VirtualReality.ca, the gaming blog

The numbers don't lie: Women love Nintendo

Posted by Jim Squires on November 27, 2009

At a recent BMO Capital Markets event for gaming companies and investors this month, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fil-Aime took the stage to share up some numbers that proved something no one had been doubting -- female consumers prefer the Wii to any other home platform by a staggering margin.

Based on their own internal research (take that for what it's worth, bias-watchers) Nintendo estimates that there are 11.7 million female "primary players" in the gaming market. Primary players, in this instance, means people who have purchased the console or who the console was purchased for. This doesn't include your aunt, sister, or niece that's happy to play a few rounds of Carnival Games when they come over to the house. It's the number of female players who claim the household console as their own.

Compared to the 33.3 million male primary players, this makes up about 1/4 of the console market (which the chart above, used as part of Reggie's presentation, illustrates nicely). It speaks volumes for the industry that women are becoming such a key demographic, and definitely helps illustrate gaming's increasing acceptance by previously untapped markets.

Much to no one's surprise, Reggie's next set of numbers reminded us of which console manufacturer is hosting Ladies Night every night;

According to Nintendo's own research (again -- keep that in mind here), 80% of female gamers picked the Wii as their console of choice.

It's not at all surprising to hear that Nintendo has take such a triumphant lead in the female demographic -- after all, they're the only company actively courting it. In fact the only number that really surprised us was the 20% that were purchasing the 360 or PS3 over the Wii.

Gaming has, until fairly recently, been viewed as a predominantly male hobby. Seeing such high adoption rates of consoles not directly aimed at the female consumer was both surprising and delightful. Maybe our little hobby can grow out of its "teenage boy" persona yet.

[via Kotaku]

TAGS: Female, Girl Gamers, Girls, Nintendo, Wii, Women
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Incredibly rare Atari game shows up on eBay

Posted by Jim Squires on November 10, 2009

eBay has played home to some tremendously rare video game finds over the years. A prototype NES version of Earthbound, Yogi's Frustration for the Intellivision, the 1990 Nintendo World Championships cart. The latest to join the hallowed halls of great eBay finds? Songbird's The Music Machine for the Atari 2600.

AtariAge rates this game as a 10, or "unbelievably rare." As one of only 23 games to ever receive this rating, you can start to see why this auction is starting to gather so much attention amongst collectors. As of this writing the current bid is $3650, with 5 hours remaining. With 18 bids already in, you can bet this thing is going to climb in price.

Like all good rare games, this one was discovered rather recently and purely by accident. The seller came across a sealed copy of the game when going through some boxes for his elderly mother who used to own a Christian bookstore. The game must have been part of the the stock. Even more exciting? If she did stock the game, it's entirely possible she may have had more than one copy. The seller hasn't finished sorting through boxes, so anything's possible at this point.

[eBay]

TAGS: Atari, Atari 2600, Ebay, Rare
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Posted by Jp Lolin on September 1, 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum at IGN.com

I won't be playing Batman: Arkham Asylum anytime soon because I don't have the console required to do so, but that doesn't mean I haven't been looking forward to it. It's a mix of excitement and dread, to be honest, and it's for the same reason: it's a Batman game. Creating a game set in the Dark Knight's universe is certainly exciting in itself, but history tells us that most who have done so have failed miserably. Is Arkham Asylum any different? It looks like it is.

This is a completely satisfying experience from start to finish. I've been up for 15 hours grinding through it and writing this review, and my main thought is how much I want to be done so I can continue playing it. This is one of the standout games of the year, licensed or not. There is a lot to do, multiple ways to do it, and one of the most popular characters of all time finally gets a video game worth his name.

It's a Batman game that's worth the name. That's saying something. The PC version is said to be out by the 15th of September, so I'll be on the lookout for that one when it hits the shelves.

Source

TAGS: Arkham Asylum, Batman, Reviews
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Disney Buys Marvel For $4 Billion

Posted by Jp Lolin on August 31, 2009

This week's mega-deal of the day comes courtesy of Disney. The company behind Mickey Mouse and his gang have coughed up $4 billion USD to acquire Marvel Entertainment. That's right, folks, Mickey can now count Spider-Man as one of his best pals.

More than 5,000 iconic comic book characters will soon be in the hands of Disney, raising serious questions about the future of Marvel video game titles from Activision, Sega, THQ, and the upcoming MMO from Gazillion Entertainment.

The companies behind the upcoming video games have yet to comment on the situation so we'll have to wait until we hear from them. Will it affect the games at all? I'm already thinking about the possible implications that this deal is going to make on the level of violence in them. An MMO based on comic books has to have a a lot of punching and kicking, right? Will there be blood? I doubt it.

