Archive for November, 2006:
Wii Injuries Website
There is a new website out there that records recent Wii injuries, broken electronics, and household items that have been broken by the use of the Wii. The site includes pictures of damaged items and humorous Wii comics and images. The blog is called “Wii Have A Problem.”
The welcome message reads:
“Wii have a problem” is a blog focused on bringing you the latest trend in gaming violence. That of damaged electronic loved ones caused from Wii related activities. Why? Because we’re fanboys that’s why.
The blog even has a damage toll separated in the following categories:
Broken Straps: 10
Televisions: 6
Laptops: 2
Walls: 1
Ceiling Fans: 1
PDAs: 1
Windows: 1
I wonder when the human injury pictures will start flooding in…
Halo 3 Beta Sign Up On Monday
Bungie will allow all North American Halo fans to sign up for the Halo 3 beta on Monday, although only a fraction will be selected. The site halo3.com will be open for registrations on Monday, while the beta will start sometime in the spring of 2007. Bungie will test the multiplayer part of the game, and use feedback to tweak the final product.
In addition, Bungie and Microsoft also revealed that the new Halo 3 commercial will air on ESPN during Monday Night Football, and on Xbox.com for the rest of the world. It will be released on Xbox Live Marketplace shortly thereafter.
Namco Needs Big Sales For PS3 Profit
Namco President Takeo Takasu has said that Namco will need to sell at least 500,000 copies of its games worldwide in order to gain a profit. Takasu says that the price of the graphics alone for Namco, based in Japan, is one billion yen. That is the equivalent of 6.5 million Euro or 8.6 million US Dollars. This, according to developers and analysts, is over double the amount that graphics for the Wii would cost. Worldwide shortages of the PS3 is not just a big problem for gamers, but developers, as Namco’s two PS3 games, Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, have only sold only 22,000 each.
Call Of Duty 3: Xbox 360 vs PS3 vs Wii
[gv data="http://www.youtube.com/v/IzlH6beTrn4" width="450" height="350"][/gv]
This is an interesting video of all consoles running the same game at around the same areas. Obviously the Wii won’t look as good, but it has its moments, as do the 360 and PS3 versions, naturally.
Parents Willing To Give Up Their Kid For A PS3?
Reports coming out of Minnesota radio station KDWB-FM 101.3 indicate that parents were willing to give up their own children for 24 hours in exchange for a Playstation 3. That’s right, these parents were willing to give a complete stranger their own children for 24 hours. Now, some people did realize it was a gag when they called in, but others thought it was for real. More than a dozen people called into the radio station. The radio show’s host at the time, Dave Ryan, said that they “got more calls then they could handle.” A quote from Twincities.com:
“People with babies of all ages — including a 2-day-old and a 1-week-old — made it on air. One of the more serious sounding calls came from a woman named “Katie,” who agreed to give up her 1-month-old for three days. She wanted to sell the PS3 on eBay to make some extra money for the holidays.”
After the radio show hosts were done with their prank, and announced that it was just a joke, “Katie” apparently called back, saying, “So, does that mean I don’t get the PlayStation?”
Read (Twincities.com)
Top 10 PC Games For Week Of Nov. 18th
NPD Research has just released a list of the top selling PC games for the week ending on November 18th. The Sims 2 took 3 of the 10 spots, with Blizzard and Sega, as well as others, making showings as well. Here is the full list:
- The Sims 2 Pets – Electronic Arts
- Medieval 2: Total War – Sega
- World of Warcraft – Blizzard
- Neverwinter Nights 2 – Atari
- Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe – Microsoft
- EverQuest II: Echoes of Faydwer – Sony Online
- Battlefield 2142 – Electronic Arts
- Call of Duty 2 – Activision
- The Sims 2 – Electronic Arts
- The Sims 2: Happy Holiday Stuff – Electronic Arts
Blizzard Announces WoW Stat Tracking
Today, Blizzard announced a new feature for their insanely popular MMO, World of Warcraft. The new stat tracking system that allows players to track activity on the server over the past seven days. There a are plethora of trackable stats, which are listed below:
- Bestsellers — the most auctioned items
- Crafter’s Corner — the most created items
- Fierce Creatures — the most dangerous enemies in WoW (i.e., the creatures that are killing the most players on a given day)
- Gold Rush — the most gathered items
- Big Booty — the most looted items (drops from creatures in the game)
- Heroes for Hire — the most completed quest on a given day
You can check out the stats here.
Prey Coming to a Steam Near You
In an announcement posted on the Official Steam Website, Valve has just released information that the supernatural shooter Prey will be released Thursday on Valve’s Steam content delivery service. The price will be $49.95, however, people who already own a copy of Prey will be able to simply enter their product key to activate the Steam version for free.
Earlier this month Medieval 2: Total War and Dark Messiah Might And Magic were released on Steam as well, both are retailing for $49.95.
