Online gamers who like communicating, take note. Nintendo is rolling out text chat for Mario Kart Wii. Let us repeat that: Nintendo is rolling out text chat for a racing game. It’s likely the game will support a USB keyboard — as most Wii Channels already do. This begs the question, when exactly are people supposed to chat? It is a racing game, not Ultima Online, Nintendo. Here’s how it will work: Players can create rooms for Friend Code friends to join and chat while waiting for other racers. Swell. Text Chat [IGN via Joystiq]
Above, the Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle that could have been, should have been, but sadly is not. Snake’s old news, Sony. Dude’s played out. Time to embrace the future, hand the spotlight over to the real stars of MGS4: drinking monkey and Captain Shits-in-a-barrel.
Instead of buying a sandwich, The Verve lead singer Richard Ashcroft was spotted in London’s Uxbridge Road purchasing Twilight Princess for his Wii. Little late, huh? Don’t blame Ashcroft. He’s been making a new Verve album and doing drugs and other stuff. Noel Gallagher Spurned By Elton John [NME]
360 warranty issuers SquareTrade are still at it. Fresh off claims that they’d “nailed” the 360′s failure rate at 16%, and a subsequent “who are you?” from Microsoft, they’re now showing off the details of their study into the console’s failure rates, and claiming that the final figure is probably even higher. Apparently they got their 16% figure from a sample group of 1040 consoles sold between April and July 2007, of which 171 consoles died. Interestingly, they claim only 102 of those were due to red rings: the other 40% were done over by things like video card failures, HDD freezes and my personal favourite, disc read errors. SquareTrade also say that because their sample numbers don’t include customers who returned their consoles to Microsoft, the actual failure rate is probably higher than 16%. Which it probably is! If we ever find out the actual numbers, and they’re not in the 30-40% range, then I’ll wolf down humble pie til my sides split. New Info on 360 Death Rate Study [IGN]
For never was a cell phone game of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
OK, bear with me. ZelnickMedia are an investment firm who were brought in to run Take-Two. Take-Two’s executive chairman is a Mr. Strauss Zelnick, a member of ZelnickMedia’s “executive parntership”. EA have made two offers to buy Take-Two, one on February 6, one on February 19. Very shortly after receiving the first offer, and before they received the second offer (or told shareholders about it), Take-Two’s board of directors and ZelnickMedia approved a “major increase in compensation” (ie a payrise) for Mr. Zelnick, along with CEO Ben Feder and executive VP Karl Slatoff (also ZelnickMedia members). Part of that deal included a hefty stocks payout for Zelnick, who received shares in the company that would either mature in time or – and here’s the kicker – half of which would vest (ie pay out) immediately should the company be bought.
VG247 are reporting that Relic are already hard at work on Warhammer: Dawn of War 2. Makes sense. The first – and its legions of expansion packs – are the best Warhammer games since Space Hulk, and really succeeded in bringing the franchise to life. Still, if true, the good news is tinged with a little sadness: I was really hoping Relic would be doing Homeworld 3 instead (though, hey, they might be doing both!) Relic working on Dawn of War 2 [VG247]
It’s point the blame time! So why didn’t Shrek the Third do as well as Shrek 2? Easy, because of those damn video games, says DreamWorks Animation CEO and former Disney honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg (above, wearing glasses). Certainly the fact that the movie TOTALLY SUCKED had nothing to do with it. Says Katzenberg: Competition at retail from other sources such as video games has had an impact on the overall homevideo market and on the performance of individual titles including “Shrek the Third.”
Hey man, make the good movies, and you can bet your ass the DVDs will sell. Remember: When you have no one else to blame, take the easy way out and just point the finger at video games. You’ll be glad you did. Just ask Katzenberg. Video Game Sales Are Hurting DVDs [The Cut Scene][Pic]
Final Fantasy VII on the NES? Tip of the iceberg. This site has a massive catalogue of other bootleg, Chinese homebrew carts, nearly all of them based on existing game series or movie tie-ins. Link to the Past on NES? Got it. A Lord of the Rings 2D fighter? Got it. Super Mario World on Mega Drive? Yup. A Titanic platformer for the NES? Got that too, and it’s amazing. galleryPost('chinesecarts', 3, 'Magnificent Chinese Bootlegs'); Famicom/Megadrive remakes [insert credit]
