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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle Tales of Hearts is Namco Bandai’s latest entry in the Tales series — though this time Namco Bandai is releasing two versions. One is a realistic CG version, and the other one is cutie anime version. If that wasn’t enough (it’s not, really), Namco Bandai’s Tales team has joined forces with Circle K convenience stores to offer Tales of Hearts mabo curry. This edible promotion isn’t out of left field: Apparently mabo curry appears in game as a power-up item. Priced at ¥500 ($7.90), the limited edition dish is available from December 9 to December 22 at Circle Ks across Japan. Chow down!
You kids know Darren Aronofsky? Movie director, did Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, and is also doing the RoboCop reboot. Darren Aronofsky was asked by the New York Times what his entertainment/media “moment that mattered” for 2008 was. His response:
The one console that EA’s Madden franchise doesn’t sell huge on? The Nintendo Wii. Approximately 100,000 Madden NFL 09 Wii copies were sold this past August compared to the combined two million PS3/PS2/Xbox 360 copies sold during the same period. EA Sports exec Peter Moore sized up the situation: “The challenge we face is that that consumer gets Wii Sports right out of the box and that’s a sports experience that’s good enough for a lot of people. That is a challenge for us at times. Secondly, we’re doing very well with the core consumer, migrating them to the Xbox 360 and PS3 and, quite frankly, if they’re looking for that hardcore experience that’s where they’re buying that… We are seeing multiple copy purchases in the home. As you well know, I was the proponent of the Wii60 in the early days. I think there’s going to be a very strong multi-console ownership in homes. And I think that’s bearing out. We are starting to see, anecdotally, two copies of Madden — one for the 360 or PS3 — and another copy for the younger kids or even for the wife or girlfriend on the Wii.” Moore is probably onto something. Sure, there are some Wii-only households, but there are also tons of Wii-plus-another-console households.
EA Sports’ Peter Moore On The Struggle Of Selling Sports Games To Wii Owners [Multiplayer][Pic]
Gloom and doom! It’s not only Japanese game developers who are saying Japan’s days as gaming’s dominant force are over, but so is the mainstream Japanese media. An article in Japan’s Nikkei Shimbun, the country’s equivalent of The Wall Street Journal, entitled “The Melancholy of Cool Japan” portrayed Japan’s declining domestic game industry. As the article pointed out, the top two game companies in the world are no longer Japanese but American: EA and Activision Blizzard.
You know, we get asked the following quite a lot: “hey, you guys should find out about [some game] “. It’s asked like finding a lot of stuff out in this indsutry is easy. Well, it’s not. And you know why it’s not easy? Because of games PR. The slick-haired filter between what we want to know and what game companies get to tell us. While some (some) are proud gamers and are also super-helpful, others are clueless, and some – the worst kind – are lying shitbags. Want to know more? Brandon Sheffield’s written a nice piece over on GameSetWatch, giving you guys a helpful breakdown on how games PR works, what’s wrong with it and what he thinks can be done to fix it.
Opinion: The Game Industry’s PR Problem [GameSetWatch]
Meet Raymond Adams. Raymond is 37, and dating 33 year-old “Julie” (obviously not her real name). When they met, Raymond was fat. Very fat. And Julie felt she was lacking in the chesticle department. So it’s a feel-good story that, after spending ₤10,000, Raymond is now thin and “Julie” has a spanking new pair of norgs, yes? No! You see, Raymond didn’t raise the money through legitimate means. He was running a “shop” called Midland Console Modifications from the totally non-shady location of Wolverhampton race course, and it’s believed the “shop” had earned him a cool ₤180,000. Or, it had, until he was sentenced to three years prison earlier this week. For her part in it, “Julie” copped a suspended 12-month sentence. Proof that crime doesn’t pay…unless it’s for vain body modifications.
Two weeks ago, Microsoft’s Mindy Mount predicted that, sometime this month (ie November 2008), the install base for the Xbox 360 would overtake that of the original Xbox. And whaddya know. Microsoft Europe’s Chris Lewis says that, in the two weeks since Mount’s statement, the 360 finally outsold it’s fat older brother. Seeing as the console’s only just entered into middle age, and is getting dangerously close to an “affordable” price point, you can bet there are high fives echoing throughout the halls of Redmond Towers.
Microsoft sent word today that, along with the announcement of the first piece of major downloadable content for the game, Fable II has done quite well for itself in the sales department. Since its release last month, the RPG has sold an impressive 1.5 million copies worldwide. Yes, 1.5 million copies for a game that is Fable 1 with baggier pants. Its success is testament both to the game’s marketing and to the fact that, despite its problems, its probably the most charming thing you’ll play all year.
As much as some of us may not have wanted to like the video game version of The Godfather, it was a quality product, handled rather elegantly by EA. Game of the year it was not, but it certainly wasn’t the disaster that The Godfather purists may have been hoping for. The Godfather II will hopefully ramp up the quality on par with how good the explosions look.
Uh, oops. Over the weekend, Forbes ran an article citing data obtained from Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). Forbes’ article said that, according to EEDAR, only 4% of games ever make a profit. Wha? 4%? Sounded silly. Seems it was silly. Forbes mis-quoted EEDAR’s data, which actually says that only 4% of all games that ever enter into production make a profit. Sounds like a case of semantics, but it’s a key difference. Just like movies, most games that enter into production never actually see the light of day. Of those that do make it onto store shelves, it turns out 20% of them return a “significant profit”. That sounds more like it. EEDAR’s full correction follows.
