Opera Software today announced details on its browser for Nintendo’s soon-to-be released game console, Wii. Opera’s full Web browser is available for download from the “Wii Shop Channel”. Nintendo has stated that they will offer Opera free of charge as a temporary promotion for all Wii users until June 2007.
Wii
From July 2007, users can purchase the Opera browser using Wii points. Wii points are credits users can buy that allow them to add new games or the Opera browser to their Wii consoles. The number of Wii points required to purchase Opera has not yet been announced.
With support for Flash and AJAX-based content such as Google maps, Wii users will benefit from a feature-rich Internet experience that is uniquely customized for the Wii. Opera for Wii boasts the same complete standards support as the Opera 9 Desktop browser, and includes the added functionality of “Zoom” and “Bookmarks”. The Wii remote control will also be an integral part of browsing, allowing users to intuitively control the Web with their Wii remotes.
Nintendo has previously announced that Wii will be available in the U.S. on November 19, 2006, Japan on December 2, 2006, and in Europe on December 8, 2006. The cost for the console is $249.99 or 25,000 Yen.
Microsoft is rumoured to cut the price of its premium Xbox360 down to $299 - including a HD-DVD disc drive, as DigiTimes reports:
Microsoft, to prepare for the price cut, has negotiated reduced production costs for the Xbox 360 with Taiwan-based manufacturing partners, stated the sources. The manufacturers estimate that the total production cost can be reduced by 15-20% due to diminishing costs for most components along with increasing production scales and decreasing defect rates, the sources pointed out.
This rumour comes alongisde speculation that Microsoft has secured an exlusivity deal with Capcom regarding Resident Evil 5, as Games Industry reports:
Industry chatter at the Tokyo event claimed Resident Evil's no-show is owing to Microsoft tying up a shock exclusivity deal for 360, with an announcement due at the US firm's X06 event in Barcelona next week.
Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz at TGS 2006, Xbox boss Sensui refused to pour cold water on the rumour when questioned, stating that it had already been announced for Xbox 360 and adding, somewhat enigmatically: "All I can say is we are very good friends with Mr Inafune [the game's producer]".
If true, this would significantly up Microsoft´s chances in Europe and the US. I am more sceptical about Japan, since the console has been sitting on store shelves even at the ridiculously low price of $250, I believe. In the US and Europe, though, a $299 price tag for the premium version including an HD-DVD drive would spell huge trouble for both Sony and Nintendo. If anything is announced at X06 starting tomorrow, you will read about it here. I am attending the event.
Sources: DigiTimes, Games Industry
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From Kotaku:
Resident Evil 5 Not 360 Exclusive, Says Capcom
So are Mr. Inafune, producer of the Resident Evil games, and Microsoft Bee Effs Effs forever and ever and ever forever? Japanese Xbox boss Takashi Sensui says yes. What does Capcom say? Get your hand of my shoulder, you weirdo!
Specifically, extrapolations from Takashi Sensui's claims of friendship with Capcom should not be taken to mean Resident Evil 5 will be a 360 exclusive like Dead Rising and Lost Planet:
"Resident Evil 5 will release on PS3 and Xbox 360 as announced. There a no plans for an exclusive with the game", a spokesperson from the company told us.
Wishful thinking on Microsoft's part, apparently. Florian Eckhardt
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MS might be tryin to get exclusive rights to RE5 but I sincerely doubt Capcom would allow it, reason being that RE5 is their HD sequel to RE4 and are expecting huge sells in all regions, including Japan. Exclusivity to 360 means zero market in Japan, so I dont see that happening. In their mind they might be seeing RE5 on PS3 grabbing millions of Japanese while RE5 on 360 grabs millions of Americans. And somewhere in the mix is Umbrella Chronicles which should do well in all regions and uses an updated RE4 engine to take advantage of the Wii's extra power. We should end up with screenshots that look nearly identicle though one game will be in HD and the other will not.
Ultimately it's going to depend on how good these games are. If Umbrella Chronicles is a cheap thrown together experiment for Wii it will fail atleast in the states where people still have RE4 on the brain. If RE5 is a hastily thrown together sequel, well, as long as it's as good as RE4 then it wont have a problem grabbing market. But this is Capcom, they're not idiots. I think they're looking at their production costs, very little to Wii, the most to PS3 and wondering who should get their most time and money.
