No one seems to give too much of a damn about Nintendo’s latest console

As a kid growing up I used to love playing video games. I wasn’t obsessive about the games like you see with so many young kids today; I probably played as much as anyone else in my age group. However, as I got older I began to learn more about the video game companies. Who were the people behind these games? Who made the Mario series? What about the Madden games? Who was behind the wildly popular WCW/nWo video games? By the way, I used to consistently watch wrestling (again, probably not any more than anyone else in my age group – we all loved Stone Cold and The Rock back in the 1990s). Those two items – video games and wrestling – were two pieces of pop culture that I “knew” and that I felt comfortable investing in. So I invested in WWE and THQ stock back in 2008, too.

A quick side note: today, I’m only invested in two stocks – Sirius XM and WWE. They’re both reliable and WWE’s dividend is fantastic, not to mention that the stock has doubled in value over the last year (and… I happened to purchase before it doubled, too). Oh, and I sold my THQ stock at a profit before the company went under.

Getting back to the point, one of the things that I knew well as a young kid and that I researched quite a bit as I got older was the video game industry and, in particular, the Nintendo company. No matter what people may think, the Nintendo gaming consoles were the superior, global home console up until the GameCube was released (and floundered). They beat the Genesis and the first PlayStation as well as a long line of one-shot consoles that could never really compete. And yet, when I began investing – even after Nintendo had its major success and reclaimed the “King of the Consoles” crown with the Wii, I couldn’t bring myself to invest in the company.

And I still can’t bring myself to invest in the company because of blunders like the Wii U.

There are a bunch of people out there who are writing about how Nintendo should scrap the entire Wii U platform and focus on a truly next generation system. Others are writing that Nintendo should just give up on hardware and become a dominant software company on the Sony and Microsoft systems (which I think is a silly, dumb idea). And there’s never a shortage of anti-Nintendo writers who are heralding the end of the company once and for all (they get proven wrong every few years).

I don’t think I fall easily into any one of those categories. First, I’m just a guy with a blog – not someone who gets paid to write about technology or gaming systems. Second, I base my entire opinion on not investing in Nintendo solely on my own personal impressions of their ability to meet the demands of the video game market. Third, I’ve always been a fan of Nintendo and as long as they exist I’ll probably remain a fan (even though my video gaming has dropped from 2 – 3 hours each day as a kid to 2 – 3 hours every 6 months today).

With that information as a base, the title of this entry remains: What to do about Nintendo’s Wii U blunder?

I’m not going to suggest that they should scrap the system completely. However, I do think that it would make a lot of sense to drop the dual screen peripheral requirement for the most intense and hardcore games. In other words, when the latest Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Madden, NBA 2K, etc. are being developed and released for the next generation consoles (Wii U, X-Box 1, and PlayStation 4), the developers should have the option of making a game that doesn’t require the use of the second screen in the game pad. I don’t know if it is easy or economically viable for third party developers to do that right now, but it seems to me that part of the Wii U blunder is the gigantic game pad with a second screen that hasn’t ignited the video gaming world like the Wii Remote did in the last decade. And speaking of the Wii Remote, I don’t think that Nintendo ever really understood why it was such a draw for hardcore and old school gamers. It wasn’t that any of us old school video gamers or any of the hardcore gamers were excited about swinging our arms around like a looney tune – nope. The draw of the Wii Remote is that there were only two or three buttons that you could push to perform an action – not the nearly dozen or so that you had to deal with on the PlayStation controller.

Nintendo missed that point completely and it shows with the silly second screen in the huge Wii U game pad.

The other thing that I would do if I were Nintendo is I’d really focus on the next generation console and make it everything that their competition is and more. Yes, it’s time for Nintendo to start making a home theater-capable console. That means that the next Nintendo console has to be able to play the latest home movie technology whether it’s still Blu-Ray movies or something more advanced. And the console needs to be able to easily perform the same multimedia streaming/tasks that the Microsoft and Sony platforms can perform. If that type of functionality is paired with a blazing fast system that can handle the latest graphics and includes a powerful, yet easy-to-use internet shop, then I think Nintendo has a winner on its hands.

