Waste 11 minutes of your life here

If you ever played Super Mario World on the SNES or a Mario fan in general, you may want to look at this cool, weird, disturbing and amazing video. If you are not a fan, do not hit play. If you do watch the whole thing, please comment because I'm speechless.

My little Wii boy grows up

Everyone is on Nintendo's case saying that it is a kiddie company. In part, Nintendo brought it on itself, what with the fake blood in SNES's Mortal Kombat (If you don't remember, you're too young). Nintendo throws loads of fluffy coloured themes of Mario, Zelda and Pokemon. Even Metroid which is more serious than the rest is rather clean.
Nintendo, being wise and learn from mistakes, saw what the Playstation did and acknowledged that gamers did indeed grow up (I for one am 30). We did see Resident Evil 4 come up on Wii. I did pick up that and it was amazing. But it was merely a rehash of an old PS2 game. No biggie, huh?
In come Ubisoft with their soon to be released "No More Heroes".
Think Grand Theft Auto but with lots of combat in it. This game is basically about a killer that enters a killers competition to deter main who's the best killer. By Killing them.
Have a look at the Video preview. Looks like something to keep an eye on.

Smash Brothers gets a Perfect Score

Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the highly anticipated Wii game recently got a perfect 40 score by Famitsu Magazine. Famitsu is a Japanese videogames publication that has pretty much accurate scores. 4 editors rate out of 10 and their ratings are added up to form the final score. In its lifetime, Famitsu gave 7 games only a perfect score. SSBB is their Eighth.
I hear good news of it and I read only good things. This game will be fully online, which is a major turn-on on its own. It is visited by then Nintendo enemy, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Time passes and I see Sonic next to Mario on a Nintendo machine. The shame.
Another Guest is Solid Snake of the Metal Gear Solid series that Konami produces. If anything, it means that several third parties are working with Nintendo in sort of like a "handshake". I reckon we will see more offerings from them in the future.
The video shown is Solid Snake using his codec. Snake usually talks to HQ in his Metal Gear Solid games, where they brief him and he reports back. But when he sees Wario, this is what happens.
More Codec movies can be found on the Smash Bros. DOJO!

Apollo Justice fully playable online Demo.

I suggested to you before that playing an Ace Attorney game on NDS is a great way to kill time in traffic jams. If you are unfamiliar with the Capcom's Ace Attorney series, here is a demo of the latest one.
The first three starred Phoenix Wright as an attorney. But this time, a new rookie, Apollo Justice, handles defense. This game is flash and you can play it directly from here. It is the entire first section of the first stage and is a full representation for the game which is due 18th Feb.
Enjoy!

George screws up traffic, go figure!

This morning was the most catastrophic morning commutes in a long time. My work day starts at 8, and I usually leave home by 7:30 and get there on time or 5 minutes late, tops.
So today, I get in at 9:13.
Do you have any idea how long have I been behind the wheel for what is normally a 30 minute drive?
Reason one being that it rained lightly, and Bahrainis usually skate over wet roads rather than drive on them. So everyone was driving cautious like.
Second reason, the real reason? George W. Bush.
He is in Bahrain visiting, and of course, he needs to get around. When he does, members of his own security team, probably helped with members of his 5th fleet AND our Bahraini special guards and traffic men and policemen are all out on full alert. Helicopters flying and most importantly: Roads.
Roads were blocked all over, in an attempt (in my understanding) to funnel cars into limited routes for security reasons or to clear up certain roads for same the reasons.
Now that might work everywhere on earth, but Bahrain is... Bahrain is like TINY man!
It's "official" size is 662 squared KMs. And we are not using that all, almost everyone works in itsy bitsy Manama. Its what? like 30 squared Kilometers?
So imagine this, a whole country works in a radius of 30 square kilometers, we have no proper public transport and almost everyone uses cars.
George W simply Screwed up our day.
Its amazing, just by being here he can screw things up! It's like he has an aura around him or something!

Anyway, I suggest for such cases: A Nintendo DS. Get a good game that does not require timely responses (Phoenix Wright or Pokemon would do, since they are mostly turn based)and away you go. This method is also good for killing time quickly until Dubya's term is over.

