Category: Games

After Tough 2Q Earnings How Can Nintendo Rebuild?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 29

After Nintendo announced weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings and lowered its full-year forecasts, attention now shifts to the company’s press conference in Tokyo on Friday. All of the video game maker’s bigwigs—President…

Nintendo Cuts Wii’s Price, As Rumored

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 24

It may have been coincidence or a shrewd move to steal a rival’s thunder. Nintendo said that it would lower the price of its Wii video game console by $50…

Sony Unveils New PlayStation 3 “Slim” To Boost Sales

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 18

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That sums up how Sony executives must have felt as they debated whether to lower the price of the PlayStation 3…

Japan’s Konami In Spotlight Over Videogame About Iraq War

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 28

Videogames about military combat are standard fare. But one that faithfully recreates the November 2004 battle between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents has kicked up a lot of controversy. Developed…

Buzz Over Sony’s ‘Big’ PlayStation Announcement Trumps Reality

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 31

Don’t be surprised if the gaming blogosphere lets out a primal scream of disappointment. After speculating for weeks about what Sony’s videogaming unit was planning to announce this week, bloggers…

Even Nintendo Is Vulnerable to a Strong Yen

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 30

Hardly a day goes by without another Japanese blue-chip revealing the pain inflicted by the yen’s sharp rise. But this time, a surprise: Nintendo, the dynamo of Japan’s tech sector,…

Korea’s Online Gaming Craze

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on September 04

South Koreans just can’t seem to resist the sheer entertainment value that their online fantasy and combat games deliver. According to statistics recently released by Korea Game Industry Agency, Korea…

Nintendo Forecasts: What downturn?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 29

In April, analysts were down on Nintendo because the company appeared to be losing steam. For one, Nintendo’s financial forecasts suggested that, this year, the company would not match the…

Suharto dies but corruption lives on

Posted by: Frederik Balfour on January 28

The death of former Indonesian President Suharto has sparked a rigorous discussion of the legacy his 32 years in power. Though democracy has successfully taken root in the 10 years…

Sony’s “Back To Basics” PS3 Strategy

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 20

Sony gaming chief Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai’s talk at the Tokyo Game Show doesn’t classify as a crowd-pleaser. There were new trailers for soon-to-be-released games, but no flashy or gorgeous animated…

Worm Alert!

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 02

There’s a worm that’s been wreaking havoc with gamers’ PCs, and it’s giving Nintendo a bad name. The Romario-A worm spreads offering a free game download of Nintendo’s Super Mario…

Sony’s Hirai Gets It

Posted by: Kenji Hall on June 22

Looks like Sony’s new PlayStation boss, Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai, knows what he has to do to turn things around. At Sony’s shareholders meeting yesterday, the polished, youngster (at 45, he’s…

Why the reforms at Sony’s games unit? Answer: Kaz Hirai

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 19

When executives at Sony’s video game division in Europe informed employees this week about possible layoffs and transfers, it stoked speculation about problems with the business. After all, since…

Let the Video Game Price Wars Begin!

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 29

Anyone interested in buying a PlayStation 3 might think consider waiting until October. That’s when Goldman Sachs thinks Sony will have to start slashing prices of its video game console…

Ridge Racer boss takes wheel at Sony-BandaiNamco venture

Posted by: Kenji Hall on January 24

Plenty of techies have weighed in about the potential of the Cell, the uber-chip that debuted in Sony’s PlayStation 3 video game console. Developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the…

Japanese favor the Wii

Posted by: Ian Rowley on December 18

More bad news for the Sony’s PlayStation3. Two weeks ago, I mentioned a survey which found that Japan’s salaried workers are twice as likely to spend winter bonuses on a…

Bonus boost for Wii

Posted by: Ian Rowley on December 08

With the latest round of console wars in full flow, there are signs the popularity of Nintendo’s Wii is burgeoning at the expense of Sony’s PlayStation3 in Japan. Late last…

Theories On Why Sony’s Kutaragi Is Movin’ On

Posted by: Kenji Hall on December 01

Ken Kutaragi’s move to hand over daily oversight of Sony’s video games unit to Kaz Hirai has got the rumor mill working overtime. Given the timing of the announcement, I…

