In my last blog post, I railed against the raging homophobia in the gaming community that came to the surface when GameSpot reported Out magazine's listing of Link as their "hottest video game character."  They are a taint on the gaming culture, and are unfortunately a majority in this male-dominated pastime, much like they are in sports.

However, it wouldn't be right to cast all gamers in this light.  There have been many people standing up to defend gays' and lesbians' right to be attracted to whomever they like.  Perhaps the most touching is this one.


PrinceLinkX2
Dark_SageX, gays like everyone have an opinion that can and will be expressed. I think it is completely stupid of everyone who has downed this topic. Who really cares if a certain group like him? It makes him more popular. To tell you the truth I think it'd be great if they made him gay or bi. It's something that is new really and like in the 60's when strong women superheroes began to rise, it would make him more popular in the future. In the words of Xavier in X2 "We're here to stay." Ring any bells? The reason they have yet to give Link a specific sexual orientation is because it is a role playing game. You are supposed to be Link when you play. Therefore no sexual orientation can be given. Still criticizing gays because of what? A book? Im guessing you're Christian. Books were removed from the bible. How true do you think it really is? Men wrote it. I could write my opinions in it and say it is god's word. The god I worship and love wouldn't be against anyone. The God I know would let Lucifer himself be redeemed if he really wanted it. God loves everyone. Get over it and get a life.

There are many others, but I really don't want to sit here and gush over the issue.  Suffice to say that, even in the gaming culture, a culture dominated by slobbering cavemen, there are many people, male and female alike, with an incredible love and respect for their fellow human, regardless of race or sexuality.  You are the diamonds in the rough that is the gaming community, and know that at least I am glad to have you around.

Recently, gay and lesbian magazine Out proclaimed Link from Legend of Zelda fame the "hottest video game character."

Of course, when GameSpot put out this news article, the homophobes came out in droves.  Thankfully, Gamespot moved quickly to delete the offending messages, but a few rather offensive ones are still there.

For example, Affect656 said "I would have never associated Link with homosexual culture.  Yeah, he wears a weird dress thing and tights, but he carries a sword."

Wallace_Green says "That creepy to say the least."

I bet both these punks, and all the other homophobes decrying this have a huge collection of Tifa Lockheart or Mai Shiranui (or both, among others) hentai on their PCs.

What I want to know is this: What is so wrong with gay men (or for that matter, straight women) being attracted to male video game characters?  Why is a homosexual man or straight woman being attracted to Link or Dante (Devil May Cry) so much more wrong than a straight man or homosexual woman lusting after Kasumi (Dead or Alive)?

The idea that it's wrong to find male video game characters attractive is annoying and offensive.  Straight women and gay men have desires, just the same as everyone else.

Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go oogle Solid Snake...

It's amazing how short the memory of exectives at Sony is.

Sony seems to believe that it doesn't matter what ships with the PS3, that it'll do well anyway.

I remember back in the mid nineties, when Sony had just released the PlayStation.  Everyone had their doubts about the system, including myself (a devout Nintendo fangirl at the time).  The Nintendo 64 was on the horizon, and Nintendo, coming off the victory over Sega in the 16-bit generation, was strutting around arrogantly, prancing and preening and delaying the N64 for far longer than they should have.  They knew that the gaming public would eat up the N64 no matter what.  They didn't need anyone's help to make it the multi-million seller that the NES and SNES were!  They'd handle the bulk of it on their own!  Thus, they released the Nintendo 64 in late 1996, with only two games - the phenominal Super Mario 64 and the somewhat less phenominal Pilotwings 64, both for around $80.  And Nintendo had a great launch.  Sold out for months.  People reselling the system for humongous markups.

Then the next five years happened.  Nintendo was never able to capitalize on the success of the Nintendo 64's launch, as the large and diverse linup of games on the PlayStation ravaged Nintendo's marketshare, pushing them to a distant number 2 in the console gaming world.

Now fast forward to 2006.  Sony is prancing and preening around, high off the success of the previous PlayStation consoles.  Now, they plan to push a system which may well have a launch linup that rivals the N64 in its' limited appeal.

