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The replacement, if that person is more intelligent, would be able to do something without being insulting or counterproductive. For example, passing laws that restrict the sale of video games to minors without violating the first amendment. (This would be difficult, but possible if it doesn't restrict the speech in question.)

Remember Mortal Kombat? That's already very nearly happened:

On December 9, 1993, the ax fell and the public federal hearings scrutinizing the ethics of the video game industry as a whole began . . . In an effort to help diffuse the situation at hand, the collective giants agreed to quickly adopt a rating system for threats . . . [Senators Lieberman and Kohl] claimed that, "If you don't do something, we will", and the rating system . . . would eventually become known as the ESRB rating system within a couple of years.

A nutjob (soon to be former) lawyer is much less of a threat than a couple of busybody senators trying to shore up their concerned soccer mom support.

They obviously don't make console wars like this any more:

http://advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=10303

Politics, idiocy, CEOs engaging in childish name calling, censorship, back firing strategies....

Mod me down for being slightly off topic, but know this: I am right to wallow in nostalgia.

Seriously: They should sell adult games the same way they sell adult magazines -- clearly labelled and with a wrapper around them, unless they're in an adults only area. I have no problem saying that GTA 3 was completely inappropriate for 7 year olds. But JT is just determined to undermine his cause by being such an asshole. I am sympathetic to the basic premise, some games are inappropriate for children -- but I don't agree that legislation is the way to fix it, and I don't agree that game companies are liable for the actions of idiots, and I certainly don't agree that you should welch on your offers.

I quite liked the zombie woman I saw on E3 2005. I really think it helped advertize the product she advertized for. Uh....whatever that was.

I got a picture of her strangling my friend. Ah... memories.

According to the Wii Sports Fact Sheet page:
http://wii.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7666
Baseball will let one person pitch and one person bat. Boxing will allow 2 players as well. It doesn't specify if bowling will be simultanious or not, but the picture on that page suggests it might be that way.

It's true though, for golf (and probably bowling) you will only have one person acting at a time. I guess I'm just longing for the days when the box you bought had everything you needed for you and friend to play together. The original NES came with Super Mario Brothers and 2 controllers, despite the fact that you had to take turns to play that game together.

It does make me happy they went back to including a game with the system though, I was just hoping for the old "2 controllers" too. So in my mind the base price of the Wii is going to be more like $310 + tax (+ another $50 for Zelda of course). Bundling Zelda and one controller would have made for a much more exciting package, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that.

> What about all the times I crashed 747's into the World Trade Center in Microsoft FS2000?

"Thompson then took a shot at Microsoft's Bill Gates, stating, "What's next, Paul, a game in which players can practice flying commercial jetliners into the World Trade Towers? Oh, I forgot. Microsoft already did that. Thank Time's "Man of the Year," Bill Gates, whose Halo trained Lee Boyd Malvo to be the Beltway Sniper as well."

http://ds.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3090

...and in addition to NDAs and legality, it's also not a particularly good idea to critisize the engine that you're using.

I mean, there's probably going to be a sticker on the box of all these games saying "Powered by Unreal Technology", the last thing a savvy developer is going to want to do is reinforce any Unreal 3 = Underperforming shiteness rumours before their game gets to market.

From the few comments we've heard, it sounds like the Unreal 3 engine is okay but 'overshot' the Xbox 360, so anyone using it effectively might have to make some tweaks.

Silicon Knights seem to have been coasting on this game for quite awhile, so hopefully they are not completely changing engines again.

(From TFA's FA: http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7954)
"Unfortunately, our sources were unable to reveal whether or not the new Too Human engine is being built ground-up or if it still uses some elements of the Unreal Engine."

C'mon, I know he must be feeling embarassed that a group of amateur devs actually called him on his bogus 'proposal', but does he have to throw such a sizeable tantrum about it?

Ben Herman, President of SNK Playmore USA, said, "It's a 2-D game so we can't bring it to PS3 or Xbox 360 as is." in reference to Metal Slug 6.

link

You do know that was a hoax, right?

Shit, tepples. When dealing with hoaxes like this (that is, ones that have actually deceived more than a few fools already), at least point out when you're joking. I think you overestimate the quality of the humor detectors employed at this site.

Linkage.

