John Lucas' Blog

Hey check this out. Happy shiny footage of the new Batman game for the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum. What can I say? The game looks good. Really good. If it plays as good as it looks, this game is going to a big piñata smash when it comes out next year. You know I'm never one to ruin the surprise so check out the footage for yourself and maybe you'll like what you see.

World Exclusive provided by GameTrailers.com.

November 17th, 2006. That was the day the PlayStation 3 premiered on the market. 2 years later Sony celebrated their Cell-powered machination with some interesting statistics. Did you know that because of PS3's horsepower their Folding@Home client was recognized by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the most powerful distributed computing network in the world due to Folding@Home surpassing a petaFLOP, a very impressive measurement of a computer's performance? I know you know of the PS3's role in making Blu-ray the standard high-definition media disc format. Did you know that Sony counts nearly 17 million of worldwide PS3 sales, that PS3's hardware sales are up almost 100% from last year, that PS3's software sales have tripled since last year? And did you also know that the PS3 has gathered over 14 million active accounts on their free-to-use online PlayStation Network with 273 million pieces of content downloaded on the service? Did you know that this 14 million number surpasses competing paid subscription-based online play service XBox Live and its 12 million members (at least as of May 14th of this year)? I bet you didn't.

For those who survived the crazy lines and gunshots at the launch of this super-hyped system, celebrate these accomplishments and enjoy the substance that validates the hype. Congratulations!

Thank you, PlayStation.Blog.

Do you all enjoy those monthly NPD reports I put out? I hope so 'cause I try to make it fun to read just for you. But you know the clandestine National Purchase Diary Group, Incorporated. Clinging to numbers and parcelling them out bit by bit at their whim to show the gaming press who's boss. They and ONLY they are the keepers of commercial wisdom. Eh, what're you gonna do?

But just recently NPD put out the Top 20 game sales list for both consoles and personal computers for October. Wanna take a look at 'em? Then click on the 'Read More' thingy and find out...

Club Nintendo, once a name which came from a number of unassociated magazines (some from Europe, another for Mexico/Latin America) about 20 years ago now a name for the gamemaker's "free goodies for loyal customers" program. And when I say "free goodies" I mean stuff like free (and sometimes limited edition) games, toys, and knickknacks all with the trademark Nintendo touch. This Club for the longest time was associated with homebase Japan and later Europe but this year the company finally decided to expand the program into Australia, South Africa, and AT LONG LAST, North America. The decision to finally bring Club Nintendo to North America containing one of their strongest customer bases (and the 3rd most populous country in the world) was announced October 2nd just in time for the holidays season and now the red plumber's hat company has new information about how it will work here.

Stay tuned...

Harmonix Music Systems has proved itself worthy since its break with RedOctane 2 years ago as monster publisher Activision bought RedOctane and network MTV (owned by media conglomerate Viacom) purchased Harmonix. Forgetting about the innovation brought by Konami over a decade ago with the Bemani series, the Guitar Hero franchise (originally a collaboration between Harmonix and RedOctane) and the Rock Band franchise (a collaboration between Harmonix and MTV) have been battling it out in the American market for music game supremacy to impressive results. It's like The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5 vs. The Osmonds, Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam!

Well here's some more fuel on the argument fire. The Rock Band series has sold over 7 million instrument-packed packages! Details to follow...

When it rains, it floods. No, wait. That's not how that goes. I'll check the Morton Iodized Salt wrapper later but here's news about Nintendo getting sued over patent infringement...AGAIN! From the start of the Wii's introduction to the market just about 2 years ago, Nintendo has been the recipient of legal lethality from the woodworkers. Out of the bark, one by one, they came accusing the gamemaker of bogarding their ideas especially with the revolutionary Wiimote controller. Companies from Anascape, Ltd. of Tyler, Texas to Interlink Electronics of Camarillo, California to Lonestar Inventions of Dallas, Texas to Hillcrest Laboratories of Rockville, Maryland among various others have sued The N with the charge of patent infringement—one (Anascape) which was successful ($21 million verdict for plaintiff), another (Hillcrest Labs) who got the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate. Well now, add Motiva, LLC of Dublin, Ohio to the plaintiffs' list.

Details next...

The salesmen from the "Wii would like to play" commercials have gathered an army! Now there's a whole squad of N-pushers out there NOW scoping out your shopping areas! The game is to be sold not told, like the saying goes. Since Halloween, there they be, Nintendo evangelicals selling 100% pure uncut Wii. Appearing like a disjointed Hollywood Squares panel are 9 big TV screens in malls across the USA promoting the Wii Experience featuring Larry Davis showing off hits like Wii Sports, Wii Music, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Super Sluggers, Wario Land: Shake It!, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Soon starting November 24th, Nintendo slides you with the other half of the Phenomenon with a DS relaxation spa that massages your troubles away in plush chairs while offering a toke on Brain Age 2, Mario Kart DS, Mystery Case Files: Millionheir, Nintendogs, New Super Mario Bros., and Crosswords DS. It's all for the comfort of the weary holiday shoppers, you understand (get 'em while they're weak and then BLAMMO! Kidding, kidding).

Wanna see where Nintendo's selling their fun-filled substances? Then keep reading...

By now, everybody knows the refrain: It Prints Money. In Nintendo's case there are two "Its" and both the home and handheld versions of their audience-expanding philosophy have been making serious strides the world. In a nearly hour-long online slideshow displayed and narrated in Japanese by Nintendo President/Chief Executive Officer, Satoru Iwata, the gamemaker shows its global sales progress for its fiscal 2009 year (ending March 31st, 2009) so far. A series of graphs and charts shows worldwide market representation of Nintendo and its competitors Sony and Microsoft. Exhaustively breaking down the progress of their Phenomenon by handheld comparison, console comparison, overall comparison within the year and in the years straddling the generational change (from 6th to 7th), Iwata speaks as the kanji, hiragana and katakana of his native language confuses the monolingual. "I think he's talking Japanese, I think he's talking Japanese, I really think so!"

Instead of translating all of these endless charts, I will display a few of the pictures below so you can see the results for yourself. Thank God for Arabic numerals! Read on...

How did they do that exactly? Well much like Nintendo main man Shigeru Miyamoto being honored as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2007, the magazine has considered his Wii Fit as one of its Best Inventions of 2008 in a reader-decided Gadget of the Year contest.

Saying "weight loss has never been easier" Time sees the exercise get-up as more fitness tool than videogame and declares that its design "entices the most stubborn slackers to get off the couch."  Can't blame them for that one, as I've been pumping the digital iron since I was lucky enough to pick up a copy for myself!

More on the games and gadgets of 2008 after the jump!

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The music game craze is far from over, ladies and gentlemen. Legendary rock band AC/DC has come to Rock Band, the hit music game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by MTV Games, in a new track pack right alongside their recently released new album Black Ice but Harmonix shows that we have seen nothing yet.

Are you ready for The Beatles? Read more to find out what I'm talking about...