I aim to misbehave

This is getting scary now. The backlash against the iPad (people almost seem offended by its mere presence now—and they haven’t even touched it!) was eerily similar to the backlash in 2006 against the Wii.

Now, even the meta imagery and Photoshop jobs are nearly identical. Taped together GameCubes ring a bell, anyone? GameCube 2.0? “Just a bigger iPod touch?!”

This all tells me that in 18 months time there could very well be a country called Apple Inc., such will the power of this company be…

Too many parallels between the iPad reveal today and the Wii’s life-to-date NOT to do another of these poorly drawn, corny comics. Name calling? Check! Industry “experts” think it’s too casual or light on features? Double check! Attacking hardware from a proven company without seeing ANY of the 2nd gen software yet? Triple check! We have a winner!

Now, I’m not saying this thing will be a success, but come on. With the wild success of the Wii, and the incredible success enjoyed by the iPhone (which was also doubted, at first)…I mean, come on. To even clarify further, I don’t “care” one way or the other if it succeeds or not either. If it’s fun/useful, I’ll buy, just like my iPhone. If not, I’ll retain hundreds of dollars for some other fun gadget purchase later on.

Update: Also inspiring this post is the fact that Steve Jobs could give a shit what you think about the name.

“What’s not to love? The quality of the device, the feel of it in your hand is unbelievable. I love the upgraded apps, I love the form factor. I think it’ll be a fantastic device for gaming.”

Epic Games head honcho Mark Rein on the underpowered, definitely not a games-first, everything else second portable device, Apple iPad. Still won’t develop games for the market-leading, world sales-leading Wii though. Anyone care to ask him about that?

Funny, the thing Nintendo said when they saw the underlying technology that powers Microsoft’s Natal is the same thing consumers will say later this year.

Just saw the trailer for the Mass Effect 2 movie during a commercial break in the NFC championship game. Impressive!

Oh, wait, I’ve just been told that was for a video game. Remember when companies showed game play in their video game commercials?

Earlier, gaming blog Kotaku posted a response to columnist Chris O’Brien, who said he returned his Wii console because the hidden costs were too much to bear.

Then some the commenters, as they are wont to do, went apoplectic and did what insecure DBs normally do in such cases: They flamed and spit venom and acted like little kids.

And now Kotaku is confused? That’s pretty rich, as one of the quoted commenters has a star (earned for good commenting)—they created these guys in the first place!

Everything that is wrong with games journalism, summed up neatly in one little post.

2D is “going backwards.” Check. It is “sad” that a 2D outsold a 3D game. Check. Marketing and accessibility are key to Wii titles’ success (i.e. those tens of millions of Wii owners are not really gamers, and need to have things explained to them). Check.

The comments are even more hilarious, however. Hold you nose and give them, and the post, a quick read. Update: In hindsight, there are a few gems in there, speaking truth to power. Phisheep is one such example.

Note to Nintendo: Consumers just sent you a message. Maybe Galaxy and 3D aren’t the be-all, end-all future of gaming, hmm?

If Google Wave adds a new feature, and no one gave a fuck about the service to begin with, does a tree fall silently in the woods on a shitting bear?

In hindsight I may have mixed up my sayings on this one. I’m confused, just like Google Wave. Forgive me.

Can a sect of gaming journalism that’s established itself as anti-low power console, anti-motion controls and anti-thinking outside the box suddenly do an about face and embrace all of these traits, all while never mentioning the fact that Nintendo has done this already over the past four years, simply because it’s the cool, page view grabbing thing to do?

Obviously, the answer is Yes.