Nintendo announces $300 3DS price point for Japan market

Today Nintendo drop the price point as well as release date for the new 3DS. The successor of NDS will cost 25.000 yen ($299) for Japanese, although the price for US and Europe market still hasn't been confirmed.
3DS will release on 26th February 2011 in Japan bundled with 2GB SD card, charging cradle, stylus, and "paper cards" to play augmented reality games.

3DS apparently will have its own virtual library from Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games and two new games announced for 3DS itself, Resident Evil: Mercenaries and Mega Man Legend 3.

It is hardly a surprising news about that $300 price point. All Nintendo's system has always been around $250 - $300 dollars. I think it is a good numbers for a handheld game device.
Read more...

What's up with the thrashing ads, Sony?

You all probably know Sony's marketing campaign that involves thrash talking Kevin Butler and that kid Marcus. Kevin Butler is a funny man who take aim againts Kinect, and recently Sony via yaybuttons.com slams Kinect for not having buttons - "Not like save the whale important, more like not play games that suck important."

And not only that, Sony too takes aim with iPhone with ads featured that Marcus kid (I forgot his full name and couldn't be bothered to google it) that more or less says," yes, iPhone can have so many games, but quality games are in PSP."

I admit, at first it was funny to watch Kevin Butler thrash Xbox 360's Kinect project, but after a while it get stale and was it really necessary.

First of all, Sony might have a point, yeah iPhone games are more or less casual compared to PSP games, and buttons can sometime be important in playing games, but Sony should take a look at themselves and admit that their products have a lot of flaws too.

Admit it or not, it doesn't change the fact that iPhone is chasing PSP and might overtake Sony's PSP as a platform for games. Other thing to be consider, is that Apple's installed base is much bigger than PSP, and it might more appealing to game developer.

With PSPgo a major failure, I think Sony should not thrashing other people, and concentrate to its product because deep inside I'm pretty sure Sony scared shit of Apple and Microsoft.
Read more...

Golden generation era for facebook games is approaching the end

It took my attention when reading an article from Joytiq about facebook games by creator of the widely popular Plant vs Zombie.

The golden generationof facebook casual gaming might soon end. It is not that those casual games will dissapear, however too many developers overcrowded the market already. For last couple of years, it was easier to make money from facebook games, and suddenly everybody just jump into the bandwagon, thinking there's alot of untapped market.

Today, its harder to justified an investment to make facebook games profitable. The competition is harder, and the growth of facebook isn't as fast as it used to be.

There are too many games nowadays in Facebook, the competition is fierce especially for new players. Developer has to be smart to engage its players to keep playing otherwise once they gone, they gone forever. One of those tricks is giving a free extra if user login for 5 consecutive days, and even penalize players for not logging in often! Not to mention the status pages is overcrowded with friend asking help for their games as a quick reminder or asking other friends to join to get another bonuses.

For all those annoyance, its a sign that developers are trying hard to get as much as customer possible and try to monetize them, because face the fact, a facebook games' lifespan is not that long. Maybe a month or two and people will either get bored or found another new game and couldn't be bothered to come back.

Facebook might be one of the destination for casual gaming, but beware, it is definitely not a safe haven for developers!!
Read more...