Not linked from this story are hands on reports on Mario Galaxy from the E3 floor! And here are some photos from the E3 demo stations. This is probably the most exciting thing to come out of this entire E3, this game looks amazing.

The graphics are creative and mindbendingly absurdist, the gameplay sounds intuitive and natural, and even better-- if I understand the Gamespot hands on correctly, Mario Galaxy isn't a stupid star/shine hunt like the last two games were. The point is to just get from point A to point B, like in the 2D mario games-- meaning that the environments can be huge and expansive and there can be a wide variety of them, as opposed to Mario Sunshine where the levels were basically just entering the same 10 boxes over and over to do different little errands in them. I am so happy about this, I cannot wait to play this game. I hope it is a launch title.

I usually end up resorting to bittorrent for the console press conferences, as you mentioned. I find that there's always SOME smaller news site that has a bittorrent link for those.

However, for actual gameplay footage, I usually find myself coming to these:
http://www.advancedmn.com/ (WMV... uggh)
http://www.gametrailers.com/ (WMV and QT. Better)

So yeah, I usually come to gametrailers for my E3 fix. Posting is prompt, and quality is usually good.

Next will be the Blu-ray/HD-DVD releases. Then it will be the Star Wars 3D releases. I lucked out on episodes 4, 5, and 6 - I bought all three of them on DVD in China for $3.

This reminds me of Game Boy. As soon as I buy one, they come out with a new one, or make a slight improvement. Just bought a DS? Here comes the DS Lite on June 11th. I feel like a sucker, but I buy them anyway. Marketing schemes suck, but high quality entertainment makes it acceptable. Hopefully I'm in China in 2030 so I can get a deal on the Holographic Edition of Star Wars episodes 7, 8, and 9.

Woeful game: appalling voice acting, screen tearing, wandering frame rate, no cockpit view, idiotic missions (like flying randomly around in a low visibility sandstorm), infinite heath, offensive history, Starforce Virus.

But good looking cityscapes.

There are much better games in the genre (obviously Zonk hasn't played them), Heroes of the Pacific for arcade action, and Aces of Pacific if you want more sim. But dont take my word for it, here is a selection of other reviews:

IGN: 68% "Going down in a blaze of boring."http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/697947 p1.html

Xbox 360 Advanced 65% "While Blazing Angels shows high production values, the single-player gameplay falls incredibly flat. "http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7140

Eurogames 50% "With genuinely appalling voicework setting the tone for development incompetence, it's compounded by a few dreadful levels, camera issues and the feeling that the whole project was ported onto the 360 as an afterthought" http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63 662

Boomtown: 20% "As it stands Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a deeply flawed game. From the terrible image tearing to the offensive voice-overs, it's as big a failure as I've seen from a major Publisher for some time." http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.p hp?id=11039

No. It won't be Japanese only.

From http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/02/15/

"Oslo, Norway - February 15, 2006: Opera Software today announced that it will deliver the World Wide Web to Nintendo DS users in Japan."

And From http://ds.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3341

"Whether or not Nintendo Ltd. has decided to bring this add-on to the United States remains to be seen."

According to brianj (Opera employee) on the Opera forums:

"Opera will have two modes: fit-to-width mode (similar to what mobile users are already familiar with their mobile phones using the Opera Mobile browser). This mode will use Small Screen Rendering to fit the page across both screens. Alternatively, there is a DS mode which displays an overall page view on the lower screen (where you may use the touch screen to navigate around a sort of "mini map") and read the text on the top screen in full-sized view."

Don't know about small screen rendering? See here: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/smallscreen/

Still not convinced? See what your website looks like on a small screen using the Opera Mini Simulator (which probably isn't exactly how it will look on the DS, but it's an approximation. The DS certainly has more screen real estate than my pathetic cell phone, anyway.)

Also, according to DS Advanced:

"The Opera software is currently slated to release in Japan during the month of June at the price of 3800 yen, roughly $30, and will include ATOK Kanji conversion software."

for more pictures, check this article with pictures of the Opera browser and also the newly announced Nintendo DS TV Tuner. Other announcements are a new Super Mario Brothers being released in May in Japan, and a budget priced Tetris DS.

