Nintendo-Refurbished 3DS Price Drop: $110

Since the release of Pokémon X/Y last Saturday, there have been two major events in the world of handheld gaming. One of them is that a large portion of gamers have dropped off the face of the earth as they fall into the latest monster-training rabbit hole, and the other is that we’ve all been deafened by the collective anguished shrieks of Pokémon fans that lack a 3DS.

You can’t catch ’em all unless you catch a 3DS first.

Well, banshees, scream no more! For a limited time, Nintendo has lowered the price on their refurbished 3DS stock to a mere $109.99, so long as you want blue or purple. If midnight blue is more your taste, you can get a DSi XL for even less. These are used 3DSes that have been personally inspected, tested, repaired (if necessary), and warrantied by Nintendo themselves. The consoles may have a few nicks and bumps here and there, but Nintendo guarantees they’ll work. It’s just like getting one new, except it’s not new at all. But it’s a lot cheaper. Just think of it as replacing the new car smell with the scent of fresh cash.

As noted, these are temporary price reductions, and there’s no indication on the website just how temporary it’ll be. If you need a cheap way to get your hands on Pokémon X/Y, now may be your chance!

 

Obligatory Legal Crap

The 3DS and Pokémon are © Nintendo. If you don’t believe me, the fans have probably erected a monument in their honor by now, so you could go there and see for yourself.

Mighty No. 9: A Mega-Redemption

It’s barely been 12 hours since the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter project hit the internet, and the project has already raised half of its $900k goal. Headed up by the legendary game designer Keiji Inafune, the project is essentially a new Mega Man game wearing an absurdly thin veil.

For now I’m just going to call you “Not-Rock,” okay?

Of course, this should come as no surprise for anyone familiar with Inafune’s background. A former Capcom powerhouse, Inafune is the creator of the Mega Man series. Not only was he responsible for the character designs, sprite art, logos, packaging, and manual of the original game, but he went on to father the series for decades afterward. It wasn’t until late 2010 that Inafune announced he was leaving Capcom to “start his life over” after comments that he had been unhappy at his job for some time.

Mighty No. 9 has definitely left Mega Man‘s fans rejoicing. Capcom has taken a lot of heat over the past couple of years due to perceptions that they’ve been giving the Blue Bomber the shaft and disregarding their fans. While every company has to deal with that every now and again, Capcom’s been facing the fire for quite a while now. In my opinion, the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 was the final straw.

Don Mattrick: The Weedkiller of Business

Remember last month when Don Mattrick abandoned ship from Microsoft after the Xbox One unveilings went down in flames? According to AllThingsD, it doesn’t sound like he’s doing too much better at Zynga. Within the first 90 days of assuming his new position, three high-level executives have decided to cut and run.

Never ask someone known for screwing the pooch to save a company with a dog in its logo.

To be fair, it’s not completely clear from the wording whether the trio will be leaving due to having been eliminated in the restructure, or if they’re packing their bags because they refuse to work with Mattrick. However, it’s noteworthy that David Ko, one of the three executives, was made Zynga’s COO at the end of last year. I don’t think he would’ve gotten that sort of promotion if he hadn’t been doing something right, so perhaps that can tell us a bit about the fact that he’s now riding into the sunset.

Then again, he was promoted by the company that hired Don Mattrick to save them. Maybe it doesn’t tell us that much after all.

 

Obligatory Legal Crap

I do not own Don Mattrick’s face, just the right to talk about it. Even if I did own his face, I’d probably sell it on eBay.

Beer-Battered Fish: The Demise of Fez II

For those that haven’t heard, an internet slapfight took place last Saturday between Marcus Beer (aka the Annoyed Gamer) of GameTrailers.com and Phil Fish of Polytron (the indie company that created Fez), which ultimately resulted in the abrupt cancellation of Fez II and left a lot of onlookers blinking and staring. I hesitated to write about this right away in the hopes that it was going to blow over once the heat of the moment passed, but it’s been two days now, and there’s no sign of change.

So, let’s take it from the top.

My Little Pony: Litigation is Bullshit

With the EVO Championship Series making a bang over the weekend, it’s hard not to reflect over fighting games you love — or in my case, games you would’ve liked to love.

Earlier in the year, EVO left the coveted 8th game slot open in favor of a donation drive. Rather than pick the final game themselves, each game was given a page whereby supporters could ‘vote’ for their desired title via charity donations. The money raised went to fund breast cancer research, and the title to pull the most donations would take the final game slot. One of the games on the list quickly pulled ahead of all the others. That game was My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic.

