David Touve

News By David Touve

Weekly Wrap Up : October 10-16, 2005

The calm before the storm. That's what mid-October feels like. We found out that males in their early twenties spend their time playing games, as if we didn't know that (even in our late 30's). Hollywood is getting hip to the PSP, which was inevitable. Sony took a page from the Apple textbook and has begun updating firmware for the PSP synced to what appears to be the phases of the moon. A big highlight of the week came when one of the Joystiq crew (Wiley) gave us an up close and personal review of pile of upcoming games on the Xbox 360. And really... that's what October is about. A month of calm before the launch of the Xbox 360, and the frenzy it will stir among the consoles. I hate to be so straight forward about it, but really, its what we are all thinking.

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Nintendo By David Touve

Upcoming Nintendo DS titles announced in Japan

According to EuroGamer, Nintendo has unleashed a list of upcoming titles for the DS. They highlight the known New Super Mario Brothers title, along with a working titled TingleRPG. Mario does hoops in a working titled Baskets 3 vs 3 (ugh), living titles Densetsu no Starfy 4 and Custom Robo will get DS versions, along with a newcomer, Detect Hacker. The list includes almost 30 titles, so take a look if you are interested. There has also been word on a 3D version of Final Fantasy III.

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Nintendo By David Touve

Price drop on GB Micro for FutureShop Canadians

Attention video game shoppers, for the next few hours we've got the latest GameBoy Micro on sale, over the US border, at Future Shop Canada. The price in Canadian dollars is $97.99; which in US dollars amounts to something around $83 and in Euros about EU68. Unfortunately, the online store reports being already out-of-stock claiming they will ship the units once available. These things were selling like hotcakes in Japan, so why the price drop at FutureShop, we'll try to find out. I particularly enjoy one of the selling points listed at FutureShop: "Fits Easily Into Gamer's Back Pockets". As if our pockets were somehow different from other pockets. Hmmm. Thanks poutinemaster. Update: According to comments received, apparently Wal-Mart Canada was holding an anniversary sale. Therefore both FutureShopo and EBGames matched prices. Thanks swampdonkey.

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Xbox

Xbox By David Touve

Launch titles for the Xbox 360 get official

The debates over how many and which titles would be available for the Xbox 360 launch have gone on for awhile. In an interview with Joystiq only two days ago, Microsoft's Director of Platform marketing spoke of roughly 15-20 titles upon launch. The list becomes a little more settled already as Reuters rolled together discussions with the top publishers/developers, if only to set our anxious digits at ease. Whether this is the "official" list, depends upon whether you consider discussions with company spokespeople to be official information. From Take-Two Interactive: NBA 2K6, NHL 2K6, Top Spin 2, Amped 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. From Activision: Call of Duty 2, Quake 4, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, GUN. From Electronic Arts Need for Speed Most Wanted, FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup, NBA Live 06, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06, Madden NFL 06. From Rare/Microsoft Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero From Blizzard Bizarre Creations (someone tell Reuters to fix their story) Project Gotham Racing 3 Via FileRushNews.

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Nintendo By David Touve

Nintendo goes "Game On" in Turkey

Nintendo inked an exclusive import and distriubution deal with the Turkish firm Nortec Eurasia (not to be be confused with the Nortec Collective). Nortec Eurasia will not only import and distribute products, but is also hiring a legal firm to keep an eye on retailers who might be selling pirated products. Interestingly, the company has announced in advance that Nintendo console hardware will be priced more expensively in Turkey then in the European Countries (note: Turkey is presently in the process of application/acceptance into the European Union). Given the historic levels of piracy in Turkey, this would seem like a move to capture game royalties at the sale of the console, in anticipation of missing out on them in game sales. At the same time, the company suggests that only 15% of the Turkish population might financially afford the gamer lifestyle.

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News By David Touve

Weekly WrapUp: September 26 - October 2, 2005

In case you didn't notice, the flow of news on Joystiq grew to unprecedented levels this week. First, if you think games are getting too expensive, why don't you buy the right to publish your favorite game? 200+ titles from Acclaim's publishing catalog are going to be on auction. Like my dining room (that I painted twice this weekend), the upcoming Xbox 360 appears to be adding new colors in preparation for launch time. The Origen 360 website flaunted its laurels - along with some dope chewing bunnies. The cornerstones of WINTEL, Microsoft and Intel, came out of the closet to announce they are openly HD-DVD. The Xbox 360 will be let loose in China (not just Hong Kong, this time) sometime in 2006. An Xbox exec claimed 50% of the console base will go LIVE (?). If you have four or more hours to kill, apparently you can boot Mac OS7 on your PSP. As an added bonus, we thought it was time you got to know a little about the Joystiq team, so you would have all the proper information required to continue to poke fun at us.

