WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is slated to meet with Vice President Joe Biden as he considers recommendations on how to respond to a mass shooting last month in Newtown, Connecticut, the White House said on Tuesday.
After the Newtown school shooting, which President Barack Obama called the worst day of his presidency, he asked Biden to come up with a broad range of ideas to curb gun violence - ideas he will unveil in his annual State of the Union address, traditionally given in late January.
Obama has said he wants new gun control measures passed during the first year of his second term, but gun control is a divisive issue in the United States where the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution.
Biden's task force is examining legislation that would ban assault rifles, but is also looking at the role of violent movies and videogames in mass shootings and whether there is adequate access to mental health services.
Biden and his task force are slated to hold meeting this week with victims of gun violence, gun safety groups, hunting groups, and gun owners, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
"His group will also meet with representatives of the entertainment and video-game industries," Carney said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will meet with mental health and disability advocates, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan is slated to meet with parent, teacher and education groups, Carney said.
The NRA has proposed armed guards in schools, an idea about which Obama has expressed skepticism.
The group's top lobbyist, James J. Baker, will attend the task force meeting on Thursday, an NRA spokesman said.
"We are sending a representative to hear what they have to say," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said in an e-mailed statement.
(Additional reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jackie Frank)
KYOTO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd's year-end sales of its Wii U games console were steady, though not as strong as when its Wii predecessor was first launched, the Japanese game maker's top executive told Reuters on Monday.
The company, which grew from making playing cards in the late 19th century into the blockbuster Super Mario video game series, is pinning its hopes on the Wii U after posting a first operating loss last year, as gamers ditch console games to play on smartphones and tablets.
"At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn't as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom. But sales are not bad, and I feel it's selling steadily," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in an interview.
Iwata gave no details on sales or forecasts, but said Nintendo needed to focus on developing attractive software for its 3DS handheld device to draw new users, and increase Wii U sales as it battles competition from popular mobile devices. The Wii U carries video content from Netflix Inc and Hulu, and has a dedicated social gaming network called Miiverse, which allows users to interact and share games tips.
Nintendo said in October it aimed to sell 5.5 million Wii U devices by end-March. Wii U, the successor to the blockbuster Wii machine, went on sale in the United States on November 18. The company later said it sold more than 400,000 of the video game consoles in the first week.
Nintendo sold 638,339 Wii U consoles in Japan between December 8 and 30, according to data from game magazine publisher Enterbrain. The company has sold nearly 100 million of the original Wii units since its launch in 2006.
Rival Microsoft Corp sold more than 750,000 of its Xbox 360 console during the Black Friday week in November - one of the busiest U.S. consumer shopping periods of the year, beating sales of both Sony Corp's
DOUBLE CHALLENGE
Iwata acknowledged the challenge of producing two Wii U models at the same time, as most customers wanted the premium package, which sold out quickly in many places, while there was a glut of the slightly cheaper Wii U model on store shelves.
"It was the first time Nintendo released two models of the game console at the same time ... and I believe there was a challenge with balancing this. Specifically, inventory levels for the premium, deluxe package was unbalanced as many people wanted that version and couldn't find it," he said.
Iwata noted a weaker yen would have little impact on Nintendo's profits this fiscal year, but would positively impact its foreign denominated assets.
Nintendo's Osaka-listed shares earlier ended down nearly 2.1 percent on Monday at 8,980 yen, and have fallen 15 percent since the Wii U was launched.
LOS ANGELES (AP) Nintendo's TV-watching tool for the new Wii U game console beats my regular remote control hands down.
Called TVii, the service transforms how you watch television in three key ways. It turns the touch-screen GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control for your TV and set-top box. It groups your favorite shows and sports teams together, whether it's on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.
It takes some getting used to, and I had a lot of re-learning to do after years of using my thumb to channel surf. But once I did, I found the service an advance from the mass of buttons on most TV remote controls.
TVii comes free with the Wii U, although it didn't become available in the U.S. until mid-December, about a month after the game machine's debut.
One nice touch is that TVii gives you a way to search for shows over Internet video apps and live TV all in one place. I can then choose whether to watch it on the big TV or on my controller's touch screen, which measures 6.2 inches diagonally.
Handling these different sources of video at once is a tall order, and Nintendo Co. does it pretty well. No one else has combined live and Web TV as seamlessly before. As the lines blur between the two, I would hope some of TVii's advances are copied and improved upon by other gadget makers and TV signal providers.
For starters, TVii asks for your TV maker, your set-top box maker, your location and your TV provider (that could be an antenna). TVii then uses infrared codes to control your TV just like the old remote, and it can offer a traditional channel guide for live TV shows. TVii also asks for your favorite shows, sports teams and movies. This helps it create an easy-to-understand grouping of shows you might want to watch.
I appreciate the way TVii walked me through the setup process. It was refreshing, given the misfortune I recently had of trying to program the remote control that came with my cable set-top box, which is about as fun as doing your tax returns. TVii takes away the need to read folded-up instruction manuals that appear to be written by and for electronics hobbyists.
After the setup, TVii presents you with a series of icons for Favorites, TV, Movies, Sports and Search. A little avatar of your identity is in one corner, and tapping on it lets you adjust your favorites or go through the setup again. Each person in a household can have a different avatar and set of favorites.
In Favorites, your shows are listed with cover art, and you can swipe through the offerings. Tapping one, say, "The Mindy Project," will pull up an episode list with pictures and brief summaries. Choosing an episode will bring up a range of options the channel if it's on live TV, or buttons for Hulu Plus or Amazon, where you can pay for monthly access or just one episode through the service's app. (The free version of Hulu is blocked on gadgets, including the Wii U and tablet computers. Apple's iTunes, unsurprisingly, isn't integrated.) The option of clicking through to Netflix will be added some time in 2013.
