Video Game Industry Thread: January's over, go to the new thread

SirUltimos

Has this ever happened before, where a major retailer in any country flat out says they will not carry a new console?

SmokeStacks

SirUltimos wrote:

Has this ever happened before, where a major retailer in any country flat out says they will not carry a new console?

KB Toys got so butthurt when Sega did their surprise Saturn launch that they refused to stock it.

Couscous

http://kotaku.com/5885539/the-next-xbox-is-code+nameddurango

Kotaku has heard from multiple sources close to the project that the code-name for Microsoft's next console is Durango.

Yup. Durango.

Note this is a code-name. Like the Katana (Dreamcast), Dolphin (GameCube) and Revolution (Wii) before it, it's not the name that will appear on the finished product when you finally get your hands on one.

It is the name, however, that you'll be hearing during the console's final development phase, that awkward time between it being first shown off and then actually released to the public.

Interestingly, it seems to also suggest a bit of a pattern in Microsoft's recent internal naming policies. While naming projects after places is nothing new, the company seems to be in favour of warmer climates these days; Kinect, before we knew it as Kinect, was called Natal, named for a city in Brazil. Durango, meanwhile, is the name of one of Mexico's 31 states.

cloudeagle

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

SirUltimos

SmokeStacks wrote:

SirUltimos wrote:

Has this ever happened before, where a major retailer in any country flat out says they will not carry a new console?

KB Toys got so butthurt when Sega did their surprise Saturn launch that they refused to stock it.

Well that's a promising sign.

UncleSporky

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

It's super rumor territory, but being posted by the head of IGDA in Japan?

And posted in Nikkei itself, not Nikkei Trendy, which is typically the place for baseless speculation. For comparison's sake, Trendy is where the Monster Hunter on Vita rumors popped up, so this has a bit more credence than that.

cloudeagle

UncleSporky wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

It's super rumor territory, but being posted by the head of IGDA in Japan?

And posted in Nikkei itself, not Nikkei Trendy, which is typically the place for baseless speculation. For comparison's sake, Trendy is where the Monster Hunter on Vita rumors popped up, so this has a bit more credence than that.

Right. And Sony bothered to refute it. Hence the "oooooh fuck."

Zephiran

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

Jesus fuck that'd be sad if true. After all the trouble they went through making inter-portability and development between the PS3 and the PSV as easy as possible, the devs just pack up and leave for the 3DS instead.

Couscous

cloudeagle wrote:

UncleSporky wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

It's super rumor territory, but being posted by the head of IGDA in Japan?

And posted in Nikkei itself, not Nikkei Trendy, which is typically the place for baseless speculation. For comparison's sake, Trendy is where the Monster Hunter on Vita rumors popped up, so this has a bit more credence than that.

Right. And Sony bothered to refute it. Hence the "oooooh fuck."

And having a shitty rebuttal where they pretty much admit the Vita isn't the hot platform right now is rather sad. You don't usually see people admitting that their product isn't hot shit unless it is selling like actual shit.
"You can, whatever -- rewind two years ago. Every developer was you knew was selling -- going towards -- I was going to say 'selling their soul', it almost came out -- to go build games for Zynga and the Facebook platform. And there's another time when you see everyone is going to do smaller iPad games, or iOS games in general. Then it was PS3, it was 360, it's Vita, it's 3ds. It's always, constantly changing. It's not something that concerns me whatsoever."

cloudeagle

Couscous wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

UncleSporky wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

It's super rumor territory, but being posted by the head of IGDA in Japan?

And posted in Nikkei itself, not Nikkei Trendy, which is typically the place for baseless speculation. For comparison's sake, Trendy is where the Monster Hunter on Vita rumors popped up, so this has a bit more credence than that.

Right. And Sony bothered to refute it. Hence the "oooooh fuck."

And having a shitty rebuttal where they pretty much admit the Vita isn't the hot platform right now is rather sad. You don't usually see people admitting that their product isn't hot shit unless it is selling like actual shit.
"You can, whatever -- rewind two years ago. Every developer was you knew was selling -- going towards -- I was going to say 'selling their soul', it almost came out -- to go build games for Zynga and the Facebook platform. And there's another time when you see everyone is going to do smaller iPad games, or iOS games in general. Then it was PS3, it was 360, it's Vita, it's 3ds. It's always, constantly changing. It's not something that concerns me whatsoever."

Bull fucking shit. Even when you're on top, if you're not concerned with things that are competition, you're an idiot.

Xenogears of Bore

Meh, 3DS lost quite a few titles after the first few weeks sales were low. Not a big deal really. When a serious player actually announces that specific titles are moving platforms is when you should worry.

Couscous

Vita doesn't really have many very popular games to look forward to in Japan right now from what I can recall, and I doubt Sony is willing to cut the price.

Algertman

Xenogears of Bore wrote:

Meh, 3DS lost quite a few titles after the first few weeks sales were low. Not a big deal really. When a serious player actually announces that specific titles are moving platforms is when you should worry.

Monster Hunter already has.

Brainiac 8

Two things: Winnie the Pooh was absolutely fantastic, charming, witty, and everything it should be. JL has made Disney a place of imagination and wonder again. He values everything that Walt did when he formed the company. Good riddance that the old trash was thrown out.

Second: If that Vita rumor is true, then Sony may be in a world o' hurt, more than we thought. Let's see if any of Sony's higher ups take a pay cut to offset the low sales.

The Wolfman

Brainiac 8 wrote:

Let's see if any of Sony's higher ups take a pay cut to offset the low sales.

RidleySaria

After all the 3DS doom and gloom, Vita deserves to have a little come its way. It's like a portable system's rite of passage.

chocobolicious

Once Sony money hats a monster hunter the vita will be fine. Psp was worthless for years but monhun made it competitive with the ds in a serious way. I wouldn't be surprised to see 4 come out on vita.

Also persona games, dragons crown,.samurai and dragons. Japan targeted titles are on the way for certain

Henroid

BionicPenguin wrote:

Henroid wrote:

The front page of Idle Thumbs has been changed to an image, which is of a magazine and there's some text readable about upcoming new stuff.

http://www.idlethumbs.net/

I would be pleased as shit if the podcast came back somehow.

They keep getting my hopes up with the occasional tweaking of their site. I wish they'd stop teasing us and start podcasting again.

Well, I don't think it's ever been teasing in the way of "we're never doing anything ever again." The site revamp from a couple months ago was really cool, it felt like they were just cleaning stuff up for the legacy's sake. And then the crew starts moving back across the country and it's like, "Uh, you guys are up to something aren't you?" And they say nothing.

Jake looks concerned in the photo by the way. Like someone left a hot scoop on the floor just ahead of him, or something.

Spoit

chocobolicious wrote:

Once Sony money hats a monster hunter the vita will be fine. Psp was worthless for years but monhun made it competitive with the ds in a serious way. I wouldn't be surprised to see 4 come out on vita.

Also persona games, dragons crown,.samurai and dragons. Japan targeted titles are on the way for certain

The problem is, the 3DS already has a monster hunter. Maybe if the vita gets a new mainline one, but even then, I'm not sure that it will be nearly as effective

Seol

Brainiac 8 wrote:

Second: If that Vita rumor is true, then Sony may be in a world o' hurt, more than we thought. Let's see if any of Sony's higher ups take a pay cut to offset the low sales.

When Nintendo did that, it wasn't to offset the low sales - it would only be a tiny drop in the ocean. It was an expression of humility.

plufim

UncleSporky wrote:

So that twitter story earlier about Vita not being stocked at some major Australian retailers now has a more complete writeup. And Sony responded!

Sony wrote:

For the launch of PlayStation Vita in Australia, with the specific target market being the active gamer we have chosen to launch the console with a focussed retail channel strategy across national specialist game and specialist technology retailers.

There is a long term vision for our revolutionary new hand-held platform, in the same way we had a long term vision for PS3, and anticipate that in line with this we will broaden channel distribution in the future.

Is this more likely to be an actual strategy, or a nice spin way of saying they told us no way in hell will we stock that?

I mean K-Mart directly stated that they weren't stocking it because it was too expensive.post this earlier because I'd read it was just a mistranslated opinion piece from Nikkei and seemed like a questionable rumor, but if that's all it was, why would Sony respond to it? And that's not much of a rebuttal there.

The most annoying effect of this is those three often have good deals, especially BigW. With them out, there is less reason for the other players to give good deals - EB and Game, for instance, barely drop below RRP, if at all. As a result, the Vita will be even more expensive. The only major chain stocking the Vita known for decent deals is JB. No real incentive for them to slash the price too much when the competition never do.

The three stores in question stocked the PS3 at launch, for exorbitant price of $999AU. This is not "the PS3 strategy", this is Sony Australia bullshitting to try and cover up a problem.

But, I highly suspect that Sony Australia are just as incompetent and ineffectual as Nintendo Australia.

chocobolicious

Spoit wrote:

chocobolicious wrote:

Once Sony money hats a monster hunter the vita will be fine. Psp was worthless for years but monhun made it competitive with the ds in a serious way. I wouldn't be surprised to see 4 come out on vita.

Also persona games, dragons crown,.samurai and dragons. Japan targeted titles are on the way for certain

The problem is, the 3DS already has a monster hunter. Maybe if the vita gets a new mainline one, but even then, I'm not sure that it will be nearly as effective

A graphically inferior one that requires an awkward additional thumb stick that is pretty uncomfortable to use. considering the 300$ bronze psp monster hunter packs sold like crazy, people would really buy a vita just for a superior mh4. Just think what they could do with the rear touch pad and such. This is something Sony needs to make happen.

plufim

chocobolicious wrote:

Spoit wrote:

chocobolicious wrote:

Once Sony money hats a monster hunter the vita will be fine. Psp was worthless for years but monhun made it competitive with the ds in a serious way. I wouldn't be surprised to see 4 come out on vita.

Also persona games, dragons crown,.samurai and dragons. Japan targeted titles are on the way for certain

The problem is, the 3DS already has a monster hunter. Maybe if the vita gets a new mainline one, but even then, I'm not sure that it will be nearly as effective

A graphically inferior one that requires an awkward additional thumb stick that is pretty uncomfortable to use. considering the 300$ bronze psp monster hunter packs sold like crazy, people would really buy a vita just for a superior mh4. Just think what they could do with the rear touch pad and such. This is something Sony needs to make happen.

The circle pad pro is meant to be rather comfortable - and it isn't required at all, it is optional. But even if that were not the case, Monster Hunter fans endured the claw grip hundreds of hours to get their fix. You could probably make a controller for Monster Hunter out of hot coals and fire ants and they'd still play it.

Chen

So you think you can draw parallels between the time when monhun was exclusive for a portable system and the time when it's available on two handheld platforms? Okay.

Jam Warrior

Indeed. There's a world of difference between having the best portable version of a game and having the only portable version of a game.

chocobolicious

I think you miss the point and don't fully understand this monster hunter 'thing'

People would buy entire systems they already owned just because it had monster hunter markings. This is not some semi popular game that people kind of like. This is a game where every version and revision had custom model systems because people would buy them. Every time.

It would sell the vita. Easy. Make it 4g and there you go.

Maddoc

I still entirely expect Vita to get Portable 3rd G at some point anyway.

Mc zany

Henroid wrote:

BionicPenguin wrote:

Henroid wrote:

The front page of Idle Thumbs has been changed to an image, which is of a magazine and there's some text readable about upcoming new stuff.

http://www.idlethumbs.net/

I would be pleased as shit if the podcast came back somehow.

They keep getting my hopes up with the occasional tweaking of their site. I wish they'd stop teasing us and start podcasting again.

Well, I don't think it's ever been teasing in the way of "we're never doing anything ever again." The site revamp from a couple months ago was really cool, it felt like they were just cleaning stuff up for the legacy's sake. And then the crew starts moving back across the country and it's like, "Uh, you guys are up to something aren't you?" And they say nothing.

Jake looks concerned in the photo by the way. Like someone left a hot scoop on the floor just ahead of him, or something.

The cynical part of me tells me that one of them is looking for a job.

Chen

The million dollar question is: how much and will Capcom find that acceptable? Capcom isn't there to ship Vita units, it's there to make money from selling its games. There will always be fanatics, but realistically, will the majority care if it doesn't look as nice? This isn't comparable to the DS/PSP situation in which the DS could barely render polygons.

I doubt Sony has deep enough pockets to persuade Capcom to bring one of the main series, and not just an updated version a year later, exclusively to the Vita with the installed base they currently have. To use your words, this isn't some semi popular game. They'll have to dig deep to compensate the losses from fewer sales and a bigger budget. And if you look in the foreseeable future, what can propel the Vita to make Capcom think twice?

The next Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts are already announced for the 3DS, plus Nintendo's own Animal Crossing and Pokemon. It can only go up from here on out. Vita, not as rosy.

UncleSporky

Chen wrote:

Capcom isn't there to ship Vita units, it's there to make money from selling its games.

Right, what is their incentive to create a split like that? MH's draw in Japan is local play. If the MH community has migrated to 3DS, why not just keep on releasing games for that platform, rather than making your playerbase feel like they have to buy another system too?

And it would fit their (admittedly brief) MO so far. One platform within a generation gets the console versions, one platform gets the portable ones.

Magic Pink

This is an odd place to ask this but is anyone else seeing incredibly small headline font on joystiq since yesterday?

Also, choco's totally right about the monhun thing, that shit be scary, but will it make the Vita succeed in the US? I was still under the impression it's remains pretty much ignored here.

Couscous

http://www.develop-online.net/news/39821/Reports-THQ-closing-Japan-publishing-arm

THQ is to close its Japan publishing arm on February 29th, according to reports.

...

It said the decision was taken to close the office after the recent well-documented financial troubles of its parent company, based in North America.

Doooooooom.

Algertman

chocobolicious wrote:

A graphically inferior one that requires an awkward additional thumb stick that is pretty uncomfortable to use.

Completely uniformed SDF nonsense.

Klyka

Algertman wrote:

chocobolicious wrote:

A graphically inferior one that requires an awkward additional thumb stick that is pretty uncomfortable to use.

Completely uniformed SDF nonsense.

Nintendrones do what SDF don't?

Algertman

Klyka wrote:

Algertman wrote:

chocobolicious wrote:

A graphically inferior one that requires an awkward additional thumb stick that is pretty uncomfortable to use.

Completely uniformed SDF nonsense.

Nintendrones do what SDF don't?

Own successful handhelds?

Couscous

The 3DS had Monster Hunter, a decent amount of huge Nintendo games including Super Mario and Mario Kart, and a price cut in order to turn it around. Sony has one.

Automaticzen

cloudeagle wrote:

In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Oooooh fuck. If that's even close to being true, even with just a few companies, that's a bad, bad sign for Vita. Less game development means less Vita sales for the future, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that will keep the system down.

I can't say I believe it. All the major Japanese companies are waiting until the Western launches to decide. Now if it bombs in Europe and the US, yeah, I could see it. But based on Japan only? Nah.

Couscous

Most Japanese games for Vita aren't going to sell that well outside of Japan.

Edit: And I don't remember the PSP ever doing that badly near the beginning of its life.

mere_immortal

They got this out faster than I thought.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/16/just-lego-lego-minecraft-is-a-real-thing/

Yes, it’s real and it can be pre-ordered here for $34.99/£34.99. Lego Minecraft goes on sale in “selected” Lego shops in the summer, and gives you a chunk of the world to play with. The Minecraft range of Lego (and that’s just Lego, LEGO) will feature Steve and a creeper, as well your standard world building blocks from the game – stone, sand, wood, and even water and lava. It might be the cutest game/toy crossover the world has ever produced, and it was produced via the CUUSOO site, where Lego fans are asked to submit ideas.

A gallery of the Minecraft kit can be seen below.

Dragkonias

Man, that Notch guy must be getting paid.