You suck, Nintendo

Apparently, as NeoGAF and Kotaku commenters report, the new Wii Update version 3.3 does not only kill the Twilight Princess Hack and thus the homebrew channel, no, it also disables the use of the Freeloader. There is no report about the contrary at this moment, so I'll believe it for now without any hard proof.

My opinion on this matter:


I wanted to rant on Nintendo's current philosophy for a long time and never found the right words, but this is just unfair to PAL gamers, if not offending.

Not only do they release one of their biggest titles with a 5 month delay, in a time where the industry is obviously moving more and more towards simultaneous worldwide releases (GTA IV, MGS 4), now they also bar anyone who actually cares from easily importing them. Why? I can't see in which way this policy could benefit Nintendo at all. Sony realized it and made the PS3 completely region-free for games. Microsoft lets the publishers choose and most of them make their games playable on PAL consoles. Even Nintendo's own DS has no region lock and it does not seem to hinder its success even remotely.

Let's just hope Datel will have a new Freeloader available soon or the situation gets resolved in another way. Otherwise, the only option would be to import a genuine US Wii and not everybody is mode out of money. Also there is the possibility of installing a modchip, but there seem to be a lot of issues with this as well.

For now, though:


Feel the need to vent your anger? Do so in the comments.

Laugh No More: Halo Edition - German Assault

Alhough I just started this little blog and no one knows me now or ever will, I was already "featured" on Kotaku with a little story. I did not come up with anything on my own, I just stumbled upon this antithesis of comedy gold, translated it and submitted it. Kotaku Editor Michael McWhertor then invited everyone to rescue the picture with jokes on their own in the comments, which led to even more completely ridiculous contributions.

The original joke was:

Woman: "...Our new neighbor supposedly works at a company that develops video games."
Man: "He definitely has a cool SUV.

No, not much is lost in translation here. As someone wrongly thought, a "German mindset", whatever that is, doesn't help either.

Here's something the Kotakuites came up with:

Woman: Is that master chief?
Man: Forget about that! We still need to decide what we're going to bring to our posh European rave party because we are German!

Wow, maybe you need an American mindset for that one.

"Doesn't that look distinctly phallic? Because I am a German and thus a sexual deviant!"
"Nah, it definitely looks vaginal. Because I am a German and thus a sexual deviant!"

I'm intentionally just picking the especially (false) clichéd ones, because that what this is about, isn't it?

Woman: "Oh my God! Fritz, look at our new neighbor. Isn't he strange? Fritz, how many jews can you fit into a banshee?

Man: Honestly, Agnes... Everytime?

Nazi jokes are always hilarious, right? Right?

It just went on and on and from bad to worse. Then, finally, a fellow German posted this:

In case you missed it: the whole point of the cartoon, and I really hate to explain that, is, that this elderly couple don't even care about Master Chief's outfit or the gun - they merely run their mouth about his supposed employment (computer games, how odd!) and how big his car is.

Thank you! I have to shamefully admit I did not think of that, it makes some sense even saying something true about Germany. Gaming is still a huge unknown territory around here for the most part and even though you don't see people with futuristic guns (or any guns for that matter) running around, ever, and even less Banshees are on the streets, being a video game developer is what really is odd to the couple in the picture.
Maybe far-fetched, I like this explanation and it sets me up for future posts, as this is one of the topics I hopefully will come back to because it's part of what makes it not as enjoyable to be a passionate gamer in Germany, for me at least.

There are other interpretations behind this work and supposedly if you follow Marunde's other work closely there is a theme behind this, but I chose to disregard this for the topic at hand.

Now here is what I learned for myself:

- Stupid stories get the most hits (It was the #1 most clicked and commented "story" of that day)
- Kotaku readers aren't much more funny than Germans are said to be
- I'm not good at interpreting arty jokes printed in TV-guides for the older demographic