Changing culture, one gamerscore at a time.

You heard them. That's how they roll in Red Town.

Nintendo are, as we all know, affecting a bit of a swagger lately. In between gold-plating their carpets and wiping their behinds with diamond studded Yen notes, they’re beginning to feel a little cocky. Apparently, it would seem the only reason games sales went up last year, is simply because they were keeping them up. Now, I know Sony took a huge hit to sales, but Microsoft hasn’t, selling over 300 thousand consoles in the last few months and over Christmas. Someone’s figures are coming out of places the sun doesn’t shine.

“Offsetting declines on other platforms”, proudly declares Nintendo’s press release. See, this is not good PR, folks. Big Red need to take a serious look at whoever’s writing their press releases, because Nintendo have gone from the big friendly (seriously damn rich) red company in Japan to arrogant, bullish, and uncaring about how accurate their statistics are. Though, with predictions of a drop in profit, and the loss in popularity of the Wii in Japan, it looks like they’ll have a tough time staying at the top of the tower they’re building inside their heads.

SEGA, You Tease Us, You Really Do

SEGA have revealed a short flash-based advert on their site, codenamed PROJECT: Ringo. All the information we’re given is “What happens next? – 2.24″, which is a safely assumed 24th of Febuary date for the next revealing tidbit of information. This is in addition to a silhouette of a spikey-haired female, the identity of which we’re not sure of, but then again, you could have thrown up a silhouette of Barack Obama and people would still be proclaiming it was Kratos in a suit. Let’s see how it goes, but if this huge project of theirs (note: this is a new IP) is what’s rumoured to be sapping funds, it’s responsible for the potential dropping of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Grumble.

Racial Debate Evil 5

I’m not entirely sure why the videogames press are all so determined to commit journalistic suicide by rambling on about whether or not Resident Evil 5′s depiction of African people is racist or not. For goodness’ sake, guys, drop it. Japanese people have no concept of the suffering the African people suffered for hundreds of years at the hands of white civilization. It’s not ignorance, they just don’t see the difference between Chris Redfield shooting a ton of Spaniards, and Chris Redfield shooting a ton of African people.

 It’s not like he’s doing it alone, either; his partner is Afro-Carribbean, and Eurogamer’s claim of her being a “stereotypical pale black woman” is absurd. I thought you weren’t judging people by their skin colour. It seems that’s all gaming publications are doing aby going on and on and on about all of this. Play the game. No one says anything when we bounce around Liberty City killing old people and shooting random members of the public. We’ve already proven the Japanese make questionable content in the realm of what constitutes violent gameplay and what doesn’t. But if I can go one day without hearing someone say “racist” and “Resident Evil 5” in the same sentence/paragraph/website, I’ll go to bed a happy man.

Release Date Fantasy XIII

I’m a bit confused, I’ll be honest. When I heard Dragon Quest IX was being delayed, I didn’t bet on the latest title in the Final Fantasy franchise to be delayed as well, especially as it’s to do with a bug in Dragon Quest and not in FFXIII. Apparently, the delay shoves the latest in the FF series back a few months, which means a later PS3 version. Considering Square Enix aren’t even touching the Xbox 360 version of the title until the PS3 one has launched, we’re looking at a longer wait. It’s 2010 for the new title already for people in Europe and the USA. Oh, well. Looks like it’s Star Ocean, The Last Remnant and Lost Odyssey to tide me over until then. Copious amounts of grumble.