The final requirement that I would have for Nintendo’s next system is full backward functionality with the Wii and Wii U. Further, that backwards functionality should include the ability to transfer the digital ownership rights of any game purchased in the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles. That would be the type of ground-breaking, customer-centric focus that would set Nintendo apart (again) from the pack and ultimately lead it to long-term success…

…and potentially lead me to invest in the company!

But Kickstarter is better than just feeling good about what you do with your money – you actually get something in return for your dollars.

The first campaign that I put some money towards was a music project. Believe it or not, there is a woman professional wrestler who is an accomplished country music artist. She’s not half bad, actually! Anyway, this woman was trying to make a second album with funding from Kickstarter and was asking for anyone to contribute $5, $10, $50, $100, and so on towards the costs to develop her album. After the word spread around the internet, she reached her funding goal and is now in the process of making the music. The dollar amount that you contribute to a campaign dictates what you’ll get in return. Personally, I only contribute at a level where I’m going to get something tangible. For this woman’s campaign, I contributed $50 (funded from my website company) which gets me both a physical copy of the new album plus the full MP3 version of the album, my name in the “thank you” section of the album, my CD autographed by the woman, and an invitation-only web concert. Sometimes the rewards are much more extravagant. For example, in this campaign if you donated $10,000, then you received all of these items, a 30-minute in-home concert, a hand-painted t-shirt from the singer, an executive producer listing for the album, and a personalized thank you video.

And each Kickstarter campaign is different. Seriously, check out the link above – I think you’ll enjoy what you find on there.

This entry, though, is about a new video game console that I saw on Kickstarter. Here, watch the video for yourself:

Did you watch the video? It’s a pretty cool concept, right? Some of you might be wondering, “Well, what’s the difference between this OUYA video game system and the Nintendo Wii or the Playstation 3 or something like that?” And that’s a good question. I’ve been doing some research on this OUYA concept and what these folks are trying to do and this is what I think the difference is between this console and the others.

It’s open.

When I say it’s open I mean that you can go in and hack it and it doesn’t void a warranty or become an illegal device or anything like you might imagine. In other words, people can go in and hack the core system’s operating protocols (I’m probably not using the right language) and it’s not a problem at all (assuming, of course, that the hacking doesn’t fry the system). The OUYA system is built on the same software infrastructure as the Droid cell phones out there – it’s an Android-based system. What this means is that anyone who can develop an “app” for a Droid cell phone or an app for a Droid tablet (for example, a NOOK) can have that app operationable on the OUYA system. This creates two immediate outcomes – one interesting and one alarming.

The interesting outcome is that since the console is built on the Android system, there are going to be thousands of apps and mobile games available for download on the first day that this thing is hooked up in your living room. The second, more alarming outcome is that I can’t imagine wanting to play any of the time-wasting games on my cell phone on the big screen of my television.

That second outcome is one of the issues that the OUYA development team is taking very seriously. They are talking to a variety of high-level gaming software companies to ensure that there are blockbuster-level games available for this system as soon as it hits the market. That’s going to be a huge task, but with only one week of starting their Kickstarter campaign these folks have already generated over $5.2 million from over 40,000 backers.

That’s a lot of money to make in a single week!

I admit that I’m not technical enough to know much more about how this thing is going to work, but I do know that if you Bing “OUYA” you’ll find a bunch of positive and negative press for the not-yet-created console. For my part, I like supporting these Kickstarter campaigns and I’ve supported a variety of independent video games on that website already. So I supported the OUYA campaign at the $99 level. This gets me the ability to reserve my username before the console goes live to market, a “Founder” emblem emblazoned next to my username forever, and an OUYA console plus one controller. That’s right – a brand new video game system (expected to be delivered some time in March 2013) for $99 (plus $20 for shipping).

You can’t even buy a used current generation console for $99!

If you’re interested in the OUYA or in at least learning more about it, check out their Kickstarter page. This is a very interesting concept and I’m glad to support it!

Thanks again, F.Y.E.!

And so we have Round Three of trading in my old, dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. for store credit!

