The Stuff of Which PSP2 Nightmares Are Made

NINTENDO: ALL YOUR CORE GAMERS ARE BELONG TO US

Nintendo’s been running the Disruption 101 and Blue Ocean playbooks since the introduction of the DS, and now that they’ve completely devoured the low-end, they’re going to be reaching out with a white-gloved, hammer-wielding, hand for the core gamer:

The Nintendo executive suggested in the interview that the DS primarily attracts consumers who don’t play games that often, but hopes that the 3DS’ graphical capabilities and gameplay will appeal more to the core demographic. Its line-up at E3 and the announcement of classic Nintendo 64 remakes would seem to support that aim.

In order to “expand into elaborate games targeting serious gamers,” Iwata says that he intends to work more closely with developers, and that third party support is of utmost importance to the platform. The 3DS was, apparently, created with external developers’ requests in mind.

I would not want to be Kaz Hirai (or a Sony shareholder¹) today, tomorrow, or any time in the next five years. (And don’t think MS is going to get off easy: the Wii2 will trod the same path as the 3DS just like its forebear followed the path the DS blazed.)

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^{1 Though there is a massive list of reasons why you wouldn’t want to be one of those already.}

goING, goING, goNE: Sony Spins Their Way Into Outerspace

go AWAY

If Sony stopped spinning for a half-a-minute and let the vertigo subside¹, maybe they’d stand half a chance at competing for market share again:

“One of the reasons we launched PSPgo was to understand where that consumer behaviour was going. We were getting signals from consumers that this was the kind of device that they wanted. But we need to recognise that consumers like their packaged media library.”

So their plan was to toss out a grossly-overpriced, under-featured, portable that alienated their playerbase and made them the butt of countless jokes as a focus group experiment writ large?? I guess they forgot to mention that it was also developed to stave off an Illuminati-abetted alien invasion (with the lizard people serving as shock troopers) hell-bent on turning Earth into a subsidiary of Vogon Acid Mines Inc. (No doubt the source of the “signals” they were getting to produce this product in the first place.)

Some other things Sony hoped to learn from the PSPgo experiment:

• Do people always ‘bet on black’?
• If they release a system and nobody buys it, will they still get their yearly bonuses?
• Can we make Michael Pachter look like a corporate shill, beholden to game companies?²
• Will Sony fanboys defend anything?³
• Will Sony fanboys buy anything?⁴

I’d also hasten to add that if this sort of thing is actually true (it isn’t) that they had no intention of really going to the mat for the machine and that the people that did actually buy it were little more than paying (not paid!) focus testers. How does that feel, gowners?

Also: though the full text isn’t yet available, my guess is there’s literally zero chance that MCV called them out on this disingenuous bullsh*t.

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^{1 Granted, much of Eastern Europe would be plunged into darkness as their primary, turbine-driven, power source went offline.
2 Yes.
3 Yup.
4 Nope, even they know where to draw the line between sycophancy and cold, hard, cash/reality.}

Up, Up and Powah Wave!

Looking good, baby–the game, too

Andriasang has first pics of NeoGeo Heroes Ultimate Shooting on PSP and it looks pretty good, though I can’t help but think that using sprites, rather than polys, would have served the game better:

You can play it (assuming you import) on or around July 29th.

Gee, It’s Almost Like It’s A Coordinated PR Event

Sackboy shows his less endearing, more burlapy, side

For a game that has gotten, at best, mixed reviews¹, it’s amazing the big gaming sites have basically gone all Little Big Planet 2, all the time, today:

Little Big Planet 2 is in production and the gaming sites want you to know it.

Currently the front page of Edge has four LBP2 related stories running, including the top article:

*An announcement of the game
*A news piece on how it is not just an expansion
*An article detailing the newest Edge issue, featuring a LBP2 cover story
*A story on the new features

1Up is also a little LBP2 crazy, with five stories on the game including the top article:

*An announcement of the game
*A news piece on how it is not just an expansion
*“Six Levels I’d Love To Create Using Little Big Planet 2’s New Features and Themes”
*A LBP2 music announcements piece
*And the LBP2 debut trailer

Oh, there’s much more at the link, but it’s almost like, I dunno, Sony PR called in some favors to get this sort of saturation-bombing coverage all on the same day, dontcha think?

