Episode 509: Heatwave LA

This week was a hot time for Jonah — really hot time as Los Angeles was sweltering and the Arctic was literally on fire. However, that didn’t stop the crew from doing the podcast (albeit a day late), though the news was a bit thin again.

The news items for the week include:

  • The C64 Mini is coming to North America on October 9
  • Datamined logo offers more evidence Taiko Drum Master for Switch is coming West
  • Next Xbox will focus on “XCloud” game streaming
  • GOG: Classic console games “might be possible”

The Question of the Week: “What little known game did you love?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 509: Heatwave LA”

  1. I saw articles about the C64 Mini a while ago, but hearing you talk about it got me really psyched. I forgot about all those fun games.

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Nintendo Takes Yet Another Month in United StatesNintendo Takes Yet Another Month in United States

The holiday season is over, the NPD sales data for January 2008 is in and we see a common theme: Nintendo rules the show. While Sony continues to try and persuade gamers that the PlayStation 3 is in a completely different gaming category, statistic gathering companies like NPD put ’em all in one big basket.

wiifitIt makes sense for Sony to try to push themselves away from being classified with the Wii console because it makes them look bad. We’re all equal gamers here, there is no need to break into more sub-categories when only three consoles vying for top spot. Many folks (including us) criticize the slow adoption rate of Wii games, yet they steal top software sales spots as well.

  • Wii — 679,200
  • Nintendo DS — 510,800
  • Xbox 360 — 309,000
  • PlayStation 3 — 203,200
  • PlayStation Portable — 172,300
  • PlayStation 2 — 101,200

Thankfully Sony’s PlayStation 3 product took top spot on their hardware list, so that’s not so bad. Sadly, combining all Sony’s hardware still doesn’t meet the units of the Wii.

On the software sales front, Nintendo took six of the top ten positions including position’s one, two and three. Wii Fit takes number one position with an insane 777,000 units sold. The only closest product to Wii Fit was Wii Play (still!) with 415,000 units sold. Place four was held by a 360 title, Left 4 Dead sold 243,000 units.

Although many gamers haven’t turned on their Wii in ages, there is no doubt the market is red hot for Wii. At this point, we’re all wondering how long it will last — any predictions? It’s already been a long time.

DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…

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.”