Source: videogamesblogger.com

Good things come to those PC gamers who were willing to wait before they picked up Mirror’s Edge. The PC version (release date: January 13th, 2009 in America) will be coming with support for NVIDIA’s PhysX technology to give the game more realistic physics effects than any other version. By far.

Watch this video of Mirror’s Edge for PC below to get an idea of the physics involved:

With the NVIDIA PhysX physics engine, the world of Mirror’s Edge comes to life with real affects of wind, weapons impact, and in-game movements. Every-day objects within the game become part of the overall experience. Cloth, flags, and banners can now impact weapons and players; ground fog interacts with the player’s footsteps; explosions fill the air with smoke and debris; and weapon impacts are enhanced with interactive particles.

“Faith’s world in Mirror’s Edge is visceral, immediate, and very dangerous; it is imperative that the gameplay reflect this level of urgency,” said Owen O’Brien, Senior Producer at DICE. “NVIDIA PhysX technology affords us the ability to bring a totally new level of immersion to the game, and by doing so, gamers can truly become part of the world.”

On the PC, PhysX technology harnesses the power of CUDA, NVIDIA’s general-purpose, parallel-computing architecture, to handle 10-20 times more visual complexity than what’s possible without a GeForce CUDA-enabled GPU. And unlike competitors’ solutions, which do not offer hardware-scaling capabilities, only PhysX technology leverages the best of both CPU and GPU architectures to deliver the ultimate, immersive, user experience. With over 100 million CUDA-compatible GeForce 8 Series and higher GPUs shipped to date, PhysX technology has the largest installed base of general-purpose, parallel-computing processors to run on.

“If you love intense combat scenes, fast-paced chases, and sky-high adventures then Mirror’s Edge is the game for you,” said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at NVIDIA. “Gamers will appreciate the greater freedom of movement, including sliding under barriers, tumbling, wall-running, and shimmying across ledges—all within an environment that is dynamic and immersive, delivered in part by our PhysX technology”.

Source: infendo.com

Tech-focused Web site Ars Technica went hands-on with The Conduit, High Voltage Software’s hotly anticipated Wii shooter, at PAX and came away with glowing impressions, as well as news for Wii owners who might be skeptical the publisher-less game will be released.

“We’re not ready to officially announce anything,” said High Voltage’s Rob Nicholls. “But things are in the works. Look for the word in the coming month.”

As if unrivaled Wii visuals, an extensive single-player campaign, online and offline multiplayer modes and fully customizable controls weren’t adequate selling points for The Conduit, Nicholls also revealed High Voltage is “working with Nintendo” to include LAN play.

As has become the standard for encounters with The Conduit, Ars Technica bestowed little but enthusiastic praise upon the game:

The Conduit is already easily the best looking Wii game, at least from a technical level. It’s hard to ignore the stellar particle effects, real-time lighting, fluid animation, fast-paced action, and screen-filling boss. While some of the texture work is relatively low resolution, and the environments themselves were in need of more post-process lighting effects, the game could easily be confused with an Xbox 360 title. But the real question is, how does it play?

The Conduit exhibits many lessons learned from past Wii first-person shooter titles. The game gathers what companies like Retro Studios, Ubisoft, and EA have learned with regard to bounding boxes and IR aiming on the console, and offers the most competent FPS control on the platform yet. This is spearheaded by an unbelievably vast amount of customization options. Players can jump into the menu and then adjust a ton of sliders and settings to refine the control for themselves. This is all done within the actual game engine while playing, as opposed to static menus, so you can get a feel for the changes you make instantly.

Check Ars Technica’s full article for more, including some interesting weapon descriptions and more gameplay impressions.

Source: infendo.com

With each day and subsequent disappointment, I am getting less and less excited for Mega Man 9.

To clear vernacular discrepancies, I feel there is a distinction between “excitement” and “anticipation.” For example, I was excited when I first saw Super Mario Galaxy. I felt the same way about the original Metroid Prime. These games brought classic franchises back to life in a relevant, natural and genuine way. Instead of attempting to duplicate former glories, they nodded to the past and made organic progressions.

For gamers, geeks and otaku, they were worth being excited about.

Conversely, I anticipate things like my morning bagel and recent WiiWare release lists. These are things I look forward to, certainly, but there is nothing exciting about their lackluster ordinariness.

