BadPower.com Blog

One of the top DS development houses in the industry doesn’t see the DSi as just a DS Lite plus gimmicks.

“It’s not just a DS with cameras in it as some might think,” video game producer David Nathanielsz told Kotaku in an interview earlier this week. “It’s a more powerful platform.”

Nathanielsz is the executive producer of the forthcoming Band Hero DS, which is in development at Activision’s Vicarious Visions studio. (Check out Kotaku’s Band Hero DS interview.) Vicarious Visions has distinguished itself in recent years at being one of the top houses for DS development, pushing the hardware more aggressively than most studios outside of Nintendo.

But Vicarious Visions has released just one download-only game for Nintendo’s DSi, which has been on the market in the U.S. since April. The studio’s next game, November’s Band Hero DS, won’t even play on the DSi. One reason for the studio’s lack of DSi compatibility for its next project is obvious: the DSi lacks the Game Boy Advance slot that current models of the Vicarious Visions’ DS music games — including Band Hero DS — require. It’s where the games’ guitar-grip peripheral plugs into.

Nathanielsz wouldn’t say whether Vicarious Visions has found an alternate method for connecting guitar peripherals to the DSi for future releases, but he did say that not supporting the DSi with Band Hero DS was more than just a matter of the missing GBA slot.

“This is something we’ve really been thinking about and working on,” he said. “What’s interesting about the DSi is [that] it’s a much more capable system than the DS and DSLite than some may think.” He was suggesting that the machine has more horsepower, something I’ve heard from other DS developers as well but did not have a chance to follow-up on in this interview.

“We want to do it right,” said Nathanielsz. “We want to get the best experience for what that platform can deliver.”

A New York state Chuck E. Cheese’s is on the verge of losing it’s game room license because town officials think the video games at the location are too violent.

Amherst town officials failed to approve a game license for the local Chuck E. Cheese’s. The game room license is necessary for the business to legally run its arcade games.

The decision to not approve the license came after one of the town board members told the board that police officers had told him old him that the Chuck E. Cheese’s was one of their top trouble spots.

Council Member Shelly Schratz said she was disturbed by several “action-packed shoot-and-kill games” that were accessible to children as young as 4.

“When I see 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds playing those games, when all the time we’re opening the paper and seeing those stories on youth violence, do we need those games to make money?” she said.

Other board members didn’t agree:

Supervisor Satish Mohan and Council Members Mark Manna and Barry Weinstein voted in favor of the game room license. Manna was particularly vocal about the resolution’s defeat.

“By what moral authority does Shelly Schratz have to go into a business and say what you have is not age-appropriate?” he said. “It’s clearly Shelly sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. I’ve never seen games [there] that are gory or explicit. There is more violence in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

While it may sound like a tempest in a pizza box, the story does raise some interesting points about video game arcade ratings and government intervention.

Most of the arcades I’ve visited recently have ratings on the games, which always surprises me, but seems like a good idea.

Chuck E. Cheese’s stirs controversy in Amherst [Buffalo News, thanks Brandon]

Get up off your ass. Move, move, move. It’s summertime! No need to go outside. Video games can help you become active and maybe even lose weight. This is hardly new, but have we reached saturation?

“When I was in Best Buy the other day and saw the huge EA Sports Active displays it felt like we’d hit saturation but until we have Richard Simmons Wii Workout I don’t think we’ve reached it,”says Ben Sawyer, who co-founded of the Serious Games Initiative and heads up the Games for Health initiative. “Famous last words, right?”

EA has been capitalizing in the last couple of months on the fitness game craze with half-a-million-plus seller EA Sports Active, but Nintendo lead the re-newed interest in “exergames” with Wii Sports and Wii Fit. In 2007, Nintendo was coming off its smash-hit Wii Remote and Wii Sports one-two-punch. Those successes laid the groundwork for Wii Fit: players got up off the couch, moved around, swung their arms. There was an audience for this — but there had always been. Thing is, it was a largely untapped audience.

During the early 1980s, the VCR revolution brought exercise into the home with Oscar-winning-actress Jane Fonda telling folks to “go for the burn” with her 1982 exercise debut Jane Fonda’s Workout. The tapes sold millions and made millions. The same year computer maker Amiga released the Joyboard, a peripheral on which players would stand and use their body weight to play a slalom skiing game. It was a failure, and the two follow-up titles to support the peripheral were never released. Ditto for an Atari exercise-controlled bike that never found its way out of the concept stage. The exercise bike game would later be realized in 1996 by Namco with Prop Cycle.