Amid the happiness that I feel about turning old, dusty DVDs into a functional asset (store credit) I have to admit that there’s something unsettling about the process of trading in these DVDs. I’m not sure what it is – it could be the fact that I’m receiving back in store credit only a fraction of what these DVDs originally cost me (and a small fraction, by the way). I don’t know what it is, but that unsettling feeling is more than squelched by the dual fact that I have less unused/not-going-to-be-used stuff laying around my bedroom and that, in return for getting rid of this stuff, I have a new functional asset in F.Y.E. store credit.

So how much did I earn in store credit for trading in all of these DVDs? Take a look at the list below and find out for yourself!

Ducktales Season 1 – $6.25
Smallville Season 1 – $3.75
Smallville Season 4 – $2.50
Smallville Season 5 – $5.00
Smallville Season 6 – $2.50
Smallville Season 7 – $10.00
American History X – $1.88
Beetlejuice – $2.50
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new one) – $1.25
Creep Show – $1.25
Dane Cook: Harmful if Swallowed – $2.50
Great Outdoors – $1.25
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – $1.88
Lewis Black: Black on Broadway – $2.50
Lewis Black: Unleashed – $1.25
Life – $1.25
Masters of the Universe – $3.75
Meet the Fockers – $1.25
Meet the Parents – $1.88
My Cousin Vinny – $2.50
Office Space – $2.50
Robots – $1.25
Rudy – $1.25
Shrek – $1.25
Shrek 2 – $0.63
The Addams Family 1 – $1.25
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – $1.88
The Passion of the Christ – $2.50
The Simpsons: Gone Wild – $1.88
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror – $1.25
True Lies – $1.25
Wedding Crashers – $1.25
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old one) – $2.50

I think that part of the unsettling feeling is seeing an entire season of the Smallville television series bringing in $2.50. I mean… good grief! Two dollars and fifty cents?! I probably paid $25 for that box set when it was released for goodness’ sake! Geez…

Anyway, in total I generated $77.53 in store credit from Round Three of my DVD trade-ins this year. As you might recall from Round One and Round Two, I’ve been trading in my old, dusty DVDs throughout 2010. In total, this year I generated $244.22 in store credit at F.Y.E. by trading in some of these unused old DVDs that were doing nothing more than taking up space in my bedroom. Add in another $25.25 that I generated by trading in some old video games to GameStop and another $54 that I generated by returning an unopened video game controller to Walmart and I’ve done pretty well this year in generating usable assets from completely unused stuff laying around my bedroom.

What remains of my once huge DVD collection

And I don’t think I’m done yet.

Take a look at the picture to the right to see what remains of my DVD and video game collection. It’s getting pretty scarce, don’t you think? Let me walk you through this thing starting with the media tower on the left side of the picture. The top and second shelves are filled with different DVDs that I haven’t yet traded in or that I’ve decided I’m not trading in. The third shelf with the stack of DVDs on it are product that I bought at a discount to give away on one of the wrestling sites that I own. The fourth shelf contains a few t-shirts that I’ll also being giving away on that wrestling site and a three-pack of DVDs that I received for Christmas. So in this media tower I really only have two shelves worth of DVDs that you can actually count towards my collection.

As for the media tower on the right, the first shelf contains all of my Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video games. The second shelf contains the wrestling DVDs that I’m holding on to as well as some PC and PlayStation 2 video games. The third shelf mostly contains my Christmas DVD collection and the first few Family Guy box sets.

And that’s it. That’s what left of my DVD and video game collection. Pretty amazing, I think – especially when you consider that I once had probably 400 or so DVDs and video games in my college/post-college collection. What about you? Are there any old DVDs or video games laying around your house that you can trade-in to a store for some credit or sell on eBay for a few bucks?

If so, then what are you waiting for?!

Ha ha ha! How great is that?! Not only do you have the team at ThinkGeek.com reviving one of the most underrated consoles of the last generation, but they’re doing it on the cheap. And as for games, an eBay search shows me over 900 listings (plus I’m sure any GameStop or EB Games has some discs laying around for sale).

And I love that Dreamcast is now competing again (at least in terms of price) with PlayStation 2. Frankly, this is a battle that it cannot win since virtually everyone owns a PlayStation 2 (some 45.2 million sold vs. 2.2 million for the Dreamcast). But it’s fun and I got a kick out of it.