And notice how a lot of the stories appear to be dupes of one another (e.g. a news piece on how it is not just an expansion, because that was the first thing that leapt to anyone’s mind??), no doubt purely coincidental, even across sites that don’t share any connection at all, except…Sony PR.

Hell, I bet they didn’t even get lots of advance notice to have pieces like “Six Levels I’d Love To Create Using Little Big Planet 2’s New Features and Themes” ready to go just in the nick of time! Right?²

(Yeah, yeah: “slow news day” except that legitimately huge/universally-loved/mega-selling games don’t get this kind of ‘we’re caught in a tractor beam’-level coverage all in one day–a day that’s not even close to being over yet, so there’s still time for more!)

Note: if you haven’t gotten it yet, this is a coordinated PR event. The problem is that the allegedly independent gaming ‘journos’ are part and parcel of the hype machine that’s trying to sell the game to you, their readers, when they should be viewing such things with at least a semi-jaundiced, un-compromised by noxious spin, eye.³

Meanwhile, this story labors in complete obscurity, probably because shining a light on it would tick off the hand that feeds them and that’s a huge no-no in game ‘journo’ circles. Oh, and of course LITTLE BIG PLANET 2 (BUY IT THIS YEAR)! is much more important than prison labor/sweatshops/child labor in China. Naturally.

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1 Not in the gaming media, but in general, by the end-users who were a great deal more circumspect in their praise/adulation than the absolutely hysterical (in the crazy, not so much funny, sense) worship given to a game most people have concluded has a kinda cool tool set wrapped around a game w/ pretty lousy controls.
2 This is standard op for game journos: they’ll get packages of materials before the big reveal (which is, of course, a coordinated PR effort) so they can have plenty of unbiased, original, content for the gullible fools that think all of this stuff comes from their ‘scoop’ and ‘from the heart’ or in the heat of the ‘ZOMG this is awesome’ moment.
3 There are no jaundiced eyes in the world of game ‘journalism’, as credulity carries the day when there’s money to be made.

Random Weird PSP Hack

This is sort of like the PS3′s dynamic themes, I guess, but this one stars…Mario…on a Sony platform:

Yes, you’ll need a hacked PSP to take advantage of it and, yes, I think it’s a little odd that someone wouldn’t create a Sony-specific¹ theme with, say, Kratos banging a chick or something more ‘mature’ like that but, well, there it is.

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1 Yes, I know: emulators, etc., but it’s still kinda odd for the target audience of PSP users, right?

Warning! A ‘New’ PSP Game Approaches!

Yeah, it’s pretty–pretty awesome!

It seems that Darius¹ Burst is getting a North American release after all, quoth the ESRB:

This is an arcade-style space shooter in which players control a small craft that shoots projectiles and lasers at enemy ships, missiles, turrets, and robots. From a side-scrolling perspective, players navigate through outer space while shooting at the numerous enemy units. Ships, objects, and enemies explode when hit, sometimes with realistic or slow-motion effects.

This also means that I’ll have to actually finish the half-written review I started when the import came out lo those many ages ago. Dammit.

h/t: Siliconera

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1 No relation to pop-cum-country singers or the emperiors of the Achaemenid dynasty, though all three–shooter, singer and emperor–could make for one hell of a shmup if you mashed ‘em up. (And it’d still be only half as weird as Cho Aniki².)
2 And, yes, Wanderer, the review of that (on PSP) is also still half-finished. Dammit.

Bigger, Badder, Better (And Smaller)

The same game but different

Seems that the highly incongruous KoF: Sky Stage is also (kinda) making its way to the PSP, under the new moniker NeoGeo Heroes Ultimate Shooting:

Different from the KOF-centered Sky Stage, Ultimate Shooting brings together characters from across the Neo Geo spectrum. The magazine lists such classic characters as Akari Ichijou, Marco Rossi, Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Iroha, Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, Athena Asamiya and Kula Diamond.

The game even borrows from the story of World Heroes. Professor Brown Sugar has created a time machine with the purpose of determining who’s the strongest hero across all of time. However, he comes to learn of an organization that hopes to tap the power of these classic heroes for evil purposes, and seals away the time machine. 15 years pass, and that organization, Damudo, steals the time machine and transports back into the past. To combat this, Brown once again assembles the Heroes of Justice and sends them to a variety of time periods that have been modified.

