Kotaku: Disaster

How to Survive Disaster: Day of Crisis

Owen Good — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:15:00 MDT

By shaking, pretty much. Siliconera took a look at the videos up on Disaster: Day of Crisis' Japanese web site and put together an analysis of how to survive a 24-hour span that competes with anything on Jack Bauer's calendar for "what next?"-style mayhem. Shaking helps you move wrecked cars, run from danger, or put yourself out if you're on fire. I guess they need Balance Board support if they wanted to implement "stop, drop and roll." Tilt driving also seems to be part of the fun but it's unclear whether that level is on rails or not. The game drops Sept. 25 in Japan, Oct. 24 in Europe, and is still TBD in North America.

How to Survive Disaster: Day of Crisis [Siliconera]

Disaster Strikes Disaster: Day of Crisis

Owen Good — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:00:00 MDT

Quickjump reports that, according to a Nintendo news release, Disaster: Day of Crisis, being developed by Monolith Soft for the Wii won't make its July 2008 release date in Japan and has been delayed indefinitely.

Reason for the delay: lengthen the development process to improve the quality of the product. That has back-to-the-drawing-board written all over it, IMHO. The game involves surviving/coping with repeated natural disaster strikes while taking down a rogue military unit that's seized a nuclear weapon — 24 meets The Day After Tomorrow meets The Core meets ... So it will need big visuals and super realistic physics to be a winner. Maybe that's the problem, who knows.

Disaster: Day of Crisis Delayed Indefinitely [Quickjump Network, thanks El Cernex]

360 Power Supply Blamed in Strange Fire

ogood — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:00:00 MDT

Just to show I don't have knee-jerk Microsoft hate every time an Xbox crashes, here is an utterly retarded story that involves a bricked 360, fire, and Arkansas. Dangerous combination, in all.

We start with Carl Olson of Little Rock. I would call him a gamer but I'm not sure what game he was playing, as he tells us that his 360 had already gone into Rings O' Death mode. Maybe he was enjoying 30 seconds of startup screens, I don't know.

Anyway, instead of sending his bricked 360 in to be replaced, he left it plugged in, apparently. I thought the super-scorchy power supply issues were limited to the original Xbox only. But this guy's 360 power unit melted down and barbecued his house.

Now, I don't think anyone's home burning (to the tune of $10K in damage, insert joke about Arkansas property values here) is anything to treat flip. But the fire department called this guy out for not giving his console and the power supply enough space to dissipate heat. Add to that the fact that it was, by his own admission, smoked by RRoD and — still turned on? Can a power supply connected to a machine turned off still produce that much heat? I have no idea what to make of this.

Oh, and the Arkansas TV station reporting on this helpfully links to the original Xbox power supply recall of 2003. And we know he's playing a 360, not the original by the photos of his charred 360 titles. (Looks like MLB 2K6. So that's another $1.40 on top of the damages.)

Tons of sites are reporting this, Joystiq included, but my audit trail is below:

Gamers Beware: Xbox Could Be a Fire Hazard [KTHV Little Rock, via Kombo.com, via Newlaunches.com]

Sony Cuts Japan Launch Numbers

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:30:35 MST

100,000 consoles for Japan? Sony was just joshing! Bwahahahahahahahahahaha. The Land of the Rising Sun will actually only be getting 80,000 machines. Isn't that so funny? The demand for the machine is at fever pitch, with Tsutaya Online burning through pre-orders in six minutes and game seller Geo taking a few days to clear house. In hopes of avoiding angry mobs, many stores like Yodobashi Camera, however, are not taking pre-orders. Let's take a quick inventory: A pushed back launch with fewer consoles than originally announced. What. A. Disaster. Brian Ashcraft

Fewer Consoles [Nikkei]