Mega Man 9 falls into that category, and it breaks my heart.

I don’t mean to fart in the glee-flavored Kool-Aid the Internet has been chugging since Nintendo Power revealed Mega Man 9. For years, I have been a celebrated admiral in the “Hey Capcom, stop ruining the Mega Man legacy and bring back the Blue Bomber” brigade.

Many of my childhood weekends were spent with rented copies of Mega Man games. I have always been entranced by the perfect mixture of charm and difficulty the Mega Man series provides, and I have always applauded Capcom for the creation of the character himself. I would confidently state Mega Man is one of the most well-designed, endearing and memorable characters in gaming history.

But like most fans, I have since sat by and watched Capcom piss all over Mega Man’s shiny blue helmet, clinging to hopes the company would one day zip its fly and bring him back to the masses.

And finally, it has. As we’ve been raving about on Infendo for days, Mega Man 9 is coming to WiiWare this fall with a modest price tag of $10.00, and IGN posted this exclusive trailer yesterday:

There is no denying it; the trailer is fantastic. It is the kind of video that makes gamers’ arm hairs stand tall and pulses quicken. It ruthlessly and wholly plays the nostalgia angle by reminding viewers of the past only to present something that calls itself “new,” but you know, that is precisely the issue I’ve taken with Mega Man 9.

The game’s mere announcement made waiting through more than ten years’ worth of criminally inferior spin-off series worth it, and for a while, I was ecstatic. I felt like a little kid again, and it was an exhilarating, genuine kind of feeling. But once that logic-numbing shot of nostalgia wore off, I realized the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the return of one of gaming’s biggest icons.

For starters, Mega Man 9 is ugly.

Save your rhetoric-heavy defenses. It may be “attractive” for an 8-bit game, but the Super NES and subsequent game consoles improved upon the graphics capabilities of the NES for a reason. I still play and adore my library of NES classics, but there is simply no denying their characters, environments and presentations lack the color, life and expression afforded by more powerful modern consoles.

They were good for their time, but so were telegraphs and horse-drawn wagons, and no one drives down the highway in those anymore except the Amish folk. Do you want to be Amish?

Conversely, the above clip showcases gameplay from the most recent Mega Man game, the eleven-year-old Mega Man 8. The difference between this footage and the Mega Man 9 trailer is simply too obvious to ignore. Mega Man 8’s colorful and vibrant graphics not only make the game more visually appealing, but they also bring the inherently charming Mega Man character to life. From his movements to his animations, this visual aesthetic is a much better fit for the series and its larger-than-life characters than Mega Man 9’s purposefully pixelated mess of 8-bit retroness for the sake of retroness.

I know Nintendo has been slipping mickeys for quite some time convincing people of the contrary, but graphics are important. They are extremely important, in fact, and single-shade backgrounds, big pixels and flat colors should be relics of the cartridge-era. It is a pity that Capcom has resurrected them for the purpose of nostalgia.

And the graphics are not the only cause of my skepticism regarding the wave of Mega Man 9 enthusiasm that has swept us off our feet. Capcom has also reportedly stripped Mega Man’s move set, removing his famous charge shot and sliding abilities for Mega Man 9. In an interview with GamesRadar, Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune called these gameplay mechanics “fancy moves that are unnecessary.”

When did stripping a character’s abilities for the sake of nostalgia and simplicity become something to praise? In fact, isn’t Nintendo being overtly criticized for simplifying gameplay mechanics? Inafune’s points are appreciated, but the underlying fact is as simple as the retro-fit controls he has aimed for:

Drain away the nostalgia keeping Mega Man 9 afloat, and you’re left with a shriveled game that would, if it featured any other mascot or title, almost certainly be panned as shallow and featureless.

I have been shocked at how easily Capcom has been given a free pass from gamers on their design decisions for Mega Man 9. Maybe I’m a jaded pessimist, but when I read statements like this one from Capcom’s Seth Killian, I can’t help but call blatant PR shenanigans:

“Rather than looking for specific thoughts from fans, I’d have to say this game ITSELF is basically fan-driven. It’s pretty clear that without the kind of deep fan love for Mega Man, and Capcom’s respect for those feelings, an idea this crazy would have just been laughed out of the room.”

It would have been laughed out of the room because it is a stupid idea, and because of that, it should have been. Only for Capcom, crapping out a quick Mega Man NES game isn’t a stupid idea at all.

