The Calm Before The Storm, Why No News?

Journalists and bloggers around the Net are doing whatever they can to scrape up news on the gaming industry. What’s the deal, it’s a Monday and nobody in the gaming industry has anything really big to announce, talk about or “leak” onto this here Interwebs?

Sure, we can read about a 7 year old’s request for game design tips for Little Big Planet, more than enough DSi news beating down the same door over and over or pour through pages upon pages of Warhammer Online reviews. But, where is the news?

Here is some news for you: nobody wants to make waves in the game industry right now. Consumers around the globe are looking for what is hot and what is not for the holiday rush. Parents are watching their children and looking to see what they’re talking about to build an internal memory of this years wish list of items. Maybe a Wii Game or a DS game or a 360 console or perhaps the PS3.

Moms and Dads are looking at the entertainment industry to find the best bargains and deals so we can stow away our tech toys in closets, basements and attics for holiday mornings. You don’t have to celebrate Christmas to be looking for great game deals this holiday season.

The last thing a game developer or console manufacturer wants to do is accidentally talk about a near-future project, price drop or game delay. One reason why Microsoft will not discuss any rumors on a slim 360 or why Nintendo hasn’t committed on a DSi release date for North America yet is because they do not want consumer hesitation when they should be spending spending spending!

The game industry has given us E3, PAX and other events with the only last minute news coming out of TGS soon; this will discuss the far reaching future of the game industry. For today, gamers have gotten the news and reviews for the upcoming game releases; it is time for them to put their money where their mouth is and buy all this crap.

Game titles are arriving weekly, the hype is done and it’s time for us to buy into it or walk away from it. We’re going to be bombarded with “need to have” games with a very slim wallet (thank the banks and their inability to loan money to qualified people) and we’re going to have to pick and choose what we’re prepared to buy.

Let’s face it, we’re going to be having some serious problems in the future if every game developer and publisher is going to push out all their best titles in the span of two months while we sit awaiting great games for 10-months. This model isn’t going to scale if the industry is going to continue to grow. Pretty soon we’re going to have to save a few titles for the holidays and give us a well rounded selection of titles for the full year.

Until then, we’re going to have to sit in silence while publishers and developers cross their fingers that the right game choices have been made, reviewers write good reviews and consumers eat it up. We’re expecting news for current projects to be light from here on out.

Hopefully TGS ’08 will give us something to look forward to for next holiday season ’09.

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This week’s topics include:

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Was 2010 the best year for games in the 2010’s? Let us know.

Tales of Vesperia: Xbox 360 Outsells PS3 In JapanTales of Vesperia: Xbox 360 Outsells PS3 In Japan

Sony’s been talking about how they’ve overtaken the Xbox 360 here in the States, perhaps this is because Microsoft shifted their attention to pwning them in Japan? Xbox 360 sold 25,000 units to PlayStation 3‘s minor 9,673 units according to Edge Online, that’s 2.5 times more if you’re into that math thing.

Seriously though, Microsoft didn’t really shift any effort, they just got a Japanese style game called Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai. Go figure, when a Japanese focused game arrives for a console Japanese gamer will go out and buy it.

The big barrier to the 360 in Japan is the games and their contents. Microsoft is in tune with the needs and demands of the United States gamers, it usually involves FPS titles and excessive killing. Japanese gamers are not exactly huge FPS fans, we’ve seen the Asian community dominate in RTS style games (Starcraft is a great example) and they’ve always had interest in MMO’s, especially micro-transaction based games and we all know that’s the land of Final Fantasy. Is it so surprising the Xbox 360 moves off Japanese shelves when they have a game or two the gamers actually want to play?

This is only partly Microsoft’s fault, Microsoft doesn’t specialize in Japanese games anymore than Square Enix excels at western style games. The big difference? Square Enix doesn’t manufacturer its own console hardware. It is Microsoft’s console and they should have an interest in making games the Japanese people will like, thankfully Namco Bandai came through for them this time!

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Unlike Japan, Nintendo has not invaded the entire home consumer market here in the United States. This leads them to believe there is room for both the DS and the DSi here in the United States. The DS will no doubt be a cheaper alternative to the DSi and the DSi isn’t going to make its way to the US for some time now (well into 2009 we hear).

Right now we’re still working through what the strategy’s going to be here. But we think that there’s huge untapped potential for the DS Lite. Because when you’ve got only one in every five households in the U.S., compared to one in every two in Japan, it says there’s potential.

You’ve seen some of the work we’ve done this year with celebrities, that we’re bringing a lot of new consumers in to the DS. So I think there’s opportunity for both of them to coexist for some period of time. (kotaku)

We all though the DS was taking over the market, apparently it’s going a long way to go. Nintendo probably feels the DSi may take some of the market share for the original hand held so they’re going to keep them both in the market, initially. No doubt, the DSi will eventually out-live the DS over time, but there is no reason to take the DS out of the US market until the market dominance dies off.