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Nintendo's PAX booth tour
Just like Microsoft, Nintendo was a tad cramped in the PAX exhibition hall -- their full setup could've squeezed into a small corner of their Wii extravaganza at E3. But they're making the best of things with an all DS all the time booth, and quite a few new games on display such as Yoshi's Island 2 and Final Fantasy III. We can't deny we're a bit disappointed by the Wii's absence, and the resulting lines would've been fun to see as well, but it's not hard to see why Nintendo opted to keep their little mysterious console off the floor. Of course, with no plans by Nintendo to show the Wii at the Tokyo Games Show, we're starting to wonder if it'll show up in "public" at all before its still-undefined launch, but we suppose we'll see it when we see it.
Microsoft's PAX booth tour
Yeah, we're kicking it here with our Joystiq pals in beautiful Redmond, Washington for a weekend of rubbing shoulders with the game-nerd elite. PAX's 17,000+ attendees this year are bursting the Meydenbauer Center at the seams, which means exhibitors like Microsoft can't quite have their usual sprawl of a booth. Luckily, they're moving the show -- which is now the biggest games show in North America thanks to the demise of E3 -- to downtown Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center next year, so hopefully the claustrophobic among us will be able to manage a step through a booth in '07. Keep reading for pics of the setup, and start saving your pennies for next year's extravaganza.
PAX: Gabe and Tycho ascend the Q&A altar
The first Penny Arcade panel kicked off last night with ... an onstage proposal. Yeah, that old chestnut. It's alright, who doesn't love the heartfelt union of two of our peers on stage? Cynical, jaded, lonely jerks, that's who!So we didn't like that part, but then the evening's ringmasters took the stage to dive into their promised, and much ballyhooed, announcement ... which was, of course, leaked some hours earlier. Regardless, they announce their project, dubbed Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, to some degree of surprise, before beginning a long, often confusing, funny, and surprisingly intimate Q&A.Like the comic whose brand we've all assembled under, the questions run the gamut from the console fanboy Coke or Pepsi questions (they're going Wii60 by the way), the comic fanboy questions regarding Fruit Fucker Prime's unique feature set (he can only launch 100 out of 10,000 fruit fuckers, "it's a design flaw"), the lexiconnoisseur fanboy questions about what one would call those words, you know the ones, that sound the same in different languages but have different meanings (it's okay, Tycho didn't know it either), and just how much of an asshole Jack Thompson really is (a serious one).Seeing two regular looking dudes ("hey, they don't look like Gabe and Tycho!") field questions from throngs of loyal fans of a video gaming webcomic is a strange sort of experience; possibly a sign of video games increasing cultural potency, or of the End Times. Jury's still out on that one.
Join the PlayStation Mayhem
Sony has an RSS feed called the "PlayStation Mayhem." You can check it out by typing http://psp.us.playstation.com/rss into your PSP browser, or check it out on your PC by clicking here.What Sony says:"PlayStation Mayhem is your source on the streets for all that's poppin' in games, gadgets, style, new music, celebs, insider PlayStation dish and more. Join the Mayhem each week for exclusive and original interviews, crazy stunts and cool new stuff you won't get anywhere else."What the Mayhem says:"Yo yo yo dude... we be the PlayStation MAYhem. Mah man, PlayStation is THE SHIZNITZ. We ain't playin' cuz we too busy playin' our PSP."What PSP Fanboy says:"It's somewhat sad to see corporate white guys pretending to be 'cool' and 'hip'. I'm glad Sony's trying to use all the features of the system, but this is a bit too forced for my tastes. It's like Dell using FTW."[Comic via Penny Arcade]
Got any questions for the PAX panels?
Penny Arcade's resident bidness man, Robert Khoo, is asking the PA forum posters to think of stock questions to keep the Q&A panels going. Here's the list of events: Girls? Games? Hah! The Growing Role of Women in the Game Industry The Domination of Online Games Breaking into the Game Industry How the Industry is Busted and What's Being Done to Fix It. Make a Game For Under 10 Grand: Indy Games in the Hardcore Space I'm Getting Old: When Life Cuts Into Gaming Blogphotopodcasting: New Media in the Game Industry Rolling the Saving Throw: Why the Tabletop Genre Isn't Dead Go to the linked PA forum page and add your questions via the format "#. question" (e.g., 6. What's more important -- baby sitting or Geometry Wars?).
