Should Nintendo start publishing games on other consoles?

I have had a thought bouncing around my head this past while, and as the title suggests its, ‘Should Nintendo start publishing on other consoles’?  This would consist of Nintendo financing titles to come to the marketplace on their own primary consoles as well as the competitors.

Bayonetta 2: Why all the hate? *CAUTION obscene content*

This is just fucking disgusting!

How do you all think this will achieve something or make yourselves look like intellectual beings?

Kid Icarus woes?

So Kid Icarus is now out and its caused a very much black and white split in impressions.  The problem with this game is the controls, people either get them or they find them highly awkward and frustrating.  But through my own experiences with this game I find the controls to be not perfect but usable.

Protip:

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Total Quality Management

Okay okay okay, this coursework that I did in the past is not totally based on the video games industry. But it does have a reference to it near the end :p
So here below is a piece I did for a module which turned out to be my best piece of coursework I’ve ever done, gaining me 78%. Also as a reminder, if you are finding this and want to use it, reference correctly, using the references within for the source material, or if it is my own work being referenced reference me properly. To download a PDF of this please CLICK HERE it has all the fancy bells and whistles that this text version doesn’t.

Discuss the key elements of Total Quality Management within the context of the emerging business environment

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to look at the history of Total Quality Management (TQM) and identify the elements that are within this business improvement tool. With these key elements I will then be looking at how TQM is used within the current business environment and how its elements affect all levels of an organisation.

What is Total Quality Management?

Concepts developed in Japan beginning in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, pioneered there by Americans Feigenbum, Juran and Deming set the foundations of TQM. The evolution of TQM happened in a few stages easily identified as Inspection, Quality Control, Quality Assurance and now Total Quality Management.

Inspection

This method at one stage in time was the only method that was able to ensure a certain level of quality for a product or service. In manufacturing incoming goods and output would be measured and physically inspected for defaults or not meeting required guidelines. Services would be appraised at certain levels and inspected in production and delivery. The inspection process is an after-the-event measurement process that can only result in non conforming products being sent back to be re-worked or result in lower graded products that are produced in a rating system.

Corporate Governance – A case in the Video Games Industry

Below is a piece of coursework that I produced for my final year degree program.  The module is on Corporate Governance and for this piece of coursework I had to find a case within an industry and company, apply corporate governance models and contrast with any other examples.  All this work is work of my own, if you come across this in the future I would advise you to use this in a responsible manner, reference and credit where due as well as using this as a guide for source material.

If you would like to download a PDF of this, you can do so here with all the bells and whistles (along with missing images and formatting).  I would welcome the feedback and any discursive comments you may have about this piece. Enjoy.

“Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals….the aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations, and society” Sir Adrian Cadbury (1999)

Introduction

In this coursework I will be looking at Corporate Governance today and how it came to be today, within an industry I will also assess how corporate governance theories can be applied to a situation that has occurred and what can be learnt from this.

The development of Corporate Governance Today

Within UK corporate governance the key aspects are that a single board are collectively responsible for the success of the company. There are 4 points that are key to governing an organisation in a checks and balances exercise;

• The roles of Chief Executive and Chairman are separated
• There is a balance in Executive and independent non-Executive directors
• The organisation has strong, independent audit and remuneration committees
• There is an annual revaluation by the board of its performance

There is an emphasis on objectivity within directors and the interests of the organisation, there should also be a transparency on appointments awarded by the organisation and remunerations made by the organisation. Shareholders have effective rights from a legal standpoint within the governing of an organisation. This ‘Code of best practice’ is not a legal requirement but is rather a guidance on how to do things within the organisation, which is why it is given a ‘Comply or Explain’ requirement for listing meaning that if an organisation does not follow the UK Corporate Governance Code, they must explain as to why they see fit to do something else. “The Code is not a rigid set of rules. It consists of principles (main and supporting) and provisions. The Listing Rules require companies to apply the Main Principles and report to shareholders on how they have done so.” (FRC June 2010)

EPIC Games and Unreal Engine 3

EPIC Games is a studio that to me epitomizes a singular studio that has the power to define a console. With their unreal engine tech, its usability and how so many developers license it to make their games on the list of Unreal Engine 3 games clearly show the sheer amount of developers working with the engine and the nature of the games that it is used to develop. With EPIC Games designing their engine for certain hardware it leaves the systems that they do not do this for with the choice, the development studio could try to shoehorn the engine or older versions onto the system that provides a less than ideal result and initiates what could be a costly exercise, or find some other engine. Finding another engine to develop a game on is mostly a non-choice because when its a multi-platform game it seldom works out the best, leaving then the systems without UE compatibility out of a multi-platform IP.

Project Butterfly???:… Project Cafe?

Hey guys, it has been a while, just finishing up *hopefully* with my degree with exams to come in May.  What does that mean, well it means that I’ll have some time after May to properly kick back off in this blog with what ever comes into my head.  I just wanted to give a wee update on my thoughts of a Wii 2.  Also for those wanting to keep track, any other random thoughts on this I may tweet about but I will hashtag it with #projectbutterfly because I by far prefer that to the ‘Wii2’ moniker. EDIT I could be using the hashtag #Projectcafe instead if LINK is to be believed.

Why Northern Ireland is the BEST location for game development!

So yesterday I attended a guest lecture by Declan Kelly the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, and lets just say it was inspirational and gave me the drive to come and create this blog post!

US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly @ University of Ulster Jordanstown

Well this blog post is about the gaming industry, and why NI is the ideal location for developers to locate in the future.  I say this at a time where there are 0 games developers located here, there may be a small number of idevices developers that also provide other services like web design and marketing graphic design.  But in Northern Ireland there are no games developers here what so ever.  Now in Mr. Kelly’s speech he does identify that the Creative Industry is has a key role to play in the development of NI, and as what I see as the current leader of the creative media it is a shame that anyone who wants a job developing games has to move away from NI.  I would like to remind you that one of the old gaming developing greats David Doak who was studio head for RARE back when they were under the control of Nintendo is from NI, he set up Free Radical Design and the Timesplitters franchise.  Northern Ireland has such raw talent in its students, and it is recognised by American corporations as identified in MR. Kelly’s speech that they show more drive, fore thinking, ambition and they work harder to get what they want.  Northern Ireland it focuses on the creative industries, business and financial services as well as the high tech arena such as cloud computing and personalised health as identified by Mr. Kelly as well as having 2 world class universities, University of Ulster with its 4 campuses and Queens University Belfast.

So lets move into the reasons as to why NI should be the target location for game studios to locate in the near future.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 16 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 68 posts. There were 9 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 17th with 97 views. The most popular post that day was Ireland 5 Year Tax Holiday!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were gonintendo.com, neogaf.com, google.co.uk, boards.ign.com, and youtube.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for 4od wii, 4od on wii, ireland flag, wii 4od, and irish flag.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Ireland 5 Year Tax Holiday! October 2009

2

Channel 4oD – No Wii Plans October 2009
66 comments

3

4oD Coming To Games Consoles December 2009
7 comments

4

Nintendo Updates Opera Browser! (iPlayer suffers) September 2009
5 comments

5

What Tech could we find inside the Vitality Sensor? December 2009
1 comment