Loading ...Is Apple Nintendo’s Problem?
Nintendo has seen a significant drop in profits lately and most say Apple’s mobile gaming platform is to blame. Nintendo themselves are even keeping an eye on Apple. Sony and Microsoft is no longer the thorn in Mario’s side. It’s the big “little i”.
Is Apple really the biggest issue Nintendo is facing or is it a larger issue? Most likely, a little bit of both. As a hardcore Nintendo fan, I can safely say that my favorite gaming company has failed me the past few years. It all began with the shoddy release of Twilight Princess, the lack of core titles for the DS and then the Wii games that were off-shoots of “Sports” started to move through the shelves.
What’s left for us? The Moms, families and kids are only going to enjoy their Wii for so long. Then, they will put it down for a new toy that’s promising family fun. I have it on good authority to say this since I’ve sold my Nintendo Wii. Why? Because my kids stopped playing it and moved on to something else.
Nintendo has forgotten about their core audience. They have been pumping out games for a brand new audience that were quite successful. You can only go so far with the “Wii-fit-sports-swimming pool-billiards-backyard party” franchise. Frankly, you can only go so far with any franchise. I have to admit, even Zelda is in desperate need of an upgrade.
HAWKEYES WIN THE ORANGE BOWL!
This isn’t geeky or nerdy news. This doesn’t have anything to do with out network. This doesn’t have anything to do with PCs, XBoxs, or IPhones. I don’t care.
THE IOWA HAWKEYES HAVE WON THE ORANGE BOWL!
I had to yell it somewhere, that is all. Go back to your regular lives.
Random Thoughts: Kotaku Complaints
I was getting into my day job this morning bright and early, and one thing I like to do is check Kotaku.com and Curse.com for any major news in the realms of gaming and geekery. Take for example the post below this, note the Kotaku watermark on the picture of the big-ass Space Marine.
There’s one thing that I don’t like about Kotaku though. They tend to go a bit overboard with things. One major recent example of this is their most recent comprehensive article on Star Wars: The Old Republic. The article as a whole isn’t bad, but their opening to it really turned me off to it as a whole because of the horribly negative opinion of what a Sith Inquisitor actually is versus their confusingly good thoughts on the Jedi Consular…
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Webcomic Beacon #85 – Editorial Comics
Elissa Rose (Girl vs. Robot), Jason Braaten (Tweetics), and Jason Dustan (Ardra) join Fes and Mark to discuss Editorial Comics! Don’t worry! We soon spin off into tangents about the evolution and quality of news and reporting in general! This is the most intelligent episode of The Webcomic Beacon yet!
We broadcast our episodes LIVE on TalkShoe!: On Sunday, August 9th, @ 3pm Eastern, We’ll be discussing: “SIMS Comics and Homelessness” with Robin of Alice and Kev.
Leto’s Random Thoughts; Kotaku.com Argues Words
We here at The Geek Media have quite often referenced Kotaku.com as a fantastic reference for gaming and geeky news. This time is not one of them, sadly, as I read an article on their website, which can be found here, argues about the use of the word “Exclusive”. As a member of the media, not only here but in my regular job, I’ve already began noticing that as people continue to grow and change, the way words are used are personalized, warped, and slowly mutated to fit different meaning and experiences that need to be described.
In the Kotaku.com article, Stephen Totilo talked about the supposedly fraudulent use of the word Exclusive by Bethesda and Microsoft to describe their releases of not only Fallout 3, but the DLC for the game that continues to follow. He makes a decent point of it until he quotes a former Kotaku.com member, now a member of GTTV, says that the meaning of the word Exclusive has changed slightly in the past couple years, to mean that the release or premier is exclusive to a certain system or consoles. This completely negates the entire article, because it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation as to the change of the use of the word in this day and age.
The article splits hairs, as I’ve been known to do and sometimes enjoy. I think, although, this is unreasonable to the point of being annoying. Words change and evolve over time, and it’s best to just accept change and change with them.
These random thoughts have been brought to you by your local CEO and closet writer, Leto.
Monkey Madness, Pirates, and Some Guy Named Guybrush Threepwood
It appears, according to a Kotaku.com put out today, that there could be a joint effort released at E3 about a special edition of the original monkey island, The Secret of Monkey Island, for the 360. Whether this is coming along with revamped graphics or new gameplay has yet to been stated, as this is all on the level of rumor and hearsay still. What do you think about more Monkey Island action? Post your opinions in the comment section and we might talk about your thoughts on next week’s R&D!
The Great IMAX Debate!
Comedian Aziz Ansari Really Mad About ‘Fake’ IMAX
by Jonathan Crow
Aziz Ansari in ‘Parks and Recreation’ Back in the day, when a comedian got angry about something, he would tell a crowd in a comedy club about it. Now, thanks to the internet, if you make one funny guy mad he can let the whole world know. That’s what happened when comic Aziz Ansari went to last weekend’s big movie and found it to be not nearly as big as he expected.
The star of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” and Judd Apatow’s upcoming “Funny People,” bought a ticket on Monday for “Star Trek: The IMAX Experience.” Though it cost an extra $5 over a standard admission, he thought it would be worth it at the time. What Trekkie wouldn’t want to see Kirk and Spock on a six-story screen? Instead, Aziz found himself in a theater with a screen only slightly larger than normal. He felt wronged and decided to channel his anger into a furious, obscenity-laced blog post that has spread like wildfire. He has even called for a boycott of the theater chains involved, writing, “REGAL, AMC, AND IMAX – YOU ARE LIARS!”
Apparently, IMAX rolled out a digital projection system last year that can be easily installed in a normal movieplex and doesn’t require those huge film reels of a traditional IMAX projector. The downside is that the screens of these “Fake IMAX” theaters — as Aziz calls them — can be as much as a quarter of the size of standard IMAX screen. The size discrepancy between them is shown here:
But the real problem is that the IMAX Corporation along with its partners, theater chains AMC and Regal Cinemas, are refusing to distinguish between the two formats. Moviegoers will not know what kind of IMAX experience they will have until their tickets have been ripped. The theaters however, are charging the same price for “fake” digital IMAX as they do for “real” film-based IMAX.
IMAX co-CEO Richard Gelfond argued that such a distinction is unnecessary because, “People don’t say ‘The 3 isn’t a real BMW because it’s smaller.’” As the LF Examiner — a journal devoted to “large format” film — points out, this is an illogical analogy: car buyers would be plenty upset if they paid around $120,000 for 7-series Beemer and instead received 3-series worth only $30k.
Gelfond also voiced concerns that older film-based theaters might be seen as “second-class citizens” when compared with their newer, cooler digital siblings. That seems unlikely, however. Though resolution for the digital IMAX is good — slightly better than normal digital projection — it still is a far cry from the resolution found in a film-based IMAX theater.
Confusing matters, filmmakers are now shooting sequences in their movies using IMAX’s proprietary large-format cameras, designed specifically for a “real” IMAX experience. The first production to do this was “The Dark Knight,” filling the entire frame with crystal-sharp clarity. This summer’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” also has giant action scenes shot on IMAX film.
When asked about Aziz’s internet screed, Gelfond was dismissive. He told MainStreet.com, “The overwhelming majority of comments on that guy’s blog this morning, more than 90% of them, are vehemently disagreeing with him. And consumers are confirming this with their continued purchases of tickets.”
In an apoplectic rebuttal on his blog, Aziz retorted: “WHAT A SURPRISE ANOTHER IMAX LIE. Who did those numbers? The same guy who measures your [expletive] tiny IMAX screens???” He then challenged Gelfond to a televised debate on the matter. As of writing this, Gelfond has yet to respond.
“Star Trek” will be on IMAX screens for another week, and then “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” takes over. To see all IMAX theaters in the U.S. — both “real” and “fake” — check out this list: http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm.
So what do you think? Should their be a difference in price or even description for the difference in IMAX screens? Or is the difference in quality better enough to justify seeing it on a smaller screen and paying just as much as the larger screen?
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Featured Stories
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Is Apple Nintendo’s Problem?
Is Apple Nintendo’s Problem?
Nintendo has seen a significant drop in profits lately and most say Apple’s mobile gaming platform is to blame. Nintendo themselves are even keeping an eye on Apple. Sony and Microsoft is no longer the thorn in Mario’s side. It’s the big “little i”.
Is Apple really the biggest issue Nintendo is facing or is it a larger issue? Most likely, a little bit of both. As a hardcore Nintendo fan, I can safely say that my favorite gaming company has failed me the past few years. It all began with the shoddy release of Twilight Princess, the lack of core titles for the DS and then the Wii games that were off-shoots of “Sports” started to move through the shelves.
What’s left for us? The Moms, families and kids are only going to enjoy their Wii for so long. Then, they will put it down for a new toy that’s promising family fun. I have it on good authority to say this since I’ve sold my Nintendo Wii. Why? Because my kids stopped playing it and moved on to something else.
Nintendo has forgotten about their core audience. They have been pumping out games for a brand new audience that were quite successful. You can only go so far with the “Wii-fit-sports-swimming pool-billiards-backyard party” franchise. Frankly, you can only go so far with any franchise. I have to admit, even Zelda is in desperate need of an upgrade. -
5 Awesome Nintendo character tattoos
5 Awesome Nintendo character tattoos
Like other uber geeks, we are the beautiful people and we have awesome taste in tattoos, clothing, games, tech, gadgets and nostalgia. A generation grew up on Atari, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and the Mother of video game entertainment of the 1980′s – Nintendo. We proudly wear our dorky gamer badges on our bodies for all to see.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of Nintendo tattoos out there. We scoured the web to find our 5 favorite Nintendo character tattoos.
#5. Hey. Hey Listen!
Why Navi? Of all things, why Navi?! Because you said that as soon as you saw this tattoo. She’s embedded into your brain, the constant screaming of “Hey, hey hey listen!” and this brave man has made sure everyone will remember it. The tattoo is really well done, but we all hate him just a little bit.
#4. Stars and Ghosts, oh my!
This tattoo comes complete with invincible stars and a Boo. It’s quite obvious this girl loves her Nintendo. We love her half-sleeve and her stars. The original photo by Kotaku stated this woman’s husband was the tattoo artist. We love both of them just a little.
#3. 8 Bit Mario
Memories of throwing your controller when Mario died, moving the controller with Mario to make him jump and wanting to kill Toad when your Princess was in another castle come to mind when looking at this tattoo. The original tattoo is credited to artist Jon Poulson on Flickr.
Number 2 and number 1 are after the break
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E3 2010 Predictions
E3 2010 Predictions
E3 2010 is a couple of months away. As usual, everyone is making predictions and speculating what huge announcements are coming. A lot of talk is revolving around Sony and Microsoft this year. There are hopes of long-awaited games finally coming out in the public eye.I wonder if Duke Nukem will finally come out? Sure. Right.
For E3 this year, I have a couple of predictions of my own. I am hoping that Nintendo redeems themselves and announces a new Legend of Zelda game. I see the game releasing during the 4th quarter of 2010. Gears of War 3 is another prediction. I don’t see it releasing in the 4th quarter of 2010. I see an announcement at E3 with the possibility of release in 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2011.
I asked on Twitter what your predictions for E3 are from The Geek Media’s Twitter and my personal Twitter. The answers after the jump. next
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Is Apple Nintendo’s Problem?
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