Gaming stuff 2/08/2015

Sorry for last week. I had a couple of kegs that needed to be drank before the blizzard came barreling down on us

This week marks the release of the New 3DS XL. For the most part, it's the traditional spec bump that Nintendo always trots out a year or so before they release a new handheld. The added L2 & R2 (don't see it getting much support) and the second stick (way too tiny) is eh but it does come with the 3D that it should have been there at release. No more having to be perfectly still and looking dead on the handheld. There is only two games so far that have been announced that the handheld is needed for, a post of Xenoblade Chronicals and a re-release of Ace Combat. Xenoblade was a good game on the Wii that was seriously hampered due to hardware limitations and the footage shown of the port has not been kind as it's even uglier with some serious slowdown. And the Ace Combat game wasn't good when it was released the first time, don't how you can improve that.

So is it worth dropping $200 on it? If you're looking to buy into 3DS sure but for me, as a owner of a 3DS XL, I'm just going to wait it out till next year and pick up their new handheld (if I buy one at all).

Microsoft is pretty meh.

So Microsoft shipped 6.6 XBox consoles (360 and XBO). At the low end with using 2013's Holiday numbers, that would put the 360 number at about half which with the way last gen has collapsed in on itself, no way that happened. On a conservative side, I'd personally put the XBO number at about 4.35m units shipped and with the numbers we know about it's sales, the total should be around the 11-11.5m number in sold. As for total revenue, like it's been for the last few years, it's anyone's guess with everything they've shoved in that category (Surface, Android patent payments, Bing and what not). Only number is $4b in revenue which is about 15% of their total revenue.

Playstation sales are good, Sony is not

(Straight up, I'm a Sony shareholder so keep that in mind)

So Sony shipped 6.4m PS4 units, which is good and the income is okay, especially with the narrow margin console business but everything outside of their insurance and image sensor business paints an ugly picture. Nothing with a future is healthy as they continue their markdown of mobile, the movie side of Sony Pictures continues to bleed money.

As a shareholder, I've never liked Kaz (and think he was a horrible choice). He always made grand promises while being horribly slow and as a CEO, he continues to be so. I do like him selling off Sony Online Entertainment though, under Sony, it's been a bit of a money sink.

Nintendo continues to be screwed.

Yeah, they're in the blackish but it's all mirage because it's all based on the fact that the yen is worthless. Under Iwata, the 3DS will be by far their worst selling handheld as it's only just now crossed the 50m mark and that's doing gangbusters compared to the pitiful 9.2m Wii U number. Other than the DS, Iwata has been an object failure. Sure, the Wii sold but it sold in spite of how awful Nintendo took advantage of the leverage. And since he gave himself more power by officially becoming the head of Nintendo of America, he's dropped the ball even harder than Fils-Aime was the figurehead. For their big new money maker, the Amiibos, the roll out has been a disaster here with a ratio of the characters being so out of whack that store will never get rid of the rest of wave 1 and that's not even including stores cancelling pre-orders of their own exclusives.

• Of course Apple looks at these hardware numbers and just laughs at these peons.

• So Activision continues to dodge on giving concrete numbers for Destiny.

• As expected, Take Two is actually worth something when they release a GTA game. Every other year where there is no GTA, not to much. That being said they move another 10m copies of V on the PS4 and XBO.

• ASCAP continues to make people wish death upon them as this time they're going after arcades and pinball halls. They're claim is that's unlawful to have arcade games in arcades due to music.

• I like how they're dusting off the masks concept but Persona 5 looks like more of the same as 4 (which I didn't like). Don't get me wrong, it looks good but I'd rather wish they would remember the first two games.

• Some Warhammer stuff:

Finally get a trailer for that W4K themed Battle Chess

And they announced Warhammer: End of Times - Varmitide, a 4 player FPS. Sadly it's being made Fatshark though :/

• Cue the Outrage Mobile as Richard Hilleman (CCO) is on point in that controls to console games is too complex for new users. I'd like to see someone sit a fresh faced newbie down and try to explain the controls to UFC to them.

• Kinda surprised in how low it's raised so far (the Resistance IP is popular) but the Coup card game is coming to mobile

• Shuhei Yoshida (President of Sony Worldwide Studios) takes a big old nasty dump on EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Nintendo...pretty much everything that is still giving life to the console business.

• So...apparently Netflix and Nintendo are in talks of a live action Zelda TV show. Why? No idea.

• DICE Award winners. Basically Mordor and DAI won pretty much everything.

• Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) - The US finally gets Monster Hunter 4. Series isn't for everyone but I'm personally a big fan. Its always struck as a perfect mix of crafting and killing big ass things in it's slow methodical gameplay. And this one finally includes online multiplayer, which has been sorely needed on the 3DS.

• Evolve (PC, PS4, PS3, XBO, 360) - The long gestating new game from Turtle Rock (Left 4 Dead series) is finally coming out. It's a 4v1 fps multiplayer game where four people try to capture a huge monster. There has been plenty of betas so you should have at least got into one. The betas were okay though I don't think they're worth the price they're asking for the game. At MSRP it will run you $60 base game, $25 for 4 new characters and $15 for each new monster....I think, the whole DLC thing is a confusing mess. I do like the maps and game modes are free but everything else you just kinda throw your hands up in the air at. Only known thing is that if you want it at launch, pre-order it as you get a free monster. I'm fully expecting this to be a quick game to drop to $15 on the summer Steam sale

• Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (3DS) - Nintendo continues to mine the N64 for games to re-release on the handheld. Personally think this is one of the worst Zelda games but I know I'm very much in the minority. OoT 3D was a decent port, this should be on par with that one. Dunno what else I need to say about this one.

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posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 03:16 PM

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