LEGO-branded games sold 1.6 million units in 2013, is currently the second best selling franchise of 2014
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, General Gaming, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Warner Bros. Interactive has revealed today that their LEGO franchise of games– most recently LEGO The Hobbit, which comes out next month– has been a great success for them over the past few years, revealing that it not only sold 1.6 million units last year, but is the number two selling franchise so far in 2014:
“Since the start of 2013, WBIE has sold 1.6 million LEGO games, and it is currently the second biggest game franchise in 2014 year-to-date in terms of units sold, with 420,200 units. Another strong week could see the LEGO game franchise take the number one franchise spot.
“They also completely buck the sales trend with a huge shelf life. LEGO games are no longer seen as kids products and we ensure they’re available on all platforms, both physically and digitally.”
– Warner Bros. Interactive UK sales and marketing director Spencer Crossley
Crossley says he believes strong sales will continue into the new year, and that Warner Bros. has plans to expand the franchise onto new platforms going forward.
More: LEGO, sales, Warner Bros. Interactive
Here’s a Podcast – Episode 84!
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments
ON THIS EPISODE:
Laura discusses the impressive (and sometimes genuinely frightening!) art style of A Hat in Time’s alpha release, Jack briefly touches on his first-impressions of Gunman Clive and some minor Wind Waker HD observations, and Austin rounds out “what we played” with a list of things he *likes* about The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds after beating it this week.
PLUS:
Not a whole lot of news leads into a listener mail segment dominated by one letter regarding Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, and how the two compare and contrast.
AND:
Our book club discussion of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward gets heated as Austin, Laura, and Jack debate the merits of the game’s characterization, writing, and overall story. Regardless, all three seem to be finding the game getting more interesting as time goes on…
This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura
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Here’s a Podcast – Episode 83!
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 4 Comments
ON THIS EPISODE: ‘What we played’ focuses primarily on a discussion of the negative parallels between Pokémon X and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Austin’s frustration with Nintendo’s recent focus on streamlined gameplay.
PLUS: The news section features a somewhat misguided discussion about tutorials in games courtesy of Retro Studios, as well as what sorts of games may simply need tutorials to exist; tutorials aren’t always bad, it seems!
AND: Our first week of discussing Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward gets pretty intense, with the fundamental agreement being that it’s not very well put together overall, but something about it is still engaging! Interesting thoughts for sure.
This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura
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Here’s a Podcast – Episode 82!
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments
ON THIS EPISODE: A discussion about Austin’s thoughts on Punch Out!! turns into a very extensive look at “top down” vs. “bottom up” development and whether hard games are inherently too inaccessible to be considered widely influential art.
PLUS: Laura says something that lights Austin’s fuse and an intense discussion about the morality of “free to play” games ensues. It’s a big’un, so get ready.
AND: The book club was delayed by a week! It’ll be here next week.
This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura
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Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to helm a movie based on the ’90s console wars, funded by Sony Pictures
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
As though we’d ever think this was going to happen: A movie (based on a book) about the 1990’s insane console war between Nintendo, Sony, and SEGA will be coming out, directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (both of whom worked on last year’s This is the End). The book– authored by Blake Harris, who will write the film– that the movie is based upon hasn’t released yet, but the it is in the pre-production stages which means we could see it as early as next year.
No word on specifics; the above is all the real info we have.
Here’s a Podcast – Episode 81!
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 6 Comments
ON THIS EPISODE: It’s all Donkey Kong, all the time! Not only does Austin discharge his thoughts on Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze in spades, but Jack has been playing Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D all week so a bit of DK ping pong takes place as we compare the two games. Laura breaks the monotony with some talk of DS cult hit Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective though, so if you hate DK you’ll be okay.
PLUS: There’s not a whole lot of news, but listener mail supports the tail end of the show with questions about Wii U’s GBA Virtual Console, whether Nintendo should have an E3 press conference or not, and whether grinding in an RPG is inherently broken or not.
AND: We discuss and eventually select the next game to be our Book Club game! The winner? Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward.
This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura
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[Book Club] Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward – Week 1
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, 3DS eShop, Book Club, Features | 2 Comments
Ah yes, that’s right kids: We’ve chosen Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward as the game to play for the next NintendoEverything Book Club! If you want to hear the reasoning behind it, check out the latest episode of the podcast, but otherwise feel free to pick up the game this week and start playing. The game can be picked up on the cheap via the Nintendo 3DS eShop; it’ll cost you $24.99.
We’ll have our first discussion about it on next week’s podcast, as per usual!
“How far do I have to get this week?”
The goal is simply to start playing. We’ll aim to get beyond any opening tutorial sections and a little ways into the story individually– plan to put in 2 to 3 hours.
“How can I participate in the discussion?”
If you have something you want to say about the specific section of Zero Escape that we’re going to be playing, send us an email! [email protected] is the place to do that.
Please refrain from discussing the game in general only– if you have a general observation, we’d love to hear about what specific parts of the game made you come to that conclusion!
[Review] Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Reviews, Wii U | 22 Comments
System: Nintendo Wii U
Release Date: February 21st, 2014
Developer: Retro Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Review transcript after the break:
Here’s a Podcast Book Club Poll #4 – Portal, Metroid Prime, or Zero Escape?
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Book Club, Features | 1 Comment
Well guys and gals, it’s time once again for another NintendoEverything videogame book club! This time up we have a trio of fairly interesting games that will likely breed a lot of discussion regardless of which is picked, so take a look at the poll below and take your pick. It’s worth noting that sheer number of votes will not be the only determining factor when we’re considering which game to play and discuss on the podcast; another large factor will be which game has the strongest case made for it in the text answer within the poll, so do your best to rationalize which one of these three is most worth discussing in a serious sense.
Unsure what the NintendoEverything Book Club for Videogames is? It’s simple: Just like a real book club, we get together every week and discuss a game chronologically in great depth with the goal of promoting and enjoying some genuine discussion of games on a deeper level than you might find elsewhere. Listeners are encouraged to send their thoughts along to our podcast email to potentially be read on the show.
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Here’s a Podcast – Episode 80!
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 1 Comment
ON THIS EPISODE: A return to normal quality sees us talk about how impressive Portal is and how Valve achieved such a cohesive sense of place in a relatively minimalist game, and a discussion of Persona 4 turns towards the analytical with some exploitative discussion on more complicated games and what elements might help and hurt such ambitious experiences.
PLUS: We go through every announcement in the Nintendo Direct and give our thumbs up or thumbs down, in addition to general discussion about all of the games/features shown.
AND: Listener mail has a few really great game-design-driven questions that have us analyzing screenshots from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and speaking on the subject of redundancy and teaching in games, and how this might separate the good games from the great games. Here are the two screenshots we refer to in the segment: Image 1 Image 2
This Week’s Podcast Crew: Austin, Jack, and Laura
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