Late Night Consoling

With the daily rumors this week regarding the technical specs of Nintendo's upcoming machine, the company has officially responded with an explanation of what gamers should expect. It did not confirm or deny any specific technical details, but mainly touched on the lack of high definition support in the console. The statement acknowledged that high definition graphics are impressive, but also noted that they cause game development costs--and, in turn, consumer prices--to rise, and the more powerful hardware needed to run them becomes more expensive as well. It noted that improved graphics are simply part of next-generation evolution, and claimed that Revolution games will look impressive whether played on standard or high definition television. The response ended as follows:

Nintendo has created a gaming system that is sleek and compact in size, powers up quickly with minimal load times, makes game development easy and fast, is easy to use, and is affordable for everyone. We are confident that gamers and non-gamers alike will support the truly next-generation experience only Nintendo can provide. Once you have a chance to play games on the Revolution, we think you'll agree!

In related news, Nintendo PR man Reggie Fils-Aime gave a presentation at the 33rd Annual Global Media Conference, reiterating his recent presentations about Nintendo's general strategy but also making new comments regarding the Revolution. He emphasized that Revolution is designed to be easy for developers to port games to. In regards to the unique controller, Fils-Aime pointed out that developers can choose to support the Wavebird-like "shell" that will be supported by the system, while "the most ambitious of the developers will write new code, different code, to allow the [freehand] controller to be taken into brand new directions." Further touching on the controller, he listed positive comments from a range of developers and publishers, including Electronic Arts: "It's a brilliant controller, and as usual we can credit Nintendo with being innovative and neat and fresh and fun. They continue to pioneer in our industry...they make some of the best games in the industry and we look forward to partnering with them."

Buried in an Ottawa Citizen interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about Microsoft's finances, its role in innovation, and its presence in Ottowa was question about why the company hasn't supplied more units to retailers. The interviewer brought up the accusation that Microsoft may be deliberately engineering the shortages, a claim Ballmer flatly denied. Ballmer echoed the oft-repeated line that retailers are getting more units each week, and explained that Microsoft expected low yields, but actual yields have been even a bit lower than their estimates. "We're doing our best," he said.

The distinction of being named MarketWatch's Worst CEO of 2005 has fallen to Paul Eibeler of video game publisher 2K Games. The article explained that there were a few other potential candidates that "lost" by virtue of no longer being employed by their respective companies, but as Eibeler is still at Take-Two and would have been next in line anyway, the award goes to him. MarketWatch notes that Eibeler took a rather odd "medical leave" during which he became the CEO of Acclaim for a few months before ending up back at Take-Two (Acclaim went bankrupt soon after, which probably isn't all Eibeler's fault), and "has done such a poor job getting his arms around the company that Take-Two has missed its own earnings guidance for multiple quarters." Whoops.

Hellboy and Blade II director Guillermo del Toro has confirmed rumors that he has been talking with Peter Jackson about possibly directing the Halo film adaptation. He is interested in the project, but between Hellboy 2 and Halo, he'll only have the chance to do one. Hellboy 2 isn't yet a sure thing, but if the movie is greenlighted, he indicated that he will definitely pick that project over Halo. Like Jackson, del Toro agrees that there has not yet been a good video game-based movie, and said that "Halo is very much an interesting project because it's so full of monsters."

MTV Films announced that it has acquired the movie rights to The Collective's recently-delayed Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (PS2, Xbox, PC), currently expected to ship in early 2006. The press release claims the film will be "an homage to graffiti's rich culture" and will be produced by Ecko, who also did story and character work on the game bearing his name. Entertainment personalities whose voices will be featured in the game include Sean "Diddy" Combs, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, George Hamilton, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam West, Andy Dick, Charlie Murphy, The RZA, and Michael "M.C. Serch" Berrin, though it was not mentioned whether any of them would contribute to theh film.

GameSpot has a video interview on Tecmo's Monster Rancher 5: Circus Caravan (PS2).