The latest character in the upcoming Street Fighter IV, launching Feb. 3rd, 2009.

Ever since the DSi was revealed last week there’s been a steady stream of detractors lamenting the loss of the GBA port for games such as Guitar Hero, My Weight Loss Coach, Arkanoid, etc.. Questioning the usefulness of its new features declaring that there’s just not enough there for them to upgrade their DS Lites. That Nintendo can stuff their evil plot for all us Lite lovin’ owners to hand-them-down to little sis or sweet Uncle Jim so we can buy ever slimmer DSis for ourselves. About the only group genuinely excited may be the stubborn DS Phat owners who finally see a good value for their upgrade dollar.

Well if Nintendo’s CEO Satoru Iwata were here right now, he might say to them that if you only focus on where you want to go but ignore where you are now, you might overlook something wiiimportant along the way.

DS Ware Lays Down the Foundation

Upon encountering a large patch of grass where people had worn a path across, a wise man gave me the following gem of advice: “There are two types of engineers in this world; Those who would put up a fence, and those who would create a walkway.” The meaning is clear: Always study the root causes of a problem to reveal the deeper solutions within.

This is exactly what Nintendo has done with their new DSi design. They paved a road deep into the world of piracy and provided a path most gamers will happily tread instead of roughing it through the seedy alternatives.

A Road Deep into the Heart of Piracy

If you’ve ever seen a pirate gaming directory it’s quite staggering the sheer quantity of games. Not just the ones you’ve seen and read about but literally hundreds you never even knew existed. It’s like swallowing the Red Pill and having your eyes opened for the first time. Why should this be limited to pirates?

DS Ware could provide the same experience for everyone! No longer are you limited to the shelf space and availability at your local retailer but hundreds of games, all at your fingertips, ready to buy at a moments notice.

DS Ware also makes it easy to download demos directly to your memory card bringing gamers everywhere the opportunity to try out larger variety of games which leads to increased sales.

I’d like to see them emulate the piracy model even further by allowing all games to be downloaded but limit them to only 10 minutes per day, or something along those lines. This enables game companies to provide demos for all their games without having to create a specific version just for the demo. It completely guts the advantage pirates have today of trying out all games before they buy, if ever.

Analyst Matthew Fassler of Goldman Sachs recently sounded the early warning detection alarm that:

Nintendo’s newest gaming platform is a “tangible early threat” to physical portable game systems, which rely on cartridge-type slots to load games.

That could spell trouble for Best Buy and other retailers, like Circuit City Stores Inc. and GameStop Corp., which sell video games in their own stores.

The DS: A Victim of its Own Success

The greatest thing about the DS is its extraordinary variety of games, many at budget prices. Pretty soon you own a big ‘ole pile of games and are forced to play “Predict What You’ll Want To Play Today” every time you leave the house. First you buy some cases that hold four games, then ones that hold 36. But the fundamental problem remains: You don’t want to be lugging around your entire collection everywhere you go and fumbling around with the cartridges- especially for a portable device. Never again!

Flashcarts & the New DSi

One of the most compelling reasons to own a flashcart is transferring all your games onto one memory card. No more choosing which games to take with you. No more trying to find that cartridge you left in a shirt pocket last week. No more missing out when that urge to play Spelling Challenge finally strikes.

The DSi provides this exact functionality! With encryption and removable storage it should be possible to carry around your entire game collection in one or only a few memory cards. Think of how nice it will be to scroll through your list and pick out that perfect game you’re in the mood to play, where you want to play it. This feature alone will deter most people from reaching for flashcarts in the first place. This ladies and gentlemen is a Home Run for Nintendo.

End of the Line for the DS?

Timing is everything and Nintendo has timed the DSi launch perfectly with the end in site for the DS generation. We have perhaps one to two years left before we see its successor- let’s call it the DS2- scream out of the starting gates ready to accept the baton from its deliriously successful sibling. This means DS Ware and its DRM software can almost be considered beta testing for the real deal when sales finally slow down enough for the big N to unleash the DS2. It provides them the freedom to experiment, try different business models and collect usage data, all which will greatly contribute to a positive DS2 experience. Contrast their position to that of Sony’s who had a heavy burden of expectations placed upon PSN with little testing before the launch of the PS3. It also gives a heads up to developers of DS2 software to get used to the cameras, which will surely be part of the DS2.

Say Cheese 

We older folks with our snazzy iPhones look down upon the DSi’s dual integrated cameras, meager media capabilities and shrug our shoulders and say “so what?” If you are among them then I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but you need new glasses my friend since you are clearly short-sighted. The DSi is not trying to be an iPhone and those digital cameras are about to be put to use like we’ve never seen before. Remember a big slice of DS users spend a good chunk of their lives in classrooms, and where you have classrooms you have students, and where you have students you have endless uses for cameras that can talk to each other. What is the price of a picture of your hated enemy in a compromising position plus a cartoon editor? Priceless! What is the value of spontaneous video conferencing broadcasting picture-in-picture video commentary? We may even need to invent a new name for interviews captured with DSis.

