This Week in Gaming is a weekly column every Sunday attempting to re-cap some of the biggest news in the gaming industry, or poking fun at a few things no one really cares about. Let’s cut the bullshit and get started!
First thing first, EA can suck a dick. Not just any dick, but a huge, meaty dick. After being voted the worst company in America for two years in a row and then conducting the butt-hurt train after Nintendo refused to use their online service Origin on the Wii U, they further proved the fact that they are, indeed, a collective group of assholes. What started as a normal “we have no games in development for the Wii U” statement eventually turned in to Bob Summerwill, Senior Software Engineer and Architect calling the Wii U “crap” and that it’s “less powerful than an XBOX360“, has a “poor online store“, a “weird tablet” and that it’s “dead in the water“. He eventually went on to delete some of those comments via Twitter but there were plenty of screenshots to go around. How EA were so shocked they were voted the Worst Company in America twice is beyond me, but at least they’ve just confirmed to be doing away with the Online Pass system, so that’s a start.
In a better turn of events for Nintendo fans, Ubisoft seems confident that Nintendo will “take steps to ensure the Wii U is successful” and will continue to stand at their side by cross-platforming Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Watch_Dogs & Rayman Legends. It’s not as if they’re totally innocent after delaying Rayman Legends, which was already finished as a Wii U exclusive, and porting it to the competitor consoles. Either way, shit happens and it’s always good to see a company that understands the business end of things. An Ubisoft spokesperson was quoted as saying “As with any new console, it takes some time to form an established base“, which is exactly what happened to the 3DS and now look at their sales. They’re flying off the shelves! Ubisoft has also been rumored to be in development for a ZombiU sequel.
This week was actually chock full of Nintendo news, with New Super Luigi U being announced as both a download and receiving a physical release. The Wonderful 101 has also received an official release date of September 15, 2013 and you can check out the box art here, courtesy of My Nintendo News. Deadpool, once thought to be skipping Nintendo’s next-gen console, has been listed on Amazon Canada for pre-order sales. I know I’m linking a lot from My Nintendo News today, but they’ve really been pumping out some huge announcements from the big N this week. Nintendo has confirmed that more information will be released “before E3” concerning the Wii U entries for the next Mario, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. I won’t even get in to the swarm of Pokemon X & Y news or Nintendo Direct as it’s been covered in ridiculous quantities.
Kind of off-topic here, but Nintendo has also confirmed this week that they will be cracking down on YouTubers using their games in their Let’s Play videos who receive any sort of monetary gain. Their method to cracking down appears to be placing ads before or after the videos to prevent any sort of ad revenue for the YouTuber. Fans seem to be on the fence here, but in my opinion this is a YouTube policy that YouTube has failed to enforce and Nintendo shouldn’t even have to do something like this. Most fans against this idea cry out “free advertisement“, but let’s face it.. if any company doesn’t need a YouTuber to advertise their games to increase sales, it’s the one company who has been able to thrive on their own releases year in and year out – Nintendo. If making Let’s Play videos is a source of your income, just like any job, you have to follow the rules.
In what I feel is the biggest news this week, Sega has confirmed that they have signed an exclusive deal with Nintendo for 3 Sonic the Hedgehog releases. Sonic Lost World has been confirmed for the Wii U and the 3DS, while the other two seem to be an addition to the Mario & Sonic Olympics series and some form of Sonic & All-Star Racing X Mario Kart. I couldn’t really care less for another Olypmic entry, but Sonic Lost World will be a huge selling point for the Wii U and a Sonic X Mario Kart game would be quite delicious! Thinking back to the Nintendo and Sega console war of the 90’s, it’s odd to see them pair up in 2013, but it’s definitely a dream team of sorts that could create the 3D Sonic experience we’ve all wanted since the original Sonic Adventure back on the Dreamcast in 1999. Sega has already confirmed that Sonic Lost World will offer new gameplay and enemies never before seen in the Sonic series. This is the kind of news that makes me want a Wii U. Thank you, Sega!
Microsoft recently announced that May 21st will be the reveal for the newest Xbox, dubbed “Infinite”.
The Kickstarter-funded Ouya will be represented at E3, but not exactly the way you might be thinking. The Ouya will be on display via the parking lot, but hey, we’ve all gotta start somewhere, right?
This week was full of news, but personally I think Nintendo stole the show. What do you guys think? Is the Wii U becoming more enticing?
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Lots of good news, for sure.
Nintendo still has a ways to go to make the Wii U live up to its potential, but we’ve all seen Monolith Soft’s game, “X”.
We KNOW that the system can do gorgeous visuals even without the same equivalent power of the PS4 or Infinite.
That fact alone means the Wii U is easily set to recover what little ground Nintendo has lost, especially if even half of the rumors surrounding their Directs that will be running prior to E3 are true. Even without the on-stage media presentation.
As to the Let’s Play issue, keep this in mind people; real Let’s Players, the ones that aren’t sell-outs who only do what makes them money off of monetization on their videos, will still be covering Nintendo games, because that’s how Let’s Play’s were formed; from love of the games and the desire to spread information about them.
Besides, any attention that said videos attract to their channels will also make some people want to look at other videos by the same user, including the monetized ones, so in actuality the Let’s Players stand to lose very little, and Nintendo likely won’t lose an amount of advertisement that’s worth worrying about.
The only point they’ve made that I agree with, is that Nintendo certainly COULD use more advertizement for their games, but Let’s Plays aren’t major enough to be the sort of advertisement that would pull Nintendo’s Wii U ad campaign out of rough waters and onto smooth sailing.
