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Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

February 20, 2012 – 12:39 pm | 3 Comments

Tiny Diggers has just been released on the iPad and soon the Mac computer. Here’s the details on this fun, educational game from TouchTilt Games.
Tiny Diggers Delivers Learning With Construction Trucks For Kids on the …

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Home » Nintendo Wii, WTF?

Metroid Prime 3 Further Delayed And It’s Your Fault?

Submitted by Paul Munn on February 16, 2007 – 11:00 pm4 Comments

You’ve got to hand it to Nintendo. They’ve got a skilled and charismatic spokesman in NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime. He can put meaningful sentences together, spin the bad news masterfully, and not look like a puffed-up monster like Sony’s executives do in their interviews.

Take the Wii and DS shortages for example. In an MTV interview at the DICE conference he apologized for the shortages, said having to manually put the Wii Sports disc into the package (PLUG!) slows down production and that so many popular games on the DS (PLUG!) have caused DS Lite shortages. So when he admitted that the formerly “Spring 2007″ Metroid Prime 3 might be delayed again — to make it perfect (PLUG!) — you’d think he’d do all the right things, get the triple somersault, and nail the landing. But instead, when asked about the possibility of a delay, he said two things that made me stare.

First, he said that sales of Metroid Prime 2 were very disappointing, especially to Retro Studios. I didn’t follow MP2′s sales so I thought the series was hailed as a great thing all around but … but did he just scold the Nintendo faithful for not buying that game? He goes on to say that they want to make sure it’s perfect to ostensibly avoid another poor-selling game. But for a second there it looked like he had an edge to that opening statement. Or maybe it was just me. He can’t say something with an edge like that again in the same interview right?

The interviewer then asks the big question: does making it perfect include online play? Reggie says “That’s perfect for you.” his emphasis. What the? What the heck does that mean? Did he just tell the interviewer that his idea of perfect is not like everybody else’s idea of perfect? Was that an “aww how cute run along mister ‘I want online play’” kind of “you” or was that a “grr why did he have to ask me that cuz the developers are behind and haven’t even started thinking about online play yet” kind of “you”? Or is he just spinning vapor?

I don’t know, but I’m thinking video of those moments would clear this up.

Via MTV.Com. Image from NintendoWiiFanboy.

Subnet6

As an avid Metroid Prime fan, I feel compelled to explain this a bit.

Your first issue is misunderstanding. Reggie is not scolding anyone to be sure. The game didn’t sell well because the gameplay was identical to original Prime and the developers lazily introduced a light/dark story arc that artificially enlarged the map and make for too much back and forth. That combined with lackluster multiplayer was enough to sour the “faithful”. Unlike what many believe of Nintendo fans, we don’t blindly fork over our money at every opportunity and despite the preponderance of franchise titles in the Nintendo lineup, we expect each new addition to be fresh and different from it’s predessors. Thats why we didn’t buy it in droves the way it was expected and that’s why Nintendo fans are not being hypocritical when we scoff at Madden 09 and devour good Mario games.

Now, as for the second comment “perferct for YOU”.
Well, now ,there’s just no good way to take that IMO. Ok, maybe Metroid is not a “Must be online” style game, but Prime Hunters seems to be working well enough so it’s somewhat expected. Personally, I don’t care Prime 3 specifically is online or not, but damn, Nintendo needs to bring SOMETHING online and fast. At least ANNOUNCE some online details. Details that lead to the dark burning death of friends codes maybe? Or at least allow us to disable them in the security settings.
Stephen

There’s an implication here that the original Prime sold well, and it did not. Despite being almost universally praised by critics as the fantastic game it is, people didn’t really buy it, especially new. Even now there are dozens of copies at your local EBGames at $9 each. The Metroid fans were turned off at the thought of Metroid in first person, and I think most everyone else didn’t remember what Metroid was. I bought it in the first week as an impulse buy because of the name, but there were tons of copies of it everywhere. Mine was the perfect situation. I had no clear memory of the gameplay in the Metroid series so had no apprehension where the first person style was concerned.

Prime 2 was inferior to the original Prime overall, despite a sharper engine and some very impressive moments, because it relied too heavily on very boring gameplay devices in order to stretch out the game. And multiplayer was not fun.

I think what the NOA pres is saying here is Retro is going address the criticisms Prime 2 received by tightening up the single-player and making a worthwhile online multiplayer mode. From seeing Reggie interact with interviewers before I can imagine him chuckling at the interviewer here and saying “online would be perfect for you,” as if to say, “you would love to hear me confirm that since you’re a reporter.” He could also be saying that there’s more to perfecting Prime 3 than tacking on online multiplayer.

Paul’s right. Video would help.
http://www.farbot.com/ Paul

Thanks Stephen and Subnet6 for the context. Too bad it didn’t sell well. I know you really enjoyed Metroid Prime, Stephen, so fingers are crossed that the Metroid Prime 3 will kick all kinds of butt with tight, great gameplay.
Subnet6

Actually, Metroid Prime sold VERY well, at nearly 3 million copies if I recall correctly. Taking into account the cubes install base at the time it was released(10 million-ish) thats damn good. I believe Prime 2 sold less than half that at a point where the install base was nearly double. The only disappointment was that Japanese sales were poor to horrible for both titles, which is to be expected considering the japanese historical consumption of first person titles.