Thursday, January 31, 2013
News Summary: Nintendo rules out Wii U price cuts
$300 AND RUN: Nintendo's president ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U as a way to boost sales, even after a subpar performance during the holiday shopping season. The Wii U sells for about $300 in the U.S.
RISE OF THE PHONE: Game machine sales have suffered as consumers play more games on smartphones and tablets.
PROFIT PROMISE: Nintendo expects an operating loss of 20 billion yen, or $220 million, in the year ending March 2013. But Satoru Iwata made a 'commitment' that Nintendo would post operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the year ending March 2014.
Take-Two delays launch of Grand Theft Auto V video game
(Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc said on Thursday it has pushed back the launch of the latest game from its hit 'Grand Theft Auto' franchise to September 17 from its previously announced release window of spring 2013.
Shares of Take-Two were down six percent at $12.31 in early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.
The delay was to allow Take-Two's Rockstar Games studio, which develops 'Grand Theft Auto' games, additional development time, the video game company said.
'Grand Theft Auto V' will be released worldwide for Microsoft Corp's Xbox and Sony Corp's PlayStation3 game consoles on September 17, the company said.
The action-adventure game lets players complete criminal missions in urban settings. The franchise's last title 'Grand Theft Auto IV' has sold over 25 million units since its release in 2008.
Grand Theft Auto V is set in a fictional city inspired by present-day Southern California.
The delayed launch pushes earnings from Grand Theft Auto V sales from June to September, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said. The new title of the massively popular franchise has the potential to rake in close to $1 billion in retail sales and sell 15 to 20 million units, according to Bhatia.
'It adds to their development cost and it's launching closer to what we think is going to be a period where new consoles will be coming out and there will be more competition from other titles,' Bhatia said.
The video game industry has been struggling to cope with flagging sales over the last year. Analysts say consumers are holding back from buying hardware and software as they wait for rumored next-generation versions of Sony Corp's PlayStation and Microsoft Corp's Xbox, expected later this year.
The delay could mean Take-Two is possibly creating a 'cross-generation' title that could work on current and next-generation consoles, said analyst Mike Hickey of National Alliance Capital Markets.
'Remember, Xbox signed an exclusive deal with Rockstar at the beginning of the prior cycle for episodic content, and Sony provided exclusive resources for the completion of Grand Theft Auto IV,' Hickey said.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alden Bentley)
Shares of Take-Two were down six percent at $12.31 in early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.
The delay was to allow Take-Two's Rockstar Games studio, which develops 'Grand Theft Auto' games, additional development time, the video game company said.
'Grand Theft Auto V' will be released worldwide for Microsoft Corp's Xbox and Sony Corp's PlayStation3 game consoles on September 17, the company said.
The action-adventure game lets players complete criminal missions in urban settings. The franchise's last title 'Grand Theft Auto IV' has sold over 25 million units since its release in 2008.
Grand Theft Auto V is set in a fictional city inspired by present-day Southern California.
The delayed launch pushes earnings from Grand Theft Auto V sales from June to September, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said. The new title of the massively popular franchise has the potential to rake in close to $1 billion in retail sales and sell 15 to 20 million units, according to Bhatia.
'It adds to their development cost and it's launching closer to what we think is going to be a period where new consoles will be coming out and there will be more competition from other titles,' Bhatia said.
The video game industry has been struggling to cope with flagging sales over the last year. Analysts say consumers are holding back from buying hardware and software as they wait for rumored next-generation versions of Sony Corp's PlayStation and Microsoft Corp's Xbox, expected later this year.
The delay could mean Take-Two is possibly creating a 'cross-generation' title that could work on current and next-generation consoles, said analyst Mike Hickey of National Alliance Capital Markets.
'Remember, Xbox signed an exclusive deal with Rockstar at the beginning of the prior cycle for episodic content, and Sony provided exclusive resources for the completion of Grand Theft Auto IV,' Hickey said.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alden Bentley)
Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family
Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.
Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was 'very rare' for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.
'This is the first time I've heard of it happening in our little town,' Beavers told ABCNews.com.
The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.
'I heard the doorbell ring,' the father of two told WFTV. 'We couldn't see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.'
The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.
'They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, 'Let's get out of the house,' so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,' the father said.
'We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,' he recalled. 'They said, 'We're the police,' so that was a big relief.'
What the family didn't realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.
But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.
Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.
The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.
When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager's former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.
The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.
'The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,' according to the police report. 'The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.'
The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.
Also Read
Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was 'very rare' for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.
'This is the first time I've heard of it happening in our little town,' Beavers told ABCNews.com.
The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.
'I heard the doorbell ring,' the father of two told WFTV. 'We couldn't see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.'
The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.
'They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, 'Let's get out of the house,' so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,' the father said.
'We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,' he recalled. 'They said, 'We're the police,' so that was a big relief.'
What the family didn't realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.
But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.
Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.
The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.
When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager's former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.
The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.
'The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,' according to the police report. 'The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.'
The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.
Also Read
Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Fla. Family's Home
Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.
Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was 'very rare' for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.
'This is the first time I've heard of it happening in our little town,' Beavers told ABCNews.com.
The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.
'I heard the doorbell ring,' the father of two told WFTV. 'We couldn't see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.'
The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.
'They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, 'Let's get out of the house,' so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,' the father said.
'We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,' he recalled. 'They said, 'We're the police,' so that was a big relief.'
What the family didn't realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.
But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.
Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.
The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.
When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager's former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.
The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.
'The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,' according to the police report. 'The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.'
The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.
Also Read
Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was 'very rare' for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.
'This is the first time I've heard of it happening in our little town,' Beavers told ABCNews.com.
The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.
'I heard the doorbell ring,' the father of two told WFTV. 'We couldn't see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.'
The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.
'They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, 'Let's get out of the house,' so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,' the father said.
'We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,' he recalled. 'They said, 'We're the police,' so that was a big relief.'
What the family didn't realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.
But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.
Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.
The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.
When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager's former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.
The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.
'The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,' according to the police report. 'The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.'
The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.
Also Read
Nintendo chief rules out price cuts for Wii U
TOKYO (AP) - Nintendo's president Thursday ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U home console as a way to boost sales, vowing to become profitable again in its core businesses as smartphones and tablets increasingly threaten specialized game machines.
Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.
But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.
'We are already offering it at a good price,' he said.
Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as 'a commitment.'
But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.
All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.
Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.
Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.
Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.
Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.
The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.
Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.
Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.
He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.
'The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,' he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.
'I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,' said Iwata.
He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.
Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.
'People have to try it to see it is fun,' Miyamoto said of Wii U.
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama
Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.
But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.
'We are already offering it at a good price,' he said.
Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as 'a commitment.'
But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.
All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.
Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.
Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.
Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.
Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.
The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.
Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.
Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.
He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.
'The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,' he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.
'I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,' said Iwata.
He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.
Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.
'People have to try it to see it is fun,' Miyamoto said of Wii U.
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?
Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that's down by roughly a third from original expectations.
The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.
(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)
You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there's no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world's first fully motion-control-driven game system - a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who'd never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.
The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii's novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony's imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo's just mining Apple territory with the Wii U's tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn't be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo's original dual-screen DS - a handheld that predated Apple's tablet by six years.
Another explanation for the Wii U's slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo's own standards. The GameCube sold for $200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play - a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive "so that's what all the hype's about" flair of Wii Sports.
But let's cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn't the Wii U's sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.
According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it's true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer's day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?
(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)
How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?
I'm not saying mobile gaming isn't big - because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn't not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It's impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.
Nintendo can't be all things to all people any more than Apple's been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn't look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope - the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years - on a console or PC. I don't want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS's slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes - from core to mobile/tablet gaming - oversimplifies things in my view.
What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers - and what I'd expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony - is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we'd be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you'll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?
I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it'd take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won't mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren't this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.
Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic "vital to the future of the industry." From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U's lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming's court.
MORE: Murfie Converts Your CDs into a Lossless Online Library, Lets You Sell and Trade Your Music
The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.
(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)
You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there's no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world's first fully motion-control-driven game system - a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who'd never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.
The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii's novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony's imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo's just mining Apple territory with the Wii U's tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn't be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo's original dual-screen DS - a handheld that predated Apple's tablet by six years.
Another explanation for the Wii U's slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo's own standards. The GameCube sold for $200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play - a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive "so that's what all the hype's about" flair of Wii Sports.
But let's cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn't the Wii U's sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.
According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it's true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer's day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?
(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)
How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?
I'm not saying mobile gaming isn't big - because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn't not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It's impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.
Nintendo can't be all things to all people any more than Apple's been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn't look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope - the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years - on a console or PC. I don't want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS's slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes - from core to mobile/tablet gaming - oversimplifies things in my view.
What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers - and what I'd expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony - is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we'd be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you'll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?
I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it'd take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won't mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren't this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.
Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic "vital to the future of the industry." From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U's lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming's court.
MORE: Murfie Converts Your CDs into a Lossless Online Library, Lets You Sell and Trade Your Music
After Newtown: Video games, the US military, and America's culture of violence
Whatever else is said about the murder of 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Conn. last year, let no one say - especially at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on gun control today - that those killings were "unimaginable." Every day, mass killings are imagined, rehearsed, and enacted - virtually - by millions of children and young adults, mostly boys and men, in video games like Bioshock 2. That game invites players to murder defenseless, cowering girls at point-blank range or lure them into a trap to mow them down with a machine gun.
Adam Lanza didn't have to imagine the Sandy Hook massacre on his own. Others had already imagined it for him.
When Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, pointed a finger at video games and media violence during a news conference after the shootings, it was a calculated effort to distract attention from the gun industry and its powerful lobby. As former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly wrote in their USA Today op-ed announcing the launch of their gun-control superPAC, 'We saw from the NRA leadership's defiant and unsympathetic response to the Newtown, Conn., massacre that winning even the most common-sense reforms will require a fight.'
But Mr. LaPierre was also half right. Glock and Bushmaster give troubled teens and young adults like Lanza the means to kill. But antisocial video games and a wider culture of militarism give them the script.
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Adam Lanza didn't have to imagine the Sandy Hook massacre on his own. Others had already imagined it for him.
When Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, pointed a finger at video games and media violence during a news conference after the shootings, it was a calculated effort to distract attention from the gun industry and its powerful lobby. As former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly wrote in their USA Today op-ed announcing the launch of their gun-control superPAC, 'We saw from the NRA leadership's defiant and unsympathetic response to the Newtown, Conn., massacre that winning even the most common-sense reforms will require a fight.'
But Mr. LaPierre was also half right. Glock and Bushmaster give troubled teens and young adults like Lanza the means to kill. But antisocial video games and a wider culture of militarism give them the script.
OPINION: 6 reasons why President Obama will defeat the NRA and win universal background checks
What LaPierre neglected to say is that the arms industry, the video game industry, and the military are deeply entwined with one another and even, one could argue, allied in values. In many ways, their work together is eroding the distinction between virtual and real killing.
During the Iraq War, Marines relaxed after conducting search and destroy missions by playing Call of Duty 4 and CounterStrike, fielding the same weapons and tactics. CIA agents and Air Force personnel today kill real people in distant countries using remotely piloted drones, on interfaces modeled on video games, while US soldiers hone tactical combat skills on video game simulators and use Xbox joysticks to control real machines in the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the video game industry works closely with the military and gun manufacturers to ensure that their virtual weaponry, from the PM-63 submachine gun to the C-130 gunship, behaves just like the real thing. Some game companies have direct contracts with the Department of Defense, manufacturing hardware and software for military applications.
It's easy to see why the US Army runs recruitment ads in gamer magazines and maintains a popular online game called America's Army.
While the industry denies any link between violent interactive media and real-world beliefs and behaviors, studies have shown that playing violent video games is associated with higher rates of hostility, more pro-violence attitudes, and a decrease in players' ability to empathize with others, particularly those who are suffering.
Computer video games are in fact the most powerful medium ever devised for altering perception and behavior. That's why psychologists use them to help patients overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) why pilots are trained on flight simulators, and why the military uses them to train soldiers.
So what does it mean that millions of boys and young men are spending their free time "training" to kill?