One hiccup is that if you want to watch a show on live TV now, it asks if your TV's input source is already set to the set-top box, rather than the Wii U or another gadget such as a DVD player. If it is, you tap "yes" and the channel changes. If not, you have to tap until the source switches to the right one and then tap "yes." Still, there's no need to go back to your TV's remote control.
The other menu items for TV, Movies, Sports and Search operate pretty similarly. Eventually you'll get a range of options to watch. In the case of sports, you'll likely see several game possibilities, with the latest score showing up on each game icon.
As an alternative, you can resort to a physical TV button on the GamePad that brings up touch controls that mimic a simplified, standard remote.
Another option is using an altogether separate interface in which favorite channels and other controls are displayed graphically on a semi-circular wheel. It looks strange, and I wouldn't recommend it.
Anyone who is frustrated by the jumble of cables and boxes that now surround TVs will see TVii's appeal. My wife said she liked the ease of holding and touching the controller, rather than fiddling with the button-laden remote. One downside I can see with TVii is that you have to keep looking down to figure out what to watch. And you have to plug it in frequently, as the GamePad controller will die out after three to five hours of use.
TVii also offers a standard channel guide in which you can scroll up and down for programs on different channels or right and left for different times of day. A touch will change the channel to the program, which is nice.
For certain shows and sporting events, TVii will supply a running list of key events called "TV tags." These descriptions of events, like the precise moment when Mindy's Christmas party descends into chaos, are displayed on the GamePad's screen, along with a screenshot. Tapping on one opens up a comment window, and an onscreen keyboard allows you to make a comment. For sports, you get a description of each play, such as the number of yards thrown in a pass, beside a graphic that gets updated.
Not many people have Wii U consoles yet, nor is everyone tuned to TVii. As a result, I found myself with only one or two commenters to share my thoughts with.
If you've connected TVii to Facebook and Twitter (again, some sign-up is involved), your comments will go out to your friends and followers, but the TV tag that you are commenting on won't show up, so they might not know what you're talking about. TVii adds the hashtag "NintendoTVii" to help readers take a guess.
In the end, TVii isn't perfect.
It isn't yet able to program your digital video recorder, although it will do so for TiVo DVRs by March. Sports are limited to pro and college basketball and football, and there's no integration with fantasy sports leagues. And the battery life of the GamePad is short.
A review unit I was sent failed to take a charge and had to be replaced, although I haven't found others who have had the same problem.
These irritations aside, Nintendo has given us a way to control the clutter of channels, apps and devices crowding around the TV. It's relatively easy and intuitive and some updates are on the way. Considering the garble of the TV universe, that's pretty good.
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About TVii:
TVii turns the GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control that integrates your live TV and Internet video experience. The service is free, but you'll need a Wii U game console, which starts at $300. You'll also need to pay extra to use video services such as Hulu Plus, Amazon and Netflix.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with "Petville" being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.
Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.
The San Francisco-based company announced the "Petville" shutdown two weeks ago on its Facebook page. All the 11 shutdowns occurred in December.
The 11 titles shut down or closed to new players include role-playing game "Mafia Wars 2," "Vampire Wars," "ForestVille" and "FishVille."
"In place of 'PetVille,' we encourage you to play other Zynga games like 'Castleville,' 'Chefville,' 'Farmville 2,' 'Mafia Wars' and 'Yoville,'" the company told players on its 'PetVille' Facebook page. "PetVille" players were offered a one-time, complimentary bonus package for virtual goods in those games.
"Petville," which lets users adopt virtual pets, has 7.5 million likes on Facebook but only 60,000 daily active users, according to AppData. About 1,260 users commented on the game's Facebook page, some lamenting the game's shutdown.
Zynga has said it is shifting focus to capture growth in mobile games. It also applied this month for a preliminary application to run real-money gambling games in Nevada.
Zynga is hoping that a lucrative real-money market could make up for declining revenue from games like "FarmVille" and other fading titles that still generate the bulk of its sales.
Zynga shares were up 1 percent at $2.36 in afternoon trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; Editing by Leslie Adler)
I love all game consoles equally. My Xbox 360 is used equally as much as my PlayStation 3 . The Wii -- oh, I ll just leave it at that. The current generation of consoles is all but over -- their 10-year lifecycle be damned -- and new consoles are rumored to be coming next fall . If not next fall, then in 2014 . Whatever is the case, Sony ( SNE ) can t afford to lag in third place again. Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are neck-in-neck in global lifetime sales , and the Xbox 360 did have a one year head start, but coming off the disappointing PS Vita, confidence is less high that Sony will deliver a console next year in time to compete with Microsoft ( MSFT ), according to Kotaku .
I want a new console just as much as any other gamer. There s a reason people are still pouncing on those Wii U consoles and flipping them on eBay . Six years is unusually long for a console to still be kicking around.
According to the well-informed Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku , the game blog that first broke news on the next-gen Xbox , Microsoft s Durango is on the mark and "Sony appears to inspire less confidence due to the on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 and the struggles of the Vita vs. how much lost confidence is due to any problems looming for PS4. "
Totilo says confidence is high that the next Xbox will be out in time for next Christmas and confidence is low that the PS4 will be right there on store shelves next to it.
The on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 Totilo is referring to is the anchor that s weighed the console down since launch: tougher development due to the Cell processor and less available RAM -- 256MB vs. 512MB in the Xbox 360.
In the months before the PS3 s launch in 2006, Sony said the console would be the most powerful console ever created, and here we are six years later and multi-platform games on the console consistently end up being buggier and uglier than on the Xbox 360 in many cases. Cases in point: Skyrim, Mass Effect and Call of Duty: Black Ops II .
