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Miles Edgeworth Keeps Investigating in Sequel
There’s no shortage of Ace Attorney fans at Nintendojo, at least not if you’re Aaron or Noah. Therefore, they, and perhaps you, will be very excited by Japanese gaming mag Famitsu‘s announcement of a sequel to Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. The new game will once again star Miles Edgeworth and be released on DS– not 3DS– hardware. As in the previous game, Miles will be investigating crime scenes and interrogating suspects across a series of murder mysteries, though there will also be some new gameplay added to the mix, with one element purportedly being similar to, or based on, chess. The game will be shown as a playable demo at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, which takes place next weekend (September 16 – 19).
News of a sequel may be soon to North American and European gamers, who didn’t get their hands on the game until February of this year, but it was originally out in Japan in May 2009. Whether or not we should expect another ten month localization delay remains to be seen, but we may be waiting forever if we hope to see another Apollo Justice game, now that Miles is up for another go-round instead of Phoenix’s original heir apparent. And that makes Noah sad.
Sources: 1up, AndriaSang
Pachter Blames Online Gaming (Instead of Nintendo) for August’s Poor Sales
Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter has released his predictions for a less-than-rosy set of sales/NPD numbers for August 2010: 6 percent software sales decline and 7 percent hardware sales decline, year-over-year. You may remember that July’s poor numbers were largely Nintendo’s fault (per Pachter), though the reason for August’s numbers are levied at a new target: strong online multiplayer gaming. This is clearly not a specialty of Nintendo’s; it’s moreso the talk of Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers playing Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Halo: ODST and, maybe, MAG.
Apparently, the sales decline of the last 18 months has less to do with Wii consoles reaching saturation and no one buying (or making) games for Wii. The problem, actually, is that online multiplayer is too well-designed and, frankly, free.
“Based upon statements made by Microsoft earlier this year, it appears that millions of people are playing multiplayer games online for an average of 10 hours a week, making a serious dent in the time available to play other games,” wrote Pachter.
Pachter then went on to suggest publishers try something new to monetize online gaming. Already this year we’ve seen Sony launch a paid premium subscription for its PSN service, Microsoft is increasing its annual Xbox Live Gold subscriptions by US$10, and Electronic Arts is implementing a “pay US$10 to play online if you buy this game used” program.
Source: Gamasutra
Famitsu Scores Pokémon Black and White Version
Alright, there’s probably more Pokémon fans on this staff than Ace Attorney fans, so to not mention Famitsu‘s review scores of the Japan release of Pokémon Black and White Version would be an injustice, no pun intended. With that belabored introduction out of the way, here it is: 40 / 40, a perfect score for the newest Pokémon games, which is also the first time Famitsu has given a game in the 14-year old series a perfect score.
For comparison’s sake, here are the scores going back to the Gold and Silver versions; if you know the Red, Green and Yellow scores, let us know…
Famitsu Scores for Pokémon Games, Newest to Oldest
Black and White: 40 / 40 (2010)
HeartGold and SoulSilver: 37 / 40 (2009)
Platinum: 36 / 40 (2008)
Diamond and Pearl: 35 / 40 (2006)
Emerald: 34 / 40 (2004)
Fire Red and Leaf Green: 33 / 40 (2004)
Ruby and Sapphire: 33 / 40 (2002)
Crystal: 34 / 40 (2000)
Gold and Silver: 33 / 40 (1999)
Source: Bulbanews
