Video Games Thread

[Late]

Anyway, moving away from the Nintenduff...

Good weekend of double-xp on Blops2. It's still on today, until 6pm our time, but I get home at about 6pm so no good for me. Was half-tempted to throw a sickie, but accountants don't take time off this close to Tax Return deadline - not even for double xp on COD. (And for the same reason I won't be skiving to play the new map pack when it drops tomorrow.
Got some decent levelling done anyway (up from prestige 4 level 54, to prestige 5 level 36).
As well as playing the multiplayer I had a few goes on the Nuketown Zombies map. Quite good fun - I enjoyed it more than the other zombie maps in this instalment - but it certainly doesn't make it into my top five COD Nazi Zombie maps.

Also played a few XBLA games over the weekend, all three of which were fairly highly reviewed:
"The Maw" is so-so. It's made by Twisted Pixel, who made "Splosion Man", which I loved, but I'm not really feeling it.
"Axel & Pixel" isn't my cup of tea at all. 2d point and click adventure, with a few elements of QTE. Urgh.
"Winterbottom" is much more up my street. Plays a lot like "Braid" in that you're solving puzzles laterally by messing with time and interacting with copies of yourself.

[ancelotti]

I'd recommend getting the trial version of "Dust: An Elysian Tail" if you haven't played it already, Late. It's a 2D RPG and the combat system is top draw. It's also probably the best-looking XBLA game I've played. The voice acting is bad but not a gamebreaker. 

[harv]

Sounds like your buying averagey crappy games again for your Wii U harv.. is that because theres no decent games coming out for another 6 months ??

Wii U attach rate is appaling so far... hardware sales are falling rapidly week on week (on par with the Wii at the moment), no 1st party games incoming for another couple of months, impending next-gen console reveals.. the Wii U is a sinking ship Im afraid.. its more Ninten"dont" than Ninten"do"

There's plenty on the way and I haven't bought a single 'averagey crappy' game for the Wii U, particularly from the eShop which has been very impressive in terms of quality so far.
 
And there's plenty incoming during the next few months: Rayman Legends, Lego City Undercover, Aliens Colonial Marines and Monster Hunter 3G Ultimate. And then there's Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 to come during the first half of this year. And that's before you take into account the next Nintendo Direct which is going to detail unannounced titles from third parties. That's 6 titles released this year that I want to buy...and they should end up with Metascores of 80+. Sounds pretty good to me.

As for the attach/tie rate nobody knows what it is due to Nintendo's adoption of DD. You see plenty of people on Miiverse talking about buying titles digitally. The likes of Chart Track, NPD and Media Create don't track digital sales. The only way you can guesstimate total sales in each territory is by gauging it on the size of the Miiverse communities compared to Nintendo Land.

[jman]

And there's plenty incoming during the next few months: Rayman Legends, Lego City Undercover, Aliens Colonial Marines and Monster Hunter 3G Ultimate. And then there's Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 to come during the first half of this year.

Wowww.. is that all You mean theres one 1st party developed game coming in the next 6 months..

Xbox 360 + PS3 have Aliens Colonial Marines + ten ton more exclusives and multi-platform games coming to their platform in the next few months and first half of the year.  Bioshock Infinite, GTA 5, Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider.. I could go on... they are all coming to every platform..except the Wii U - You said that sort of thing wouldnt happen harv.. but it is...

The only games that nintendo'h fans want are 1st party games... they are the ones that will sell consoles - unfortunately the Wii U is dead in the water until then... expect a massive price cut in a month or two.

[harv]

And there's plenty incoming during the next few months: Rayman Legends, Lego City Undercover, Aliens Colonial Marines and Monster Hunter 3G Ultimate. And then there's Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 to come during the first half of this year.

Wowww.. is that all You mean theres one 1st party developed game coming in the next 6 months..

Xbox 360 + PS3 have Aliens Colonial Marines + ten ton more exclusives and multi-platform games coming to their platform in the next few months and first half of the year.  Bioshock Infinite, GTA 5, Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider.. I could go on... they are all coming to every platform..except the Wii U - You said that sort of thing wouldnt happen harv.. but it is...

The only games that nintendo'h fans want are 1st party games... they are the ones that will sell consoles - unfortunately the Wii U is dead in the water until then... expect a massive price cut in a month or two.

There's also Game & Watch and Wii Fit U too but I don't have any interest in buying those so I didn't list them. As for first party developed games Nintendo are doing deals with indie developers such as Platinum Games and Traveller's Tales and doing deals with non-indie developers through their publishers such as Atlus and Intelligent Systems for Nintendo published games. This allows their own first and second party developers to work freely on the next Mario Kart, 3D Mario, Metroid, Yoshi, JRPG blockbuster, Zelda remake and new zelda game amongst others.

As for support from third parties you'll have to wait for the next Nintendo Direct which will detail exactly what's coming from them. I don't know why Nintendo are only announcing titles at very short notice tbh but that's the way they seem to be rolling these days. ZombiU, Black Ops 2 and Assassin's Creed III have all sold pretty well so far, Ubisoft in particular are laughing all the way to the bank.

And Aliens Colonial Marines for the U should be considered an exclusive given how it's going to be the only SKU that's going to give you a motion tracker in the palm of your hands - the other SKUs won't be worth owning in comparison imo.

[jman]

So you think Ubisoft will be impressed with the "definitive version" of Assassin's Creed 3 only reaching 110k in sales... given that the PS3/Xbox 360 both managed to shift over 4 million copies... each.  I know launch games are slow to sell.. but thats a very low number considering the amount of hardware units nintendo have shifted.