It's no secret that Sony is trying to bombard developers with the idea that if you want to make games for PS3 you will most likely not have the time or money to develop on other consoles. Capcom is fighting that ideal but, I think, only long enough to find out who they should commit to.
So, we approach launch for Wii and PS3. In all honesty the PS3 isn't actually launching. If anyone here is planning on getting one at launch you probably will not get it. 400,000 systems will be picked up by the demographic of rich kids which I believe is exactly that number. So MS is looking at Wii, low price, hugely popular, already a household name, and seeing the possibility of 360 losing share. Of course sales of 360 are almost halted right now and since launch have sold about 5 million systems which is below average. So now here comes Nintendo who promises to grab not only the gaming audience who haven't snagged a 360 yet but also entirely new demographics that MS couldn't touch. Answer: XBox 360 HD gaming, graphics on par with PS3, capable of better looking graphics than Wii for 300 bucks and oh btw includes the ability to play HD-DVD disks. That move would make Nintendo look plain stupid and PS3 would be a laughing stock above and beyond its current problems.
Of course the downside is that MS is already losing hundreds of dollars on 360 with each sale. Now they're going to eat another hundred dollars plus the cost of the HD-DVD add-on? Well, if you're already losing money why not lose more money if it gaurantees better market penetration and higher installed bases and then catch up to hardware costs and profit from software?
Its all rumor, but it's something MS is thinking about for sure.
I'll say that was a very impressive trick he used there, which was stunningly and instantly revealed by a short man, which I think is Santa. For the rest of this little clip the poor guy stumbles around a pretty simple protocol, drops some pages trying to say static cling is stopping him (which don't seem all that clingy to me) and then just sorta claims the test itself stopped him. Wish I could say I was surprised...
Awesome news! I didn't expect this... Metal Slug 6 just was released for PS2 in Japan this month. Since SCEA would never approve single 2d SNK games on the US PS2, I wasn't sure if we'd ever see this (or King of Fighters XI or Samurai Shodown Tenka, but of those we still have no news), so this is awesome news... plus, according to the press release it's still on for a November release. Here's hoping... though since it's SNK, I can't help but expect delays...
Quote:Wall, New Jersey Sep 22, 2006 SNK PLAYMORE USA CORPORATION, the US publishing arm of the SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION, announced today that they will add the latest game in the series, METAL SLUG 6, to METAL SLUG ANTHOLOGY for the Wii™ and the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.
METAL SLUG ANTHOLOGY will now feature seven great METAL SLUG titles. Included in the collection will be METAL SLUG, METAL SLUG 2, METAL SLUG X, METAL SLUG 3, METAL SLUG 4, METAL SLUG 5, and METAL SLUG 6.
METAL SLUG 6 was released in the arcades earlier this year and expands the cast of playable characters by two. In addition to the METAL SLUG regulars – Marco Rossi, Tarma Roving, Eri Kasamoto, and Fio Germi, METAL SLUG 6 includes Ralf Jones and Clark Steel of IKARI WARRIORS. The METAL SLUG 6 storyline returns to the Rebel-Martian alliance featured in Metal Slugs 2, X, and 3, but now players have to team up with the Rebels and Martians to defeat an even greater threat.
METAL SLUG ANTHOLOGY will ship in November 2006.
Of the Core. From $515 to $415. ... only in Japan.
So let's recap:
Wii: US $249, Japan $212 (Japanese prices include taxes, American ones don't)
X360: US $299/$399 (??? for the HD-DVD player), Japan $243 (price drop from $252 just announced)/$333 (coming soon: premium bundle with Blue Dragon). (HD-DVD player $170)
PS3: US $499/$599, Japan $427/$??? (retailers set the price for the Premium; $527 now? (10000 Yen more than core))
However, all PS3 Cores now have HDMI output...
If you want to make those US prices look good though, just include the European prices too... :)
Another Spore thread. Personally, I think a name change may be in order. I'd like something that more accuratly captures the game, or at least is more of an audience grabber.
Anyway, I have one question. I am very impressed by this game and the freedom we seem to have in making creatures, at least, generic Monsters Inc type creatures. But, how unique can the creatures actually look? I'm seeing the flesh colors and certain lacking things and I have to ask myself. Can I create a lion, or a monkey (I have yet to see any creatures with hair)? Can I create an intelligent plant creature (have yet to see leaves)? But, most of all, can I create, and this is a novel concept I'm sure, a human? Will I end up with a human creature that's stylized, or will I end up with some lumpy troll creature with the same odd rocky "monster style" skin all the other creatures have, and bald?
