Thought I should make it official ;) .
Happy BDAY EM!

Guess I'll give MYSELF the birthday girl, nobody here seems to have noticed the 6th was my birthday :(.

I'm so unloved. Noriko will cheer me up.

Saw this a day or two ago, but why not post it anyway.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/commenta.../index.htm

Quote:Nintendo: Innovation is dying
Mario creator Miyamoto discusses what's wrong with the video game industry today
June 3, 2005: 8:11 AM EDT
Game Over is a weekly column by Chris Morris

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – This might come as something of a shock to the gaming world, but Shigeru Miyamoto – the man who created Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda – really doesn't feel like playing games these days.

"There's not a lot I want to play now," he told me recently. "A lot of the games out there are just too long. Of course, there are games, such as 'Halo' or 'Grand Theft Auto,' that are big and expansive. But if you're not interested in spending that time with them, you're not going to play."

What he misses, he said, are games you can pick up and play – something the company hopes to accomplish with its next generation home console, currently code-named "Revolution".

Nintendo deliberately avoided giving too many details about the Revolution at the E3 conference this year, frustrating some fans who felt the company did not fight back against the PR onslaught of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Miyamoto didn't offer any firm details either, though he did offer a few more vague hints about how the system would be different.

"The Revolution will use cutting edge technology, but it's ultimately about how that technology is used," he said. "We asked ourselves 'why would a family need or want to have a gaming console?' The answer is what's driving development of the Revolution."

While Miyamoto insists the Revolution will have advanced graphics and features, he doesn't want that to be the focus of the machine.

Instead, he's trying to encourage developers to think outside of the genres that have become so well known in the industry. In other words, there's more to gaming than role playing, simulation, strategy and action.

"Rather than thinking we have a new console, let's make epic games, I want [developers] to make more unique products," he said.

That's the school of thought behind some of the upcoming games for the Nintendo DS. "Nintendogs," a Tamigachi-like canine simulator lets you experience the joy of raising a pup with none of the house-training. Whether U.S. audiences will embrace it is a mystery, but Japan has gone crazy for the game, buying more than 400,000 copies, according to Nintendo. "ElectroPlankton," meanwhile, blends music and art, letting owners mix their own tunes.

Less likely to make it to Western shores is "Touch Dic". (Really, that's the name.) This dictionary application for the DS is a bit different than standard electronic dictionaries, turning learning a new language into a game. For example, one person, using the DS' stylus, can draw Kanji characters onto their Picto-chat screen while others try to guess their meaning.

There have even been whispers of a PDA application for the DS in the works, though Nintendo declined to comment on that.

Of course, the Revolution and the DS will continue to primarily be game machines. (Nintendo's not straying that far from its roots.) And company president Satoru Iwata has indicated established franchises, such as "Super Smash Bros." and "Metroid" will be ready at or near launch.

How much support Nintendo will get from third-party publishers remains to be seen. Though they used a lot of smoke and mirrors, Sony and Microsoft both turned heads at E3. Nintendo's next-gen device was barely an afterthought for most developers.

If Miyamoto is concerned, though, he didn't show it. He said he wasn't overly impressed with what he saw from Sony (Research) and Microsoft (Research) at the show – particularly in their pre-show press conferences.

"Most of what you're seeing are not even the first projections of games," he said. "They're just shiny computer graphics. They're things anyone using a computer can do. ... It's how we're going to use the technology that separates us. What we want to do is different – and we're happy with the road we're taking. When you have a Revolution, you're not going to have the same experience as you would with the other home consoles."

... smaller, they said?

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/172475

Geist and Killer 7 delays.

Quote:Killer 7, a psychological action thriller by Hiroyuki Kobayashi that has been in development for years, is confirmed to be released simultaneously on the GameCube and PlayStation 2 on July 7. The release date of July 7 appears to be a marketing gimmick, but seems to point to the completion of the title.

Nintendo's upcoming FPS Geist has also met another in a series of delays. Developed by N-Space in cooperation with Nintendo, Geist, which focuses on possessing others to progress, has been pushed back to an August release.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-57313...d.newsfeed

This will be odd, if true...

http://weeklies.sordeo.com/video/sexualharassment.wmv

Sexual harrassment awareness video. Download. Now.

Quote:We see plenty of reporting and regurgitation of marketing hype. And we could subsist on an endless diet of wild speculation. But we rarely get the kind of business analysis that we need.

This gap was painfully obvious to me post-E3. Because while everyone was busily laying bets on the horse race between Sony and Microsoft for the dominance of the next generation of gaming, Nintendo was quietly disregarded on the side.

Business-wise, this was weird. Because as far as I can tell, Nintendo is the business story to watch. And strangely enough, you don’t have to try very hard to see why. I can only conclude that most of us are not looking at all.

Quote:In this light, it’s odd how few game commentators seem to understand just how profitable Nintendo really is. With a net margin of over 20%, Nintendo is a financial rock star. Just by way of comparison, General Electric, that monster global conglomerate whose executives write the books about corporate leadership that other Fortune 500 execs read, clocks in with a net margin of 11% Nintendo’s business engine is so efficient that even though they sell far less than Sony, they make, bottom line, about as much as all of Sony, Yes, that’s right. Little Nintendo generates about as much cash as giant Sony—electronics, movies, the works. (For a bunch of good financial data on this subject in one place, see PCVSConsole).

Now there are a number of lessons in this. But let me point to the most obvious:

When looking at the current console war, it’s important to keep in mind that Sony is a big company that does well on its games and film subsidiaries, but has been taking big losses in electronics. Microsoft is a very, very profitable software company that has so far taken large losses in its entertainment division. And Nintendo is a reasonably large company that has continued to make money with no obvious financial liabilities. As businesses, these three companies have different strengths and weaknesses. But none is the overwhelming leader from a business position.

Actually, it's more like a HP Pavilion dv1000 laptop:



Cost me a pretty penny. *hooray for wireless internet!*