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The Soapbox: Why we grief - a therapy session
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Welcome to the Massively Psychiatric Center for Gamers, Griefers, and Greater Internet F-wads (link NSFW). I'm Dr. Reahard, and while I'm most definitely an armchair psychologist, psychiatrist, and MMOlogist, pay no attention to any of that. I'm more than qualified to help you determine whether or not you're a bleep (sorry, a griefer). So please, have a seat, make yourself comfortable, and let's talk about you. Tell me about yourself. Do you relish that feeling of power you get when messing with another human being? Is there a certain sense of being alive, a rush if you will, that only comes around when you bleep with another person? Does said bleeping happen exclusively in video games where your actions carry no perceivable repercussions? Are you secretly frustrated with a banal and disturbingly meaningless white-collar existence? Does releasing your inner bleep in a (theoretically) anonymous online environment scratch the itches made manifest by a minivan, 2.3 kids, and the otherwise inescapable confines of suburbia?
Easy Piano easing into North America next year
Band Hero's reign as the DS music game with the silliest peripheral in America will soon be over. Valcon Games has announced that it will release Easy Piano, the piano teaching game with the 13-key keyboard attachment, in North America. It'll join the piles and piles of other games coming out in early 2010, but then those don't have keyboards. Easy Piano includes a piano teaching system -- a mini Miracle Keyboard, essentially -- but also allows players to record four three-minute long performances, and includes a piano-based rhythm game. What it doesn't include, for obvious reasons, is DSi compatibility. Maybe the company will make a version for the DSi XL that connects wirelessly to one of those floor pianos from Big. Also, we've changed our minds -- Band Hero is still the silliest.
Easy Piano title lets DS Lite users tickle the ivory
We know that DSi of yours is all the rage, but you did hang on to that DS / DS Lite, didn't you? Phew. Starting this November in Europe and other PAL regions, you'll have a remarkably good excuse to bust that unit back out, as this new peripheral looks to require that all-but-forgotten GBA slot. At any rate, the title (which goes by Easy Piano in case you glossed over the headline) will allow players to bang out masterpieces such as Bittersweet Symphony, Every Breath You Take and Pachelbel's Canon on the 8-note, full-octave keyboard accessory. All told, 40 songs will be made available, and there's even a "creation mode" that enables owners to record up to four 3-minute-long jams. Now, if only we had a North American price and release date to pencil in, we'd be all set.[Via Joystiq]
Deep Silver dares to announce a DJ game
If we happened to be working on a music game about spinning turntables, we would probably delay any press releases or announcements about it for a few months. The DJ game scene is a little ... hostile at the moment, and it seems like a good idea to let some of that business blow over before inviting the ire of two litigious companies. Nevertheless, Deep Silver bravely announced DJ Star for the DS today. The game uses the touch screen to simulate turntables, and includes "40 famous tracks (Electro, R&B, etc.)" The Game Life-developed music game even features a music creation utility! DJ Star is expected out "later this year." Nobody tell Genius or Activision -- or Konami, for that matter.
Sony will never catch up, but that doesn't matter
Chris Kohler's Game | Life blog has a great Q&A session with Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter. When the analyst was asked about the widening gap between DS and PSP, he had this to say: "I don't think Sony will close the gap, and don't think it is important that they do so. Nintendo has over 20 million loyal GBA owners, and we should expect them to dominate the category that they invented. Sony is late to the handheld game, has tried to approach the market from an older demographic, and is just now trying to beef up more kid-friendly content to appeal to 13-17 year olds. I don't think that the gap matters at all, so long as Sony makes money. I also believe that price elasticity of demand dictates that the lower priced product will sell more units. That's why there are more Fords than Maseratis."While Sony will most likely never be number one this generation, they've gone a long way in changing the handheld marketplace. As long as people continue to buy the system and continue to buy the games, the platform will remain more than viable.[Via AMN]
