The Stupid Gamer

Another week has gone by and another round of sales charts out of Japan has been released. Again, thanks to NeoGAF for the numbers and image.

Software

01. [PS2] J-League Winning Eleven 2007: Club Championship (Konami) - 149,584
02. [WII] Mario Party 8 (Nintendo) - 134,786
03. [PS3] Hot Shots Golf 5 (Sony) - 64,093
04. [NDS] It’s a Wonderful World (Square-Enix) - 33,111
05. [NDS] The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo) - 29,088
06. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 27,815
07. [WII] Wii Play (Nintendo) - 27,187
08. [NDS] Face Training DS (Nintendo) - 22,276
09. [NDS] New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo) - 21,254
10. [NDS] Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (Nintendo) - 21,168

Hardware (click on the image to magnify):

Ok, so I’m feeling plenty sick today, but we got the podcast recorded anyway. Coming off of a four hour nap I try to make sense of what I’m talking about…but things go awry. Thankfully Miguel and Stephen carried the show well today. Oh, and right from the get go I say it’s show number 10…it’s not. Here are the notes:

• Snacks
• Smash Bros. Update
• New DS Accessory
• 360s with HDMI
• Wii Dashboard Update
• BBC’s Report on Realism and Gaming
• Retro Picks (I struggled here…)
• What we’ve been playing

Thanks to Digital Leisure for providing Dragon’s Lair HD. We’ll have a full review coming soon and possibly some video of the game on the blog.

 

 The Stupid Gamer Podcast #9: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A new “slide” peripheral is being shown on Nintendo of Japan’s web site. The accessory uses the GBA slot and senses lateral motion. A short flash video of the device can be seen by visiting here: Nintendo of Japan.

The accessory looks like it could open up new types of gameplay and could be used in countless ways to create new control schemes. I’m already sensing Wario Ware: Slide or something like that…

I’ve decided to lump a few news bits together in one post due to time constraints, so here goes:

Wii Keyboard support

With the latest system update, Nintendo added support for USB keyboards for the Wii. You can use the keyboard in the message board and with text entry, but no update has been made to the Internet channel (yet) to allow for keyboard functionality. The keyboard will also be possible for game input.

HDMI for all 360 models?

Arstechnica is reporting that soon all 360 systems will support HDMI out and be sporting the cooler-running 65nm chips. Since my 360 has been showing off some red rings lately, I might try to hold off sending it in until this can be confirmed and the new models are shipping.

Source: Arstechnica

World of Warcraft Expansion Preorders open

Certain retailers have already started handing out preorders for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The new expansion introduces a new class, new areas, and Arthas as a new boss. Gamestop/EB was the first retailer to open preorders, but others have already followed suit.

Despite reading like an EA press release/advertisement, the BBC managed to put their opinion out there that games need to be “more realistic.” I’m all for realism in games, but there has to be a point where you purposely suspend that realism to some degree. Even the most “realistic” games must have fantastic elements, don’t they? Let’s take a few examples of what would happen if the hyper realism switch was flipped on some of your favorite games:

NCAA Football 2008

You drop back to pass and see your receiver break into the open field just as a linebacker comes charging through a gap in the line. Instead of trying to scramble you heave the ball…TOUCHDOWN! The whole team starts to celebrate except for your poor quarterback that’s rolling around with “a broken arm.” Good thing it was an exhibition game, huh? Well, if EA wanted the game to be truly realistic, the player would miss 3-5 weeks. They’d become unplayable in the game until sufficient time was given for the player to heal. It doesn’t matter that it was an exhibition game. If somebody breaks their arm, they can’t play. But it’s cool, it’s more realistic like that, right?

Splinter Cell

For a game that’s built around trial and error stealth action, I’m pretty glad that realism is suspended enough to allow you to have continues. If you want realism, the first time you die the game should halt the spinning of the disc, scratch it to crap and de-authorize any future copies of Splinter Cell (and its sequels) from ever being played on your console again. After all, Sam Fisher is dead in your world now.

Any racing game ever

You just slammed that wall? Race over.

So do we really need for games to be more realistic? Like, do we really need it? I think it’s cool when you see touches of realism here and there in games, but I think the focus still needs to be on fun and the suspension of realism. I don’t mind improved physics, more lifelike movements, and better lighting, but I feel that “realism” is highly overrated as an attribute to any game. I just want to have fun, and I don’t need it to feel like what I’m doing in the video game world could be believable in the real world.

Wow, now this is cool. TUAW.com has a video showing off the iPhone’s coolest new app…a NES emulator! The video shows somebody using the touch screen input to play Super Mario Bros. It looks a little bit hokey, but it’s a pretty impressive and inventive use of the touch screen.

Check it out here: NES emulator on the iPhone

Consoles/Handhelds

• Boogie (Wii)
• Call of Duty 3 Enhanced (PS2 - Greatest Hits)
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance Enhanced (PS2 - Greatest Hits)
• Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars (PSP)
• Tomb Raider Anniversary (PSP)
• Pet Alien (DS)
• Chameleon: To Dye For (DS)
• Mega Man Star Force: Dragon (DS)
• Mega Man Star Force: Leo (DS)
• Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus (DS)
• High School Musical: Makin’ the Cut (DS)
• Glory Days 2 (DS)

Live Arcade

• Track and Field

Virtual Console

• Wave Race 64
• Adventures of Lolo
• Galaga ‘90

PlayStation Network

• Nothing announced yet

Xbox
360, Xbox (Age 16 months)

On Sunday, August 5, 2007 of Bountiful, UT; beloved console of Jeff Rivera; rival of Wii and PS3; successor to Xbox; all of Bountiful, UT. Microsoft will receive notification of dead 360 on Monday. A closed casket burial will be held at the local UPS office in Bountiful, Utah. Xbox 360 is survived by roommates Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, HD-DVD drive, and many more members of the electronic world. Friends and family are encouraged to send money in lieu of flowers that will be donated to the Awareness of Crappy Manufacturing of Xbox Products Foundation. Online condolences can be expressed to

http://stupidgamer.com

Freshly stolen from the fine folks at NeoGAF, here are the sales for Japan for last week. I usually take some time to format things, but I’m going to lift the image used over at that rascally little forum and share it here. As soon as I can find out who is specifically making these images I’ll give proper credit. For now, thanks to the NeoGAF community for collecting these each week.

Software:

01. [WII] Mario Party 8 (Nintendo) - 264,953
02. [PS3] Hot Shots Golf 5 (Sony) - 152,379
03. [NDS] Taiko Drum Master DS (Bandai-Namco) - 93,909
04. [NDS] It’s a Wonderful World (Square-Enix) - 76,717
05. [WII] Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 (Bandai-Namco) - 45,692
06. [PSP] Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Capcom) - 44,939
07. [360] The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Spike) - 40,168
08. [NDS] The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo) - 36,968
09. [PS2] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 14 (Konami) - 33,679
10. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 32,388

Hardware (click the image to enlarge):

According to a report from GTAIV.net, Grand Theft Auto IV is being pushed back from its current release date until April 2008. The delay will be used to continue to polish the game and ensure that both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 releases are as good as they can possibly be.

Source: GTAIV.net

I’m not a GTA fan at all, so this doesn’t really do anything for me one way or the other, but I have to think that 360 owners are just a little relieved that their wallets will suffer just a tad less this Fall/Winter. The sheer amount of huge games coming soon is just nuts and GTA IV was just one more fighting for position.