There was a market that could be tapped, but it needed someone to do it. And do it right. Enter Nintendo.

The Kyoto-based game company brought the Power Pad to home consoles in 1988, letting kids jog in place on a mat marked with giant buttons. The next year, Namco followed up with Dance Aerobics for Nintendo Entertainment System, foreshadowing the deluge of rhythm dancing games released in the following decades.

While they were developing Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution, Konami’s own staffers were reporting weight loss. Same for players when it was finally released in the late 1990s. Konami continued to release updated versions of DDR with increasingly complicated steps. The home versions were more forgiving, but the arcade ones were not. In Japan, Konami has even introduced DDR exercise routines into its health club chain called “Groove Motion DDR”. Group classes use digital projector screens showing DDR patterns, mats and motion sensor belts.

Nintendo has struck gaming gold with Wii Fit, selling over 18 million copies of the game. The follow-up, Wii Fit Plus, goes on sale later this year.

“When we first announced the Wii Balance Board, people were skeptical,” recalls Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America’s vice president of Corporate Affairs. “But consumers responded quickly and told their friends about it. Now when a new fitness game like Wii Fit Plus is announced, no one bats an eye. Fitness games are now an accepted part of the video game landscape.” Not only that — but the larger cultural landscape. In 2008, Nintendo teamed up with Westin Hotels to offer Wii Sports and Wii Fit as part of the hotel’s fitness program.

Get up off your ass, sure, but why not get out of your house? Go take a walk. Jog. Trend or no trend, what’s the point of exercising with a game indoors? Explains Nintendo’s Kaigler, “Legendary Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who led the Wii Fit team, is fond of saying, ‘If it’s sunny, go outside and play.’” Sometimes that’s not always possible, she continues. “Sometimes it’s because of the seasons or inclement weather. Other times it’s situational: Some people come home late from work, while others can’t leave the house because they can’t leave the kids alone.”

The medical profession has started latching onto these exergames. Geraldine O’Shea, D.O., an osteopathic physician and Chair of the American Osteopathic Association’s Bureau on Scientific Affairs and Public Health, first began looking at the impact of video games as physical activity in 2007. “What might appear as nothing more than another entertaining game was revealed as a tool for not just activity but directed physical therapy,” explains O’Shea.

Around the same time, researchers began using Wii Sports in physical therapy. O’Shea has spearheaded a measure by the American Osteopathic Association to support video games as part of a patient’s fitness and therapeutic program. “Because I believe any activity is better than no activity,” she adds, “I have become a convert.”

“Wii gaming actually turns over more energy than sedentary gaming, but not as much as authentic sports,” said Gareth Stratton, a co-author of British study on Wii Sports health benefits. “While it’s not going to replace the real thing,” Stratton told The New York Times, “it’s certainly moving in the right direction.” Several researchers conclude that Wii Fit does not replace regular exercise, but concede that the game has done something key: raised fitness awareness.

“I think it’s more important to realize now that with Wii Fit and EA Active Sports we may be beyond this being a trend,” says Sawyer. “We might really begin to see a genre emerge and stay.”

Brutal Legend developers Double Fine claim that Activision is trying to torpedo their game to prevent it from competing with Guitar Hero, according to a countersuit filed last week, the Associated Press reports.

The suit also claims that Activision prefers to develop games based on their existing roster of titles, and not develop original titles.

“In 2008, Activision and Vivendi met and made a decision to walk away from Tim Schafer, Double Fine and Brutal Legend,” Caroline Esmurdoc, COO, Double Fine Productions, told Kotaku in a prepared statement. “Now that we’ve found a publisher and the game is getting sensational coverage, they want to stop its release. Double Fine’s countersuit is a demonstration of our intention to fight for this game – Activision will not kill Brutal Legend.”

Double Fine’s suit also claims that Activision is involved in unlawful business practices, according to the AP story.

Double Fine’s countersuit contends Activision’s lawsuit was filed to hurt the company and the game, and that it was involved in unlawful business practices and a conspiracy to protect “Guitar Hero” sales.

Activision’s “purpose is not only to cancel ‘Brutal Legend,’ but to kill it completely so that ‘Guitar Hero’ would not have to face the competition,” the lawsuit claims.

Brutal Legend is scheduled for release this October, but Activision has sued seeking to block the release of the game.

A hearing is scheduled for later this month.

