Nintendo and Sony roll out big titles

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Two new video games from Sony and Nintendo have players exploring jungle islands for lost treasure or skipping across the galaxy to save a kidnapped princess.

On the face of it, Sony’s Uncharted and Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy can’t be more different.

Uncharted harnesses the PlayStation 3’s graphical muscle to produce a movie-like adventure, while Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii uses cartoonish graphics and simple controls to breathe new life into an aging franchise.

The games also answer challenges facing Sony and Nintendo.

Although Nintendo has been selling as may machines as it can make, players have started to grumble about the lack of must-have titles that offer a more rewarding experience than short minigames.

That’s where Super Mario Galaxy comes in.

A product of Nintendo’s legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Super Mario Galaxy is being hailed as the most innovative and fun Mario adventure in more than a decade.

The portly Italian plumber once again has to save Princess Peach from the clutches of the evil Bowser, and this time his path hops across an amazing variety of planetoids.

Add in dizzying perspectives, weird gravity effects, and finely-honed motion controls, and you end up with a game that has scored 97 out of 100 on Metacritic.com and is expected to sell 16 million copies worldwide, according to online prediction market simExchange.com.

“It definitely captures the essence of what makes Mario so great,” said Jeremy Parish, features editor at gaming news Web site 1up.com, which scored the game a 9.5 out of 10.

“Some hardcore gamers might be turned off by how cutesy this is, but if you look beyond that, the gameplay is rock solid, it’s incredibly new and inventive,” Parish said.

For Sony, Uncharted is the kind of showcase game it sorely needs to drive sales of the PS3, which has languished behind the Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune puts players on the trail of a hidden treasure of Sir Francis Drake, the 16th century English privateer. It is set in the modern day but crafted in the style of classic adventure movies–think Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider meets Lost.

Its lush jungle settings and mix of brawling, shooting and exploration set it apart from other popular games this year that feature heavy military or alien-invasion themes.

“There are lots of sci-fi games that are very dark and brown and grey and sort of post-apocalyptic. We wanted to do something more lush and green and vibrant,” said Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, the Sony studio known for cartoony games like Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter.

“The goal was to create this pulp action adventure and make it very cinematic and make it feel like playing the lead role of a hero in a summer blockbuster,” Wells said.

Uncharted has an average rating of 89 on Metacritic.com, the highest of any exclusive game for the system along with Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, which came out last month.

“It is another solid addition to the library and I’m sure that for some folks that is something that would push them to buy a console this holiday,” said Billy Pidgeon, games analyst for market research firm IDC.

Super Mario Galaxy was released in the United States on November 12 while Uncharted comes out November 19.

Nintendo to sell Wii in China

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Nintendo said it aims to launch its Wii game console in China and South Korea next year, helping accelerate its breakneck growth, and cement its recent lead over Sony and Microsoft. One day after the three game makers’ earnings announcements, Japan-based analysts said Nintendo looks well-positioned to win the race for top spot in the current-generation video game console market due to a strong software lineup and low hardware prices. “New game hardware comes around once in every five, six years. So making a good start is crucial,” Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Koki Shiraishi said. “Since the Xbox 360 was launched one year ahead, it is roughly on par with the Wii in total sales. But if you take a look at current momentum in net growth, the Wii is well ahead.” In the July-to-September quarter, Nintendo sold 3.9 million units of the Wii, which features a motion-sensing controller that enables users to direct onscreen play by swinging it like a racket. That’s three times as many Wiis sold as Sony PlayStation 3s and twice as many as Microsofts Xbox 360s during the same period. “We suffer a global shortage of the Wii. Our responsibility now is to deliver as many consoles as we can to existing markets,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said during a news conference. “But next year, I think we can bring the Wii (to China).” Iwata also said on Friday that he has no plan to cut the Wii price in response to recent console price cuts by Sony and Microsoft. “We are in a situation where we need to focus our effort on satisfying demand. I am not at all thinking about price cuts.” Sony recently announced PS3 price cuts and the launch of a low-price model to ignite demand and win back game maker support in the run-up to the critical holiday season. However, the lowest-price PS3, which goes on sale on November 11 in Japan for 39,980 yen ($350), will still cost 60 percent more for buyers than the Wii. Sony loaded the PS3 with cutting-edge technology such as a Blu-ray high-definition DVD recorder. But advanced components have driven up the price for buyers and made it difficult and time-consuming for game creators to develop PS3 software. In a major coup, Nintendo said earlier this month that software publisher Capcom would develop the latest version of its blockbuster Monster Hunter action game for the Wii. The game had previously been developed for Sony’s consoles, and the switch to Nintendo has fed speculation that support for the PlayStation franchise may be slipping. As key software for this holiday season, Nintendo plans to launch its Wii Fit home fitness game on December 1 in Japan featuring a pressure-sensitive mat that allows players to “head” virtual soccer balls and imitate ski jumping. “Wii Fit is probably going to appeal to light gamers, and it will be helping Nintendo to win more users,” Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Etsuko Tamura said.

