E3 2007: Gut Reactions

I haven't actually watched any significant portion of the news conferences, the Sony conference isn't even over, but I thought I'd share with you my gut reactions about this year's E3.

Firstly, it's obviously very different. If you watched the conferences from previous years you'll note a significantly less active crowd. There are applause and cheers, but it feels unenthusiastic compared to the past. If it wasn't universal, you would think each of the big three gaming companies were in trouble.

Microsoft seems to be attempting to join the mini-games bandwagon with a Viva Pinata game of that flavor. Halo 3 looks absolutely awesome. Microsoft seems content to stay their course for the most part, while attempting to ramp up support for more casual gaming.

Nintendo annoyed a lot of hardcore gamers by focusing largely on casuals with their conference. Most of what was seen will be more of the family fun stuff like WiiSports and Wario Ware. There were tidbits for hardcore gamers (Mario Kart in the first months of 2008, Super Smash Bros Brawl on December 3rd 2007, online play and more), but it wasn't the focus of the show. Expect temper tantrums to continue before hardcore gamers realize that they aren't going to be the sole focus of gaming anymore.

Sony didn't impress me. The incoming games they've described show a lot of great ideas, and that's to their credit. They don't seem to have done anything extremely stupid this conference, so far anyway. However, I am going to level one severe criticism at them, namely the redesigned PSP. There are legitimate reasons for having done this, but the way they seem to have gone about it leads me to believe they are simply trying to duplicate the success of the DS Lite. As much as the DS redesign helped sleekify matters, I don't believe the already sleek PSP is going to benefit in the same way.

It's hard to know what to expect from the rest of E3. It'd be nice to get some news on Spore or Hellgate: London, but I'm not going to hold my breath as the layman is not the target of the new conference.

Nintendomination

Yup, you guessed it. More good news for Nintendo has been released. Aside from reports left and right that the Wii is kicking butt, Nintendo nearly reached 6 million Wiis sold by the end of their fiscal year. However, more interesting are their projected future sales.

Nintendo stated that they project 14 million Wiis and 22 million DSs to be sold this fiscal year. That means that by the end of March 2008, there will be 20 million Wiis and 62 million DSs worldwide. I calculated the rate at which DSs and Wiis are being sold, and it was staggering.

Given the current numbers, Microsoft will need to sell 10 million Xbox 360s to keep their lead. Their latest sales figures aren't promising in this regard. Sony needs to push 17 million PS3s to catch up iwith the Wii. The PSP is already 16 million systems behind the DS. It doesn't look good for anyone trying to beat Nintendo.

In other news, here is a short list of games I wish there was more news for.

1. Spore
2. Hellgate: London
3. Super Smash Bros: Brawl
4. Halo 3
5. Dynasty Warriors 6

NintendOwned

Last week's video game sales charts from Japan paint a very interesting story...

In short, you need to go down fifteen places before you find a single game title that wasn't for a Nintendo console. In fact, nine of the Top Ten were first-party Nintendo titles, fifteen of the top twenty, and twenty of the top thirty.

Even more surprising is how OLD some of these games are. Animal Crossing was released over a year ago, and was still #7!

Worse yet for Sony, four out of their six titles on the list aren't even for a current-generation system! The PS3 doesn't make a single appearance on the list, while the PSP only has two titles able to break Nintendo's stranglehold on software sales. Meanwhile, Microsoft isn't anywhere to be seen at all.

Quite simply, if there was any doubt that Nintendo was going to pwn this generation you need only look to Japan. Nintendo is trashing all comers there, leading in both console and software sales by a long, distant shot.

Microsoft can trumpet their 10 million consoles until the end times, and rightly so. However, they don't have a single million in Japan, while Nintendo is screaming forward in all regions as fast as they can produce systems and games.

Sony is only at 1 million consoles worldwide, and already they are sitting on shelves here in North America.

I'm doing my "told you so" dance right now. We'll see how long it goes before something changes in the industry and I have to stop.

Maths

During my lunch break and other moments of rest at work today, I attempted to reengage a sagging and otherwise zombie like mind with some math. Math that many of you will find rather boring as it pertains to video game systems. These were posted in response to other inquiring minds in a revelant topic at slashdot.