Whether knifing or setting fire to prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto, or mowing down scores of racially stereotyped Arabs in some fictional Middle Eastern country, male video-game players are being taught to associate representations of mass slaughter, torture, and other antisocial acts with play and pleasure. They are being told that to be a "real" man is to come to others heavily armed.
OPINION: The moral cost of video games
The very idea of moving from room to room with an assault weapon, "clearing" the room by shooting victims in the head, as Lanza did in Newtown, is a convention of the First Person Shooter video game genre. The first such game, Doom, proved so successful at teaching soldiers how to kill that the Marines quickly adapted it for their training program. Prior to their massacre, the Columbine killers spent countless hours playing and even designing levels on a modified version of the same game.
At his trial last year, Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who murdered 69 people, most of them teenagers, on the island of Utoya, boasted that he had done his weapons training on the military-style First Person Shooter game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which he had played for up to 16 hours a day as "part of my training-simulation." The special gun sight Breivik installed on his rifle was the real version of the virtual one he had used in the game.
The Breivik case reveals how narrow the US debate over gun violence really is. Norway has stringent gun control laws, and Breivik did his killing with a hunting rifle, not a semi-automatic assault rifle. So tightening restrictions on guns, in a nation that already has hundreds of millions of them in private hands, is both admirable and arguably beside the point. Banning guns alone won't address a pervasive culture of militarism and violence - one that has diminished the ability of children and young adults to distinguish between real and virtual violence, or to care about the difference.
Despite a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2011, which protected commercial video games as free speech, the Newtown massacre has renewed debate in the Congress and White House over what, if anything, should - or can - be done to regulate the $60 billion video game industry, the largest media business in the world.
To his credit, President Obama recently ordered more federal research on possible links between violent video games and real-life violence, and asked Congress to fund it. But he declined to take stronger action.
Two weeks ago, Vice President Joe Biden, who had earlier expressed concern about violent video games, suddenly backed down, after intense lobbying pressure from the industry. He and others seem to have accepted the industry's position that the research linking violent video games to real violence is too 'inconclusive' to justify new legislative action.
The industry is fond of saying that no one has yet been able to prove that a specific act of violence was 'caused' by someone playing a video game. However, that's like my claiming that cars don't contribute to global warming, because no one has proved that my own SUV has caused the glaciers on Kilimanjaro to melt. The sources of climate change, and of violence, are in fact multiple. Video games may not cause violence on their own, but they contribute to a culture of violence by modeling antisocial acts and diminishing players' empathic response to others.
They also promote a virulent militarism that subordinates democratic and civic values to a culture of war-making. And here, perhaps, lies the rub. A cynic might ask whether a deliberative body that routinely authorizes billions of dollars for real-world weapons, real-life wars that in just the last decade have left more than 100,000 real people, not virtual ones, dead, is terribly likely to go after an industry that spreads only make-believe violence.
Let us give our elected representatives the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they would. Even so, it is not far-fetched to ask whether our representatives' reluctance to rein in the industry might not stem, at least in part, from their tacit appreciation of how deeply entwined cultures of symbolic violence now are with our national identity and self-understanding as a great military power.
EDITOR'S BLOG: After Aurora: the role of media violence
Yet a nation that lives by the sword dies by it, and it matters less and less whether that sword is virtual or real. So long as America continues socializing its young people in a culture of violence and war, whether in video games or in military campaigns abroad, we are unlikely to see an end to tragedies like Newtown or Aurora.
John Sanbonmatsu teaches a course on the Philosophy and Ethics of Video Games at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is associate professor of philosophy.
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Nintendo to post unexpected loss as Wii successor falters
TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd, the world's leading gaming company by machines sold, said it will post an operating loss for a second straight year as the sales of its Wii U, successor to the 100-million selling Wii, faltered.
The company caught investors off guard by predicting a loss of $220 million in the year to March 31, reversing a profit forecast for the same amount, putting its new guidance well short of a consensus estimate of 12.1 billion yen ($133.48 million) profit from 19 analysts.
The grim outlook came even as a weaker yen provides a boost for a company that sells almost three quarters of its products outside Japan.
'It was a somewhat negative surprise,' said Yasuo Sakuma, portfolio manager at Bayview Asset Management.
Nintendo, which began by making playing cards in the late 19th century, is counting on the Wii U to revive its fortunes as sales of the six year-old Wii slacken.
The latest offering from the creator of Super Mario faces competition from Apple Inc and other makers of mobile phones and tablet PCs that are attracting gamers with cheap or free games.
'The sales of Wii U were smooth at the beginning but since the turn of the year they have been losing momentum,' Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka after revealing the loss forecast. He blamed the lacklustre performance on a dearth of games titles to woo players back.
'Due to delays in software development, we had to postpone sales of software products we had planned to (release) early this year, which is interrupting our sales,' he said.
SOFTWARE SLUMP
Nintendo lowered its sales forecast for the Wii U, launched in the U.S. in November, to 4 million consoles by the end of March from a pre-launch estimate of 5.5 million, and cut the sales outlook for its handheld 3DS by 2.5 million machines to 15 million.
In November it launched the Wii U, its first console in 16 years to come with a dedicated Super Mario game title.
The performance of the Wii U, which features a 'Gamepad' controller that functions like a tablet, and a social gaming network dubbed 'Miiverse', will be closely watched by XBox maker Microsoft Corp and Playstation maker Sony Corp as both mull plans for updated versions of their consoles, say analysts.
As Nintendo's hardware business suffers, software sales are also dragging. The company slashed the annual sales forecast of Wii U software by 33 percent to 24 million units and that of 3DS software by 29 percent to 70 million units.
'We have been prepared to see weak sales forecast for Wii U as its sales performances in various regions have been widely reported. But it was negative to see a lower forecast for 3DS software as it is one of the company's main sales drivers,' said Sakuma at Bayview Asset Management.
Nintendo has so far resisted offering Super Mario and its other iconic games on tablets, smartphones or other platforms.
Iwata indicated that Nintendo will stick with its in-house strategy. The company, he said, aims to return to operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the next business year with a splurge of new software titles.
Before the earnings announcement, Nintendo's shares fell 2.1 percent to 9,350 yen, edging back toward the decade low of 8,500 yen touched early this month.
