WiiU

My speech was about the potential for growth of social gaming. I am pretty sure it was taped and posted on gamerlive.tv

The Wii U comment was in response to a question about the potential for the Wii U.

I believe (and please feel free to disagree) that a large portion of the Wii audience comprised casual gamers--those who bought one or two games a year the first two years, then put the Wii aside--and that those casual gamers moved on to another platform. The "other" platform may have been Facebook games, smart phone games, tablet games, or one of the other consoles, but once they moved on, they are not likely to come back.

At the same time, I believe (again, please feel free to disagree) that the growth of smart phones and tablets has attracted many potential dedicated handheld game customers, and these people also are unlikely to come back to either 3DS or PS Vita.

Summing this up, I think the addressable market for the Wii U is around half of the market for the Wii, and I think Microsoft and Sony will compete for a portion of that market if the Wii U is priced too high. I think that the dedicated handheld market is permanently impacted by smart phones and tablets, and think that Nintendo's addressable market is probably also half of its former market.

Nintendo is in disarray because they waited too long to launch the Wii U. I know that this sounds like (and is) sour grapes because they didn't launch the Wii HD in 2009 or 2010 as I "predicted". They should have, and because they didn't, the decline in Wii and DS hardware and software sales drove them into generating LOSSES. For those of you who aren't financial analysts, losses mean that the company is worth less than it was before. Nintendo stock has dropped by over 80% in the last few years, and the market has appreciated over the same period. I'm paid to advise investors, and none have made a profit owning Nintendo stock. I don't think that many will make a profit over the next few years, because I don't think Nintendo's strategy will return them to profitability.

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News

 IGN reported that the 3G model of PS Vita is capable of receiving text messages from the carriers like AT&T, and the carrier can also send SMS notifications to the device; you can find the mobile number assigned to your 3G SIM card in the System Information section.

 Sony will release MotorStorm RC on PSN on Mar 6, the game will run on both PS3 and PS Vita.

 Capcom has released Rival Schools: United by Fate on PSN this week, this is one of the most requested classic game by players, Capcom had to re-acquire rights from various companies in order to put this game on PSN. The game has two discs, one is the arcade fighting game, the other one is a collection of mini games and simulation adventure.

 Nintendo will publish a remake of horror adventure game Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly [Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly] for Wii in Japan on June 28. The remake will have a new 2 player cooperative mode.

 Nintendo will release the card battle game Culdcept for 3DS in Japan on June 28, for 4800 yen.

 Nintendo announced the Game Gear Virtual Console will launch on the 3DS eShop on Mar 14 in Japan, the first batch of games will include GG Shinobi, Dragon Crystal Shirani's Maze and Sonic & Tails 2.

 Bandai Namco launched a teaser site for a mystery 3DS game, which is co-developed by Capcom, Sega and Bandai Namco.

 Koei Tecmo announced 5 cross-over characters for Shin Sangoku Musou VS [Dynasty Warriors VS], they are Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, Ayane from Dead or Alive and Sanada Yukimura, Ishida Mitsunari & Naoe Kanetsugu from Sengoku Musou. In addition, you can also use your Mii characters as support characters. The game will have download content in future, including costumes and new weapon. The first print of the game will come with a download code to receive a volleyball uniform and judo outfit for certain characters.

 Nintendo announced a new Brain Age title is in the work for 3DS, which features Dr. Kawashima. This time the theme is to improve your concentration and working memory, the doctor will appear in devil form.

 Nintendo will release Mario Tennis Open for 3DS in Japan on May 25, and May 25 in North America and Europe.

 Monolith Soft is recruiting staffs for a new 3DS project, which seems to be a new role playing game.

 Square Enix is working with Electronic Arts to bring Mass Effect 3 outfit download content to Final Fantasy XIII-2, no release date has been revealed yet.

 Here are the latest Dengeki PlayStation Review scores from Japan, Asura's Wrath got an average score of 81/100.

• Asura's Wrath (PS3, Capcom): 85, 85, 85, 70
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus (PSV, Koei Tecmo): 75, 70, 80, 65
• Tacchi, Shiyo! Love Application (PS3, Compile Heart): 80, 70, 85, 60
• Reality Fighters (PSV, Sony): 75, 70, 85, 60

 Nintendo is helping publishers to revive their old franchises on 3DS in order to build a stronger portfolio of games for the system. The first game in this initiative is Vivarium's virtual pet title Seaman, originally released for Dreamcast in 1999.

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Sales

Here are the latest Media Create Console Hardware Sales in Japan for the week of Feb 13 - 19, 3DS sales went up to 95k thanks to New Love Plus and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.....

