Nintendo annoucement at E3: as preceived by a "casual gamer"

Right, let's face it: I'm a casual gamer who happens to also be a Nintendo fangirl.

I mean, I ACTUALLY wanted Cooking Mama for my Wii. (Well, until I saw the review, which pretty much say if I have the DS version, I shouldn't bother.)

So, after seeing the guys at 1up.com bitching about Nintendo's annoucement at E3, I feel like I have a duty to speak out as a casual gamer.

Firstly, you guys get your Smash Brothers Brawl and Metroid Prime 3. Be glad, be happy! Just because you guys already knew about it doesn't mean you guys don't want it. Let's face it, once it's out, you'll be in line to get one.

Now: WiiFit, Check Mii Out channel, and the word/life coach on DS. Right. They're nothing new and frankly if Nintendo is really hoping to get into the casual gamer market, they need it. You guys were the ones who were all excited about the new wiimote, and how it's going to revolutionise gaming. And now that it has you're bitching about it. Seriously: Sony has their Eye Toy fitness training thing ages ago, as well as a martial art training one (which is really really cool... anyway, Nintendo). After WiiSport, the WiiFit is the natural next step.

From a marketing point of view, what Nintendo is doing is logical, admittedly slightly risky. Nintendo's strategy for this round of the console war has been going pretty well. Let PS3 and 360 battle out with the traditional gamers, while Nintendo will go explore the untapped market of the traditionally non-gamer demographics: like the teenage girls and the baby boomers, and all the while hook the kids on Nintendo while they're young. And it's not like they've abandoned all your "hard core" gamers: there are still Zelda, Mario, Metroid Prime, etc etc. Just because gaming stopped being an exclusive club doesn't mean it's a BAD thing.

Come on: my mum wants a Wii. It's gotta be doing SOMETHING right. I for one am happy Nintendo won this round.

I'm trying to save for Elebits and WiiFit now...

P.S.: For those who cares: the lack of updates usually means I'm stuck in my research. I WILL get over it and I WILL solve a big chunk of the problem before end of this month. Watch me. Sick of my project tormenting me like that now.

Jitterbug

Nick has ever so kindly offered us free Ceroc lessons (I'm too cheap to pay, and Pete doesn't really want to commit to a weekly thign, even though you can pick which night to go... ANYWAY) To be honest after the wedding and when I actually have this thing called income I really won't mind picking that up as a hobby.

Okay so I did hurt my shoulder (I injure myself A LOT, in case you haven't notice), but it's still fun.

In other news, research is going alright for once. 3 months is all I'm giving myself to finish the research side of things... so I probably will be AWOL from the blog for a while again to try to push myself (I figure I have about the same amount of time I did when I was in St Louis.)

That is all. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

One of those days...

I was going to work on merging the company's classfier with my own to see what would happen or if anything interesting will turn up... and I left my keys, which has my USB pen drive attached, at home. What's on my USB drive you might ask? Why it's the said classifer from the company. D'oh.

Not to mention that means the key for my laptop lock is also at home. Unfortunately I found that out AFTER I locked my laptop in... *sigh*

So err... interesting work today, reading about clustering and trying to hack the toolkit to show what I want it to show. Not a bad day after all though.

If it's not for my hayfever making it a pain just to breath.

I'll get over it. *sigh*

Now that I think about it...

These few weeks had been kinda weird. Had a really bad bug and then I had to force myself into thinking positively just to make sure I can actually pull myself out of it. Now that I have... my progress is slowed again. How typical is that?

Anyway, today I'll post a few things that I thought about in my (very VERY little) spare time and got confused about in the past week:

TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Seriously: WTF? I know that as a kid I thought they were cool too but can you imagine what the creative process must be like?

"Hmm. Turtles! Except it's humanoid turtles... who are ninjas! Yes! Ninjas! Everyone love ninjas. And mutants too. Like the X-Men. And we need a giant rat. Oh oh and pizza. Hmm... pizza...."

I can even understand why they came up with Aquaman. TMNT is just... WTF?

Having said that, they're still cool. Unlike...

Paris Hilton: The Vicious Cycle

Why on WHY are people paying so much attention to her? And THEN I realise it's vicious cycle: people talk about her, then people talking about why we're still talking about her, then people talk about how complaining that we're talking about her is STILL talking about her... and there, I just contributed to the whole vicious cycle.

Sometimes I still don't know why we pay so much attention to celebrities.

Dogs... err... "toys"

Come across this goodie the other day. I don't even what to ask about its creative process...

McDonalds Subliminal Ad



What I don't get is that why McDonalds even need subliminal advertising: Look, it's the biggest fast food chain on the planet. I can't even drive anywhere in Auckland without seeing at least 5 of their logos somewhere. If THAT doesn't get registered somewhere in people's subconscious I don't know what would. Why even risk looking bad and put that one frame there? Really: why?

This ends this week of rant. I'm also freezing cold at the moment. Hopefully next week I can also report on how far I've gone with my result. I won't hold my breath if I were you.

The responsibility of having a Nintendog(TM)

Since I don't think I'm ready to have a real pet... not to mention the fact that I just really want another DS game, I finally gave in to Nintendog. It's actually surprisingly good. And I've been training my little Hagau (It's Chinese for "shrimp dumpling". Don't ask) doing tricks and all... It's actually strangely entertaining. Although I do have to remember to check on her every now and then to feed her... reminds me of the tamagochi days of my youth.

In other news: My supervisor confirmed what I've suspected all along: I've done all the "intelligent" part of my research and now it's just trying thigns until something works. It's actually kinda... scary. Kinda like digging for gold. Kinda of mining. Maybe that's why they call it "Data Mining". (Ha. Ha. Seriously I can't believe I wasted electrons to build up that joke)

Righty-O. Back to digging. (Hi-ho. Hi-ho. It's off to work I go... Oh dear.)

Towel Day, and I'm Home with a cold...

It's towel day today, and instead of carrying a towel everywhere to celebrate and remember the life of the ever so amazing Douglas Adams, I'm not going anywhere because I'm home, sick. I have a weekend to get better, and during that time hopefully to get some work done too. BUT: I'm doing my bit. I'm wearing my dressing gown all day long, just like Arthur. (Fine. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm sick as well.. and it's the most comfortable thing I can wear around to keep me warm.) I shall also try to squeeze is as many Marvin quote as I can in the day, which probably isn't that much different from how I usually talk. ("I thought I'll just let you know... I'm very depressed today"...)

Anyway.

My cold has gave me new insight to my bone structure: you never really think about them until they all hurt at once. It's getting better though, last night I could hardly sleep. I was just lying in bed thinking "Ouch ouch ouch pain! Pain!" You know how sometimes you get the strangest dreams when you're sick and in and out of a fever? No? (Actually, maybe they're not any stranger than my usual dream...) I was dreaming that I was watching (or writing, I couldn't tell) an episode of House M.D., and House was in a coma. He woke up and lost all his memories as to who he was, but he faintly remembers that he was a doctor and wanted to go back to med school to be a doctor again. Later he found out that he's not really House M.D., but Hugh Laurie himself. He was the one in a coma and only rememebr the part of himself that was House.

You know, that would make for some rather interesting existential story. My subconcious might be trying to tell me something. I'm just too sick to think about it right now...

Behold! More time wasting from Yours Truly

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