I was going to talk about some news I saw this morning before heading out to work but all of that got kicked in the crotch and is down for the count; I really hope the Bastardizer gets his hands on this stuff… via Smoth I was sent a link to 1UP.com where there was a live blog coverage of a press conference Nintendo did earlier this morning where they finally unveiled the pressing details regarding the Nintendo Wii, the next entry in the new generation of game consoles. Parents, you’re gonna want to sit down and read this because it smells like this is the console both you and your children can live with in harmony.

It’s not really my place to be talking about video games since there are other people who cover that front around these parts already but this is my party and I’ll rave if I want to: I’ve talked about the Wii before and since day 1 there’s been nothing but love. I saw this coming, like a tidal wave coming from the distance to wash us all over with digital goodness: The Nintendo DS, the company’s latest in a long line of successful portable consoles is a smash hit everywhere in the world due to its stylish look, awesome interactivity and, what’s most important, great games for all ages. You have your serious games to your more kid-friendly ones and then you have what NOA has come to call “Touch Generations.” They’re games that anyone no matter how young or old can play and enjoy… I’ll give you a recommendation: no matter how old or how serious you are, do yourself a favor and find a N-DS game of the “Brain Age” series. You’ll sit down, giving it the benefit of the doubt. And then the game starts… next thing you know, it’s been three days and you’ve lost track of time and space due to how challenging and, as a result, addicting they are. You’ll also improve your mind’s ability to process and remember things. Great games all around… you won’t be sorry. Anyway, Nintendo’s plan to try and attract non-gamers is wise: when you have games like “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” tainting the reputations of games all over and douchebags such as Jack Thompson not helping things, someone had to do something in order to prove all of the retractors wrong. Don’t get me wrong, though; “San Andreas,” and all of the other GTA/Rockstar games are excellent, but the company is known to be as the bad boy on the block and they take pride in it, to the disdain of the rest of the industry and delight to politicians who treat them all like muties. If you’re not video game savvy, I’ll put you up to speed: You’ve heard about violence in video games and how parents are quick to pin the corrosion of values in children and teenagers on VG companies and the games they make just as much as they’ll blame music, TV, movies, the Internet and everything else they can come up with as long as they don’t have to blame themselves for bad parenting. I’m not going to trail as far back as the Colecovision/Atari era because to name the crazy, paranoid studies done on these games in order to find sex and violence is them is so ridiculous it upsets me as much as what happened in the 50’s and the book “Seduction of the Innocent,” which attacked comics in such a vicious way that it created the Comics Code (on it’s last breath, might I add… since most publishers are waking up, realizing that “code” is as moronic and unfounded as the MPAA’s rating board with movies) and put out special interest comic book publishers out of business and almost forced the industry to a colossal collapse… of course, the industry managed to pull out but you can feel the repercussions of that witch hunt to this day. Anyway, I’ll say that the first high profile case of video game violence, and certainly the first one to catch the mainstream’s public eye, was Midway’s “Mortal Kombat.” Everyone knows about the game even if they’ve never played in in their lives, with its realistic (at the time) characters and the infamous “Fatalities” where you could burn your opponent to a crisp or rip off their spine. Since technology never stops growing and we don’t get any younger neither, as developers could do more things with hardware/software and games were allowed to be more complex and realistic, the conservative, ignorant middle-America started protesting against video games, citing them as ills of our society. When stuff like the Columbine school incident happened and suicide rates increased int he 90’s parents and the politicians they elected blamed video games for for it, as well as everything under the sun that they didn’t understand such as Japanese animé, Marilyn Manson, The Simpsons and whatever else they could come up with. Now, with a new generation in video gaming gaining force, there are more of these people who want the artform dead; the most vocal of them is the one named Jack Thompson. Below, some insight on the man’s relationship witht he video game industry… from Wikipedia:

On occasion, Thompson has sparred directly with the gaming industry and its fans. In 2005, he wrote an open letter to Entertainment Software Association president Douglas Lowenstein, making what he described as a “modest proposal” to the video game industry (alluding to Jonathan Swift’s satire of the same name): Thompson said he would donate $10,000 to a charity designated by Take-Two CEO Paul Eibeler if any video game company would create a game including the scenario he described in the letter. The scenario called for the main character to murder a number of industry executives (including one modeled on Eibeler) and go on a killing spree at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. When video game fans promptly began working to take Thompson up on his offer, he claimed that it was satire. However, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the creators of webcomic Penny Arcade and of the children’s charity Child’s Play, stepped in to make the donation instead, writing in the memo field of their check, “For Jack Thompson, Because Jack Thompson Won’t.” Afterwards, Thompson tried to get Seattle police and the FBI to investigate Holkins and Krahulik for orchestrating “criminal harassment” of him through articles on their site. Other webcomics have regularly incorporated references to Thompson, alluding to this incident as well as others.

In 2006, two Michigan gamers began a project dubbed “Flowers for Jack“, soliciting donations to deliver a massive floral arrangement to Thompson’s office. The flowers were delivered in February along with a letter aimed at opening a dialogue between Thompson and the video gaming community. Thompson rejected this overture and forwarded the flowers to some of his industry foes, with such comments as “Discard them along with the decency you discarded long ago. I really don’t care. Grind them up and smoke them if you like.”