Platform	This week	YTD
3DS	94,667	744,479
PS3	21,993	216,158
PSP	14,824	173,291
PS Vita	12,309	138,826
Wii	7,874	109,167
PS2	1,433	6,858
XB360	983	10,584
DSiLL	901	10,814
DSi	656	8,307

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Apple chairman Steve Jobs dies at 56

SAN FRANCISCO - Steve Jobs, the innovative co-founder of Apple who transformed personal use of technology as well as entire industries with products such as the iPod, iPad, iPhone, Macintosh computer and the iTunes music store, has died.
The Apple chairman was 56.

The iconic American CEO, whose impact many have compared to auto magnate Henry Ford and Walt Disney- whom Jobs openly admired - abruptly stepped down from his position as CEO of Apple in August because of health concerns. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
A seminal business and technology leader, Jobs' success flowed from a relentless focus on making products that were easy and intuitive for the average consumer to use. His products were characterized by groundbreaking design and style that, along with their technological usefulness, made them objects of intense desire by consumers around the world.
He was known as a demanding, mercurial boss and an almost mystical figure in technology circles as well as popular culture. Author and business consultant Jim Collins once called Jobs the "Beethoven of business."
He was one of the people who made Silicon Valley the capital of technological innovation and venture capital fortunes.
His creation of iTunes as an online way to purchase music digitally helped transform the music industry and delivered a blow to the standard industry practice of packaging music in albums or CDs. With iTunes, consumers could buy individual songs for 99 cents. The music industry didn't welcome the change at first, but after waging an intense battle against illegal downloads, it came to rely on the business model iTunes created.
Jobs' work at Apple and other projects made him a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine in 2011 at $8.3 billion. He was No.110 on Forbes' list of billionaires worldwide and No.34 in the United States, as of the magazine's March 2011 estimates.
Unlike tech rival Bill Gates of Microsoft or business leader Warren Buffett, Jobs did not make a practice of public philanthropy. While he may have made anonymous gifts to charity, he did not publicly embrace Gates' and Buffett's call for the wealthiest Americans to pledge to donate half their fortunes.
Jobs was married to Laurene Powell Jobs, 47. He had four children, three with Powell Jobs. A fourth child, Lisa, had an early Apple computer - a predecessor to the Macintosh - named after her. The family succeeded in keeping the children out of the spotlight and largely unknown to the public. Jobs was a Buddhist.
FACEBOOK: News10 fans react to Jobs' death
Apple, and a re-boot
Jobs dropped out of Reed College to build computers with high school friend Steve Wozniak, creating what became the Apple I computer in 1976.
As sales lagged by the 1980s, Jobs was ousted from the company's leadership in a 1985 boardroom coup led by then-Apple CEO John Sculley. He returned in 1996 after Apple bought his technology start-up, NeXT, for $400 million. Within months, Jobs took over as Apple CEO for the ousted Gil Amelio and led a major corporate turnaround.
Five years later, with the release of the iPod personal digital music player, Apple had leaped from computer maker to become the leading consumer electronics giant worldwide.
Millions of its computers and gadgets were produced in Asia and sold to U.S. and worldwide markets, making the company one of the most recognizable and beloved brand names ever.
Once on the brink of a financial abyss, Apple had a market value of $350 billion - not far behind No.2 Exxon Mobil - by the time Jobs resigned as CEO.
After his forced departure from Apple, Jobs bought what became Pixar from filmmaker George Lucas. The digital animation movie company has produced box-office hits including Toy Story and Finding Nemo. Disney bought the company for $7.4 billion in 2006. Jobs held a 7.3% ownership stake in Disney.
Health concerns
He was known for creating a culture of secrecy at Apple that fueled intense media speculation about the company's next product. Jobs himself introduced major products with flair at highly anticipated events that proved to be one of the company's best marketing tools.
Jobs didn't hesitate to level caustic comments at competitors, particularly Microsoft in earlier years and later Google, which he ridiculed as evil, mediocre and lacking in taste. His skewering of Microsoft was parodied in a series of TV ads featuring the characters "Mac" and "PC."
Jobs was known for firing employees in profanity-laced tantrums and reducing some subordinates to tears. Yet many of his top deputies at Apple and Pixar worked with him for years.
Jobs is listed as an inventor or co-inventor on 313 Apple patents, including the iPod's user interface.
Although he brought simple, elegant technology to the masses, the reclusive Jobs was often uncomfortable around people and rarely spoke publicly. On rare occasions when he spoke with reporters, he offered few or no personal insights.
His reluctance to appear in public led to questions about his health, as did a dramatic loss in weight and gaunt appearance.
Jobs was diagnosed with a form of pancreatic cancer in 2003. He informed Apple employees in 2004.
"No one wants to die," he said in a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. "And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it."
Jobs' status as a corporate star put him on the covers of Time, Fortune and Forbes.
"Jobs led an enormous cultural shift of the businessman as a creative, even artistic, force," says Alan Deutschman, author of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.
"When Jobs first came on the scene, it wasn't cool to be in business," Deutschman says. "Through the 1970s, the Dow hardly moved. Being in business was seen as being a total sellout. But Jobs was young and glamorous, and gave business that image. Now, young people aspire to be in business."
The early years
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, to unwed parents. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, Calif.
The young Jobs contacted William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, to ask for parts for a class project. Impressed, Hewlett offered Jobs a summer internship.
Upon graduating from Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., in 1972, Jobs briefly went to Reed College in Portland, Ore. After a stint as a video-game designer at Atari, Jobs trekked to India in 1974, where he embraced Eastern culture and religion. Shortly after that, he lived in a commune in California.
In 1975, Jobs began hanging out with the Homebrew Computer Club and a friend from high school, Steve Wozniak. Jobs, then 21, and Wozniak - the "two Steves," as they became known - co-founded Apple Computer in Jobs' parents' garage in 1976.
By 25, Jobs was a millionaire. His first go-round at Apple was highlighted by the creation and introduction, in 1984, of the Macintosh, a revolutionary personal computer with an inviting graphical user-interface and mouse that popularized PCs for the masses.
The influence of the Beatles ran deep to Apple's core, too. Jobs presented a Mac to Yoko Ono, wife of the late John Lennon, and was ensnared in a long-running trademark lawsuit with the music group's Apple Corps label. It was settled in 2007.
In a 1996 interview in San Francisco, Jobs offered a glimpse of his hopes to mirror the success of Walt Disney and George Lucas. "Computers are commodities with a six-month shelf life," he said. "Classics like Snow White and Fantasia are passed from generation to generation."
Wozniak said Apple is a reflection of Jobs' creative daring.
"He helped it achieve incredible things in music, smartphones, tablets and retail, while still making great computers," said Wozniak, who said he and Jobs occasionally talk.
Leander Kahney, author of Inside Steve's Brain, said Jobs reconciled conflicting personality traits into an eclectic business philosophy.
"Jobs embraced the personality traits that some considered flaws - narcissism, perfectionism, total faith in his intuition - to lead Apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds," Kahney says. "In the process, he became a self-made billionaire."