($1 = 90.6500 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Hideyuki Sano; Additional reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada and Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
The company caught investors off guard by predicting a loss of $220 million in the year to March 31, reversing a profit forecast for the same amount, putting its new guidance well short of a consensus estimate of 12.1 billion yen ($133.48 million) profit from 19 analysts.
The grim outlook came even as a weaker yen provides a boost for a company that sells almost three quarters of its products outside Japan.
'It was a somewhat negative surprise,' said Yasuo Sakuma, portfolio manager at Bayview Asset Management.
Nintendo, which began by making playing cards in the late 19th century, is counting on the Wii U to revive its fortunes as sales of the six year-old Wii slacken.
The latest offering from the creator of Super Mario faces competition from Apple Inc and other makers of mobile phones and tablet PCs that are attracting gamers with cheap or free games.
'The sales of Wii U were smooth at the beginning but since the turn of the year they have been losing momentum,' Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka after revealing the loss forecast. He blamed the lacklustre performance on a dearth of games titles to woo players back.
'Due to delays in software development, we had to postpone sales of software products we had planned to (release) early this year, which is interrupting our sales,' he said.
SOFTWARE SLUMP
Nintendo lowered its sales forecast for the Wii U, launched in the U.S. in November, to 4 million consoles by the end of March from a pre-launch estimate of 5.5 million, and cut the sales outlook for its handheld 3DS by 2.5 million machines to 15 million.
In November it launched the Wii U, its first console in 16 years to come with a dedicated Super Mario game title.
The performance of the Wii U, which features a 'Gamepad' controller that functions like a tablet, and a social gaming network dubbed 'Miiverse', will be closely watched by XBox maker Microsoft Corp and Playstation maker Sony Corp as both mull plans for updated versions of their consoles, say analysts.
As Nintendo's hardware business suffers, software sales are also dragging. The company slashed the annual sales forecast of Wii U software by 33 percent to 24 million units and that of 3DS software by 29 percent to 70 million units.
'We have been prepared to see weak sales forecast for Wii U as its sales performances in various regions have been widely reported. But it was negative to see a lower forecast for 3DS software as it is one of the company's main sales drivers,' said Sakuma at Bayview Asset Management.
Nintendo has so far resisted offering Super Mario and its other iconic games on tablets, smartphones or other platforms.
Iwata indicated that Nintendo will stick with its in-house strategy. The company, he said, aims to return to operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the next business year with a splurge of new software titles.
Before the earnings announcement, Nintendo's shares fell 2.1 percent to 9,350 yen, edging back toward the decade low of 8,500 yen touched early this month.
($1 = 90.6500 Japanese yen)
(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Hideyuki Sano; Additional reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada and Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Disney closing 'Epic Mickey' video game developer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Disney is saying goodbye to the developer of 'Epic Mickey.'
The interactive division of the Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it is closing Junction Point Studios. The Austin, Texas-based video game developer created 2010's 'Disney Epic Mickey' and its 2012 sequel 'Epic Mickey 2.'
Disney says the closure is part of its 'effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace,' and to align its resources with its key priorities.
Disney acquired Junction Point Studios in 2007. The studio was led by 'Deus Ex' and 'Thief' creator Warren Spector.
The original 'Epic Mickey' was released for the Nintendo Wii, while 'Epic Mickey 2' was available on all major consoles.
Disney unveiled plans earlier this month for a new franchise combining a toy line with a game called 'Disney Infinity.'
The interactive division of the Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it is closing Junction Point Studios. The Austin, Texas-based video game developer created 2010's 'Disney Epic Mickey' and its 2012 sequel 'Epic Mickey 2.'
Disney says the closure is part of its 'effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace,' and to align its resources with its key priorities.
Disney acquired Junction Point Studios in 2007. The studio was led by 'Deus Ex' and 'Thief' creator Warren Spector.
The original 'Epic Mickey' was released for the Nintendo Wii, while 'Epic Mickey 2' was available on all major consoles.
Disney unveiled plans earlier this month for a new franchise combining a toy line with a game called 'Disney Infinity.'
Children's magazine promotes adult video games
LONDON (Reuters) - A British magazine distributed by a joint venture of Conde Nast and Hearst Corporation and aimed at primary school children has been featuring images of adult-rated video games.
The most recent issue of Cool Kidz, which is published by privately-owned LCD Publishing, contained images of five games that carried age ratings of 18 years, under the European gaming industry's PEGI rating scheme.
Screenshots appeared as double-page spreads, for use as posters, and were reproduced in spot-the-difference and other puzzles. Earlier issues also had images from 18- and 16-rated games.
Children's campaigners said the images reflected a growing problem of young children being exposed to violent video games, thereby increasing the chance they start playing them earlier.
It also highlighted what some critics describe as an apparent gap in regulation of children's magazines since LCD does not appear to have broken any law or industry rule.
LCD Publishing, which is based in Exeter, southwest England, said it took its responsibilities to young readers seriously.
'We censor the images we use to ensure that there is no blood or apparent body damage,' owner Allen Trump said in an emailed statement.
He said the images used were suitable for children 12 or older, although he added the magazine was targeted at children up to 12 years.
The pictures printed depicted life-like computer generated images of men carrying weapons including assault rifles, Bowie knives, an axe, an anti-tank weapon and pistols.
The images showed explosions but not the visceral, bloody combat or scenes of a sexual nature for which the games are frequently criticized by parents' groups and women's rights advocates.
Cool Kidz is distributed by Comag, which is controlled by privately-owned U.S. magazine publishers Conde Nast, owners of Vogue magazine, and the Hearst Corporation, owner of Cosmopolitan magazine.
All three groups declined repeated requests for comment.
London-based Comag is one of the largest magazine distributors in the UK with annual turnover of around 230 million pounds ($360 million), according to its most recent accounts.
FREE PROMOTION
Trump said LCD downloaded the game images from the Internet although he was also occasionally approached by public relations firms seeking coverage of their clients' games.
Games publishers regularly post images on their websites, for use by online and print publishers, thus helping create awareness of their game.
Games firms contacted by Reuters said they were unaware Cool Kidz, which has been published for seven years, had been using their images.
The adult games Cool Kidz featured included Hitman: Absolution, Call of Duty Black Ops II, Assassins Creed III, Farcry 3 and Dishonored.
