slice of koh

It looks like the global recession is finally catching up to the dominant Nintendo.   Nintendo recently released its quarterly earnings, and they are only making 1/3 of what they made a year ago.  Sales across their portfolio has declined.  The biggest surprise is Wii sales have decreased nearly 50% compared to last year.   It also doesn’t help that the value of the Japanese yen rose significantly in recent months, affecting Nintendo’s earnings overseas.  (This also goes for Sony as well who may be in worse shape than Nintendo.)

However, as much as Nintendo could try to point its finger at the lagging economy.  When you think about it, 2009 will only be remembered as the year of lackluster titles.  Many video game publishers and studios are pushing their flagship 2009 titles to 2010.   The only titles I can remember this year is Infamous for PS3.  The 2009 holiday season also looks bleak.  The only “big” games coming out this holiday season are the usual music games from Rock Band and Guitar/DJ/Band Hero franchises.  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is also on track for its November release.   In this economy, consumers are going to be more selective about their game purchases.  This is especially true if consumers own multiple consoles (like me).  The last video game I pre-ordered was Fable 2.  Currently, I acquired most of my games used or via trade.

There is always a silver lining.  Nintendo sold 5.9 million DSi units and 2.2 million Wii units.  I’m sure Sony would love to sell nearly that many units of PSP and PS3.

I was getting a little worried that my mobile phone services provider of choice was getting left behind on all aspects of the mobile telecom market.  T-Mobile was the last major US carrier that brought 3G service.  Thus, T-Mobile was getting a little slow in bringing some reasonably good smartphones in the market.  Although T-Mobile did bring the first Android-capable phone to the US market, it still had a mixed reception as many felt that there were many kinks that should’ve been worked out before launch.

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As much as I love my G1, sometimes I feel like it’s a clunky brick.  There is a reason why Apple and Samsung charge ridiculous prices for their products.  They come up with the design first then tell their engineers to fit the hardware inside the design.  Cosmetics over function can sometimes be bad, but for these two companies, they manage to figure it out with their IPods/IPhones or LCD TVs. 

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What an interesting turn of events.  It seems like the sequel to the underappreciated action strategy RPG (does that even exist), Valkyria Chronicles, will get a sequel.  The official website can be found here.  If you can read Japanese, more power to you.  It is going to the PSP!  Good news for me.  Here is another game I can buy for the PSP (besides Crimson Gem Saga as of late).  Anyway, the art style seems to have remain the same despite the lower resolution graphics.  Is that a morale meter I see on the screen?

I got really excited about Mass Effect 2 finally getting a release date.  I did not get excited about the possibility of Commander Shepard dying in the second one.   Finally, I saw the E3 video with gameplay courtesy of Joystiq, and this could be the first game in a very long time that I will pre-order.

Expansions to space exploration, more party members to meet, new conversation actions, and improved gameplay looked incredible.  The new physics engine in the game seems promising.   It looks like I will have to finish my playthrough as a biotic in the first game.