Ahhh Nintendo.. I know you hate me

People seem to think I hate Nintendo. I really don't. We as gamers owe a lot of current gen innovation to them. They are a great company that does great things. And with the exception of the stupid Game Cube and it's playskool controller, I've been excited over every announcement they make.

My beef with them is that they are pretty sadistic and their fans have to be masochistic.

In my experience this all started during the gameboy era. Nintendo rules handhelds and always have. I mean the Game Gear was ok but it had too many problems.  Lynx was garbage so you would be better off with those Tiger games.

From gameboy to gameboy pocket... A more portable version of a portable system... Ok.. Sure.. Why not? The gameboy was pretty bulky... Gameboy color... Wait .. What? Ok anything beats cream broccoli colour.. Fine.. Even though the so called "color" mechanic was pretty crappy.. I can deal. Gameboy advance... 32-bit in the palm of my hand!!! AWESOME!! No 3D processing... FAIL!.. But they made the most of it and some pretty great games did come out for it.  Gameboy Advance SP.. This was the beginning of the end for me. I jumped ship to PSX because I wanted to play some next gen and the 64/GBA wasn't cutting it. Mainly because nintendo started pulling a sega by forcing peripherals on me. The graphics pak with the 64 and the headphone jack addon you need for the GBA SP.

So I hopped on Sony's bandwagon and for 10 years they took care of me. Wow a life span of 10 years... How old school nintendo! Naturally you'd think I would move on to ps2.. Nope... Original Xbox.. It was the Tim Taylor of consoles. MORE POWER! But it want selling as well as the ps2 so even though it angered me to see them leapfrog Sony, I didnt get too angry. But the ps2 was still being supported.  I guess it made sense because the ps2 was once again on it's way to selling 100 million ... Again.

Back to nintendo.  When the Wii bust out of the gate selling like hot cakes, I was impressed. I thought.. "Nice. They took an inferior system and marketed it so well." But I saw the pedobear come out of nintendo almost instantly. Over priced EVERYTHING on a system full of shovelware. But people ate It up for whatever reason.  Skip ahead.. Wii is out selling everything. It has zero reason to release a new system and almost 80 million reasons to support the current one.  But why would they when they know their fans are going to buy plastic peripherals, headphone jacks and classic controllers to make their repurposed games payable. And going out to buy a new controller to make your console backwards compatible. .. So weird you guys.

I know what you may be thinking, 5 years between consoles is not unusual. It's not. . when your console is in 2nd or 3rd place and you are competing for market space. Our even when your console is dying (which is why the DS despite it's iterations gets excused) but the wii should be in it's prime. Why cut the head off a popular system when you can easily extend it's life? ANSWER: Your fans are casual gamers that dont know any better. Nintendo relies on brand loyalty which is fine.

I like nintendo.. I admire the way they advance and innovate the industry but I'm not exactly sure they want me to like games. But thats a whole other entry.

(keep in mind I prefer the original xbox over the ps2) Sony has the best idea.. Support your console till it's dead... And beyond.. (pspgo says hi) The way the original nintendo did and the way microsoft is doing now.

in fact, kudos to Microsoft. The 360 is an inferior machine from a tech pov when compared to the ps3 but they manage to do extremely well.

With all that being said.. I'm looking forward to nintendo's new system. It sounds awesome... In fact, it sounds like what I want in a console. A ton of innovation seems to be placed in it.  But is the wii going to die needlessly because of it? Do I have to buy peripherals to make it backwards compatible? Am I going to have to buy another console at the apex of the new system's popularity? Will there be less shovelware?

I would love to jump back on their bandwagon but if the console is going to get killed a year or two after I get it... Why bother?

Psn... and hackers

Look Sony.. One or two days for your network being down is fine. Shit happens. But lets face it, you should have back-ups in place.  Furthermore, you should have way more transparency on the matter instead of these stupid cryptic messages us users have to take decoder rings to just to understand what the hell is going on.

For the past two generations  Sony has been ruling it. But from 2006 till now you guys have made the weirdest decisions ever.  Starting with the $699 price tag (this shit better last 10 years) to the pspgo being more expensive despite having less functionality. Lets not forget the psp's price drop then price hike. My heart pours out to the psn+ users out there. They are getting screwed. And if you want more proof that DRM on consoles is a bad idea, check out bionic commando rearmed 2 that is unplayable till psn comes back online.

