Watch Nintendo’s entire press conference from E3 2008 and discover the newest products coming to the Wii and DS.

This week Yahtzee turns the angry, yellow eye on you, the viewer. Particularly those of you who have sent him email crying about the Super Smash Bros. Brawl review.

Watch Bo Jackson run circles around the defense before scoring a touchdown. Note that the team was the Patriots (the worst team in the game), still Bo Jackson was pretty much invincible in this 8-bit NES classic.

From Wikipedia:

In Tecmo Super Bowl, each team had roughly 30 different players. Each team had 11 players that played defense, a kicker, a punter, and seventeen offensive players. Due to the expanded rosters, a team would field 11 players at a time during actual game play.

In addition to using real teams and players, TSB incorporated the full-length 1991 NFL regular season schedule for the game. The playoff format, including the Super Bowl and the post-season Pro Bowl games, was also used.

Tecmo Super Bowl retained the arcade-style football gameplay of the original which included the ability to break tackles. However, the game added new features, such as statistics tracking that included All-Time NFL season records, expanded and editable playbooks, fumbles, and player injuries. As it had previously, the game used cutscenes for important events like touchdowns and halftime shows. Tecmo Super Bowl also added cutscenes when injuries or big plays occurred.

Chris Kohler interviewed Nintendo’s head of game development, Shigeru Miyamoto for Game | Life (Wired News) and posted this yesterday:

I’ve had the chance to talk with Miyamoto on several occasions over the last five years and have yet to have an interview that I didn’t consider revealing.

With a scaled-back E3 this year, there was less for Miyamoto to talk about, but his comments on game design as pertaining to Wii Fit and Super Mario Galaxy are a must-read.

Wired News: I was just playing Super Mario Galaxy, and I was really interested in the two-player mode. Could I hear about why that came about?

Shigeru Miyamoto: One of the driving forces behind it was that we felt that since Mario 64, a lot of people have had a hard time playing the Mario games because of the move to 3D. So this time, we really wanted to create a Mario game that everybody can play — but we still wanted to do something in 3D. So that was really the genesis of the idea.

The other thing is, with the Mario games, if you’re playing and there are people sitting next to you, they’re always saying, “Oh, go over here, go look at that thing.” And so we thought that with the Wii remote and the pointer we would be able to make it more interactive for the people sitting on the couch next to you, who could guide you along the way pointing at different objects.

WN: It’s really interesting because at last year’s E3, New Super Mario Bros. had only just come out and we didn’t know it would be one of the best-selling games on DS. Did that success end up delaying the development of Super Mario Galaxy when you realized that a lot of people were going to be looking to this game?

SM: No, not at all. We’ve kind of had this idea for a long time, that we wanted to, from the very beginning, have it be something that everyone can play. And the core idea, actually, in terms of the gravity and running around on different spheres, were things that we were experimenting with back when we were working on Mario 128, and the 100 Marios demo, immediately after Mario 64. A lot of it was ideas that we’ve had for a long time. The main advantage of playing on globes or spheres rather than a big open 3D space is that the camera becomes less of an issue, to always see what you’re doing. It’s much easier for people who have a hard time with 3D space to navigate.

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Mario Strikers debuted in the #3 position this week on Nintendo’s WFC online activity chart which includes both DS & Wii systems.

Games that are new to the top 10 chart are listed in bold.

Nintendo WFC Online Activity (W/E May 27th)
1. Pokémon Diamond - 1,460,474 connections
2. Pokémon Pearl - 1,007,074 connections
3. Mario Strikers Charged Football - 399,569 connections
4. Animal Crossing: Wild World - 360,855 connections
5. Mario Kart DS - 294,993 connections
6. Metroid Prime Hunters - 201,480 connections
7. Jump! Ultimate Stars - 128,872 connections
8. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker - 108,299 connections
9. Tetris DS - 71,347 connections
10. Pokémon Battle Revolution - 51,781 connections

Here is the top 10 chart for the week prior:

Nintendo WFC Online Activity (W/E May 20th)
1. Pokémon Diamond - 1,395,022 connections
2. Pokémon Pearl - 949,767 connections
3. Animal Crossing: Wild World - 372,978 connections
4. Mario Kart DS - 293,370 connections
5. Metroid Prime Hunters - 202,067 connections
6. Jump! Ultimate Stars - 119,847 connections
7. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker - 103,915 connections
8. Tetris DS - 67,307 connections
9. Final Fantasy III - 53,172 connections
10. 42 All-Time Classics - 47,705 connections

[source]

Fronz over at The Last Boss (one of my personal favorite gaming sites) is kicking ass and taking names Lewis Black style - see what happens when you make a man work on Good Friday?

