Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks Good news and bad news for Sony today. The good news? Sony’s games division actually made money during the last quarter, following cuts to the PS3′s production costs and increased software sales. And they’re revising their sales target for the PSP upwards, from 10 million to 13 million. The bad news? They’ve revised their sales target for the PS3 downwards, from 11 million to 9.5. One step backwards, two steps forward! What is this, Sony, some bizarre Paula Abdul video? Cut it out. Sony Q3 profit up 6 pct on digital camera, games [Reuters] Sony cuts 07/08 PlayStation 3 sales target to 9.5 mln [Reuters]
In a Dallas Morning News opinion piece titled “The child-man” from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, writer Kay Hymowitz argues that the today’s 18-34 lingers in “a new state of semi-hormonal adolescence.” From the article: With women, you could argue that adulthood is in fact emergent. Single women in their 20s and early 30s are joining an international New Girl Order, hyper-achieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling and dining with friends. Single young males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3 and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it’s receding.
Because if you play Halo 3, that means you’re not doing anything with your life. And if you are shopping and traveling, you are. There’s more:
Back before Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, footage of Nintendo Co., Ltd. in Kyoto and SSBB developer Sora in Tokyo playing each other online surfaced. The online aspect of the game looked very smooth with no lags whatsoever. I’m assuming it is smooth. Assume because I haven’t been able to clock a single online brawl. Hello Xbox Live circa 2002.
Silicon Knights has had it rough. Game Too Human years in development. A legal battle with developer Epic. Like we said, rough. But that can’t be that bad — SK is expanding its Niagara, Ontario office. The dev is looking to add 80 new staffers to its team of 165 as part of a plan to rejuvenate Niagara’s economy and keeping talented workers in Ontario.
Niagara has always been an industrial city and that’s starting to change. We’re going to start seeing things in this region that people are not used to.
What, like a new SK game on store shelves? Zing! New Economic nGen [Welland Tribune via Shack News][Pic]
The folks over at AustralianGamer got the chance to invade the headquarters of Oz developer FuzzyEyes. The studio is currently working on the title Edge of Twilight.
There are photos of the team’s work environment (looks like a normal office really) as well as interviews with the head dudes. Here’s a quote from the article by lead designer Andy Chrysafidis, where he describes exactly what Twilight is:
It’s an action adventure game set in a sort of steampunk-slash-alternate fantasy world that has been divided into two separate realms of day and night. The general story of it revolves around this clash and power struggle between two different races.
One, the Athern who are more industrial, steampunk, and the Lithern, who are the opposite pretty much, the more spiritual race. The player takes the role of Lex, who’s this bounty hunter who’s a half breed and thus has the ability to shift between day and night, and because of this ability is called on by the Atherns to help them in their struggle against the Lithern.
If you’re desperate for more, the full article can found at the link below.
A Visit to FuzzyEyes [AustralianGamer, via Sumea]
According to a recent issue of German gaming mag NMag, upcoming Wii racer Mario Kart Wii will have at least 32 tracks, will feature Baby Peach and Boo as drivers, will use snaking and have controls that are reminiscent of Excite Truck‘s. Not so! Well, maybe. Nintendo points out:
Nintendo has not announced any further information on Mario Kart. We’ve spoken to the magazine and it’s just pure rumour and speculation on their part.
So this magazine feature is the result of talking to Nintendo and making stuff up? That seems kinda odd. Nintendo Dismisses Mario Kart Article [Eurogamer via Game Guru]
Yes, that is my green carpeting, and yes, that is a copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl Check back through the night for impressions!
Never really understood the appeal of Twisted Metal (I find it equal parts garish and boring), but hey, I can understand a lot of people do. Maybe they just dig clowns. If that’s you, Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe has posted on his blog a teaser for the upcoming documentary based on the series, The Dark Past. If your fancy is tickled, the whole thing will be available as a bonus with Twisted Metal Head On: Extra Twisted Edition, which should be out in early February.
In-game advertising seems like an easy way to turn a buck, right? Wrong. While advertising is established in magazines and television, games are a great unknown. Activision Blizzard honcho Bobby Kotick says he wouldn’t go in that direction himself. “It’s early days,” according to Kotick. Sony bossman Howard Stringer also remains unconvinced.
Says Stringer: The [supposed]solution to everything at the moment in the digital space is ad-supported. While advertisers are happy to talk that up, there is a limit to the amount of money available… Young people don’t like advertising very much…
Make that, young people don’t like bad advertising. If it’s done in an innovative, non-intrusive way, in-game advertising could work. I mean, why not?
Questions Raised Over Modern Ads [FT.com via Gamasutra]