Representatives for Japan's Square Enix, publisher of the Hitman series, privately-owned Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Dishonored, and Ubisoft Entertainment, publisher of Assassins Creed III and Farcry 3, said they opposed the use but declined to say whether they would take any legal action against LCD.
Call of Duty publisher Activision declined to comment.
Alison Sherratt, senior vice-president of teachers union ATL, said publishers and government needed to do more to limit children's' exposure to games.
'It puts peer pressure on children .. If they see these images, it gives them the idea it's ok, it's all right to play these games,' she added.
A spokeswoman for the Advertising Standards Authority said games companies could not advertise 18 rated games in children's magazines and a spokesman for the Video Standards Council (VSC), the UK affiliate of PEGI, said its rules also prohibited this.
However, since the images were not paid-for advertising, or supplied to Cool Kidz by the games publishers, these rules do not apply.
The Press Complaints Commission can adjudicate on complaints against magazines but only in respect of its members. LCD is not one.
The Office of Fair Trade and the Professional Publishers Association, trade group for magazine publishers, said they were unaware of any bodies that had regulatory powers over the content of children's magazines.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Jon Boyle)
The most recent issue of Cool Kidz, which is published by privately-owned LCD Publishing, contained images of five games that carried age ratings of 18 years, under the European gaming industry's PEGI rating scheme.
Screenshots appeared as double-page spreads, for use as posters, and were reproduced in spot-the-difference and other puzzles. Earlier issues also had images from 18- and 16-rated games.
Children's campaigners said the images reflected a growing problem of young children being exposed to violent video games, thereby increasing the chance they start playing them earlier.
It also highlighted what some critics describe as an apparent gap in regulation of children's magazines since LCD does not appear to have broken any law or industry rule.
LCD Publishing, which is based in Exeter, southwest England, said it took its responsibilities to young readers seriously.
'We censor the images we use to ensure that there is no blood or apparent body damage,' owner Allen Trump said in an emailed statement.
He said the images used were suitable for children 12 or older, although he added the magazine was targeted at children up to 12 years.
The pictures printed depicted life-like computer generated images of men carrying weapons including assault rifles, Bowie knives, an axe, an anti-tank weapon and pistols.
The images showed explosions but not the visceral, bloody combat or scenes of a sexual nature for which the games are frequently criticized by parents' groups and women's rights advocates.
Cool Kidz is distributed by Comag, which is controlled by privately-owned U.S. magazine publishers Conde Nast, owners of Vogue magazine, and the Hearst Corporation, owner of Cosmopolitan magazine.
All three groups declined repeated requests for comment.
London-based Comag is one of the largest magazine distributors in the UK with annual turnover of around 230 million pounds ($360 million), according to its most recent accounts.
FREE PROMOTION
Trump said LCD downloaded the game images from the Internet although he was also occasionally approached by public relations firms seeking coverage of their clients' games.
Games publishers regularly post images on their websites, for use by online and print publishers, thus helping create awareness of their game.
Games firms contacted by Reuters said they were unaware Cool Kidz, which has been published for seven years, had been using their images.
The adult games Cool Kidz featured included Hitman: Absolution, Call of Duty Black Ops II, Assassins Creed III, Farcry 3 and Dishonored.
Representatives for Japan's Square Enix, publisher of the Hitman series, privately-owned Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Dishonored, and Ubisoft Entertainment, publisher of Assassins Creed III and Farcry 3, said they opposed the use but declined to say whether they would take any legal action against LCD.
Call of Duty publisher Activision declined to comment.
Alison Sherratt, senior vice-president of teachers union ATL, said publishers and government needed to do more to limit children's' exposure to games.
'It puts peer pressure on children .. If they see these images, it gives them the idea it's ok, it's all right to play these games,' she added.
A spokeswoman for the Advertising Standards Authority said games companies could not advertise 18 rated games in children's magazines and a spokesman for the Video Standards Council (VSC), the UK affiliate of PEGI, said its rules also prohibited this.
However, since the images were not paid-for advertising, or supplied to Cool Kidz by the games publishers, these rules do not apply.
The Press Complaints Commission can adjudicate on complaints against magazines but only in respect of its members. LCD is not one.
The Office of Fair Trade and the Professional Publishers Association, trade group for magazine publishers, said they were unaware of any bodies that had regulatory powers over the content of children's magazines.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Monday, January 28, 2013
China may consider ending its decade-long ban on video game consoles
Shares of Sony (SNE) and Nintendo (NTDOY) surged on Monday following a report from China's official newspaper that claimed the country is considering the lift of a decade-long ban on video game consoles. An unnamed source told the China Daily newspaper that the Ministry of Culture is "reviewing the policy," and has conducted surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of lifting the ban. An official at the ministry's cultural market department denied the report in a statement to Reuters, however, claiming it "is not considering lifting the ban."
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 debuts on Wednesday - strap in for a wild ride]
China banned the sale of video game consoles in 2000 to safeguard children's mental and physical development. In order for the ban to be lifted, the seven different ministries who issued the ruling must all agree to reverse it.
[More from BGR: Apple releases iOS 6.1 to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users]
Shares of Sony's stock were up more than 8% in Tokyo on Monday, while Nintendo gained 3.5% on a weaker Nikkei index.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 debuts on Wednesday - strap in for a wild ride]
China banned the sale of video game consoles in 2000 to safeguard children's mental and physical development. In order for the ban to be lifted, the seven different ministries who issued the ruling must all agree to reverse it.
[More from BGR: Apple releases iOS 6.1 to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users]
Shares of Sony's stock were up more than 8% in Tokyo on Monday, while Nintendo gained 3.5% on a weaker Nikkei index.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
China considering end to 13-year ban on video game consoles: report
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is considering lifting a decade-long ban on video game consoles, the official China Daily newspaper reported on Monday, sending shares of major hardware makers such as Sony Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd surging.
In November, Sony's PlayStation 3 received a quality certification from a Chinese safety standards body, prompting speculation that Beijing would lift the ban, which the government said was imposed in 2000 to safeguard children's mental and physical development.
'We are reviewing the policy and have conducted some surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of opening up the game console market,' the China Daily quoted an unnamed source from the Ministry of Culture as saying.
'However, since the ban was issued by seven ministries more than a decade ago, we will need approval from all parties to lift it.'