Let’s be honest about the business model at work here. Capcom is spending next to nothing on the short development of Mega Man 9, yet massive sales and profits are practically inevitable. Teary-eyed rhetoric aside, the reality is simple: one of the most proven and financially able developers on the planet has decided to further cash-in on one of its biggest franchises by committing minimal financial and development assets. With all due respect to readers who do, those who believe Capcom’s decision to make a cheap NES game in 2008 was based on genuine fan interest are being taken for a ride.

And really, there’s nothing wrong with that. The game will likely be fun, after all, and it will probably be one of WiiWare’s best. At the very least, it provides hope for the future and suggests Capcom understands what fans have been pleading for for years.

But that is not good enough. Not for me. We have been waiting eleven years for something more. Mega Man deserves more, and I refuse to praise Capcom for taking what I feel is a lazy approach to one of the most exciting games of the year. There are thousands of dudes who could say it is their choice to sleep until noon, do nothing all day and fill their bank accounts with unemployment compensation, but no one praises them. Instead, we make Lifetime movies about how worthless they are.

Why should Capcom be any different?

For years, Mega Man 9 has played out in my dreams, but in a vastly different form. I expected it to be breathtaking. I envisioned a gorgeous 2D shooter/platformer with beautiful visuals, two-player cooperative play, points scoring and online leaderboards and more. I thought it would be something worthy of the pedigree, something new, something that made Mega Man relevant again. After all, Mega Man has enormous potential to be brought back to the peak of gaming prominence as something more than just a relic.

But I never expected a new Mega Man game to be a mere carbon copy of Mega Man 2 with new enemies and levels. We have waited too long to receive so little. I didn’t want that, and I’m starting to realize…nostalgia be damned, I don’t think I do want that.

This is no revival. Capcom is merely throwing fans a bone, and after we have chased our tails in excitement, barked Capcom’s praises and chewed on it for a while, I fear we’ll wonder where the meat is.

Source: infendo.com

Does the above in-game screenshot look three years old to you? It shouldn’t (even though it is) because Shadow of the Colossus for PS2 is still one of the most impressive-looking titles to behold, next-gen consoles included.

The reason: artistic always trumps technical, as was the case with Mario Galaxy released for the underpowered Wii last year. So if you have capable hardware (which I would consider both PS2 and Wii still capable), developers can still create lasting and impressive imagery, even in a post PS3 and 360 world. Game makers can still create great-looking games, ones that encourage players to play them for looks alone, for years to come.

It is this very reason that I believe Nintendo was right when they said Wii would have “good enough” graphics back in 2005, upon announcing the system. This is not to say there isn’t a place for HD graphics in gaming, and Nintendo is sure to support HD as prices drop. But art will always be more appreciated by gamers than power, whether they know it or not. Shadow of the Colossus (which you should play right now if you haven’t already), and numerous others are living proof of that concept.

So if “good enough” looks like Colossus and Galaxy, I’ll be more than happy as a long-time gamer when playing my Wii.

Source: infendo.com

IGN yesterday revealed an exclusive first look at High Voltage Software’s The Conduit, an ambitious first-person shooter in development exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.

Contrary to the unfortunate nature of most third-party Wii afterthoughts, High Voltage is putting substantial effort behind The Conduit, promising both refined Wii control mechanics and hardware-pushing visuals.

In designing the game’s controls, High Voltage’s Eric Nofsinger told IGN the development team looked to Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 and Metroid Prime 3 for inspiration, offering players a precise and fully customizable control scheme. However, Nofsinger suggested the team is placing even greater emphasis on Wii’s graphics capabilities.

High Voltage CEO Kerry Ganofsky offered IGN the following:

“We think it’s a real shame that publishers and developers aren’t taking advantage of the technical possibilities of the Wii platform. Most Wii games don’t even look as good as the later day PS2 titles, and that’s a real slap in the face to consumers. We believe that third-party developers need to step up to the plate and deliver. The Wii platform is capable of a lot more than what consumers have seen so far. We’re hoping to raise a new bar.”

High Voltage is billing The Conduit as a mature, fast-paced, run-and-gun first-person shooter similar to 360’s blockbuster Halo 3 and PS3’s Resistance: Fall of Man. Players assume the role of Secret Service Agent Ford, a hero with guns-a-blazing in the midst of a full-scale extraterrestrial attack on planet Earth. IGN has posted several early screenshots and promises gameplay footage is coming “soon.”