And it'll sell out, to be sure.  The PS2 sold out.  The Xbox sold out.  The Xbox 360 sold out.  The GBA sold out.  The DS sold out.  The PSP sold out.  Hell, everything since the PS2 other than the damned Gizmondo has had a strong showing at launch, and the vast majority have sold out in said period.

That says nothing of the five years to come.

What if half the people buying the PS3 are simply buying it for Blu-Ray?  What will that do for Sony's position in the games industry?

What if the rest of the world decides that HD-DVD is the way to go?

What if the 360 drops price while the nerds and the eBay vultures are killing eachother for the PS3?

What if the Wii takes off like a house afire?

The PS64... I mean the PS3 is by no means a sure bet.  All it takes is for a company to get a huge head, and everything starts sliding, as Nintendo found out in the years following the 1996 euphoria.

Now we have a hungry Microsoft and a humbled Nintendo, both going up against a system in the PS3 that will not have anywhere near the variety that the PS1 and 2 have enjoyed.

Think about it.  Who the hell is going to buy the PS3 for their children?  Consequently, what children's games are going to be out for the system?

RPGs have never really sold that well in America and Europe unless they're Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, or based on a movie.  Will we continue to see RPGs leaving Japan on the PS3?

Artsier games, such as Shadow of the Colossus or Katamari Damacy, are lucky to sell 300,000 copies.  Why would anyone invest in one of those for the PS3, when clearly another movie-based action game will sell 1,000,000 copies?

What we're going to see is a PS3 that'll sell well, but mostly to technophiles who might not really care about gaming.  Therefore, we're going to see the PS3 games almost exclusively aimed at the people who only buy maybe one game a year.

Sorry, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII aren't worth being stuck in a barren wasteland the rest of the time.

They're not worth putting up with Sony disrespecting me.

They're not worth my money.

They're not worth my time.

I hate the ESA.

It seems that, while the government looms closer and the ESRB can't stand up for its own ratings, the ESA has nothing better to do than pick on NCSoft.

First off, if Sega had people sitting there with decibal readers waiting for NCSoft to reach one decibal above ESA rules for E3, that's incredibly immature.  I expect more civility than that out of one of this industry's greatest contributors.

As for the ESA... What in the name of Christ is wrong with you people?!  First it's complaining about the booth babes, now it's this?  What's next, no M-rated games at the show?

E3 has gotten to the point where, other than the console maker press conferences, it's not worth following the show because you get better information the weeks after, when the rushed demos give way to full beta builds that GameSpot and 1up editors can give more time to.  The crowds are to the point where people can't play the games half the time, because anyone with a MySpace blog can get in it seems.  As a result, very few people can really get good information about the games until many weeks after.

However, instead of tackling that issue, the thing that keeps E3 from being important for more than a week, the ESA picks on defenseless companies like NCSoft, who may not even be at E3 07 because of this nonsense.

Quite frankly, we should all crank soundtracks from NCSoft stuff as loud as possible just to piss off the ESA.  Their show sucks anyway.

Congratulations, Sony. You've invalidated the Blu-Ray format for movies and ensured that no 3rd party will be making games that can run natively in 1080p ever, all in one go.

For the three of your left that aren't in the know, the PS3 is being priced in a two-SKU setup, as follows:

$500 version - 20GB hard drive, no support for WiFi, memory sticks or HDMI.

$600 version - 60GB hard drive, all those cool features not present in the $500 version.

Personally, I'm going to be getting the $500 version. Why? Because Sony has ensured that, with the $500 version not being upgradable at all, 3rd parties will never use the extra features that the $600 version offers. Think about it? How many light gun games come out? What games other than DDR use the DDR mats? Where's all that incredible EyeToy support? Simply put, 3rd parties hate to waste time and fragment the audience by adding stuff to their games that a very large portion of their potential audience won't have. This is why Nintendo had to make the Wii remote standard instead of peripheral, and it's also why you'll never see a PS3 game from a 3rd party developer (the only developers who matter, as far as the PlayStation brand is concerned) in 1080p. The memory stick and PSP connection stuff can be resolved with a USB connection to the PSP, but 1080p is out of the question now.

