May 14, 2003
Talking Smack
I read this article twice, chuckling, and thought: I must narrate this. And so we go...
- LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Nintendo Co. Ltd., whose portable
Game Boy video game player has dominated that market since the 1980s,
shrugged off Sony Corp.'s plans to unveil a rival device and instead focused
its efforts on new games.
Well, yeah! Game Boy's a staple for handhelds,
dood. I've seen the Advance, and I'm impressed.
- Sony has already raced past Nintendo to the top of the game console
market since launching its PlayStation franchise nearly 10 years ago. Sony
now wants to take on the handheld market with its new "PSP" handheld device
that will debut by the end of 2004.
Ever heard the Richard Marx song "Don't Mean
Nothing"? Yeah, thought so.
- "The fact that they are putting a lot of features into it (PSP) is very
Sony-like, but at the moment we dominate the handheld market and there is no
need for us to be overly concerned right now," Iwata said Tuesday at a press
conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video game industry
trade show. "We will continue to do what we do best."
Whack, smack, and down she goes. I think this
is a jab. "Features" doesn't alwas have a nice connotation.
- Nintendo's new Game Boy Advance SP handheld was released in March, and
the $99 device has been hailed as Nintendo's best yet. Sony did not offer a
price for the PSP but said it would be available in the fourth quarter of
2004.
Iwata said Nintendo would continue to focus on creativity in games,
especially those that link the Game Boy and its GameCube console, which has
struggled in the market after Microsoft Corp. launched its competing Xbox
game console 18 months ago.
The GameCube, a major disappointment in the last fiscal year, trails both
Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft' Xbox.
GameCube. If I were a bit less frugal, I'd have
one of those. I really only care about two games, and, seeing as I don't
play my Playstation nearly enough to justify even purchasing another game
for IT, the GameCube's gonna have to wait. Two words, though. Samus.
Aran. (sigh)
- Both Sony and Microsoft announced major hardware upgrades to their
consoles this week, but Nintendo instead focused its efforts on new gaming
titles and "connectivity" between the Game Boy and GameCube.
Aiming to bolster the console's sales, Nintendo showed a number of new games
at its news conference, including a revival of the arcade classic Pac Man, a
multi-player affair that will let one player act as the little yellow
pellet-muncher and three other players serve as the ghosts that chase him.
Hmm, eat your friends!
- Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Nintendo's hugely popular Mario Brothers
games, previewed an upcoming version of the Legend of Zelda series that will
let four Game Boy players interact in the same Zelda game using their own
screens as well as with a GameCube console hooked up to a TV.
Nice, but not necessary.
- "Make no mistake
.... This time we will not give our competitors a head start," Iwata said.
Oooh, ominous. Hmm, and is Iwata a first name,
a last name, or an all-encompassing moniker? The article never really
mentions anything more than what you see. And, WHSIWYG?
At any rate, a little lighter this evening. hln
Posted by hln at May 14, 2003 09:46 PM | Blogspot Blog
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