For technical information behind The Conduit and High Voltage’s Quantum3 Wii gameplay engine, including a video of the engine in action, check the extensive IGN preview. Keep excitement within reason, however; The Conduit is currently without a publisher.

Source: infendo.com

According to N4G (sourcing Japanese site Famitsu), the above is one of several initial screenshots for the upcoming Wii exclusive game, Sky Crawlers, from the makers of Ace Combat. Looking good, boys (for a cut scene). Who’s got next? Factor?

Source: infendo.com

Here is a recent promotional line taken from a 2K print advert for Top Spin 3, a game I’m particularly excited for excluding the below reason:

Evolutionary Visuals™ (Apparently, 2K owns the trademark on better graphics) - Watch in real time as your players get progressively hotter, sweatier, and dirtier while competing at breathtaking venues.

Watching a character become progressively soiled does not sound fun, nor is it fun to watch — although it may be expected in a realistic simulation game. Nothing wrong with evolutionary graphics, but let’s keep things in perspective, m’kay?

Source: infendo.com

Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht sent Nintendo fans reeling in January when he announced his prestigious team has “at least one all-new Wii project” in development.

In an interview earlier this month with IGN’s Matt Casamassina at the annual DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Eggebrecht revealed a few more vague details and confirmed widely held expectations that Factor 5 would push the modest Wii hardware to unprecedented new levels.

What wasn’t expected, however, was the extent to which the Lair developer has pushed Nintendo’s comparatively under-powered platform. According to Eggebrecht, Factor 5 has created an engine for Wii software that “does everything the PS3 did and then some.”

“We’re pretty much at a state where we’re almost done with the engine. At the same time, we’ve also been working on content quite a bit because we had enough running very quickly on the platform that we were able to. But the biggest milestone or mark right now is that we’re almost done with the engine and it does everything that the PS3 did and then some, quite frankly. So we’re pretty happy with that.”

In regard to what he called the “uniqueness of the Wii,” and perhaps the result of a lesson learned from the flawed SIXAXIS controls that hindered PS3’s Lair, Eggebrecht emphasized the importance of the Wii remote’s IR pointer over its much-hyped motion controls.

“But one of our main focuses is the innovation around the controls. Everybody is always talking about the motion control, but I think people are overplaying that a bit. I really, really love the pointing aspect of the remote. Although we’re going to use everything for what we have in development, I think the pointing stuff is probably the biggest innovation which we’re working on right now.”

When asked if the game will utilize the nunchuck, Eggebrecht dropped some surprising tidbits about the “casual gaming” direction Factor 5 seems to be taking toward its upcoming Wii project.

“I can’t really comment yet because, quite frankly, you try to design almost every game for the Wii, I think, to avoid the nunchuck unless it’s necessary. If it is necessary and if the game lends itself to it, I think the nunchuck absolutely is valid. But one also has to be aware of the genre, because if you want to go very casual, then the nunchuck is the first barrier for really casual gameplay.”

Perhaps in regard to the persistent Kid Icarus rumors continuing to spread, Eggebrecht had a simple answer to whether the project is for a Nintendo first-party game or a third-party publisher:

“I won’t give you a clue.”

Source: infendo.com

OPINION — It’s officially time for 3d party developers to put up or shut up.

The act of complaining about developing games for a Nintendo console and turning a profit against the big bad Ninty and its cadre of 1rst party behemoths has officially been exposed as the pathetic, cry baby act that it is.

Recent offenders include the much ballyhooed Goichi Suda, whose No More Heroes isn’t selling as much as he would like in Japan. The title drops in the U.S. on January 22. “Whilst the sales weren’t as high as I hoped, other titles for Wii aren’t selling so well either,” said Goichi Suda in an interview with CVG published on Wednesday. “Only Nintendo titles are doing well. This isn’t just because of the current situation in Japan, as this is happening outside Japan.” He went on to say, “Before I was making this game, I wasn’t expecting that Wii would be a console targeted only for non-gamers. I expected more games for hardcore gamers. The reality is different to what I expected.” Suda, here are some boo hoo berries to chew on while you await the US numbers next week.

