Super Smash Bros Brawl – Another Example of Genius Nintendo Marketing
January 15th, 2008
Theres no denying that Nintendo’s marketing campaign over the past 2 years has been nothing short of genius. Hell, they even have the awards to prove it. The main reason for their success has come from the marketing of titles like Brain Training, Nintendogs and Wii Sports towards the casual and non gaming audience. But Nintendo have also been clever with advertising towards the more hardened gamer as well; the upcoming Super Smash Bros Brawl is probably the best example of this.
The genius all comes down to the Smash Bros Dojo website. If you are unfamiliar with the site basically its the official site for the new Smash Bros game. Every couple of days or so Nintendo release a new tidbit of information on the game which itself is the pure genius of it all.
The Dojo is genius for many reasons all stemming from the week day updates. The updates ensures that there is always something new for fans to look forward to. Whether it be a new move, character, level, whatever. This solves a lot of problems for Nintendo as it:
Generates Hype
The announcement of Solid Snake and Sonic as hidden characters was huge and instantly made a name for the website but in particular the updates. Since then there has been a lot of speculation of other video game cameos (such as MegaMan) so this keeps gamers coming back to the site to see whether or not the rumors are true.
Puts the Wii in the Headlines
Although the updates are usually very carefully portioned Nintendo release enough information and media with each update to warrant a solid news article. Hence there is always a possible news story for the gaming media to report on. This gives the game a generous amount of coverage for such a small amount news.
Makes the Delays Much More Tolerable
The Smash Bros series has an immense army of fanboy followers gripped by the balls and delays are something that they simply won’t tolerate. So the updates do a great job at making the fans feel as though they are not left out in the cold.
Infact Nintendo managed to cover up the game’s most punishing delay (into 2008) extremely well by announcing Snake and Sonic as cameo characters. If they’d just announced that the game was delayed then there would have been an uproar within the community and thats the last thing Nintendo want.
Conclusion
So as you can see by putting out a consistent stream of small pieces of information Nintendo are getting the most out of the little that they provide. And that itself is genius.
Site Updates (14/1/07)
January 14th, 2008
Hey guys, I’ve made a few fixes and tweaks to the website for your viewing pleasure, so heres the list of changes:
- the Archive page now works
- new ICO file in title (the coin box)
- About page text and image has been updated and improved
- email feed now has its own input box
- the ‘Poll Archive’ link has been removed
- ‘Drop us a line’ link now directs to Contact page
- ‘Link Me’ has been added next to Share This
- The ‘Link Out’ box now links correctly
- Contact form style has been included
I still need to get the tags working as they don’t link correctly. But beyond that the site is now much more polished. If you do notice any broken links or site faults then please leave a comment.
Star Wars in Soul Calibur 4, 16gb Pro Duo and More MGS4 News
January 11th, 2008
Theres been some fairly significant news to hit the streets of the gaming industry in the last few days. So I have sifted through and selected some articles that I wanted to share my thoughts about.
Yoda and Darth Vader in Soul Calibur IV
Source
Namco has recently announced that it will be continuing the trend of cameo characters in their Soul series. But unlike Soul Calibur II which featured (mostly) video game cameos this time Star Wars is the theme of the show. With Darth Vader (PS3) and Yoda (Xbox 360) coming in as new additions to the series.
Unfortunately I see this as a big oversight by Namco. Yes, playing as Star Wars in the Soul franchise is indeed awesome but why not stick to video game cameos? Because video game cameos are much more appealling to video game players than Star Wars characters, surely. Theres also a lack of justification for choosing Star Wars characters over game characters, there hasn’t been a new movie or anything to back this up. I guess we can forget about the rumour of Kratos and Master Chief as playable characters then.
16gb Memory Sitck Pro Duo
Source
Although its a little off topic, Sony have recently confirmed a new 16gb Memory Sitck Pro Duo. The Pro Duo is the stick used for the PSP as well as Vaio notebooks, Sony digital cameras and other Sony branded products.
This article grabbed my attention because this size of memory card is almost unheard of. Although it will definetly be a costly item its a real trump for the PSP mod and homebrew scene. I don’t think that I would need a card that size for the PSP and I wouldn’t use it over my 2gb compact flash card for my Sony Alpha A100 SLR (Pro Duos write too slowly and require an shell to fit inside the card slot) but its awesome in anycase.
MGS4 on the Home Stretch
2 new articles have come in from IGN about my most anticipated game of 2008; MGS4. The articles weren’t ground breaking but the following quote pricked my ears:
on CES ‘Dual Shock’ Demo
“Another thing that we noticed is that the game looks absolutely stunning. Everything is rendered in fine detail from the war-torn middle-eastern city that the level took place in, right down to the individual hairs on Snake’s ‘stache. When we asked whether or not the game will be able to run at 60 fps at 1080p, Konami said that the resolution and framerate were still being optimized and they can’t promise anything, but things were on the right track.”
This is very reassuring as I’ve been a litte worried about the game’s graphics. Obviously they look brilliant but it didn’t look like there was much variance in the colour schemes used judging by the video I’ve seen. Strangely when I look at the sceenshots it looks much more colourful than the video.
I’m not too fussed if it is run in 720p because my monitor is only fairly small so the difference between 720p and 1080p isn’t as significant than say on a 42” plasma. I would much prefer it to run at 60fps even if it was in 720p. There really shouldn’t be any games that run at 30fps anymore.
See the screenshots looks vibrant
These facts suggest that MGS4 is indeed taking advantage of the Playstation 3’s to quite an extent so I guess this decreases the chance of that Xbox 360 port.
The second article summarises some more information about the release of the game. Stating that they are basically on the home stretch, that all of the content is finished and they are just squeezing out the last few bugs. More importantly though its been restated that MGS4 will launch almost simultanesous in all territories. Which is fantastic news. ^_^
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