Nintendo is the enemy of EARTH!

Greenpeace have released a Greener Electronics Guide. It measures how electronics companies deal with e-waste and pollution.
Nintendo was at the bottom of the list. It scored a ZERO.
It was also the first company EVER to score a zero on all accounts! Well, there is an achievment for ya.
Green peace demands that companies:

• Eleminate hazerdous material from thier products
• Take back and recycle thier products

And there you go, Nintendo is 2007's menace to "green" society. On another hand, topping the charts was Sony Ericsson. Well done SE! Nokia and Motorola dropped a few places this year. You can see why Nokia went down on this video on Green Peace's web site.
From a gamers point of view, Microsoft didn't score too well either, getting 2.7/10. Sony scored much favorably than other game related companies.

PS3 prices drop in Bahrain

Sony fought back with a global plan, it seems, to cut the prices. Today we saw ads for new reduced prices for PS3s in Bahrain.

Just a couple of months ago, it debuted to the tune of BD 270 ($715) for a bare bones system. Games were priced BD 30 ($80) at least.

We now see three bundles on display.

The first two has one game attached: Eithr "Resistance: Fall of man" or "Moto storm" and a controller.

System + one game now costs BD 229 ($606).

Another third bundle includes both mentioned games for BD 260 ($687) but for 2 controllers rather than one. Compared to the initial offering price, this is a pretty sweet deal. This deal could have set you back BD 360 ($952) at least had you got it at launch.

Similarly, I just heard this morning that PS3 prices in Malysia reached about BD 180 ($476). This is of course great news. Sony is doing exactly the suggestions I previously wrote in my March next gen forcast. They seems to be on the brink of a reform which can very much be very successful. If these moves could get retail customers intrested again, this will pull back the cautious 3rd party developers to the Sony side again.

In the mean time, Nintendo has NO Middle east representation nor official releases. And the choice of games are leaving hard cores hungry. Can't belive it, but This round Sony 1 / Nintendo 0.

The X360 is enjoying the Middle East presence of Microsoft and got price cuts and more distribution as well. Although it is still not the house hold name the Playstation is here.

Any way, It will be intresting to watch the public's reaction to the price cut.

I finished Zelda

At over 70 hours of playing Zelda for the Wii, I finished it. I feel so alone :(

The game was rather decent graphic wise, though I'm sure today's gamer might expect more out of nextgens, but it was just fine. The gameplay however is simply stunning. The control was excellant and the level design was really good, even though I thing N64's Ocarina of Time was better at some parts.
The bosses however were all very very easy to me. I did appreciate how different they were. The fishing part of the game was overly simplistic, it could have been evolved to be a nice side game which I hope they do next time.

This Zelda is right up there with some of the best games I've played in my time.

Nintendo refutes Wii hoarding.

Nintendo refuted Gamestop's claim that they were intentionally holding Wiis. GameStop's COO, Dan DeMatteo, said that he believes Nintendo

“intentionally dried up their supply because they made their numbers for the year”

with the Nintendo Wii.
In English: He claims that they had a target for this fiscal year (ends March), and instead of selling more Wiis, they thought of holding the systems to contribute to thier new sales target starting April.

Not true says Nintendo’s George Harrison, senior VP of marketing and corporate communications. As "Next Generation" reported, he said

“No, that’s not at all the case. We have worldwide territories that are all competing over the available production. The Japan and European markets are doing extremely well with the Wii. People in Japan at NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd.] are making the best decisions that they can about which products get shipped to which market and when.”

While Gamestop's claim is a typical and possible conspiracy theory, Nintendo's claim is believable, as it coincides with my sales analysis.

Let me take this as an example to compare between Nintendo's PR & Sony's. Just recently Sony continued its appalling PR activities. In contrast, Nintendo dealt with this very wisely, in the next response, Nintendo justified what many would think is an unjust accusation by Gamestop:

Harrison:

“Every retailer would want to have more [Wiis]. I think [DeMatteo’s comments] may have been GameStop’s way of trying to request more”

He succeeded in defending Nintendo, while making both Nintendo and Gamestop look like companies who care for thier customers. Textbook. Sony should hire him.