There are two major entries here. One on the profitability of Nintendo versus Sony Computer Entertainment, and another on market share in the new generation (set to really get underway in November with the launches of the Wii and the PlayStation 3).

Enjoy, or ignore.

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Going to the actual Nintendo website and looking up their profits through each report from 2001 to 2005 I give you Nintendo's profits.

2005: $816,973,000
2004: $316,134,000
2003: $640,640,000
2002: $800,338,000
2001: $726,339,000

This is pure profit. Sales were often in excess of 4 billion dollars. 2004 is lower in profit due to costs incurred in the development of the DS.

None of this is assumption, this is straight numbers taken from Nintendo's fiscal reports free availible at:
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp [nintendo.com]

Going to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc(SCEI)'s page, I could only immediately find the numbers for 2005 and 2004 in yen.

2005: 35.5 billion Yen ($302,333,504 by today's conversion rates)
2004: 57.1 billion Yen ($485,916,092 by today's conversion rates)

SCEI made more than Nintendo in 2004, but Nintendo did far, far better than SCEI in 2005.

There's a point to be made that some income and expenditure for both companies during this period would come from the GBA, DS and PSP. However, I think my original point remains that Nintendo remains competitive even with the low market share of the Gamecube. In fact, in that two year period Nintendo soundly beats SCEI.

Quite simply, Nintendo was more profitable than SCEI this past generation despite the incredible market share the PS2 had.
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Japanese Allotment: 80k
American Allotment: 400k

Population of Japan: 127.42 million
Previous Japanese Market Volume: 30.31 million (Dreamcast + Gamecube + PS2 in Japan)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 1593
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 379
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.26% (Allotment / Previous Volume)

Population of America: 300.00 million
Previous American Market Volume: 70.8 million (Xbox + Gamecube + PS2)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 750
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 177
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.56%

Combined Potential Market Share: 0.47% (480k) [5.66% relative Market Share]
Current 360 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [70.07% relative Market Share]
Potential Wii Launch Market Share: 1.98% (2 million) [23.59% relative Market Share]

Projected March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]
360 March 07 Market Share: 9.89% (10 million) [45.46% relative Market Share]
Wii March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]

Addendum:

I used the official company goals/projections. Unofficially Nintendo may have 6 million availible by January, and Sony may fall short of 6 million in March. It seemed unobjective to factor such things in.

6 million for Nintendo is not bad at all, seeing as how the Xbox 360 has been out for almost a year now and has only recently crossed the 6 million mark. The rate at which they produce new consoles in their projections is quite steady and reasonable.

What concerns me are the PS3 forecasts. If taken in two month segments, Sony is practically calling for their production to double or triple itself twice over (.5 + 1.5 + 4.5 ~ 6). Given their continuing supply problems, I'm not certain of how reasonable their 6 million March 07 projection is. If they can manage to succeed in that goal it will be a good thing for them, but I remain skeptical.

Contact

You may know of Earthbound. It was the super quirky and strange RPG for the SNES. Nintendo made a sequel to that for the Gameboy Advance in Japan which has yet to come here, one of the few things Nintendo has done to make me sad.

To advertise for the sequel, Nintendo did something rather odd. They made a game.

That game is Contact.

(Stolen shamelessly from the box)

Things you WON'T find in Contact:

A dull moment. Normalcy. A guy with spikey hair and/or amnesia. Dramatic monologues. The same battles you've been fighting since the 16-bit era.

Things you WILL find in Contact:

Monkeys. Cosmic terrorists. Powerful attack stickers. Fishing. Cooking. Humor. Fun with Nintendo Wi-Fi. Deeper meaning in life.* Costumes that increase your power and make you fun to be around.

*Results may vary.

Firstly, Monkeys people, Monkeys! The game has monkeys, that's a sale right there. Secondly, Osama can eat his heart out, we've got COSMIC terrorists. They wouldn't have flown jets into the twin towers, they would have flown UFOs into Nevada... wait. Thirdly, you can't argue when Dr. Andonuts himself peels the corner in order to say, "Psst! Buy the game- I need your help!"

