Pokémon PSA

Do you like to capture Pokémon?  Do you enjoy traveling across the country so you can enslave sentient creatures and then force them to fight while you stay on the sidelines yelling out commands?  Do you enjoy forcing a fellow breathing and living being to an early grave?  If so you are an evil evil person, and the following PSA agrees.  Lets hope you mend your ways and set free your slaves before it is too late and you end up in a level of hell that forces you to be a Pokémon in an eternal losing battle.

Still worth it be a Toy R Us kid

So the 3DS is about to come out, and at $250 clams it is not all that cheap.  But Toys R Us has your back on this.  On the launch day (03/27/2011) of the system if you buy 1 game you can get the second 1/2 off.  Not a bad deal for new games.  Many "Tru" Locations will have demos of the system as well.  You know, just in case you are on the fence.

According to source you will also be able to trade in your old DS for a nice new one, but this is not being recomended, and I would have to agree with their reasons.  The 3DS has a screen with a higher resolution, but this comes at a price to older DS games.  The games are either blown up to look fuzzy, or if you hold select and start while it boot the system will use the original resolution, which means you have a much smaller play area.

A Message from Blizzard

So I got up this morning with the intent of posting some actual content before leaving for work, somthing for you guys to peruse in the middle of the day instead of waiting till I got home.  And then I found out I really need to do more prep work if I am going to do that, so better luck next time.  But since I am up I thought I would post a link to one of Blizzards 20 Year anniversay videos.  They don't have a nice easy embed link, so I am going to point you to their site, but it is a quick message from Mike Morhaime (CEO and Co-Founder) and Frank Pearce (EVP, Product Development and Co-Founder) thanking us for our dedication.

A Message From Blizzard (Click the Pic)

Wii™ Totals 35 Million Consoles

So according to the NPD group the Nintendo Wii™ sold more then 454,000 consoles in February.  Why does this matter whatsoever?  This caused Nintendo to cross the 35 million console mark here in the United States on these console sales.  This is kinda impressive since they no longer have the distinction of being the only system with a motion controller gimick and so few good games coming out every year for it.  Heck the press release stated that the two biggest selling games for them was Donkey Kong Country™ Returns and from November 2010 at 554,000 units and New Super Mario Bros™ Wii from November 2009 which just crossed the 8 million unit mark.

Maybe since they are about the launch the 3DS we will see more attention paid to the Wii as they don't have to split their focus as badly.  We can only hope, but most likely The Legend of Zelda™: Skyward Sword will be enough to carry them into the next year.

10 Million Kinect, Crap Thats A Lot

So Kinect came out on what, November 4th?  That was only 4 months ago, and in that time Microsoft has managed to go and sell not only 10 million Kinect units but 10 million stand alone games (assuming this does not count Kinect Adventures).  Now this is world wide but that is still an impressive number, and Guinness agrees.  Microsoft now holds the record for Kinect being the fastest-selling consumer electronics device.  To get this they sold 8 Million units in the first 2 months.  Gaz Deaves, Gaming Editor for Guinness World Records, had not seen any faster sales according to their independent researchers.

So 4 months down and sales look like they are going to stay strong, but now here is the question I have for Microsoft.  We have seen the rumors that a new console is in the works over at Redmond, will Kinect work with this new console.  Since I do plan to buy one soon I sure hope so.

The Gameslave Podcast - Episode 64

Welcome back loyal listners.  All three of of us are togehter this week and we have an actual show for you today. I am going to warn you now, we got really off topic towards the end.

Download Link

For the show notes check out the Podcast Page.

Pokémon Shatter Sales Record

Pikachu in line to get his copySo March 6th heralded the release of two new Pokemon titles; Pokémon Black and Pokémon White for the Nintendo DS game systems.  With their release came a new Pokémon sales record. Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games held the previous record with a one-day sale record 780,000 copies sold in April of 2007.  Pokémon Black and Pokémon White broke this record with 1.08 million copies sold in 1 day.  

Now why are so many people attracted to this? Lets check this convient quote from the press release shall we:

"Longtime Pokémon fans are attracted to the new Pokémon, new battle systems and a new region to explore, while newcomers enjoy the ability to jump in and have fun right away,” said Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s senior director of Corporate Communications. “These sales numbers illustrate the continued strength of the Nintendo DS family of systems. Already established as the nation’s best-selling video game platform of all time, the installed base of more than 47 million makes it the ideal hand-held for developers to reach a huge gaming-focused target audience."

So there you have it.  More areas to explore, more Pokémon to collect (how the hell are you supposed to collect them all now?) and a new battle system are luring 47 million fans to the game.   So grab your copies and try to collect all 649 Pokémon.

N64oid, N64 Emulator for Android

So yongzh has created yet another video game emulation app for the Android.  This is a not big deal given the devloper's history doing Game Boy, NES, SNES, Gensis, etc apps for the Android.  This N64 version though has a nice addition to it.  You are not limited to your Android onscreen controls or using the keyboard.  You can link up a wii-mote and nunchuck should you have one to  your phone for game control. This means you are free to play your games without your thumbs in the way.  Check out the video for a preview of this:

You can get the app on the android market for $5.99, and while the emulator is not perfect (creators words) it does have a nice gimick that would be nice to see ported to other emulators (use a PS3 controller maybe).

Angry Bird IRL with IKEA

Have you every wanted to destroy IKEA furniture while having the simbalance of playing a video game? Well you are not alone in this as it is exactly what Conan did on 03/03/2011.  And while he might have cheated by using the same bird twice, it is still looked like a a lot of fun.

Want to know where you can play Angry Birds? Grap your iPhone / Android and download it from their marketplaces.