I think Jack Thompson is an ignorant douchebag. He’s the same as others who can’t understand the meaning of freedom of expression and since they reject what they can’t understand, they try to impose their will no matter what. I read an editorial today on how this movie “Shortbus” is making waves because of its depictions of real sex on screen. Apparently the movie is great, and the sex is not gratituous but in fact it helps the narrative and fleshes out the characters in the piece. Now, just as the article pointed out, the people who wonder why if there’s real sex being shown in movies then why wouldn’t there be real violence should have their head examined. It’s that culture that assumes that the general public is idiotic and will therefore take in their entertainment as true the one that’s making it worse for ventures like these… “nouvo art,” if you will. The thought of it makes me fucking boil. But back to the video game discussion, with the video game industry tainted and losing ground, preventing it to become what it’s destined to be which is as legitimate an art form as movies and graphic novels someone needed to step up and take charge in order to clean up the industry’s image and, what’s more important, attract new gamers and make video games as a culture grow. The one company who brought the industry to the mainstream had taken a beating for almost 10 years I believe, ever since they released the Nintendo 64 and it underperformed… they were the victims of bad decision-making I’m sure… but it looks like they realized their mistakes and slowly but surely started making their crawl back to the top. With the way things are now, I believe Nintendo has stepped up to the plate and what I felt was going to happen from 2 years back is downright inevitable now… Mario will be king again.

Reading the details for the Wii makes me so giddy I think I’m going to piss myself. The way things are now Microsoft’s X-Box 360, the only console in this current generation already out, hasn’t been able to break out of its niche market, mostly American. That, and the only thing they’ve got going for them is “Halo,” which is the game title that put the X-Box brand on the map to begin with… Sony, the leader for the past two generations with the universally-know PlayStation brand has almost systematically shot itself in the foot with their latest console, the PlayStation 3. The thing is a beast from the reports I’ve read, but it’s just too expensive: it seems that the cheapest version of the console (a bare bones edition that’s quite frankly not worth a look at all) will be $600, the wireless controllers being $50, the games coming in at around $60 and other cables and adapters needed to make the investment worth your while amount to more than $1,000!!! No parent on their right mind will shell out the price of a used card for a video game console… and the X-Box is pushing it, costing practically half the price ($500 is still pretty steep but, sadly, more realistic that the reported price for the PS 3) Of course, these console will give you amazing graphics and they’re both equipped with online capabilities where you’ll be able to play with other gamers across the world, talk to them, check global stats and even purchase games online. The added value is that the PS 3 will be backwards-compatible so that means that the games from your former console will be playable on the new one… the X-Box 360 has this feature as well but only with select titles of the original X-Box. The PlayStation 3 was slated to ship out this Christmas but as of right now there haven’t been any playable games, no working consoles to display and marketing/shipment woes that have forced the company to push back the release in Europe to March 2007 (supposedly all other territories will have a launch for XMas but, as I said, we’re in September and they haven’t assembled the units yet).

So, with all of this happening, Nintendo waltzes in with the most attractive, mind-blowing proposal I’ve heard since I became an active gamer. There were many rumors about the “Wii,” but real release details were sketchy; supposedly you’d be able to download and play every game ever released on all Nintendo consoles dating back to the original NES, online capabilities that gamers already enjoyed with the N-DS portable and a very interesting, intriguing trade: graphics for playability. Enter the Wiimote: first of its kind, it puts a spin to what the console can do. Setting up special sensors on your TV you’ll be able to interact with games unlike anything you’ve seen before. The wiimote becomes whatever it is you need during gameplay because of said sensors: for example, in a baseball game the way you knock the ball out of the park is to use the Wiimote as a bat itself… swing and watch the ball fly. For first-person shooter games, you hold the controller like a gun and use the trigger by your index finger to fire. Box by clenching your fists around the controller and punch away. Swing a sword or even a lightsaber. Fish. Hunt for food by using your arrow… the possibilities are endless, and the Wiimote already catapults the Wii into Jetsons-like proportions. When speculation began regarding the price for this console, many realized that this would be the deal breaker regarding whether or not gamers (and the mainstream alike) would take part in Nintendo’s experiment.

So… how much, then?

The Nintendo Wii will have a free online service hooked up via wireless networks. You’ll be able to download and store in your system every game ever released in these systems: the Nintendo Entertainment System ($5 per game), the Super Nintendo Entertainment System ($8 per game), and Nintendo 64 ($10 per game). The rumors about being able to purchase and download Gamecube and Sega Genesis games wasn’t divulged in the press conference. Peripherals (controllers, the “nunchuck,” a special attachment to the Wiimonte) retail at $40 and $20 respectively. You’ll be able to digitize your face and create a character modeled after you, which you’ll be able to use in games. there will be 30 games available at launch day, November 19th, and none of them will excede the $50 mark ($10 less than X-Box games). And the console…?

$249.99.

With third party support locked in, solid first party titles and the guaranteed fun it’s gonna be to play using the Wiimote, as well as the joy that’s gonna be me playing the original “Legend of Zelda” whenever I want tell me that this might be first time in my life I’ll lobby to try and get a console opening day. This thing can’t go wrong, and I’m so happy I could cry. Seeing Nintendo back on top after many years in obscurity is the kind of “Count of Monte Cristo” stuff I love, and if anyone deserves to lead the industry to new heights once more, then it’s Nintendo. It was about damn time.

Live blogging coverage of the conference in question, with more specific details, is here. More details here. The Bastardizer’s homepage is here.

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