This also invalidates the Blu-Ray format as a next-generation movie format. With the less expensive version of the PS3 incapable of rendering 1080p and standalone Blu-Ray players costing well over a grand (compared to $500 low-end HD-DVD players), there's no way that the Blu-Ray can take off. Remember, Sony was counting on the PS3 to push Blu-Ray into the home. With 1080p out of the picture, the Blu-Ray has become the next UMD: a proprietary game distribution format, nothing more.

As for the hard drive... I have no intention of partaking in digital distribution until 100Mbps connections are available under $50/month, so there's nothing else I'd be doing with the extra 40GB anyway, though I must admit I'm amused that the $500 PS3 is going to have less hard drive space than the PS2 hard drive that came with FFXI (which was 40GB).

The price points themselves are also rediculous. If it weren't for Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII, I wouldn't get the system at all. What they showed at the press conference was not $200 better than the 360 (core to core or premium to premium). As it stands, I'll be waiting for launch hysteria to die down, and maybe even longer, before I pick up the PS3, and when I do, it'll be the version that's going to actually be supported - the $500 version.

Good job, Sony, you destroyed yourselves in one night.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was re-rated Mature by the ESRB, in a move that further shows off just how impotent the gaming industry's rating body is.

I'm not upset that the game is rated Mature now.  This is what the game should have been rated to begin with.  It is an incredibly violent game with vulgur language and sexual themes.

What gets me is that the game was erroneously rated Teen to begin with, and how a mod which is obviously third party (using the TES construction kit) is the scapegoat by which the ESRB corrects this latest colossal screwup.

The fact is, with the ESRB's refusal to play games in their entirety and scan through code, the system is worthless, especially for PC games.  They have no real way to tell what is and isn't a third party mod unless they do both those things.

Quite frankly, if not for the fact that this were a Take-Two game, the rating would have stood.  Morrowind also saw a multitude of nudity mods - and was similarly violent and frank in sexual discussion - but it never got re-rated.

While I'll never side with Hillary Clinton and Jack Thompson, I can also see where the ESRB is in dire need of an overhaul.  It's just a shame that Bethesda has to be the latest scapegoat to hide the ESRB's complete incompetence.

Mutenpika's reply to my last post has me wondering.  Even if you take out the name fiasco, what exactly is it that makes anyone believe that this system's going to be so wonderful?  Do people put this much stock in the Nintendo brand name that they're willing to jump off the ledge with Iwata & friends?

I want to make something absolutely clear: I had some doubts about the Wii even before that horrendous name was attached to it.  Consider the following:

1) We've not seen one screenshot of one Wii game.

2) The only game that's been given so much as a concrete name and date (which, of course, are subject to change) is Red Steel by Ubi Soft.

3) Nintendo's entire push for this system has been two things, virtual console and the controller.  The controller we've not seen in anything remotely resembling an actual game environment as of yet.  As for virtual console... Why would I give three craps?  Many of the greatest games ever made will likely never be on the VC, simply because the companies don't exist anymore, or are nowadays almost exclusively operating in Japan.  Games like Valis, El Viento (both for Genesis), The Guardian Legend (NES), Exile (Turbo CD), and the like.  And even among the third parties that're still around, who's going to put their games on this thing?  The only thing we know for sure is that 1st party NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and TurboGrafx games will appear on the VC.  There's nothing stopping Square Enix from putting Final Fantasy I-VI on Xbox Live Arcade or (more likely) whatever game download service Sony cooks up.  There needs to be extensive third party support for virtual console before that even starts piquing my interest.  Come to think of it, will third parties put anything but their most popular classic games?  Would Square be willing to put up Secret of Evermore as well as Chrono Trigger?   There's way too many question marks, and no real suggestion that Nintendo's going to answer them all at E3.

4) There is no apparent option for a wired connection with the console.  Yes, I know Nintendo loves its wireless connections.  However, for those of us who'd rather not go through the hassle of setting up a wireless router, Nintendo should have the courtesy of at least having one ethernet port on the damned thing.  Everything I've seen suggests this isn't going to be the case.

So now, you have, on top of these four concerns, a name that invites teasing and will most certainly drive away consumers outside of the core Nintendo demographic.  Since that core demographic really only cares about Nintendo's own games (and has no problem with getting one good game a year), third parties will not give much, if any support to the system.

