This week comments on the crapshow that is going on with most of the third party publishers. That, and some updates to games that people really care about.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
If you’re looking to get into a new guild of über casual gamers, gamingpodcast.net‘s new guild is looking for you! We’d love some of the gaming podcast fans to jump into our PvE (RP) realm at Scarlet Crusade!
The guild is new and, although we’ve transferred some higher level characters to Scarlet Crusade, there is nothing saying you can’t start new (some of us have anyway). The guild is new, so new we’re still looking for six more signatures on the petition.
The guild name is: Fallen Souls and we’re on the Horde side of the battle. We’re setting up some gaming podcast forums this weekend and will have a section for our guild Fallen Souls to chat as well.
If you’d like to join, comment on this post or send us contact us and we’ll setup a time to login and get you into the guild!! If you jump in, add Säyde, VogelRetter and Birgwraith to your friends list and whisper me!
When you’ve had a bit too much to drink, there are two choices: move on to tequila shots or… Mario Party for the Wii! Mario Party is amazingly fun when you’ve had a few too many drinks while sober it’s mearly “meh.”
Now, Ubisoft is trying to capture the drinking demographic, or more appropriately, the party crowd. The goal is to create a mini-game set created for partying and having fun with your Nintendo console. Enter, Play Zone, a new mini-game collection for the Wii.
Do we need yet more mini-game collections for the Wii?
“With our new Play Zone party titles, the Wii gamers who like to spend time with friends and family will have fun with the Wii through innovative and involving mini-games,” said John Parkes, Ubisoft’s EMEA marketing director. (next-gen)
Again, more “innovative mini-games” in our future? Ubisoft knows how to make a quick buck on casual games, no doubt, with their Petz franchise doing a killing for very simplistic games (which my daughter finds extremely fun).
The idea of more mini-games is slightly cringing but we do so enjoy a drunk game of Mario Party… maybe this is a good move.
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!