PAX venue will triple in size in 2007
According to a press release sent out today, the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo will be "triple the size of [the 2006 venue], and we've already begun to receive reservations for booth space from AAA publishers." Despite the massive growth, Penny Arcade's resident business guru, Robert Khoo, expressed a desire to keep PAX about the community. "We don't want to be E3," he said.This years, over 17,000 people are expected to attend PAX. With triple the venue size, we can presume triple the attendance (the demand will be there, we suspect). A 2007 Penny Arcade Expo with around 51,000 attendees, puts it just under the size of E3 2006 (60,000 people). With such an influx of people and a growing list of major publishers, can Tycho and Gabe, Inc., manage to keep the sensationalism out?The 2006 Penny Arcade Expo runs from August 25 to 27 in Bellevue, Washington.
PAX Omegathon prize revealed: A NEW CAR!
The Omegathon has proven to be one of the biggest events at Penny Arcade Expos past. Last year's event saw twenty contenders (dubbed Omeganuats) compete in six stages of gaming combat culminating in a final showdown of ... Combat. The prize: An enormous NES collection (this one, actually)! This year they've decided to up the ante by giving away (cue The Price is Right theme) ... A NEW CAR!And not just any old jalopy, but "a brand new 2006 Scion xB in Black Sand Pearl, featuring a game geek's dream package of a flipdown 15" widescreen monitor, Xbox 360 Premium System, 6-speaker sound system with CD/MP3 player, custom taillights and wheels with low-profile tires." Yeah, they had us at flipdown Xbox 360 also.The PA boys have also revealed this year's randomly culled Omeganauts on their site (damn, didn't make it) and unveiled the first five scheduled games: Dice Land (which opened the first two Omegathons as well) Geometry Wars (oh, hell yes) Quake II (they've had Quake and Doom) Guitar Hero (they've had DDR and Karaoke Revolution) Mario Kart DS (Mario Kart: Double Dash is gone) **TOP SECRET** (first Pong, then Combat, now ...) Alright, start your guessing engines. First person to correctly name the final challenge's secret identity gets a free Joystiq t-shirt when we get back from PAX. Hint: we wouldn't recommend guessing Pong or Combat. Just saying.
PAX versus Min-E3. Round one. FIGHT!
The logic goes: the giant void left where E3 used to reside will need to be filled. On Sunday, our first response was to write, "If the ESA doesn't manage to get the big guys back on board, another organizer will step in within the next 18 months with a show that will take E3's crown as the king of gaming trade shows." Could this dark horse expo be Penny Arcade's gamer-centric PAX? Gabe writes: "With a projected attendance of something like 13 thousand people and exhibitors like Nintendo, Ubisoft, Microsoft and ATI PAX is in position to pick up where E3 left off. Apparently we're not the only ones who noticed either."He contributes some other thoughts on the possibility noting that they've encountered a great deal of interest in exhibition space for PAX '07. With many of E3's biggest critics (like Greg Costikyan) wondering why the ESA didn't "throw the 'trade only' restriction out the window, open it up to actual gamers, charge them enough to make big bux for the ESA, ramp up attendance from 40k to 100k plus, and make it an event where publishers market to consumers as well as the trade," PAX does seem exceptionally well placed to capitalize on the failings of E3. If PAX evolved into something much larger, it could risk losing the personal touch the pair strive for, but it could resuscitate the not-yet rotting corpse of our fair E3. We'll be there regardless, how about you?
Loco Roco comic on Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade is once again featured in Joystiq's Weekly Webcomic Wrapup, and it is good. The happy-go-lucky nature of the Loco Roco has dark consequences, as you'll be able to see in the comic. But be warned, children! There's yucky adult language that might offend you. Tycho does seem to enjoy the game quite a bit, though. In his latest blog entry, he talks about Gamespot's 7.7 review and says "If I didn't know better, I would say they were reviewing games with the wrong organs." He thinks the game deserves much better.Don't forget to vote on Joystiq when you're done laughing.
