American gamers have one hell of an entitlement complex. If Nintendo doesn't have Western developers specifically catering to our need for first-person shooters, we complain. If we have to wait a year to play English versions of games by Japanese developers, we complain. If Europe gets a game we don't, even a weird one like Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, you can sure as hell bet we're complaining.
We forget that European gamers frequently have it much worse, especially when it comes to dealing with console makers like Nintendo. Europe and the UK get everything last, at hiked-up prices, and in limited quantity. With the Wii in the UK, short supply is even more of a disaster than it is in the US. Marketing Week covers Nintendo's decision to pull Wii ads.
A Nintendo spokesman says: "We have been running the campaign all year round, but we want to take a responsible stance this Christmas and not fuel demand."
It also spares Nintendo the kind of negative flack that Sony got for aggressively advertising the PS3 during its very brief shortage period in the US.
It's not unusual for the hardware company behind a console to offer a little help to developers, especially if it involves training devs in use of unfamiliar architecture (as with Sony) or using financial incentives to encourage developers to risk expensive projects (Microsoft). Nintendo typically offers assistance in these two traditional areas... but Business Week is covering a whole new form of first-party encouragement. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata is going to great lengths to help traditional publishers like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft make casual games for the DS that are comparable in quality to Nintendo's own "Brain Age" series. Here's a few delicious quotes to get you started behind the cut.
Here's a link to the Nintendo press release that makes the big announcement. Nintendo set record sales numbers during the one week period that begins the 2007 holiday shopping season (Nov.18-24), to the tune of...
- 653,000 new DS units sold
- 350,000 new Wii units sold
- "millions of games and accessories" sold
Full info is at the link, but here's a few more bullet-point quotes to chew over.
- "Nintendo DS set a new all-time sales record for Thanksgiving week, eclipsing the previous mark of 600,000 Game Boy® Advance systems sold during the same period in the United States in 2005. Nintendo DS remains on track to be the top-selling video game system of 2007."
- Wii reached 5 million sold in the United States faster than any video game system in history, after only 12 months of availability there.
- "As shoppers look for ways to maximize their limited holiday spending money, they turn to gifts that can be used by the entire family," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications.
Do you use Nintendo's Photo Channel frequently? Nah, neither do I. Still, there's something interesting to spot if you go check out the Photo Channel page of Nintendo's site. Scroll down to the bottom....
You'll notice we don't talk about multi-platform games much here at OMG Nintendo. Most of that is my personal bias. For most of the multi-platform titles I've played, the Wii and DS SKUs are inevitably the worst. Usually the Wii gets the PS2 SKU (which means unreasonably bad graphics) with some sort of token Wiimote-waggle controls or mini-game attached. The DS usually gets a totally watered down version of the main game, with the graphics either overhauled into 2D or simplified to the point where nothing's really recognizable.
Guitar Hero III
So a few days ago we posted some very complimentary things about Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and talked a bit about the game's ability to read savestates from the GameCube game Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Well, it turns out the savestate-loading feature is a bit buggy, and you need to be really careful about how you try to import your savedata. Here's a step-by-step to help you out if the savedata bug is harshing your tactical buzz.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
- At a presentation for the BMO Capital Markets Annual Interactive Entertainment Conference in New York City on November 6th, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot professes his love for Nintendo's Wii and DS. He professes love for the PS3, 360, and PC, too. The Nintendo comments are especially interesting in light of Ubisoft's commitment to releasing casual games by the bushel for the DS.
- By now it's no secret that the oft-rumored DVD-playing Wii won't be out in time for Christmas this year. The Q&A section at Nintendo's Japanese website offers the only excuse for the delay we've seen yet. The gist of that link's slab of moonspeak is that Nintendo won't release the DVD-friendly Wii this year so they can gear production facilities toward meeting an expected Christmas rush. After the insanity that took place after the Wii shortage last year, I can't say I think Nintendo's making a bad call.
- << prev
- next >>