On the Sega news, it’s very very GOOD news.
I’m greatly looking forward to seeing how the next three Sonic games play out, and it would make me really happy if Nintendo’s bond with their former rivals strengthens to the point of making Sega a second-party developer.
Or, if not a second party, then a third party with an agreement to make all games come to a Nintendo system regardless of what other systems they release on.
Wii U could certainly benefit from such a move, and it would give Sega the leeway they’d need to release even more of their other successful franchises from the past on the Virtual Console.
As for the PS4 and Infinite, well, I started with high hopes.
For Sony, at least.
I happen to own and love a PS2 and PS3. They’ve both given me the chance at unforgettable games like Devil May Cry 3, Bayonetta, the Ar Tonelico series, Jak&Daxter, Ratchet&Clank, Bioshock, Borderlands, I could go on and on and on.
But, for me, PS4 dropped the ball BIG TIME.
I was already disappointed in the PS3’s move of taking away backwards compatibility, but I dealt with it, thinking that by the time the next generation of Sony’s home console came out, they would have found a cost-effective way of including backwards compatibility into it, even if it was just downloading the games like Nintendo does.
The lack of it made me wait over two years to get a PS3.
Then, Sony announced that they’d be using a cloud service to stream games on the PS4, instead of allowing me to download and keep my games.[they also didn’t mention how much of their back library of games will be available on the cloud, called GaiKai]
On top of that, they’ve put into the system the ability to let people play games FOR people, if they’re stuck.
I can only imagine the amount of people who are going to go so far as to charge people money to pass certain areas of games for them via that feature.
Then we’ve got the share feature, which will let people record their gameplay.
A good idea in theory, as it streamlines Let’s Plays, but the issue is that it likely won’t be allowing us to edit the videos we make on the system and likely won’t record our voices onto it either, both of which are a key part of the really good, unique qualities of the best Let’s Plays.
This gen, therefore, I will likely be washing my hands of the PS4 and sticking to my PS3, for as long as it is still supported as a platform.
By the time they stop supporting it, hopefully the PS4 will have enough games to justify purchasing it, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to support streaming past-generation games.
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That’s a pretty in-depth comment, and I most definitely approve!
The PS4 confused me a bit because Sony wants to market it as a “social system”, but for their share feature they opted to go a different route aside from snagging the top players in the industry with twitch.tv and YouTube for streaming and uploading. Sharing videos to Facebook is a bit tiresome in this day and age when most people have their profiles set to private, unless Sony will allow us to upload the videos to a managed page like my blog’s Facebook.
I’m not usually worried about backwards compatibility since I rarely sell my old consoles, if at all. It’d be a plus so I wouldn’t have to have all of them hooked up all the time, but it’s not a major selling point. I’m sure the PS4 and “Infinite” will become powerhouses down the line, at least graphically, and today that seems to be all the rage. No one remembers when gameplay > graphics, aside from Nintendo I guess.
At this point, if I were to invest anything, I’d just pick up a 3DS XL, a Wii U and call it a day, but until the Wii U library gets a little more meat on its bones, it’s still sitting in the backburner for me. The 3DS is just ridiculously good right now.
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I’m genuinely convinced that Nintendo is going to handle the next generation swimmingly. Ignoring the fact that the 3DS is gaining steam and has plenty of quality titles out right now, there’s still the fact that the Wii U is going to have some incredible titles soon enough. Seriously, are people just ignoring all these direct conferences they’ve been having? Sure, the company’s made some mistakes, but EA of ALL companies isn’t allowed to start with the mud-slinging anytime soon.
I’d also like to think that it’s pretty short-sighted to assume that raw console power = better console. I was under the impression that the DS kicked the PSP’s ass. And I’m currently under the impression that the 3DS is kicking the Vita’s ass. And in a lot of ways, I’d argue the Wii kicked the PS3’s ass. Nintendo is not the company you want to bet against, I’d say.
I’m not too savvy on business/industry matters, but this whole “Let’s ignore the Wii U” trend by devs seems more than a little backwards. If the console’s in the middle of a drought, why not swoop in and save the day with one well-placed, high quality title? People will flock to it if there’s no other alternative. That’s easy returns and goodwill gained on technology that you’re well-versed in, and don’t have to spend too much on (relative to next-gen development costs, I’m guessing, though opinions vary on how high those will be).
Well, maybe that’s just EA’s game-winning strategy. They’re gunning for the prize of America’s worst company for three years in a row, I guess. Gotta fill that mantle somehow.
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Absolutely, the Wii is the best selling console for this generation and the DS is the best selling console of all time, just recently surpassing the long reign of the PS2. I also completely agree that more power does not always equal a “better” system. I’d love to see the Wii U pick up steam and knock the industry on its ass. I miss when gaming was a fun medium rather than a bunch of money hungry developers who put quantity over quality.
I’ve always stood by Nintendo as having the absolute best exclusives, but they’re also the only company that can survive off of their own games. Unfortunately, third party developers know this and they haven’t really made a ton of money supporting Nintendo. Third party is all about the bottom dollar, but that, to me, would be more reason to just throw a direct port to the Wii U and offer the standard controller support. The gamepad is an option, not a requirement. It’s a big thing for the console, but if it means more cross platform ports, I’m all for it.
The 3DS just took off out of nowhere and with Bravely Default and Shin Megami Tensei IV on the way, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should not own one (aside from finances, which is my problem).
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