OMG Nintendo

THQ's Neighborhood Games isn't one of those games that's bad because nobody involved really cared about what they were doing. THQ's PR department sent it to me twice, they wanted it covered so bad. Still, the game is pretty deeply and fundamentally flawed. 

Neighborhood Games is a family mini-game collection of the sort that mimics Wii Sports, but it's not really good at any of the things that make Wii Sports appealing. The controls are stiff and it's hard to control how hard you're throwing any given ball or dart or whatever, especially in the basketball games. Most of the games use the same motion input, but some are harder to play than others because of glitches in the on-screen character's throwing animation.

Neighborhood Games advertises twenty-four minigames, but they're all variations on a handful of  basic games that boil down to only two or three different types of control input. There are unlockables and a single player mode and customizable avatars, but none of it is really appealing. There's none of the pick-up-and-play friendliness of Wii Sports, but no real depth either.

Most attempts at family mini-game collections turn out like Neighborhood Games, so I actually don't think THQ put in an especially bad effort here. I think the real problem is inherent in the genre. All Wii mini-game collections want to be Wii Sports and want to appeal to people who like Wii Sports, but only a handful of these games have achieved even a significant fraction of Wii Sports's success. There's something important about the family mini-game genre that non-Nintendo developers can't quite grasp yet. 

Today Pokémon USA, Inc. announced a deal with Toys "R" Us that would put a lot of new Pokémon stuff in each and every store. Right now an area at the entrance of every "R Zone", the fancy new name for TRU's video game department, is going to feature a showcase area for all sorts of different Pokémon merchandse. This will include the games, the CCG, DVDs of the cartoon, and plenty of toys. If you live in NYC, you can visit the Times Square TRU to see an entire Pokémon boutique section set up in the store.

TRU is also promising more special retail events at stores nationwide through 2009, though I'm not sure they're the sort of events where you get free rare Pokémon for showing up. The first event runs through this week, ending on February 14, and a second event will take place later this spring.  The big push for Pokémon is to highlight the impending release of Pokémon Platinum, the chaser to the multi-million selling Diamond and Pearl games, so I bet we get our second event around Platinum's March 22 launch date.

Check out the full release behind the cut if you want more (kinda vague) details. Usually seeing a branded area like this show up in TRU means you're dealing with a red-hot kid's property, and it won't be the first of its kind of show up at Toys "R" Us. However, the last one I saw was when I went into a store when I was about 14, so this should give you an idea of how absurdly long-lived Pokémon is as a kid's property.

So, if I've done my math correctly, Nintendo moved at least four million Wiis in the November-December Christmas shopping season. That's four million new Wii owners popping up, pretty much overnight. (You guys are all gonna read my site, right?!)

Now, a lot of those Wiis are moving into households where they'll occupy a privileged position in the family's living room, to be enjoyed by all. Despite this, a lot of parents are making a cheapskate mistake that probably dates back to their own limited experiences with video games back in the 80's: they're trying to get by with just two controllers, usually the system pack-in and then the one that comes with Wii Play.

No, no, no. If you ever intend for your Wii to be played by groups of people, buy four controllers. Yes, this tacks on about an extra hundred dollars to the cost of the Wii. Yes, you won't use that third and fourth controller every day, and could've bought two (or more) games instead. Still, when you've got gobs of company or your kids have friends over, you'll really wish you had those extra two Remotes. Consider the Guitar Hero World Tour saga of sadness, if you must find some way to justify the purchase.

Chain Chomp Launcher: Launch Chain Chomp forward to knock down Wario and Bowser!

This is not exactly news, but... look! Free adorable plastic Chain Chomp! I'm not really capable of not talking about this.

Burger King is running a promotion now where you get a free Wii-themed toy with every purchase of a Kids' Meal, and some of the full set of ten are really severely adorable. A few are utter crap, of course, but that's inevitable when people are giving you free plastic tchotkes.

