Toy’s R Us Find’s Wii Profitable

The success of the Nintendo console, the Wii, has proven to change the industry in many new and creative ways including reinvigorating slow product sales at Toys R Us. “The company went from a loss of $42 million at the same time last year to a profit of $13 million for the three months ended August 2nd,” says Gamasutra who spoke with CEO Gerald Storch.

Revenue was up 6.3%, in part, thanks to the Nintendo and its hot moving Wii and Wii Fit products. While Nintendo struggles to supply enough units for the strong demand, Toys R Us has no problem emptying their stores of any hardware they receive.

Months after the Wii launch we witnessed parents waiting in lines before the store opens just to see if they had Wii’s arrive for the opening. Although we’re sure it was a hassle to answer the phones with the typical response, “no, we’ve got no Wii’s in stock,” the long term plan has proven successful.

Have you finally managed to get yourself a Wii? Did you pick it up at Toys R Us?

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Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?

I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.

linkNow even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?

You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.

Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.

Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.

Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.

Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?

Episode 668: Elon Musk’s Twitter FailureEpisode 668: Elon Musk’s Twitter Failure

Twitter continues to be a tire fire, as does cryptocurrency. One wonders when either one will shuffle off the stage and fade into obscurity. Both seem to have become synonymous with chaos and instability, and it feels like there’s a new scandal or controversy every week. Twitter, under Elon Musk’s leadership, has faced constant changes in policy, mass layoffs, and a significant dip in user trust, making it increasingly difficult to see a clear path forward for the platform. Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, seems to have become more about speculation and volatility than about real-world utility or widespread adoption. While the promise of decentralized finance and digital currencies seemed promising, the market’s swings, coupled with major scandals like the collapse of FTX, have left many questioning whether crypto will ever truly deliver on its early hype. Secure Cryptocurrency Trading platforms provides secure environments for users to trade and manage their digital assets. It feels like both industries are desperately clinging to relevance, hoping to regain their former glory, but with each new misstep, they drift further from the ideals they once espoused. Anyway, lots of news this week, along with a Gaming Flashback of Dishonored.

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