Category: Video Games

Wii Price Cut

Wii

 

When will Nintendo lower the price on the Wii? If you think it’ll be this holiday season, you’re probably wrong. I’d say Spring ’08/Summer ’08. Here’s why:

Nintendo has yet to steadily replenish its Wii unit supply. Why would Nintendo want to lower the price of a system that’s still sold out? There wouldn’t be any advantage to doing it.

This holiday season Nintendo needs to focus in on the games. It needs to tell gamers that while the Xbox 360 may have Halo 3 and the PS3 has Heavenly Sword – The Wii has Super Mario Galaxy  and Super Smash Bros Brawl. Mario has always been a million unit seller series and last generation’s Smash Bros title gave the Gamecube its most wide appealing game. Nintendo cannot afford to draw attention from these two AAA title releases.

Thirdly it’s highly likely that Sony will lower the price of the PS3 either by this holiday season or early next year. In the race of console supremacy, the PS3 is in dead last. Sony needs to throw as many cards as it has to grab gamer’s attentions before the gap between the Wii and Xbox 360 sales gets seriously out of control.

In order to continue to appeal to a wider consumer audience, Nintendo will have to lower the price of the Wii console. Keeping the above factors in mind, Nintendo will most likely wait till next year to take the plunge. Most likely the price drop will only be a $50 price reduction. Hopefully Nintendo will continue to bundle Wii Sports even after the price drop. Wii Sports has been the reason why many casual gamers have been so interested in the Wii with its unique gaming style. To eliminate this free bundled title might actually hurt Nintendo in the short run.

Colin McRae dead in helicopter crash?

Colin McRae

For a lot of us gamers, the name “Colin McRae” is nearly synonymous with a line of great rally games. But it appears that bad news has struck. Colin McRae is feared dead in a helicopter crash in Scotland.

The chopper was owned by McRae, and originally four bodies were found in the crash. McRae’s agent confirmed, however, that Colin was piloting the craft. No survivors have been found, and the identities of the other passengers have not been confirmed yet.

Colin McRae was a popular rally driver known in the gaming industry for the series of racing games that share his name. Goodbye, Colin. We’ll always remember you.

[Via Telegraph]

Nintendo Is King

For the first time since the SNES, Nintendo is now dominating the console wars. According to The Financial Times, Nintendo has surpassed Microsoft as the top selling next-generation console. The sad thing for Microsoft is that the Wii has been on the market for less than 1 year unlike the Xbox 360! Analists attribute the Wii dominance due to it’s low cost and broad gamer appeal. The Wii surpassed the PS3 worldwide sales since July 2007.

It’ll be interesting to see how long Nintendo can hold the #1 spot, especially with the imminate launch of Halo 3. The question that is on every analyst’s mind is, have all the Halo fans already purchased a Xbox 360? If they have, the Xbox 360 might be #2 for potentially the rest of the console cycle.

Mario

Tron sequel, and no I’m not talking Tron 2.0

Tron, one of the first movie to use digital effects instead of practical effects, and probably the first to do it well. It’s been a cult classic for many years, and a point of inspiration for many game designers and digital effect engineers, yet we’ve never seen a sequel. Well it seems that some development is a brewing with in good ‘le Buena Vista. In recent years there have been attempts at making a sequel to the original movie, a notable one being that CGI studio Pixar was going to make one. Now, however, we have a report from the Hollywood reporter that the Light Cycles, MCP and Tron will be returning to the silver screen.

The report says that the original writer and director, Steven Lisberger, will be producing the movie with a man named Sean Bailey(producer of Matchstick Men). The movie’s writers will be Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, of Lost fame. The director? A relative no name, Joseph Kosinski, who will be directing the 2010 remake of Logan’s Run. There’s no set date or year when we’ll see it, but I doubt it’ll be soon.

Personally, I’d love to see a sequel. The first movie stands up well for a movie about video games before the big Nintendo boom. The movie’s art style blends beautifully with the digital effects they used for the movie. A sequel’s also troubling though with how video games are seen today. The first Tron was a fun, family friendly sci-fi classic, but I fear they might make it a preachy anti-violent game movie, or even worse, a cliche’d video game geek comedy-sci-fi fusion. Hopefully, with the original director and Lost’s writers on the project, we’ll see a sequel that’ll stand up as well as the original… but if they ruin the light cycles the wrath of thousand’s of people’s childhood memories will come crashing down around them.

[Via: Hollywood Reporter]