Sony s in a rut right now. It has the chops to build beautiful and powerful hardware that s a developer s dream (ex: PS Vita ), but at the same time, it s always launching after the competition nowadays.
If Sony s learned any lessons in the last half a decade, it better apply them to the PS4. The console needs to offer next-level processing and graphics. It needs to be backward-compatible with PS3 games and play Blu-ray discs. It should be small and quiet. It should have a strong online platform, support a greater array of apps and most importantly be easy for developers to program for.
Game exclusives will always be important, but now that games are million-dollar productions, multi-platform will be where developers hope to reap back their costs.
With Microsoft said to be preparing an Xbox 720 and an Xbox Lite , Sony can t make the mistake of launching late or pricing the console too high. A launch in spring of 2014 would mean Sony will miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year that bring in massive sales . Ceding sales and market share to Microsoft and Nintendo by launching late would be disastrous.
The PS3 screwed up too many times. At this point, the PS4 needs to be perfect out of the door.
LOS ANGELES (AP) "The Walking Dead: The Game" took a bite out of the Spike Video Game Awards.
Telltale Games' interactive episodic series based on the zombie comic book franchise was selected as game of the year at Friday's extravaganza, which honors outstanding achievements in the video game industry over the past year.
"Look, 'Walking Dead' fans, this is obviously for you," beamed "Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman. "Thank you so much. You guys watch the TV show. You read the comics. You play the video games. You make all this possible."
"The Walking Dead" also won the best downloadable and adapted game prizes, as well as best performance by a human female for Melissa Hutchison as young survivor Clementine and studio of the year for Telltale Games.
"The Avengers" star and shooter fan Samuel L. Jackson served as host of the much-censored 10th annual ceremony at Sony Pictures Studios, marking his fourth time hosting the show.
"You know me," warned Jackson at the start of the ceremony. "Whoever's in charge of the bleep button, keep your finger ready 'cause this is gonna be one heck of a show, (expletive)."
Gearbox Software's cartoony shoot-'em-up sequel "Borderlands 2" swept the VGAs with the most awards, picking up trophies for best shooter, multiplayer, performance by a human male for Dameon Clarke as villain Handsome Jack and character of the year for chatty robot Claptrap.
Other titles winning multiple trophies included 343 Industries' sci-fi shooter "Halo 4" as best Xbox 360 game and graphics; Queasy Games' musical platformer "Sound Shapes" as best handheld game and song for "Cities" by Beck; and thatgamecompany's artsy downloadable adventure "Journey" as best independent, PlayStation 3 game and original score.
"We made 'Journey' for you, to show that games can be something different independent, experimental, moving, emotional, modern, inclusive, different," said "Journey" executive producer Robin Hunicke. "That's why we made it."
Arkane Studios' stealthy first-person game "Dishonored" was picked as best action-adventure game. BioWare's sci-fi saga "Mass Effect 3" won as best role-playing game. Valve Software's "Half-Life 2" was chosen as the best game of the decade.
The two-hour ceremony, which featured performances from Linkin Park and Tenacious D, put more emphasis on hyping upcoming games than handing out trophies though.
The show featured new footage from such upcoming titles as "The Last Us," ''South Park: The Stick of Truth," ''Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2" and "BioShock Infinite." It also served to unveil never-before-seen games like "Dark Souls II" and "The Phantom Pain," which is apparently connected to the "Metal Gear Solid" franchise.
For the first time, the VGAs were streamed on Xbox Live, the online service for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. During the ceremony, online viewers could vote on show components like what songs and clips would be played during the VGAs.
The winners of most of the show's categories were chosen by an advisory council, while viewer votes selected character of the year and most anticipated game, which went to "Grand Theft Auto V."
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Online:
http://www.spike.com/events/video-game-awards/
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.
LOS ANGELES (AP) The cartoony post-apocalyptic shoot-'em-up sequel "Borderlands 2" and the stealthy first-person game "Dishonored" were among the early winners at the Spike Video Game Awards on Friday.
"Borderlands 2" was picked as best shooter and multiplayer game, while "Dishonored" was awarded with the best action-adventure game trophy at the gaming extravaganza.
The ceremony honors outstanding achievements within the gaming industry over the past year.
"The Avengers" star and shooter fan Samuel L. Jackson hosted the 10th annual ceremony at Sony Pictures Studios his fourth time as the show's emcee.
This year's ceremony was scheduled to screen never-before-seen footage from such upcoming titles as "The Last Us," ''South Park: The Stick of Truth" and "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2." It will also serve as the launch pad for newly announced game "The Phantom Pain."
For the first time, the VGAs were streamed on Xbox Live, the online service for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. During the ceremony, online viewers could vote on show components such as what songs and clips would be played during the ceremony.
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Online:
http://www.spike.com/events/video-game-awards
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang
Black Friday may not be here yet, but on Thursday morning GameStop’s ‘Black Friday’ sale officially began.
So save yourself a trip to the local store and do some shopping online and purchase a new PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, or PlayStation Vita from the comfort of your home with ease from GameStop.com.
Offering a number of excellent hardware deals like an Xbox 360 Kinect Star Wars bundle for $349.99 or Limited Edition Nintendo 3DS bundled with “Super Mario 3D Land” and free a copy of “Nintendogs + Cats”, GameStop has many options to explore.
In terms of software there is a lot to select from with games like “Assassin’s Creed III” for $49.99 or “Max Payne 3” for $19.99.
Also, a number of newly released Nintendo Wii U software has received a discount. These titles include, “Scribblenauts Unlimited” and “Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition” for $49.99.
