation that developers would be doing just that, Nintendo have told GameDaily:
“The Wii MotionPlus accessory is only for games that are designed to make use of its abilities.”
Now, that’s not a “no, not ever, never” but it’s certainly not promising. It also seemed like a very negative tone.
So if you were quietly hoping Nintendo’s MotionPlus would improve, say, the putting in Wii Golf, you might be better off trying to enjoy them for what they are, not what they could be.
Source: GameDaily
Posted in Game Development + Nintendo + Wii
Xbox: Star Wars Republic Commando
April 12, 2009 - 10:07 am - Posted by Luke C.
While movie-licensed video games tend to have a reputation for being bad games, Star Wars games have a better-than-average reputation, and Republic Commando is one of the reasons why.
If you want to play a game that takes you through the movies, allowing you to reenact the amazing battles and wield the awesome powers of the Jedi, this isn’t your kind of game. Republic Commando follows the exploits of Delta Squad, four clone commandos during the Clone Wars. Throughout the campaign it’s just you, your modular blaster rifle, and your squadmates against armies.
There’s not a huge amount of variety to your weapons in this game. You have a blaster rifle that has an autofire mode, a sniper mode, and an anti-armor mode, and then one fourth slot. By default this slot holds your pistol, which is weak and slow to recharge but has unlimited ammo. Read the rest of this entry…
Posted in Console Games + Xbox 360
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Wii 4.0 Firmware Update: SD Card Menu
April 9, 2009 - 9:59 am - Posted by Sean
This might be old news to a few modern classic gamers, but I just found this out moments ago when I fired up my Nintendo Wii.
Nintendo recently released a Wii firmware update that now solves the storage issue of the Wii by adding a new SD Card Menu that allows you to do the following:
- Store more—Add more Wii storage using SD Cards or the high capacity SDHC Card format (up to 32GB)
- Improved SD Card support—launch WiiWare titles, Virtual Console games, or channels directly from an SD/SDHC Card
- Let your Wii console move games and channels to an SD/SDHC Card with Auto Manage when system memory fills up
- Download titles from the Wii Shop Channel to Wii system memory or directly to an SD/SDHC Card
This is so awesome! I currently have a 2GB SD card for my Wii because until this firmware update, Wii’s only supported a max of 2GB.
I really like that you can now launch channels saved on SD Cards by temporarily utilizing the Wii System Memory.
If your system memory is full, you still have to delete stuff, but there’s now a streamlined, automated process to do that from this new SD Card Menu. It will even choose stuff for you, if you want.
As mentioned by Nintendo, the new Wii system update also adds support for SDHC cards up to 32 GB — that’s a ton of Virtual Console games folks.
Even though we now have support for huge SD cards, I won’t be running out and purchasing a 32GB SD card anytime soon since they are still around $100.00 USD, but this is still great news for Wii owners.
Posted in Nintendo + Virtual Console + Wii
Nielsen’s Revised Video Game Market Chart
April 9, 2009 - 7:52 am - Posted by Sean
Remember that study of video gamer habits Nielsen released earlier this week showing the Wii in third place and the Playstation 3 in seventh, last even after the GameCube and original Xbox? It was wrong.
Fast Company reports that they’ve been told that the graph was mislabeled. The real graph, which now appears in the official report and in the image above, shows that the Wii is in second place, after the PS2, for console usage and the PS3 is in fifth place, beating out the GameCube and original Xbox.
Whoops. I hope there aren’t any other mistakes in the oft-cited, typically trusted data. Reached for comment this morning, a Nielsen representative said the report does not contain any other errors.
Source: Fast Company
Posted in Industry News + PS3 + Wii + Xbox 360
Report: Average Game Console Usage
April 8, 2009 - 7:55 am - Posted by Sean
The Nielsen group has released a new report on usage of the three major consoles.
Coming as little surprise, Nielsen’s study has placed Wii in dead last, with the average player using the console 6.8 percent of the time during Nielsen’s study in December, 2008.
During that same period, those involved in the study played Xbox 360 10.2 percent and PS3 10.6 percent — nearly double the Wii average. Clearly, the average gamer doesn’t have the endurance necessary for long-term waggling.
Nintendo Wii also ranked the lowest in average days used over the course of the study, with users only partaking an average of 5 days.
The Sony PS3 ranked second place, with users spending an average of 6.8 days days, which leaves us with Xbox 360, the top dog in this category with an average of 7.1 days.
Lastly, Nielsen tracked the daily average number of sessions, and, again, Wii was last with 1.78 sessions, whereas the Xbox 360 and PS3 had much higher averages of 2.15 and 2.74 sessions, respectively.
So, the question is, how would you rank your gaming console usage?
Source: Nielsen report
Posted in Industry News + PS3 + Wii + Xbox 360
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Sony PSP Rock Band Unplugged Trailer
April 8, 2009 - 7:12 am - Posted by Sean
Rock Band Unplugged will be available in the US and Europe on June 9, making this the first Rock Band game to be released in both regions during the same six-month period on a Sony system:
There’s no word on a European price yet, but Americans will need to part with $39.99 USD in order to grab the game.
A limited edition PSP package will also be released on June 9 and will include Rock Band Unplugged, a download voucher for School of Rock, a 4GB memory stick and a Piano Black PSP for $199.99 USD.
Rock Band Unplugged will be the first PSP title to have a “fully-featured in-game store,” which will feature several songs such as:
- 3 Doors Down – “Kryptonite”
- AFI – “Miss Murder”
- Alice in Chains – “Would?”
- Audioslave – “Gasoline”
- Black Tide – “Show Me the Way”
- Blink 182 – “What’s My Age Again”
- Freezepop – “Less Talk More Rokk”
- Jackson 5 – “ABC”
- Tenacious D – “Rock Your Socks”
The above music tracks will be made available exclusively for a limited time before being released across the entire Rock Band platform, and yes, your existing PlayStation Network ID will be supported.
Turn 8-Bit NES music into Rock Band tracks
April 7, 2009 - 12:22 pm - Posted by Sean
Insignificant Studios’ 8bitar Hero procedurally generates four Rock Band patterns from the audio of someone playing an emulated NES game, all in real-time.
8BITar Hero is basically Rock Band except with a Nintendo emulator generating the music and levels. Taken from the 8BITar Hero website:
Gameplay levels that are procedurally generated from the act of playing a game. One person plays NES games on an emulator, others play a Rock-Band game with levels that are generated algorithmically from the audio code of the NES game. The focus here is the generative nature of the game, and the process by which the levels are created.
So this is basically filed under “something I had no idea I wanted to do, until I realized I had the opportunity to do it”.