Miyamoto's Secret To Quality Control: Less Sega, More Mario

With console warring between Nintendo and Sega a thing of the past, Sega now relegated to a software only existence — robot girlfriends and indoor astronomy gizmos not included — you'd think that those Genesis era wounds would have healed. Perhaps without meaning to, famed Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto may have split them open again.

When asked about maintaining quality control at Nintendo, Miyamoto says the key is in avoiding Sega-style design. He tells Wired, "I'm always instructing my game designers on the history of the characters and worlds we've created. Often we're in development and I'll say, 'Oh, this looks like a Sega game. We need to make it look more like Mario.'" Ouch.

In Miyamoto's defense, he may have been talking about Sega's last decade or so of existence. And that's totally fair.

15th Anniversary: Revenge of the Wii [Wired via NeoGAF]

Custom Video Games Training American Spies

Five Tips For Not Making a Crappy Game

This month's Wired has a look at MMO Arden: The World of William Shakespeare. Armed with a US $250,000 MacArthur Foundation grant, Indiana University profession Ted Castronova and his students created the MMO, which as the professor points out, was "no fun" and "failed." Castronova and his team and working on the game's sequel. He's learned from his experience and offers up these five tips on making academic games that don't suck:

The Case For Video Game Play Dates

I hang out with other gamers all the time, but it's mostly in multiplayer online play, using headsets. It's social, sure. But as any psychologist will tell you, hanging out in real life allows for even richer styles of communication to emerge. In face-to-face mode, we're better at picking up the little nuances — frustration, glee, sarcasm, subvocalized ranting, body language — that build team cohesion, and allow us to game with a positively Vulcan level of mind meld.

Mad Catz just announced they signed a multi-year deal with Harmonix and MTV to start cranking out peripherals and "other products" for Rock Band worldwide.

The company has the rights to manufacture, market and sell game accessories including wired and wireless bass guitars, drum percussions sets and a wired microphone. They expect their first controllers to hit by the first half of the year.

"This agreement with MTV Games represents a natural opportunity for Mad Catz to combine our core competencies of producing and distributing high-quality accessories with the entertaining experience of Rock Band's interactive controllers," said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. "Mad Catz will produce premium instruments, allowing gamers and music fans to experience music in an entirely new light while taking on the personality of their favorite music idols."

"The addition of the Rock Band license is consistent with Mad Catz' stated goal to align ourselves with the most attractive brands and highly-anticipated software releases while seeking additional accessory opportunities to further diversify and grow our revenue base. With the ability to appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers alike, Rock Band is one of the most highly acclaimed releases of the 2007 holiday season and beyond."

I have very mixed feelings right now, VERY MIXED.

Dumb Exec Quote Round-Up Rodeo

Sometimes game execs say razor sharp things. Those moments we quickly forget. Sometimes they say jug-headed things. Those moments we remember. Forever. Over at Game|Life, they're voting on their favorite foot-in-mouth quotes from game execs. A quick round-up for you to laugh and point at:

• Former Microsoft exec Peter Moore on Red Rings of Death:
"You know, things break."

• Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in May 2004:
"Customers do not want online games."

• SCEA boss Jack Tretton on post-launch PS3 availability:
"If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on store shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1,200 bucks for it."

• Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan on Wii owners running out of memory space:
"But if your refrigerator's full, you've got to pull something out and put something else back in. I mean, really, are you using everything thing there?"

• PlayStation Father Ken Kutaragi on the PS3's intial price tag:
"It's probably too cheap... We want consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.'"

Hey, at least most game execs are not boring!
Crazy Executive Quote Award [Game|Life] [Image]

Hey Someone, Localize Game Center CX

It doesn't matter whether you've seen the Japanese reality show on which Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge is based. This new Nintendo DS game will deliver a dose of humorous and all-too-true retro game nostalgia to anyone who remembers the 80's.

I don't throw a fit and smash my controller... Since the staff cheers me on, I hate it when I mess up. Like when I die, I can sense the mood in the room change, and I feel awful... When I get home, I just kinda sit there, zone out and wonder why I couldn't beat that game.

The October issue of Wired mag has a nice succinct nerd encyclopedia that does a fine job of defining things in a single sentence. Game-wise, this is what they've got on the seventh generation consoles:

Wii. A motion-sensing controller, simple games, and a low price make this the top 7th-genner.

Xbox 360. Brilliantly conceived online-community features give this box sizzle.

PS3. Stellar specs can't make up for the high price and late release — a missed opportunity.

Gabe Overcomes Gym Incident, Drives Benz

One time in high school, someone broke into my locker and stole my stuff, so I had to wear gym clothes for the rest of the day. I developed humor as a defense mechanism. Now I drive a fucking Mercedes.

Uwe Boll Hates Wired Who Hates Him, the Sequel

Wired:...you want people to accept that this is what you're doing with this movie, that you're going to take taboo subjects and satirize them, but when I sort of take a subject like your movie and end up making a satirical or a funny article about that, I don't have the right to do that? Only you have the right...

Uwe Hates Wired (Writers)

Uwe Boll, it seems was not as taken with Wired's Chris Kohler's take on Postal as we were. In fact the German-born director emailed Chris to, among other things, suggest he go have sex with his own mother.

chris your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her ...because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it. people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore. uwe boll PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck

The back and forth that stems from this first email is a bit funny, though taking Uwe on in a battle of wits is sorta like Uwe taking his detractors on in a boxing match.

I actually interviewed Boll back in 2006 and was impressed with his charm, something that likely speaks more to his ability to get financing and land actors than actually pull together a watchable movie. Boll is not the game-hating troll people think he is, but he also isn't the film-maker he thinks he is and all around, that's kinda sad.

'You Dumb F*ck': Uwe Boll Responds To Our Postal Review [Update 2] [Game Life]

In Defense of Game Cliches

Every time you fire up a new title, you've got to learn how to look around, run, and fire an Uzi all over again... Each game world is like a foreign country, full of unfamiliar sights and sounds and seemingly arbitrary rules. How do gamers survive in these strange lands? Clichés. Loads and loads of clichés.

Flipping through the latest issue of Wired Magazine, the Martha Stewart edition, I noticed that E3 made the Wired-Expired list... but not in a good way.

The info box lists E3 as Expired, Comicon as Tired and PAX as Wired. Wired has spoken: E3 is dead, long live PAX... not really, but it has to be a bit disheartening for the ESA to see Wired putting a bullet in the head of their baby.

The Pikachu Japanese Schoolgirl

Japanese Girl Gamers Getting Girl Games

.hack Meet .f%uck