Dead Rising is being ported to the Nintendo Wii, only two years after the original title. In Japan, they’ve changed the name to Dead Rising: Zombies Sacrifice, perhaps to make it sound like a different game.
The game, in fact, is said to have some difference from the original title. These changes are ‘upgrades’ from the original title based on feedback from consumers. Rather than simply reissuing the same game, “in addition to a revised story structure, the Wii version of Dead Rising will feature new enemies and items, as well as a behind-the-shoulder camera system modeled after Resident Evil 4” (1up)
Fixing the camera and adding some new monsters is enough to give the game the subtitle Zombies Sacrifice. They’ve included full waggle support for the controller allowing you to kill zombies with the greatest of ease, but… it’s still killing zombies…
Does anyone care?
If you’ve ever been through an acquisition or merger you’d have expected this news to come, but for those new to the concept it’s simple: you can’t keep everyone. After a complete merger you end up with two sales departments, two IT departments, etc.
Microsoft’s fast to push out their press release, probably hoping to overshadow any reports Sony may be releasing for sales numbers. At this point, we’ll have to believe their press release as fact until someone proves it otherwise; Microsoft would hate to be caught in a lie. Unfortunately, NPD figures aren’t collected in Europe so we have to wait for all the other metric gathering companies to release final December 2007 figures.