EA to get into the fitness game…

Fitness game.. HA!  you get it?  huh? did you?   Well fine..    ANYWAY…

EA figuring there’s money to be made in the whole play games as a diet craze that’s starting to hit the Wii (Come on people.  Moving around burns calories.  Burn more then you take in.. you lose weight!!)

But [Eurogamer] is saying that Peter Moore wants to make you sweat, where as that concepts scares the holy jeebus out of me.. I’ll push though the fear to continue writing.

The newly created ‘Freestyle’ sub-division of the EA Sports divisionis working on a new game that will utilize the Wii balance board and focus on more ‘Western’ cardiovascular workouts.

Peter Moore went on record at the EA Sports showcase stating:

“We’re watching very closely what the Wii Fit board does,” he said. “We think we have to have a role to play with that mum – the kids have gone to school, she’s got 45 minutes on her own, the Wii is there, it’s the first console she’s ever liked because she can do things herself. And we’re working on stuff, trying to work out how we can use EA Sports applications there.”

“We also need to make sure we’re delivering something that’s truly exercise. I’ll call [Wii Fit] more eastern fitness, where it senses weight and balance, like Tai-Chi. It’s more about holistic fitness. I don’t think the board is going to take a pounding. We need to look more at western fitness in which I can actually be moving and start to sweat a little bit, and that’s what we’re working on right now.”

“It can’t feel like a workout, The team has to figure out, how do I smile while I’m doing this? You play soccer for 90 minutes; if I say you’re going to run five miles you’re not gonna want to do that. But you run for five miles playing soccer and you’ve had a good time.” 

“The difference is you’re distracted. We need to distract people and not make this exercise feel like work, but like they’re having fun. So mini-games, things where you’re actually laughing out loud, that’s the stuff we’re working on. It’s something I’ve always been passionate about, and who better than us to go and play in that market?”

 

1 million Mario Kart for the Wii Sold…

[Games Industry] is reporting that Media Create has charted the Wii version of Mario Kart selling another 174,000 units in the past week pushing it over the 1 million sold mark.

 

the current top 10 in Japan is as follows:

1. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

2. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP)

3. Link’s Crossbow Training (Wii)

4. Wii Fit (Wii)

5. Taiko Drum Master DS: Seven Island Adventure (DS)

6. Pokemon Ranger: Batonnage (DS)

7. We’re Fossil Diggers (DS)

8. Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

9. Deca Sports (Wii)

10. Wii Sports (Wii)

 

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Well this goes to show that Nintendo is doing VERY well, with Sony trying to get 3rd place.   But with only 1 PS3 title in the top ten.. wow. =/    Of course, the Xbox is no where to be found..LOL

 

Playboy MMO!

[EuroGamer] has stated that daughter of Hugh, Christie Hefner, has announced that Playboy will be moving into the MMO world (beyond Second Life), after already creating clothing and games in order to help out with lower then normal magazine revenues.
“We intend to leverage [our brand] in both immersive real world and in the virtual environment to increase shareholder value,” Hefner revealed.

“We believe that the potential of online is much greater than the performance we’ve seen in the last several years,” the exec admitted. “And to realise that potential, we have to catch up in terms of technological infrastructure and breadth of content and interconnectedness between what we do in the virtual world and what we’re doing in other businesses in terms of e-commerce, in terms of events, in terms of advertising, in terms of social networking.”

Things that make marketing people cringe…

One of the guys in one of my lists made this nice little announcement to the group:

“A mum was buying Donkey Kong racing for Wii, I was talking a guy about the Nintendo Wii how its good for my kid but I dont play it much, he said same about his daughter, the mother buying the game turned around and said:

“Nintendo make the Wii?”

Immediate bursts of laughter from game staff and other customers…
I mean, she is a buying a Nintendo game, has bought a Nintendo console, ummm, don’t you read the box you got the Wii in? Dont you see Nintendo written over the game you just bought?”

Millions of dollars spend in marketing, and people still don’t know who makes what.  I guess that really does prove that most people don’t care about the hardware, it’s all about the games.

Skype for the PSP

When it comes to mobile gaming, I always reach for my Nintendo DS. There are plenty of reasons which make me choose it over Sony’s PSP. I’m not one to start console wars, so I won’t go into detail about why I prefer one over the other. I will however tell you that after CES, there’s going to be a really good reason to consider the PSP.

Someone should tell Sony if they want to make a huge announcement during CES, they shouldn’t put it on their CES page. If you look over the part of the site dedicated to the PSP, you might notice that there is something odd listed under the PSP System Features. Apparently you’ll be able to “Call friends, talk trash to fellow gamers or catch up with acquaintances via Skype for PSP system.”

This is actually a pretty cool feature, which has been predicted for some time by gaming enthusiasts. I sure hope that Sony has something else up their sleeve for the gaming crowd, because this cat’s out of the bag. In case you were wondering, that picture above is from the video on the PSP site. It’s only up for a single frame, which makes me wonder why it’s in there at all.

[Source: Ubergizmo]

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[05/12/08 update]
Well only like 5 months after I posted this.. it’s FINALY coming!   According to [PSP FanBoy] SCEA finally confirmed the availability of Skype-compatible PSP headsets at retailers today.. for $30 bucks, not $20. =)

 

EA takes out a loan…

Where as this could be read as “so what?”, but this is a BILLION dollar loan..

According to [Kotaku], EA has borrowed 1 billion (put your pinky to your mouth when you say that) in order to buy out Take-two.  EA has bee quoted to have said:

 

“There’s no news here,” said EA VP of communications Jeff Brown. “This is just a process point on something we announced in February.”

 

*sigh*  EA in charge of GTA?  Looks like GTA4 will be the last of the good GTA games.

What if Nintendo make Halo 3?

First I must point out how freaking annoying it is that WordPress.com doesn’t allow object tags in their posts.. so you need to link any video that isn’t on youtube.

(grrr)

Anyway.. here’s a lower quality YouTube of the video…

Please big brother.. can I play the games I bought?

Well, now.. The publishers of Mass effect, and Spore are going to piss a lot of people off with this one. 

According to a post on the Mass Effect (BioWare’s) website from Derek French (BioWare, Technical Producer):

 

Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez’d and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn’t become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can’t contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

So what that is saying is:
      A) after purchasing the game you must request access to play it
      B) you better have an Internet connection or  you are SOL.
      C) and the company doesn’t trust you enough not give a copy to your friends.

How’s that for stupid?  Really, because I’m willing to bet money on the fact that the copy protection with a NO CD check crack will be out with in 10 minutes of the games release.  Then people will want to use the pirated copy because it’s easier to install and use and no don’t need to worry about being online, and/or SecuROM messing with your computer.

Thanks again EA about worrying about the almighty dollar, rather then your customers.  Try just using Steam next time.

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[Update: 5/12/08] 

BioWare spokespersons told [Kotaku] “To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.”

So they have been listening!  Well and reading pretty much all the hate mail on the ‘net about all this stupid copyright BS.  so NOW, it’s pretty much the same thing, only no it only authenticates the first time you play, then re-authenticates when you download new content.  But you can still only install the game 3 times.
additional activations can be achieved by phoning EA support.   Which, I’m betting, would be like phoning Comcast customer support.