Not even the games industry can escape the financial wobbling of the past few weeks. Reuters reports that the impact of a weak dollar against the yen has sent Nintendo share prices to take a steep dive of 10%. Despite the spectacular earnings they made in 2007, the profit margins were significantly eroded by the “repatriation” of those yankee dollars into Japanese currency.
It’s not all bad news, however. Analysts predicted that Nintendo’s long-term growth potential made the lower priced stock an attractive destination for investors… but only after the current jitters about the global economy become more stable. There’s also the matter of the continuing Wii and DS shortages in Europe, where Nintendo will likely make a serious commitment to boosting their production over the coming year.
Translation: if you got some spare change lying around, we recommend you invest in some Nintendo stock.
Here’s a video trailer for “World of Goo”, the new game from promising indie developer/publisher 2Dboy. Haven’t a clue how it plays, but it sure looks like fun. We particularly liked the Tim Burtonesque music and visual style.
The game was originally slated for release on February 14 (Valentine’s Day), but has now been pushed back to an unspecified date. Could this mean it’s being prepped for launch with Ninty’s WiiWare service in March? Only time will tell.
We haven’t covered any stories of an overtly technical nature in a while. S’not cause we’re not interested, honest. It’s more the case that nothing of note has been happening lately. Until now, that is.
Two major developments today. Both of them are only RUMOURS, so take with a very large pinch of sea salt. Or, if you’re feeling health conscious, perhaps a low-sodium alternative.
1) An exploit has been discovered in LoZ: Twilight Princess that allows you to run unsigned code. Full details over here at TehSkeen forum, but apparently you can modify a saved game to crash the machine and then start it up again to run your own code. Best of all, the console wasn’t even modded to enable this.
2) From the same source, someone got hold of a special Nintendo Wii disc codenamed the “Gay Fish”. This disc is used to restore Nintendo Wii consoles to their factory state and allows you to change some internal settings. Of especial concern to Nintendo is that it’s now loose in the wild hinterlands of the internets…
That’s all the details we have for now, we’ll let you know more if we hear anything else. All together now, can you say “region-free games”?
Last week we showed you a crochet Super Mario which was adorably cute. What better way to keep the little fella on his toes than with a crochet Piranha Plant? Nope, we can’t think of anything either.
Thank the lord for all these gaming obsessed craft-nerds. If it weren’t for them and their busy little knitting needles, we wouldn’t have anything interesting to write about. Nothing at all.
Childhood obesity is a terrible thing, and the UK government is determined to do something about it. Today the Department of Health endorsed proposals to use the Nintendo Wii as part of its curriculum for PE lessons in schools. The Daily Mail reports that the scheme has already been trialled in five schools in Worcestershire, and now plans are afoot for a nationwide rollout.
According to a spokesman from the DoH: “We welcome the positive impact that innovations like these can have as a first step towards getting people to participate in a range of physical activities and to enjoy the many benefits of an active lifestyle.”
It sounds rather lovely and optimistic, but we’ve got some reservations. The fact remains that playing on the Wii is in no way a cure for obesity. A recent report from the British Medical Journal found that active video games “significantly increased participants’ energy expenditure” compared to other systems, but it still wasn’t a substitute for running around in a field and doing some real sport.
A company by the name of Snakebyte is releasing a third-party Wiimote that takes on the fruity shade of a prune. Or maybe a red grape, if we were feeling generous and slightly myopic. Yours for only 40 Euros from February 8th onwards.
It’s an interesting design, not too radically different in look (or price) from Nintendo’s official model. Perhaps it was conceived as a lasting tribute to the late lamented GameCube? Or mayhap Snakebyte know something we don’t and are expecting multicoloured Wiis to hit the shops any day now?
Crivvens! Feast thine eyes on these rather delightful works of art, featuring Mario and other game characters overlaid onto vintage book pages.
Plus, if you look carefully at the background, you’ll also notice that the words in the background are “thematically appropriate” to the subject matter. Clever, eh?
A craftworker called cyberhadji is the man responsible, each print selling for around $10 a pop. Now, we don’t pretend to know anything about the nature of commerce, but at that price he’s practically giving them away!
If Mario doesn’t float your boat, you can also grab some prints featuring Cooking Mama and Pikimin.
David Jaffe’s opened his big mouth again. In an interview with website Gamasutra, the outspoken developer, brazenly voiced his indifference towards Super Mario Galaxy, stating it wasn’t as good as Ratchet and Clank. That’s right, not as good.
“I didn’t get the huge big deal over it; I thought it was a really good Mario game, but I wasn’t like, “Oh my God, it’s Mario 64!†I’m totally in the minority in that,” he said.
Is this it? We’re back down to one game this week, and its Super Streetfighter II: The New Challengers for SNES (800 Points). Surprisingly, it’s the third Streetfighter II version come to Virtual Console. They sure knew how to milk that series.
The game takes its title literally, introducing new fighters to the classic SFII roster: Cammy, a cute little soldier girl, most famously played by Kylie Minogue in the movie adaptation; T. Hawk, the strong Red Indian type (or Native American to be P.C.); Fei Long, who riffed off Bruce Lee; and Dee Jay, a grinning Jamaican kickboxer.
A few tweaks were made to the original as well, including the combo system of chaining moves together for greater success, making official what was once an accidental or hidden feature.
That said, it’s the point when SFII hype was dying down in the mainstream, and before Capcom would spend the next decade or so pandering to more and more obsessive fans, until (we hope) the appearance of Streetfighter IV. For those looking for nostalgia, I reckon SFII Turbo’s the one for you. The only thing this version brings is being slightly more complete in its abilities when put up against modern 2D beat ‘em ups. The previous, on the other hand, is just all-out fun.
Last week we showed you a 
Crivvens! Feast thine eyes on these rather delightful works of art, featuring Mario and other game characters overlaid onto vintage book pages. 
Let’s kick off the week with this delightfully silly confection: a Flash remake of Final Fantasy. 
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