I wonder why they don't mention Animal Crossing: Wild World? It's gone over 1.5 million in Japan alone and, unlike the non-Nintendogs titles in the article, AC is available in the US as well (apparently, despite the fact that I've visted AC towns in the UK, AC won't be officially released in the EU until March).

The website GameCube Advanced had this story up a whole day before Joystiq, and they have far more information. Their article is at http://ds.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3090

By the way, this is a SMART move for Thompson.

According to the Nintendo mastermind (psssst, Miyamoto!), Revolution software development can take place on existing GameCube development kits.

This is a key fact to keep in mind. The preliminary development kits were actually tweaked 'Cube kits. I cannot speak to the fulfledged dev kits, but they should be very similar in practice. Nintendo is hoping to see their efforts at courting to third party vendors to start coming to fruition here. If it is easy to develop for, third party vendors will develop for it, right? This generation should begin to answer that question.

Early release games are always inferior to late lifecycle games. This is partially due to the learning curve inherent in new development kits. If a developer has learned the 'Cube dev kit, they should be able to easily come up to speed on a Revolution dev kit. Hardware optimizations will take some time. This could also explain why the current 360 games are so similar to current Xbox games. The development kits must have changed drastically from one console to the next. It is an entirely different chipset. I am making some assumptions and have no personal experience with either dev kit.

As for the controller, if you have not read about the controller shells that will be available for the control stick, you have not business commenting on any story about Next Generation consoles. I am sure a Wavebird shell, 360 shell and a Dual Shock shell (or something very similar to each, probably released by MadCatz or someone similar) will be available soon after the console launch. Ironically enough, the Revoltion may have a traditional Playstation controller before the PS3 if Sony sticks with that boomerang design.

I always liked the N64 controller. It was big enough for my ginormous bear paws.

the fact that you cannot distinguish between parody and official message

is all the more reason to worry about this country today... and is all the more reason to use the seal.

You also have people on the forum making baseless complaints and sending death threats!

The FBA's "contact us" page is here.

From the PA boards:

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is regarding the current status of the license to practice law currently granted to Jack Thompson through the Florida Bar Association.

Jack Thompson is a very controversial lawyer, more often than not resorting to political matters to solve his own personal disputes rather than through the legal system. However, in recent months, it has become clear to me that Thompson is not merely a controversial individual, but is also a very corrupt, callous, and often rude individual who, in my own estimation, does not exemplify the ethical and moral principles for which a lawyer should hold, and I believe that the Florida Bar Association, in holding with the claim that "One of the primary purposes of The Florida Bar is to assure the highest standards of professionalism in the practice of law for the benefit of members and the public.", must organize a referendum to determine if Jack Thompson should be able to continue practicing law as a licensed attorney. Evidence for this need is widespread and incriminating. Examples of this unprofessional and unethical behavior are detailed below, and I urge those who this concerns to properly review these actions by this callous individual carefully.

Recently, he has engaged in a very callous, unprovoked and irresponsible tirade with the creator of the popular VGCats online web comic (http://www.vgcats.com/ and evidence of this encounter is available here: http://www.vgcats.com/jack.php. During this exchange, Jack Thompson made a number of references questioning Scott Ramsoomair's sexuality, intelligence, and his use of psychotropic drugs, all of which are unsubstantiated and irrelevant to the discourse (which Mr. Thompson initiated), and then proceeded to threaten legal action in an irresponsible manner.

During this discourse, after initiating contact with Mr. Ramsoomair and proceeding to insult him, he then claimed that he had not initiated contact, despite the fact that it is verifiable that Mr. Thompson did initiate contact.

This kind of conversational process is not uncommon with Mr. Thompson, and a simple search can uncover literally dozens of people and organizations who have had incredibly negative and often dishonest discourse with Mr. Thompson, commonly initiated by Mr. Thompson himself.

"(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation;"

[source: http://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/FV/DE51 D6D9608C634A85256BBC00558300%5D

Furthermore, Mr. Thompson has made claims that the creators of the extremely popular online webcomic Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/ Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, were "criminally harassing" him. However, this harassment allegation was made in response to a single e-mail sent to Mr. Thompson which responded to a proposal made by Mr. Thompson (where he requested that someone make an extraordinarily violent video game directed at a specific individual in exchange for $10,000 donated to a charity [source: http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883%5D ). In this response, it was explained that his proposal had been carried out by a programmer
[source: http://hellfish.gtajunkies.com/Story.html%5D. Mr. Thompson responded to this civil e-mail by calling the creators of Penny Arcade, spouting vulgarities at them and rudely explaining that the proposal was entirely in jest and that no money would be donated to a charity. Therefore, the o

http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883

Sounds fun. I want to play it.

if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:

Penny-Arcade accused him of playing a "shell-game" and donated the money themselves, satisfied that Jack's orginal proposal had been satisfied to the letter.

