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:

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.

iPlayer Stats 19-03-2010 (1 day late :p)

Well due to having absolutely no time what so ever yesterday I had to resort to doing the iPlayer stats for 4 months and 1 day.

Following my own logic for this data from last time. There are:
(807,028 / 6.68)

120813 (rounded) users reporting data on the BBC iPlayer channel. Each one viewing the channel for 6+ hours on average, this is almost double the amount of users and average usage time increasing by approximately 60% (401{mins} / 250{mins}). Each user has again increased the amount of times they’ve used the iPlayer from 3.75 times to 5.51 times (with the first month’s usages being 2.92 times).

My own personal usage of the channel has slowed this past couple of months in my own opinion but the tally for 4 months usage is a total of 54Hr(s) 52Min(s), and it has been booted 19 times, with much more content being added each week Rugby 6 Nations being hosted for a week after games have been played and with Formula 1 starting the season again I can see the iPlayer regional usage continuing to climb.

Again it seems that when I goto post my usage stats I’m beatin to it with even more in depth source data (from the BBC) so with news from MCVUK after the jump.

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.