It’s ironic, don’t you think, that people only complain about the Wii 3rd party problem when it’s their game that isn’t meeting expectations?
 
There’s no money in it you say? Nintendo sucks it all up because they hold the keys to the castle? Rubbish. Ask Ubisoft, which managed to do just that with a stable of borderline dead on arrival quality games in 2007. Can you imagine the pile of money that company would be sitting on if they managed to slip just one A+ quality game into that pile?

When people like Goichi Suda say that only Nintendo can make games for Nintendo consoles my college education, which was steeped in courses on Logic, takes over. And I get a headache. This is because Nintendo titles don’t sell well simply because they have the Nintendo logo in the publisher’s spot on the DVD case, they sell well because Nintendo is an incredible developer and publisher. Simply logic says that if you create a great, fun to play game, you can make the same kind of money that a Super Mario Galaxy or a Twilight Princess can make in a year. The formula exists and yet developers, through ignorance or laziness or a mixture of both, are unable to tap into it. Developers are ignorant because they continue to think of the video games industry as a one dimensional playing field where only Xbox 360 games succeed and produce those incredible Halo 3 software sales numbers. If we subscribe to Suda’s logic, all he’d have to do for No More Heroes to be a runaway favorite it to slap a Nintendo logo on the box where his publisher/developer logos should be be. Viola! Instant million seller!

There are other bogus points of contention about the Wii too, including the infamous MSRB ratings system, and how a little black and white box holds such immense power over whether or not a system passes or fails.

There are no mature M rated titles? Let me do you the courtesy of arranging a sit down with Tony Montagna of Scarface; or the Don himself from Godfather. Ports, sure, but beyond that, who is the all-powerful game guru that declared only the best games are M-rated? Who was the bastion of video game stardom that said from on high in Redmond or Japan a system is only truly successful if it has a larger stable of M-rated titles that those less, more childish ones? When we examine these objective questions more closely, and begin to shed the Old World thinking that’s dominated the industry for the past 10 years, I think we’ll all begin to see that those who raise the maturity objection about any system, not just Nintendo’s, are probably raising it not to expand the industry, or enhance the experience of the gamer (read: customer), but to keep things the way they are so they can continue to make money, off of us, with the same old schlock. It’s funny though, and again very ironic, that those who bash Nintendo titles for not being mature would use the same breath to bash the ESRB system as a whole for being useless or inaccurate or a detriment to gaming when it censors titles like Manhunt 2.

Perhaps the craziest thing is we’ve been through this tired old song and dance before with the DS. Let’s go over it again though, just in case these bellyaching development houses, with their millions of dollars in resources, missed it. With that system there was a slow start; one which was so slow in fact that developers, “gaming journalists,” and “analysts” — all put into quotes on purpose and for obvious reasons — dismissed it as a clunky, useless feature ridden failure the instant Nintendo started the supply chain conveyor belts. As an early adopter of the system, even I was slightly skeptical when I picked up the system in May 2005. The killer app at the time was a port of Super Mario 64, and my gaming library consisted of a less than stellar tournament poker game and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005. If you thought the deer looked bad in the Wii version, the DS version made that deer look like Crysis. Even so, I put all my chips into the system because there was a certain buzz in the air about its upcoming software. Sure enough, in August 2005 Advance Wars Dual Strike dropped as did a game that would change the system and the industry forever: Nintendogs.

And therin lies a very important point. To see it however you need a little more vision than the sore losers that currently bitch and moan about the Wii have cared to exercise. The point is that while Nintendogs was by no means a game for everyone, the effect it had touched upon every type of gamer. On the one had it welcomed the cas-core sect in with open arms, and created this amazing new world where video games were not a hobby to be shunned by the masses, and you could officially play your DS in public on the bus or in a plane without any insecurity whatsoever. In fact, that cute girl sitting near you on the subway probaby has a pink DS sitting at home and didn’t think twice about asking for it for her birthday or for Christmas. On the other hand, Nintendogs’ immense sales numbers meant that there was money — incredible amounts of money — to be made on a system with low development costs, a quirky interface and a built-in audience with widely diverse tastes. Truly, the DS was a system designed with the developer in mind (fun fact: according to Nintendo, DS also stands for “developer’s system”).

