The Amiibos have been left to the scalpers

Nintendo’s Treatment of Amiibo is Disrespectful to Their Loyal Fans

http://www.twinfinite.net/2014/12/22/nintendos-treatment-amiibo-disrespectful-loyal-fans/

This article describes the whole amiibo and NFC platform that Nintendo is diving into right now, which I have already talked about here, but later it goes into the details of how poorly Nintendo executed selling these amiibos. The author states that Nintendo under stocked because it does not believe in it's product, but since many people do in fact want these amiibos it has caused a shortage, which scalpers are taking advantage of(scalpers re people who buy multiple copies of a product to resell it at a higher price).

"'Some amiibo were very popular at launch, and it is possible that some amiibo in the United States, Canada and Latin America may not be available right now due to high demand and our efforts to manage shelf space during the launch period. Certain sold-out amiibo may return to these markets at a later stage.' That’s not an answer, Nintendo"

"If there’s a company that should completely dominate the “figures that go in a game” market, it’s Nintendo. And don’t get me wrong, Amiibo are clearly selling,but the majority of those available are re-sales, with retailers like Amazon and eBay just littered with price-gouging scalpers."

With their non-answers and plans to already abandon a product that is in high demand, Nintendo has shown that they don’t really listen to their customers. What is going on at Nintendo?

I totally agree that Nintendo is definitely not handeling this situation how they should, but one point that just came off as bitter and not thought through, was when the author said that Nintendo was at fault since the very beginning for not believing in their product, but they had no reason to "believe". When a company is seemingly failing like nintendo they don't want to overstock on a product, they learned from the Wii U and WindWaker not to do that. In this case though, they really should have produced more after the fact, but it seems like they refuse to do so. Lets just hope Nintendo doesn't go down this same path with their upcoming limited editions like Majora's Mask and the New 3DS(Awful name by the way).

week 4

Episodic video games that are written better than TV Shows?

Tales from the Borderlands Episode One review: Busy earnin'

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/11/26/tales-from-the-borderlands-episode-one-review-busy-earnin/

     This is a review of one of the most recent TellTale Games Episodic video games, Tales from the Borderlands: Busy Earnin'. The review goes onto give a beautifully descriptive and analytic review of the games writing, design, animations and etc., but this singular review says some things that not only apply to the first episode of the Tales of the Borderlands games, but also to the rest of the TellTale games episodic series of games. It goes into the great immersive aspects of these games and the spectacular writing in these games. Some other reviews of TellTale Games explain aspects of this even better and I will link to them below.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/12/02/game-of-thrones-episode-one-review-baptism-by-ice/

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/08/26/the-walking-dead-season-2-episode-5-review-exit-wounds/

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/13/the-walking-dead-season-2-episode-3-review-guts-1z4yx/

"regardless of your level of Borderlands experience, Tales from the Borderlands is a witty, well-written adventure with broad appeal. And yeah, there's a dick joke or two."

"the story is a good one, full of well-realized characters and amusing dialogue. The decisions you make feel significant – even if they don't carry the dire consequences of a zombie apocalypse – and the results will almost certainly put a smile on your face."

" it doesn't feel like two digital characters following paths of a dialog tree."

    The writing in these games ranges from heartwarming and post-apocalyptic in the Walking Dead series to laugh-out-load insane in the Tales from the Borderlands and it seems to work out almost perfectly every time, pleasing fans and entertaining casual players. I haven't been able to play all of TellTale Games' games, but the ones I have played have brought me to tears in one way or another. Since this is a choose your own adventure kind of game there is different dialogue written for the different situations your character can get into, yet each set of dialogue and plot is still beautifully immersive, despite the cartoony graphics. These games are a refreshing break from the increasingly formulaic writting of some television shows out there right now. So i recommend everyone at least tries playing one episode of a TellTale Game, whether you prefer the dark and intense drama of the Game of Thrones world, the action and heartwarming narrative of the Walking Dead world, or the wonderfully crazy antics of the Borderlands World. 

Just trust Handsome Jack down there,

week 3

Who Is the Master Hand From Smash Bros.?

Game Theory: Super Smash Bros TRAGIC Hidden Lore

     This video, made by the amazing game theorist, Mat Pat, starts off by describing the very simple, implied plot of the Super Smash Bros. series of games made by Nintendo. The plot is basically that a boy, represented by Master hand, a floating hand, in the game, pits all his plush toys and action figures against each other and those fights are what we play in the game. In later games we fight characters like Crazy Hand, Taboo, and Master Core, all which Mat Pat says represent different things fighting against the Creator,Masahiro Sakuri  as he creates these games. There is substantial proof of interviews and details in games that he uses as ways to support his theory. To truly understand the metaphors in this game you must watch the video because I cannot coherently explain the logic like Matthew does in the video.

"Crazy Hand represents the desire to destroy what you've built. That's him[Sakurai] dealing with having to dedicate more years of his life to this franchise."

"It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that there was a sequel coming."

    Although the video seems just like a cool different look at a Nintendo fan's dream game, it's not just that, it's also some great commentary on the state of the game industry. It touches on the fact that no matter what, if a game is successful enough it will get a sequel, whether the original creator wants it or not.

    Another interesting thin this video and the history of Smash's development is how older teenagers and men are not expected to play with toys or games that look like they are made for children. The evil Boss Taboo from Super Smash Bros. Brawl supposedly represents Masahiro Sakurai's feelings of of resentment towards society for thinking like that  because he develops games like that. It could also be interpreted that he is frustrated that this stereotypical of what games a man is supposed to play are affecting the sales of his games.

week 2

     

CES brings us the newest in VR technology

Hands-on with Razer's Hand-Tracking VR - OSVR

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/01/07/razer-joins-the-vr-party-with-osvr-ces-2015

    This video gives us insight into the Razor OSVR demo at CES this year. The man being interviewed gives us his first impressions of the device and how it compares to previously revealed and developed virtual reality headsets like the Morpheus and Oculous Rift devices. He says the framerate was dropping and was inconsistent, something that the other headsets rarely suffer from, but the amazing handtracking is what he said separated it from the rest. He goes on to say that razor has the same intentions as other developers of VR hardware, to encourage developers, this is not a consumer product.

"Graphically it was a little behind, the frame-rate was chugging a little bit"

" This is for developers, they [Razor] wants to make it cheap easy and affordable so people develop more VR content."

    This video gives you a great first impression and pretty personal account of the reviewers experience, but it would be a little more accurate if he knew the specs of the device. For example, he says that Razor's device is graphically worse than the others when in fact, even if it has frame rate problems, the display is actually equivalent, if not better than the ones of those that he compared it to.

I posted a video below that was uploaded after I made this blog, but I figured I'd put it in if anyone wanted to see a little more objective data about Razor's OSVR and the other amazing stuff at CES.

week 1