NPD: Female Gamer Population Increasing On Consoles

The NPD says the number of female gamers in the audience is up year over year — “significantly” on consoles. The percentage of console gamers who are female grew from 23 to 28 percent in 2009, according to the NPD’s new market segment study. The rise is mainly attributable to the Wii, which itself saw a 19 percent increase in usage over last year. But even in more core-market outliers, female presence is up, the …

WiiHD by 2010, PS3 Number Two by 2015, Says Pachter

It is Michael Pachter’s job to speculate on the gaming industry, and as is usually the case, he is pulling out some of the big guns. He targets each of the “Big Three” below.

“We expect the dominant console at the end of the this cycle to be the Wii, as we think that the console’s low price point, innovative control mechanism, and compatibility with standard definition televisions will provide it with a competitive advantage over the next two years,” claimed Pachter in regards to Nintendo’s Wii console. He also added in the rumor that the WiiHD could see the light of day as early as 2010.

Because Sony won the HD format war, Pachter believes that it will take the second place by 2015. Though he sees it coming in second, the race for the place will be close with the Xbox 360.

To cap off the last of the consoles, he believes that the Xbox 360 market position, “will fade to third place due to lack of penetration in Japan.”

All of this seems pretty legitimate considering that the Xbox hasn’t been selling as well as it could be in Japan, but the WiiHD rumor seems a little far-fetched in my opinion. It would be a welcome upgrade, but I think 2010 might be too early to pull a “new” console on consumers. What’s your take on Pachter’s predictions?

Wii Sports Resort: A Prelude to Zelda?

Following E3, we’ve heard some brief allusions from Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto that, should the next Legend of Zelda title use the Wii MotionPlus, we could see some things similar to what will be available when Wii Sports Resort lands on shelves.

As if to validate the claim, Siliconera spent some time with the game itself, and found one part of the swordplay mode to give off a rather Zelda-ish vibe.

Find out how after the cut.

Nomura Talks Kingdom Hearts on Wii and Kingdom Hearts 3

Nintendo, Square Enix, and Disney. It sounds like a natural trifecta of win and awesome, and yet, outside of a couple of portable titles, the Kingdom Hearts experience has yet to find its way onto a Nintendo console.

Fortunately, this is not one of those instances where the game’s creator would simply brush off the notion; Nintendo Everything reports that in an interview with Nintendo Power for the July issue, Tetsuya Nomura addressed the possibility of bringing Mickey, Sora, and friends to the Wii.

X-Play’s Grand Slam Tennis Wii Review

What with Wimbledon in full swing, it’s prime tennis season for fans of the sport, and EA is betting that Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus will bring intensity and intelligence to Grand Slam Tennis, a game that allows you to inhabit the avatars of over 20 tennis legends on the court.

According to reviewer Greg Bemis:

"EA’s Grand Slam Tennis has the dubious honor of not only being a new franchise for the publishing giant, but one that takes advantage of  Nintendo’s mostly unproven new attachment, Wii MotionPlus.  So far, some games, like Tiger Woods 10 make excellent use of the little plastic nubbin, while others do not.  Grand Slam Tennis falls somewhere in between."

Check out the written review and video here.

THQ Says Deadly Creatures’ Commercial Failure Will Not Be In Vain

You probably didn’t play Deadly Creatures. I loved it. THQ has been an unsung hero of innovation on the Wii, starting with last year’s infuriatingly overlooked de Blob and continued a few months back with the creepy-crawly Deadly Creatures. Almost no one played Deadly Creatures, damn near no one bought Deadly Creatures (please fix that, TheFeed readers!), but THQ CEO Brian Farrell told me in a phone interview last week that Deadly Creatures’ sacrifice won’t necessarily in vain.

"The lines are blurry," said Farrell, speaking on what THQ’s learned about producing core and casual Wii games since de Blob and Deadly Creatures were released. "One of the things that THQ has tried to do is innovate — sometimes successfully, sometimes not."

Deadly Creatures was a wild success, in my book. The game was not without its problems, mostly stemming from a general lack of polish, but a video game has never made me feel unease while simply walking around as my main character. Every time my spider leaped forward, screeching with dripping venom, I shuddered. Goosebumps are forming on my arms as I type this. Spiders and Patrick Klepek do not mix, but it made for an action experience unlike any other, one well worth seeking out.

"We wanted to see ‘is there an audience out there that will play something completely different on the Wii?’" said Farrell. "Commercially, we were not pleased with how it was received, but again, the critics loved it and that happens in this business sometimes."

Farrell admits he hasn’t quite worked out what when wrong with Deadly Creatures. There is hope, though. Deadly Creatures 2 might not be on the table — though hopefully my request to the highest in THQ’s chain of command will plant the idea — but work that went into Deadly Creatures will be used elsewhere.