An official at the ministry's cultural market department, which is responsible for the legislation, denied the report.
'The ministry is not considering lifting the ban,' the official, who identified himself only as Bai, told Reuters.
In Tokyo, Sony shares traded 8 percent higher while Nintendo gained over 3.5 percent, outperforming a broadly weaker Nikkei index.
Yoshiko Uchiyama, a spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment, a unit of Sony, said she could not comment directly on the report.
'Our stance towards business in China has not changed. Of course, we acknowledge China as a promising market for our business, and we are always considering and preparing business opportunities and possibilities (in the country),' she said.
A Nintendo spokesman declined to comment.
Earlier moves suggest Chinese authorities are ready to take a softer line on game consoles.
Last year, Lenovo Group Ltd launched the Eedoo CT510, a motion sensing device similar in concept to Microsoft Corp's Kinect extension for its Xbox game console. Lenovo marketed the Eedoo as an 'exercise and entertainment machine'.
Video game consoles are banned in China, but online gaming and playing games on mobile devices are both extremely common, which analysts say limits the potential upside for Sony and rival game machine makers.
(Reporting by Kazunori Takada in SHANGHAI and Mari Saito in TOKYO; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
This article is sponsored by real estate news.
In November, Sony's PlayStation 3 received a quality certification from a Chinese safety standards body, prompting speculation that Beijing would lift the ban, which the government said was imposed in 2000 to safeguard children's mental and physical development.
'We are reviewing the policy and have conducted some surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of opening up the game console market,' the China Daily quoted an unnamed source from the Ministry of Culture as saying.
'However, since the ban was issued by seven ministries more than a decade ago, we will need approval from all parties to lift it.'
An official at the ministry's cultural market department, which is responsible for the legislation, denied the report.
'The ministry is not considering lifting the ban,' the official, who identified himself only as Bai, told Reuters.
In Tokyo, Sony shares traded 8 percent higher while Nintendo gained over 3.5 percent, outperforming a broadly weaker Nikkei index.
Yoshiko Uchiyama, a spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment, a unit of Sony, said she could not comment directly on the report.
'Our stance towards business in China has not changed. Of course, we acknowledge China as a promising market for our business, and we are always considering and preparing business opportunities and possibilities (in the country),' she said.
A Nintendo spokesman declined to comment.
Earlier moves suggest Chinese authorities are ready to take a softer line on game consoles.
Last year, Lenovo Group Ltd launched the Eedoo CT510, a motion sensing device similar in concept to Microsoft Corp's Kinect extension for its Xbox game console. Lenovo marketed the Eedoo as an 'exercise and entertainment machine'.
Video game consoles are banned in China, but online gaming and playing games on mobile devices are both extremely common, which analysts say limits the potential upside for Sony and rival game machine makers.
(Reporting by Kazunori Takada in SHANGHAI and Mari Saito in TOKYO; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
This article is sponsored by real estate news.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Women in Combat Roles: Who Knew Video Games Were So Progressive?
When the Pentagon announced this week that the U.S. military will allow women to fight on the front lines within a few years, I was taken aback - but not because I have any problem with the policy change. To be honest, I just didn't realize the military had a rule against women in combat roles to begin with.
It's probably because I spend too much time soaking up technology news, and not enough time reading about everything else. But maybe some of my dumbfoundedness comes from the fact that I play video games. In the virtual warzones of my favorite hobby, it's totally normal for men and women to fight alongside one another.
One of my favorite games of 2012 was XCom: Enemy Unknown, in which you command a small squad of super soldiers in a fight against alien invaders. The rank and file of your paramilitary group hail from both sexes, and on the battlefield, there's no tactical difference between them. A female soldier can aim a sniper rifle or launch a rocket just as capably as any male squaddie. She's entitled to the same promotions as well, and can rise through the ranks just as quickly.
XCom is somewhat of an ideal example, but it's not the only one. In the Mass Effect series, your protagonist can be male or female, and so can the characters who head into battle with you. In Halo 4, your Spartan soldier can be either gender with exactly the same abilities. Gears of War 3 added female squad members to the mix, where previous games had relegated them to support roles away from the action.
The funny thing is that video games aren't known for treating women fairly. A lot of times, women serve primarily as eye candy, or damsels in distress, or just glorified secretaries for men doing the real work. That's assuming there are any women in the game at all. (And of course, not all war games include women. The Call of Duty series, for instance, is almost entirely bereft of them.)
When games actually do put women on the battlefield, all those cheap stereotypes fade away. That's largely because of mechanics. Players, given the choice between a man or woman, don't want to be penalized for choosing one or the other. Besides, creating separate sets of rules for each gender makes for a messier game.
But I like to think there's a message implicit in the mechanics: The women in these games have proven themselves to be just as capable as their male counterparts. They don't need special treatment, and no one second-guesses their right to be on the front lines. When the squad is in danger, all that really matters are the skills and abilities of the soldier. I think that's a pretty good way to view things.
It's no surprise that people who support women in combat are making the exact same argument out in the real world.
MORE:
It's probably because I spend too much time soaking up technology news, and not enough time reading about everything else. But maybe some of my dumbfoundedness comes from the fact that I play video games. In the virtual warzones of my favorite hobby, it's totally normal for men and women to fight alongside one another.
One of my favorite games of 2012 was XCom: Enemy Unknown, in which you command a small squad of super soldiers in a fight against alien invaders. The rank and file of your paramilitary group hail from both sexes, and on the battlefield, there's no tactical difference between them. A female soldier can aim a sniper rifle or launch a rocket just as capably as any male squaddie. She's entitled to the same promotions as well, and can rise through the ranks just as quickly.
XCom is somewhat of an ideal example, but it's not the only one. In the Mass Effect series, your protagonist can be male or female, and so can the characters who head into battle with you. In Halo 4, your Spartan soldier can be either gender with exactly the same abilities. Gears of War 3 added female squad members to the mix, where previous games had relegated them to support roles away from the action.
The funny thing is that video games aren't known for treating women fairly. A lot of times, women serve primarily as eye candy, or damsels in distress, or just glorified secretaries for men doing the real work. That's assuming there are any women in the game at all. (And of course, not all war games include women. The Call of Duty series, for instance, is almost entirely bereft of them.)
