Long before the Nintendo DS there was the Game & Watch (ゲーム＆ウオッチ Gēmu ando Wotchi) which were handheld games produced between 1980 and 1991. What’s funny looking at these commercials is that the Japanese ad above seems to be much more honest about what the product is, while the American ad below (which is from 1983) uses rather elaborate animation and shows the product in action for just a few seconds. Also notice how the Japanese ad is more aimed at young adults while the American ad is just for kids. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 10, 2008 in Videogames
Hint: If you’re at a party in the year 1980 and people are passing around an issues of Games Magazine — run! By the way it’s interesting to note that this magazine was first published by Playboy in 1977 until 1990. Later it was resuscitated by another publisher and is still in business today.
“MTV Networks is expected to announce on Thursday a deal to use songs by The Beatles in its popular “Rock Band” video game series, marking the band’s first major plunge into the digital music world. The Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd and Viacom Inc’s MTV Networks have been in talks for months. They issued media invitations to a teleconference on “a global music project” on Thursday, but did not give more details.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 27, 2008 in Videogames
This is the last scene from LittleBigPlanet and it looks absolutely stunning — not only that but the game play looks interesting which means that this title is more than just eye candy. If the rest of the game is this good I can easily see that it could drive sales for PlayStation 3 in the near future and help Sony win some mind space back from Nintendo. The game is being released this week and you can pre-order it from Amazon: LittleBigPlanet
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 27, 2008 in Videogames
My first reaction to these two spots was that “Nintendo is really pushing DSi as more of a lifestyle platform ala iLife apps on the Macintosh” but then I had to remind myself that in Japan Nintendo has already been doing this for a long time as you’ll find the DS being used for everything from education to wine guides. And of course the Wii has always had a wide audience in mind. What we’re starting to see is that game platforms are starting to become more PC like in terms of the content that they’re offering.
Frankly I wasn’t that crazy about the last three Star Wars films (three words: Jar Jar Binks) but of there are two things that George Lucas still knows how to do well it’s merchandising and preproduction art. These illustrations are for the upcoming second PC MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic — and I must say the images do inspire one to want to play with this mega multiplayer online title.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 18, 2008 in Videogames
There’s something quite silly yet entertaining about the concept of kit bashing retro gaming favorite Mortal Kombat with the comic book characters from the DC Universe. In fact the idea of having the chance to see Batman tackle a ninja makes me happy as a fanboy — it feeds into that classic “what if X fought Y” argument that you overhear late night at every convention (admit it: you’ve always wanted to see the Enterprise take on a Death Star). In fact maybe this will inspire Hollywood to rediscover the idea of the old school schlock sequel where you take two hit films and put them together like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 3, 2008 in Videogames
Nintendo DSi mania is sweeping Japan (and the rest of video game fandom!) — shown above is a demo of upcoming games on on the DSi platform and below is the press conference footage of the introduction of the platform. The conference is in Japanese but you can get a pretty good idea of the feature sets from the presentation:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 2, 2008 in Videogames
The latest update in the Nintendo DS line is the DSi and this great mobile game platform is becoming more iPhone like (well maybe closer to the iPod Touch) as the new features include a touch screen, camera, WiFi, app store, and browser. If Nintendo would only think of adding a phone I think they could give Apple a run for their money with the youth market.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 29, 2008 in Videogames
Both of these commercials are from 1982 (Bubblicious Gum above and Apple Jacks cereal below) and both adverts shamelessly ape the then hot trend of home videogame systems. For my money the Bubblicious commercial has much better production values, although that said I never did eat Apple Jacks back in the day.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 24, 2008 in Videogames
This amazingly cool rubber band gun is based on the Konami PlayStation3 videogame Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The gun is made out of stainless steel and includes a “precision laser pointer” for nailing your target. The gun was designed by a Japanese fan nd if you read Japanese you can find out more about it here.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 19, 2008 in Videogames
I’ve always believed that if something is in a companies DNA that there isn’t any reason they can’t do that something well. In this case Apple use to be a major player in the gaming market — now I’ll grant you that was in the days of the Apple ][, but then again Steven Jobs was running the company at that point. Well it seems that the mainstream media is picking up on this too, here’s an article from MSNBC:
“Certainly Jobs’ announcement raised more questions than it answered. Should gaming behemoths Sony and Nintendo be shaking in their boots, like, for reals? If so, is Nintendo’s DS or Sony’s PSP more vulnerable to this new challenger? While answers to these questions sit perched on a distant hill somewhere, there is one thing that most involved in the games business do know – the iPhone is revolutionizing mobile gaming.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 16, 2008 in Videogames
When I was a child we’d have to use physical LEGO bricks to build things, and even then only the most creative children might make up their own stories to accompany these self made inventions. But now videogame companies have solved this imagination problem once and for all!