I… I need this game in my life.

My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic is a fan-made creation of the dev team Mane6. It originally started as a joke image, but MLP fans are known for nothing if not their extraordinary devotion. The game has been in production for the last two years, with occasional screenshots, demo videos, and playable torrents floating around the internet in that time. It’s been noteworthy for its exceptional art and animation, move sets detailed to each character’s personality, and its ingenuity in building a fighting format for quadrupeds — something yet to be experimented with in the world of gaming.

That is, of course, until Mane6 received a cease & desist order from Hasbro just weeks before the initial release.

Double Fine’s Double Cross?

In the spring of 2012, Tim Schafer’s game development company, Double Fine Productions, made history with its outrageously successful Kickstarter campaign. While he’d only hoped to raise $400,000 to create a classic point-and-click adventure game, the swell of support not only reached the goal within 8 hours, but exploded well beyond all expectations. In the end, Double Fine received $3.3 million in donations from eager backers.

With games like Psychonauts and The Secret of Monkey Island on his resume, who wouldn’t throw this man money?

However, it’s for this reason that public opinion is beginning to shift against Schafer, who said in an announcement to his project backers that the game was over-budget and behind schedule. This has come as a shock to much of the internets, considering that Double Fine received over eight times the projected budget. Some critics cite this example as a cautionary tale against crowdfunding, and recommend that investors think carefully before forking over their money to projects.

The question on everyone’s mind is, how can this situation have even come about in the first place? Double Fine received more than enough capital to move forward with their project, so how can it suddenly be out of scope? Has Tim Schafer betrayed us?

Nintendoes what Xbox don’t

Please tell me I’m not the only one that remembers that reference.

We’re all well aware by now of the freak show that Microsoft’s been putting on with the Xbox One. Hell, I’ve even written about it twice in a row myself now. However, as I continue to watch this console Hindenburg itself into oblivion, one detail has been bugging me in the back of my head — and it’s not even Microsoft that’s the culprit this time.

Games check in, but they don’t check out.

It’s surprisingly uncommon knowledge that Nintendo has serious problems with their digital media policies. As with the Xbox One, many of these rules and regulations shouldn’t have ever gone into practice in the first place, and it’s cost Nintendo’s own customers dearly on several occasions. Given the way gamers dug in their feet on the Xbox One’s proposed game-locking policies, it’s bizarre that Nintendo hasn’t had to face the same sort of heat over their own convoluted mess.

Xbox One’s downward spiral continues

In a continuing series of events that seem to point to the Xbox One going down in flames, Don Mattrick is now packing his bags.

For those not in the know, Don Mattrick is the president of Microsoft’s Xbox division. He was one of the ones loudly and proudly proclaiming the revolutionary changes the Xbox One would be bringing to the gaming world, especially at E3. After so much trumpeting about how much he stands behind his product, it seems a little peculiar that he’s now abandoning ship.

“This console is so cool that I’m now going to run for the hills away from it.”

As of yet, Microsoft has not offered a comment on the situation, nor has Zynga, whom Mattrick will now be working for. With nothing else to really go on, eyes often look to common business practices for guidance on what to make of things, and there’s one practice that immediately comes to mind in the wake of a fiasco like this: Did Mattrick really leave of his own accord, or was he “asked” to hit the road? It’s not uncommon at all for a company to sit down an employee that’s royally screwed them over and essentially tell them that they have the options of quitting or getting fired. Walking away from a job at least (somewhat) saves face, and I think we can all agree that the fiasco surrounding the Xbox One is enough fuel for Microsoft to give Mattrick a quiet ultimatum.

For the time being, however, nothing is absolutely certain other than the fact that he IS leaving.

 

Obligatory Legal Crap

Xbox One is the property of Microsoft and not myself. If the Xbox One WAS my abomination, I certainly wouldn’t be posting about it using my real name.

Don Mattrick is property of… well, Zynga now, apparently.

Xbox One: Going down in a blaze of pity

You know that middle school prank where everyone agrees to drop their books on the floor at 2 PM, and when the time comes, that one kid who didn’t know it was a joke throws their books down and gets yelled at by the teacher?

I think that’s pretty much what’s happening to Microsoft right now.

To be fair, a lot of people DO want to throw the Xbox One on the floor.