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Most Recent: Retro
PBS Inventors profiles Ralph Baer, the Father of Video Games, on his 91st birthday
Before Cliff Bleszinski… Before John Carmack… Before even Shigeru Miyamoto… there was Ralph Baer. While not known as a game designer, Ralph Baer gave the video game industry something much more important: the first home console.
Today is Ralph Baer’s 91st birthday and PBS has decided to celebrate with the “Father of Video Games” by profiling him as part of their Inventors digital series.
Baer began work on his “Brown Box” console all the way back in 1966. It would eventually be released to the public in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey. The prolific inventor is also responsible for the first light gun and the first light gun game, Shooting Gallery as well as the Simon handheld game. Happy birthday Ralph! Never stop inventing.
I’d also like to wish a happy birthday to Warp Zoned’s Senior Editor, Nicole Kline. I’ll bet she had no idea she shared a birthday with video game royalty.
Speed of Sound: The Music of Sonic the Hedgehog
Let’s pretend the year is roughly 2000. It’s Sonic’s tenth anniversary. It’s his first real debut into the third dimension. The game is Sonic Adventure. It will be heralded as a general success. It will set some major tropes for the future of the 3D series to come, though it’s a bit of an oddity. At worst, it will later be looked back upon as “good for its time.” You advance through the levels – suddenly you’re on Speed Highway. The dark of a city forever trapped in the night – highways impossibly bent and stretched along the sides of buildings, through the air. Clear signs of construction that is, considering the landscape, entirely unfinished. This, gamer, is your music. (more…)
New York Times to publish Tetris-themed crossword next week
A lot of people see Tetris pieces in their dreams. But next Thursday, October 25, people will also be able to see Tetris pieces embedded into the famous New York Times crossword.
The puzzle design, which you can see on your left, was created by Kotaku reader “Caleb.” Caleb Madison is considered the New York Times’ resident crossword whizkid, so it likely belongs to him.
In addition to the block shapes, the puzzle contains a few other Tetris-themed surprises, but unless you want to be spoiled, don’t click on that Kotaku link.
And speaking of Tetris, did you know it was recently named the “Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time“? Because it was.
The Scientifically Proven Top 100 Video Games of All Time
We greatly expanded and updated The Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time as The Video Game Canon in 2017. You should check it out!
When it comes to deciding which video games qualify as the best of all time, everyone has an opinion. And sometimes those opinions result in a violent argument over the mental faculties (or lack thereof) of the listmaker. So we thought we’d add a little science to the equation to find out exactly which games can be considered the “100 Best Video Games of All Time” and which ones have been fighting above their weight class all these years. (more…)
GameStop to start selling retro games?
Ever wonder what GameStop did with those old games you traded in back when you were a little kid? Well, it looks like they’ve been sitting on them, and now are getting ready to start selling them via the GameStop website.
Speaking to The Verge, GameStop CEO Paul Raines talked about their plans for those old cartridges and CDs:
“”We think there’s a vintage sales opportunity, so we’re accumulating some inventory. It’s a big idea, and there’s a few problems with it. The first one is sourcing the product, the condition, the refurbishment, all that stuff. But there’s a customer for it. And we’re working on some stuff we haven’t announced yet.”
“If you go to eBay and look at all of the gaming stuff that’s on there, it’s unbelievable. Collector’s stuff. We’ve got to be in that business. We will be.”
So what does this mean for us? Well, if GameStop’s recent Retro Game Vault deal is any indication, expect to pay an outrageous price for games you can find at your local garage sale for a few bucks.
Blizzard wants to remind us that StarCraft: Ghost is “on hold,” not “cancelled”
As Blizzard continues to toil away on an “unannounced” console version of Diablo III, it’s important to remember that the RPG isn’t the company’s first foray into console development.
Way back in 2002, Blizzard announced StarCraft: Ghost for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Ghost would have eschewed the birds-eye view of StarCraft for a more personal view of the battle as a psychic warrior named Nova. However, players would never get the chance to play this stealth action title as Blizzard put it on “indefinite hold” in 2006. In the years since, the company has always been quick to point out that the game hasn’t been cancelled.
Fast forward to today, and a Kotaku interview with StarCraft II Lead Designer Dustin Browder. When asked about Ghost, Browder confirmed that no one at Blizzard is talking about it, but he assures us that could change in the future:
“There are no plan. I’m not saying we won’t ever, but I’ll tell you what I do know: There are no meetings going on. There is no team. No one talks about doing it.
It doesn’t mean that in two years from now, we won’t have those meetings, the team won’t be formed, but there is literally nothing happening around that game right now that would indicate that there’s any likelihood that it will happen.”
So there you have it, StarCraft: Ghost is still comatose, but not dead. Thanks for the update, Blizzard!
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged StarCraft: Ghost
See how many systems Nintendo has sold since they started selling systems
Nintendo has been in the video game business for a long time. Longer than Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Activision, Electronic Arts… nearly everybody actually. So it stands to reason that the company has sold a lot of systems and a lot of software. How much? Well, I’m glad you asked.
During their most recent quarterly financial briefing, Nintendo revealed lifetime-to-date sales figures for all of their consoles and handhelds. Some of the numbers may surprise you:
Hardware Sold
- DS: 151.52 million units
- Game Boy/Game Boy Color: 118.69 million units
- Wii: 95.85 million units
- Game Boy Advance: 81.51 million units
- NES: 61.91 million units
- Super NES: 49.1 million units
- Nintendo 64: 32.93 million units
- GameCube: 21.74 million units
- 3DS: 17.13 million units
All Software Sold
(Includes Nintendo-Published and Third-Party Titles)
- DS: 900.31 million units
- Wii: 818.46 million units
- Game Boy/Game Boy Color: 501.11 million units
- NES: 500.01 million units
- Super NES: 379.06 million units
- Game Boy Advance: 377.52 million units
- Nintendo 64: 224.97 million units
- GameCube: 208.57 million units
- 3DS: 45.42 million units
All sales data is based on worldwide totals and is accurate as of March 31, 2012. Italics indicates currently available system.
Bowser, Robotnik, Dr. Wily, Zangief to cameo in Wreck-It Ralph
The more I hear about Wreck-It Ralph, the more I like it.
Today’s bit of news comes from Disney’s D23 magazine (scanned by a user at DVDizzy.com) and it’s a doozy. Like the Looney Tunes and Disney cameos in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Wreck-It Ralph will be filled with a similar number of classic game characters.
We already knew that Kano (!) and a Pac-Man ghost would be making an appearance in a “Bad Guy Support Group” scene. But now we’ve learned that Bowser, Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Wily, and Zangief will appear in the scene as well!
There is a very tiny picture of the scene at DVDizzy.com, but it’s definitely them. But while you’re there, check out the D23 article, it’s a good read.