You can’t play games all the time and many adults need something for their DSs to do throughout the day while they’re out earning money for more games. With the improved networking capabilities the DSi makes for great portable security cameras that can send what they see back to where you are via. the internet. Why not check up on Fluffy to see what she’s up to all day while you’re at work, or your rowdy teenage sons after school? If millions paid for Nintendogs, they will surely pay to watch their own pets and children while they’re away at work, or on vacation, or watching their vacation home. Last time I checked DSiSpy.com is still available. Please send the royalty checks c/o GamesILike, thank you.

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Best GBA Ever?

Gameboy Advance games may be on the verge of staging a comeback. With its upgraded internal RAM the DSi should be capable of playing GBA games downloaded directly from DSi Shop. If you think GBA games are old news, think again: Many GBA titles stand up perfectly fine to their DS brethren like Metal Gear, Astro Boy, the Metroid games, Castlevania, Fire Emblem, and plenty of others. If the price is right the DSi could be the best GBA eva!

In Conclusion

Hopefully it’s clear why the DSi is a strong addition to the Nintendo family and how it lays the groundwork for their future strategy with the roll-out of DS Ware. They’ve made deep inroads into the world of piracy and learned many valuable lessons and then applied them to their new DS Ware service. Nintendo not only countered piracy itself but removed most of the fundamental advantages to pirating in the first place, all while dramatically improving the gaming experience for legitimate gamers. They created a beautiful path right through where everyone was cutting across.

If you haven’t played the amazing  Bangai-O Spirits game by legendary developer Treasure, do yourself a favor and read the many, many excellent reviews, then hurry out snatch your own copy today. Bangai-O Spirits (BOS) breaks all the rules by combining the puzzle solving genre with old fashioned shoot-em-ups (shumps) then unlocking all 160 levels right from the get-go, leaving the motivation to keep playing squarely on the shoulders of the gameplay and level designs.

Luckily this isn’t a problem for BOS since you can create, play and share your own levels with the fantastic level designer included in right in the game. You can even use it to enter contests… if you’re a world famous game designer that is.

The latest contest by D3Publisher invited the worlds top game designers to put their talents to the test and compete to see who is the Master BOS Level Creator. Winner gets $10,000 donated in their name to the graduate fellowship at The Guildhall at SMU, the premier graduate video game education program in the US.

The best part is you can play all the levels right now, for free. Turns out we are the judges! To participate, first download all the levels and give them a play through. Woo Hoo!! After playing testing each one, be sure to vote for your favorites!

Original store reported by DSFanboy.. one of the top DS sites.

LevelHead is an amazing new game you control by manipulating ordinary blocks while your webcam observes and translates what you do into what you see here:

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

The story is reported by Jon over at SlashGamer.com. Read more about it from Julian Oliver, the game’s creator.

Sony announced plans to expand their beta program for the much anticipated PSN property: Home. To become eligible, you must log into the PSN network and download the latest Theme: Home Beta Test. Once downloaded go to your Theme Settings and enable it. That’s all you need to do to submit your account for inclusion in the next round of Home Beta Testing. Read more details from Sony’s Blog.

Just when you thought every possible variation of bouncing ball games had been invented, here’s another free online game that’s just a little trickier than it looks: Brain Bashers.

The idea is simple: blue balls on the left, red on the right. The games sluggish controls makes it challenging as the little gap follows your mouse around. Just when you’ve got the last one lined up.. another bugger escapes from the opposite side - this forces you to keep all of them and their motions in mind at the same time - especially in the first few moments if you want a good time. 32 seconds is the best I can do. How about you?

Easily one of the best ways to goof off take a break online, try this free, fun, addictive physics game: Fantastic Contraption.

The idea is to get the little pink wheel into the shaded area on the right by building a contraption from the gears and belts on the top of the screen. What’s so cool is how incredibly different every one’s solution is. Many of mine resembled tanks or tossed it. Bet you can’t solve just one. Here’s some creative solutions by jjooeh:

Four Wheeler (Up the Hump2)
The Mole (Awash)
Three-legged Spider (Up the stairs)
Dumper (Big Ball)
The Crane (Down Under)
A Tough One (Handling)
Frame (Back and Forth)
Nunchaku Trucku (Unpossible)

This year’s E3 was a far cry from a few years ago when hordes of gamers wrapped around the L.A. Colosseum waiting for their chance to swing the new Wii remote for the first time. While not as much flash as we had hoped, and I can’t hide my disappointment of no new DS, the second half of 2008 is slowly gathering into quite the Winter storm. Check out some of the highlights:

Nintendo:

Good thing I didn’t bet on a refreshed DS since it would have been a real loser. They did however announce a few new games and revealed some more details on the MotionPlus accessory:

MotionPlus: Designed to detect not only the acceleration of the controller but also its exact position in space in realtime. It comes bundled with the new “Wii Sports: Resort” game.

Wii Sports: Resort: Essentially Wii Sports 2 for the MotionPlus accessory. Comes with a sword fighting game which looks utterly fantastic, Frisbee throwing (use your wrist strap please!), and jet skis among others to make around 10 new mini-games. Iwata, Nintendo’s CEO, was overheard commenting on the features of the new MotionPlus saying it prints money just like all their other Wii accessories.