The quote I found was: if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following... (source - I didn't see it on Jack's website)

So, no boxes needed, no nationwide distribution. "Any video game company" sounds pretty broad - maybe you need to be incorporated, but I'm sure my LLC would qualify. Manufacturing would be tough for an electronically-distributed game. Distribution is easy via http. "Selling" might be a problem - I wonder if "donations accepted" or "payment due in 10 years" is acceptable.

Write to your members of Congress, inform them that you vote and you actively follow the issues that are important to you, and then tell them that if they associate with Jack Thompson, you will vote against them when they are next up for re-election. It might be helpful to include links to Jack's initial offer, and the open letter ending his association with NIMF.

Initial offer and game description:
http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883

NIMF letter:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 12259

Be polite, be civil, and be sure to include your full, real name, and your full, real address. Ask for a reply. You'll probably get one.

Believe it or not, members of Congress pay close attention to these things. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on staff and supplies for constituent relations. I know it's cool to think that only big corporations get things done in Washington, but it's not true. When enough people speak up, they can move the government.

You can be sure that those who agree with Jack are writing letters once a week. Only by matching or beating that can we fight back.

Here's a good site to get started, for free. Find your representative and senators and write today!

http://www3.capwiz.com/y/dbq/officials/

Forgot the attribution on TFA quote: Advanced Media Network.

This vile "challenge" Jack Thompson has put to the supposedly monolithic "game industry" is like a topographical map of the twisted fantasy realm he inhabits. I could excerpt it, but I don't want to be accused of selective editing. The reality is that what he suggests is grotesque. I mean that it is literally disgusting. Of course, the violent acts he's cobbled together here from other games are robbed of a narrative context in which they make sense. Killing Gamestop and EB employees, though? That's not metaphor. He's not being metaphorical. He is batshit fucking loco insane.

Jack Thompson may be lying -- or so says the office of Governor Jeb Bush. this article at Advanced Media details the whole story, and they have backup from sources: GamePolitics.com, here at Inquirer, and here at Joystiq. Someone is lying... could be Bush's people, could be Thompson.

In other news, Nintendo is buying back its own stock.

http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5614

"Wrong. Nintendo was splitting the market with Sega."

Not really. Only the MegaDrive/Genesis ever competed with Nintendo. NES owned the market.

"The Xbox has BARELY surpassed the 'Cube,"

worldwide sales:

60 million PS2's (in 2003!...check the last link to see a rise to +_83 m. in 2005)
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zd1up/is _200401/ai_ziff117173

18.7 million Gamecubes
http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5553

20 million xbox'
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=14 306&page=1

Check the last link for a decent comprehensive list of salesfigures. But those numbers represent the fact that a n00b sold more than an established player; but what's your point? Stability? Yeah...

"As for "history", it shows that the industry is STABILIZING."

Sure...an entirely new gamesconsole maker entering the industry and selling enough games to be able to create a second generation of it's console. If you mean stable as in 'profitable', you're right, but if you mean 'makeup of the industry', you're wrong. Plus,m the games market is still growing, it's not stable yet (stable means no growth or maybe a steady rate of growth...neither of which has happened).

"You got your chronology mixed up."

True, (by a year, too). But then again "with a game library that was significantly different from Nintendo's or Sega's offerings" (which is the point you made earlier) isn't really correct. One might try to make the point that Sony had more mature games, but that's a rather magnified claim when one looks at the actual games for each system. I might add that (as with ANY console) the ps1 was rather expensive when it was released too (especially in that year of grey imports).