Penny Arcade feels your GRAWful pain
Do you have the GRAW blues? Do your eyes burn with a crimson fire as the phrase "1200 points" etches itself into the back of your skull? There is only one answer to your existential funk: write a folk song about it! That's how they did it in the sixties, anyway. Well, the fancy lads at Penny Arcade are one step ahead of you, and Tycho has written an acoustic ballad to ease your troubles. "You'll pay twenty when it should be ten, and ten when it should be five:and you'll pay five when it shouldbe free, as sure as you're alive." The song refers to the old 8 hot dogs/10 hot dog buns dilemma: GRAW content costs $15, but you can't buy $15 worth of points. You can buy $20 worth or you can buy $10 worth, effectively making $20 the real cost of the new GRAW content. Oh, those devious microtransactions!And since we're on the topic, don't forget to vote in our GRAW poll. We'll discuss the results on Sunday.
Top 10 games? Bah! Who're the top 10 gamers?
MTV News' Stephen Totilo took the tired top-10 list and turned it on its ear. The new question: who are "the 10 most influential gamers of all time"? The metric: "gamers whose time playing actually affected the culture, creation or business of video games ...." The results: SHOCKING. Actually they're rather interesting. While our good friend (and aspiring pugilist) Uwe Boll didn't make the cut, there are plenty of names you will recognize. How about the Penny Arcade guys? Or Life magazine profilee, and heavily mulleted arcade champ, Billy Mitchell? Or the two guys who blurred the boundaries between gamers and developers when they created Counterstrike? Or how about either of the picks who populate the user-modifiable online world of Second Life. With only 200,000 "players," Second Life represents an interesting facet to this list. While the world is nowhere near as popular as its MMO-cousin World of Warcraft, the unique marketplace system of Second Life encourages entrepreneurship and creativity. Like the list's virtual real estate mogul Ailin Graef, whose 2005 profits were estimated at over $100,000 (mental note: ditch blogging, become a virtual real estate mogul).Who's missing? And you can't say yourself.
A look at Penny Arcade's ESRB ad campaign
Last week, the rascally duo from Penny Arcade announced their new ESRB ad campaign featuring Gabe-drawn characters and Tycho-penned backstories. The idea: to make gamers more aware of the ratings system in a hope that this knowledge will somehow be transferred -- through some kind of filial osmosis -- unto their guileless parents. ESRB president Patricia Vance gushes, "In order for the campaign to resonate with the gamer audience, we sought to have a little 'edge' to the creative and let's face it, Penny Arcade comics give a whole new meaning to the term 'comic mischief!'" Indeed. That's why we're hopeful a certain fruit-processing character assumes his rightful throne educating the masses on the finer points of M-rated behavior. In the meantime, we have Sarah here and the Andersons after the break representin' the letter E, with no mention of the additional characters in their press release (PDF).(Update: added new, higher-res screens that are -- get this -- actually legible. Thanks go to Gabe at PA for uploading them. I'll let him say it: "I was disappointed at the resolution of the images they released. Like I said everyone here is extremely proud of these ads and so I'll go ahead and post some better versions. These are designed to be read in a magazine. The idea is that kids will actually be turning the page around in order to read the text. It doesn't quite work as well with a monitor but you get the idea.")
Penny Arcade creating ESRB ad campaign
With an angry mob of politicians and parents (and pareticians) waving their pitchforks and torches at the ESRB's front door these days, launching a new ad campaign might be a wise move -- at least a good deal wiser than dumping gallons of hot oil on your detractors. The powers that be at the ratings board have tapped none other than the Penny Arcade crew to create a new marketing initiative aimed specifically at gamers, one that hopes to illustrate the importance of those letters you may have glimpsed on American game covers.Thanks to the involvement of people who have actually played games before, it's a safe conclusion that we'll be spared from the usual in-your-face X-treme to the max gamer representatives that only exist in the minds of ill-informed marketing types. Instead, Gabe and Tycho have spent the last few months creating a series of characters, each one being paired with one of the ESRB ratings. As you might have expected, Tycho has already written short narratives for all the characters that explain just how the ESRB impacts upon their lives. These will no doubt be filled with words too gigantinormonomical to comprehend.Though some teaser images were already shown at E3, Penny Arcade says that the full campaign will be invading magazines and websites very soon. We're hoping that 'ole DivX machine will be teaching us the ins and outs of the M-rating.
