All That Nerdy Stuff » Nintendo

Well this is funny: PS-Thriimote anyone?

The Web N3rd — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:22:53 +0000

When Sony announced their very own evolution of the Wii Remote this year at E3, nobody was particularly surprised. After all, even Microsoft joined the fray with it’s no-controller motion controller system, Project Natal (oh, but for a cooler name), and let’s face it: Nintendo’s more than proven that motion control in some form is the way forward for video game interaction. At this point, it would be more shocking if the big boys didn’t leap in and try to parrot Nintendo; after all, they’ve managed to nearly outsell the two combined.

With that said, I can’t claim to have seen this one coming: The Wii Remote…now for Playstation 3. Luckily Sony’s not exactly behind this (it’s coming from Blaze Products Europe), because oh how the fanboys would howl. No doubt there’s a collective sigh of relief at Sony HQ today, the kind that comes with the ability to smile and say “wasn’t us!” As you can see from the diagram at left, the new “BLAZE PS3™ Motion Freedom 3D Controller” (yeah, I copied and pasted, so sue me) is virtually identical to the Wii Remote, with the sole exception being the addition of a ton of buttons (wonder how often they’ll get pressed by your palm while swinging a virtual tennis racket or baseball–err, cricket bat).

The description isn’t clear as to whether it has a pointer functionality to it or not, nor does it tell us whether it has the full range of detection found in the Wii’s Motion Plus adapter, so we’ll just have to sit on our hands and wait for more info. In the meantime…sit back and chuckle a bit as the “fad” migrates to the “big boy” consoles.

All That Gaming Stuff launches!

Jason Ward — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:28:10 +0000

We’ve been swamped the last week or so as we prepare for the launch of our new sister site, All That Gaming Stuff. While we occasionally cover games industry related news (and generalized bitching) here, the new site will focus exclusively on games news and reviews and Industry chatter. We’ll shortly be launching a new Gamer’s community on the new site where you can drop by and shout out what you think about all the latest comings and goings in the industry!

Welcome to the fold, ATGS, we look forward to a long and fruitful run!

UBISoft thinks new consoles in 2011ish–and they’re probably right

Jason Ward — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:18:55 +0000

It probably seems like premature nerdjaculation to begin speculating about the Next Generation of gaming consoles at this point; PS3 and Wii have scarcely been on the market for 2 years and 360 has just broken 3. Even so, that hasn’t stopped a little speculation from happening, not the least of which has come from UBISoft’s Yves Guillimot who, quoted in an article on GamesIndustry.biz, has stated that his company is preparing for the next generation to arrive in the 2011-2012 time frame.

As you should expect, there are naysayers, and some of them have good reason say nay, but they’re still wrong. The logic goes like this: “Well Sony says PS3 will last 10 years!”. Yes, and they said that about PS2, and that appears likely to be the case–but that didn’t stop Sony from announcing PS3 just 5 years after PS2 launched, and launching just a year later (that’s 6 years, folks, and if you use both hands worth of fingers to count you’ll find that 2012 will be-you guessed it-6 years after the launch of PS3-and Wii for that matter). Moreover, Xbox 360 will be 6 years old in 2011. Simply put, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the next gen will launch-or at worst case scenario, be announced-by 2011-12.

While the present Toddlerific ages of the Current Gen consoles seem pretty young, reality is that technology moves at a breakneck pace and all three systems were behind the curve the day they launched (especially Wii when it comes to graphics processing). The advancement of technology waits for no one, but who will be first off the line with a new system? Will Microsoft follow the path of Xbox 1 and leap forward 4 years in? Given the success of Xbox 360, that seems very unlikely, and coupled with a weak economy the reasons against this notion are easily doubled.

Will it be Sony? Will they drop something more consumer-and investor- friendly on the market sooner rather than later? Given their problems with PS3′s sales lagging at a distant third behind their competitors’ one might be tempted to assume an anxiousness to get this embarrassing generation behind them. However, the state of their finances (they just announced an estimated 3 billion dollar overall loss) coupled with the enormous costs of developing and selling the PS3 (which has already devoured all of PS2′s profits for the last 8+ years) make it unlikely that they could afford to launch a new console early even if they wanted to. I wholly suspect that both Microsoft and Sony will wait until the last possible moment to launch their new consoles and that they will continue to sell their current consoles for as long as possible. PS2′s continued success in spite of being 3 years deep into the succeeding generation has proven that such a model can work.

What strikes me as far more likely is that Nintendo will strike first in the Next Generation console war, and there are many reasons to support this theory. We’ll discuss these reasons and think out loud about the games industry’s future direction in a series of articles beginning on Monday, January 26th, 2009. I hope you’ll join me for a little review and discussion, and if you really must, a flamewar in the comments section. Just try to be civil if you can, please

Jeebus, 3 million Wii’s in a month?!

Jason Ward — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:55:02 +0000

Latest Update: Per yesterday’s release of the NPD numbers, analyst Michael Pachter was right about his 3 million figure, just wrong about which console. It was actually Nintendo’s DS that broke 3 million units during December, while Wii broke its own record for the second month running at 2.15 million units. Either way, it was a very Nintendo Christmas on the hardware front!

According to Mega Gaming site Gamestop GameSpot, At least one Analyst is calling Nintendo something akin to the Console Vendor that saved Christmas. Just why would they be nominated for such a seemingly…bizarre title? Well, folks, it seems that Nintendos little white box-o-waggle has moved a hefty 3.2 million units in December, besting the previous all-time sales record-just set by the Wii in November-of 2 million units.

If all these numbers line up the way some people are expecting them to, the Nintendo Wii has pretty much tied or surpassed entire year sales on either PS3 or 360 in a single month. We still have to wait for the official NPD numbers this Thursday for confirmation, but given the Trend for the last 2 years it would seem that having deep doubts is probably pretty pointless.

Man, thinking about that much waggle makes my groin hurt.