5 For Friday: Most Wanted (Classic Rock) Rock Band Songs

Rock Band, the critical and financially successful faux-band video game already has quite an amazing set list between the songs available with the game (including gems such as “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer, “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, and “Dani California” by REM), and even more new songs available for $2/each every Tuesday (including hits such as “More Than A Feeling” by Boston, “Roxanne” by The Police, and “Wonderwall” by Oasis).

For those of you who have never seen Rock Band, here’s a sample of people playing a little Rock Band:

Vocals on top, lead guitar on the left, drums in the middle, and bass on the right

Next week, the 80s band The Cars comes rocking their first album, headlined by 80s favorite “Just What I Needed.” I don’t have any real say in what comes out, but that can’t stop me from hoping for a few great hits to be added in the near future in this week’s 5 For Friday…

Fewer Ads For New FOX Shows

FOX announced on Friday that two of their new shows next season will not be as commercial-filled as most. FOX will cut the commercial time from the industry standard 18-minutes to a astounding 10-minutes for what will likely be their most successful new series: Dollhouse (by Joss Whedon of “Buffy” and “Firefly” fame) and Fringe (by JJ Abrams of “Lost” and “Alias” fame).

Not much to say about this one other than a great idea by FOX to keep viewers watching.

5 For Friday: Most Wanted SNES Virtual Console Titles

The Wii’s Virtual Console has quite an extensive list of available games, but there are numerous noteworthy games still missing. Here’s my 5 most wanted SNES titles that have not already been announced (such as Earthbound) or are unlikely given rights issues:

Video Game Review: Mario Kart Wii

[For a new feature here at Wow's Media Blog, I present to you the first video game review. Enjoy!]

Mario Kart Wii, the newest of the beloved go-kart racing series featuring Mario characters was released, somewhat bizarrely, two days before that of superstar Grand Theft Auto IV. Ultimately for Mario and friends, this poorly chosen release date finds Mario Kart Wii’s place in gamers’ minds and this review of the game both with the same ironic conclusion: Mario Kart Wii is ultimately forgettable.

Fuzzy Math

Microsoft, the maker of the XBox 360 went ahead yesterday and gloated that they had become the first next-generation high definition console to sell 10 million units in the United States. That’s pretty exciting news huh? But I bet if you’re like me (and you’re probably not), you also noticed all those qualifiers like “High Definition” and “in the US.”

Why is that? It couldn’t have anything to do with these sales numbers right?

Credit: Vgchartz.com.

Thanks for playing Microsoft. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Wii has outsold the 360 worldwide, and by the end of this fiscal quarter should have a lead in the United States as well (of course, the Wii is not “high definition” so it doesn’t really count)! Did I mention that the 360 was released a year before the Wii as well?

Not exactly your crowning achievement Microsoft. But feel free to let us know that you’re the “best next-generation console in North America that isn’t made by Nintendo” at the end of the year too. (And by the way, why on earth is it still considered a “next generation console,” isn’t next generation, you know, the next one?”

For A Laugh

A response to a newspaper editorial about video game violence:

The Big Blockbuster Media Week

There was a lot of speculation that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTAIV) would hurt the ticket sales of the first summer blockbuster, Iron Man. At least in the “movie industry,” which needed to find some excuse for why other movies had flopped near big video game release dates.

This week proved those assumptions wrong.

GTAIV sold a record-smashing 60m copies for $500m in it’s opening week.

Iron Man sold over $100m in ticket sales in it’s opening weekend.

Jeez, I guess no one wanted to see Iron Man. Especially all those movie pirates right “movie industry?” Here’s an idea: Keep making good movies, and maybe people will pay to see them.

Best. Game. Ever.

Grand Theft Auto IV’s (GTA IV) release was never in doubt to be a media sensation. The newest installment in the open-world-free-for-all-violent-shooter-with-hookers series has already been panned by lawyer Jack Thompson and others who think GTA will cause us to go pick up hookers and then kill them and spend their days shouting “think of the children”.

But there’s one thing that no one expected: Perfection.

I now know how film critics felt after screening “The Godfather.” It’s been days since Grand Theft Auto IV’s credits rolled, yet I can’t seem to construct a coherent thought without my mind wandering off into a daydream about the game. I just want to drop everything in my life so I can play it again. Experience it again. Live it again…Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming.

– Gameinformer

With over 20 reviews posted for today’s release. Grand Theft Auto IV has officially surpassed the classic N64 fantasy game Zelda: The Ocarina of Time as the Highest Rated Game Of All-Time. GTA IV isn’t just another controversial or violent video game. It’s a masterpiece.

Wii Sells Big, But No One Is Buying Games

The New York Times opens its technology headline article with:

Nintendo sits atop the home video-game market. Its Wii, though lesstechnologically advanced than Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, continues to outsell those machines and is now in more than 20 million homes.

So why are retailers having so much trouble selling Wii games?

They go on to cite Super Smash Bros, which sold 1.4m copies it’s first week, and sales have plummeted 90% in the last 4 weeks to almost nothing. The answer is simple to expert video game analyst Michael Pachter:

The average Wii owner buys only 3.7 games a year, compared with 4.7 for Xbox 360 owners and 4.6 for PlayStation 3 owners, said a Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter. “It reflects the broadening of the demographic,” he said. “Nintendo’s market doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency to buy every game that’s coming out.”

So while Nintendo’s cheap console is making a splash in the casual gamer market, the result of this for Nintendo is a real lack of interest in the games thus far by the audience. They don’t want to pay full price for the games, nor are they eagerly anticipating their releases like hardcore gamers. The “attach rate” (the # of items such as games, controllers, memory cards, etc bought with a console) is so significantly low on a Wii it’s is scary. Thus, Nintendo’s own market is what’s causing their software such hardship.

Cubs Sweep Pirates, 37 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 7 Dead

See what I did there?

Ads for the popular and probably-to-be-best-selling-game-of-all-time Grand Theft Auto IV (GTAIV) were put on buses and trains in the city of Chicago, and a crime wave ensued. Because of the ads. Seems pretty reasonable right?

Well according to Fox’s local affiliate in Chicago, it’s exactly what happened:

Last weekend, Chicago saw quite a bit of violence. At the moment, CBS is reporting a total of “37 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 7 Dead,” while pointing out that 13 of the victims were Chicago Public School students. Fox News Chicago noticed—in a moment of divine correlation—that Grand Theft Auto advertisements appear on CTA buses and train stations.

Divine correlation? Absolutely, It involves some mysticism to make that correlation.

In other news the Chicago Cubs swept the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend. The result? 37 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 7 Dead. We should probably shut them down too.