Source

TAGS: Acquisition, Comic, Disney, Marvel, Mickey Mouse, Spiderman
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

BlizzCon Recaps

Posted by Jp Lolin on August 31, 2009

BlizzCon came and went. Here's what's new:

• World of WarCraft: Cataclysm was announced. The third expansion of the popular MMORPG takes players back to Azeroth. The old world will change as we know it, thanks to the vengeful return of Deathwing, leader of the Black Dragonflight.

• New races are playable: Worgen for the Alliance and Goblins for the Horde. Yes, I'd prefer the Worgen for the Horde but they say that we already have a cool race and the Alliance don't have one. There's also the argument that Gnomes are the joke race of the Alliance so it was time for the Horde to have one. To be honest, I can't argue with that.

• A new class was announced for Diablo 3: the Monk. It's supposed to be an agile yet fragile melee class, which would fit my idea of how monks have been portrayed in video games. We'll see how that one turns out.

TAGS: Blizzard, Blizzcon, Cataclysm, Diablo 3, Goblins, Monk, Worgen, World Of Warcraft
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

StarCraft 2 Delayed

Posted by Jp Lolin on July 27, 2009

Fans of StarCraft are going to have to a wait for a while as Blizzard has announced that the game is not going to be released this holiday season. The reason? Battle.net.

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

Blizzard “will always take as much time as needed” to develop the game. I've already mentioned the revamps that they've done on the site and this announcement is only a step forward.

Expect StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty to be out on the first half of 2010.

Source

TAGS: Activision, Announcement, Blizzard, Delay, Starcraft 2
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Resident Evil 5 System Requirements

Posted by Jp Lolin on July 27, 2009

Capcom has released the system requirements for the PC version of Resident Evil 5. Here's what you'll need to have in order to run the latest installment of the survival horror series.

Windows XP: Required, Windows Vista: Recommended
Intel PentiumD Processor, AMD Athlon64 X2 Required, Intel Core2Quad Processor or better, AMD Phenom X4 or better Recommended
RAM: Windows Vista 1GB (2GB or more recommended), Windows XP 512MB (1GB or more recommended)
HDD: 8.0GB or more
DVD9 compatible drive
Required Graphics: VRAM (256MB), DirectX9.0c/Shader 3.0, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
Recommended Graphics: VRAM (512 or more), NVIDIA GeForce 9800 series or better, ATI Radeon HD 4800 series or better

I admit that I'm a little surprised about the processor recommendations. Otherwise, everything else is standard fare. I just hope the controls are better because the PC version of Resident Evil 4 didn't have native mouse support, which is really silly when you think about it.

Source

TAGS: Horror Game, Pc, Resident Evil 5, Survival, System Requirements
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Sam Raimi To Direct WarCraft Film

Posted by Jp Lolin on July 22, 2009

Blizzard has announced that Sam Raimi will be directing the upcoming WarCraft movie. No other details were revealed as of this time, but the name should be familiar to most. Raimi's work includes the 3 Spider-Man films, The Evil Dead and the recent thriller Drag Me To Hell.

"Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures have a shared vision for this film and we searched at length to find the very best director to bring that vision to life," said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. "From our first conversation with Sam, we could tell he was the perfect choice. Sam knows how to simultaneously satisfy the enthusiasts and the mainstream audience that might be experiencing that content for the first time. We're looking forward to working with him to achieve that here."

I think everyone's expectations on the movie are low at the moment because, let's face it, films based on video games aren't known to be good ones. However, with Raimi at the helm, there is some hope to be found. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be an emo Spider-Man clone because seriously, what was up with that?

Source

TAGS: Director, Film, Movie, Sam Raimi, Spiderman, Warcraft
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

StarCraft 2 Will Not Support LAN Multiplayer

Posted by Jp Lolin on July 6, 2009

Blizzard's highly-anticipated sequel to one of the most critically-acclaimed RTS games of all time just revealed startling news. StarCraft 2 will not support LAN multiplayer. In a move that makes no sense to gamers, the sequel is not going to have one of the key features that made the original very popular.

"While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Personally, I can't help but think that this is more of an Activision decision than a Blizzard one, but who knows? The latter has been revamping Battle.net lately. What started as an online hub for Blizzard's games has now been receiving major revisions in terms of service and coverage. World of WarCraft players are now required to create Battle.net accounts and merge them with their WoW accounts. It looks like Blizzard is following a similar route with StarCraft 2.

Will players be required to login to Battle.net before they can play StarCraft 2? All this talk about piracy is making me think that some sort of authentication is going to be required to play the sequel regardless of whether one actually intends to go multiplayer or not. Call it paranoia on my part if you will, but I'm suspicious of where this is heading.