I would absolutely buy a Dreamcast, but the truth is that I really enjoy the Wii and Nintendo DS so much that I don’t want/need another system. And even more than that, I don’t really have any time to play video games these days. If I pick up an hour or two of gaming each month between the Wii, the DS, or my computer then that’s a lot.

But for those of you who want an affordable – and fun – alternative to the current generation of video gaming systems, give Sega’s Dreamcast a try!

The Wii still dominates the market with 48.5 million units sold worldwide which is almost double the nearest competition. XBox 360 comes in second with some 29.5 million units worldwide with PlayStation 3 bringing in the caboose at 21.3 million units worldwide. And in terms of handheld units, forget about it. The Nintendo DS has over 100 million units sold worldwide, which is more than double the PSP. It’s not even worth calling a competition any more in that segment of the market.

I read an update about the Wii now being able to handle up to 32GB smart disks and a change in the core technology to allow users to download software directly to their smart disks. That’s a welcome relief for many gamers who were running up against the internal limits of their Wii machines and other gamers who went out and purchased smart disks when they bought their system and have had yet to use them! It always seemed odd to me that the smart disk technology would be so ready available for use with the Wii, but that there would be no game-specific uses for it upon the system’s launch. Talk about a dumb move – but at least it’s been fixed now.

And apparently there are going to be more Final Fantasy downloads coming from the WiiWare system thanks to Square-Enix’s support for this feature. That can only be welcome news as there will always be a void in Nintendo’s line-up with no first-run games from the core Final Fantasy story.

Anyway, just thought I’d share some information that I picked up when running around the website linked above. Enjoy!

And not only did the Nintendo Wii win the home console wars, but the Nintendo DS continued to destroy the Sony PSP in the handheld video game market. The year-end tallies at VGChartz.com shows that, to date, Nintendo has sold some 94.7 million DS units worldwide while Sony has only sold 42.3 million PSPs. Granted, selling 42.3 million of any product is nothing to scoff at, but when your competition is doubling you in sales you have to wonder if you’re even competition any more.

The Yahoo! article gives a somewhat bleak outlook for Sony in the new year:

As for Sony, well, they just can’t catch a break. The company scored a major coup when Blu-ray officially trounced HD-DVD in the hi-def format war, but few believe the technology will catch on with consumers. Strong sales of big-time exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 were promising, but the troubled launch of their ‘Home’ network coupled with relatively weak holiday sales (only Resistance 2 cracked the Top 10 list in November, all the way back at number 9) cramped their style. The once-promising PSP is getting whomped by both the DS and Apple’s surging iPhone. Did a witch cast a spell on these guys or what?

Many people forget that the iPhone is out there and competing in the handheld space. Further, the iPhone directly competes with the PSP since both are generally purchased by the “core” users of high-end electronics. The same group of core gamers are currently stifling both XBox 360 and PS3 from breaking out and really competing against the Wii. Nintendo is laughing its way to the bank!

Finally, VGChartz.com shows 43.8 million Wii consoles being sold worldwide (with more than 20 million in the United States alone). This compares, worldwide, to 26.5 million XBox 360 units and 18.8 million PS3 units. Yeah, you might say that Nintendo is firmly on top of the console wars!

Nintendo’s sales mark represents the most game systems sold in any month since November 2002, when Sony sold 2.7 million PlayStation 2 systems (priced at $200), Frazier says. The PS2 has gone on to sell about 43.2 million in the U.S.

A quick jump over to VGChartz.com shows us that Wii has sold 18.28 million units in the United States, which is a little less than 4 million more than its nearest competitor, Microsoft’s XBox 360. This number is also about 12 million more than the PlayStation 3, which would have almost certainly been cut as a product if Sony lost the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war with Microsoft.

Anyway, the point here is that it is remarkable that the video game industry has only been marginally rocked by the market tumult. And it is even more impressive that Nintendo has managed to build a juggernaut system without the use of an internal hard drive or high definition graphics. Add in that the bulk of the games available for the Wii are family-friendly and generally leave the hardcore gamers out in the cold, and you have a real phenomenon in the video game industry.