When games actually do put women on the battlefield, all those cheap stereotypes fade away. That's largely because of mechanics. Players, given the choice between a man or woman, don't want to be penalized for choosing one or the other. Besides, creating separate sets of rules for each gender makes for a messier game.
But I like to think there's a message implicit in the mechanics: The women in these games have proven themselves to be just as capable as their male counterparts. They don't need special treatment, and no one second-guesses their right to be on the front lines. When the squad is in danger, all that really matters are the skills and abilities of the soldier. I think that's a pretty good way to view things.
It's no surprise that people who support women in combat are making the exact same argument out in the real world.
MORE:
- Women in Combat: Vive a Différence
- Women In Combat: Shattering the "Brass Ceiling"
- Been There, Done That: Pentagon Formally Opens Combat to Women
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Nintendo Reaches into Wii U Grab Bag, Pulls Out Some Vague, Some Fascinating Promises
It's been a ho-hum 2013 for Nintendo's Wii U so far: some carry-over posturing about scads of "launch window" titles, but less than a handful of games with bankable release dates. When I checked the hopper for January, February and March, I counted four, maybe five Wii U titles with firm dates, all of them least a month or two off.
That's not how you move systems, and Nintendo ran damage control Wednesday morning by trotting out company president Satoru Iwata in a broad-ranging (and reaching) "Wii U Direct" video effort to soothe jittery system owners and would-be buyers still waiting for slam dunks. Call it Nintendo circling its wagons.or maybe just an "if you squint you can make it out on the horizon" wagon-train parade.
(MORE: Mostly Piano, Not Pretender: Yamaha's AvantGrand N2 a Year Later)
"In past Nintendo dialogues, we have focused more on games releasing in the near future, but it's still early in 2013, so I'd like to change the format a little bit," said Iwata before launching into a sneak preview of what Nintendo has cooking.
For starters, Iwata says the Wii U will see at least two major system updates this year: one in the spring, another during the summer. Arguably the most important of these involves a desperately needed fix for the crazy-long time it takes to launch apps or reload the Wii U Menu - a process that can take up to 30 seconds. Imagine if each time you backed out of an iOS app it took half a minute to bring up iOS's icon overlay. That'd be insane, and it's a shame quality control didn't view load times as prohibitive enough to remedy before the launch in November. Thank goodness Nintendo's working to put things right.
Iwata also mentioned finally debuting the long-awaited Wii U Virtual Console - Nintendo's vehicle to sell old-school NES and Super NES games - just after the spring system update. The Virtual Console's been missing in action since the Wii U launched, despite its longstanding availability on the original Wii. That, according to Iwata, is because Wii U Virtual Console games are poised to offer features their Wii counterparts didn't, like being able to save backups of your game progress, the option to play away from the TV on the Wii U GamePad, access to Miiverse communities for these older games and support for additional platforms like the Game Boy Advance (never released on the Wii Virtual Console).
If you've already purchased the Wii Virtual Console version of a game, it sounds like you'll have to pay again, though Nintendo says you'll get "special pricing": regularly priced games will run $5 to $6 (NES) or $8 to $9 (SNES), with those prices dropping to $1 and $1.50, respectively, if you bought the game for Wii Virtual Console. It's better than no discount, I suppose, and Nintendo can probably justify the nominal buck to buck-and-a-half for research and development on the Wii U Virtual Console's extras (it's certainly taking the company long enough to pull everything together).
If you'd rather not wait for spring, Nintendo's running a beta dubbed "Wii U Virtual Console Trial Campaign": Between January and July, Nintendo will release a classic title every 30 days for $0.30 a pop (Nintendo's tied the pricing and release timeframes in with the original Famicom's 30th anniversary in Japan, coming up this July). After July, the prices of the discounted titles will bounce back to normal, but you'll be able to buy them at the reduced price if you participated in the beta. The games list is none too shabby, either: Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch-Out!!, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong.
Wii U Virtual Console sounds like a clever little diversion for Nintendo wonks, but let's not forget how fuzzy these games look nowadays on resolution-locked flat-screens. It's not that I want high-res versions - these things are what they are at their native pixel counts - but you wouldn't lay wax paper over a Monet, would you?
(MORE: A Helpful Reminder That Rumors Are Not Facts)
Let's cut to the chase: Nintendo fans want to know where the next Zelda game is, what comes after Super Mario Galaxy 2, when they'll be able to sample the Wii U's take on Mario Kart, what's up with the next Super Smash Bros. game and so forth.
Iwata confirmed that Nintendo won't offer new games in January or February and apologized for this, but said "Nintendo takes seriously its responsibility to offer a steady stream of new titles in the very early days of a new platform to establish a good lineup of software." Why the delay? Because, says Iwata, "We firmly believe we have to offer quality experiences when we release new titles." No argument there.
What's coming between spring and summer? Iwata identified several titles: Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, LEGO City Undercover and The Wonderful 101. But don't get too excited: These were originally slated to hit by March.
We also caught another glimpse of Bayonetta 2 (as well as the female protagonist's backside), heard a bit about Super Smash Bros. U and why it'll probably be a while before we see it (screens at E3), and then Iwata talked about, well, a bunch of stuff we already knew was in the offing: a new unnamed Super Mario game by the team that developed the Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land platformers, a new Mario Kart racer (both set to be playable at E3) and a new Wii Party game (Iwata showed video of someone shaking a Wii U GamePad to roll dice as well as two players using a GamePad like a mini-foosball table).
More intriguing were the two unannounced new games, like one from the developers behind Kirby's Epic Yarn starring Yoshi (a kind of sequel to Yoshi's Story for the Nintendo 64) or - wait for it JRPG wonks - a Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover from Atlus.
Last but not least, Iwata revealed the company's plans for Zelda on the Wii U. The really good news: Nintendo says it's planning to "rethink the conventions of Zelda," tinkering with tenets like dungeon linearity and solo play. The merely good news: Nintendo's remastering Zelda: The Wind Waker in HD for the system and tweaking the gameplay. The bad-good news: You'll probably have to wait a long time for the new Zelda, but you'll get The Wind Waker HD by "this fall."