"We don’t have a good post-mortem on [Deadly Creatures]," he said, "but one of the key things that we can build on there is we have great — that was [developed by] one our internal studios, Rainbow Studios — and we have great Wii technology there now and so we’re developing other games — stay tuned for the announcements — but we intend to leverage that great technology on the Wii in the future."

That "great technology" might not be used on a sequel to Deadly Creatures, but if it means more unique Wii releases from THQ, sign me up.

Dead Space Extraction a risk on Wii

Dead Space Extraction will be one of a few M rated titles for Wii worth looking at. M rated games for the most part have a hard time selling on the Wii as many do not do well. Can Dead Space Extraction could change the haters minds. EA Games label president Frank Gibeau expresses his feelings about how this is a “risk”.

“Well, there has been some M-rated high-quality games released recently on Wii that we’ve taken note of, and that’s why I think Dead Space: Extraction is a gamble. It’s a calculated risk. Can a high-quality experience like that that appeals to a more mature audience work on the Wii platform? We spent a lot of research, time, and understanding that the customer dynamics of who’s actually playing on the Wii, do they own multiple platforms, are there really gamers on the Wii, or is it mainly families and youth? But we think we’ve found a market on the Wii that would be interested in the Dead Space: Extraction experiment. We’re going to take a gamble and build that market. You know, until you try, you don’t really know if the hypothesis is correct or not.”

True it is a risk, but with such an established IP as Dead Space and fans of the first most likely owning a Wii, we have a good feeling this game will be a great seller once it’s all said an done.

Shaun White Snowboarding World Stage Preview

The first Shaun White on Wii was a valid effort with it’s stylized visuals and incredible control schemes, but World Stage seems to not only enhance everything about the game this time around, but also fix some of the flaws the last iteration had.

Competition is a key element for this years Shaun White, not only is your goal to become number 1, but you’ll do it in very beautiful locations. This year’s title brings new locations to Shaun White from London and Paris to San Fran and Time Square. You will also get your normal mountain maps like the Chile location from last year as well as new ones not yet announced.
In the beginning of the game you will be set in an airport which acts as the games hub. You will travel to different locations for competition from this airport, which we think is a great idea in game (better than the VW tour bus from last year’s).

This year World Stage brings a feature that honestly should be in just about every game made, online leaderboards. Your fastest times and biggest tricks will be placed online for others to see and beat. Not only is there online leaderboards but achievements as well. Just like the varies achievements you collect in the game there will be rewards for those achievements. Finally more developers are getting that people like rewards for their hard work not just a number on a gamer tag. With these rewards comes the ability to buy gear, boards, and stickers (that can then be placed on your board). You will also be able to customize your character, although that feature has not yet been revealed in much detail.

The biggest feature though has to be the multiplayer. There will be 4 player multi, but not only that there will be co-op. During career mode a friend can jump in at any time during the career to battle with you. This will all be seamless and will most likely be the biggest feature of the game, for us atleast.

Look for more details soon as Shaun White Snowboarding World Stage gets closer to it’s winter release date.

Rock Band Wiikly: Pearl Jam, Mission of Burma, Offspring and more

Rock Band Wiikly’s tap has flowed with massive quantities of tracks for weeks now. Sure, the releases aren’t exactly synced with Rock Band Weekly, but the back catalog of Rock Band DLC is certainly being filled in. Our concern that it would take until mid-2010 for the full catalog sync is slowly dissipating. This week’s update of 16 tracks to the Wii music store includes the Pearl Jam tracks from a couple weeks back, along with a whole mess of other stuff. Find the full list after the break.

Continue reading Rock Band Wiikly: Pearl Jam, Mission of Burma, Offspring and more

Rock Band Wiikly: Pearl Jam, Mission of Burma, Offspring and more originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pachter: WiiHD still coming, Xbox in third by 2015

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is no stranger to the gaming scene. In fact, it’s his job to guesstimate, speculate, and estiguess on all things gaming, and in his latest report (via IndustryGamers), he paints the future for all three console manufacturers.

First up is Nintendo, a company that Pachter believes will remain in the top spot throughout this console generation. Due to the Wii’s “low price point, innovative control mechanism, and compatibility with standard definition televisions.” Pachter thinks that Nintendo will rest easy atop the gaming mountain. And he thinks the Wii HD is a big part of it, as Pachter firmly believes Nintendo will introduce a HD-compatible Wii at some point, even as early as next year.

Then there’s Sony and its PS3. Pointing to Sony’s win in the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war, Pachter says the PS3 will capture “significant market share” through this alone, and says the company will take second place. Regardless, Pachter sees the PS3 and Xbox 360 sharing very similar market share at the conclusion of this generation.

Moving on to Microsoft, Pachter believes the company will end this generation in third, largely due to the console’s inability to sell in Japan. Pachter downplays the “losing” angle, however, stating that he believes Microsoft will sell twice as many Xbox 360s as the company did the original Xbox, which, granted it actually happens, would be a nice feather in Microsoft’s cap.

Pachter: WiiHD still coming, Xbox in third by 2015 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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