Here’s an excellent video that gives you a behind-the-scenes look of the upcoming Iron Man 2
McHale is an awesome guy. I’ve known him for like a decade and he’s just a sharp, sharp individual. Plus, he has awesome MacGyver hair. Martinetti is also a really cool guy. I met him randomly at a San Francisco dive bar and we bonded over being transplanted New Yorkers.
Anyway, check the video out and let me know what you think of the game (please)!
Here’s a cute video of a cardboard mock-up of the Nintendo 3DS. It’s not actually a 3DS, but an adorable cardboard cutout poking fun at the handheld’s 3D capabilities.
There’s nothing interesting coming out for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, or Nintendo DS this week. Thankfully, the PlayStation Portable has a pair of releases to end Q1 2010. Japanese RPG fans will want to keep an eye on Mimana: Iyar Chronicle
Are any of you buying new games this week?
Congratulations to Sony for five successful years with the PlayStation Portable platform. The company boldly went into territory that was utterly dominated by Nintendo. Although the Nintendo DS is still the king of the hill, the PSP has done quite well. Here’s what Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president Peter Dille had to say in today’s press release:
Five years ago, PlayStation had yet to break into the portable market. Today, the PSP system is a well-established handheld platform that continuously redefines portable entertainment with quality that’s unparalleled. As PSP celebrates its fifth anniversary, the best is yet to come. We’re very excited about the vibrant 2010 lineup and are committed to continuing to offer entertainment experiences and immersive gameplay only possible on the PlayStation platform.
Yesterday my friend from Gamasutra tweeted an article I co-wrote in 2004. The topic was Nintendo DS vs. PSP. Like so many others, I completely underestimated the DS and completely overestimated the PSP. You have to remember, at the time Sony was kicking all sorts of ass with the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo wasn’t the dominant company it is today. My friend at Wired remarked that my half of the debate perfectly encapsulated every wrong thought in 2004. Here’s a choice nugget from the article:
A few months ago, GameSpy’s Dr. Angryman and digitaltaco were daydreaming about the Sony PSP and how it would allow them to go head-to-head in a wireless version of Soul Calibur and listen to MP3s while they waited for their grub at their favorite Mexican joint. Wireless multiplayer gaming in a multifunction device is the stuff that geek dreams are made of. I can guarantee you that neither of them have woken up and said, “You know what I wish I had? A handheld gaming system with two screens. That would be brilliant!”
Ha! So yeah, I can admit that I was totally wrong and should eat a healthy serving of crow. The point I really wanted to get at is that although the PSP wasn’t the groundbreaking handheld system many people thought it would be, it has still done very well — especially when you consider that the PSP was Sony’s foray into portable gaming. It’s a great platform with some truly outstanding games (play Crisis Core
Nintendo of Japan has announced that it will release the Nintendo 3DS portable 3D gaming system before the end of its fiscal year ending March 2011. The 3DS will be shown at E3 2011. In addition to 3D graphics that can be viewed without special glasses, the 3DS will play Nintendo DS and DSi games.
At GDC 2010, my developer sources told me that the dev kits for Nintendo’s next handheld were similar to GameCube dev kits. According to The Wall Street Journal, the 3D technology used in the 3DS comes from experiments on the GameCube:
Nintendo has been working on 3-D technology for years, secretly adding a feature into the GameCube, the predecessor to the Nintendo Wii, to display graphics separately for the right and left eye for the possibility of 3-D gaming. It was never introduced as a feature in the GameCube.
What do you guys and dolls think of the 3DS so far? Is it something you’re interested in? Or are you taking the wait-and-see approach?
Warning: this is going to be one of those “selfish” editions of Coffee Talk. You see, I had a pretty amazing time at GDC. The networking was fantastic — I bumped into hundreds of fantastic developers and great friends. I really enjoyed spending time in my old home city, San Francisco. It was just a wonderful blend of people, places, and circumstances…that was tarnished by two people from VGChartz. Before I get to that, let’s take a trip back to 2005.
Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Manny Pacquiao dominating Joshua Clottey, America screwing over Alex Lambert, or David Beckham missing the World Cup, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Warning: this is going to be one of those “selfish” editions of Coffee Talk. You see, I had a pretty amazing time at GDC. The networking was fantastic — I bumped into hundreds of fantastic developers and great friends. I really enjoyed spending time in my old home city, San Francisco. It was just a wonderful blend of people, places, and circumstances…that was tarnished by two people from VGChartz. Before I get to that, let’s take a trip back to 2005.
