So! Between the Tokyo Press Conference and the North American conference in San Francisco today, Nintendo announced the hell out of a storage solution for the Wii. Currently fans are expected to delete titles or transfer them to SD cards.
Nintendo's solution to the inadequacy of SD cards is going to be... more SD card support. Nintendo is announcing a firmware upgrade for the Wii this spring that will include driver support for downloading games and DLC (presumably) directly to SD cards. Material downloaded directly SD or copied to SD after the upgrade will be playable directly from the SD card with no need to transfer it to the Wii's internal hard drive. Presumably the driver upgrade will also make it possible to not, you know, need an hour to transfer TG-CD games to an SD card.
This isn't at all the hard drive people were wanting, but it will make ravenous consumers of WiiWare, DLC, and Virtual Console titles possibly maybe a little bit happier. That said, if you didn't want to invest in SD cards, between this and the DSi, you're screwed.
Possibly the biggest news out of the long-awaited Tokyo Press Conference is the official unveiling of the next model of Nintendo DS, the DSi. The DSi sacrifices the GBA slot, 12% of its thickness, and about 1/3rd of its battery life to gain internal flash memory, an SD card slot, 3.25" screens (improved from the DS Lite's 3"), a .3 megapixel (640 x 480) camera, built-in internet browser, WPA/WPA2 wireless support, and compatibility with the new DSi Store. The Japanese price of the DSi is set for 18,900 yen, or about $180 U.S.
The DSi Store is going to be the portable counterpart of the Wii Shopping Channel, offering games for download with prices ranging from free to about 800 Nintendo (formerly Wii) points. Currently the only games announced for the DSi Store are remakes of the two Brain Age games, but the DSi itself won't be launching in North America until "well into" (i.e., "probably November") 2009. That gives Nintendo a chance to get a lot of Western developers involved in developing DSi Store titles, as they did with WiiWare.
Usually I do review round-ups for titles that I think are important or highly anticipated. In the case of Drawn to Life: Spongebob Squarepants Edition, I am motivated primarily by a profound sense of futility and despair. The message THQ sends by publishing this game is clear: 5th Cell's original idea didn't sell, the clever technology and design be damned. Spongebob sells, so a new developer named Altron gets to cannibalize the original Drawn to Life to create a Spongebob-themed sequel.
This is the kind of thing that usually makes me want to crawl into a bottle and engage in some hardcore existential depression. But, you know, maybe I'm being pointlessly melodramatic here. Maybe Drawn to Life: Spongebob Squarepants Edition is going to make some little kid really happy, or maybe it pairs the licensed IP up with the basics of the Drawn to Life engine in a clever way. I don't think this is terribly likely since it's sitting at a mediocre 73% Metacritic rating, but I'll play the optimist and examine some reviews anyway.
Drawn to Life SpongeBob Squarepants Edition
Remember how Square-Enix promised a Wii Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles title at the E3 where the Wii was officially unveiled, distinct from the WiiWare FFCC we got in My Life as King? Remember how a bunch of rumor sites talked about the Wii FFCC being dead? Well, it's not.
The latest issue of the original Shounen Jump announced Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes for Time for the Wii and DS, set to street in Japan on January 29th. Both versions appear to feature Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection play that allows DS and Wii players to interact together online. The Wii and DS SKUs are also going to feature some kind of compatibility. The offered example is allowing players who own both Echoes of Time versions to move their Mii to their DS game.
Wi-Fi support was the most crucial feature missing from the otherwise-excellent Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates on DS. A multiplayer Final Fantasy that somehow supported both DS and Wii online play sounds like a tremendous improvement.
After months of worry about the game being lost in development hell, Level-5's Dragon Quest IX is now confirmed for Japanese release in March of 2009. That means it's safe to say the game is complete and, probably, in the pre-production phases of its inevitable localization.
Dragon Quest IX is debuting on the Nintendo DS, and is set to be both the first portable-only and multiplayer-focused entry in the Dragon Quest series. More information about the title is very likely to surface at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, where a 90-minute Dragon Quest presentation is scheduled.