I ask because I plan on taking the massive powers of the engine and my own imagination unleashed and making humans with them.
Posted Sep 20th 2006 10:10AM by Ludwig Kietzmann
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Adventure, Interviews
If the adventure genre truly is dead, it's the kind of dead you find mulling about in a shoestring budget zombie flick. All visible signs point to a loss of life, but the supposed corpse is still surprisingly animated, shambling towards you in search of an exposed brain. Before you know it, you've been surrounded and your only choices concern the order in which you lose vital body parts. While Atlus' Touch Detective is likely a good deal more fun than being eaten alive by a snarling, undead force (that quote coming to a review soon!), it forms a firm part of the genre's inability to stay beneath the ground.
A traditional adventure game in almost every sense, Touch Detective joins Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Trace Memory on the portable platform that seems to have been made for pointing and clicking. Or rather, touching. The DS lends itself well to typical adventure gameplay mechanics, though a functional interface does not a good game make. The story, the characters and the puzzles are the elements you'll remember as being stellar or awful. Touch Detective promises to lump itself into the former and largely preferable category as it follows the adventures of a young sleuth searching for answers, culprits and stolen dreams. Using our finely attuned detective and e-mailing skills, we grilled the game's project lead, Jamie Ortiz, about the game, localization and questionably shaped mushrooms:
Thank you for agreeing to have a chat with us, Mr. Ortiz, though we suspect the constant threats may have helped.
It's my pleasure. Now, can you please ask Vinnie the Squid to let go of my arm?
You're the project lead on Atlus' Touch Detective. What exactly does that entail? Are projects difficult to rein in and keep under control?
As project lead, I oversaw the entire localization process of the game, everything from the design of the box art to the QA of the final product. Yeah, it can be difficult to keep track of every aspect of the project, but that's also the best part about being lead on a project: you have input on P.R., marketing, and production. I really enjoy collaborating with the different departments. In fact, some of the most fun I had was working on the cover art with the marketing team; they did a fantastic job on it. And have you seen the ad for Touch Detective? It's really cool.
Atlus is largely known and appreciated for its strong localizations -- what was the localization philosophy adopted for Touch Detective?
We set out to convey the "feeling" the developers originally intended for the game, which was a 70's era detective novel. This vision for the game extended to everything, the dialogue, the cover art-even the manual!
What were some of the primary challenges faced with localizing Touch Detective? I imagine fitting English text into on-screen boxes can prove challenging.
Yeah, one of the biggest challenges to localizing Touch Detective was the line and character limits placed on the dialogue. Each character has his or her specific style of speech that, at times, required more space than what was allotted to the original Japanese. That being said, I'm very happy with how it turned out. I think each character's personality is accurately portrayed through his or her dialogue.
Were there any cultural jokes or situations in the game that needed to be changed for a Western audience?
Well, there's a scene where you speak with Penny, and she says she can tell you your fortune. She then asks you to pick a recurring dream you have from a list of dreams. In the Japanese version, one of the choices is "taking a bath with Marx." Now, taking a bath has always been an integral part of Japanese life, and it's not unusual for young children to bathe with their parents. In fact, many Japanese parents believe this helps to strengthen the parent-child bond. However, in North America it's not acceptable for a young girl like Mackenzie to be taking a bath with a man named Marx, nor should she be dreaming about such an act. So accordingly, the text was changed to the less offensive "taking the bus with Marx."
Anime fans often prefer direct translations from the Japanese versus full localizations. Why do you think the latter is more important in games?
I think in order to be true to the original intent of the game; some text has to be changed. The structures of the languages are so different that a direct translation doesn't always convey the "correct" meaning of the text. Certain phrases and nuances must be adapted to a North American audience.
Is there a risk of crossing the line, where the English character no longer matches up with the Japanese one?
Well, there's always a risk, but we here at Atlus we pride ourselves in delivering accurate localizations, even if it's not always a direct translation. To do so, we spend time inside each character's head, learning about his or her personality, and we're always on the look out for inconsistencies in a character's speech pattern during the editing phase.
I noticed that all of the characters have different names in the English version. Why not keep the Japanese names?