It’s Good Friday and you have off of work? Not me, I’m not welcome back to the family get together this Easter, last year they caught me loading mouse traps with carrot chunks and telling all the kids that’s how you catch the Easter Bunny. So it’s back to the news for me. The newest addition to the Sux 2BU column is Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, who went out of his way to make a recent interview as depressing as possible for Wii gamers. Instead of just listing off things to look forward to, that no one’s actually looking forward to, he told everyone that Media Molecule’s hit PS3 game LittleBigPlanet that stole the show at GDC, was originally up for grabs. I might tell a child that the Easter Bunny is dead, but you never tease a kid with candy that they want. That’s just sick:

“Frankly, Nintendo wanted to do some business with those folks, but to give Phil some credit, he got there first. That product, I think, is quite intriguing. I’m not sure how well it will do on the Sony platform, quite frankly, but I think that the product they showed was outstanding… . Home, I am less excited about, but that’s Sony’s challenge to go figure out.”

Way to blow that one Reggie, what do you even do again? LittleBigPlanet would have been the perfect game for Nintendo gamers, although they don’t deserve it. I’m glad the game went to a console with functioning online support. YouTube styled level maker sharing system with friend codes? No thanks. And give me a break Reggie, don’t make me go John Stossel on your ass and make a list of all the reasons PlayStation Home is better than your simple Mii system that you’re already talking about upgrading. Despite its relation to Second Life, PS Home is still one of the most anticipated services since … well, I don’t know what, but not Wii’s Everybody Votes channel, that’s for sure. Are you Wii gamers pissed that you lost LittleBigPlanet? How about you put that question up on the voting channel.

[via The Last Boss]

Found this article over at Newsweek.com game section Level Up about how Nintendo fans love the family friendly games that Nintendo produces themselves, but when it comes to 3rd party titles of the same type - they avoid these like the plague. From the article:

Kevin Cassidy (founder of the news, reviews and opinion site GoNintendo.com) regarding a Level Up post about how Sony’s hit games with alternative controllers paved the way for the Wii’s success, when Cassidy wrote:

“Right now people are too busy bitching about Konami’s ‘kiddy’ games. I swear, Nintendo fans are never happy.”

After some back and forth discussion of his statement, we realized that Cassidy’s thoughts had the makings of an insightful rant, so we asked him to answer the following question “Are Nintendo fans too hard on third-party games?”

Here’s his response:

For many years, Nintendo had a rough time securing truly robust third party support. But back during the 8-bit and 16-bit wars, things were quite different: Sega and Nintendo were the big players, and their respective systems were cartridge-based. As time moved on, things changed drastically on all fronts, from storage, to competitors, and even subject matter. Nintendo decided to stay with the more expensive cartridges for their Nintendo 64 platform, while newcomer Sony went with much cheaper CD-based media. That change, combined with the scary prospect of competing against Nintendo’s first party powerhouse franchises, produced the perfect recipe for third party disaster, resulting in ever-decreasing third party support until very recently.

Enter the Wii, Nintendo’s new platform full of fresh ideas: Two motion-based controllers, a Virtual Console system which lets you download classic titles from a number of platforms, and Nintendo’s pledge to actively pursue third party development. The first few months for the Wii have been outstanding. Consumers seem to understand and enjoy what Nintendo is striving to do, and third parties see the Wii as a viable platform for their work. Nintendo is doing what they said they would all along, getting the third party support that fans wanted. The only problem is that these same fans don’t seem to want what third parties have to offer.

Konami, Ubisoft, THQ, EA, and many other big name third party developers have announced that they have a number of games in the works for the Wii. You have ports of last generation games, original IPs exclusive to the Wii, huge titles from EA’s lineup, and more. Yet from what I have seen, Wii owners are complaining about almost everything the Wii has heading its way. Take for example Dewy’s Adventure, a recently announced puzzle/platformer game that makes use of everything unique to the Wii’s control scheme. An alarming number of fans have branded the game as “kiddie” and not worth a second look. This not-worth-my-time message board buzz seems to be afflicting an alarming number of titles coming to the Wii. Prince of Persia: Rival Swords; The Godfather: Blackhand Edition; Scarface; Mortal Kombat: Armageddon—fans lambaste them all because they appeared on last-generation platforms. Nintendo die hards want third party support, but they don’t want the original titles, enhanced ports, or “kiddy” games that they accuse third parties of dumping on the Wii.