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News By David Touve

He Said, He Said, as far as J Thompson and Jeb Bush are concerned

A little cat fight is in the making over at GamePolitics involving the office of Florida governor Jeb Bush and the anti-violent games, "Go to Hell Slowly" Jack Thompson. The JT sent out a press release yesterday stating the good Gubernator of Florida would sign and support a bill aimed at curbing naughty games. Then the office of JB said that no such deal was pre-ordained in some conversation with the governor. Then JT scratched back, that he was told the governor even wanted JT to bring the legislation forward. Followed appropriately by the office of JB simply referring to their previous comments should anyone be confused.

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Gaming By David Touve

Best Buy tests the sale of used video games

Somewhat quietly, or at least quietly until CNN covered the story, Best Buy has been testing the sale (and trade-in) of used video games in their storefront locations. Of course, the buying and selling of used games has been going on for quite sometime, but apparently BestBuy getting into the business has some games industry folks a bit bothered. According to CNN, Mark Rein, a VP with Epic Games, described the pilot program as "That's just fleecing us." Whether the widespread sale of used games will make new games more or less expensive would seem to be a debate worth opening up a bit.

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News By David Touve

Will the real Origen please stand up

Having a nearly unlimited marketing budget offers Microsoft the pleasure of uploading upon the gaming world a beautiful green tree, linguistic riddles and enigmatic bunnies that speak in captions and get high on golden fruits... all in the name of Origen. Amidst all this flash-enabled fanfare and mystery, let us not forget however, perhaps the most infamous Origen until yesterday - Origenes Adamantius. Origenes was a christian aesthetic and scholar who lived during the second and third centuries AD. Like many gamers today, the "big O" - as he was known to his contemporaries- castrated himself to avoid any grounds for scandal related to his teaching of women and undeniable possession of the "Let My People Go" mod for the Old Testament that unlocked all the sex scenes. While the big O was known to spend time with a certain empress-dowager, Julia Mammaea of Antioch, his real passions were theology and science. O produced up to 6000 scrolls of homilies, books and "scholia," leaving him perhaps more industrious than the most RedBull-powered game coder on earth today. If you want to learn more about O, check out Wikipedia.

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Gaming By David Touve

The Popstation Portable

A good way to start any day is a with a good video of a copy-cat hardware product. Fortunately, just such a video has been making the rounds. A wonderfully cheeky fellow, with a perfectly positioned accent, created a video review of the "Popstation Portable" - a low tech piece of copy-crap game hardware that most likely won't be confused for a real PSP anytime soon. Reminds me of the portable football game I played while growing up, in which the players were simply vertical "-" marks among which I could somehow distinguish the flashing "-" with the ball. Amazing what we used to call a video game.

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News By David Touve

Weekly WrapUp: September 19-25, 2005

The past week was pretty active. The gamerati continued to digest the design implications of the revealed controller for the Nintendo Revolution, Microsoft was sued for a hard shell case, the NBA signed five deals in the video game world, Activision pledged 40 titles for the Xbox 360 during 2006, both the PSP and the Gizmondo portables had their firmware cracked, and the Joystiq crew got to unpack a Game Boy Micro a little early. Yippee!

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Gaming By David Touve

Was there a bug in a Madden 06 roster update?

Rumors abound that EA had a "little" problem with a roster update to the Madden 06 series, accounting for the presence and quick disappearance of that particular update. If screenshots are spot on, it appears that the update resulted in a minimization of NY Jets offensive lineman Michael King. King, who in real life stands 6 feet, 3 inches tall and tips the scales at over 300 pounds, was reduced to roughly 7 inches tall. Apparently his "collision box" on the field remained the same size, making him for that brief while perhaps the most powerful seven inch tall man in the NFL. Recent roster updates are supposedly back to normal, as far as height it concerned.

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Nintendo By David Touve

Game Boy Micro - the little handheld that could

I think we all remember the story of the little engine that could. That persistent yet self-doubting and undersized machine. Well, opinions were split on the prospects of the Game Boy Micro in the pre-launch days, but as we type the little machine appears to be gaining momentum. In Japan the Micro racked up nearly 150,000 units in sales during the first week, topping the GBA SP numbers during its 2003 launch by almost 40,000 sales. According to GameSpot, EB Games will be in possession of the silver Micro on September 26th and the black version on September 27th. Estimates on Japanese site Dengeki Online reckon the Famicom version of the Micro accounted for at least 40% of sales. Unlikely release of the Famicom in the US apparently, but it looks like Liksang is selling the handheld worldwide.