Since the game doesn't take place in Japan, I didn't think it was necessary to keep the Japanese names. The English names weren't chosen haphazardly. I spent a good deal of time finding names that fit the particular quirks of each character. In fact, you may notice that many of the minor characters take their names from British surnames.
The main character, Mackenzie, has an "investigative sidekick" who just happens to be a mushroom. And you called him "Funghi."
It's pronounced fun-guy.
I'm sure there are far more creative ways to investigate this subject, but ... Funghi sort of looks like a penis. With a face. Is this something that was talked about in the office?
...You're a sick, sick man, who needs serious, serious help.
But then, the game's art style is very distinctive. It's almost sinister. Does the tone of Touch Detective match its art?
The art style has been referred to as Tim Burton-esque, which I totally agree with. Yeah, it definitely sets the mood of the game and will put you in the right frame of mind to solve the cases, which are equally distinctive.
Tomm Hulett, the project lead on Trauma Center, once said that he watched House to get inspiration for that localization. It looks like Touch Detective has an element of detective noir in it -- did you look to something similar for inspiration? Columbo? How about Veronica Mars?
Great question. At the outset of Touch Detective, I was referencing hard-boiled authors as Chandler and Spillane, but their material just wasn't the right fit for li'l Mackenzie. I was in the midst of looking for other material when a friend suggested-you guessed it-Veronica Mars! While I did check out a few episodes, I can't say the show was my inspiration for the game--although, Kristen Bell does make quite a muse. If I had to point to my source of inspiration, it would have to be the great adventure games of yore, like The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. I wanted to provide players with a game they'd truly enjoy playing.
Adventure games are dead. Adventure games are NOT dead. Which one is it?
NOT dead.
The genre does seem to have taken off on the DS -- Trace Memory and Phoenix Wright were particularly well received in the US. Had those games failed miserably, would we be talking about Touch Detective now?
Definitely. While the success of those games helps raise interest in the game in general, I think Touch Detective stands up on its own. We chose to publish Touch Detective because we absolutely love the game. The artwork, story, and gameplay all work together to provide the player with a truly enjoyable gaming experience.
How is Touch Detective different from those two?
Those are both great games, and while there are a lot of similarities between the three, I think Touch Detective features more exploratory gameplay, as opposed to text-based gameplay. In addition to questioning witnesses, you'll need to uncover clues and discover evidence--all of which is performed on the DS Touch Screen.
Why is it that the genre works so well on the DS? Surely it can't be due to just the touch-screen interface?
Why not? I mean, it's the perfect interface for point-and-click adventure games! In Touch Detective, the stylus gives you the same ability to search for items on the touch screen as you'd have with a mouse. Once you've found an item, you can investigate it further by pulling it up on the Investigation Screen. It's as intuitive as when the genre was initally popularized, but now it's also portable. What could be better than that?
The interface was basically the only thing we could understand in the game as it was at E3 (untranslated). How long has the localization process been underway?
We began localizing the game soon after E3, and it took us about 3 and a half months to bring you the masterpiece that is Touch Detective.
One of the things that I find particularly interesting about your role in Touch Detective is that the game is, essentially, already made. Do you ever feel that you wish you had more control over its development. "I would have done this differently?"
No. To be completely honest, I was really happy with the development on Touch Detective. There's nothing I look back on and say, "I wish this was different."
Once the game hits in October, will you be scrutinizing the reviews?
I'm not sure scrutinizing is the correct word, but, yeah, since I did the editing on the game, I'll be very interested to see what people think of it. The early feedback is that the dialogue is fun and entertaining, which is definitely what I was going for.
If a reviewer complains about an element of the gameplay, for instance, would you feel frustrated? In the sense that it's not really in your hands? You saw it coming.
No, not really. Like you said, it's out of my hands. Regardless, the gameplay in Touch Detective is solid-C'mon, man, it's a point-and-click adventure!
Do you think there will be any misconceptions about the game? A criticism you're ready to counter?
I think at first glance some people might think the game is easy, but that's certainly NOT the case. The puzzles are quite intricate, and players will definitely be challenged. Just ask all the reviewers who have been contacting myself and the PR department for walkthroughs.
Last question: Have you ever touched a detective? A real one?
No. Have you ever been watched by a private eye? Because they're watching you; they see your every move.
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