Well, what do Wii owners want then?

From what I can see, Wii owners want more “mature” titles. I put this term in quotes because I simply don’t believe that the gameplay examples fans are citing qualify as mature. The general outcry seems to be for titles that offer up violence in one way or another. So while many Wii owners do not want ports, they do want original IPs that are grittier than the traditional Nintendo fare. This desire is definitely a byproduct of the popularity of franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Halo and their many imitators. Those games are both wonderful examples of pulling people into game worlds, but they don’t have to be the end all, be all of software support.

Going back to the unjustly maligned Dewy’s Adventure, what Nintendo fans deride as “kiddie” is more fairly described as whimsical. Still, they write on message boards that the game doesn’t appeal to them at all because it lacks “mature” themes, yet many of the people leaving these comments aren’t even old enough to purchase Mature-rated games. All the while, Nintendo’s own family friendly titles somehow seem to be exempt from these “kiddie” accusations, most likely owing to the company’s well-established heritage.

So when it comes to third party games, Nintendo fans are almost impossible to please. They seem to want everything and nothing at the same time. They want massive third party support, but when they get it they turn their backs. They have no problem with the rated-E for Everyone titles when Nintendo makes them, but the same designation is unacceptable when coming from third parties.

Over the past several weeks we have seen a huge amount of external support for the Wii in all categories, and I can’t think of one title in particular that fans are really excited about. Is this the product of a mentality that says games aren’t fun unless they are violent? Or are Nintendo fans being too picky for their own good? If their current opinion of these games carries over to the final sales tally, it looks like Nintendo will once again lose the third party support they have been working so hard to regain. Here I thought things were finally going the Big N’s way, and now, because of the fickle tastes of my fellow Wii-philes, I am left worrying that Mario and friends will once again be left to carry the console end of Nintendo on their shoulders, all by their lonesome.

[source Level Up]

Following our earlier story that Spore developer Chris Hecker had gone on record calling the Wii a “piece of shit” as well as accusing Nintendo of numerous other things, Hecker has come out today to officially apologize for his harsh words.

“I don’t know who has read the internet, yesterday. In a [unintelligible] panel I said a bunch of things. I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now.

When I’m on stage, I’m me. I’m talking talk from me. From me. I’m not representing EA or Maxis. I want to make two things perfectly clear.

I do not think the Wii is a piece of shit. Nintendo needs to be applauded for trying to interface on the controller front, the user interface front, on making games accessible, on making a console that you don’t need to mortgage your house to afford.

Secondly, it’s totally obvious, and I’m sorry that I implied otherwise, that everyone at Nintendo is passionate at making great games. Some of the games give me hope that we will be seen as an art form on par with movies and books.”

Hopefully this will help to heal the wounds of fans that were more than a little disappointed with Hecker’s previous remarks. What do you think? A sincere attempt to clarify misinterpretations or a lame attempt to recover the images of the companies he works for?

[via gwn]

In 1995 Apple launched its first games console, the Bandai Pippin. It was based on a 66MHz PowerPC processor and ran a stripped-down version of Mac OS 7. The market for the device was not immediately obvious. The Mac was notorious for its lack of mainstream gaming titles, so basing a games console on OS 7 was a staggeringly perverse decision — some might say suicidal.

The 603e processor the Pippin used was woefully under-specced for decent gaming even back in ‘95. Set adrift in a world where almost every gamer had a Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn or Nintendo 64 tucked under their television set, the inevitable happened and Pippin died a horrible, embarrassing death. Recently, the Pippin was included in PC World’s ‘25 Worst Tech Products of All Time’.

Apple’s track record with games has improved slightly since. Many major titles like World of Warcraft and Halo are available to buy for the Mac — although often the Mac version is one release behind the PC versions. Only the bestselling PC games make it to the Mac and there’s often a six- to 12-month wait while companies port a title. But this may be about to change.

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