This week’s episode is full of news that aren’t described below, as the games the guys have played get a lot of analysis.
The news, incidentally, includes:
Let us know what you think.
One of the greatest things Nintendo has done was allowing the DS to be unlocked for regions. This allowed gamers around the world to share their favorite games from all cultures and countries with just a click of the “buy” button at an online store.
The DSi loses this great freedom by locking it down to a region. “Nintendo DS software is region free so you can play any DS software on DSi from any region. You can also browse the internet on your DSi wherever you are in the world and exchange your photos with friends from around the world,” says Nintendo (CVG).
Much like the US Entertainment Industries need to lock down everything and contribute to global piracy, Nintendo follows suit with their hand-helds, tis a sad day indeed. Of course Nintendo reasons it all away by yelling parental controls and making it easier for regions to access their own content.
“DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit.”
Specifically tailored for each region is a nice way of saying that each region has to pay the penalty of not being “first” (second, or third) to get some cool new features. Although Nintendo could put emphasis on the region the gamer lives in with complete access out of those bounds if they wanted, they’ve chosen to use this as a crutch to lock users out of content.
Users will get their content, of course. It just means more home brews, software hacks, hardware hacks and workarounds for the system. If that’s what Nintendo is trying to inspire, then they’ve done their job right.
However, wouldn’t it be great if they could just come out and say “we don’t want certain people accessing specific content until we say you can.”
Konami’s working on Rock Revolution in a battle of the band… games, against Rock Band and the Guitar Hero franchise. Activision, now, may be attacking Konami’s current dancing title Dance Dance Revolution with a new dancing franchise known as Dance Hero.
The US Patent and Trademark Office now has on file, an application by Activision to trademark “Dance Hero.” This news doesn’t solidify any real title but tell us their design teams are kicking around some new ideas to attack their competitors turf.
In January 2007, Activision trademarked “Guitar Villain” and “Drum Villain”, with no sign of a game bearing either handle having yet surfaced. This past February, it locked down rights to the title “DJ Hero” without announcing a new product, although rumors of a turntable-based mash-up game bearing the name are beginning to bubble up. (gamespot)
Does another dancing game sound interesting?
This week’s podcast is full of Android-based console goodness – or badness, depending on your opinion of them. This week’s Gaming History looks at the Nintendo GameCube.
This week’s news includes:
All this and Listener Feedback, as well as the Question of the Week: “What is your favorite first person shooter of all time?”
