Nintendo went out to the shed and found their bright-colored paints to give the Wii and DS shiny new coats as a way to drive up sales. You know, that's actually a pretty good idea. Be on the lookout for a neon-pink version of Bitmob coming in the not-so-real future.
News Blips:
Warren Spector now comes in trading-card form. The famed game producer behind Deus Ex has been immortalized by artist Len Peralta as part of the Geek-A-Week challenge, where he must connect with 52 famous geeks over the year and create a trading card for each of them. Peralta honored Spector this week to mark the release of Spector's Epic Mickey, which explains the mouse ears on the card. Other geeks-of-the-week include Wil Wheaton, the cast of Rifftrax, and Jonathan Coulton.
Nintendo sells 900,000 DS handhelds and 600,000 Wiis during the week of Black Friday. Nintendo pumped out a press release this morning trumpeting internal estimates that their hardware sold more than 1.5 million total units from November 21-27. Many of the Black Friday "Door Buster" deals -- deals which people are likely to line up for -- included discounted Wii systems or Wiis with gift cards. The house of Mario was also celebrating the plumber's 25th anniversary with special red DS units and Wiis. Both of the special packages came bundled with a Mario title and likely helped to spur sales.
World of Warcraft gets an interactive fiction -- sort of. A thread on the World of Warcraft message boards that began with the subject "0. You awaken in Razor Hill" continued for dozens of pages with different posters commenting commands to a single, human narrator. The thread was started by forum user Dusk, who acted as dungeon master for a large group of players who inputed commands for the player character -- an Orc Hunter named "Tednugent" who had a pet cat named "Scratchfever" -- by replying in the thread. It's an interesting read, if only to see Dusk's deft humor in dealing with trolls and people who wanted to grief the experience. To see a cleaned-up version of the entire text adventure, check thelittlemurloc.com.
Internet broadcaster Games Cast TV hopes to capitalize on growing e-sports market. E-sports like competitive first-person shooters and Starcraft probably won't be able to find a home on cable television in the United States, but nothing is stopping those competitions from finding a viewership online. Games Cast TV hopes to be the home for people looking for that type of live gaming, with a lineup of professional and amateur players feeding livestreams of them playing anything from Call of Duty: Black Ops to Starcraft 2. The feeds are strangely entrancing to watch. For a schedule of upcoming live events, check the Games Cast TV website.
Got any hot news tips? Send 'em over to tips@bitmob.com.