Nextgen Sales: A closer look

Total sales figures will not give me the clear picture I need to forecast this war. Sadly the nexgenwars.com tracker does not give you that detail. Fortunately, videogame charts do! Lets see..

XBOX360
Sold 9.66 mil according to vg and 10.84 according to ngw. Lets see the figures; The bulk of the sales is in the US (almost 6 mil). Hmm.., expected as much. 3.4 mil is in the other region which includes Europe, Middle East and Australia. However Japan sold 380K ONLY?
That's not even close to half a million! From 10 million systems, The Japanese bought less than half a million?
No wonder it lacks Japanese 3rd party developers. Microsoft still finds this place tough huh? They are trying though, so this could change. But I really think the Japanese sales figures must rise in order to gain momentum.

Wii
Sold 6 mil according to vg, 5.21 mil according to ngw.
The Wii sales are more or less even in all regions. Almost 2 mil in Japan, 2.3 in USA & 1.68 elsewhere. Its close to a 2 million average across markets. That tells me that unlike the X360 above, All markets are embracing the Wii. Also, the close sales numbers suggest that supply is constant through out the markets (ie: no shortage in one place and surplus in another). The Wii sales growth is the fastest of the three. This even distribution should attract developers from all regions, I expect good diversity in games should this trend continues.

PS3
Sold 2.67 according to vg, 1.77 according to ngw. ...
....
Wait a minute! That's one heck of an error margin! The difference in figures cannot be almost one million units! I know the X360 figures are off by as many but percentage wise, the error margin is huge for the PS3 figures.
Moving on, we will use the vg figures here of course for now. PS3's biggest market is the USA. 1.32 mil. Japan has only 0.83 mil and everyone else bough about 0.52 mil.
That makes sense. The PS3 enjoyed immense demand at launch in the US. Other parts of the world are slow, exactly as the reports from UK, Europe & Australia say (It is still not available in the Middle East despite Sony treating it a part of Europe). The 830k units in Japan is way too little. I understand the Japanese developer's concern now.

What to make of this?
The Xbox 360 is a solid contender. Proven everywhere, except in Japan where no foreign system was successful before. Still, that simply says that their system works but needs Japanese 3rd party support. The Japanese 3rd parties are not endorsing the Xbox360 fully yet as they expect a Japanese system to reign, and are looking at PS3, which continues to disappoint most, leading to slower Japan sales, making the 3rd parties wait until the fog clears (or MGS or FF get released).
The Wii seems comfortable. I expect it to receive proper support in the near future. Its comfortable for the fact that it can coexist with either PS3 or X360. Either it will be the system of choice (for the big budget games), or, if the title goes to Sony or MS, Wii can easily transform into the casual gamer / family game machine which will compliment any gamer.
So:

• Microsoft must focus on the Japanese market now. RPGs. RPGs. And they should steal more exclusives from Sony, like DMC & Ace Combat, and try to make exclusive PS3 games not exclusive which will tip the market to their favour. Oh, and release cute special edition consoles like they did with Blue Dragon. The Japanese will eat it up!
  
• Sony needs to prove to 3rd parties that it still owns the market. They should lower and unify the prices worldwide (or make them closer) and release bundled systems with a big name game. They cannot lower the price now without risking watering down the brand as it will be like admitting it's not gaining sales because it's too expensive. Still, I'd rather they do this + the big budget exclusive + a strong Internet support that at least match or come close to XBLive.
  
• Wii is under alot of demand, shortages will occur. Nintendo needs to address this asap. Once they do, they must immediately release a big budget name (like Mario Galaxy) and offer bundled packages (imagine Wii + Mario + wii sports or wii play). The market will be theirs if they do this. Especially if it happens before MS or Sony do what I suggested above.

Conclusion: War ain't over folks. Some are leading the race, some trailing, but it ain't over yet.

