In May, I claimed that Merrill Lynch Is Stupid

They said the Wii would cost $200. I said it would cost $250, maybe more.

Today, Nintendo announced the Wii price: $249.

So, I'm gloating a bit. But I also want to make a point:

We need better, or maybe, more responsible business analysis and reporting.

Less guessing guys, eh?

Pixar’s Cars movie isn’t great by any stretch. Still, there is one scene in the film, one moment, that I think pretty much puts a bullet into the brain of the current game business.

I don’t think for a minute, ala Chris Crawford, that the game business is dead. But I’ll join the chorus of respectable people suggesting that it’s high time for the videogame business to set aside firecracker visuals and get back to making interesting games.

Cars, if you haven’t seen it, is another fully digital feature film sporting cute and cuddly characters filled with whimsy and ready-made to be turned into toys and plush collectables. This time, the story follows an egotistical racecar as he learns to appreciate friendship and the qualities of the open road, blah blah blah.

On the road from self-centered NASCAR speedster to more humble competitive racer, the car falls in love with a Porsche who teaches him the beauty of the wide open, rural, American West. The climax of this little automotive love affair culminates in a frisky drive through the back roads that winds up on top a cliff. Here both cars soak in a sublime vista of an endless desert flecked with glowing towers of stone and topped with mountains of cloud suspended in an endless blue sky. The dramatic point is, “Wow, isn’t that beautiful? Doesn’t the scope and beauty of nature humble you? Shouldn’t we kiss?”

The scene itself was ripped from a million other movies, of course. Unremarkable. Hackneyed.

It was also a watershed for the rendering of virtual environments.

OK--The site got spammed pretty bad.

This will most likely take a while to clean out. Unfortunately, I did have some new content to post. Ah, the irony.

Anyway, comments are off for the time being. I may go ahead and post. We'll see. Some days I hate the Internet.

-- David

“I believe that games are not art, and will never be art. Let me explain – games will only match their era, meaning what the people of that age want reflects the outcome of the game at that time. So, if you bring a game from 20 years ago out today, no one will say ‘wow.’ There will be some essence where it’s fun, but there won’t be any wows or touching moments. Like a car, for example. If you bring a car from 20 years ago to the modern day, it will be appealing in a classic sense, but how much gasoline it uses, or the lack of air conditioning will simply not be appreciated in that era. So games will always be a kind of mass entertainment form rather than art. Of course, there will be artistic ways of representing games in that era, but it will still be entertainment. However, I believe that games can be a culture that represent their time. If it’s a light era, or a dark era, I always try to implement that era in my works. In the end, when we look back on the projects, we can say ‘Oh, it was that era.’ So overall, when you look back, it becomes a culture.”

-- Hideo Kojima in the July 2006 issue of Game Informer

I like this quote because I can’t figure out if he is really right or just really wrong.

After a month of letting posts slide, I'm ready to get back at it.

Unfortunately, in the big churn of Internet attention, leaving your blog idle for a few weeks usually equals the rapid departure of your regular readers.

Oh well.

I guess we need to implement a global blogger vacation policy. You know, some sort of social service that lets a blogger take a few weeks off every year without worry about loosing thier blogger job.

Just a thought.

I've long wondered when solid business reporting would become a mainstay of the game business. Sure, Dean Takahashi's new Xbox book is a classic boardroom narraitve and a must read for anyone interested in the mechanics of the big dollar game business. And I've always found Chris Morris as well informed scribe as any. There are others, of course.

But in general, we get business people who jump in, make stupid speculations and then get ink as if they have been paying attention.

Case in point, check out Forbes reporting on a Merrill Lynch analyst pulling a $200 price point for the Wii out of, well, thin air. I've been tentative about this topic in the past, but now I'll confidently predict that it wont happen. And here's why the Wii will cost at least $249, and might even cost $299 or more.

For quite some time, I have been trudging to conferences and taking snapshots. You can catch this year's batch HERE

Not too many pictures this year. I guess it all looks the same after a while.

This week I'm out in San Jose at the Game Developers Conference. I'll have a wrap-up with photos at the end of the show. But for now, you can follow along with a series of Podcasts I'm doing from the show.

I’ll explain my argument in a second. First, try out these links.

Try out the The Big Red Button

Then play a little 1D Tetris

And if you have the time (and a PC), enjoy a little Progress Quest

Now, tell me why interactivity matters.

The MMORPG phenomenon has been the focus of much discussion and debate when discussing unhealthy trends in internet and gaming activity. Since World of Warcraft showed just how popular MMORPG’s could get, other game developer’s rushed to create their own persistent online worlds where gamers could log and begin a new adventure of discovery. The success of the Blizzard business model has been a watershed event for the MMORPG. Perceptually it has moved from a niche market to a mainstream game genre. The MMORPG has also taken the blunt of anti-video game organizations who state that these games are highly addictive and dangerous. Determining why people play and why they play so much should help to uncover the truth or falsity of such panic.

Let us begin with a spectrum: