Burny

Didn't know where to put it otherwise, so here we go again... Apparently, any "self-respecting 20-something" is too old for one of these "babysitting tools", says Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Playstation. Not that they build bad consoles, but their thrash talking has no style.

Which means it's full, as opposed to a new console without full backwards compatibility. But yes, the marketing pushes the 3D so much and it's so early in the console's lifetime, that an uninformed buyer might think 3D is the whole point. Until 3DS games start to steal away the DS game's shelf space, that is.

case"mod" might be a bit of an understatement.

She couldn't stand him going on about that game for any longer.

It's his good right to be. If he's intentionally overblowing the issues some people do have however (without mentioning that there's parental control for the 3D + a depth slider and any imbecile's brain should be sufficient for figuring out what those are for), he also is an asshole and his journalistic standards rival those of the average youtube comment. Not that he's alone with that...

Which - for now - is the 3DS. They can't wait another two years in order to finally get their act together in terms of online.

No doubt about that. Still, whoever keeps using the Wii at this point will probably use it to play any last big games they bring out anyway. At least Xenoblade, Last Story (hopefully!) and Zelda SS are sure purchases for me at this point, no matter what they do with the system. As much as I would like the Wii's whole system design to not suck however, I believe everybody gains more, when they focus their online efforts on the 3DS, where they still have to lose something, instead of a console where their efforts would come about three years too late anyway.

At the very least, they have chosen something, that has some truth to it. Some people really don't agree with the effect. And who knows? That person they tracked down in order to add weight to their claim, that thousands are returning brand new Nintendo consoles, might even be real! It's hardly the worst gaming related thing media has come up with: GTA Rothbury anyone? At least they had to apologize.

Conceptually speaking, absolutely. The system design is just too idiotic. I doubt anything is going to happen though. The Wii's whole "OS" doesn't seem to be exactly well designed for adding or changing functionality. And what would they gain by giving it an overhaul at this point in time? Would anyone, who gave up on the Wii, because it was too frustrating and got a PS360 instead, come back now? They should know that the Wii is a lost case in that respect. They'll probably focus completely on the 3DS this year and the next and come out with a new home console somewhere between 2012/13.

Probably a lot cheaper than a private detective. :p

Yeah, they could do a lot more with that island. Something like a murder mystery adventure in the holiday paradise would be cool. ^^ Not sure about hub worlds vs. menus though. A cross between second life and Wii Sports Resort as build in functionality might work great on Wuhu island, but I'm rather unsure it's anything Nintendo would even consider. Even less as a hub to the console's functions. Not that I wanted any other hub than a basic menu itself...

Sounds like the wobbly screen is an actual issue that lots of devices share. Now the question would be if it's caused by bad assembly, or if there is a problem with the production quality of the hinges. If it's down to bad assembly, there must be a way to fix this manually...

This game has a story, which clearly defines a goal (and it isn't "learn to kill the strongest monster you can find for stuff and then do it again for more stuff"). Although it shares oversized weapons and monsters with MH, the combat system looks much more like a what you'd find in a MMORPG (it's ability- (vs. skill) and stat-based): From what I read on neogaf, people having played both consider this the much better RPG, although Last Story is supposed to be quite fun (especially the combat). I certainly do hope we'll eventually see Last Story brought over, too and with the announcement of this, there is definitely more hope than before. For now however, I'm happy with this. ^^

What exactly do you mean by "more"? What else is there to stereoscopic 3D, than the ability to estimate how far away an object is? If in doubt, just wait. The 3DS isn't going to run away and the game lineup is only going to grow. It's still lacking a lot of features, (like the eShop and ways of communications with people in the friends list), which will or might come at a later point. Although the price sounds rather good at the moment.

What about pyramid-boob?

+ story + quasi-open world + japanese melodrama + party combat system - multiplayer It's a big (J)RPG. How many of these has the Wii had?

Going by what Nintendo has said so far, wait!

I've seen a similar article somewhere and in comparison this one is practically free of bias. It never fails to list all the things the 3DS has going for it. It's speculation, yes, but it's doesn't claim to be anything else. And beyond that, the points it makes are quiet valid. Seriously, Amazon has claimed preorders for the 3DS where record breaking, which shows, that there is a fanbase eating up the thing. It's not the holiday season, it's a pure gaming device, it has to lives from the launch lineup, which is solid, but doesn't necessarily make anyone spend 250 bucks on a whim in March etc.. And maybe, this time Nintendo managed to plan out the launch and their supplies a lot better than with the Wii. Even if the 3DS doesn't break all records in the UK (why does it have to?), it's a gaming device. There will be games for it, that'll pull more people in. The system will evolve (because thankfully Nintendo hasn't fucked up everything on the OS level this time). There'll be word to mouth, especially when the holiday season starts and it'll be on the market for probably another 6 years. There will be revisions down the line, that create a new buzz of their own, but won't make older devices useless, as it's a gaming device and has to maintain a homogeneous hardware landscape (in contrast to smartphones and tablets). Any gloating articles on how the 3DS totally tanked are unwarranted at this time, but that one's not among them.

If there's ever going to be a game that the Wii renders at 1600x900 I will be shocked! But yeah, despite some advanced shaders in Conduit 2, the overall visual impression the game gives me so far isn't as solid Goldeneye. That doesn't have to say much about the game, but it's hard to deny.

Just have to comment on something I stumbled on further up: Seriously, you're studying game development? I sincerely hope not all of you people think in terms of "beaters" to this game concept or that game concept. Otherwise within a few years, large scale game productions might suffer from having even less variation than they already do. Why the heck would Bioware give a damn about beating CoD when their whole focus is on making games with elaborate and branched stories? Why would Nintendo give a damn about beating Gran Turismo, when their whole focus is on making accessible games with abstract but very fine tuned mechanics? Even less, as they work with very limited hardware, which clashes with the basic requirements for a good simulation in the context of the current hardware landscape. Saying, that you want to beat their game, is like a declaration of bankruptcy in terms of creativity. It's like saying: "Our game shall be like their game, only better". Why would anyone do that, as long as they've got their own unique designs to work with? Provided, in the simulation space, that's the only way to distinguish your game from competitors, but true simulations are a niche in the large scale of things.

Thing is, those are still Nintendo franchises. Zelda - even when developed by third parties - is not suddenly going open world Action-RPG with multiple classes, level system and, online multiplayer. Nintendo is far too protective of their franchises for that. So for Nintendo it's basically a way to release more of their franchises without employing more internal dev teams and for the 3rd parties, it's a bit like a commission work. Such games are going to win nobody over other than the people, who are already into Nintendo games. No amount of communication will win Nintendo the continued favor of large third parties, as long as they don't provide them with a system, that supports the design philosophies of their own main franchises. In the current generation that's advanced visual capabilities and online systems. As for communication with fans, it's already a two way communication. Nintendo releases a game, the fans tear it to pieces in dedicated forums. They only have to skim through the forums, watch reviews etc. in order to know what people think of their games.

None. You can definitely rule that out when you look at the placement of the thing and the way you'll hold the 3DS when you play AR-stuff. When you do, you focus cameras in the top lit on the cards and that port looks upward. On top of that, the technology used by Kinect seems to require a rather large amount of processing power, which the 3DS definitely doesn't have. Also, if the AR games worked by measuring the distance to surfaces from the 3DS, cards wouldn't be necessary for games that use object's surfaces either. As it stands, you always have to focus on the cards or otherwise you'll "lose" the image. That's a pretty fail proof indicator, that Nintendo just uses image recognition algorithms to find features of the cards and compute the position and perspective of the virtual objects you place in the room. The effect you get with that particularly large or small cards indicates that, too. I remember a more recent trailer for Pokemon Black/White mentioning IR-connection functionality... Edit: Found the trailer! At 0:32 the IR connection gets mentioned, although I don't know if there is an infrared port on the cartridges themselves.

Tried the demo section of the official site?

By that description, definitely the Anno series. They're mostly centered around building up a working economy and fighting isn't much of a priority. You start on some island with a couple of tools and other basic resources. With that you start to build up a city of wooden huts. The more your city advances, the more your inhabitants develop needs that are increasingly hard to satisfy. Eventually you'll set out to islands in other climatic zones, where you can cultivate and produce more elaborate wares (spices, tobacco etc.). If you're good enough, you'll be able to build a rather decadent palace.