Time to Virtual Boy the Playstation Vita

Sony, destroy the Vita immediately.


Pull a Virtual Boy.


Let’s put it this way, the Vita has been out for about a year, a year. And its market share? 12.1%. In other words, the 3DS Sony has had the Vita for about a year. Its sales? $316 million dollar loss in the last quarter. $5.6 billion dollar loss within the last year. Mario Kart 3DS has outsold the Vita in the past several weeks----its just one game. For every Vita sold, over 6 3DSs were sold. Worst economic period in the history of the company---and no signs whatsoever of going up. Which would also explain their refusal to cut the price of the handheld disaster.  This is what happens when you don't listen to me.

Here is the other example. See?

Their music sales of course are down, their television sales are struggling, and their movie division hasn’t been that great. Video games can be their future, look at how Nintendo can survive with just merchandise and game sales. The Playstation 3 in the last couple years has had plenty of success stories from their own party (Uncharted 3, Gran Turismo 5…well...) and third-party companies (Batman, Call of Duty, Battlefield) even if the hardware sales still can’t compensate for its God-awful launch.

In terms of the handheld market, Atari failed to beat Nintendo, SNK failed to beat Nintendo, Sega failed to beat Nintendo, and Sony has so far failed to beat Nintendo. So why not get out of the handheld market by all means necessary (You can’t beat the Game Boy/DS, ever), cut all losses, and revamp all the attention to the console war of today and tomorrow? The PS3 is riding good momentum and is inches away from tying the Xbox for second (Good luck ever catching the Nintendo Wii).



Sometimes, repeating history can save you. Nintendo realized immediately after the Virtual Boy’s tough start in 1995 that if they continued supporting it profits were going to dwindle and it was going to affect the N64. If Sony continues with the dwindling and depleting Vita then it will hack into the potential of the rest of PS3’s life and the beginning of PS4.


Kill the Vita. Kill it now. It cannot be saved, it won’t be saved. Time to put all focus on the Playstation 4.

Let it die. Move on Sony. 

10 Lego Games That Should Happen

Somebody sent me this awesome image of the Legend of Zelda in Lego format. And while I was delighted at the image, it also got the old noggin thinking: what if Lego and Nintendo (and/or Sony) formed some sort of partnership that would allow for certain franchises to get the Lego touch? We saw the major success with Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, and don’t skip out on Lego City Undercover when it (perhaps) launches with the WiiU. And since I am on a creative streak, might as well form a new list. Here is the list of the franchises (or games) I would love to see get the Lego touch. Here we go:


#10: Metal Gear Solid
Imagine being able to re-create Snake’s biggest missions Lego-style. Then imagine the fun of alternating pieces around to suit your espionage skills. And then for multi-player you can build places to create espionage competitions against one another. And lastly, let’s not forget about the potential of building your own Metal Gear.



#9: Blast Corps
This one is a longshot but the N64 underrated classic gave you the chance to blow things up and----blow things up. You can take this concept, expand it, and then build entire buildings and cities out of legos----just to blow it up again.


#8: Mega Man
Although Metroid was my original choice I realized that the weapon upgrading of Mega Man would make Mega the perfect choice to get the Lego treatment. Imagine bouncing around difficult levels and collecting enough pieces to upgrade your suit to better suit (pun intended) the difficult moments of the game. You can customize Mega Man to be stronger or faster or more agile. Your choice. P.S. I can see Capcom finding a way to milk the upgrades post-release…..


#7: Avengers
Imagine Lego Batman on pure Marvel steroids. Imagine being able to walk around the Legoized cities as one of the many potential superheroes. I am pretty sure I don’t have to say anymore.



#6: James Bond
Bond. James Bond. I would love to see all different variations of Bond and would love to see the Lego versions of all the European and exotic places he has visited over the decades of Bond cinema. And think of the multi-player fun as you get to go at each other with toy guns and weapons.



#5: Uncharted
This franchise has seen so much growth since the original captivated gamers several years ago. But I would love to see Mr. Drake reduce into Lego form and re-create all of his adventures. It would provide a fun twist to the gameplay and the cutscenes involved.


#4: Legend of Zelda
The image did get me thinking, and personally a Lego remake of the original original Zelda or Zelda II wouldn’t be half-bad an idea. There’s been no extra loving for Zelda II and I can see it getting a 3-D Lego treatment so it can be re-introduced to a new audience. The franchise has gotten a little stale so perhaps giving it a new look will help some.