Read (FiringSquad)
Gameboy Has One Holiday Left
Speaking to Reuters this Wednesday, Nintendo president, Reggie Fils-Aime, has said that he expects to see one more holiday in the Gameboy’s console life cycle.
“We think that Game Boy Advance certainly has at least one more holiday season left in it. For us, it continues to be a great stepping stone for five-, six-, seven-year-old consumers to have their first great handheld gaming experience and then transition right into DS,” Fils-Aime told the Reuters Media Summit in New York.
Of course, primary focus has switched to the Nintendo DS, but Reggie states that profits are still strong on both consoles, not just the DS. He concludes the talk by stating that black Friday weekend saw excellent sales of both handhelds.
“For as great a Black Friday weekend that we had on DS, we had just as good a selling season so far on Game Boy Advance,” he said.
Read (Reuters)
Crytek Might Leave Germany
Following the shooting at a public school last week, where a former student (and supposedly a Counter-Strike player) walked in and shot several children, the German government is looking to ban violent shooters, titles like Half Life and Crysis. German developer Crytek (Far Cry, Crysis) spoke about the issue in an interview, where CEO Cevat Yerli said if the new law was passed, Crytek would leave Germany. Currently the developer employs some 130 people, most of them working on Crysis.
Via 1UP
Wii On Track To Meet Target
At the Reuters summit, Reggie Fils Aime has stated that they are on track to meeting their target, of 4 million Wiis shipped globally before the year’s end.
“All systems are go for reaching the 4-million target we have in our financials by Dec. 31,” Reggie said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York. “We will sell everything we make so now it’s simply a manufacturing thing.”
Strong Nintendo sales figures have already been released, with over 600,00 consoles sold in North America, eight days after launch. Nintendo made and estimated $190 million during those 8 days. If Wii console sales continue this way, coupled with strong sales of the DS Lite, Nintendo will be having the best financial year in history.
Read (Reuters)
Xbox 360 Vs. PS3 At The Apollo In NYC
H3Enterprises has announced that they will be doing a “Gaming Console Challenge” in Harlem, New York, at the Apollo Theater. The competition will take place on H3’s revolutionary H3TV, the only high-definition flat screen that allows players to simultaneously compete on both gaming systems through split screen cyber television technology. The H3TV is a 46 inch LCD Flat Screen. Adrian Walton, H3Enterprises chief communications officer, had this to say. “The H3TV Challenge gives all of us the chance to witness the same game being played on the same monitor at the same time on competing video gaming systems.” No word on what games will be played, but Walton did say that the event would be “decisive in determining whether Xbox 360 or PlayStation3 rules the cyber sports world.” Of course at this point it stinks a bit too much of PR and marketing for H3, but we’ll see how things turn out.
Read (Teamxbox.com)
Upcoming N-Gage To Work On 5-7 Phones
The N-Gage, a console/phone hybrid developed by Nokia hardly gets a look in nowadays. The launch of the console was disastrous, and sales were were even worse. Nokia boss Jaakko Kaidesoja has been talking in an interview about the next-gen N-gage. He states that 5-7 phones will be able to play the games at launch.
“We are planning to support something like 5-7 devices when we launch,” he says. “Some of them are already being sold today, in fact. So if you have one of those devices, you’ll just have to go to our website, download the application to your phone. It’s like any Series 60 application, and it works.”
He didn’t mention which phones will support the games, however he did talk about how connectivity is a key part of the next-gen N-Gage system.
“On N-Gage, the N-Gage Arena community was one of the early success stories,” he says. “There was a handful, well, a small amount anyway, of people who really loved that. And now if you look at Web 2.0 and what’s going on there, more and more people are sharing different kinds of experiences with each other – photos, videos, blogging. So why not games?”
Read (Pocket Gamer)
Wii-like PC
PC maker Shuttle has just released a rather Wii-looking ultra small PC, named XPC X100. The shape and size is a lot like the Nintendo Wii, and it even features the same type of CD/DVD drive. The PC is powered either by an Intel Celeron M or the more powerful Core Duo CPU, up to 2 GB RAM and a standard hard drive. The graphics are powered by a Radeon X1400, so all in all the X100 is far more powerful than the Wii, but it will set you back anywhere from $800 to $1000.
More info on the official site.
Illinois Bill Still a No-Go
Despite Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s best efforts, his newest bill aimed to ban the sale of mature games to young people was deemed unconstitutional. Blagojevich attempted to appeal the ruling, but this was also shot down. According to the local radio station WIFR,
the US Court of Appeals in Chicago examined the appeal’s merit, concluding the bill “was not written carefully enough” and upholding the previous decision.
In a related, and somewhat ironic set of events, the Entertainment Software Association has taken Blagojevich to court over legal fees related to fighting the previously proposed legislation.
Read (1UP)