Seishino

@ben linus It's Justin Frickin' Wong! He's a legend! That's like getting an hour on the golf course with Tiger Woods for $50.

$50 an hour is in line with cheap local-teachers for every form of dance, music, or martial art I've ever tried. But for legends like Wong or (to a slightly lesser degree) Gootecks? That's an insane deal.

Out of curiosity, when was the last time Konami drew a sprite for Castlevania? I mean, I love the variants on the basic idea. And I can understand leveraging existing resources to develop games that otherwise wouldn't be affordable. But can we get something fresh? Every 2D Castlevania that hasn't been SotN has taken substantial resources from it. Even the one released this summer seems to use entirely sprites from SotN. We've had a SotN release every year since 2007.

Not to sound too grumpy, but there must be artists chomping at the bit to get their hands dirty with Castlevania. Can we get some major redraws for the next outing, please?

@ebonydad It does seem like this particular project has the kind of focus that Spore really needed.

It also lacks the creative spark that might allow for a world-changing hit. But in the grand scheme of things, it will probably be a better "game" game.

@Co For console games, you can mostly drop them into an emulator, test them out, and they work.

Arcade games all used some degree of custom hardware. Which means the emulator has to be tailored to that hardware. Which requires lots of testing, replays, etc.

Let's assume that it takes a skilled programmer 3 days to get an arcade game emulator working with a title (which would be fast), then wrapped up in the proper format for wii. There is probably another day of a few people in QA testing everything out and verifying, well, quality. It probably takes about 1k in lawyers fees for each contract. Add in time to write a press release, upload to servers, write the wiiware copy. You're probably looking at low tens of thousands of dollars to get an arcade game emulated.

Let's presume some sort of nebulous 70/30 split between distribution and development costs. If we assume a game cost 20,000 to make, it needs to sell 3k units to cover costs.

3k units may not sound like a lot, but there are many downloadable titles that never cross that threshold.

Did they ever release a non-limited edition Deathsmiles in the US? All I'm finding is the limited-edition one.

I always loved the love spell put on Gingerbread Men.

Originally gingerbread men was a way of getting a man to eat your love spell potion ingredients, fall in love with you, and sleep with you. A nice and tidy service provided by your local gypsy, wiccan, witch, or other such independent vendor. Once people started to know what the spell was supposed to do, however, it became far more potent. Suddenly men got the hint through their thick skulls that the cute girl with the smile actually wanted them. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy... Like a big fat sign saying "Eat the Chocolate! No really, eat it!"

If you didn't feel kicked in the teeth about the PSPgo before, now is your chance.

I can understand taking chances, and those chances not paying off. But a proliferation of non-compatible console hardware is what killed SEGA's reputation amongst the gaming community in the late 90's. Hopefully this is the only portable mistake that Sony makes for a while.

Is bioshock really horror? It's more political dysphoria mixed with fear.

Yes please! The Saturn had a tremendous amount of good games, many of which weren't overexposed here in the US.

Panzer Dragoon / Saga, Radiant Silvergun, Daytona USA, Assault Suit Leynos 2, and of course, Nights.

EWJ HD had a strange difficulty curve: Cakewalk, Easy, Medium, and Original. Considering the original wasn't really all that hard, I was a little sad to see it was the most extreme setting.

Hopefully MDK2 HD won't have the same fate. Have easier settings, definitely. But add a brutal setting for us hardcore old fogies, please?