Gameplay looks like Sky Stage on the small screen. You have access to a shot and bomb as standard weapons, and three supers unique to each character. Prior to boss battles, you’re treated to cut scenes where the characters converse.

So it’s, apparently, better than Sky Stage (if by better you mean more which, at least to most Americans, is a resounding “yee-haw!”…Canadians would probably politely clap…sissies) and, even…better (if by better you mean “coming real soon, yee-haw!”) it’s coming in July to import PSPs everywhere.

PS2 On PSP

No, not like that

Misleading headline note: Sorry, practicing my Kotaku-style headlines like the pros who aren’t really pros because they’re bloggers even though, when it counts (swag, etc.) they are pros so that means…something…I dunno…they’re pros (I think) so they have it all figured out…right?

Actually it’s a PS2 controller on a PSP which is pretty neat because it requires zero hacking to the actual PSP beyond being able to run, um, hacks…on the actual PSP… so…never mind (but it’s still neat!):

The good news is that you don’t have to take apart your PSP to make it work¹ , so that’s something, right?

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1 Like some of us, because Sony shipped a shoddy, sub-standard (yeah, Sony–big surprise, right?) piece of junk which ‘we’ had to open and fix the crappy dpad that wouldn’t actually go right which, as you may have guessed, is kinda important. (Ken Kutaragi, at the time, insisted this was how it was supposed to work and, like, you’ll play and like it you gaijin whores.) And, yeah, *we’re* still a little bitter about it, though not quite as bitter as The Nerd’s tail of woe involving five PSPs, a stolen ICBM and the wherewithal to use it (he’ll do it! He’s Canadian and they’re…well…milquetoast…and crazy!) which he might recount in the comments and then dupe as a post on his site. Or I might do it, whichever one of us proves to be slightly less lazy…I’m about a 9 on the lazy scale right now, putting me near-comatose/almost dead. (And, yeah, this screed/footnote has a lot more words in it than the actual post so, really, it should have been the post and the video and stuff should have been the footnote, though it really doesn’t work the other way around…what?…Yeah, OK…*swallows meds*.)

Stuff You May Have Missed Yesterday

Third Dimension by exs

*Wii gets another Sega lightgun comp. (Now where is Virtua Cop collection?!)
*Natal gets another tech demo and Digital Foundry provides the context. (*yawn*)
*Sony sends Room to its, err, room without dinner–hopefully Home is sent home, too.
*Anyone else think this is a really bad idea?
*Descent descends on Wii–looks decent.
*Sony’s foray into stereoscopic 3D starts with four games. (*passes out dead asleep*)
*Remedying America’s trade imbalance one gangland slaying at a time.

It’s Still Over

Wii will did rock you (again).

Nintendo, once again, crushed their competition¹ in March:

Hardware:

DS – 700,800
Wii – 557,500
360 – 338,400
PS3 – 313,900
PSP – 119,900
PS2 – 118,300

Software:

01. God Of War III (PS3, Sony) – 1,100,000
02. Pokémon SoulSilver (DS, Nintendo) – 1,020,000
03. Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Square Enix) – 828,200
04. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (360, EA) – 825,500
05. Pokémon HeartGold (DS, Nintendo) – 761,200
06. Final Fantasy XIII (360, Square Enix) – 493,900
07. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo) – 457,400
08. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PS3, EA) – 451,200
09. Wii Fit Plus (Wii, Nintendo) – 429,600
10. MLB 10: The Show (PS3, Sony) – 349,200

Total Software by Company (Top 10):

Nintendo: 2,987,000
Sony: 1,549,200
Square-Enix: 1,322,100
EA: 1,276,700

I will say it’s kinda scary/disconcerting that only four companies account for all the software in the top ten and whatever rally the PS3 had in North America seems to be decisively over as this makes three months in a row that it’s trailed the 360².

H/T: Edge Online

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1 They sorta-kinda just lie there, like Guitar Hero, so I’m not sure calling them competition any more is really even valid.
2 Yes, I know “supply-constrained!” scream the vanquished but, at some point, that supply constraint translates into lots and lots of lost sales that aren’t ever going to be made up.