Source

TAGS: Blizzard, Lan, Local Area Network, Multiplayer, Rts, Starcraft 2
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Bayonetta Combo Preview

Posted by Jp Lolin on June 22, 2009

Indulge me for a minute here. When someone says action game, what do you think of? Me, I'd say Devil May Cry, followed by a mental image of Dante. It doesn't matter that I prefer God Hand over DMC. Thanks to Capcom's promotional material, the image association between action game and Devil May Cry is very strong. If I were to say female character in an action game, who do you think of?

I'm asking those questions because action game heroines don't come up as instantaneous as Dante for me. Sure, Lara Croft can fit the description, but I've always associated Tomb Raider as more of an adventure series than anything else. In fact, the recent releases have more emphasis on platforming than combat, further solidifying the point.

A new game called Bayonetta wants to change all that. The female character is a witch who wields four guns. She draws her power from her hair, something that she also uses as an outfit. So, stronger attacks require more hair, which then reveal more skin. I smell a Girls of Gaming appearance coming soon.

TAGS: Action, Bayonetta, Combat System, Preview
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Review: Prototype

Posted by Jp Lolin on June 15, 2009

Prototype is out. Is it good? Is it playable? Do the controls suck? Does it turn you into a god?

Video Games | Prototype | Review

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The key thing to remember here is that it succeeds as a sandbox game that has one focus: combat. There is no role-playing, no driving or taxi missions or any of the other stuff that open world titles are known for. There is some inventive platforming as you move around the city, but other than that, expect fighting to be a constant activity.

The review mentions that there is some complexity in the controls because there's a lot to do. That's the sort of thing that fighting game and twitch gaming enthusiasts love to hear. The controls are workable for the everyday gamer, but for those who like to time their button presses, there is some reward to be had.

GameTrailers score: 8.7

TAGS: Action, Open World, Prototype, Reviews, Sandbox
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Blizzard Sends Out Email For StarCraft 2 Beta

Posted by Jp Lolin on June 15, 2009

Blizzard wants everyone to know that StarCraft 2 is just around the corner. It sent out the email for the beta and although it didn't mention a date when that's actually going to take place, it did tell everyone to prepare a Battle.Net account for it.

The email, which asks game writers to make sure they have a Battle.Net account set up and a request in, says that Blizzard has no date yet to announce for the start of the beta. The email ends, however, by saying that all Battle.net account login info for game writers needs to be sent to Blizzard by June 19.

Mark the date, folks. I wouldn't be surprised if Diablo 3 also had something to do with Battle.Net since Blizzard seems to be bent on making it a requirement for all its games. WoW players are already using it. Previously, such accounts were only required if players wanted to do multiplayer. I'm beginning to think that even those who are interested in a single-player experience only will still be required to log in.

Source

TAGS: Battlenet, Beta, Blizzard, Email, Starcraft 2
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Square Enix Announces Final Fantasy XIV: Online

Posted by Jp Lolin on June 7, 2009

Square Enix has made it official: gamers will soon be able to experience massively-multiplayer gaming JRPG-style courtesy of Fantasy XIV: Online. Here's a preview that was shown at E3:

It is going to be released for the PS3 and the PC. There's no word yet regarding support for other platforms.
Players can import Friends Lists from Final Fantasy XI: Online to FFXIV: Online.
Races will be similar to FFXI but the job system will be different.
FFXI will remain active after FFXIV is released.
Gameplay-wise, FFXIV is going to be more casual-gamer friendly and will feature solo content.
No pricing or subscription details have been announced yet.

Source

TAGS: Final Fantasy Xiv Online, Mmorpg, Square Enix
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )

Sony Reveals The PSP Go

Posted by Jp Lolin on June 7, 2009

Sony is going to release the next version of the PSP with the PSP Go. It's the fourth version of the portable gaming device and is the only model in the line that features a slider. Whether or not that's a good thing is yet to be seen, but the design change did allow it to become more compact in terms of width.

Unlike previous versions, the PSP Go will not be using UMDs for games. Instead, it has an internal capacity of 16 GB to store games. There's no word on how UMD-based games will be played on the Go, but the marketing info suggests that this model isn't intended to be a replacement for the PSP-3000, the third and so far latest PSP unit available on retail. It looks like the Go is going to focus on casual gaming. Will we see a rise in portable casual gaming then? That seems to be what Sony is aiming for.

The PSP Go is also expected to carry the same media features that its predecessors have, which includes video, images, music and a web browser. Will it support YouTube and other video sharing sites by default? Web users will certainly want to know that. Expect the new PSP to be out on October 1.

Source

TAGS: Psp, Psp Go, Sony
POST TOOLS:
COMMENTS ( 0 )