Wii sold over 5 Million units

According to the very accurate next gen wars meter I have on the right between those amazing adverts that you should click sometime (ahem), the Wii has surpassed its 5 Million units mark. That's about... 208,000 units per week, 29,700 per day (loose calculations).

on the other side, the PS3 didn't move up much, it climbed from 1.5 mil to 1.6

that's around 66,000 units per week and 9,500 units per day (all numbers are world wide). Wii is selling in a week what Sony needs more than 3 weeks to sell.

The playstation3's biggest mistakes

Last November I predicted that Nintendo's Wii is what I think will win the next war.

I however gave allot of credit to Sony. I did not expect them to suck so badly.

When PSM (an American Playstation only independent magazine) starts to show screen shots of Nintendo games in articles and running features about the "worst launch in history", and when EGM comes up with a cover with a PS3 thrown with tomatoes, and when "wired" pick Wii clearly over the PS3, then my friend I can tell you Sony is going down.

Sony is going so down its not even funny. This will be a case study in future college textbooks.

Nintendo, was as foxy as I anticipated, it is to be expected of a company that lived so long and endured so many videogame generation, more than anybody. However, despite Nintendo's intelligence, That's not the reason why Sony is losing. Sony is losing because of their own sheer stupidity!

Sony DID become arrogant, like Nintendo was just as I predicted. That led to some horrific blunders. like:

1- Unit Shortages:

The PS2 was released in 2000 and had a huge success and instant shortages. So, why on Earth did Sony, after 7 years, with all that experience and market GROWTH, how can they expect to release the next gen PS3 with FEWER quantity than last time? That caused riots, stupidly high ebay prices and several shootings and robberies. Yeah, buy a system, fear for your life. Great selling point.

2- High Price:

I'm sorry, I've been gaming since before primary school. On an old Toshiba home PC with two colours on it (white & light blue only). The concept was always to "sell a cheap console". Why? because everyone will buy it and there you go: instant user base. Why do you think magazines are so cheap to subscribe to? yes, building user base (good for advertising revenue you see). Selling a console at a high price (a price never achieved in the history of consoles I might add) will certainly mean a smaller user base, which won't be to attractive to third party developers.

3- Stealing & lying too:

Sony came up with a lame ass boomerang controller that just screams "I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT VIDEOGAMES", did they not learn anything from PS1 & PS2? Anything at all? Along came Nintendo and tought the world again some new tricks with their Wiimote. What does Sony do? I think someone yelled:"lets go back to the Dual Shock 2 design. Hell no, we don't have time to R&D a new shape, just use the old shape with bluetooth. I WANT MOTION SENSING AT ALL COSTS YOU HEA.. Sixaxis? OK. Just sign them. HURRY!"

So we get the current PS3 joypad, the "Sixaxis". Not as sophisticated as the Wiimote by far, but at least it does have it.

Then someone removes the vibrating function, "say what?" everyone asks then Sony responds "It will mess up the motionsensing capabilities and we'd rather put in a new input method rather than a feedback method".

A lie that PSM themselves uncovered (imagine, a PS3 magazine doing that to the PS3) where they showed an old PS2 controller with motion sensing AND vibration for the PS2 with absolutely no problems. Great, your thieves and liers too. So, why removing the vibration? it must be:

4- Cheap skate tactics 1 - still joypad:

No motor in the joypad means its cheaper (for them to make, not for people to buy). This greedy concept extends to:

5- Cheap skate tactics 2 -HD Not-Ready:

in the spirit of greed & cockyness, Sony claimed HD capabilities. But... You won't be able to bask in the glory of your new HD TV just yet because: Sony won't give you HD cables. You have to go buy them yourselves. that way it will cost YOU extra, not them. Just like selling a car without tires. It doesn't stop there...

6- Cheap skate tactics 3 - Not Fully Compatible 1:

While the PS3 is being touted as fully PS2 backwards compatible, there is no where on the machine to stick in your memory card. Why? Because in the same said spirit, you have to BUY an adaptor for that. Not only is it ugly, they are charging you $15 for something that could cost $2-3 to manufacture built in.

7- Not fully compatible 2:

The PS3 rendered PS2 games actually WORSE than they are! God, I remember the comparisons between PS1 & PS2 and how 2 made everything just better (world peace must be near now!). In the interest of fairness, this issue has been resolved in system update 1.5

8- Not fully compatible 3 - Destroyer of legends:

It seems that it corrupts data saves for PS2. Careful now.

