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Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review When Nintendo Australia want people to play their upcoming games, they don’t release demos. Probably because they can’t! No, they like to show them off, publicly, by visiting the mall and letting people see them in the flesh. Just like Tiffany! They’ve a long, storied history of these roadshows, and another has just been announced, which kicks off in Melbourne on September 22 and winds up in Perth on October 13. Some of the games you can try out are Boogie, Super Paper Mario, Phantom Hourglass and Big Brain Academy for the Wii (Metroid Prime 3 will be there, but as a “demonstration”, which means video-only), so you could do worse things with your day than sit around wondering why Mario Galaxy isn’t on that list turn up. Full list of locations and games is after the jump.
Remember when Nintendo used to be the little guy, the underdog? Back before their consoles printed money? Good times. Now that Nintendo has conquered the market again, the company has one more obstacle to overcome: Itself. In a recently published E3 interview, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata points out: That’s probably Nintendo’s next obstacle is to not lose its internal energy and internal momentum. I believe my most important role right now is to prevent Nintendo from being in a company where people say, “Oh, Nintendo is arrogant,” “Nintendo has let its guard down,” or “Nintendo has lost its challenging spirit.” We want to avoid all of the pitfalls that can come from losing one’s momentum.
Here’s a company that has learned from its arrogant, bloated mistakes of the past. Well, hopefully! Iwata Interview [Level Up]
The idea that the Wii isn’t in direct competition with the “other two” isn’t new. It’s been expressed dozens of times in dozens of ways. Never as…poignantly as this, though. Nintendo’s George Harrison: Consider three 30-something suburbanites. On a Saturday morning, two of them drive their big SUVs into a tyre shop to buy big new chrome rims. The third is home online, doing product comparisons to figure out which hybrid he wants to buy.
There you have it, Wii owners. You’re total nerds. Fun, Games, and an Interview With Nintendo [The Motley Fool, via Go Nintendo]
Crecente is a fantastic mascot. Really. But, we need something a little, I dunno, cuter and more kawaii. Over at deviantART, Norway-based artist Lisa-Marie worked three-days to create this “Kotaku Cutie.” What inspired this? Her soon-to-be-husband suggested creating something like this when she needed a drawing exercise. Lisa-Marie tried to get all the platforms in as well as our baby shit green and hot pink colours. Nice eye for detail — just look at her stockings! It’s lined with PlayStation triangle, square, x and circle piping. Nice job — we’re flattered. Hit the jump for the full version.
That shiny black & red DS Lite was far too nice to stay in just one territory. Nintendo have announced that they’ll be selling it in Japan on October 4 for the standard price of Â¥16,800. That means it’s being sold straight-up, no bundle, most likely because everyone in Japan already owns both Brain Training games and have no need for a spare. Not even to hand off to an unloved relative, since they’ve probably got them too. DS Lite Product Page [Nintendo, via Game Watch]
Sure, we know that Heavenly Sword packs 10GB of sound space on a Blu-ray disc, but here’s more info about that — namely, the music! Composer Nitin Sawhney talks about getting the Prague Philharmonic and the challenges of working in a non-English environment. Personally, I dig these making-of videos and hope to see more of these in the future. Not just Heavenly Sword ones, either!
Lots of talk about the bad things videogames teach kids. A lot less talk on the benefits. A great thread has popped up over at Something Awful, where everyone’s chatting about words they learned solely through playing videogames. As in, if they hadn’t played games, they wouldn’t know those words. Stuff like reticulating (Simcity 2000), trireme (Civ), trebuchet (Age of Kings) and taciturn (FFVI). Two stand out for me: apothecary, which I picked up from Quest for Glory II, and ziggurat, which I learned from Alex Kidd. Both of which are utterly fantastic words, especially when you can bust them out at age 11. Vocabulary you learned from video games [v5planet @ Something Awful, thanks JC!]
Back in the day (and, well, still, I guess) I was a huge Rage Against the Machine fan. And I always thought Tom Morello was a nice guy. Sweet, even. Apparently not! Seems the dude is in fact a bad guy. A villain. And will be represented as such in Guitar Hero III, starring as a boss character (and confirming earlier rumours in the process). Whenever I play Guitar Hero, my opponent always kicks my ass on my own riffs…Now that I’m actually in the game, I hope the digital me will win once in a while!
Doesn’t sound particularly villainous. Sounds downright sporting! Tom Morello Looks Forward to Whupping Your Butt in “Guitar Hero” [Rolling Stone, via Gamespot]
OK Xbox fans. Dust off those shoes and outside clothes. You’re going to need them on September 10, because Xbox Live is shutting down for a full four hours. It’ll go down at 02:01 PDT/09:01 GMT, and will presumably whir back into action at 06:01/13:01. No word on why as of yet, so let’s just say it’s for regular ol’ maintenance.
OK, mystery solved. The PS3 firmware update yesterday seemed minor because, well, it was minor. Sony’s senior PR manager Patrick Seybold: …we’ve released a minor firmware update (version 1.92) for the PS3. This update focuses on some PS3 compatibility and playability issues for select titles. A search site for looking up compatible titles is also in the works.
Since they haven’t come out and named them, let’s just assume the “select titles” are “Warhawk” and “Lair”. Good news on the search site, I guess, since it’s been a pain not only finding games on the list but keeping track of any changes. But then that feature should have been there from the start, so we’re really just breaking even. Firmware Update (v1.92) [PlayStation Blog]