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3DS hacked – first video of a working 3DS flashcard surfaced

Bad news for Nintendo – hackers managed to launch a 3DS game ROM using a flashcard.

The new flashcard is called Crown3DS and its developers already launched a website for it. In the video below you can see a proof that the Crown3DS really works – a guy launches Splinter Cell 3D ROM on a 3DS using a flashcard connected to huge microchip.

These flashcards yet are only in a testing conditions, but it probably won’t take long until we’ll see it for sale. Well, I guess it’s impossible to keep a popular device un-hacked for a long period in today’s industry. So keep holding, Vita.

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Ace Combat 3D

 Here are some images of the Bandai Namco's Ace Combat 3D for 3DS, the game will offer supersonic flying, dogfights and acrobats; and support touch screen targeting and real world aircrafts.

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Need for Speed: The Run

 Here are some images of the EA Black Box's Need for Speed: The Run, which will be heading to all major platforms on November 15. The game will have an Autolog system similar to Hot Pursuit, for you to compare your results with your friends. For the first time in the series, you also can control the driver on foot, you can walk away out of the car and get away from chasers.

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Flare Red 3D

Nintendo announced a new Flare Red model of Nintendo 3DS will be available in Japan starting July 14, simultaneously with the release of Star Fox 64 3D.

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E3 2011: Need for Speed: The Run Preview

Personally, one of E3 2011's biggest surprises came during the initial demo presentation of Need for Speed: The Run. This latest entry into the increasing confused franchise features sections in which you get out of the car and start running around on foot. Seriously, what the fuck? 

The section of The Run being shown off at E3 has a moment like this in which your car rolls over and you’re forced to remove yourself from it and hightail up a building's stairwell and along the rooftops in a bid to stay ahead of your pursuers, known only as ‘the mob’. However, rather than a ‘proper’ chunk of gameplay this section plays out like an interactive cut-scene, your interaction limited to quick-time event button prompts.

For example, you need to hit a button at the right moment to safely land a rooftop-to-rooftop leap before fighting a cop in a longer QTE sequence of timed presses and button mashing. During the cop sequence the action changes very slightly if you miss a button prompt, too many misses and you fail. Other than that though, there’s no way to alter the course of events.