"What happened was that the kids who were buying videogames in the 80s grew older and STILL wanted to buy videogames,"

That's true in a very limited way, which ignoresss the distinction between the geek/hardcore gamer and the 'casual' gamer (the one which has driven the market the past 10 years). What you say is true for just that core market, but it doesn't begin to explain the growth of the games market.
In the days of the NES/SNES/Mastersystem/Genesis, it was the hard-core, the gamers, who kept on playing games as they grew up. Not the masses, which reserved computergames for their youth and got social-pressured out of it as a hobby.
In the UK and europe, it was very definitely Sony's adds which legitimised gaming and changed it from a geeks dirty little secret to something which could be done in high end nightclubs (at the time). There is a large amount of literature on this subject, because it /was/ such an import image change which allowed the market to (for better or worse...in many hard-core gamers minds most definitely worse) grow and expand it's market to the non-geek. This and only this is the reason why the games market is larger than the movie bussiness (or more propperly and less media hyped, only if one compares the US national movie business to the worldwide games business).

Your oh-so-wittilly-snarky comment on the end tells me you really don't get the shift this last point has created for the industry. All I can say is go google (and talk to industry people, read industry commentary...shit, go read financial investment firms' commentary, as this was something HUGELY important for them.).

I enjoy a good discussion, and actually appreciate being correctee on my points (which is a great way to learn more), but don't try and be a condescending asshole about it.

DS is old technology. It's a portable N64 going for $150. WTF?

For $100 more, you can have a portable PS2. THINK ABOUT IT for just a minute. When you compare dollar by dollar to the technology you're paying for, you are paying too much for the DS.

This is, of course, blatantly ignoring the fact that the DS is more powerful than the N64 and the PSP is not actually as powerful as the PS2. And handheld systems such as the Game Gear, TurboExpress, WonderSwan Color, and NGage have shown us that the portable market is all about power.

PLEASE tell me how it's not. I will admittedly shut my mouth and admit fault if you can tell me how the stylus and dual screens alone are "innovative" as opposed to the "wow" gimmick factor. I challenge you.

A touch-sensitive screen allows the user to precisely identify and manipulate objects on a screen in ways that would be impossible with a traditional crosspad and buttons. You can basically do anything with a stylus that you can with a mouse; ask yourself, are computer mice just a "wow" gimmick, or do you think that some day they might actually become indispensible tools?

Your other points are blatant trolling, but I will also address this:
C'mon.. where are the supposed hit games?

Over 50 DS titles are scheduled to be released by the end of the year. Personally, from just that list I'm particularly looking forward to Lunar, Phoenix Wright, MMBN5, Animal Crossing, and Castlevania: DoS, but there might be others that could surprise me. I also know of at least one other I'm interested in, Lost in Blue, that's not on the list.

Unfortunately I'm fairly certain that very few US Senators are listening over the sound of hype.

I searched on google news, and I found a few different sources:
Advanced Media Network, GameCube Europe, Gamesradar.com.

If you go through the sources, you'll see that AMN's source is GameCube Europe. GameCube Europe's sources is Aussie-Nintendo. Gamesradar says that its info came from Australian internet reports, and it gives a quote that is directly from Aussie-Nintendo, so it's fairly safe to assume that Aussie-Nintendo is their source too. If I had to take a wild guess where this started, I'd say it started there.

Aussie-Nintendo says that they got this info by emailing Nintendo of America. This could definitely be a hoax. If it was official word from Nintendo, wouldn't they have a press release rather than just emailing some random guy?

However, a Nintendo representative could have released that information without knowing that it was a secret, or this could be Nintendo trying to build up hype. It's too late to know for sure, but we definitely don't know for certain whether this is the truth or just a hoax. Right now it's pretty much just internet rumours.

I mean, pretty much every store I've seen has the ESRB ratings inside with warnings on them. Personally, I think the issue is that too many parents expect someone else to just tell them what to do. Myself and a friend of mine were in a software store when a kid walked in (9 years old) wanting to buy Soldier of Fortune. We actually took the 5 seconds to point out the easily readable sign and explain why something like "Diablo" (T for Teen) was more acceptable for his age perhaps, or something like that.

I'm not necessarily against laws regarind video games as long as they're logical and thought out (example: M rated games behind the counter? Makes sense. M rated games 5 feet above the floor? Stupid, and discriminating against short people.) But until we have parents at least make the minimal effort, I don't want to hear them bitching.

