The current Nintendo DS rumor going around according to Enterbrain publisher Hirokazu Hamamura is that a Nintendo will announce a new DS at this year’s E3. It was, however, unclear in the Bloomberg report whether or not it would be completely new hardware or a simple redesign. We’ll find out in mid-July.
What do you think of the sell-through rate on Madden titles versus Take 2’s urban sports series? Miss?
E3 was once the promised land for game geeks. In a huge hall in LA you could get and play games, watch scantily clad women who were vying for your attention, and generally feel like you were a plugged in member of an elite gaming force. Now, however, it’s going to be a big boring conference full of industry types and no scantily clad booth babes. That’s right. You might as well stop reading right now.
“The US is the world’s number one video game market and the E3 Media & Business Summit is its premier video game conference. The 2008 Summit will provide a professional and efficient environment for suite-based meetings with media, and other industry leaders,” said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, which represents US computer and video game publishers and owns the E3 Media & Business Summit. “We look forward to welcoming the media and top industry executives to a centralized, business focused and personalized experience. Our program of high-level meetings, networking and personal dialogue, and industry-shaping panel discussions will capture the explosive growth we have seen in 2007 and lay the foundation for the 2008 video game marketplace.”
Games are the new movie business: over-moneyed, risk-averse, and boring on the whole. Sad, sad, sad.
E3 Returns to Los Angeles, But Remains Booth Babe Free [Kotaku]
The video is a little choppy and the host is manic (and his story is quite sad) to say the least, but it’s fun to see what E3 used to be — a malevolent pleasure dome of scantily clad women and video games — and what happens when you subvert the status quo by dry humping Miss Pac Man. SFW unless you work for Pac Man.
¡Viva la Rock Band! The expensive rock & roll band simulator won the Game Critics Award for best game at E3, beating out the likes of Derivative Shooter 42 and Mario & Luigi: The Golden Years. It’s a victory for something called i-n-n-o-v-a-t-i-o-n, something that, save for the Wii, hasn’t been seen in video games for quite some time.
I wonder how Activision feels about taking Guitar Hero away from Harmonix? Woops.
“Rock Band” takes top video game honor [Reuters]
July is almost a wrap, and it’s been two weeks since E3, and this will be the last post about the show. But we’ve had some time to think about what can be done to improve (dare we say save) the annual video game event. Let’s face it; the electronic entertainment industry needs a trade show. We in the press need to see the games, retail buyers need to see the games and small developers need to find a publisher. Can and should E3 be saved? Yes on both counts. We have a few ideas!
The video game industry executive shake-up continues. Less than a week after E3 Peter Moore has resigned from Microsoft to return to Northern California. The former Sega head honcho has cited personal reasons and has “secured another opportunity in the video games industry.” Could this be a return to Sega, or possibly a move to Nintendo? Both scenarios seem unlikely, but Nintendo reportedly has a few openings of late! Moore will be replaced by Don Mattrick, a former president of Electronic Arts, who will now lead the Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB) at Microsoft and will oversee the Xbox and Games for Windows businesses.
About the only really important questions remaining are whether Mr. Moore will have those tattoos removed. You know the ones he had inked on for the Microsoft press conferences prior to past E3 shows to hype the release dates of upcoming games such as Halo 2.
Well, a week has passed and we’ve had time to consider this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Some two-dozen companies showed off hundreds of games, new hardware was introduced and most attendees probably spent way too much time on shuttle buses or stuck in traffic. So looking back, what worked, what didn’t work and what the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) should do to create a better show for next year.
Possibly the most notable difference about this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo is the show floor, or more accurately the LACK OF A SHOWFLOOR. Instead of the massive booths, pounding music and game sound effects in the Los Angeles Convention Center, this year’s “show floor” is a single room in the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport. It seems smaller than Nintendo’s or Sony’s booth last year, but despite the reduced size there were still a few gems to be found that weren’t being shown anywhere else.
Today we continue our report from the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and while some of the news of new controllers and upcoming titles has already been reported, we offer a recap of this morning’s press conference from Nintendo. Normally a long winded and self-serving event this year Nintendo was streamlined and to the point.
For those of us who have been impatiently waiting for Mario Kart to be released on the Wii, that wait is finally over. Almost.
Actually, not almost. Not even close. Nintendo announced today that Mario Kart would hit the shelves sometime in the first quarter of 2008. What?! That’s in, like, a billion years. I’ll be old and grizzled by then. By 2008, I’ll probably have my own compact car that shoots turtle shells and other delightful objects at passing motorists.