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Big Tech

Big Tech By David Touve

Sony to cut 10,000 jobs, Playstation a "Champion"

Sony announced its intention to layoff around 10,000 worker bees, reducing their total workforce to somewhere below 150,000 humans - not including AIBO robots (who are rumored to see a bit of a cut in their R&D budget). At the moment, the executive suite of two of the top level firms - Sony and Microsoft - are undergoing changes, but for different reasons. Microsoft recently announced a reorganization, consolidating management of the Xbox and other home entertainment groups with the mobile and "embedded" platforms groups. Sony is shutting down a number of plants, laying off workers, while announcing a heightened focus on products like the Playstation (duh), Walkmans and the Brevia Bravia LCD displays. Gamers might not usually pay attention to changes like these, but we all intuitively realize that organization structure discloses and enables a certain shift of power within these extemely large companies. While we have been playing games for years (or decades) for the fun of it, gaming platforms are now assuming positions within mega-corporations that treat our little consoles as platforms upon which new products and business units are going to emerge. For some, Fun and Games may be reduced to just Games.

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Gaming By David Touve

NBA signs five way deal, Take2 decides its all about the shoes

In the tight wake of the recent signing of a five-way deal between the NBA and game publishers, Take2 Interactive and Nike have hooked up to give the shoe a very regal role in the 2K6 basketball title franchise. In fact, even moreso than in real life (depending upon your opinion) the shoe on your feet will effect your performance. Through the deal between Nike and Take2, NBA 2K6 will associate player enhancements with shoes - things like speed, control, etc. Over time, new shoes will be "unlocked" through secret codes disclosed during the NBA season- and of course, no one will figure them out in advance ;-). Product placement within games is a feature with which gamers are going to have to get more and more accustomed, so let's hope these features add something, rather than just extract something, from the gaming experience.

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Gaming By David Touve

Cord Smith on the ideas behind Full Auto

Even Dr Evil knows a shark is just a shark, until it has a laser planted on its head. Such was the way for the team at Pseudo Interactive as they began the ideating and developing of the upcoming Full Auto title on the Xbox 360- according to Cord Smith, one of the producers at Pseudo Interactive. Apparently, the idea began as your basic race car sim, with the added benefit of crashes and smashes and damage to both car and virtual world. Then, in his words,"it didn't make sense that the only way to expose one of the game's coolest features was to fail. To rectify the situation, we mounted a missile launcher and a few machine guns on the hood and started tearing the world apart. We've never looked back." Head over the PRG for the rest of the interview.

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News By David Touve

Weekly WrapUp: September 12-18, 2005

The hot item this week was the official showing of the new controller for the upcoming Nintendo console, code-named Revolution (perhaps the most popular unofficial name in history). The one-handed wonder, the game controller that is, had the fanboys and hardcore gamers all abuzzzzz, while Nintendo's CEO told a clear story of wanting to appeal to the new and as-yet-unfound gamer set. The Tokyo Game Show was the backdrop for the announcement. Our international editor of mystery learned to say "sumimasen" along with "terai wa, doko desu ka," headed to Tokyo and brought back a flurry of news from the conference floor, along with a bag of swag for some lucky reader. In case you were sleeping for the rest of the week, here is the wrap up.

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Gaming By David Touve

Truth in Trailers - more important than game ratings?

Inevitably, timed with a game conference like the Tokyo Game Show, the universe of video game developers unloads virtual reel after reel of game trailers. Only problem - exploiting pre-rendered material at the expense of game play. Like most everyone reading this, I get an honest kick out of game trailers. The eye candy is almost sufficient to elicit real tooth decay and the explosions seem to resonate even in my hip sockets. Unfortunately, at this point in time we are all trained to assume that nothing in the trailer exists during game play? So much so, that developers often have to announce "Real Game Play" during the trailer just so we will let our defenses down. Here's a thought. Release one trailer culled only from actual game play, so we can really get a sense of the game. Make the pre-rendered trailer a movie short, blowing out our ears drums and mesmerizing our vision for a good half hour or more. Game artists get to express themselves and show off their vision, we get an honest sense of game play. No confusion.