Limited Edition Nintendo 3DS Bundle (Super Mario 3D Land Pre-Installed Digital Version) + your Choice of any ONE copy of the three different Nintendogs Game - $169.99
Pre-owned Deals
Buy 2 Get 1 Free on all Pre-owned accessories and games
$39.99 Pre-Owned Kinect Sensor with Free Kinect Adventures Game
There's nothing quite like the first few hours of a big multiplayer game. These moments will never happen again. The tech, the server, and the player are under a unique stress. I'm not going to judge PlanetSide 2 on its first few moments of officially being "live," because you should never judge something as large and as complicated as this from that initial burst, but being here is an interesting experience, and it's worth talking about.
If you value brute force above all else, by all means join the New Conglomerate. I will enjoy killing you.
PlanetSide 2's a game about territorial control. Three factions -- each with hundreds of players -- are battling for the right to rule three continents. I slipped into the sleek purple space-Lycra of Vanu. They're the science team, with slow, weakish weapons that are none the less deadly accurate. If you value brute force above all else, by all means join the New Conglomerate. I will enjoy killing you. Or, if you're undecided, then the Terran Republic is for you. It's a middle-of-the-road faction full of uncertain people, and you'll fit right in. There are relatively few options to pick other than that: server, character name, face.
Into The Thick Of It
The other choices are already made for me. I'm placed in a squad from the moment I enter the battle, I'm assigned as Light Assault class, and I'm tossed right into the middle of a huge battle. It's overwhelming, but I can kind of see SOE's point: this is a shooter, so everyone knows the thing in front of them makes the bad people run and hop and die. You can figure out the rest when you respawn. But if you need help, watch and learn.
This is a world without quest givers. Instead, gameplay driven by the growth of each faction. That growth over the map is something I'll get to in more detail in a later article, but a few notes to set the scene: each side fights for a hexagonal chunks of land. The chunks spread out from each faction's jumpgate, which is the only place where you're relatively safe from attack. Throughout the world are facilities of all sizes that you can capture, and when the fronts meet on those facilities it brings at least two opposing forces together.
Moving in Force
And that's just what I dropped into. I burned in from orbit into the chilly Esamir continent and landed on a slip of land. Everything is exploding and nothing is clear. There are Magriders, which are Vanu hovertanks, sliding along the ice, plus at least four Scythe fighters cutting the air above, all followed by a trail of dozens of players, all blasting and ducking, or flying on jetpacks. It felt like a vast military maneuver. They were working towards a small group of buildings. I check the icons over the buildings: we were supposed to be defending them. That's all the structure I needed: get to the little group of nondescript buildings and keep them under the Vanu's control. With guns.
Things were falling out of the sky every 20 seconds.
It felt like the entire continent of players was squeezed into this small space. I couldn't see what people were shooting, but fired a few bullets in the same direction to feel part of it. It was chaos. Just a little too crowded to make sense of the action. Things were falling out of the sky every 20 seconds, I was being stung from bullets and I couldn't gauge where from. I nearly made it to cover, but was killed by a sniper.
Against The Wall
Time to take stock. The map showed the Vanu were pretty much gone on this continent. We were crammed into this little area around the Man Bio Lab, the little cluster of buildings. They were all that was left. This isn't good for a number of reasons. It means we wouldn't get any XP boosts from territorial control. Resources, the real reason for the fighting, would be reduced. We could claw back, but from this position we'd be better off regrouping on another continent. But that's a decision for another day. Right then there was only one clear course -- I chose to fight.
I stayed as a Light Assault, as I had plans for the jetpack.
At least I could spawn inside the buildings. I stayed as a Light Assault, as I had plans for the jetpack: the best thing about jetpacks is using them to fly to awkward places. Buildings often have little ledges you can hop to. If someone is shot from above, they'll instinctively look to the highest point, missing the lower edge.
Death From Above
As it happened, we were being pressed into the building by the New Conglomerate, but only from one direction. I slipped out the back, listening to the rumble of the fight. This is something people have to learn about PlanetSide 2: there is always another way around. I floated up to the top of the largest building and dropped down onto the lip on the other side. The fighting is fairly contained in a corridor between buildings, and I could see the NC and one end and Vanu at the other. A grenade I dropped thinned out the NC briefly, but there were so many that it's like putting a thumb over a Coke bottle filled with Mentos. The space was almost immediately filled, and not by newbs either -- these guys were likely hardened in the beta. I blasted down and was stung by return fire. I laughed it off and jetpacked my way up and backwards, over the top of the building aiming for safety. That's when I was caught in a bombing run by a Reaver, the NC's air-bastard. There's not a lot you can do when ordinance burns everything within a 10m radius around you. You just die.
Things will settle soon and it'll be an easier ride.
Then the server crashed.
Constant war, cut down by shaky tech. Though it was impressive while it lasted. Since then I've had one more attempt to login stymied by an extended server downtime, and another similar battle where the press of people again overrode any of PlanetSide 2's subtleties. Things will settle soon and it'll be an easier ride, and I'll be able to get to grips with the vehicles, the speed and worth of unlocks, the metagame, and more. My initial take, augmented by a lot of beta play, is hugely positive. The weapons are lovely, the scale makes Battlefield 3 look puny, and in the quieter moments it's a world that's strikingly beautiful. Until then I can handle a few spectacularly over-the-top battles that will mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
NEW YORK (AP) — In the six years since the last major video game system launched, Apple unveiled the iPhone and the iPad, "Angry Birds" invaded smartphones and Facebook reached a billion users. In the process, scores of video game consoles were left to languish in living rooms alongside dusty VCRs and disc players.
On Sunday, Nintendo Co. is launching the Wii U, a game machine designed to appeal both to the original Wii's casual audience and the hardcore gamers who skip work to be among the first to play the latest "Call of Duty" release. Just like the Wii U's predecessor, the Wii, which has sold nearly 100 million units worldwide since 2006, the new console's intended audience "truly is 5 to 95," says Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, the Japanese company's U.S. arm.
