Tag Archives | Gaming

Nintendo Gets Desperate, Will Drop 3DS Price to $170

Posted by Jared Newman on July 28, 2011 at 9:11 am

Nintendo has already admitted that sales of its 3DS handheld are lower than expected, so the company’s announcement of a Nintendo 3DS price cut isn’t a huge surprise.

But boy, is it ever a price cut. Starting August 12, the cost of a Nintendo 3DS will fall from $250 to $170, making for one of the sharpest price drops in handheld history.  This also makes the 3DS a mere $20 more expensive than a Nintendo DSi, unless Nintendo announces discounts for its 2D handheld in the coming weeks.

Early adopters who paid $250 for the 3DS will get 10 free NES Virtual Console games starting September 1 and 10 free Game Boy Advance games by year-end.

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Bastion and the Slow Rise of Downloadable Console Games

Posted by Jared Newman on July 26, 2011 at 5:48 pm

Despite a growing stack of unplayed or unfinished video game discs in my living room, I spent a good chunk of last weekend playing Bastion, a downloadable Xbox Live Arcade game.

It’s a beautiful game, with a grizzled narrator who turns your every move into the stuff of campfire legends, an addictive combat system that strings you along with new weapons and powers, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world that literally reassembles itself chunk-by-chunk as your character trudges forward. I easily spent eight hours playing Bastion from start to finish, all for the Microsoft Points equivalent of $15.

I’ve played some excellent Xbox Live Arcade games over the years — Braid, Limbo and Shadow Complex, to name a few — but Bastion feels more like a full retail title than any of them. And it does so for a fraction of the price of a new game on disc.

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Google+ Games Might Not Be Obnoxious

Posted by Jared Newman on July 22, 2011 at 9:45 am

As Harry and other tech pundits have noted, one of the nice things about Google+ is how little noise there is compared to Facebook. Now there’s a hint that it’ll stay that way even after Google starts building games into the service.

Slashgear’s Chris Davies discovered a Google+ help page that describes how users can see different sources of content in their streams. “If you’re looking for updates shared from games, check out your Games stream,” the page said. (Google has since removed this reference from the page in question, which isn’t surprising because Google+ doesn’t have any games yet.)

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Guitar Hero Will Make a Comeback

Posted by Jared Newman on July 21, 2011 at 3:16 pm

Back in February, Activision announced that it was stepping away from the Guitar Hero franchise. The publisher dissolved its Guitar Hero business unit and cancelled development on a game that was supposed to launch this year.

Now, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that a comeback is in the making.

The publisher has formed a new studio to reinvent the Guitar Hero franchise, Kotick told Forbes. There’s no word on when the next Guitar Hero will launch, but it seems like the project is in its very early stages, with the new studio exploring “a variety of different prototypes,” Kotick said.

The general consensus on Guitar Hero games — and games where you wield fake plastic musical instruments in general — is that they saturated the market to the point that people stopped caring. Kotick’s take is slightly different, but it touches on a similar theme: Activision failed to innovate with the Guitar Hero franchise. And although the spin-off series DJ Hero was innovative and critically praised, Activision overestimated how many people really wanted to act out a video game DJ fantasy.

Activision tends to be a polarizing company, and Kotick a polarizing figure. But from the Forbes interview it’s clear that he has a strong grasp on what people want, and why Activision eventually failed to deliver with Guitar Hero. The publisher gets a lot of well-deserved flack for milking its franchises dry, but I have a feeling that whenever Guitar Hero returns, it’ll be something to watch.

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Yep, Roku 2 is a Game Console, Too

Posted by Jared Newman on July 20, 2011 at 8:50 am

Roku’s new streaming set-top boxes are smaller and sleeker than ever, but the bigger news is that the Roku 2 is the start of a serious push into home console gaming.

The high-end Roku 2 XS, which will launch later this month for $100, will include a Wii-like motion controller with a directional pad and two buttons (like an old-school Nintendo), plus a free copy of Angry Birds. The lower-tier Roku 2 HD ($60) and Roku 2 XD ($80) will also support the game controller, sold separately as a $30 bundle with Angry Birds and a 2 GB MicroSD card.

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Capcom’s Community Efforts Backfire With Mega Man Legends 3 Cancellation

Posted by Jared Newman on July 19, 2011 at 10:53 am

Capcom enraged some of its biggest fans on Monday when it announced the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 for Nintendo 3DS.

This wasn’t just an ordinary cancellation. After revealing Mega Man Legends 3 last September, Capcom started soliciting feedback from its community on how to proceed with the game. An online forum allowed fans to communicate with developers as they worked on a prototype, which would eventually become a downloadable prologue to the main game.

Capcom now says that it won’t be releasing the prototype, and will stop updating the game’s development forum.

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Ubisoft Joins the Used Game Punishment Party

Posted by Jared Newman on July 15, 2011 at 1:53 pm

The act of charging $10 to play a used video game online is slowly spreading through the video game industry, with Ubisoft becoming the latest publisher to sign on.

Starting with Driver: San Francisco, Ubisoft will require a voucher, cutely called a “Uplay Passport,” to play its most popular new console games online. One voucher is included with each new copy of the game. Buyers of used games will have to pay $10 for a new voucher.

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EA Buys PopCap, is Dead Serious About Mobile and Social Gaming

Posted by Jared Newman on July 13, 2011 at 3:33 pm

While most major video game publishers continue to treat mobile and social gaming with caution, Electronic Arts is doubling down.

EA will buy Popcap Games, creator of the popular Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, for $650 million plus $100 million in common stock. That’s the second-largest sum that EA has ever spent on an acquisition. The largest was a $775 purchase of a holding company that owned Bioware and the now-defunct Pandemic Studios.

It’s hard to say exactly what EA plans to do with Popcap, but we’ll likely see its hit games expand to new platforms (many PopCap games aren’t available on Android) at a faster pace. EA CEO John Riccitiello also told All Things Digital that his company wants to take on Zynga, developer of Farmville, in social gaming.

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Gamer Group Sounds Alarm on “Anti-Streaming” Bill

Posted by Jared Newman on July 11, 2011 at 6:07 pm

A bill that targets unauthorized streaming of movies and TV shows could have a detrimental effect on a vibrant part of video game culture.

Under U.S. Senate Bill S.978, streaming copyrighted material before audiences of 10 or more would become a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison. The Entertainment Consumers Association warns that the bill inadvertently targets people who stream playthroughs or walkthroughs of video games.

To get a sense of gaming’s video playthough culture, run a search for “Let’s Play” on YouTube. At present, there are more than 500,000 results. A search for “video game walkthrough” returns more than 600,000 results. A search for “speed run” returns more than 250,000 results. The Senate bill would leave all the users who posted those videos open to prosecution. The ECA calls the measure “draconian” and is helping gamers write letters of opposition to their senators.

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