Every single time I take nintendo to task for their treatment of (real?) Gamers, I pray they dont realize Sony has been punishing me for supporting them. As a ps3 user I get DLC for cross-platform games after 360. I get games after 360...and still do. 360 exclusives tend to be better... And get this... 360 games even look better sometimes. Ghostbusters is a sony pictures product (isnt it?) And it looked better on 360.  And get this awesome revolutionary concept! When I put a game into my 360... I'm playing it almost instantly. Same game on a ps3 is almost guaranteed to be a 2-5 gig install.

I would trade disc swapping for all that crap any day.  .

But this psn outage is the cherry on top. 3 major releases in one week that depend on psn are useless. I'm gonna say it. I dont care about portal 2's co-op anymore and I'm buying Brink on 360.. In fact I might get EVERY multiplayer game I want on the 360. The network is superior (better be. I'm paying for it)

I'm kidding. If it weren't for IPs like Heavy Rain, Metal Gear Solid and Yakuza, i'd switch. But seriously Sony... Get psn back up.

Next... Anonymous. Maybe you brought down psn, maybe you didnt. I saw something on facebook where you took credit and then denied it on your homepage. Whatever. Normally when I hear of your exploits.. I think you have a point. But taking credit for this attack could land you in jail so why would you take credit? Furthermore... To deny involvement firmly places you within the ranks of terrorists.

Even if you agree with GeoHotz breaking the law (Like it or not, he did. Read the EULA) Threatening Sony for wanting to protect their intellectual property as well as the intellectual property of others is bad form. If you want to develop homebrew for the ps3... Tough. Buy the SDK. I would even say go ahead and hack your console but keep it offline and dont boast about it. You wouldn't rob a bank and then post how you broke the law on your twitter. This stinks of teenagers throwing a fit because their parents told them to be in before dark.

I respect your skills. I really do. But attacking somebody or ruining lives because of something so petty makes you no different than the scientologists you rage against.  Your power and influence exist on the internet and id be silly to challenge it. I dont want to bring you down. Anonymous is a great counter-balance to government control but I now wonder if you have just become drunk with power... Much like the machine you rage against.

EA games is 24 hour flu watery shit

Ok. Whenever you hear me say anything about EA... I'm talking about the publisher and probably not one of their developers.

As most people know i'm a big fan of the Fight Night franchise. I'm not really competitive with it anymore. I think I've peaked and fallen off. I'm past my prime and it's all downhill.

Anyways... EA has a history of making you pay for things usually included in the game for free (like cheats) and they ship unfinished games (game mode sold separately) and all I'm saying is we gamers need to send them a message.  I know it's easy to say "just don't buy it." But the bigger problem is my everlasting fight to save gamers from themselves. You see... If you still it, the will come.  There really needs to be a grass roots movement rallying against EAs style of monetization.

Can you imagine if you had to pay $2.99 to use the konami code?

Pre-order deez nuts bitch!

EB Games and Blockbuster think consumers are dumb.  In fact.. A lot of gamers are dumb. But places like EB and Blockbuster make gamers dumb by feeding us nonsense. EB and Blockbuster both make gamers believe that without pre-ordering the game you may not get a copy.

This is a bold face lie. Anybody who believes this lie only makes it worse for the rest of us. 

In my life I've only really had to actually utilize the pre-order option twice. Once for silent hill homecoming and once for Saw 2:Flesh and Blood.  The reason I had to preorder had more to do with the fact that EB apparently doesn't actually stock many copies of them at launch. I just wanted to make sure I got my copy on day 1.

But then it hit me. . EB games is a specialty hobby shop... They specialize in games.. I should be able to walk in and buy the game no question. So.. Last November I decided pre orders are for suckers. So here are a few games I bought incident free on either day or week 1.  Assassins creed brotherhood, fallout new vegas, dead space 2 and need for speed hot pursuit. . EB never ran outta stock on any of these items and the first print run of NFS & Dead Space 2 are marked limited edition.

Yeah I know.. None of those games are call of duty or halo. But.. Day 1 of CoD black ops coming out...After the midnight sale at best buy... I walked in to see if I could get a copy.... not only were there copies galore, but still to this day... months later...  I can find the limited edition with the Rc car in there. Gee .. I was told to pre order or i'd never get a copy.

However. Counter-point.. Pre-orders make great gifts. My girlfriend always preorders any game that will be a gift. (Thanks for little big planet 2 baby) So preorders are not completely useless...

But the next time somebody at EB tells you to pre order... Tell them to preorder your nuts

JG