This said as a father of three children who plays games with the little rug rats (we've finished "Ocarina of Time" and, after a bout with "Paper Mario" will be hitting "Chrono Trigger").

Now, I know why they don't allow the homebrew software:

Less game sales
Loss of control (possibility of viruses, malware, etc)

But - I think they could really do something with the homebrew if done right. I had put out some of these in a column I wrote up a couple of weeks ago, and still feel its true.

Sony could:

1. Offer a homebrew kit to developers for $100 - $200 dollars to be used for non-commercial use only.
2. Include big ass disclaimers "You break-a yo' PSP, not our fault".
3. If an application starts getting big, add it to an online PSP App Center and charge for it. 75% of the profits go to the devs, 25% to Sony. Everybody wins, as Sony could built up a library of applications and make some money off of it.

Is this as good as, say, just developing Palm Pilot applications and not getting a developers hard work appropriated by Sony? Naturally not - but half a loaf, as they say, is better than none. In this scenario, more apps for the PSP make it a more attractive device, which means more sales, which means more developers develop for it. At the moment, the Nintendo DS is looking like a better system (I've got two PSP games that look interesting to me, and about 15 DS games on my list for the future).

Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong. If nothing else, I'm enjoying having a Genesis emulator on my PSP - and the irony that I can play Game Boy Color games on my PSP but not on my DS ;).

I know there will be those who simply say "Well, them let them go - they get overpaid for their $300 an hour work anyway", or "Voice acting in games sucks!" or "It's a free market!"

To which I would respond "Yes, it's a free market - and they are free not to work unless they get the pay they demand."

Electronic Arts makes multiple billions of dollars of profit (not revenue - profit) every year, while they treat programmer like dirt. Their response to the voice actors request is something like "But - we don't pay the programmers this much - what's your problem?"

To which the voice actors, which come from a history of which using a guild (or a union, really) has gotten them what they want: pay for their work, and residuals for using their talents to promote someone else's product. As I wrote in a column not too long ago, it's a system that's served Hollywood well.

And yes, with all of the unions about, Hollywood still makes a lot of money. A *ton* of money.

Maybe this is the wakeup call that the game industry needs. Maybe EA and other publishers (sorry to pick on EA, but they're the most egregious example I know), if the voice actors get their way, will be faced with developers saying "Holy fucking shit - where's my piece of the pie then?.

Maybe the big publishing houses will have to break up, or deal with lower profits - or maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

Who knows. Personally, I'm rooting for the voice actors. Overpaid hams? Sure - but they're overpaid hams who know the value of their dollar, and are willing to sacrifice profits now to do better in the future. Maybe they'll lose. But it won't be because they just bend over a desk when the guy with the paycheck wants to ram it up their ass.

Just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Here are some numbers and sources.

These are Japanese numbers, because they are only numbers you can find on a consistant weekly basis.

It goes: past week | year to date [total sales]

Nintendo DS: 30,028 | 558,421 [2,054,017]
PlayStation Portable: 28,848 | 685,922 [1,168,174]

This is the 3rd straight week the DS has outsold the PSP.

If you argue the point any further, I want sources.

How about the comments of someone who checked with Wired, or Nintendo's own response to the article?

Or you could, you know, go straight to the supposed source (Wired Magazine, Feb. 2005 issue), and see that it's not listed anywhere.

Demand for the GameCube last year was hurt by the lack of hit games for the console. - Bloomberg

uters and other news agencies have reported out of Japan that Nintendo's net profit has fallen 43 percent in the latest quarter, and that the videogame maker has also cut its forecast for the full year by more than one fifth, citing a strong yen and weak sales of the GameCube. - Reuters

Only one Nintendo title made it to NPD's Top 10 list: "Pokémon FireRed" for the Game Boy Advance. The company's highest-selling GameCube game, "Pokémon Coliseum," ranked 25th, according to Lowenstein. - Seattle Times

The company now expects that by the end of June it will have sold 21 million to 22 million Xboxes since the product debuted, up from an earlier forecast of less than 20 million. - CNET News.com

The Home and Entertainment division, which includes the Xbox and all games sales, reported sales of the console up 30% on the same period last year... Ferrango

PS: Name one killer game that came with psx2 on launch. Ready to Rumble, Timesplitters.. I think not.