Simply put, the DS literally stares whiny developers in the face each and every day from their pockets or their desktops, and they ignore it because that’s easier to do than accept that their way of thinking when applied to the Wii is an utter failure. The DS, like the Wii, is no powerhouse. Its components are not new or groundbreaking, but then again that’s never been the point of software development. The point has been to create great software that makes the end user experience a relatively enjoyable one. Software developers should focusing on creating great software. Why they obsess so openly about hardware specs and why they must by X or Y for a game to be a moneymaker is beyond me. The DS has proven if you build it, they will come. Square Enix, Ubisoft and Tecmo are just a few of the developers who “got it.” Why the Wii will be any different has not been sufficiently proven by any person, developer or analyst thus far other than the occasional half-assed “just because.”

All these points, of course, are readily available via a simple Google search. And, while I realize that our search foo skills are not as robust as we once believed, I do think they’re good enough to discover these games and easily dispell whatever myths have presisted about the Wii for the past year. So, if this information is so easily procured, what’s the deal? In my single, solitary and not-speaking-for-all-of-Infendo opinion, it’s quite simple: we’re starting to approach the cusp of the last gasp before the storm (mixed metaphor alert). One the one side are the developers who’ve made the decision to work and get a game that hums (and therefore makes money) on the Wii, just as so many did over the past three years with the Nintendo DS. On the other are those developers that believe only ports can succeed on the Wii, or mini-games, or any of the other labels that are used to demean the system because it’s different and therefore will always be perceived as too a difficult a task to undertake.

The future looks bright though, at least for those developers who’ve decided to make 2008 the year they’d seriously consider the Wii as a money making platform. The first half 2008 release list for the Wii is 90% 3rd party, and the DS list isn’t to shabby either. And yet, I’m still seeing the same recycled garbage from analysts and devlopers. It’s not surprising, but it’s my opinion this year will start to see much, much less of it. 2007 was the year where it was cool to complain, as is customary for etsbalished players to do with any disruptive technology, and 2008 will be the year the complainers put up or shut up.

It’s all just my two cents. The formula for success was established by the DS and will be enhanced by the Wii. It’s all but inevitable.

Source: infendo.com

I think I just added Spore creator Wii Wright to my Christmas shopping list. In an interview with Guardian Unlimited Wright, who also created the Sims, called the Wii the only true next-generation console out of the three new console platforms on the market.

Of course some of us already subscribe to this belief, but to hear someone of Wright’s caliber put it so succinctly might win over a few more:

“Somebody asked me what I thought next generation meant and what about the PlayStation 3 was next generation. The only next gen system I’ve seen is the Wii - the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement”, Wright told Guardian Unlimited. Wii, Wright continued, feels like a major jump, “not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic.”

And they are. This isn’t to say the Wii is “better” however, because that label really doesn’t have any bearing on the conversation. The PS3 and 360 literally cannot do what the Wii has achieved, and vice versa The current crop of Xbox 360 commercials, showing crowds of “all types of people” playing Halo 3 are fun to watch, however. To me it feels like they’d rather be playing something else in them, but again, it’s me we’re talking about. Motion sensing or web cam-like after market accessories will be just that, accessories, and are not integrated into the system from day one. The Wii Balance Board somewhat falls into this category as well, making it one of Nintendo’s riskier — if not still really well thought out — moves of late. Development costs are also set. Nintendo committed to low cost using off the shelf hardware and chips on a single SKU, just as they did with the original NES, and the others went with bleeding edge on an ever-changing platform of console SKUs with different ports, hard drives, etc. Some of them even have themes.

Money, as usual, is also an indicator of how “wright” Will is with his comments. Profits for the 360 are steady, and the audience size and growth curve are indicative of a continuation from the previous console era. The Wii, on the other hand, remains sold out (even without serious IP over the summer, imagine that!), on the minds of the mainstream media (old fart expose’s continue to be published unabated), and has given Nintendo the opportunity to revise profit forecasts five times in two years. And this has all happened before the serious first party IP has even dropped yet (with the exception of Metroid, natch). In effect, this holiday could very well be a perfect storm that lasts well into 2008.

Wright also said his PC still kicks the butt of any graphics he’s seen on a console, which is foreboding to say the least. It means that in addition to competing with video, music and other multimedia outlets, today’s powerhouse consoles are also competing with PC’s, and must somehow differentiate themselves from that arena too. Who knows though; maybe there’s a PC SKU in the works that we don’t know about yet.