Right around GDC 2005, I posted the biggest story of my career. It was a three-part series on the console that would become the Xbox 360. I was either one of the first people or the first person to reveal features like achievements, gamercards, gamerscores, and gamertags. I worked hard on the story and was very proud of it.
Kotaku’s Brian Crecente totally ripped the third part of the feature. To be completely honest, he was absolutely right to do so. My editor…strongly suggested a third part just to get more page views. I hated writing that fluff after two highly informative pieces. All that aside, I was still annoyed that Crecente dismissed the first two parts of the feature as “some new information”. Some new information?!? Bullsh*t. I revealed a ton of facts and features that were only known by Microsoft and its software partners at the time.
Okay, back to the future (1.21 gigawatts!). The site has been getting great traffic since Friday thanks to a story I wrote about the successor to the Nintendo DS. Yes, I traded my “verbal entertainer” outfit for a journalist’s hat and got some pretty cool results. The story capped off a great week at GDC 2010…or so I thought. I was pissed off to learn that two people from VGChartz wrote negative things about my story, my site, and me on N4G.
First up was public relations manager Brian Zucker who wrote:
Im at GDC 2010 right now and this story is completely false. rpad.tv lost all credibility before it had any.
Yes, a guy with “public relations” in his title actually wrote that unsubstantiated and libelous comment backed up by nothing.
Here’s a follow-up comment from his coworker, community manager and senior editor Nick Pantazis:
This is completely fake. I’m also at GDC, the Nintendo reps here are completely uninvolved with the future of the DS and its development. This is 100% made-up on the spot. Do not support this website with hits.
I guess Pantazis didn’t bother to read the part of the article where I said that none of the information came from Nintendo. Since he asked some rep at Nintendo’s booth about the article and he/she denied it, Pantazis felt it was okay to accuse me of making up the story and tell people not to go to my site.
VGChartz is a popular site and a great resource. It’s annoying that the company allows its employees to make accusations based on idiocy. It’s completely unprofessional. One of my friends said that I should cut these two a break since they’re college kids and I’ve been writing about games since before they hit puberty. I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m proud of what I’ve done over the years and I’m not going to let two children from a popular web site piss all over it.
When Brian Zucker has entertained and served as many readers as I have, then he can question my credibility. When Nick Pantazis questions all the developers I spoke to about the DS successor, then he can accuse me of making up stories and tell people not to visit my site. Until then, both of them should stop making baseless accusations and shut the hell up.
There are so many great games coming out this week! PlayStation 3 owners have God of War III
But wait, there’s more! If you can’t get enough RPG excitement then you ought to check out Resonance of Fate
Let me know what games you’re planning to pick up this week. If you’re picking up a few, let me know what order you plan on playing them.
Here are NPD Group’s console software sales figures for February 2010 (sorry for the lateness!). Along with the usual Nintendo sales, there were some pleasant surprises that should make every hardcore gamer happy.
(Xbox 360): 224,700I’m thrilled that BioShock 2 snagged the top spot in February. I’m even more thrilled that Heavy Rain managed to crack the top 10, despite being released at the end of the month. As you can imagine, seeing a BioWare game on the list makes me happy (duh). It’s also cool to see a new IP like Dante’s Inferno make the cut. Last month I was surprised that Just Dance made the list, but a lot of people in the business play it (to my astonishment). One game designer I know shocked me at GDC when he said that he plays it for at least an hour a day.
Now’s the important part — let me know what you think of NPD Group’s top 10 games of February 2010. Anything surprise you?
NPD Group released its console sales data for February 2010 while I was at GDC. The numbers are pretty interesting. Check ’em out!
The continued onslaught of the Nintendo DS shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s a great portable console with tons of games and a huge March release (Pokemon HeartGold
Now unleash your Pach Attack and go after the numbers as if you were a very tall gaming analyst. I can’t wait to hear your analysis of NPD Group’s sales figures!
One of my missions for Game Developers Conference 2010 was to get more information on the successor to the Nintendo DS. I heard some cool rumblings about it in February and wanted to use the show to pester developers for confirmation. While nobody would tell me the name of the new handheld or the exact dimensions, I was able to extract some pretty cool tidbits on the “DS2”.
That’s all I have for now. Remember, none of this information came from Nintendo. It came from developers that claim to be working on the new system. Some of them I’ve met before, while some were introduced to me by people that knew I was looking for DS2 details. Hopefully none of them were hammered and thinking, “Hey! Let’s mess with the guy trying to dig up Nintendo information.”