Here's pics of the full set, nicked from nifty stuff blog Super Punch without remorse. Some of these I want badly enough to consider actually ordering a Kids Meal, though not so badly I would resort to buying full sets on e-bay for ridiculous prices. I also had to include the adorably priceless toy descriptions.

The closest thing to a violent game Shigeru Miyamoto's ever designed is... uh... Zelda, maybe? Regardless, Nintendo's legendary game designer spoke out on the subject during a UK press trip to promote the release of the highly non-violent Wii Music (which should also be out in US stores this week). Here's the scoop, roughly paraphrased from 1up's coverage:

I don't want to curb freedom of expression, but I am concerned many developers focus on excessive violence in order to stimulate people's minds. I believe that there are more ways of grabbing players' attention than violence alone. I also hope that parents take advantage of age ratings when letting their children play.

Not surprising statements from a Nintendo employee, but interesting in light of the fact that the core fanbase are primarily interested in seeing super-violent titles like No More Heroes, Mad World, and GTA: Chinatown Wars. Of course, it's not like Nintendo's been having a hard time selling non-violent titles like Wii Play and Wii Fit, either...

I haven't been covering Wii Music in-depth since... seriously, there isn't any. Still, the video above will probably do a better job of selling this game to those of you who have kids in your lives than pretty much any possible feature rundown. Bonus: Shigeru Miyamoto goofing off with little kids!

Any kids out there reading this: use this for ammo the next time your parents balk at letting you get a DS. Alternatively, parents reading this who are balking at buying a DS for a child: no, buy it and just your kid play Brain Age every day.

A recent study by Learning and Teaching Scotland reveals that students who played twenty minutes of Brain Age (a.k.a. Brain Training in Europe) every day at the start of class showed dramatic improvements in math ability, test-taking skills, concentration, and behavior over the course of the nine week program. Even better: slower learners benefited more than students with already-high scores, and there was no difference in performance gains among girls and boys.

Nintendo has always sworn up and down that Brain Age was just for entertainment, or at best for keeping an older person's mind sharp, but apparently the software has huge benefits to offer kids when used as a teaching tool. Hopefully this study crosses the Atlantic and gets some American educators thinking of ways to use DS games as part of math education curricula.

Wait just a minute here. Wasn't Wii Fit supposed to be targeting boomers and thirty-somethings? Not, you know, little kids who are probably already in great shape?

Regardless, child-oriented retailer Toys R Us has reported surging profits for the summar quarter, driven primarily by strong sales of Wii Fit. Or, to quote GamesIndustry.biz:

The retailer recorded a USD 13 million profit for the three months ended August 2, up from a loss of USD 42 million for the same period last year. Revenues for the period were up 6.3 per cent to USD 2.7 billion.

"The entertainment category was primarily affected by the successful launch of Nintendo Wii Fit, which drove strong demand for videogame software and related accessories," stated the retailer.

I suppose people desperate for Wii Fit could just be stalking Toys R Us as a source of major shipments, but there are other reports of kids going crazy for Wii Fit. I really have to wonder why.

Has Wii Fit failed in Japan? Not in financial terms, but in terms of people actually using it. Japanese media outlet +D Games conducted a survey five months after Wii Fit's launch to see what people were doing with their Wii Fits.

The big result basically everyone is reporting on is that 64% of buyers report that they stopped using it after purchase. 6% report using it once a week, 6% every two to three days, and 22% report that they still use Wii Fit every day. Most outlets are just reporting on the survey results and that failtastic 64% figure. Ah, but you need to read the rest of the article to put these results in perspective...

The article suggests that these results are more positive than one might think, stating that this still means that 1 in 5 people who bought the game are still using it 5 months after purchase, which is impressive on its own right given the game's huge install base. Do some quick math based on estimated Wii Fits sold in Japan to date, and that means 120,000 people are still reporting to their Balance Board daily.