I haven't played it yet, but given the universally good reviews ('Good' is the lowest rating I've seen for the game. 'Perfect', 'Superb' and 'Great' being far more common) I think it's safe to say I'm going to have a blast.

E3: Nintendo Press Conference

As opposed to Sony's, this was viewed live. As such, it will be written while it goes on. Should be interesting, ne?

Reggie asked some very good questions right off the bat.

1) Do you know anyone who has never read a book, watched TV, or seen a movie?
2) How can be considered a mass media form if we know people who haven't played video games?

Even deeper is the notion that video games can't be considered art until the first question becomes "Do you know anyone who has never read a book, watched TV, seen a movie, or played a video game?"

"We'll explain later." - The quote which currently defines the conference. Name, price, release date, everything will be explained later apparently.

Mascotville! Featuring Mario, Link, Samus and even Sonic. No one cares about you Rayman. Oooooo, Final Fantasy. Ooo, Link will be there on launch day! Noice.

So far, Nintendo's done a good job of getting me excited. A good thing for the beginning of a conference.

There's a speaker in the freaking controller. Way to make Sony feel stupid for trying to copy them. Not to mention that Sony apparently sacrificed the rumble feature for their mimicry. Dang, the nunchuck addon also has motion sensing. A techie's dream methinks.

Okay Nintendo, stop showing us 90% of what you're already shown us in gameplay videos. It's annoying, and it's going to ruin an otherwise really fun conference. Seriously, don't make them so short either. Unless you blow us away with later long videos or demonstrations, this is going to sour things significantly.

If Super Smash Bros. isn't among the 27 games on the show floor tomorrow, I'll be a sad, sad man.

Now it's blahdiddyblah time concerning the DS. I want more Wii!

I wish I could have typed that guy's speech goof fast enough, but I didn't. It was hilarious.

Thank you Nintendo for saying how much you SELL as opposed to how much you SHIP. Sony bugs me every time they do that. It's like they have to hide something, really bothers me.

Take him off the stage! He's a hack! He can't make a speech to save his life! It's not SuDOko, but SUDOKU. No stresses!

Not sure what to think of a 3D Final Fantasy 3. Crap, now I HAVE to beat Windwaker before I can play the DS Zelda. And good grief Nintendo, think of the children! Your games look so deliciously good, they will have no allowence left to spend on snacks or bully protection! My DS "greed list" is already too huge!

Satoru Iwata FTW.

NOOOO! Lost connection = bad! I wanted to see which of the three obviously meganerds won the chance to be the first gamer to use the new controller! Travesty! The irony of how Reggie had just mentioned all the people watching online is not lost on me.

Me = Refreshmonkeying

Well, it appears that I must wait until later to finish this. In about 45 minutes the conference will end and the on demand stream will go up. Hopefully then I can complete my thoughts and impressions.

EDIT: Here we go!

Of course, it just had to be that I only missed ten minutes of the conference.

Scott Dyer or whoever he is has just proven to the world how much of a nerd he is. All of us sub-nerds are now envious.

Satoru Iwata obviously can't play tennis.

Dang, that was anti-climatic.

Oh well.

Electrowhatsit?

During Christmas, I had the pleasent opportunity to share my zany japanese DS games with my family. Specifically, my sister and brother-in-law in particular. The specificity of the specifically was showing them Electroplankton.

I thought that they would enjoy it, in fact I was 102.3% positive they would. However, I entirely failed to calculate they would be addicted to it. With frightening speed I found my siblings all flocking to me whenever they could to ask for permission to use it. It was surprising, incredible, and utterly enlightening as to how strong a grip Nintendo has the potential to display over the ever-elusive casual and non-gamers.

Now, I honestly don't think Electroplankton was perfect. It was self-evident to me that many people would fail to understand what the point was. Electroplankton has no specific goals, no carryover from session to session, and no score. The point was a three year old banging keys on a piano, or humming into a kazoo.

There were, unfortunately, a lot of reviews that missed all that. A lot of reviews knocked the game for not being a game, which it never was really. Others slammed it for not being a good music sequencing tool, which it never was meant to be either.