Mixed fortunes for game developers

Posted by: Ian Rowley on November 30

Yesterday, my colleague Kenji Hall wrote a story about Sony’s decision to relieve Ken Kutaragi of day-to-day ovesight of Sony Computer Entertainment. Paying for the PlayStation3’s jittery launch, daily management…

Nintendo’s big Wii debut

Posted by: Ian Rowley on November 15

Good news for gamers counting down the days until the Japan launch of Nintendo Wii games console on December 2. Not only will the Wii be half the price of…

Debugging PS3…Redux

Posted by: Kenji Hall on November 13

First it was the supply shortages. Now it’s a bug in the machine. Sony’s new PlayStation 3 video game console is off to a rough start, with news just days…

Debugging PS3?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on November 09

This just in from Sony. For all you video gamers who plan to buy a PlayStation 3 console in Japan on Nov. 11 (launch day), there’s going to be a…

PS3 Speculators

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 27

If you’re looking to buy one of Sony’s brand-new PlayStation 3 video game consoles and don’t have the time to camp out at Wal Mart a week before the…

Nintendo ups its profit forecasts

Posted by: Ian Rowley on October 03

Nintendo’s new Wii console won’t go on sale until November, but that’s not stopped the company upping its profit and sales forecasts. Today, Nintendo said it’s raising its net earnings…

Nervous Sony cuts PS3 price in Japan and confirms HMDI for low-end PS3

Posted by: Ian Rowley on September 22

Sony has made plenty of missteps of late—not least delaying the PlayStation3’s launch in Europe until the spring. But in Japan at least it can’t be accused of ignoring customers….

Nintendo: Wii Want To Expand Games’ Appeal

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 14

Nintendo’s video game visionary Shigeru Miyamoto likes to say that his company has a machine that even a mother could love. On Sept. 14, the Kyoto-based game maker announced that…

Another PlayStation Delay

Posted by: Kenji Hall on September 06

The technorati might have seen it coming. Yet again, Sony’s video games guru, Ken Kutaragi, has confessed he can’t deliver on his promise for a full-scale launch of the PlayStation…

NikkoCitigroup: Nintendo’s Wii champ in Japan, Xbox 360 global winner

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 18

Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3 are still months away from launch, but these days every analyst seems to be weighing in with a prediction of the winner. Consider NikkoCitigroup’s….

Dangers of Online Games

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on July 25

To get the feel of the electronic game craze in South Korea, just check out the country’s SKY Professional League annual e-sports championship. The final for this year’s summer league,…

DS pays off for Nintendo

Posted by: Ian Rowley on July 25

Last week, my colleagues Kenji Hall and Cliff Edwards wrote an article highlighting just tough it will be for Sony to make the PlayStation 3 pay. One analyst noted that…

Chinese Online Games Come of Age

Posted by: Brian Bremner on July 24

Mainlanders need their dose of escapism as much as the next guy it seems. I just finished a story you can find here about the white hot market for fantasy…

Nintendo: No regrets about Wii

Posted by: Kenji Hall on June 09

Nintendo’s chief exec, Satoru Iwata, is a confident man. Earlier this week, he went before the media to declare that the company’s name for its next-generation video game console, Wii…

Pssst…More on PS3

Posted by: Kenji Hall on May 09

Can Sony’s next-generation video game machine really be twice the price of Microsoft’s? You better believe it. Sony announced yesterday ahead of the E3 conference in Los Angeles that its…

Nintendo’s Wii: What’s in a name?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 28

You’ve heard the old saw about Chevrolet’s marketing faux pas in Latin America. The story goes that the Chevy Nova didn’t sell well in Spanish-speaking countries because the car’s…

PSP buzz

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 11

The new features for Sony’s PlayStation Portable were hardly out of the box before the rumor mill went into overdrive. Now comes talk that Sony is working on a new…

Microsoft’s game show in Tokyo

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 06

Microsoft trotted out the big guns of the video gaming world for a new Xbox 360 marketing push in Japan. And what a show it turned out to be….

Will Kutaragi pull back the curtain?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 14

It’s official: Sony’s games guru Ken Kutaragi will end his months-long silence tomorrow to offer an update on the PlayStation 3. Billed as a business briefing, the meeting will bring…

China’s resilient online gamers

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on February 24

Beijing may be successfully forcing companies to censor the Internet in China, but the government’s campaign against online gaming doesn’t seem to be going quite so well. Fretful about young…