If you’re still in the market for Mario Kart by the time it comes out, you’ll be happy to know that it’ll feature online play and will come with it’s own gimmicky plastic steering wheel for you to snap your Wiimote into. A price hasn’t been set yet but if Nintendo stays with the whole “no game over fifty dollars” pledge, you might be able to grab the game and the wheel at a pretty decent price.
If history is any indicator, Mario Kart should be a huge seller for Nintendo. Plus, the online play is going to bring a whole new element to the game. I will be purchasing it the day it comes out, despite the exasperated tone of this post. You had me at “Lets-a-go!” Mario Kart. How could I ever stay away?
‘Mario Kart’ coming to the Wii with online play [CNET News.com]
Nintendo today at E3 dropped a couple new hardware accessories for the popular Wii, including a steering wheel for Mario Cart, and a new Zapper. For those who might be too young to recall, the original NES Action System shipped with the original Zapper, which you used for Duck Hunt, and that’s about it. But Duck Hunt was great fun, and the Zapper became iconic.
We’re hoping that now that your virtual gun can have motion sensing that many of the popular arcade shooters of the last decade can hit the Wii. House of the Dead with motion sensing? Sign us up. What we’re really hoping for is a new, 2007 version of Duck Hunt, wherein we can finally shoot that damned dog who snickers at us for missing. I hate that dog.
New Nintendo Accessories [Nintendo!]
Despite adamant denials of cutting prices on the PS3, Sony has come clean and officially announced the price cut along with the addition of the 80GB version for the US. The 60GB model will drop to $499 while the beefier version will cost $599 and include a copy of Motorstorm, which will become available in August. Our neighbors to the North will also be privy to the price cut with the 60GB model costing C$549. The price cut was made possible when Sony was finally able to overcome earlier production issues with the diode that’s used in the Blu-ray drive and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
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By this time of year the nightmare that is known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo should just be a distant memory, and those of us who made the pilgrimage to the Los Angeles Convention Center to cover the show should be fully recovered. However, the organizers opted for a smaller and more “business focused” event, and thus have moved the fun-filled event from the traditional May timeframe to July, and taken the show from downtown LA to Santa Monica.
So as we prepare to depart for the City of Angeles and head to the beach we’re previewing what we can expect from this year’s E3.
Today is just chalk full of rumors isn’t it? Everyone is milling around the water cooler talking about the iPhone, so it’s time to look elsewhere for some juicy news/rumors.
This one should make Wii owners happy, but not John, he hates the Wii. Nintendo is rumored to be showing off some new hardware at E3 and all signs point to an HDD. The fanboys are screaming for more storage seeing as how the Wii only contains a paltry 512MB of internal storage. So, what started up this rumor? The announcement of Neo Geo games being added to the VC are the main culprit. When games get up to 330MB or something in that neighborhood you better believe Nintendo will get off their laurels and come up with something to satisfy the Wii fans.
Wii hard drive on the way? [Go Nintendo]
An avid gamer since his youth, author Steven L. Kent has seen the evolution from flat 2D arcade games to epic non-linear 3D adventures. Kent talked to CrunchGear for the second part of our series on video game violence and content.
For more than a decade Kent has been the video game industry’s most prolific writer to date. His work has appeared in dozens of magazines and Web sites. In 2000, Kent self-published The First Quarter: A 25-year History of Video Games. That book was later purchased and re-published as The Ultimate History of Video Games by the Prima, Three River Press, and Crown divisions of Random House.
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Getting into the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this year is being compared to getting the golden ticket in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and not just for the attendees but also for the exhibitors. The number of companies that will be at the show has shrunk from more than 400 to just 32 companies. So what are the smaller guys to do?
One option is for them to wait until this fall’s E For All Expo, which will be held in the former stomping grounds of E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The other option might be to sort of crash the party, and attend Gamecock’s alternative to E3. The outspoken game promoters, and former founders of God Games, have unveiled plans for their own event to take place on the same days as E3 in Santa Monica. Dubbed the E.I.E.I.O. (Expo for Interactive Entertainment Independent and Original) Fun Fest 2007 this event would probably rekindle the infamous “Promised Lot,” which God Games had set up in a parking lot across from the convention center complete with strippers, a skateboard ramp and open bar all day long… and much to the bane of the E3 promoters I might add. So if E.I.E.I.O. does come together it is sure to have class written all over it!
It seems that the ESA (Electronic Software Association) just can’t make up their minds. First they pulled the plug on the large scale Electronic Entertainment Expo in favor of the E3 Business Summit to be held this July in Santa Monica, but now citing a lack of positive response from the major game publishers, the trade association for the video game industry has announced that for 2008 the event will return to the regular venue at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The ESA will announce this week whether the E3 Business Summit can be moved back to the LACC for the July event, or whether 2007 will the year without an E3.
