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How Many Hours People Play Nintendo’s Wii Games (Sorry, Donkey Kong)
Never mind what’s at the bottom of this barrel, here’s a list of 29 Wii games from Nintendo and the amount of hours people play them, per gamer. (The following stats are pulled from the usage data shared by more than two million Wii users through the system’s Nintendo Channel. For more information about how…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 3, 2009 -
New Astro Boy Game, New Screens, New Impressions
The Wii version of the next Astro Boy game showed up in New York a couple of weeks ago. As of July, we can cover it. Click the thumbnails. Look at the screens. Read my notes. All at once. (Really, click to expand. I’m trying something new here by doing a preview as a series…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 2, 2009 -
Wish I Had A Record Player
Unmarked package arrived today, continuing the BioShock 2 marketing campaign. Too bad my brother’s record players are inaccessible to me until the weekend. First they sent children’s drawings close to Father’s Day. Then they sent a record right before Independence Day. I assume 2K’s next BioShock 2 mailing will arrive, unmarked on…. Labor Day?
By Stephen Totilo Published July 2, 2009 -
Midway Sale To WB Clears Court, Staff At Two Studios Given Notice
Warner Brothers‘ bid to purchase much of game publisher Midway won court approval yesterday. The company updated Kotaku and clarified the status of some studios and licenses. The sale to Warner Brothers is expected to close in the next 10 days, according to Midway spokesperson Geoffrey Mogilner. That will put the Mortal Kombat license, the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 2, 2009 -
How Many Hours People Play Each Wii Sonic Game, Music Games Too
Two new lists today: the hours logged by Wii users in each Wii Sonic game. And another showing play times for Rock Bands, Guitar Heroes and the like. (The following stats are pulled from the usage data shared by more than two million Wii users through the system’s Nintendo Channel. For more information about how…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 2, 2009 -
Sink Or Swim? The Game Designer’s Conundrum
Swimming is something you and I can probably do — and will do more this summer. But swimming has long been an ability less common to video game characters than running, jumping or shooting shotguns. I asked top developers why. Mario can swim. Sonic would not. A jump in the water used to kill the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 2, 2009 -
This Week In Video Game Comics
Here’s a rundown of the new video game-based comics going on sale in comics shops in the U.S. this week, including the next Gears of War. Click the thumbnails for more details. Unbound Saga One-Shot… Written by Mike Kennedy; Art by Cliff Richards, Al Rio Via publisher Dark Horse Comics: Rick Ajax ain’t got time…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2009 -
Xbox 360 Game Creation Tool Kodu Now Live – Got Any Ideas?
Microsoft’s picture-based 3D game programing tool was launched yesterday. Tell the world what you’re making. During the Game Developers Conference, I had a chance to try Kodu, a programming tool created by Microsoft to help give children the experience of writing programming code and seeing that code make things happen. I was impressed with the…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2009 -
Dave Perry: How Gaikai Goes Beyond OnLive, Could Spread Gaming Everywhere
In March, a revolutionary-sounding streaming video game technology called OnLive was announced. Swiftly, game designer Dave Perry said he had something just like it. Today, he told Kotaku what’s the same and what’s not. The promise of OnLive, which has been shown to work in hands-on demo sessions experienced by Kotaku editors, is that it…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2009 -
The Ten Most Avidly-Played Wii Games In America (As Of July 1)
Back after a two month absence, here is your list of the 10 Wii games that get the most play per user (disclaimers and explanation below). Wii Sports and Tales of Symphonia are knocked out of the top 10. Make way for Rune Factory Frontier and Rock Band 2 in our (theoretically) monthly study of…
By Stephen Totilo Published July 1, 2009 -
2009 Is Half-Done: What’s Been Great So Far?
Let us not forget the following games six months from now (and prove that button wrong)… Today marks the halfway point of 2009, a year that brought Grand Theft Auto to the DS, our eyes to the bottom of an Avatar’s shoe and some other guy to my old MTV desk. We and the rest…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2009 -
Nintendo Patents WarioWare Take On Othello
The last time we unearthed a big new Nintendo patent, we found hints of a video game paradigm shift. This time, Nintendo may have locked up a multiplayer mode from a 2004 GameCube game. On June 23, the United States granted Nintendo patent number 7,5489,923 a more than 11,000-word patent invented by WarioWare director Goro…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2009 -
Reviews
Fight Night Round 4 Review: Boxing Beautiful
A graphical showpiece and a boxing game just a tad more authentic than the ones featuring King Hippo, Fight Night Round 4 apologizes for its sport and chases that unlikeliest of pugilistic goals: subtlety. MMA is hot and WWE never quite fades away. Boxing eternally hangs from a cliff. Since the 1970s, each decade of…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 30, 2009 -
Pachter: Used Games Sales At 100 Million Annually In U.S., Not A Threat
Gaming’s most-quoted financial analyst shared some unconventional wisdom about used games today. In a 210-page annual report about the state of the gaming industry that begins with him thanking Kotaku and other websites for “keeping us on our toes and always asking us to think about the industry in real-time,” Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 29, 2009 -
MJ Loved MK
Add Mortal Kombat to the video games Michael Jackson was into. The recollections of the recently-deceased pop star continue to make the rounds in the media. And video games have gotten another mention, even though we weren’t asking this time. Author Paul Theroux recalls in today’s U.K. Telegraph a phone call the writer had with…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 29, 2009 -
Video Game Question For The Advice Columnist
An eight-year-old boy’s parents are concerned about the violent games enjoyed by their son’s friend, who often invites their son over. They don’t want to nix the friendship, ban gaming during visits or question the other parents. What to do? The Chicago Tribune’s advice columnist had the following advice on Sunday: Sooner or later, raising…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 29, 2009
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