Quick note, nothing major :p

Hey, its late, haven’t tried to sleep but I just wanted to say.

OMG tomorrow, Nintendo Media Briefing!
Metroid Other M summer release date
Super Mario Galaxy 2 End of summer release date
possibly Rogue Squadron Wii appearance
god knows what else

Dont forget to rate my posts, that way I will know what content you guys want from me!

3rdly (http://bit.ly/df5qXC) Modern Warfare 1, World at War and 2 XBL demos beat Bioshock 2 in online activity. Guess it was fun for those who bought it while it lasts, I think a few more months and numbers will die down fast.

Will the iPad encroach on DS?

Michael Pachter on his new GTTV show ‘Pach Attack‘ was asked a question;

Now that the iPad has been announced, do you think the device will impede on the console market space?

To which he give a reasonable response to about how maybe in 5 years it will start to contest in the space of the consoles but gives a “yes” to the case of the DS and how it is a better device to play portable games on. Well many of us would argue till were blue in the face about what is a better device to use for portable gaming. But that is not part of my counter argument.

A discussion about gaming, with mum :)

Well today, in a lengthy journey, my mum and I were discussing several elements of the games industry. This covered a broad spectrum of information that I’ve divulged using my own analytical style and other information that I’ve been so lucky to be made aware of by close contacts. But the part that struck me was our discussion about how Nintendo are the true leaders of the Games Industry.

Yes they may have not been successful each and every generation but the fact remains that Nintendo are the only Gaming centric and exclusive competitor. They aren’t as diversified as the other competitors so they have a single culture and identity. Now this next bit struck me as something that people would declare as a “fanboy” comment, but couldn’t be as my mum does not play video games. She said, “it seems to me like these other companies {Sony, Microsoft} take the best bits from all over the industry to try and be the best, and most of these ideas come from Nintendo”. The way she sees it that the industry takes it lead from Nintendo, and the rest follow, yes they may do their own bidding with other technology or power abilities. But they can only do this with influence by Nintendo, and this doesn’t ring any truer that this whole casual and motion push that is going on.

EDIT

I should add, that yeah she doesn’t play games these days but back when she played Mario AllStars on the Snes and Tomb Raider on the PS2

In Danger of ‘Over-hyping’ myself!

Well as the title says, I’m seriously in danger of over-hyping myself about the possible revelations coming this month from Nintendo. If you think back to E3 and last years conferences they stated very little about the coming year and their plans, they chose to concentrate on the rest of the current financial year. Well what does that leave after that? We can only but guess, but guessing leads to anticipation, anticipation leads to excitement, and that is a cruel circle until you are officially over-hyped…

My List of what to expect;
More 3rd party involvement
Metroid OtherM
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Discussion of Zelda Wii
DS successor hardware showcase + software
Vitality Sensor + Software

If some of these are not shown at the briefing, well expect them at GDC in March.
I would love to add “Retro’s secret project” to the list, but I don’t think we will hear about that until 2011.

Got an interest in local Irish music talent?

Well tonight is the premier of the E and J Showcase for Feile FM in Belfast Northern Ireland. The hosts of the Show are Eamonn Loughlin (local music aficionado) and Junior Johnson (singer songwriter and winner of L.A. Music Awards Folk Artist of the year 2006 for his song, The Fireside) and their show is designed to be the Soundboard of Local Talent, mostly of which will be unsigned muscial artists trying to find their audience.

So if this is of interest to you listen in every week at 7pm GMT, you can do so by tuning into using the radio in the Belfast area to 103.2FM or by going to http://www.feilefm.com and the instructions are there to listen live from your computer anywhere in the world!

So listen in and enjoy!

You can also follow E and J on Facebook and Twitter

The Guitar Hero Syndrome

Well, we hear it all over the industry, Music Genre is failing and this that the other. But what is causing such a decline? What’s stifling the market? And is there a future for the genre?

As for all music games they are peripheral driven, peripherals make up the majority of the expenditure for the consumer. What makes it worse is that these peripherals seem to change as often as the new games come out. I firmly believe that unless a new instrument is added to the roster the peripherals should remain the same through the majority of the consoles life span, this will allow the consumer to have more disposable income for the following parts of my idea of how the music games genre should work in the future.

This has to be included in all next-gen consoles!

Well to me its simple that this should be a basic feature in ALL next generation consoles. I actually contacted Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hyrb to tell him about it, he found it interesting and passed it onto the “relevant” departments for consideration. But enough of that onto the idea…

Gamer profile/Online identities should be able to be brought with us. Now I don’t know the full situation on the PS3, but how many of us have had to sit through the damn Microsoft XBL retrieve gamertag? Like especially on a bad connection where you only want to play local multi but still want to register points. So, your identity should be (and this was inspired by the built in memory to the Wiimote for Mii transfer) transferable to friends homes by simply bringing your own controller with you. Before you leave home you transfer an up-to-date ‘image’ of your profile to your controller and when you arrive transfer it automatically to the friends console when syncing controller and it can do a simple quick verification if it wanted to through the connection if ones available. To me this is a necessity for the next gen, yeah everyone talks about how you play online these days, but local is still important to me! AND I want to be able to go online with one or more friends from the same console! MW2 would be a blast if I could go online with my friend right beside me!

GDC should be less of a “show”!

I do firmly believe that I must be the only ‘gamer’ out there who believes that the announcement and trying to one up each other by developers and manufacturers should leave this behaviour out of GDC.

The Game Developers Conference® (GDC) is the world’s largest professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games. link

The announcement of games/putting on a “show” should be left out and the presentations should be more about learning.