But the Wii U arrives in a new world. Video game console sales have been falling, largely because it's been so long since a new system has launched. Most people who wanted an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or a Wii already have one. Another reason: People in the broad 5-to-95 age range have shifted their attention to games on Facebook, tablet computers and mobile phones.
U.S. video game sales last month, including hardware, software and accessories, totaled $755.5 million, according to the research firm NPD Group. In October 2007, the figure stood at $1.1 billion.
The Wii U is likely to do well during the holiday shopping season, analysts believe —so well that shoppers may see shortages. But the surge could peter out in 2013. The Wii U is not expected to be the juggernaut that the Wii was in its heyday, according to research firm IHS iSuppli. The Wii outsold its competitors, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, in its first four years on sale, logging some 79 million units by the end of 2010. By comparison, IHS expects the Wii U to sell 56.7 million in its first four years.
In the age of a million gadgets and lean wallets, the storied game company faces a new challenge: convincing people that they need a new video game system rather than, say, a new iPad.
The Wii U, which starts at $300, isn't lacking in appeal. It allows for "asymmetrical game play," meaning two people playing the same game can have entirely different experiences depending on whether they use a new tablet-like controller called the GamePad or the traditional Wii remote. The GamePad can also be used to play games without using a TV set, as you would on a regular tablet. And it serves as a fancy remote controller to navigate a TV-watching feature called TVii, which will be available in December.
Nintendo, known for iconic game characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda, is expected to sell the consoles quickly in the weeks leading up to the holidays. After all, it's been six long years and sons, daughters, brothers and sisters are demanding presents. GameStop Corp., the world's No. 1 video game retailer, said last week that advance orders sold out and it has nearly 500,000 people on its Wii U waitlist.
Even so, it's a "very, very crowded space in consumer electronics" this holiday season, notes Ben Bajarin, a principal analyst at Creative Strategies who covers gaming.
Apple's duo of iPads, the full-size model and a smaller version called the Mini, will be competing for shoppers' attention. Not to be outdone, Amazon.com Inc. has launched a trove of Kindle tablets and e-readers in time for the holidays. These range from the Paperwhite, a touch-screen e-reader, to the Kindle Fire HD, which features a color screen and can work with a cellular data plan. Then there are the new laptops and cheaper, thinner "ultrabooks" featuring Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system —not to mention smartphones from Apple Inc., Samsung and other manufacturers.
"Nintendo has to be a cut above the noise here," Bajarin says.
The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in years, but in some ways Nintendo is merely catching up with the HD trend. Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. began selling their own powerful, high-definition consoles six and seven years ago, respectively. Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to unveil new game consoles in 2013.
Baird analyst Colin Sebastian thinks the question is not how well the Wii U will do during the holidays, but how it will fare three and six months later.
Gaming has changed significantly in the past six years, especially when it comes to the type of mass-audience experiences that serve as Nintendo's bread and butter. Zynga Inc., the online game company behind Facebook games such as "FarmVille" and "Texas HoldEm Poker," was founded in 2007. The first "Angry Birds" game, that addictive, quirky distraction that has players flinging cartoon birds at structures hiding smug green pigs launched in late 2009. The first iPad, of course, came out in 2010 —three years after the first iPhone.
Fils-Aime acknowledges that Nintendo competes in the broad entertainment landscape, "minute-by-minute," for consumers' time.
"That's true today and that was true 20 years ago," he says, adding that Nintendo's challenge is communicating to people "what is so fun and appealing about the new system."
Analysts expect Wii U sales to be brisk over the holidays. Nintendo's loyal —some would say, fanatical— fan base has been placing advance orders and will likely keep the systems flying off store shelves well into next year. The classic Mario and Zelda games are a huge part of the appeal, since they can't be played on any gaming system but Nintendo's.
Research firm IHS iSuppli estimates that by the end of the year, people will have snapped up 3.5 million Wii U consoles worldwide, compared with 3.1 million Wii units in the same period through the end of 2006.
After the Wii went on sale, shortages persisted for months. Stores were met with long lines of shoppers trying to get their hands on a Wii as late as July 2007, more than seven months after the system's launch.
Though supply constraints are expected this time around, Fils-Aime says Nintendo will have more hardware available in the Americas than it had for the Wii's initial months on the market. The company says it will also replenish retailers more frequently than it did six years ago.
An initial sell-out doesn't mean the Wii U will be successful over the long term, IHS notes, citing its estimate that the Wii U won't match the Wii's sales over time.
Bajarin believes it's going to take "a little bit of time" for the Wii U's dual-screen gaming concept to sink in with people. If it proves popular, Nintendo could see even more competition at its hands.
"Technologically, it's not a leap of the imagination to see Apple, Google, Microsoft do something like this," he says.
Topping tech headlines this weekend, Apple's iCloud suffered some downtime, leaving some iOS and Mac users without iMessage and FaceTime capabilities.
Apple did not say how many users were affected by the outage, but promised Sunday that both services would be "restored ASAP." iFans took to Twitter to lament the outage. "[I] feel like my iPhone is irrelevant now because no iMessage," said one, while another chimed in that the world would end "cause iMessage don't work."
Meanwhile, Nintendo's Wii U hit shelves Sunday, leaving customers who didn't pre-order the device scouring third-party sellers, only to encounter an expensive bill. On Amazon, prices began around $500 to $550 for a new, 32GB version of the Wii U, though a few sellers are hoping to rake in upwards of $10,000, or even $1 million. Those lucky enough to have already snagged a Wii U were in for a wait before digging into the video gaming fun. Nintendo already released the console's first major update — a 5GB addition that takes about one to four hours.
In other gaming news, U.K. gaming magazine Xbox World offered some spoilers about Microsoft's rumored new Xbox console. According to the publication, the machine may be called "Xbox," instead of "Xbox 720" or other reported titles. Other details include the possibility of Blu-ray compatibility and support for a new version of Microsoft's Kinect, among other things. Microsoft this weekend celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Xbox Live gaming network, which launched on Nov. 15, 2002.