Just kidding: Everyone knows that these games aren’t aimed at actual kids but overgrown fanboys like myself. Although while the wide range of vehicles does look cool in this title it would be nice to see a LEGO game that allowed the user to create and kitbash stuff as much as go through a linear story.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 11, 2008 in Videogames
I’ve noticed that amongst gaming fanboy that many folks just aren’t taking the iPhone seriously as a gaming platform. In their mind they associate Steve Jobs with the Mac, but what they tend to forget is that once upon a time that the Apple ][ was THE game machine, so games are very much apart of Apple’s DNA. I think also think that people forget that great games are about great game play at the end of the day, and specifically that videogames are about coming up with innovative ways to have fun with the hardware rather than just rendering more vectors. Right now the iPhone seems like a mere toy in the world of gaming hardware — but I’d say that we should all keep a careful eye on this dark horse platform:
“In a world first, Illusion Labs has created a multi-touch skate game for the iPhone: Touchgrind. The game is unique in that finger gestures are used for control, similar to the motion of the legs and feet on a real skateboard. Touchgrind will be available in the App Store in October 2008.”
And here’s a great demo of Touchgrind worth checking out:
“Scott Faye, producer of next month’s videogame-inspired Max Payne movie, says Duke Nukem’s universe would be perfect for big-screen adaptation. “We’re expanding Duke’s ‘storyverse’ in a very significant major way,” Faye told Kotaku about development work he’s doing with Scott Miller of videogame company 3D Realms.”
…Don’t you just hate slick Hollywood slang like “storyverse”? Hollywood just seems to hate anything new, you get the feeling that Scott Faye had an allergy to original ideas.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 8, 2008 in Videogames
I remember seeing one of the early home versions of Pong as a child It may have been the Magnavox Odyssey version), it was very crude but in a way that was what made the game so charming. It wasn’t just the fact that it was a video game, but also the idea that you could have something that might belong at an arcade at home was in and of itself very exciting. But even though Pong made a big impression on me I had no idea just how iconic that the title would become, so it’s always amazing for me to see how people are still reinterpreting this classic game:
“I’ve always wanted to make my own wrist watch, but I had never gotten around to doing it. I love the Buro Vormkrijgers Pong Clock, but still didn’t build anything. Then after I ran in to David Forbes at the 2006 Maker Faire and got to see his amazing Nixie-tube watch* first-hand, the gears in my head started turning. I found a neat display in a catalog that was about the right size, and ordered it on a whim. I hooked up the screen to a computer, and it was so cool looking I knew that I had to make a Pong Watch! The basic idea – from Buro Vormkrijgers – is genius: each minute the right side scores a point, and each hour the left side scores a point. The effect is that the score is the time.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 6, 2008 in Videogames
Not to toot my own horn but my design firm just launched a website for the upcoming videogame Goosebumps HorrorLand. I’ve had to sit on my hat these last few months, but as an insider it’s been very cool to see up close how Scholastic went about the process for bringing the classic book series Goosebumps to the Wii (and also to the PlayStation2 and Nintendo DS). Here’s a video trailer to give you a taste:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 21, 2008 in Videogames
It looks like Sony is trying to play catch up with nintendo in terms of going after the family market: EyePet allows you town interact with a virtual monkey of sorts. The title is set to come out in 2009, but no word when or if it will be out in the US.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 16, 2008 in Videogames
Inspired by computer arcade systems of the past like Pong, Retro Space is a arcade cabinet with a minimal footprint. It features an HD screen and has controls for many classic games in addition to offering a hi-fi audio system. Right now the Dutch made system isn’t available but you can sign up for info on their website.
Special thanks to Chris Liendo for finding this site.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 13, 2008 in Videogames
Shown above is a trailer for My Aquarium a WiiWare game by Hudson Entertainment. The advantages of this virtual aquarium are:
1. No hard feelings when the fish die from you not cleaning the tank.
2. No need to buy yicky fish food like worms.
3. No guilt that you are taking the poor critters away from the wild.
By the way the aquarium concept reminds me a great deal of the old After Dark screensavers for the Mac from the early 90s — as I recall they had a fish tank themed screensaver:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 12, 2008 in Videogames
Ah yes the good old days of 2004: There’s nothing quite as fun as being Ultraman and getting to spend hours trying your Kung Fu on a wide assortment of giant rubber suit creatures! Above and below are video for the game Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3 which came out in 2004.
Update: Special thanks to Jenn Frank for * cough * correcting me!
![the apple ][](http://www.fanboy.com/archive-images/apple2.jpg)