Countersuit filed over ‘Brutal Legend’ video game [The Associated Press]

Sometimes, a developer or publisher chooses not to release a game on the PS3 for manpower or technical reasons (see: Valve). Other times, though – as is the case with Splinter Cell: Conviction – it’s just down to money.

In an interview with Kikizo, Ubisoft’s Steven Masters has completely gone against previous Ubisoft comments on the matter and been refreshingly frank, saying the real reason the game won’t be appearing on Sony’s console has nothing to do with his development team, and everything to do with the suits upstairs:

Ubisoft as a company now has a lot of experience with PS3. Our processes, tools, techniques are very well-developed – we could absolutely execute on the PS3 if we had the opportunity, but like I said it was a business decision.

A “link of heart” my arse. You know, in five year’s time, I’d love to see just how much Microsoft spent on securing all these “exclusives”.

Interview: Splinter Cell: Conviction [Kikizo]

We’ve spent this month talking about the confluence of summer and gaming, from summer blockbusters to beach arcades, summer reading to video-game-inspired outdoor play.

Here’s a chance for you help build up our Summer of Gaming. What do you plan to do this summer that’s video game related?

Will you be reading a bunch of game-themed books, hanging out at the beach playing in sandy arcades, traveling with handhelds on hand, maybe taking our creations for a spin?

Who knows, maybe your summer experiences this year could lead to great games in a few decades.

The list of officially confirmed songs for The Beatles: Rock band grows to twenty-five this morning, as today’s trailer reveals are joined by seven more tracks by way of official EA decree.

It’s been a busy morning for The Beatles: Rock Band. First the trailer dropped, bringing with it eight new songs, from “Paperback Writer” to “Revolution”. Now EA has released a list of fifteen new tracks, eight of which were included in the video, and three – “Do You Want To Know A Secret,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” and “And Your Bird Can Sing” – mentioned in McWhertor’s preview.

So what songs does that leave us with? How about “With A Little Help From My Friends,” “Birthday,” “I Got a Feeling,” and “Dig a Pony?” Are those good enough for you? No? There’s just no pleasing some people.

So, as an addendum to Luke’s post earlier, here’s the full list of twenty-five out of forty-five tracks:

“Back in the U.S.S.R.”
“Can’t Buy Me Love”
“Day Tripper”
“Eight Days a Week”
“Get Back”
“Here Comes the Sun”
“I Am the Walrus”
“I Feel Fine”
“I Saw Her Standing There”
“I Want to Hold Your Hand”
“Octopus’s Garden”
“Paperback Writer”
“Revolution”
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
“Taxman”
“Twist and Shout”
“Within You Without You”
“Yellow Submarine”
“With A Little Help From My Friends”
“Birthday”
“I Got a Feeling”
“Dig a Pony”
“Do You Want To Know A Secret”
“I Wanna Be Your Man”
“And Your Bird Can Sing”

Daigo “The Beast” Umehara took out Justin Wong at Street Fighter IV over the weekend, and in the process took out the Evo 2009 championships, the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. This is the final.

More teasing from the master of tease Hideo Kojima. The Metal Gear Solid creator and his staff (including a popular female assistant!) read through the Peace Walker script.

The clips are short and taken out of context, and it’s hard to figure out what the heck is going on plot-wise. What’s more, any parts that could be revealing are bleeped — something that probably makes those most looking forward to the game. The clips are spoiler free!

The most interesting part isn’t so much the script reading, but Kojima’s description on the game design process. Since he makes video games, Kojima starts with the actual game design and characters. There’s a rough script, or outline, drawn up. In it, things like what will happen on certain levels, events, etc, are included.

“This is the big difference between game scripts and movie scripts,” Kojima says.

The story is fleshed out and the dialogue is added. Kojima and his team read through the script to check if what looks good on the page sounds different to the ear. Of course with all the leaks happening in the movie business, this is an area of obvious potential concern.

The clips Kojima uploads in his latest podcast are of one of those staff readings. These aren’t trained voice actors, but Kojima Productions employees. Some of them are really bad, but a couple of them are actually quite good. Kojima gets in on the fun as well, reading through the script with his team.

Snake’s voice actor is of course already cast — but Kojima sounds like he’s kicking around ideas for other potential voice actors. “It’s Metal, you probably have a good idea who’s going to be in it.” Still, Kojima seems open to ideas. Any suggestions?

“???????????”??????? ???? ?????????????????!? – ????.com [Famitsu]