Late Night Consoling

Business publication Red Herring spoke this week to Atari founder and video game industry pioneer Nolan Bushnell about his current work on a high-tech restaurant venture. The interviewer was also sure to get Bushnell's opinion on the state of the games industry. Asked about what he is following, Bushnell commented on both Nintendo's and Microsoft's efforts. "I'm very curious and interested in the Nintendo Wii. I think it may expand the market beyond the hardcore [18- to 24-year old]," he said. "Xbox Live is interesting because it potentially becomes the platform for the living room." When asked specifically about his former company Atari, however, Bushnell was dismissive. "Atari really isn't a part of today's gaming world in any meaningful way. They lost the cachet of being a leading technology company in the games space," he said.

Asked about Sony, his reaction was also negative. "I think Sony shot themselves in the foot... there is a high probability [they] will fail," he answered. "The price point is probably unsustainable. For years and years Sony has been a very difficult company to deal with from a developer standpoint. They could get away with their arrogance and capriciousness because they had an installed base." Bushnell went on to unfavorable contrast Sony's development tools and strategy to Microsoft's development tools, which are frequently praised, and the revenue streams offered by Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Marketplace. As for Sony's past and current success, Bushnell claimed it was largely an issue of being in the right place at the right time, and that the company was "almost the accidental winner."

Fans of Team17's long running Worms franchise have expressed frequent wishes that a 2D iteration of the series would one day make it to Xbox Live Arcade, and it looks like those wishes are soon to be granted. According to a Team17 employee on the official Team17 forums, Worms for Live Arcade is actually already in "final certification stages" and next the company will be discussing announcement plans with Microsoft. Given the long road that Live Arcade games seem to need to travel before release, it may be unrealistic the expect the game this year (the employee also mentioned that it will be delivering Lemmings 2 for PS3's download service first), but it's coming for sure.

Online retailer GameStop.com has revealed the full list of games and accessories included in its Wii preorder mandatory bundle. The whole package weighs in at $694.88 and includes the system and its included Wii Sports game, a 1GB SD card to augment the system's internal flash memory for game saves and downloadable content such as Virtual Console games, an additional remote controller, a 12 month GameStop warranty, a subscription to Game Informer, and six games: Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Atlus' Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Ubisoft Paris' Red Steel, Raven Software and Vicarious Visions' Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Sega Studios' Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, and EA Tiburon and EA Canada's Madden NFL 2007.

Using the price points of each component as listed on the GameStop.com website, the bundle's total value comes to $669.89 without factoring in the year-long warranty. The difference between that combined price and the bundle price is $24.99, so if you consider that a reasonable price for a warranty and you want the six included games, you're all set.

The deal will be available for preorder only online from GameStop.com and EBGames.com starting tomorrow, November 9. The company has still not released details on its PlayStation 3 preorder bundle.

According to Electronic Arts representatives speaking to IGN, EA Canada's NBA Live 07, already released for PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP, and PC, has been cancelled for PlayStation 3. EA released one screenshot, explicitly labeled "Work in Progress," but has made few mentions of the game. PS3-owning NBA fans will still be able to pick up SCE Studios San Diego's NBA Live as well as Visual Concepts' NBA 2K7 at launch. The EA rep mentioned that EA Canada's NBA Street Homecourt will be coming to the system, as well as to Xbox 360, in 2007.

Despite reports last month that component video cables for Wii would be sold only through online retailers, IGN today reported that Nintendo has confirmed they will be sold in brick and mortar stores as well from launch day. Game Informer also published an interview with the same information, making it fairly likely that it is correct. Component cables are capable of transmitting a progressive scan signal, allowing the system to output in 480p.

A multiplayer demo of Capcom's Lost Planet (X360) has been expected for some time now, but has yet to show up on Xbox Live Marketplace. Judging by the presence of an ad insert in Epic's fellow Xbox 360 third person sci-fi shooter Gears of War, released this week, that demo should be here any day now. "Check Out Xbox Live Marketplace For New Multiplayer Demo!" the ad reads. While it's not there yet, expect it soon.

GamersReports has an interview with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, speaking briefly on the company's recently announced video content coming to Xbox Live Marketplace. As the company has still yet to announce a larger hard drive, Greenberg has a suggestion for users looking for more space for those hefty videos: put your Xbox Live account on a memory unit, then you can swap between multiple 20GB Xbox 360 hard drives.