But the best news of all, from where I'm sitting: Taking a page from Apple, Iwata closed by invoking "one more important topic": a new Wii U game from Monolith Soft, the company responsible for Xenoblade Chronicles, the best roleplaying game on any game system released in.well, when was Final Fantasy XII released? Has it been seven years already?
All told, a mixed performance from Nintendo, but here's the thing: However vague much of the information in Iwata's presentation was, I love the dignified, spare, wonderfully thorough way Nintendo's chosen to address its audience lately. By contrast, I feel like a need to shower after watching most Microsoft/Sony pressers.
MORE: Sony Xperia Tablet Z Aims for 'World's Thinnest' Crown
That's not how you move systems, and Nintendo ran damage control Wednesday morning by trotting out company president Satoru Iwata in a broad-ranging (and reaching) "Wii U Direct" video effort to soothe jittery system owners and would-be buyers still waiting for slam dunks. Call it Nintendo circling its wagons.or maybe just an "if you squint you can make it out on the horizon" wagon-train parade.
(MORE: Mostly Piano, Not Pretender: Yamaha's AvantGrand N2 a Year Later)
"In past Nintendo dialogues, we have focused more on games releasing in the near future, but it's still early in 2013, so I'd like to change the format a little bit," said Iwata before launching into a sneak preview of what Nintendo has cooking.
For starters, Iwata says the Wii U will see at least two major system updates this year: one in the spring, another during the summer. Arguably the most important of these involves a desperately needed fix for the crazy-long time it takes to launch apps or reload the Wii U Menu - a process that can take up to 30 seconds. Imagine if each time you backed out of an iOS app it took half a minute to bring up iOS's icon overlay. That'd be insane, and it's a shame quality control didn't view load times as prohibitive enough to remedy before the launch in November. Thank goodness Nintendo's working to put things right.
Iwata also mentioned finally debuting the long-awaited Wii U Virtual Console - Nintendo's vehicle to sell old-school NES and Super NES games - just after the spring system update. The Virtual Console's been missing in action since the Wii U launched, despite its longstanding availability on the original Wii. That, according to Iwata, is because Wii U Virtual Console games are poised to offer features their Wii counterparts didn't, like being able to save backups of your game progress, the option to play away from the TV on the Wii U GamePad, access to Miiverse communities for these older games and support for additional platforms like the Game Boy Advance (never released on the Wii Virtual Console).
If you've already purchased the Wii Virtual Console version of a game, it sounds like you'll have to pay again, though Nintendo says you'll get "special pricing": regularly priced games will run $5 to $6 (NES) or $8 to $9 (SNES), with those prices dropping to $1 and $1.50, respectively, if you bought the game for Wii Virtual Console. It's better than no discount, I suppose, and Nintendo can probably justify the nominal buck to buck-and-a-half for research and development on the Wii U Virtual Console's extras (it's certainly taking the company long enough to pull everything together).
If you'd rather not wait for spring, Nintendo's running a beta dubbed "Wii U Virtual Console Trial Campaign": Between January and July, Nintendo will release a classic title every 30 days for $0.30 a pop (Nintendo's tied the pricing and release timeframes in with the original Famicom's 30th anniversary in Japan, coming up this July). After July, the prices of the discounted titles will bounce back to normal, but you'll be able to buy them at the reduced price if you participated in the beta. The games list is none too shabby, either: Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch-Out!!, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong.
Wii U Virtual Console sounds like a clever little diversion for Nintendo wonks, but let's not forget how fuzzy these games look nowadays on resolution-locked flat-screens. It's not that I want high-res versions - these things are what they are at their native pixel counts - but you wouldn't lay wax paper over a Monet, would you?
(MORE: A Helpful Reminder That Rumors Are Not Facts)
Let's cut to the chase: Nintendo fans want to know where the next Zelda game is, what comes after Super Mario Galaxy 2, when they'll be able to sample the Wii U's take on Mario Kart, what's up with the next Super Smash Bros. game and so forth.
Iwata confirmed that Nintendo won't offer new games in January or February and apologized for this, but said "Nintendo takes seriously its responsibility to offer a steady stream of new titles in the very early days of a new platform to establish a good lineup of software." Why the delay? Because, says Iwata, "We firmly believe we have to offer quality experiences when we release new titles." No argument there.
What's coming between spring and summer? Iwata identified several titles: Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, LEGO City Undercover and The Wonderful 101. But don't get too excited: These were originally slated to hit by March.
We also caught another glimpse of Bayonetta 2 (as well as the female protagonist's backside), heard a bit about Super Smash Bros. U and why it'll probably be a while before we see it (screens at E3), and then Iwata talked about, well, a bunch of stuff we already knew was in the offing: a new unnamed Super Mario game by the team that developed the Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land platformers, a new Mario Kart racer (both set to be playable at E3) and a new Wii Party game (Iwata showed video of someone shaking a Wii U GamePad to roll dice as well as two players using a GamePad like a mini-foosball table).
More intriguing were the two unannounced new games, like one from the developers behind Kirby's Epic Yarn starring Yoshi (a kind of sequel to Yoshi's Story for the Nintendo 64) or - wait for it JRPG wonks - a Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover from Atlus.
Last but not least, Iwata revealed the company's plans for Zelda on the Wii U. The really good news: Nintendo says it's planning to "rethink the conventions of Zelda," tinkering with tenets like dungeon linearity and solo play. The merely good news: Nintendo's remastering Zelda: The Wind Waker in HD for the system and tweaking the gameplay. The bad-good news: You'll probably have to wait a long time for the new Zelda, but you'll get The Wind Waker HD by "this fall."
But the best news of all, from where I'm sitting: Taking a page from Apple, Iwata closed by invoking "one more important topic": a new Wii U game from Monolith Soft, the company responsible for Xenoblade Chronicles, the best roleplaying game on any game system released in.well, when was Final Fantasy XII released? Has it been seven years already?
All told, a mixed performance from Nintendo, but here's the thing: However vague much of the information in Iwata's presentation was, I love the dignified, spare, wonderfully thorough way Nintendo's chosen to address its audience lately. By contrast, I feel like a need to shower after watching most Microsoft/Sony pressers.
MORE: Sony Xperia Tablet Z Aims for 'World's Thinnest' Crown
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