Also making headlines this weekend:
Teardown: iFixit Takes Apart Google's Nexus 4: Other than a lot of glue on the battery and a tough-to-replace glass cover, the LG Electronics-built Android phone has easy-to-access components.
Analyst: Apple Roaring Back with New iPhone, iPads: Apple has dropped out of the $500 billion market cap club, but an analyst is betting new iDevices will boost sales in the holiday quarter and into 2013.
NASA's Kepler Renews Hunt for Earth-Like Planets: The space telescope discovered more than 100 confirmed planets of three-plus years on its main mission, now set to begin an extended mission that could last through 2016.
Apple Shutting Down Messages in OS X Lion Dec. 14: The preview's ending! Upgrade to Mountain Lion or no Messages for you.
JFK Employee Arrested as 'Lookout' in $2M iPad Theft: A worker as New York's JFK Airport is alleged to have asked his co-workers for details about the heist.
Microsoft Serves Up SkyDrive SDKs for Windows Phone 8, .NET: The software giant added to its file-sharing and cloud storage service toolbox client and server .NET devkits, plus an SDK for the newly released Windows Phone 8 OS.
Call of Duty continues to march out a game every year, but has it managed to stay in line with what gamers expect from the series? How do you keep a game fresh, while keeping it the same? Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 a game you'll want to buy or put on your wishlist? Find out in our full review below! Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review: The Call of Duty franchise has continually steamrolled the competition, and as Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 releases this holiday season, it enters a field crowded with competition. Just the past few weeks alone have brought us Borderlands 2, Halo 4 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter, with two of those games dominating our free time, and the other one… not. And that’s just the recent FPS lineup. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of games to divert your attention right now.
There’s a 2 on the Box For A Reason!
Black Ops 2 is a sequel in both title and story, although it does not pick up immediately where the first game left off. Instead, we’re years in the future, where the present time is now 2025. You’re still playing as Mason, although this time it’s David Mason, son of Alex Mason from the original Black Ops. He’s visiting Frank Woods, his father’s old (literally) partner who has information about Raul Menendez, and possibly a terrorist attack on the United States.
That’s where the train begins to pull out of the station in Black Ops 2, and it will take you on a wild ride around the world, and jump through multiple points in time. You’ll be back in the boots of Alex Mason, running missions again alongside Woods, and you’ll encounter historical figures in the game, like Oliver North and Manuel Noriega, who they casually nickname “Pineapple Face.”
You’ll see the bond between Woods and the elder Mason deepen, based on missions they carried out post Black Ops, and you’ll also find out just who Raul Menendez is, and why Treyarch considers him to be “the most dangerous terrorist since Bin Laden.” Although you’ve played through the campaign at least once, you’ll probably conclude that Menendez is much, much worse.
But for the majority of the game, you’ll be doing duty as David Mason and often following directly in your father’s footsteps as you trail Menendez and try to stop a global terrorist event by his hands. During your time as David, you’ll be partnered up with fellow soldier Harper, voiced by and modeled after Michael Rooker who does a fantastic job throughout this game. We’re just glad he never went full Merle Dixon on us.
The team was extremely proud to be able to bring screenwriter David S. Goyer in as a story consultant on this title, and it shows in the plot. This is a massive story with some truly horrific moments embedded in it. It entwines a fantastic story into the plotlines of Black Ops, and does a commendable job of pushing us 13 years into the future. While the Rare Earth Elements storyline might seem farfetched at first, if you do a little digging into the science behind it, you’ll find that it is eerily on target.
Little things like the fact that some of the missions (and a multiplayer map) take place aboard an aircraft carrier named the USS Obama, and the usage of biometric identity bracelets that insert your image into advertisements aboard a luxurious floating city seem grounded in the reality of today. Then there’s all of the future tech you’ll get to play with, like wing suits and flechette guns with exploding rounds. Most of the really nifty toys aren’t available in multiplayer, giving the campaign another notch in its replayability belt.
Replay’s The Thing
Speaking of replay, while the game has a fairly epic campaign that should take about eight hours to complete in full, for the first time in a Call of Duty game, there are finally reasons to replay the campaign besides just upping the difficulty level. There are branching decisions throughout that will affect your story, and ultimately the ending of the game.
Some of these decisions will also trigger Strike Force levels, which are optional levels that will appear from time to time within the game. While you don’t have to take part in these at all, your decisions here will also affect the endgame. Plus, you can also fail these levels, although you can try to replay them if you have the resources. But they will only be available for a limited time, and once the window closes, they are gone forever.
The branching events in the campaign are where the story treads into the “interactive storytelling” realm. Sometimes these can be somewhat trivial and cosmetic, and at other times they can have a bearing on future campaign events and on Strike Force levels. You can easily identify these moments as they happen in the campaign with certain achievements, or you can see them in the level menus where your progress is marked.
Case in point on the trivial side: During a later mission to a luxurious floating city, Harper remarks that if he was on his own time, he would get some “hot chick” action. When I replayed the game, in an earlier mission, where we were fleeing the wrath of Menendez, I accidentally steered our car under a jet of flame, badly burning half of Harper’s face. When made our way to the floating city, and Harper makes his “hot chick” remark, one of the other characters quips, “Not with that face.” Ouch!
With these decisions and levels boil down to is a first for the franchise: multiple endings. While it isn’t a new idea in the video game industry, it’s a novel approach for Call of Duty, and it will make you want to replay the campaign more than once.