Nintendo’s strategy to offer innovative but easy-to-play games to expand the gamer population has been a smashing success. Nintendo shares have risen more than fivefold in the past two years to make the game maker Japan’s third most valuable company. Asked what Nintendo plans to do with its growing cash pile, Iwata said the company may carry out a new capital policy in the near future, but it did not elaborate. “Nintendo has ample cash, for sure, and you may say we have strong cash-generating power,” Iwata said. “There is a chance that we will need to do something we haven’t done or we haven’t said in the not-so-distant future, in terms of capital policy, if cash keeps accumulating. But it is too early to say what it would be.” Nintendo’s cash and deposits totaled 912.7 billion yen (about $8 billion) as of September 30.

Microsoft playing Nintendo’s game?

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With Microsoft’s announcement of the Xbox 360 Arcade, the anticipated device looks to be changing how the Xbox targets consumers.

According to a Microsoft representative, the company feels that “the timing is right to really focus and turn the spotlight on our family content and, yeah, we feel great.”

Believe it or not, Microsoft has inked a deal with Warner Bros. to bring HD Looney Tunes to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, and more games designed with children in mind will be coming down the pike with the help of this new console.

Xbox 360 Arcade

(Credit: Microsoft)

While I applaud Microsoft for making the jump to children’s games and attempting to attract the all-too-evasive “nontraditional gamer,” isn’t it playing a game that Nintendo already knows the secret to? And if so, is Microsoft barking up the wrong tree?

It may surprise you, but the answer is simply no. Microsoft is onto something with this new focus and whether or not you are a Nintendo zealot to the end, you need to realize that Microsoft may start attracting the younger crowd more effectively than you think.

Historically speaking, there is no denying the fact that Nintendo has controlled the family gaming market. With such classics as Mario and Donkey Kong (among many others), the company has single-handedly taken control of the casual gamer. And with the release of the Wii, it has enjoyed some success in attracting those “nontraditional gamers” by doing something other companies haven’t been able to do: creating a unique gaming experience.

Regardless of your opinion of Microsoft, it is not a dumb company when it needs to make solid gaming decisions. Realizing it cannot compete with the Wii on purely unique gameplay, the company has found a new way–enlist the help of popular child franchises and offer games that will appeal to the family. And while I’m not a firm believer in this idea of bringing an entire family into the gaming mix, I do believe it can attract at least one or two people in any given family, and effectively take a bite out of Nintendo’s stranglehold on the market.

In essence, Microsoft and Nintendo are trying to appeal to the same market in two distinctly different ways. Microsoft wants to attract consumers by offering well-known franchises and providing the new gaming crowd with a host of fun and entertaining games. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s main selling point this time around is its hardware. If the Wii was just another gaming console with old-style controls, we’d be calling it a Gamecube. And if memory serves me correctly, the Gamecube was quite a flop.

Unfortunately for Nintendo, I simply don’t believe hardware will take the day in the bitter battle for the family. Sure, it has been successful in bringing a unique experience to homes. But as I’ve mentioned before, it simply doesn’t have the software behind it to overcome the rest of the industry.

Microsoft is in an enviable position. With a strong library of games that appeal to mature gamers, it can now focus on the relatively untapped family market. And while I think it’ll be a tough nut to crack, look for Microsoft to make some headway this holiday season and capture market share from Nintendo going forward.

The change will not come overnight. But rest assured, if Microsoft can follow through on its promises and Nintendo remains complacent, look for Microsoft to become the “nontraditional” charmer.

Originally posted at The Digital Home.