In this episode of Gaming Podcast, Jonah states he got to see Wreck It Ralph, while Paul still can’t find a black Wii U. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the 2002 Gamecube launch title Super Mario Sunshine.
This week’s news includes:
- The Lund Report: Black Friday 2012 NPD
- Nintendo Power’s last issue released
- Blizzard acquired ‘Project Blackstone‘ domain November 26th
- Rumor: Next gen Xbox coming Holiday 2013
- Dead Island: Riptide banned in Germany
All this and Reader Feedback, and the Question of the Week is, “Did you read many issues of Nintendo Power?”
Granted, there were other glossy magazines prized by young boys too, but we were old enough to purchase Electronic Gaming Monthly, now known as EGM by the hip and cool. Although EGM was founded in 1989, many adults between the age of 29 and 35 probably spent their youth flipping through the pages reading the reviews and editorials.
The game industry, like other entertainment avenues, is a risky business in which publishers have to pick titles they “predict” will do well in the market while passing on other “risky” propositions. While a the good ol’ shooter title will break sales records, the market cannot rely on one genre to carry the business especially considering many of these titles are forgotten within two months from launch. Publishers are going to be forced in expanding their reach to “family games” in order to finance new blockbuster titles.
The idea of designing a “family” game isn’t new to our industry, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the oldest cornerstones of video game entertainment. Pong, Centipede, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and many other classic titles were no doubt playable by the entire family, but things have changed. We’ve evolved from hit titles like Donkey Kong to hit titles like Halo. We migrated from 2D gaming to full 3D adventures and pixel graphics to pixel shaders, but where do we go next?
Many of us, Wave Race fans have been looking for a Wii wave racing title for a year now with no talk of expanding the franchise. We’ve got a Wii Fit board, we’ve got motion controls, the only thing we’re missing is Wave Race.
@ Black Friday 2012
I was pretty disappointed in how “Black Friday” was handled in Romania. Plenty of retailers increased the price a week before, so that they could do a 40% slash to get the price back to the old value.
@Nintendo Power’s last issue released
It also depends how many people want it. Here’s an example: our major cable provider decided to not renew the contract it had with Discovery Channel. Why? Because just 0.9% of the people watched it.
How many people read “Nintendo Power”?
@Blizzard acquired ‘Project Blackstone‘ domain
It could be a preventive buy, I guess. Still, not really hyped about it, Blizzard lost me since always-online DRM; last game I played from them was Warcraft III and Frozen Throne.
@Dead Island: Riptide banned in Germany
Funny though, there are plenty of games (not just Gears of War) where players blow other human-like character to bits, and those are still available in Germany.
But hey, what do I know, perhaps the baddies in those games bleed green goo …
@QOTW: No.
Not interested to comment on any of the news articles, I just came to ask: “Guess who has two thumbs and got the Wii U before Paul did?”. I did.
@QOTW: Never
Just found out about this podcast and was amused that there was a topic discussed, I just held a speech on in school. Censoring, banning etc. in Germany.
The USK is all right, they just rate the games like any other institue that rates games. The problem is the BPjM (the young protection thing you translated). They decide what gets banned and lands on the index etc. They’re not only after games, but after media in general. They just recently banned Steel Panther’s 1 year old album “Balls Out” for no reason given. Wrote them a mail (respectful, of course) and got no answer whatsoever. So did the German Metal Hammer-magazine. Same answer.
They ban whatever they want to. Sometimes there’s no system behind it. Dishonored came out here completely uncensored, this means I, as Corvo, can decapitate enemies and throw their heads around. Kinda humiliating to the corpse, isn’t it?
If anyone is interested in how cuts on games look like, I recommend http://www.schnittberichte.com
especially the Bulletstorm one.
QOTW: Never.
@QOTW:
Yeah… Nintendo World yes, Nintendo Power NO.
Nintendo World had the “Approved By Nintendo” seal, so, i bought them for a couple of years…