A Strike Against Strike Force
While we fully support branching storylines and welcome decisions that have a direct affect on the outcome of your game, unfortunately these Strike Force levels are a bit of a misstep. First of all, they are meant to be strategic. Offering the player a satellite level top-down view of the battlefield, you can issue rudimentary commands to your units like move and attack.
Unfortunately, the artificial intelligence in these units just isn’t enough to get the job done, and after much frustration you’ll find that it is often much easier to jump down into a single soldier unit to get the job done. A good example of this was in a level where we had to plant three beacons at different locations on at a cargo ship port. After issuing movie commands to our units, they would frequently get pinned down by enemy fire, or easily taken out by gunfire.
While part many Call of Duty multiplayer matches involves you lone-wolfing it, we didn’t expect to be leaving squads and units behind in the campaign in order to secure or complete objectives. Thankfully you can gain the ability to continue trying Strike Force levels as you complete campaign missions, but they vanish after you progress past a certain point so if you’re a completist you’ll have to act fast or forego that level forever.
Our advice: after beginning a Strike Force level, figure out the objective, and then issue rough move commands to your units before jumping into a single soldier and then go Rambo on the situation.
Loading Out
Another first for the Call of Duty series is the ability to change up your loadouts before missions, giving you variety to how you play the single player missions. You’ll encounter challenges in each mission that will require certain weapons, and besides just completing a missions, you can now stat-track each one as well to see what your “score” was. While this doesn’t create a massive different, it is nice to see some variety here, and to select your preferred weapon set before launching a mission.
The loadout changes carry over into multiplayer as well, where the biggest change to that mode comes in the form of the new “Pick 10” system. Now you can pick only ten different items: weapons, perks, attachments, wildcards, etc. to outfit yourself with before a match begins. As you progress through multiplayer, you can gain wildcards that allow you to carry two primary weapons, or have more than one Perk 1 and so one, but you continually have to juggle your ten so you don’t go over.
Multipass, No Leeloo Dallas Required
If you’ve ever glanced at the top of the online gaming charts for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, then you know that Call of Duty titles frequently own the top slot. But this presents the developers with a unique problem where they need to innovate, while adhering to the adage ‘If it ain’t broke… don’t fix it.” So while they haven’t radically changed multiplayer, they have definitely kicked it up several notches.
First and foremost is through the Pick 10 system, which introduces arguably the largest change to single player since perks were first introduced. The one real effect that the system has is that it will cause you to constantly fiddle with your loadouts. In Black Ops, Modern Warfare 3, Modern Warfare 2 and so on, players tended to find a loadout they preferred, and would just stick with it.
With Pick 10, you’ll find yourself diving into the menus between matches to change something minor, or alter your loadout completely by equipping two primary weapons, or by equipping no weapons whatsoever (which equips your melee blade by default) and trying to rank up your knife. It’s a simple system, but one that provides a ton of variety. We just wish it had a giant slot machine handle built in that could dial up a random loadout at any time.
There are multiple new attachments in the game that are unlockable as you rank up your weapons, many of which are new to the game. These include millimeter-wave scanners that can show enemies through obstacles, and shock charge grenades that stun enemies that get near them. Taking a page from Gears of War, your assault shields can now be embedded in the ground as well, giving you portable cover that you can move and place at will.
Scorestreaks are now replacing Killstreaks, and those have been tweaked as you would expect and updated with “future” 2025 weaponry. Some of these changes are small, but extremely welcomed. Sentry Guns now fight autonomously, or you can jump into them at any time to take control. The same goes for the Autonomous Ground Robot drone that you can jump in and out of.
Easily the most useful and devious Scorestreak at our disposal was the Guardian. This sets up a microwave-based turret that can be aimed in one direction. It will cause an enemy to slow down, become disoriented, and if they don’t get out of the way of the beam fast enough it will kill them. In one of our Search & Destroy matches, a teammate planted the bomb and set up a Guardian on the bombsite. He was subsequently killed, but the lone remaining enemy could not get close enough to disarm the bomb without cooking himself. Ultimately, he sacrificed himself while trying, giving us the win.
A La Mode
Multiplayer has also shaken up the modes this time around, and thankfully gone is the CoD Cash/Points system from the original Black Ops. So instead of Wager Matches you just have Party Games, but they bring back Sharpshooter, Gun Game, One in the Chamber, and Stick & Stones. Combat Training is also more integral to multiplayer as well, with up to three live players and three bots being able to take part in Bootcamp, where you can also rank up from one to ten. You can also play Objective modes with bots beyond level ten, although you’ll only earn half XP.
Objective modes are now round-based, so for instance in Domination, players will now switch sides in the attack and defend back and forth. There are some new modes as well, including Hardpoint, which is basically King of the Hill with a constantly changing target. Or it might be more appropriate to call it Headquarters… without the Headquarters. Custom Games are back as well, with multiple options to tweak including bots in all game modes, and the ability to change Pick 10 to Pick 3 up to Pick 17.
Also new is League Play, where you can team up and rank up as a league. There’s a large, ladder-based tier system in play here, framed loosely after the Diamond etc. ladders in StarCraft 2. However in our brief time with the game, we weren’t able to see how accurately it rates your play here. Although like StarCraft, you do have to participate in a number of placement matches before you get an actual ranking, which is promising. Hardcore Clan players, this is probably where you’ll want to take your teams to play.
Another addition is Multi-Team play, which has up to 18 players and six teams competing with each other. It’s somewhat chaotic when multiple teams are on the map, sometimes forcing you to try and work with another team if one of the others starts to pull way ahead. At least, it forces you to do that as much as you can in CoD multiplayer, where kill first, ask for cooperation later is normally the rule of thumb.
