Sixty Hertz

Another video:

space invaders infinity gene pv

co-op demo 1

co-op demo 2

Looking good. Import this October or wait for January…

bayonetta comic-con footage

In response to the news that Best Buy is going to enter into the used game business because they are trying to make their video game retail business more profitable I have a simple 5 step plan that could increase their game revenue without having to enter the short sighted practice of selling used games (thus robbing the developer and the poor user who sold you the game but lining the retailers pocket with much gold. In the short term making a ton of money but ultimately forcing the publishers into digital distribution and voila: no more EBgameStop!).

How to sell more than 5 titles a year:

1. Knowledgeable Staff - your employees should know more than the average customer not less. How many times has a video game store employer stared blankly or asked “what system is that for?” when you requested any game but the latest blockbuster. Sales will increase when an employee can link a person’s request with other games - if you liked that, you’ll probably love this (people were doing this in real life way before amazon.com did it! Dumb employee’s don’t help!)

2. Organize Your Stock - it’s pretty obvious that a wall full of playstation games organized by alphabet (if that) is not going to help the browsing walk-in consumer. Try organizing your stock by genre: FPS section, Action Games section, Racing section, Madden section, Super Hero section etc… this actually works for other mediums like dvd’s and music - its really not as revolutionary as it sounds and you can still have your strictly alphabetized new releases section! Ironically enough, EBgameStop do it on their website.

3. Open up store copies to demo - who wants to plop down 60 bucks for something they haven’t even tried out. Have demo copies of everything (not just demoes of stuff people will buy anyway), you can even sell them - just remember to tell the consumer that it is a demo copy, if the game is good they won’t care.

4. Staff Picks - have your employees post what their favorite game of the week/month  is, or a better yet post a list. This goes hand in hand with the 1st point - your workers have to know their games for this to work - heaven forbid your people will actually play games!

5. Sponsor contests - not only will this get people in the store, it gets people to buy the game. Give a way a gift certificate or something totally cheap for you but gold to your target market and see your in-store traffic balloon along with your sales.

Follow those 5 easy steps and you will see a sales increase and you’ll be selling games other than Halo, GTA, Madden - and brand new ones at that! Good for the industry, good for the consumer and in the long term good for you. There are more points, I’m sure, but those 5 are off the top of my head.

I slept on this one. All of little gun Milestone’s SHMUPS in one cheap package for the Wii. Ultimate Shooting Collection has been out since January it seems and it’s a must have for any shooter fan. Three solid shooters (Chaos Field, Radio Allergy and Karous) for less than the price of one Wii title (I got mines for 14.99!)… each with their own specific game mechanics. These titles were previously only available on import Dreamcast! Run!

Ultimate Shooting Collection

This is shaping up to be a really great sequel. This vid shows off the BOSS transforms and what amazing patterns these BOSSes have. Impressive!
Senko No Ronde BOSS Expose

Don’t ask me.
wall crawling rc cars

I’m dl’ing this asap! Taito has done a great job of reinvigorating the classic shooter on pretty much every platform known to man/woman/child/machine.

space invaders pv

Save up your dough, the Wii slasher is coming next week 07/28/09.

Muramasa Trailer

G-rev has just dropped several vids on their upcoming shooter-fighter hybrid sequel.

Video 1

Video 2