9- Stupid, Stupid PR:

Who's their PR agency? Seriously? They suck! All these press releases makes me think that they do not believe they are talking to smart people. When the people asked about the lack of vibration they told them it couldn't be done. And we know it WAS done. That is sad. The the president of SCEA comes out and dares anyone to find a PS3 on the shelves promising those who do with $1200.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this person managed to be president, we all have hope to become one, one day.

First of all, when you have a system which had severe, and I mean severe shortages at launch, you cannot "brag" about how successful it is by daring people to find one! Was he on something at the time?

So, penny arcade took him up on that offer successfully proving that the PS3 is freely available (making prez a liar or completely clueless) and holding him up on his dare. (click the image on the right for a bigger picture)

10- You can't rule by division:

A console means an affordable standard to play games on. PCs aren't "standard" because each one is different, that's why pc games look and feel and sometimes play different. That's why there are some games you can't buy because it's not compatible or its too demanding.

A console gets rid of a~ll the headache. except if its a PS3, mind. different versions will eventually mean different spec. Specially if Sony's plans to be able to upgrade playstation 3 to new hardware comes to life. This will cut them off the casual gamer market instantly, as "casuals" will not bother to verify "specs".

So, what do you think? I can't believe that PSM ran an article about the "Worst launch in History" Sony is losing their own preachers.

That's not the only thing their losing, they are slowly losing third party developers. They are looking at castle Mario now, Solid Snake is guest starring in Nintendo's Wii Smash brothers while Square Enix are releasing a Final Fantasy XII spinoff on the Nintendo DS. In the business world, these companies are saying to Nintendo: "Hello. *shake hands* how are you? Were still friends right? cool!". Third parties are paving an emergency exit road so they can easily jump ship if things turn sour.

The charts are not in Sony's favour at all. It's not a problem of hardware or games. This is mostly just very bad management, something unfamiliar with a Japanese company. They should seriously do something before too late.

Nintendo Wii HACKED?

A video surfaced on you tube showing a normal disc being played by a normal Wii using a boot loader on an SD card.

Now, The GC/Wii discs use a different data frame structure than a standard DVD so that is why they don't read correctly and the disc's files are normally inaccessible. However, There is a utility that essentially decrypts raw image dumps (via brute-forcing the encryption keys)- meaning you can then access the files within the image. Therefore it is possible (but very difficult) to dump Wii images properly in Linux, this image has been dumped via PC with modified drive Firmware and custom code to obtain the Wii image. And so, PARADOX released thier first dump of Red Steel on 45 splitfiles.
Paradox is a well known group that pirates games and distributes them online. the NFO file for red steel read:

___ _ _ ___ \__\\\ \ . R E L E A S E N O T E S . / ///__/ Here
we are again bringing you another world first, a full DVD image of one of the
best Wii games to date, RedSteel. Thanks to all our friends who helped make
this release possible Let the hacking and exploration of the Nintendo Wii
begin! As is often the case with these scene firsts, it could be a while
still until this image is playable. So in the meantime be the envy of your
friends by loading this image into your usual dvd recording software and
burn it as a data dvd. This game is worth buying, and you currently have
no choice, so go out and support the company that brought you this great
game! LEGENDS MAY SLEEP, BUT THEY NEVER DIE!!

Nice.
This boot loader is supposed to be released 1/1/07, here is it's video:

I strongly urge all readers to treat this as RUMOR only. Basis of my skepticism is that 1) the boot loader was loaded from within the image viewer? For all I know it could be an image that says boot loader.

And most importantly 2) We can see that after the boot loader was added, the words [AV1] springs up on the TV. Which means he switched AV input to another Wii running a legitimate game or to a video playback device that played a recording of a normal Wii game booting up.

On a personal note I do not wish for the Wii to be hacked. Its their best advantage, good games will come out on the Wii if no one can play it for free (meaning the company releasing games will make sure to earn money). Piracy hurts consumers more than they are aware of.