Despite there not being all that much going on in terms of gameplay, this on-foot section performs its job of keeping you active throughout a scene that would otherwise have been entirely passive. However, there’s that old QTE problem of focusing on your button prompts and not properly concentrating on the on-screen action.

Apparently, these sections comprise only ten percent of the whole game, so anyone (like myself) worried that these moments are going to appear on a par with the racing should perhaps worry a little less. 

The premise of the game is that you’re taking part in a cross-country race from San Francisco to New York City. Although we’ve seen action that takes place in the urban sprawl of Chicago thus far, the games’ developers, EA Black Box, have said that we’ll be racing through other environments such as deserts, farmland and mountain ranges throughout the race. We’re told that the game packs over 300km of track which, we’re also told, is three times more than any other Need for Speed. It’s also the first time that the series will feature real world locations.

Black Box are staying tight-lipped regarding The Run’s story elements but the rough outline is that your character, Jack, is having problems with ‘the mob’ and that’s one of the reasons he’s in the cross-country race. Why entering the race can help solve his problems is as yet unknown.

There’s no doubting that this E3 demo is exciting, there’s not a second in which to relax or take your attention away from the screen. Starting with a race through the city against other ‘The Run’ contestants, running from the mob across rooftops, beating up a cop and stealing his car before trying to escape a helicopter, it’s a sure-fire contender for ‘Most Intense’ game of E3 2011. Whether that's a good thing or not is something i'm currently unsure about.

Said helicopter shows the usual lack of interest in protecting the public by firing its machine gun and rockets your way, exploding them all over downtown Chicago. You can go some way to avoiding the onslaught by trying as best you can to stay out of its spotlight. The demo ends with your police car upside on the railway tracks following a gas truck explosion, Jack escaping the wreck just before a train smashes into it (so long as you pass the obligatory QTE).

Visually it looks wonderful, presumably because it has been built using the same Frostbite 2 engine as Battlefield 3. The running scene packed that cinematic shine, explosions feel satisfyingly ‘meaty’ and the draw distance looks good. But, it’s the lighting that is perhaps most impressive. The glow from an exploded rocket, the red-blue flicker of police lights against the walls and ceiling of tunnels and the contrast between light and dark all combining to create a wonderful visual spectacle.

From what I could tell the E3 demo is pretty linear, although apparently tracks will feature alternate routes and short-cuts (as is the tradition for the ‘arcadey’ entries into the series).

The ‘Autolog’ system that was introduced in last year’s wonderful Need for Speed: Hot Pursuitreturns – in all honesty, if a racing game doesn’t feature some variation on Autolog then it’s missing a trick. Of course, the Autolog integration means you can compare your race times against friends and what not.

What’s troubling about Autolog in The Run’s case is that the constant high-action set-piece moments are sure to distract you from setting the fastest possible time. Black Box are going to have to balance things just right if they hope to incubate any form of serious competitive play.

The Run will feature other multiplayer elements but no details have been passed on to us as yet.

Terms like ‘Hollywood’ and ‘blockbuster’ are being thrown around by Black Box when talking about this game and it’s hard to argue against it looking suitably cinematic. However, this is the same studio responsible for the Undercover, Carbon and ProStreet editions of Need for Speed so (without trying to sound too cruel) I’m unwilling to get my hopes up too much until I’ve seen more of it.    

Need for Speed: The Run is due on 15 November, 2011 in the US and 18 November, 2011 in Europe for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs. Wii and 3DS editions are also in the works.

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3DS News

 Satoru Iwata mentioned that after Project Sora Studio completed Kid Icarus Uprising, the studio will begin making a newSuper Smash Bros. title for 3DS. However the director Masahiro Sakurai wants to offer players a slightly different experience in the new game, such as building up character and collection items, and offer connectivity with the Wii U version

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Luigi's Mansion 2

 Nintendo annouunced Luigi's Mansion 2 for 3DS, the sequel to the GameCube launch title back in 2001. This time Luigi needs to use a strobe function to stun the ghosts before sucking t hem up with the Poltergust ghost-sucking vaccum cleaner. You can also use the Poltergust to remove wallpaper and reveal hidden areas, clean up piles of objects to reveal hidden treasures or suck up stacks of coins and bills.

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Super Mario

Nintendo revealed Super Mario for 3DS, a new 3D platformer specifically designed for the 3DS. Mario will have new and familiar abilities like rolling somersault attack, running dash move, or when he is the Tanooki Mario, he can use his tail to hover, perform floating jumps and attacks.

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