The below video is full of cheesy 80s goodness - not to mention some fond memories of a past age. Shelves full of NES and Game Boy merchandise highlight the glory days of Nintendo's first incredibly popular console. Check it out!
Via Kotaku
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The preview provided in this trailer isn't really enough to tell us whether this game will be any good, but it certainly doesn't dash our hopes, either. There are precedents for decent Indiana Jones-based video games, right?
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This cross stitch depicting the overworld map of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past just happens to be too cool to ignore. Servotron dedicated 4 months of cross stitch work to making this masterpiece, and plans to frame it as well. It's approximately 15x13 inches.
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There's a pretty cool article over on Racketboy that reminded me of some really great times. I was desperate to get hold of Mario Paint as a kid, and when I finally earned enough money to take it home, I fell in love somewhere in the first few moments after hooking up the mouse and turning it on.
I ordered the strategy guide and pored over every page of it - not to mention all of my previous issues of Nintendo Power, since they also had plenty of closeup screenshots I could use for Mario Paint sprite creation. I recreated my favorite game scenes, made new environments of my own, and drew graphics for games I'd thought up in my head.
One of my more shining accomplishments (I always thought) was making a few music videos and cartoons in the game, recording frame by frame with my family's video hardware (we were fortunate to have quite a bit).
Let's all think back on one of the Super Nintendo's classics, Mario Paint.
Via GoNintendo
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Even when I was a little kid, I don't recall ever thinking that Castlevania II was a great game. It had impressive graphics and a stellar soundtrack, to be sure, but the gameplay itself drove me insane.
The controls were okay, although I lost count of how many times I hopped right into the town's water supply because of them. The level design wasn't even that bad, but those hidden pits in the floor gave me many chances to master every square inch of ground. No, what I hated about Castlevania II is that I never would have finished it without the hints from Nintendo Power's Counselors' Corner.
The puzzles in this game just might be the most frustrating I've ever come across. What's that? Kneel at the base of some random cliff with the red crystal in hand? Maybe I just wasn't reading closely enough, but I sure never ran into anyone in town who directed me to perform such an obscure ritual.
In retrospect, I'll forgive the game for losing something in the Japanese-to-English transition, but such excuses meant nothing to me back then. In any case, I hated this game. (The constant transitions from day to night didn't help, either.)
Why did I play it? Well, I suppose I played just about everything in those days. If it showed up in Nintendo Power, I had to try it out. And if I had to try it out, I had to finish it too. I was a pretty competitive gamer - and still am.
Even today, though, through the rose-tinted lenses of my youth, I still think Castlevania II sucked. It's one of the few - out of the hundreds of NES games I played - that I'd be fine with never playing again. Leave me with the original Castlevania and I'll be just pleased as punch.
Do you have any retro games that you just can't stand?
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A news bit from the ever-questionable VGChartz was revealed this weekend, stating that the longstanding Super Mario Bros has been surpassed in sales by Wii Sports, making the Wii's pack-in game the best-selling video game of all time.
Let's be realistic for a moment and assume that VGChartz is right about this. Even if Wii Sports hasn't yet overtaken the NES classic, at this point there are no doubts that it will.
You might say this momentous occasion doesn't matter, because Wii Sports is a pack-in and everyone who buys a Wii must own one. Let's not forget that Super Mario was a pack-in under certain conditions as well, but the up-and-coming Wii title and the evergreen Super Mario Bros have something even more important in common: they both gave consumers a reason to buy a console.
Yes, just as people bought the Nintendo Entertainment System for Mario's jumping, mushroom-fueled hijinks, they're buying the Wii in order to smack a virtual tennis ball around an onscreen court. What does this mean for the relevance of VGChartz's sales data? It means the Wii has revolutionized video gaming in the same way that the NES did in the early 1980s, back when Atari was the king who never saw the disruptive wave as it crashed onto the shore.
Congratulations, Wii Sports. Your victory is well-deserved.
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I thought this was a great clip. It's an 18-year-old report from Good Morning America that talks about the console wars and whether Nintendo's NES console can compete with the 16-bit machines on the market. At the time of its airing, the Super NES wasn't slated to release in the U.S. for another year (it was already out in Japan, of course).
Just goes to show that no matter how popular a company is, people are always on the lookout for the next big thing.
Via GoNintendo
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According to analyst David Gibson, Nintendo probably makes about $6 profit for every Wii console that it sells manufactures. When you consider that the Sony is still taking a loss on the PS3, and Microsoft most likely isn't doing much better, that's a pretty nice figure.
$6 doesn't necessarily scream "money maker" all by itself, but when multiplied by the tens of millions of Wiis sold, you can bet that number adds up fast. Nintendo had a very calculated strategy with its Revolution system - the idea was a huge risk, but the business model ensured that if the idea paid off, it would pay off big.
Read the full article at Forbes.
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I thought this was a little strange given how many magazines are downsizing or shutting down altogether. Nintendo will be launching Official Nintendo Magazine in the land down under in an agreement with Future Publishing Australia (Future US publishes Nintendo Power here in the States).
An excerpt from the press release:
The first issue of Official Nintendo Magazine – Australia and New Zealand goes onsale in December 2008. The title will be published monthly with a cover price of $8.95. The magazine will be distributed nationally in both Australia and New Zealand, with the first issue packaged as a Special Edition.
I hope the magazine succeeds, but in the current economic climate, it certainly doesn't seem likely. Perhaps we're missing that special insider's perspective.
Via Kotaku
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