As a guy who is financially invested in the successful outcome of at least one video game software company (which has not been mentioned in this post), I hope that the good news keeps coming in!

It turns out Sony has lost more money on the hardware side of the PS3 than it made from the stupidly successful Playstation 2.

Are you serious?! Everyone has a Playstation 2 and Sony managed to LOSE the money that it made on that system?!? If this information is accurate (and Lord knows how you would be able to verify it), then someone at Sony needs to be fired right now. The article goes on…

Microsoft reportedly lost $4 billion on the original Xbox and the Red Ring of Death cost $1 billion to put right on its own.

Gah!!! The original XBox may not have been as ubiquitous as the Playstation 2, but to lose that type of money and get back in the video gaming business in ludicrous. The same article notes how Nintendo is actually making money on each Wii sale because of the low cost to manufacture the hardware. Amazing.

In the video game wars it appears that success doesn’t come down to graphics or speed or any of the perks that come with the Sony and Microsoft systems. It appears that success is a function of fun and feasibility. And Nintendo has mastered that function.

No, I didn’t play the game for 100 straight hours! I played an hour or two per day for about a month and a half until I beat it today. I have to say though, for a game that has some pretty innovative and fun game-play – the ending was a little anti-climatic.

Generally, a Final Fantasy game gets REALLY annoying towards the end of the game because you beat the final enemy and then you have a super-duper secret enemy that you have to beat…only to be followed by a mega-massive, super-duper, kill-your-face enemy that actually has the balance of the universe in its hands. Thankfully, Final Fantasy XII doesn’t have that type of a garbage ending sequence! Actually, if you’ve built your characters up enough, you can breeze through the end of the game. This is a nice, good change for the series. My take on it is that if you get your characters to a maxed out level (usually 99), then why should you NOT be able to destroy any “bad guys” in the game?

But in terms of the actual story, I felt like the ending was not what it could have been. That being said, it looked great! The graphics were just amazing for a PS2 (makes me want to buy a PS3 when the next Final Fantasy comes out). If only the story matched the graphics, this game would be an instant legend.

However, if you’re looking for a good way to blow some free time and about $50, I recommend going out and purchasing a copy of this game. When you come to the end of the game, though, don’t be surprised if the game is over before you even know it!

That’s a crazy amount of Wii’s in a short amount of time!

These numbers, compared to the paltry 360,000 PlayStation 3 consoles sold show a very interesting story. With all of the horsepower and all of the hoopla around the PS3 debut, the system just isn’t that appealing to the gaming masses. But wait, you say. What about all of these people dying over PS3s and what about the fact that they’re sold out? Well, the biggest use of PS3s right now is NOT in people’s home – it’s reselling them. EBay is packed with PS3 packages and the game is sold out in the stores for this reason – people are buying the consoles simply to turn around and sell them.

While this is also happening with Wii, there are many more stories about how much fun the Nintendo system is – which means that people are buying the system and playing it, not reselling it. In any event, the recent surge of Wii sales shows the huge confusion that Microsoft and Sony have about video gamers.

Yes, there are gamers out there who will buy the PS3 and the XBox 360 because of the high definition graphics and the ability to watch high definition DVDs. And yes, there are people who will buy XBox 360 because of their enormous game library and who will buy PS3 just because it’s a PS3. But when you listen to what the marketing guys from Microsoft and Sony are saying to try to sell these systems, they’re completely confused.

Recently, one Sony employee said that the PS3 is on track to become so much more than a gaming machine. Well, that’s the problem! We don’t want to buy a video game system to do our daily e-mailing on – we want a video game machine that is a lot of FUN to play! Hell, we’ll even take graphics that aren’t that great if the game is fun! Don’t believe that? Go to any old-school arcade and tell me that you don’t love playing The Simpsons video game from the mid 1990’s. Or sit down with any PS2, GameCube, or XBox and tell me that playing a good Mortal Kombat or Sonic the Hedgehog or Final Fantasy game isn’t sweet.

That’s what gamers want – FUN! You can keep your “home entertainment centers” – we already have a desktop or laptop PC!