Earlier this week, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter made public his views on the ongoing crunch debate in the latest of his regular video Q&A sessions for Gametrailers. Pachter's typically outspoken comments have been met with strong criticism from within and without the industry: in an opinion piece yesterday, Ubisoft developer Charles Randall descibed the view that crunch was inevitable as "bullshit".
The reason for Nintendo's decision to cut the price of the 3DS worldwide is revealed in its latest financial results: only 710,000 units of its glasses-free 3D handheld were sold worldwide in the three months to June 30.
Following this morning's news that the price for Nintendo 3DS in Japan is to drop to ¥15,000 from August 11, a fall of 40 per cent, the company has announced that the same markdown will be applied worldwide.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says the drops are to speed the handheld's market penetration in time for this winter and major releases including Super Mario 3Dland and Mario Kart 7.
Sony Corporation has released its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, which reveals it was hit with a loss of ¥15.45 billion (£121.3 million). Over the same period last year it posted a profit of ¥25.6 billion (£201 million).
The Consumer Products and Services division, which includes Sony's PlayStation business, saw sales revenue fall almost 18 per cent to ¥732.3 billion (£5.75 billion) and operating income fall by a staggering 94.1 per cent to ¥1.7 billion (£13.35 million).
THQ has reported a disappointing set of results for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2011, citing lower than expected sales of Red Faction: Armageddon and several licensed kids titles.
The company posted a net loss of $38.4 million for the three months, compared with a loss of $30.1 million during the same period the previous year. Net sales came in at $195.2 million, up from $149.4 million a year earlier.
Everyone's Rhythm Heaven for Wii topped the Japanese software chart in its debut week on sale, ahead of fellow new releases Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes for PSP and No More Heroes Red Zone Edition for PS3.
Other new entries to make the top 20 included Noora And The Time Studio for DS at number eight, the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Alice Madness Returns, which charted at number nine and number 17 respectively, and Sniper Ghost Warrior for PS3 at number 16.
I’m standing in my local video game store. At the counter is a young kid who’s standing on his tiptoes, game in hand, stretching to hand over the game to the guy behind the till. Next in line is a grandmother with her family around her. She’s buying the grandkids two Wii games and they’re all engaged in conversation as the games are paid for and put in bags.
Eccentric and inventive, but ultimately late to the party, Solatorobo is more than deserving of the small amount of attention it’s likely to attract coming in the wake of the launch of its host console’s successor. It’s a JRPG with brisk, snappy battling, and a pick-and-mix quest structure that prioritises variety over grinding monotony.
Mobage, the enormously popular Japanese mobile social gaming network, has been launched on the Android Market in English-speaking countries around the world.
The gaming platform was known as Mobage-town until it was rebranded earlier this year by owner DeNa ahead of a big western push. In Japan alone it has 30 million users, and VentureBeat reports it brings in $1.3 billion in annual revenue.
I am writing this rebuttal to reports of statements made by Michael Pachter because it's something I feel very strongly about, and I want to see this kind of misguided support of crunch get shouted down as much as possible.
Mike Inglehart, producer of Hothead Games' upcoming The Baconing, has added his voice to the crunch debate, telling us that, as the industry and those working in it mature, excessive unpaid overtime should largely be a thing of the past.
"The industry's maturing now: lots of guys have families," he tells us. "When I started [in the industry] I was 25, so the only thing I had to do was go home and pay the bills and lock the door.
“If we’re honest, it was initially just as an excuse to go to TGS, and even then as an excuse to go to Tokyo!” managing director Sean Murray tells us of the decision he, and the three other developers that make up Guildford-based Hello Games, took to bring PSN racer Joe Danger to Japan - a decision which coincided with a UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) trade mission to the Tokyo Game Show in September 2010.