Nintendo just presented to the world the new console, which, by the way, several details were already known.

Wii U. Is the name of the new console. The name is a reference to We and You. In the paper, the idea is nice but after a basic field test, it reveals to be a terrible choice. The president of Nintendo of America, Reggie, said that Nintendo is now going to pay attention to individuality after so many years dedicated to generating the gaming culture for a multitude of the public.

The main attraction of the new console has an embeded controller. It has a big tablet-like screen that receives a video stream from the console (it does not process anything). This means that one cannot play games during trips or even in the backyard. It must be close to the main machine.

A curious feature of this controller is that it can project a different camera of the game on TV from what the player sees in the console. It will bring interesting dynamics to in-loco multiplayer games for sure.

Note: the golf wiimote+wii u controller demonstration is embarrassing. I imagine someone putting the screen on the floor to see the ball from above. OMG

Despite the obvious excitement of all Nintendo staff, the whole product is should be considered more as a Wii HD (it will finally output HD video and have more competitive processing power). I doubt that major games will support the new controller as WE MUST. The rationale is simple: it’s too costly to design a product with a so limited scope.

Games are expensive to make. And spreading your product to the wind, and selling to all video games, and computers digitally and physically would reduce the risk. But if you can only sell to Wii U due to the exclusive controller, it would quite risky. It is not a coincidence that Wii exclusives are generally small companies or small products. Unless developer companies start to develop similar functionalities using alternative tablet/phone/computer combinations.

I am particularly skeptical about this move. I always wondered about Wii and DS merged gameplay, but betting it will be the future is quite strange. Well, Nintendo has a great pedigree about gimmickry.

With the promise to bring back the fun to a popular genre – First Person Shooter -, the Epic’s Bulletstorm is a mess.

One of the main problems is the core idea: stimulate the user to perform vary the play style by using different weapons. The player now is psychologically forced to vary. And because this concept is presented and used in the main campaign, several times the player will stop to pay attention on the story – which will comment later – in order to

Several of the “skillshots” are too dependent on luck, like killing several enemies at the same time in a specific condition. It brings a lot of frustration. It’s an immense TODO list to be executed.

The other pillar of the game, extensively advertised, is the bad language. Fun at the start, it becomes an annoyance by the end of the game because the player feels it is forced and unnatural.

The story, I must say, is terrible. ALL the characters try to look bad but be good ALL the time. The players’ character best friend, the cyborg Ishi, through the WHOLE game goes back and forth saying “Ow… the pain is huge. The computer is trying to dominate my mind”… we simply not buy it. I would say that the 4 characters of the game are among the worst I ever seen.

The visuals are amazing. Even with a modest pc you will still get a fantastic looking game. The loading time are impressively quick and there were only few times when the framerate dropped. Unreal Engine showcase.

The curious part is that the gameplay is actually good. If the player were not “forced” to worry with the long TODO list, it would be much better. I didnt play the multiplayer yet, but if it follows the chaotic formula of the single player campaign combat, I think people will like at first but the annoyed soon.

2010 was a great year. This was a not typical year for books. The list is quite short. This list is what I could remember.

Games

1. Most, but not all, I finished
2. 3 Cards To Dead Time
3. Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
4. Agatha Christie: Murder On The Orient Express
5. Amnesia
6. Assassin’s Creed 2
7. Borderlands
8. Cities XL
9. Civilization V
10. Darwinia
11. Dawn Of Discovery
12. Democracy 2
13. Donkey Kong Country Returns
14. Dragon Age: Origin
15. Epic Mickey
16. Europa Universalis III: Heir To The Throne
17. F1 2010
18. Fallout: New Vegas
19. Fifa 11
20. Gratuitous Space Battles
21. Harvey Teh Attorney
22. Kirby: Epic Yarn
23. Little King Story
24. Mafia 2
25. Mass Effect 2
26. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
27. New Super Mario Bros
28. No More Heroes 2
29. Rock Band Beatles
30. RUSE
31. Settlers 6
32. Settlers 7
33. Shatter
34. Super Matio Galaxy 2
35. The Saboteur
36. The Secret Files: Tunguska
37. Thief
38. X-Com: AI

Movies

1. 2012
2. Alice In Wonderland
3. Alien 3
4. Aliens
5. Angels & Demons
6. Avatar
7. Bounty Hunter
8. Brüno
9. Clash Of The Titans
10. Crazy Heart
11. Escape From New York
12. Fantastic Mr Fox
13. Funny People
14. Ghost Writer
15. Gosford Park
16. Green Zone
17. Halloween
18. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt 1
19. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
20. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
21. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
22. Hot Tub Time Machine
23. Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
24. Inception
25. Inglourious Basterds
26. Kick Ass
27. LA Confidential
28. Law Abiding Citizen
29. Murder On The Orient Express
30. Near Dark
31. Paprika
32. Paranormal Activity
33. Prince Of Persia
34. Princess Mononoke
35. Pulp Ficiton
36. Robin Hood
37. Shanshank Redemption
38. Sherlock Holmes
39. Shutter Island
40. Taxi Driver
41. Terminator Salvation
42. The A Team
43. The Blind Side
44. The Fisher King
45. The Silent Warrior
46. The Sound Of Music
47. Time Bandits
48. Twilight
49. Up
50. Up In The Air
51. Where The Wild Things Are
52. Zombieland