Star Wars Clone Wars: The game we always wanted on the wii. They should keep working on the controls and take some hints from Wii Sports: Resort.

Girl Gamers: according to Nintendo 48% of new DS sales are designated for female hands. Ubisoft also emphasized their girl-gamer focus and 2K Sports announced they are rolling out a girl sports brand. You can already see the heavy influence of the opposite sex on the DS library. Could 2009 be the year of the girl gamer?

Wii Music: Rhythm/music type game for the Wii. My hope is for these music games to become more realistic to the point where real instruments, like the drums today, are used so real musicians are created. This is not the direction Wii Music is going.

GTA: Chinatown Wars: Probably the biggest announcement for the DS this conference. Scheduled for release this holiday season, this has a good chance to break all sales records on the DS.

Sim Animals: Cute animal sandbox game. DS and Wii.

Sony

God of War 3: Brief trailer. It’s coming!

Home: Sony says it’s mostly ready sans all the content that still needs to be created. Hopefully this will encourage more cooperative online play, especially for Warhawk.

Little Big Planet: Coming this October.

Flower: New PSN game. Looks like a really nice flow-type game.

Gran Turismo TV: Top Gear episodes, real racing content. Looks good.

New PS3 SKU: Sony announced a new 80GB PS3 which replaces the existing 40GB model. The new 80GB PS3 does not play PS2 games (no backwards compatibility) but the price remains the same $399 price.

MAG: Short for Massive Action Game this new title by Sony/Zipper Interactive puts up to 256 players online in the same game for all your fragging pleasure.

Microsoft

Microsoft stole the show this year with so many announcements they had to cut some major news items from their presentation just to squeeze it down to under 100 minutes.

Dashboard Update: Avatars for everyone. Play games from your hard drive.

Primetime: Participate in live quiz shows and other online games. This looks really exciting.. can’t wait to see what they do in this space.

Xbox Live Community: Coming this Fall. This has been available for developers but it’s about to be released to the Live Community. Very exciting news for independent developers.

Price Cut: $299 price cut for 20gb 360.

FF XIII: Coming to 360! While this generation has seen multi-platform become the rule rather than the exception, it’s still somehow shocking to see one of Sony’s sacred cows moving to the dark side.

Netflix: Watch and share your play-now Netflix movies for existing Netflix and Live Gold customers. Looks like it’s limited to movies already in your queue but still a nice feature for existing customers.

Fallout 3: I’m sure this is a good game but after watching the demo it looks like they’ve created the ultimate dumbed-down FPS where you pause the game, highlight the player you want to shoot, then unpause to watch the kill animation.

New Geometry Wars: Coming next month!

GTA IV: Downloadable content coming later this year.

Lips: Karaoke type game but where you can use your own music via. connected iPod.

EA

Sim Animals: Cute animal sandbox game.

Spore: Release this September.

Ubisoft

Prince of Persia: Nice looking action game with visuals reminiscent of ICO. They put fourth an interesting concept that dying is no longer needed in games in order to give gamers a sense of accomplishment or as Ben, the speaker puts it “make them feel bad for dying.” It will be interesting to see if the sense of accomplishment is zapped out of Prince of Persia when it’s released this winter.

How does Nintendo improve upon their amazingly successful Wii motion-sensing controller? Why make it sense even more motion. Nintendo today revealed the newest addition to the Wii remote, the MotionPlus accessory. Designed to detect not only the acceleration of the controller but also its exact position in space in realtime.

The Wii MotionPlus accessory attaches to the end of the Wii Remote and, combined with the accelerometer and the sensor bar, allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player’s arm position and orientation, providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion. Every slight movement players make with their wrist or arm is rendered identically in real time on the screen, providing a true 1:1 response in their game play.

This enables some truly amazing types of games if publishers are willing to step up to the plate and take some risks. A serious minded tennis game designed to improve your swings would be a huge hit if it really worked. Imagine Venus or Federer guiding you against a real video of your swing: “No, no… bring your swing a little farther back and don’t turn your wrist towards the ground as much. Let’s do it again please.”  A golf game designed to analyze your swing with Tiger explaining what you’re doing wrong. A true boxing simulation using two MotionPluses. This is big.

Expect to hear more details tomorrow during Nintendo’s E3 announcement including what new games will take advantage of it and if we can expect it to be bundled together with other games like the Wii Fit board and the driving wheel accessory. My prediction is for a Star Wars light-saber sword fighting game so we can get our wii-sabers on.

Nintendo’s Press Release

Welcome to the brand new gaming blog Games I Like!

We highlight the special games that deserve a shot in your your gaming library, discuss the most interesting gaming news and ponder the state of the gaming industry today & its glorious future.

Have never kept a blog or posted about the gaming industry before so this is learning experience in-progress. Expect some major suckage for a while but please, don’t let that stop you from being part of it! We want your opinions in the comments and if you’d like to write about games YOU LIKE, then please, register for an account and write some reviews and give that game the love it deserves!