And I wouldnt call ZombiU sales great either, 320k.. and running at sales of <5k per week now.. didnt you say this title would be a console seller... LOL.. how wrong you were hey... funnily enough its still the Wii U's 3rd highest selling game.. behind the two 1st party games - which is no suprise... but that alone just goes to show that hardly anybody is interested in 3rd party games on the Wii U - exclusive or not.  You really think those games you listed before are going to draw people into buying the console - they wont.

Are you not worried that you're going to have to buy another console to play most of the next-gen games... I would be.

[Late]

Are you not worried that you're going to have to buy another console to play most of the next-gen games... I would be.

That's because you have to go to work, earn the money, then pay for the console - rather than sit at home and gloat as a bloke from the council pops round with an envelope stuffed with cash plus each new console as it's released.








(I'm just guessing at what it's like when you claim benefits on the sick. The above scenario might not be 100% accurate.)

[harv]

So you think Ubisoft will be impressed with the "definitive version" of Assassin's Creed 3 only reaching 110k in sales... given that the PS3/Xbox 360 both managed to shift over 4 million copies... each.  I know launch games are slow to sell.. but thats a very low number considering the amount of hardware units nintendo have shifted.

And I wouldnt call ZombiU sales great either, 320k.. and running at sales of <5k per week now.. didnt you say this title would be a console seller... LOL.. how wrong you were hey... funnily enough its still the Wii U's 3rd highest selling game.. behind the two 1st party games - which is no suprise... but that alone just goes to show that hardly anybody is interested in 3rd party games on the Wii U - exclusive or not.  You really think those games you listed before are going to draw people into buying the console - they wont.

Are you not worried that you're going to have to buy another console to play most of the next-gen games... I would be.

ZombiU would have done over 500K in sales so far including DD sales, and Assassin's Creed 3 should be over 200K by now. And considering the U SKU cost around 5m Euros to port I'd say they're reasonably happy with those sales.

And as I've already mentioned next gen games are going to be easy for developers to port between all 3 consoles, and publishers are going to make sure that the console with the largest marketshare is going to get a SKU. There'll probably be anywhere between 10 and 15m Wii U consoles in homes before the PS4 and 720 are released and publishers aren't going to be leaving money on the table. The Wii U isn't going to have any of the problems that the Wii had last gen.

[jman]

So you think over a third of ZombiU sales and a half of AC3 sales were downloaded.. lol.. you really are cuckoo if you geniunely believe that.. thats hilarious.

Next gen games may be easy for developers to port between all 3 consoles.. why are companies such as EA saying they dont have the business drive to make a Wii U port for Crysis 3 for example then   Crystal Dynamics have said their wont be a Tomb Raider Wii U because of their unconvential controller... do you think these companies are just being naive.. of course you do LOL.

[jman]

Pre-ordered Sim City (Limited Edition) from Asda - £32.97 - March 8th - cant wait - already cleared the weekend ready for it!

[jman]

Bought dead island for £8 and RE5 for £5, looking forward to some zombie action!

[harv]

So you think over a third of ZombiU sales and a half of AC3 sales were downloaded.. lol.. you really are cuckoo if you geniunely believe that.. thats hilarious.

Next gen games may be easy for developers to port between all 3 consoles.. why are companies such as EA saying they dont have the business drive to make a Wii U port for Crysis 3 for example then   Crystal Dynamics have said their wont be a Tomb Raider Wii U because of their unconvential controller... do you think these companies are just being naive.. of course you do LOL.

Yes. A fair amount of people have downloaded their Wii titles, this is going by comments on Miiverse and the size of the Miiverse communities. ZombiU was the third biggest seller in the eShop a month or so ago. I can't understand people downloading so much though tbh, it's a great deal cheaper buying hard copies.

As for EA and Square Enix, the former have proven again and again that they don't have a clue, they've always been haemorraging money hand over fist and will continue to do so because they're run by muppets. Crystal Dynamics have made those comments because, again, the people in charge at Eidos/Square Enix - mainly Ian Livingstone - continue to make daft decisions. It has nothing to do with the controller, that was a damage limitation exercise to appease shareholders.

The companies aren't being naive, they're just poorly run and have been for years.

You'll see both Warner Brothers and Ubisoft making more profit than EA and Square Enix due to their strong Wii U support.

And as far as Crysis 3 is concerned it's a last gen title not a current gen title so is going to involve more work and optimisation to bring to the Wii U than a PS4/720 title. Like I've said before, you'll probably see the Wii U being the lead platform for current gen titles.

[harv]

Just over 3m Wii Us sold so far and a tie rate of 3.86, although Nintendo have put down their shipment target from 5.5m to 4m. Still, not too bad.

[Late]

Yeah, it's a great result.

Nowt wrong with having one and a half million spare units lying around. It's the strategy of champions...

[harv]

Their target of 5.5m was very aggressive, plenty of people were doubting their chances of reaching that figure. The poor sales in Europe have let them down unfortunately.

The good thing for Nintendo is that the Yen isn't as strong as it was last year so they should end up making a profit at the end of the financial year, particularly when you consider the 3DS is doing gangbusters since September last year.

Plenty of analysts are calling for a Wii U price cut but I can't see that happening before November. If they cut the price then along with the release of Mario Kart U and a 3D Mario then sales should explode