TV Series

1. Death Note
2. Fullmetal Alchemist 1-10
3. House S6
4. Lost S6
5. Naruto 1-20
6. Mad Men S01 S02
7. Breaking Bad S01

Books

1. Some of them I used the audiobook
2. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
3. Butcher’s Hill – Laura Lippman
4. Dramatica
5. Screenplay – Syd Field
6. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
7. The Blue Ocean Strategy – W. Chan Kim And Renée Mauborgne
8. The City And The City – China Mieville
9. The Comic Toolbox: How To Be Funny Even If You’Re Not – John Vorhaus
10. The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
11. The Murder On The Links – Agatha Christie
12. The Naked Face – Sidney Sheldon
13. Y: The Last Man – DC Comics

The new version of the Unity 3D engine was just released and I’m super excited.

All the previous features continue there: great asset integration (several 3D, 2D, and sound file formats), programming scripts, and a great IDE. But now the visual performance is better, even with the new features enabled.

Pre-baked lightning is now included by default. It allows the creation of amazing scenes that most of the lights pre-rendered. It allows the video card to work on other stuff, like shaders. Speed is also better than the inclusion Ambient occlusion package. It analyses the scene/map previously and checked what parts of it will not appear depending on where the camera is and saves the information to be used in real-time. The performance gain is huge.

The animation manager is also a great plus. It seems very much like video editing, with curves and keyframes. It is now very nice to program animations, especially for designers.

UDK (Unreal Development kit) is also gaining a lot of attention from the media, but with a feature set somewhat similar (again, 99% of the game makers are not even capable of using the engine fully), it is quite an irresponsibility to accept the license that makes you give 25% of the profits to Epic (and after paying your distributor, marketing, etc…).

There was a time that making and selling games was simple. puf�. old times. The last years opened several options. The amount of variables now can be a bit overwhelming and inevitably will make people get the wrong conclusion. A lot money to be made and to be lost!

Indies

The indie movement is officially in vogue. World of Goo, Limbo, Amnesia, Darwinia� they made, together, quite some revenue and receive amazingly good critics. The small financial risk, the creative independence to explore some bold choices are all elements of its rise.

A important part of the emergent trend of indie games is the access of good middleware. Unreal released the same award winning engine that power AAA games in an indie-kinda-friendly license. UDK, its name, is impressively complete. Torque continue to expand. Unity 3D 3 is better than ever and even big fishes are using it. The cost of AAA tools reduced so much that the “limited only by our imagination” clich� is now more true then ever.

Handheld

Recent data indicates that the handheld (game-only devices) market is in decline, mostly because the smartphones are now powerful enough to host not only Tetris and Bejeweled but full featured 3D games. Some games for iPhone and Android are really impressive. And because the distribution costs are really a tiny fraction from a full console distribution (Apple store and Android Market only charge a small percentage), the market is dominated by indie companies, that have a better development cycle ans scale.

Browser

Zynga, by generating more revenue with FarmVille than Facebook entirely, proved that casual gaming can be lucrative and be a big-company business. But like the new handheld scenario, it’s flooded by low quality titles made by indies. Zynga also proved that micro-transactions can be considered as a serious option. Several big 3D engine suppliers are creating browser plugins so more high quality games can be placed in an internet only environment.

Consoles

With the new motion controllers and online strategies, consoles are living a new good era. The prices are going down and they are getting even more popular on south american, asian and eastern european countries. The problem in this segment is the high competition in the AAA tier. The production cost is so high that is getting more and more common to read about studios being closed or rearranged after one single bad-selling project.

Cloud

The most surprising things on gaming, almost unbelievable, is the use of external computing for gaming. OnLive (defunct) is already live and sells games as service: they run the game in their computers and you only need a monitor and joystick/keyboard. No need for a top-notch computer or console. The games could be even played, at full power, in a tablet or old computer.

The amount of computing power needed is enormous. And I mean it: I cannot think that they invested less than billions of dollars in several data centers. The paradox is the servers are all in US, the very market that games prices are lowest and piracy is not a major issue. Brazil, Russia and Europe would be much more receptive to this model, but I don’t think the cost would ever pay off�

The bottom line is: for major companies, the “several studios working on a single franchise ratter than several franchises being developed by a single studio” mantra will still apply. Call of Duty and GTA will continue to generate millions. But I foresee the rise of several small and mid-sized companies that will focus on niches pointed above. Zynga is one of them. I believe that there will be a quite a number that will make the break even point and grow simply because the market size expanded and entry barriers lowered.

Good luck.

Edited 2022-07-13: Torque