Aloha, fellow gamers!! This is the time of year that we all look forward to on the yearly gaming calendar (next to the dates of certain game releases we are looking forward to) is the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, also known as “E3.” This year, the conference takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. As with CES 2012 and the AIA 2012 Convention, I will be doing this for the rest of E3, and now that day three of E3 2012 is complete, I wish to provide a few briefs about my five favorite stories made today at the show.
1) Shigeru Miyamoto Is Working On A New Game (it’ll be awhile, though…): Legendary game designer/creator Shigeru Miyamoto is working with small team on a brand new game. He tells Joystiq.com “one thing I want to clear up; people like to ask me if I want to do a small project with a small team. I do like working with a small team, and I’m working with a number of small teams on a lot of different ideas, but the problem is because of all these different roles that I have to fulfill, it takes me a long time to write the design document.” Miyamoto feels that he may have something ready to show that illustrates his new projects “maybe this time next year,” but he did say that he’s working on design documents and storyboards right now. “It’s fun,” he added, “I use Flipnote Studio (on the DSi) to draw my storyboards.”
2) Nintendo is Working on Transfer Process of Wii data to the Wii U: Those of you worrying about what will happen to your digital purchases made from your Wii, Nintendo is working out a way to allow Wii owners to transfer data from the Wii to the Wii U. When asked about the possibility, a hardware producer replied that Nintendo is “readying the system to be able to transfer saves and everything you’ve bought.” Hopefully that will include all save games, downloaded WiiWare titles and Virtual Console games. It’s great news if Nintendo can pull it off, but since Nintendo’s current setup has no unified account (a’la PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE) as all purchases are tied to a console, and are unable to be transferred from Wii to Wii.
3) Square Enix debuts Graphically Amazing Next-Gen Final Fantasy Tech Demo: Hmm, hopefully it doesn’t end up like that Final Fantasy 7 tech demo from 2006 all over again (you know the one; the demo that got many people’s hopes up). Games publisher Square Enix presented a real-time tech demo of its proprietary next-gen gameplay engine, called “Luminous Studio.” The four-minute long demo, entitled “Agni’s Philosophy,” is very Final Fantasy-esque (evidence of incantations, magic, rituals, creatures, lightning, glowing crystals — or “orbs” for you purists — and an visibly attractive young woman wear some ludicrous outfit; so it MUST be a Final Fantasy game, right?). Square Enix is designing Luminous Studio as a versatile game engine that would support development on consoles, PCs, smartphones, and web browsers. Check out the demo above, then visit this website for more details.
4) Vita PSOne Classics Are Coming….gradually: PSOne Classics will finally be compatible with PlayStation Vita!! However, said Vita PSOne Classics will be rolled out gradually (not all at once) beginning this summer, so if you’ve previously purchased any of the soon-to-be newly Vita-compatible PSOne Classic titles, you can then download it for free on your Vita. There’s no concrete launch lineup or date, but it can be assumed (based on Sony’s press conference) that some of the first games available will be: Wild Arms (got it), Tomb Raider (on CD), Final Fantasy 7 (on 3 CDs), Twisted Metal 2, Arc the Lad, Cool Boarders 2, and Jet Moto.
5) EA Sports Not Currently Interested in MLB License: After EA’s recent stunning coup of taking the UFC franchise of the hands of fledgling THQ, I was wondering if EA Sports would attempt to get back in the baseball, arena football (yay) or rugby game. However, EA has no plans for either, including MLB (sorry MVP Baseball fans). Even though Take-Two, the parent company of 2K Sports, doesn’t seem interested in extending its third-party exclusivity deal with Major League Baseball after losing $30 million over the course of the seven-year contract (and based on THAT game’s quality, there’s no surprise there). It may be the best idea since Sony’s well-regarded MLB The Show series is the big dawg in the kennel of MLB games (yes, I used “dawg”; it’s more intimidating). Plus, I’m sure they’re more focused on reviving the NBA Live franchise to compete with the juggernaut NBA 2K series after the cancellations of NBA Elite/Live 11 & 12 than trying to also compete with Sony’s vast majority of the market share of the major league baseball genre.
The PractitioNERD 