Like I said, the thing isn't a perfect work of art, but it is an incredible work of art. It's the ultimate in electronic key banging, kazoo humming, guitar plucking excelence, and it can only be compared to the simple, child-like creative exploits.

Thankfully, a few places recognized that much. Kudos to 1up.com.

Wheee fun game!

Various updates, one sentence each. Go!

Christmas was awesome.

Hero and Batman Begins were great movies.

Raijin's BIOS vanished mysteriously and great wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.

Advanced Wars DS is addictive.

I'm going back to college on Monday.

My sister loved my Christmas present to her enough to show 73h 1n74rw3b.

I haven't updated here in a long time, whoops.

Tadah!

Blue Sparks

The basic summary of this post is this: If you ever played a video game and had fun, the Nintendo DS is for you.

Because the ultimate goal of this is to make people as excited about the DS as I am, I've been trying to edit out as much boredom as possible from the rant. Unless you don't play video games at all, I sincerely hope you give my words a shot.

C:\Rants\Nintendo\DS>run DSFanboy.EXE

I've had my Nintendo DS for a couple of months now. I had a bunch of reasons for purchasing it, but all of them really faded away into the greater whole of the truth of the DS. The small, unassuming electronic device is fun.

In these, the early days of the DS, I've already found two entirely excellent games in the form of Ouendan and Jump Superstars, and that's restricting myself to Japan-Only titles. Entire generations of a console will find me only truly impressed by one or two of the titles availible, so realize the weight of that.

On top of that, if not one of you people or anyone else I know picks up a DS, I can still find people to play. For $30 I can by a device the size of my thumb which plugs into my PC and allows my DS to wirelessly access my computer and through it the internet to play other people. The service is free, and if I already had a wireless router I wouldn't even have to pay the initial $30. This is only for select DS titles, but oh what titles they are.

Mario Kart DS will be one such title, and I've heard nothing but good about it. Take everything good about Mario Kart: Double Dash (minus two people in one cart), everything good from Mario Kart 64, and everything good from Super Mario Kart, and throw in you and eight friends. That's the kind of insane fun the DS offers, and cheap.

Better yet, not all of you would have to own a copy of the game or even most games, as the DS's download play comes with most games, allowing one person to share the joy to other people nearby.

If you're scared of technology, or even slightly confused by it, you don't need to fear. The DS is exceptionally easy to use. Even the internet play mentioned before is as easy as throwing a CD in you computer, letting it install, plugging in the thumb sized device and hitting one button on your DS. After the first time, it simplifies further down to the last two steps.

Quite simply, the DS is simple to use, fun, cheap (comparatively), has great quality and low priced games, doesn't require you to spend a fortune on batteries (it's rechargable), has a long battery life, and is one robust piece of equipment.

Admittedly, you and eight other people buying a $130 DS each is not cheap, and if you aren't a serious hardcore nut like myself, you can probably survive not having the latest and greatest in video gaming. However, if you are even thinking of buying a console, even one from this generation that is coming to a close, consider the following.

On top of the initial cost of the console, you need to buy games, controllers and memory cards. Controllers easily cost between twenty and thirty dollars, and good games (even including used games) between $20 and $60 dollars. Even if you get a used PS2 or Gamecube for $50, you still need to spend at least $15 four times over for controllers, $20 for the smallest memory card, and $20 for a game. That's $150 right there, and that's for the last generation (and being very generous towards prices being cheap). For the new generation, you're plopping down $300-$400 (the Revolution might be $200) for the initial console, $35 per controller (up to seven in the case of the PS3), and $50-$70 for a game. That's $600 for a fully equipped Xbox 360 with four controllers and a single game. You can buy four DSs for that price, one copy of Mario Kart DS (and even another game) and you, your wife, your brother-in-law, and your kid can all race wildly around a fun world of Turtle Shells, Mushrooms and burning rubber. If the family of four next door did likewise, you can all play together.

To sum it all up, the DS rocks. If you play video games, you should have one. It may not have Bloodthirsty Killer 2006, but it has style, it has fun, and that is ultimately what is most important.

Execution Finished

C:\Rants\Nintendo\DS>