PSPS: I remember having the same type of debate when xbox originally came out. Which just proves slashbotters have no insight on how consumer markets work.

Of course you are just a troll (or just totally un-informed), but I gotta respond anyway.

Xbox is actually the console that has shown the most GROWTH over the past year.

For the 13th consecutive month, Xbox grew its share of year-over-year monthly console sales -- climbing an additional 19 percent compared to last year -- and hitting a 41 percent share in November.

Market share on a year-to-date basis for Xbox increased from 24 percent in 2003 to 37 percent in 2004. During the same time, PS2 share dropped from 51 percent to 45 percent.

Xbox year-over-year console sales for November increased a staggering 61 percent, while PS2 decreased 17 percent.

Xbox console sales year-to-date for 2004 jumped 48 percent from 2003, while sales for PS2 were down 18 percent.

Overall Xbox year-over-year software unit sales increased 77 percent. During the same time period, PS2 software sales increased only 1 percent.

Year-to-date software sales for Xbox have improved by 66 percent compared to 2003, tripling the industry's overall software growth of 22 percent. Meanwhile, PS2 year-to-date software sales saw just an 8 percent increase over last year."

You can see this information from a different source here: http://xbox.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3835

That it is.

DS has sold half a million units in Japan so far, and has sold more than a million worldwide. This is more than double the units than PSP has even shipped. Do you suppose that the long lines for the PSP have anything to do with the fact that the unit is in short supply?

I think it's immediately clear that both handhelds don't have much in the way of games at the moment. I would be hard pressed buying a game for the PSP right now. I own Feel the Magic for DS, but I bought it mainly because I wanted to get a feel for the capabilities of the system.

So really, in absence of good games, it's early adopters who are picking up the consoles. What will determine the winner in the long run is the quality of the hardware and the game selection.

Square-Enix seems firmly entrenched in Nintendo's territory this time around, and Nintendo seems to have RPGs in the bag, boasting a lineup of things such as Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos, Final Fantasy, and others.

Nintendo also has the benefit of being able to supplement DS's weak launch lineup with GBA games. If you have a PSP, you have to make do with the crappy selection of launch games... which honestly won't go far. I wouldn't ever bring my DS with me anywhere if all I had to play was the demo cart and Feel the Magic. My DS still plays my GBA library for the most part.

In terms of hardware quality, PSP has superior graphics, and a bigger screen. To counter that, DS has 2 screens, and a very innovative input device for a handheld console. PSP seems doomed to recieve mostly PS2 ports and never be far from a power plug, while the DS has the stamina to go for a long time without meeting a power plug, and has a library of games that seem to work well on a handheld. (wario ware, pokemon, dragon quest monsters, etc.)

But I would agree with you when you say PS2 all over again. I remember a year of mind numbingly horrible games, and an extremely limited number of consoles at launch so Sony could show how they were selling out so fast and build up hype. I don't think it will work this time though. PS2 took the market anyways, as it's all there was. This time Nintendo is going head to head with Sony. Sony won't have a whole year to get someone to make a decent game.

Hear What MS Has to Say About the Upcoming Handheld Battle

http://ds.ign.com/objects/682/682868.html
Feel the Magic: XY/XX
also known as:
Project Rub
I Would Die For You
Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru (JPN)

Also known by its Japanese title Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru (I Would Die For You). You play as a rather ordinary character who one day falls in love at the first sight of a particularly hot chick. From then on, the character puts all his energy into getting the girl, only to find numerous obstacles in his way. The game was given its name to deliver the sense of how serious the main character's attraction is to the girl -- a good thing, because the entire point of the game is to earn the girl's affection. You use the Nintendo DS's touch panel to interact with the game and make the girl grow fond of you. The basic gist of the game is to touch the girl via the touch screen. In fact, the game doesn't even use the standard D-pad and button controls -- it's all about the touch.

http://ds.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=1216
Buy her a fish tank: Goldfish are the surest way to a woman's heart, but be careful! Even if you happen to spill the tank and an innocent bystander accidentally ingests your sea animals, you still have a chance to show your worth. Get the fish back! Use the stylus to push the guppies back through the man's digestive system so he coughs them into the tank. Not only have you saved tiny aquatic lives, but you've kept your cool in a slippery situation.

Just some Info for you.