#3: Super Mario Bros.
The only reason why this is on the list is because of the pure potential of creating Mario levels with Lego blocks, since the original Mario Bros. can definitely be re-created block by block. Imagine having the ability to create your own levels and share them online with others. We already see re-creations of Mario Bros. on Youtube so might as well cash in on the creativity and give gamers the chance to build one on the WiiU.



#2: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
A Lego re-creation of the biggest and arguably best warfare franchise in history? Why in the heck not? You can make the game first and third person while drumming through all the different wars whether its World War II or World War III. The younger gamers can finally get their first glimpse on the frantic gameplay you usually get with your Call of Duty games. Wouldn’t it be awesome to build your own aerial vehicle so you can combat in the skies? Lastly, a Lego map editor is a definite must.






#1: Mario Kart
There is some heavy bias going on here, but I don’t care. A Lego Mario Kart would send this franchise in directions that would entice every gamer to play. Imagine building your own Toad or Yoshi or plumber to race against the classics. Imagine building your own vehicle to compete against others. Imagine having the ability to re-create classic tracks from Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 to upload, share, and compete with others. Mario Kart with a heavy Lego editing touch would give us endless joy, endless fun, and would propel the online multi-player world into a pure frenzy.


If you have any other Lego gaming ideas, please by all means share them!

Nintendo's Unnecessary Financial Rope-a-Dope

So Nintendo recently posted massive, ridiculous, ludicrous losses for the past quarter. Of course they know the reasons behind it: from the ho-hum 3DS support to the absolute avoidance of anything Wii-related. But if I were holding Nintendo stock, I would be absolutely pissed. And not because I lost money, but because Nintendo seemed ready to take the hit without any sort of fight. There was no effort whatsoever to expand the lifeline of the Wii and no major changes to the 3DS during the period to try to boost sales. So what should they have done you ask? Do what they do best: link to the past.

Did you know that the 25th anniversary of Metroid happened not too long ago? Of course not, because Nintendo didn’t do much of anything to celebrate it—along with Zelda and Mario. Mario got a half-assed collection of games that was essentially a port of a SNES game (I wrote about this back in 2011), Zelda got a few Virtual Console games and Skyward Sword, but no collection whatsoever. And Metroid, they got next to absolutely nothing despite having two of among the greatest video games of all-time (Super Metroid and Metroid Prime). Naysayers will mention the Metroid Prime Trilogy, but the darn game was out of stock by the time the anniversary even occurred. Why didn’t you re-release it at a lower price?

And while we are on the subject, why not make other collections to increase the interest of the Wii? While my Wii has been collecting dust, I can guarantee you I would clean it if it means replaying Super Metroid and Metroid II on the big screen. Kirby is getting a collection anthology for the Wii---but we see nothing for other franchises like Zelda, Metroid, Earthbound, F-Zero, Mario (100+ games, he can do another collection), Pokemon, etc. The Wii may not be strong, but it can handle 90s games. Just saying.

Collection games have become all the rage in recent times with Prince of Persia, God of War, Splinter Cell, and others getting their HD versions on the Xbox and Playstation. Nintendo has not participated at all with the exception of Kirby, which is one that we never really asked for to be honest (Kirby Dream Land 2 and Kirby Super Star are arguably their only truly great games). And you can’t argue it’s to preserve the Virtual Console, since that ship has sailed a long time ago. Nintendo has so much rich history that remains untapped in this current millennium, we can only wonder how much longer it will be before it gets fully forgotten.

Bottom Line: Stop making new games and IPs for the Wii? Fine, but at least dig into the past, create some specials, create collections, and at least throw us a few final options for the Wii. And for the 3DS, dig into the handheld past and do a better job providing us with the classics that shaped the success of the Game Boy, the Color, and the Advance. It isn’t that hard, the first-party games are all in the same freakin’ company. How about you stop toying with the owners of the systems with long droughts without games and at least tap into the library of 1,000 Nintendo games waiting for a second life.

The dropping revenue can partially be blamed on the shift in handheld gaming towards mobile phones and tablets. But the rest of the blame can definitely be attributed towards Nintendo just not simply trying hard enough, instead waiting for the holiday season. We can wait for improvement for only so long. Just ask Sega.