Sleepy Gamer » microsoft

E3 Hands-On Roundup

Garret — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:07:48 +0000

Van and I were fortunate enough to attend E3 this year down in Los Angeles, and although most of the good stuff was shrouded in secrecy behind closed doors, we were able to try out what we could on the showroom floor. If I’d have to classify the show’s vibe, I’d say the ESA took a line drive down the middle, between the spectacle of E3’s of the past and the invite-only reduction seen in the last few years. There was enough foot traffic and crowds to know what was hot, yet the lines were not long enough that you had to pick what to see and what to bypass. So take a look at what we saw and played.

New Super Mario Bros Wii

NSMB Wii was Nintendo’s olive branch to the hardcore for 2009, since their other debuted must-haves (Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid: Other M) won’t be out until 2010. The fresh take on the classic platforming formula moves to the Wii with a Zelda: The Four Swords-like approach to multiplayer. We were able to try out one of the 4-player levels in its cooperative, but mostly competitive, 2.5-D sidescrolling mayhem. As always, the controls were solid (what Mario game isn’t?) and the action was intense. However, it was more fun trying to screw with your rival buddies, flinging each other into pits and bouncing on heads, than it was trying to navigate the level honorably. I’m assuming the final package will include every bit as much gameplay as the single player DS campaign did, and coupled with multiplayer, it looks to be quite the party game this Fall.

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© garret for Sleepy Gamer, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: e3, forza, mario, microsoft, nintendo, zelda

What Sony Needs to Do in 2009

Van — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:44:47 +0000

With the phenomenal sales of the original PS1 and PS2, Sony was once way ahead of the curve. So it’s come to be quite a disappointment to see the PS3 limping along this generation. When Ken Kuturagi unveiled the PS3 back in 2005, it was touted as the most powerful and revolutionary gaming system ever made. Apparently, all that power and revolution didn’t mean squat. Looking at the December 2008 sales figures, we can see that the Wii completely outsold the PS3 almost 3:1, with the Xbox 360 outselling almost 2:1.

* Wii — 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 — 1,440,000
* PlayStation 3 — 726,000

Sony needs to do some damage control, and they need to do it fast. Here are some suggestions to make 2009, the year of the Playstation.

PS3 Price Drop
Since there’s no way for the PS3 to compete with the Wii, the best that they can do right now is fight for 2nd place. With the current recession, it’s obviously not a good idea to be the most expensive system on the market. With the PS3 models retailing at $399 and $499, it’s much more expensive than the Xbox 360 at $199, $299, and $399. Sony justifies this price difference due to the built-in blu-ray player capabilities, but it appears the general public is still quite happy with their DVDs and can’t justify paying the extra premium for this feature. To top it off, most PS3 versions of a game often look worse than its Xbox counterpart. So why pay more when its competitor is providing a better gaming experience at a lower price? Sony needs to drop the price to $299 to simply compete with the Xbox 360.
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© van for Sleepy Gamer, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2009, microsoft, ps3, sony, xbox

Rethinking the Product Life Cycle

Garret — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:00:20 +0000

Nintendo redefined what was traditionally thought to be the video game console life cycle with the Wii. They focused on getting a fun and affordable system into people’s houses, with the concept of “play, not graphics” being the primary driving force. In doing so, they were able to jump forward into the console life cycle at the point in which mass market acceptance becomes high and barriers to entry are low. Everyone became an early adopter of the Wii; hardcore gamers, families, young professionals, middle aged couples, and everyone in between.

One side effect of this swift change has been the reduction in quantity of game releases aimed squarely at the hardcore gamer. While Nintendo initially did an excellent job releasing their stable of beloved franchises (Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Mart Kart), since then we’ve seen a considerable decline in the amount of notable core game releases from Nintendo. E3 was a prime example of this, as Nintendo failed to deliver the excitement and promise of new games to get the hardcore excited. They did, however, acknowledge that these titles were being worked on. Recently, there was an article in Edge magazine about how Nintendo would have these core titles ready in approximately 2 to 3 years. But if the Wii software cycle started off toward the middle of what we’ve come to know of the conventional product cycle, does this mean we should expect these games on the next Nintendo console instead?

The rumors and speculation about an major upcoming Wii redesign are actually very plausible. Nintendo could still draw upon the incredibly popular Wii branding, perhaps naming the next console “Nintendo Wii Plus” or “Wii HD”, to keep the strong mainstream mind share alive. And just like the jump from Gamecube to Wii wasn’t a monumental jump forward in graphics, this redesign could continue this tradition, using multicore technology and the Bluray format, at a point when such hardware is much cheaper. It could easily include hardware-based backwards compatibility with all the existing Wii software and maybe even support the current controllers and peripherals as well.

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© garret for Sleepy Gamer, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: microsoft, nintendo, sony, wii