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Gaming By David Touve

Blitz gaming goes Volatile

In response to all the recent concern (or hysteria, depending upon your perspective) over adolescent access to mature gaming titles, Blitz gaming is spinning out their more "violent" gaming titles into a separate division. The new label, dubbed "Volatile," will be the brand under which the upcoming Possession game will be released. The odd result from this whole public response to more extreme gaming titles will likely be only a greater interest in these titles. Its wise that a group like Blitz, the makers of licensed titles built upon Barbie and Fairly Odd, should divert any outcry over blood and gore and zombies away from its more "wholesome" and politically correct panach of materialistic girls with out-of-proportion dimensions and a kid who shoots fairies with a ray gun.

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Xbox

Xbox By David Touve

TGS 2005: Project Gotham Racing 3

The folks at Gamespot seem somewhat impressed with the upcoming version of Project Gotham 3, most clearly for the super-realistic graphic experience. Cars sustain visual damage and the surrounding city has often been re-rendered to near real-life impressions. There's a photo mode that even seems like an honest recreation of dropping a digital camera into the game, with options for focus, shutter speed, contrast... you name it. Apparently the game is graced by only four cities, but these tracks are expansive with the additional option of creating your own curcuits Bizarre claims there are 2 million possible combinations). No clear comments on actual in-game control over the vehicles and the realism of vehicle response and feedback. Not that most of us have driven an exotic car at 150mph through a major city and could comment on any similarities.

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Gaming By David Touve

Selling violent games to minors now really illegal in Michigan

Michigan Governor Jennifer M Granholm signed the final suite of bills into law yesterday, making the sale, or rental, of violent games to minors illegal within the state of Michigan. As you might expect, the ESA is taking the new laws to task. In the governor's words: "Protecting our children must be everyone's top priority... This is a common-sense law that provides parents with the tools they need to protect their children from the effects of violence and graphic adult content." According to GameSpot, the naughty games within the scope of the law have been defined as "real or simulated graphic depictions of physical injuries or physical violence against parties who realistically appear to be human beings, including actions causing death, inflicting cruelty, dismemberment, decapitation, maiming, disfigurement, or other mutilation of body parts, murder, criminal sexual conduct, or torture." What about Donkey Kong? Don't animals have rights, too?

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News By David Touve

Weekly WrapUp: September 5-11, 2005

This past week brought us the World Cyber Games finals in the US, Xbox Live pricing for the upcoming 360, the acquisition of IGN by the infamous Ruport Murdoch and his News Corporation, plus a Joystiq user survey finding that about 15% of our visitors intend to pick up a Game Boy Micro upon the diminutive game machine's release. It was a busy week, so follow on for the highlights from each day.

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Reviews

Reviews By David Touve

Metareview: Madden 06

The latest installment of the Madden NFL franchise, Madden 06, has been on the street for a little while now, so we figured it was time to pull together some reviews for those still wondering what to think about this game. You might say "Why wait so long?" Well... most reviews hit the streets after the reviewers only have moments to smash around the game space, while in truth, it can take some time to dig into some games and really figure out what they are all about. What we did find was that some scores didn't seem to line up with the critical nature of the reviews, and that people's expectations for being blown away somewhat clouded an ability to just review the game as it is. Average score of reviews considered : 8.5 After consideration of the replay, adjustment for butt-kissing nature of reviews in general, then re-adjusting for the expectations reviewers clearly placed upon this title... Metascore : 8.3 With a Reviewer Vision cone extending from 7.8-8.8, so you might want to rent first and see how it goes. Excitement over this game seems to be sensitive to your skill level and expectations. Reviews of the '05 version of Madden averaged as high as 91-ish, so its wise to put the '06 reviews in that context.

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Gaming By David Touve

Blizzard says 'No' to Warcraft on consoles… for the moment

With 4 million global players of World of Warcraft, Blizzard is not in the mood to make any changes to a situation that looks to be working just fine. Apparently no console versions of WOW are on the horizon. According to ArsTechnica, Blizzard's vice president of business operations, Paul Sams, stated yesterday, on CNN, that while porting WOW might be a cool idea, "once we get to the point where we feel we've achieved best of class and it's sustainable, then we'll start contemplating those types of things." Sony has taken Everquest, while Square Enix brought Final Fantasy, to consoles, with the PC versions still dominating sales, so Blizzard has reason to hit pause for awhile. But we can only guess when "best of class" and "sustainable" occur and given the increasingly competitive landscape of the MMORPG world, never say never would seem to be a theme worth remembering.

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Nintendo By David Touve

Mario does Javascript

An adventurous fan of Super Mario Brothers has placed a uniquely developed clone of the game online. The clone functions through a mix of javascript and ActiveX. For those of you with a thing for cloned games, this little remix is worth a look. We can't guarantee all functions in the game will be up to expectations however, so best of luck. Note: the site is in Japanese. via BoingBoing

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