Paris Hilton's Nintendo DS

The famous Paris Hilton (yes, the one and only) have released 20 limited Special edition Nintendo DS lite systems encrusted in Swarovski Crystals and designed by her (obviously).
This thing is on sale on ebay for less than $1500.
..
..
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I must now go shoot my self, excuse me.

Your probably too fat for Wii

A Nintendo PR rep says: "work out more, fatsos".

Apparently, some Wii players think this is too much exercise.

This, is just too sad.

Read more at Gizmondo.

Nextgen war forcasts: Wii Vs. PS3 Vs. X360

So all next gen systems are out in the open. Yes, I know you may still be unable to get one, but anyway.
A hot topic is "who's gonna win?" which is a question I heared numerous of times in my life!

I really think that Nintendo has an upper hand this time. Why?
I'll cut that to phases so you can piece it together later and understand:
PHASE 1:
On the Super Nintendo days, Nintendo OWNED the market. It was just them Vs. Sega, and Nintendo killed them in there.
So what happens is, Nintendo calls Sony and asks them to make a CD add on to their SNES console. But discontinues the project when they see Sega's CD add on failing. leaving Sony with an investment they do not want to lose. Nintendo here were King, and cocky.

PHASE 2:
Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64, Sony release the PlayStation. Nintendo forces the cartridge system down the industry's throat. AND charges an arm and a leg to publish games. On the other hand, Sony gave them freedom & charged next to nothing.
So this is what publishers were thinking: Hmmm. Pay alot, work with a limited memory & limited freedom, or pay little; have alot more memory & have all the creative freedom I want?
Naturally, everyone moved to Sony, even Square! Nintendo failed to understand that the market grew up, and they are not children anymore. In the end of this phase, Nintendo realized it could not go head to head with Sony, so they picked a niche market (smart move, they went with kiddie stuff) and remained dormant.

PHASE 3:
PlayStation 2 & Game cube. here it gets interesting; Nintendo is cautious and Sony Ambitious. We all know Sony won eventually, but what Nintendo gained here is that they re-introduced popular franchises, and showed people that they are not a kiddie system anymore. I am quite convinced that they did this on purpose, I don't think they really were trying to dominate this round, they simply wanted to re-establish trust.

PHASE 4:
Very interesting phase. It is the exact opposite situation of PHASE 2!
Sony is very cocky, system is overpriced, games are overpriced, and they think "We are the PlayStation, people will come".
They maybe right, but look what Nintendo did, they are doing the exact same thing that the first PS1 did: Give great incentives to both publishers & customers.
The Nintendo Wii is :

1. Introducing the consoles to a new market
2. Is more than 50% cheaper than the PS3
3. Has Mature games at launch, to solidify the "non-kiddie" image
4. Has an advanced image sensoring system (a product from a wholly owned subsidiary) which Sony clearly imitated
   
5. is entering the market with 4 Million units as opposed to Sony's 400K

the Wii is cheaper but it's neither a BD player or HD compatible. That's fine. BD has alot to prove, that's one, and as for HD? Nintendo can easily re-release an HD version of the console after a year or so. by then they would have owned the market!

Also the availability of PS3s are really dismal. I mean Sony shipped 500K with the PS2 and still got a shortage, and now they are shipping 400K PS3s? Stupid. real stupid.

So in essence, this is what happened with Nintendo:

Phase 1, Nintendo Cocky

Phase 2, Nintendo gets PWNED!

Phase 3, Nintendo lurks in a corner to study and prepare

Phase 4, all guns ablazing!

Nintendo is the lucky number. Want proof? In the new Smash Brothers game for the Wii, Solid Snake (from Konami's Metal Gear Solid series) is making a guest appearance. Konami is usually an avid supporter of PS3, so whats this?

In the business world that means: Konami senses the danger lurking around Sony, so its strengthening its ties with Nintendo, just in case.

....
I didn't mention the Xbox did I?
Never mind. I hate the thing, and its only saving points are XBOX live service, and the fact that the defected RPG famous producer (Sakaguchi I think) has formed his own studio & will release to Xbox.

Interesting, but I think the major battle is Nintendo Vs. Sony, and I think Nintendo is winning.

What do you think?