Dragon Quest IX: Guardians of the Starry Sky
The results of Game Developer Magazine's 2008 "Top Publisher" Ranking are in, and the winner is once again Nintendo. Revenue is surging from a catalog of huge releases like Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, Brain Age 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit. Nintendo received the best scores overall in the reputation surveys that also influence rankings. Consumers are happy to see Nintendo expanding the market and developers seem to enjoy working with Nintendo.
For reference, here's the rest of the publisher rankings:
- 2. Electronic Arts
- 3. Activision
- 4. Ubisoft
- 5. Sony Computer Entertainment
- 6. Take Two Interactive
- 7. Sega
- 8. THQ
- 9. Microsoft
- 10. Square-Enix
- 11. Konami
- 12. Vivendi Games
- 13. Namco Bandai
- 14. Capcom
- 15. NCSoft
- 16. Disney Interactive Studios
- 17. LucasArts
- 18. Codemasters
- 19. SCI/Eidos
- 20. Midway
Take this article with a grain of salt, folks. I have a hard time believing the hardcore gamer is really excluded in an industry where last week's big event was a nails-hard 8-bit Mega Man title. That said, Forbes is looking at the very real financial implications of the gaming industry's shift from hardcore-focused titles to casual-focused titles.
Nintendo, of course, deserves a lot of the credit for attracting noncore gamers to the industry. While there were a trickle of new players coming into the industry before the Wii hit shelves, that has since turned into a torrent.
"I think [Nintendo] will be the first to tell you they have not expanded gaming households, but they have expanded the number of people in the household who are playing," says Kathy Vrabeck, president of Electronic Arts' Casual Entertainment division. "The core consumer & represents a smaller percentage of users--but the lion's share of the revenue dollars--but the growth is coming from the casual consumer."
Wii Music
I've passed on most of the "new DS" rumors, which were way too insubstantial to convince me anything would come out of 'em. Now we've finally got some information solid enough that Reuters is willing to report on it, so it's time to dish on the for-real new DS.The original source is the Nikkei business daily, and Nintendo has staunchly denied that the article represents anything but Nikkei's own conjecture.
Reuters reports the "new" DS is going to be very much like the old one, but is going to have a built-in camera and is going to support some form of music playback. How data storage will be handled is unrevealed, but my money is on SD card support or an Apple-style internal hard drive. The estimated price for the new DS is about 20,000 yen, or roughly $189 dollars US. Note that there are a lot of other rumors flying about what other features the new DS may or may not support (like larger screens or GBA playback), but right now it's probably best to take a wait and see approach on the whole thing.
.
As you may have gathered reading this week's posts, basically everyone at this blog loves Mega Man 9. It's not enough just to play it, it's gotten to the point where we need to wear it. Capcom is happy to oblige by offering official Mega Man 9 t-shirts for pre-order at the Capcom Store, with the shirts set to ship out on September 30. The shirts use the mind-blowingly awefulsome 1987-awful "box art" Capcom is using for all of Mega Man 9's promotion.
Now, while these shirts are rad, I would note that the shirt's "Black finely-spun 100% cotton thread assembled with proprietary MegaWeave" technology" does not actually "provide improved gaming performance in Mega Man® 9 and all other Capcom titles". While wearing this shirt, chances are you will still suck as much at Mega Man 9 as you did before.
This is adorable and confusing! One of the latest promotional videos for Sony's upcoming PS3 create-a-platformer, LittleBIGPlanet, showcases... uh, a roughly remade version of World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. Yet, yes, it's very cute and delightful, but this is about as weird as that Malaysian PS3 launch where they played the Zelda theme. Anyway, LittleBIGPlanet streets on October 21 and appears to be one of the few good reasons left to own a PS3. I may be giving it a try if I can find time in the Great Q4 Game Blizzard of '08.
Dack (5)
Dave Rudden (1)
KouAidou (9)
Sardius (97)