Michael Pacther.
Explains why he is always wrong about the Wii and how it will lose share to Move & Natal.
“…So I always thought Nintendo would respond to Natal and PS3 plus Move by having Wii HD ready when those two things launched. I’ve been wrong consistently and the reason I’ve been wrong is Nintendo doesn’t see the world the way I do. So the answer to your question why do I think it? Because it’s logical. The answer to your question, why hasn’t Nintendo done it? Because they don’t think it’s logical. And I don’t want to get in their heads, they are great business people, they run their company well, my view is this is something they should do.”
He also thinks that the Wii will lose market share when a good priced PS3/Move bundle is announced, so that Sony can tell Wii owners that they can upgrade to HD, with good games support and Blu-Ray. More likely shovelware in HD.
I have been a long time critic of Pacther. I think he is more about personality than substance, a desire to get noticed beyond his role as a market analyst. Nothing has changed. Of course Nintendo will lose market share in the future. That is simply to be expected and blind Freddie can see that. However, it won't be simply because of Move & Natal. He fails to truly understand that Nintendo owners buy Nintendo product for reasons beyond HD or Blu-Ray. They buy it for the 1st party titles and get the better games offered by other developers. Market share will shift because some, maybe many, Wii owners will get a PS3 to go along with their Wii, not instead of. The days of the single console family are long gone. People like to sample everything they can afford and justify.
Goldeneye Wii
Activision remake? The internet is outraged.
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. So many people feel that Goldeneye was one of the great games of all time and a defining moment of FPS. I have the N64 game myself, but can't say I am a big fan. Now that all the rumours of this game being remade for the Wii (&DS) are circulating, the internet is mainly outraged. The Wii haters are out with their torches and pitchforks, storming your computer. Even good old Michael Pacther has an opinion (shock horror), and believes it will release to underwhelming sales.
Why do people care so much? The game, if real, will be just a game. Play it or don't. Most of the outrage will be that it is on the Wii. Not surprising really, just boringly predictable. The reason it would be on the Wii is simply because Activision own the rights to Bond and Nintendo own the rights to Goldeneye.
As for the game itself, the talk is 4 player split-screen and 8 player online. The gun shown looks pretty sweet and there is also talk of a gold classic controller. Eurocom and nSpace are talked about as developers. None of this excites me, but I will keep an open mind if and when it is released.
Shigeru Miyamoto
Mario must not be in too many games.
In an interview with CVG, Miyamoto spoke about the need to "protect" Mario from over use:
"Mario is a very important character in the Nintendo world and so we want him to appear in our titles," said Miyamoto.
"Indeed there are a lot of games to which he is well-suited. However if he appears in too many games then they will lose their uniqueness, and so with that we are very strict when choosing which games to have Mario feature in."
Personally, I think that as long as the project itself is great, it doesn't bother me too much, but having him drop into a basketball or skiing game like in the Gamecube era, was going too far. He is the star and a game should revolve around him, whilst being suited to the character that he is. As it is so far, I am yet to be completely disappointed in what he has been used for so far (that I own).
Sims 3 Wii.
What we should look forward too.
I have a lot of Sims games in my house - a lot. Thing is, I have never played one of them. That is more my daughters area of entertainment. Not satisfied with Sims 3 on the PC, it is now on the way to the Wii (as well as everything else). maybe this could be the one I finally give a decent try.
What is different from the PC game is that the building has been simplified. That is a good start, as I find all the detail of building on the PC tedious. You work with shells, or prefabricated buildings. You have direct control of your character with the analogue stick. The Sim creator is essentially as deep as the PC and you get different career choices, where you directly tell the character what to do, rather than passively watching them. If you are too lazy to do anything, they will get fired - just like in real life.
Multiplayer is something completely new. It sounds rather confusing, but with 4 people, it can take about an hour and requires a fair amount of interaction between the players. This may be something I can finally enjoy in a Sims game, as I can play along with my kids. The game should be released before the end of the year.
Xenoblade.
All the information you could and should want to know.
I am not going to do my little analysis of the news from this article. It is 6 pages and no summary could do it justice. If you are into this game, from the makers of Baten Kaitos (a great game that needs a new chapter) then you really should click on the link for an excellent read. This game should truly rock.
Nintendo Wii.
European sales hit 22 million and "the bubble has not burst".
The never ending demise of the Wii just rolls on, but now sales have past 22 million alone for Europe, about the same as the Gamecube for the entire world. European MD Laurent Fischer made the point that the Wii sold 20 million across the world last financial year.
Fischer said: "I think you just need to look at the facts to see this is not true - we achieved global sales of 20 million units of Wii in the last financial year alone."
"Our aim has always been to expand the gaming population and with European sales of Wii now over 22 million we have taken some steps towards achieving this. However, there are still many more people out there who have not yet experienced the fun of video games and we hope to continue to provide compelling reasons for these people to consider buying a Wii."
He also went on to point out that "core" Nintendo fans were still their priority.
"Nintendo fans have and always will be important to us. In the first half of last year there was a lack of strong software titles, however in the second half we had a much stronger offering with many games that appealed to our core audience."
When they stop making titles for their great franchises, I may be inclined to disagree.
This will never satisfy the haters as they are living for the death of the Wii. I have never seen so much ridiculous and irrational hate in all my 35 years as a gamer. Why would a success of the magnitude of the Wii trigger so much rabid behaviour?
Nintendo Wii 2.
Code name Wii Hi-Fi?
With so many rumours circulating around the eventual Wii's successor, you tend to just tune out all that white noise. Then something like this one comes along - Wii Hi-Fi. A HD Wii with the power of a 360. This blog is predicting an announcement at the end of E3 and a November 2011 release.
How likely is this? Most probably unlikely. Hi-Fi just doesn't really make any sense, unless I am missing something. Oh well, at least it had something different to all the other rumours.
Earth Seeker.
Now we know something about it.
Last week we could only guess what the game was. I was hoping RPG, but as it turns out, it is an action adventure. The story goes a little like this:
"The game kicks off on a post-apocalyptic Earth," Funamizu explained in a Famitsuinterview. "All the world's human heritage gets packed into a spaceship and evacuated off the planet, but the spaceship crashes into another planet and its cargo gets scattered all over the place. The ship's main computer is trying to recreate Earth's ecosystem on this planet, but the crash has affected it and it's producing all this messed-up plant and animal life instead, which is hugely impacting the land."
Then 1000 years later, the game starts off. Not much is known about how it will play, but the premise is very interesting. What doesn't sound good though, is that they are not concerned about a western release.
"I think it'd be a good thing for the industry if we took a moment to rethink what Japan's games should be doing," he told Famitsu. "There are gamers worldwide, of course, and making games to meet their needs certainly isn't a bad thing, but I feel like we're throwing out too many Japanese values and the uniqueness of our games along the way. A lot of Japanese kids don't even play games these days, right? I want to teach them again that games are a lot of fun, just like how our parents taught us when we were kids."
Doesn't fill me with confidence about ever getting to play it in English, which would be a shame.
That is all that interested me for this week. Next week - E3, so it is going to be a VERY BIG one. Have a great gaming week.
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