Going to PAX? Try carpooling with strangers
Alright, two groups are organizing carpooling convoys to transport PAX attendees from their places of origin to Seattle, WA. Let's put our math caps on. I'll use myself as a test case:From Philadelphia to Seattle is about 2,848 miles. Averaging 25 mpg highway, I'd use approximately 114 gallons of gas o' line. With the national average for gasoline at $2.87 right now, gas for the trip would hit $327 ... one way! Split between, let's say, 3 other people, we're talking $163 per person for gas round trip. If you're super cheap and eat horribly, throw another $50 on for edibles for the two day trip.*Sure, the math doesn't work out great, but it's not about the money, it's about the experience. Imagine it: 48 hours of non-stop portable gaming with fellow nerds on a pilgrimage to nerd mecca. That's what it's all about ... that said, we're not sure we'll be going by automobile, but Joystiq will be on hand to congratulate any SuperTrippers upon their arrival.*Same thing applies for the west coast SuperTrip, except they're not nearly as hardcore and all relevant figures should be adjusted to reflect that.Read - Cross-Country Super TripRead - West Coast Super Trip(Update: stupid spelling error corrected; punishment administered.)
Readers pick best webcomic (April 30 - May 6, 2006)
Even though we are all dead tired at E3 and this is the last (or second-to-last) thought on every Joystiq reader's mind, we still are required by law* to announce the winner of the Weekly Webcomic Wrapup ... and Penny Arcade's Inferno-esque Levels of Developmental Hell took the top spot with almost half of the popular vote. We are sure the guys over at Bungie are feeling an eerily similar fate to Level 14 this week (the fruits of their labor we will likely see at Microsoft's press conference today).Second place went to GU Comics' stab on the ESRB, and third place was claimed by Little Gamers' geek test. Thanks to everyone who voted; we may be busy at E3, but be sure to let us know of any great game-related (especially E3-related) webcomics you come across this week.* Not really, but that's kind of obvious.[Thanks again to Scott Johnson for all the comical E3 banners]
Penny Arcade guys reveal all
Gabe and Tycho (that's Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins to you insiders), the brains behind (Weekly Webcomic Wrapup mainstays) Penny Arcade, get the third degree in Computer Gaming World's May issue. Don't have the mag, then check out the "Director's Cut" version at their website. So, what is revealed in this tell-all, gut-spilling, interview? They talk about their spat with Harlan Ellison ("... his audience there erupted and he glared at me like he wanted to choke me onstage."); their feud with Scott McCloud ("We're best friends. He came to my birthday party."); games they're playing ("... what I've been doing at night lately is playing Marble Blast Ultra."); their secret fantasies ("You had to punch guys until their clothes came off. Every time you'd punch them, like, their pants would fly off."); their Bioware module; their favorite comic ("They Hail From Canidon"); PAX ("We wanted to make a show where gamers could get the same kind of experience we got at E3."); and Child's Play.If this is the stuff that didn't make it into the magazine, that means the rest of the interview must have encompassed the sum total of their collective life experiences; a dump of their consciousness, ready and waiting for a post-human existence.
HD-DVD buying tips from Penny Arcade
Read Ben's HD-DVD review and decided you can't wait another minute for your optical discs of high definition goodness but you know there is no way your better half is ever going to let you buy one?Good news, Gabe and Tycho have a plan. Check out yesterday's webcomic Treachery in 1080i to find out the secret to buying an HD-DVD player without having to actually finish that around the house work you've been promising to get done. For the uninitiated, Penny Arcade is a mostly gaming centered webcomic that has been around for a few years, if you play games check out the archives, they are hilarious.[Thanks for the tip Adam!]
Penny Arcade switches to Macs
Roughly 14 thousand people sent us a link to today's Penny Arcade (a web comic that the gamers seem to enjoy) which details one of the main characters switch to the 'light side,' as some people have put it.This is a case of art imitating life since Tycho, one of the dudes behind this cult hit, has recently gotten himself a MacBook Pro which seems to have him questioning his entire PC life.
Penny Arcade excited about Intel Macs
Penny Arcade is a webcomic/community that is all about gaming in all its forms, hence not the typical place where you would expect to find the events of the keynote being discussed, that is before Macs had some screaming Intel processors in them.It seems Tycho and Gabe, the men behind Penny Arcade, are all atwitter (warning: that link is rated PG-13 for language and adult situations) about the possibility of being able to play the latest and greatest games and not have to run Windows. Can anyone blame them?Thanks, Jimmy.
