With Wii Fit arriving over here sometime before the summer and the arms of the nation still aching a bit from all the tennis, we now have a way to keep in shape when away from the Wii - thanks to Ubisoft’s My Weight Loss Coach for DS.
Here’s what Ubisoft’s senior vice president of sales and marketing Tony Key had to say about it:
“My Weight Loss Coach allows us to approach casual gamers with something innovative. The game creates customized coaching sessions based on skill level, and, for the first time on DS, includes a pedometer. My Weight Loss Coach not only allows users to take control of their physical well-being, but it does so in a fun and engaging manner.”
It’s a rather unnecessary development, to be honest. There’s only one diet that really works. The Don’t Eat So Many Chips And Curries Plan. Do we really need to be lectured about eating soya beans on the train to work every day?
Forbes Magazine is required toilet-reading for many high-powered businessmen. Which is why we were surprised to see, after cracking open the latest issue on the throne, that they’d compiled a list of games which they reckon are future classics.
Their rationale goes something like this:
“Videogames age quickly, and what’s cutting-edge today might be old and tired in a couple of months. But some games are so clever or fun that they can remain popular for decades. Here are 10 recent releases that gamers will still be playing years from now.”
Being diligent games-bloggers, we skipped the boring stuff about Bioshock and Portal and whatever. The only stuff that concerns us is this: how many Nintendo games placed in the list? The answer is a respectable four. Curious? Click on the jump to find out…
Nooooooooo! Just when we thought it was really happening, Nintendo have irrefutably shot down the prospect of an Animal Crossing MMO. It’s just not worth the time and hassle, they reckon. Don’t expect any kind of avatar-based equivalent to PlayStation Home, either. Your Miis are going to remain firmly rooted in their little prison of a Plaza.
Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata made his reasoning pretty clear:
“The first question I would ask is whether the service is fun if you’re 5 or 95, if you’re tech-savvy and if you’re computer illiterate. If that’s not a hurdle we can get past, it’s not something Nintendo is going to pursue.”
But wait! There’s more!
“…In that respect, the virtual-world services out there now still aren’t at a place where we’d like to join in – and certainly not to the point that we’d want to jump into competition with everybody else. We’d rather focus on doing things that nobody else would do… even if we were to make a virtual-world-like product, we’d be sure to make it something that nobody would call it a product similar to another company’s offering.â€Â
Blimey. Dunno about you, but that’s what I’d call a negative response. Perhaps Iwata has a point. Aside from the obvious success stories like World of Warcraft and Second Life, the smaller MMOs are getting shitcanned left, right and centre. The most recent casualty was Marvel Comics’ MMO collaboration with Microsoft.
That said, Nintendo is foolish to turn a blind eye to the possibilities. Animal Crossing or Pokemon would be perfect for reaching out to a wider demographic. Someone should picket the offices of the Big N, if only to make them reconsider.
Excited about Okami? By gum, we most certainly are. We’re bored of staring at the calendar and marking off the days until launch (and we don’t even know when the launch date is), so we’ve found some nuggets to chew over until we get something more meaty between our teeth. The advance playable code must’ve been lost in the post, it sometimes happens.
Christian Svensson, Capcom’s Vice-President of Strategic Planning & Business Development has been flapping his gums about the Wii version of Okami on the official Capcom forums. He’s not reticient to spill the beans, nosiree bob. Read on after the jump for the full details.
Animated film has rarely been as insightful, riveting, and as… brief as this home-made effort. The credits are longer than the actual film! Anyone else seen any claymation tributes to their favourite games out there?
Super Smash Bros. Brawl has rocketed past the million mark within a fortnight of its Japanese release. We’re used to hearing numbers, of course, some of them very large numbers, but let’s take a moment to reflect on what those round-the-corner-queueing, inventory-swallowing Japanese consumers have managed collectively consume in the time since the 31st of January.
A million hours ago, Queen Victoria was still alive, and still had sixteen years left to go. There have been fewer than a million days since the birth of Christ, and very possibly since the destruction of the first Death Star. If you were to work for £6 an hour in an average working week, it would take you nearly a century to become a millionaire, and that’s assuming you didn’t buy any games. Or eat.
It also means that there’s just under one copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for every twenty Wiis shipped, and it hasn’t even been released outside Japan, and this of course makes it the Wii’s fastest selling title so far. At last, things are looking up for Nintendo.
Good god, when will it end? 
Forbes Magazine is required toilet-reading for many high-powered businessmen. Which is why we were surprised to see, after cracking open the latest issue on the throne, that they’d compiled a list of games which they reckon are 
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