The Theater mode has been tweaked as well, with players able to store 20 clips (which can all be merged into one big clip), and the ability to attach the camera to objects in the game, like the Dragonfire quad-copter scorestreak, or the RCDX remote control car. You can also now CoDcast recorded games, which
But easily our favorite addition was the ability to create an instant highlight reel. Simply pull up a match and select this option, and a reel of your best moments in the game will be created on the fly. You can play with the settings for the moments it captures, but right out of the box it does a fine job of making a brag reel to share without all of the video scrubbing and editing.
How Prestigious is Prestige?
Prestige has also been revamped here, with level 55 as the target number for Prestige, and at 10 levels deep. But this time hitting Prestige does not wipe your slate clean. It now continues your level progression, and your weapon XP and attachments are not reset, nor are the challenges. Your unlocks stay unlocked. You’ll be able to choose one of three rewards whenever you hit the magic number, allowing you to add a new Create a Class slot (up to 5), get a Refund of unlock tokens, or get a Fresh Start which actually does reset all of your stats and kicks you back to level one.
eSports Are eHarmony For Some, Not For Others
Treyarch has bent over backwards to satisfy the eSports community with Black Ops 2, which includes the aforementioned League Play and also encompasses shoutcasting and livestreaming as well. With CoDcasting (their version of shoutcasting), there are multiple controls in the game that allow a commentator to navigate through any game with a variety of tools including picture-in-picture, map view, a score panel, name plates, and the ability to drop in and out of player conversations.
During our review event, professional shoutcaster Hastro watched a match we played in, and then CoDcasted out the entire game in commentary mode, and we captured the video here for you to watch. While it might only be a very small group of gamers that take advantage of this mode, expect it to pop up frequently as people try it out. One thing we learned: it’s tough to make an entire Call of Duty multiplayer match sound exciting the whole time.
You can also livestream your matches out directly to the web, giving everyone the ability to become a YouTube superstar. Again, this is going to result in a ton of content, but it will be up to you to separate the good from the bad.
The Undead Just Keep On Coming
Much has been ballyhooed about the new Zombie mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and while it initially feels huge, it’s not quite what we were hoping for. Black Ops provided a rich undead experience with so much Zombie DLC for the game made available after launch, including the fan-favorite Call of the Dead, and the Rezurrection DLC which was only zombie maps.
We fully expect that trend to continue, as right now Zombies in this game feels like only part of a sprawling puzzle that has yet to be unlocked. That doesn’t mean that the zombies aren’t fun here, we just expected something bigger given that the mode now has it’s own menu screen and selection system. Although it’s a statement unto itself that we’ve come to expect to much from this game mode, which almost felt like an afterthought when it was included with Call of Duty: World at War.
The largest change to Zombies is the Tranzit system, which finds you and up to three other survivors struggling to stay alive at several different locations, which can be visited via an automated bus on a looping route. Starting out at a semi-destroyed bus depot, the animatronic bus driver (think Johnny Cab from Total Recall and voiced by Nolan North) will kindly honk before pulling out and taking the journey to the next stop. You can opt to stay on the bus (yes, it will get attacked by zombies on the way and while stopped), or stay at your locations. But as a warning: if you try to run from location to location without the bus, you’ll get attacked by these nightmare-inducing baby things that leap onto your skull. Don’t try it unless you have a death wish.
But Zombies is all about exploration, and to augment that fact the team has created “Buildables” in the world of Zombies now, giving players the chance to combine parts at workbenches in order to create useful items. For instance an electric fan and a dressmaker’s mannequin make a power turbine. Naturally, right? You can also find single-use items such as a ladder that can be attached to your bus to allow rooftop access, or a wedge for the front of the bus to shove zombies aside.
There are a wealth of secrets to unlock in here, just like any good zombies map, and while we like to think it will keep gamers busy for weeks, we have no doubt that there will be full unlock guides on YouTube by the end of launch day, augemented by the fact that Zombie games can now be loaded in the Theater. The development team definitely played coy with us here, and there’s still a lot to find even after our team managed to stay alive through 15 waves of zombies.
Zombies also adds a new grief mode where you can play another team of four (it’s always the FBI vs. the CDC, as an FYI) in humans vs. humans vs. zombies. The goal here is to outlast the other team, and thankfully there are some mechanics to aid you in that goal, like chucks of meat you can find and toss into the midst of the enemy team, bringing with it rabid hordes of the undead.
What we recommend: Jump into Survival which has up to four players trying to survive waves in the locations from Tranzit. The Buildables are still there, and it will give your team a chance to learn how they work without having to worry about multiple locations for now.
All On Accounta Pullin’ A Trigger
Honestly, the most impressive thing about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is that Treyarch and Activision didn’t just dump a few new maps and weapons in here and slap a “TWO” on the box. A ton of work has gone into this game from top to bottom, and it stands as a real testament to the developers who didn’t want to just coattail this one into the books. Nearly every system and aspect of the game has been tweaked or overhauled, and it certainly shows in the final product.
While the Strike Force levels are welcomed because of their eventual affect on the outcome of the game, the presentation and AI in them needs a serious overhaul. Call of Duty has always been about the first-person shooting experience, and attempting to add a strategic element to that could work at some point, but it doesn’t really come together here. Likewise, the Zombies mode feels slightly hobbled, and while that will probably be filled out via DLC, we would like a more complete package out of the box.
But despite the slight dings in Strike Missions and Zombies, the series continues to shine with its incredibly ambitious, globe-spanning, epic single player campaign, which is now augmented with an incredibly high replay factor. And it should come as no surprise that the multiplayer continues to shine, and will dominate the online game boards in the weeks and months to come. The series has come to be strongly identified by its online multiplayer, and the same holds true in this latest release. They’ve perfected the scratch to the itch you have when you feel the need to jump online and shoot things.
And as with most Call of Duty titles, stay tuned after the credits for something extra. Although this time, be prepared for the truly bizarre. Seriously. It still has us simultaneously scratching our heads and tapping our toes.