Quite frankly, I'm tired.  I'm tired of Nintendo's high and mighty attitude.  I'm tired of defending them agaisnt the Sony and Microsoft trolls.  I'm tired of pretending that they haven't slipped into complete irrelevance in the home console space.

Nintendo's proven once again that they're simply a toy company.  Perhaps it's time I put them in the closet next to my old Barbie dolls.

Normally I have nothing but respect for Peter Skerritt. His blog is often filled with deep, insightful views on the gaming industry.

However, I have to call him to task on this post.

Sorry, but I'm friggin' sick and tired of hearing the "we've had weird names before" argument. Sorry, but Dreamcast was an okayish name. Game Boy embodied what that system was about (a little game system). Lynx and Neo Geo did poorly in comparison to Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Genesis (though with the Neo Geo, price was a factor more than anything else). Xbox, while not the best name in the world (it sounded like what it was, though - a corporate item trying to be "xtreme"). Nothing has ever invited jokes and teasing like Wii. Nothing!

The fact is that no matter what Nintendo and their fanboys say, the name is total garbabe.

As to the system itself, I'm not impressed. We've seem dreadfully little about the system other than the controller (and even then, we've not seen the controller in real situations), and the vitual console just isn't enough to get me to care.

As to what I'd call the system (aside from Revolution), the name Ultimate Nintendo Entertainment System sounds good. Since virtual console seems to be the defining feature for the system, the name should reflect what the system is: the ultimate system for every Nintendo game ever.

However, it's too late for speculation. We're stuck with Wii. Or at least the Nintendo fanboys are stuck with Wii. Me, I'm not going to bother with the Wii unless the launch is at the Dreamcast's level of impressive. Nintendo's going to have to work hard to make up for this colossal blunder.

[Regarding the last post, Lupin and sinless made a point that Lunar: Dragon Song just sucked, no matter the translation.  This is true.]

Ubi Soft is bearing arms!

I was starting to doubt whether we'd see this in the US (not to mention Europe), so the announcement that UbiSoft is bringing it over made me incredibly happy.

However, I have to wonder... Will UbiSoft actually give it a decent translation.  Fellow Dreamcast gamers will remember the awesomeness that was Grandia II.  That was perhaps the best RPG translation ever up to that point in time, handled by the script writer for the Legacy of Kain series.  People at the time were thinking that UbiSoft would be another major player in the JRPG realm.

Then came the GBA and DS Lunar games.  Those were among the worst translated RPGs since the NES era.  Bland, lifeless, rife with errors in spelling and syntax, these already bad games were made all the worse with mailed-in translations.  As a Lunar fan, I was insulted.

The question becomes this: will Ubi give Enchanted Arms (the US & European name for [eM] -eNCHANT arM-) the polish of Grandia II, or will they just cobble together a random jumble of words like they did with the Lunar handheld games?  Only time will tell, but forgive me if I'm a bit skittish.

This is officially the dumbest console name ever.

I have many doubts about the console formerly named Revolution.  However, I previously had no doubt that I wouldn't be embarrassed to mention their system in public.  After all, I'm a proud Nintendo fan, and I don't ascribe to the idea that Nintendo is for kids only.

However, with a name like Wii, I may have to keep my ownership of the console to myself.

Why?  Well, imagine this scenario:

ME: Hey, wanna play with my Wii?

FRIEND: Wha?  But you're a girl!?

ME: Um, no, I don't mean that...

FRIEND: Ew, get away from me, you freak!

ME: Er...

Seriously, this is a console who's name I'd be embarrassed to mention.  It's so purile and childish.

And you know the jokes are going to come fast and furious.  The little wiiwii, the wiiner, wiinee, et cetra.  Nintendo fans are going to have a harder time defending themselves against the other console fanboys than ever before.

Also, if you ignore the sexual innuendos, it sounds more like a kids' toy than ever before.  It's like Nintendo has done everything in their power to reject the over 13 gaming market, and this is just another step in the further stigmatizing of Nintendo as the kiddy company.

Enjoy your core demographic, Nintendo.  You're not getting any furhter.