As you could see on the DToid homepage, Amazon sold out of 1,400 Wii's in ten minutes.

How is this possible? I still don't understand. I am a Wii owner. If you look through the halls of "The Internets" you will find many Wii owners. And, they will mostly all tell you the same: don't waste your money.

Yet, people continue to buy the thing in spite of its only 3 great games (and 2-3 "good" games), no online play, sloppy ports, terrible minigame packs, and pre-last gen graphics on 90% of its software. I see no reason to purchase a Wii in the face of the Xbox 360 lineup or the PS3's utility. Yet, they sell on.

If the release of Super Smash Bros. with its online play were still on target for December, I might say the Wii is a slight buy this Christmas combined with Mario, but it's not. If you're like me, the most played Wii game you had was Wii Sports Bowling. And you haven't played it for 5 months, and at least 3 weeks have gone without you even turning your Wii on.

What gives people? Are you buying the unavailability hype, in preperation for future titles? Are you buying the Wii because of its price point? I just don't get it. Enlighten me.

The new blog system ate the last upload, so this one will be much less eloquent.

Walmart. Central Illinois. Noon. Black Friday. 50ish Rock Band bundles.

I wouldn't start believing the unavailability hype on this. Seems like people are still trying to buy Wii, but as a Wii owner I would tell you it's not the best puchase in the world, and are steering clear of Rock Band.

Unless they started the day with 5,000 bundles, but I somehow doubt that.

Uh oh. Looks like anti-Halo fanboy response #2--"I don't want to get called names by 12 year olds"--just flew out the window. A solid decision by the Bungie team.

"In addition, enemy player voice is disabled in game in Ranked Playlists. This is because these playlists are about the contest, and not about being Chatty Mc Chatterson. Some people love the art of trash talking above all else—there is a home for you, but it isn’t a Ranked Playlist. The scoreboard does all of the trash talking here."

At Bungie.net.

Frankly, I've had it up to here with people jumping on the "I hate Halo because of the marketing" bandwagon. I get it. You are a cool hipster who shops at thrift stores, hates capitalism, and liked "[insert form of entertainment] before it was cool." Good for you. Time for a history lesson son, because shit could have been a lot fucking worse.

4. Turok: Baby Name Hunter



Back in the before time, the long long ago (2002), Acclaim was set to release Turok: Evolution, seemingly unaware that the series had peaked at Turok 2. How did they decide to market this eventual turd of a game? By paying someone $10,000 to name their baby Turok. Hit the link for a bunch of other ridiculous shit Acclaim tried to do, like buying advertisement space on tombstones.

3. God of Gore



Enough said? Super good fun times at a Sony God of War II press event.

2. Pretty Much Everything Sony Has Ever Done With The PSP. EVER.



There is almost too much to list. They created a fake fansite with two d-bags rapping, released a bunch of racially charged billboards, hired graffiti artists to deface buildings, and encouraged people to kill themselves.

1. It's So Rad



Stop yourself for a second and remember you were 10 when you saw this--probably not the most objective consumer on the planet. Imagine this movie came out today, and the final game he had to play was Halo 3.

What should you take away from this? You should be happy video games aren't the bastard child of the entertainment industry anymore, so we don't have to deal with shit like that again.

Yes, every year or so a couple games will be such huge blockbusters they will command media attention the level of blockbuster films, but so what? The only reason you see them so much is because you choose to read video game blogs, magazines, etc. If you did the same with say, a movie, and read Variety, you would see the same thing except for a film. It's selection bias, pure and simple. You have brought yourself to the marketing, not the other way around.

Now, shut up about how much you hate Halo 3's marketing, that way when you buy it because no one is playing anything else on Xbox Live, you won't have to eat so much crow.

If you read Destructoid, you are probably what Nintendo would call "hardcore." If you are "hardcore," Nintendo couldn't give two shits about you. If Nintendo couldn't give two shits about you, they will ruin their games just to taunt you, because little Billy Casual Game Player will buy their game anyway. They don't need you anymore. And they just proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt in today's Smash Bros. Dojo update.


No, Janey, I will not. Whatever that means.

Go read it to get the full effect of how terrible it is, but here is a quick recap.No Online Stat Tracking. No Online Voice Chat. Friend Codes. Admitting the game will lag balls. No way to tell who you are playing against with random opponents. No way to add random opponents to your friends list.

Is that enough? Maybe that doesn't sound so bad to you, but imagine if they ripped all those features out of Halo 3. The game would be an empty husk. Nintendo is not making the game they should be, simply because they can get away with it now. Let's look at these one at a time.

1) No Online Stat Tracking

There is simply no excuse for this. Is it that hard to tally up wins and losses and create a leaderboard? And don't even try to feed me this bullshit about how stats will give people an excuse to disconnect--COUNT DISCONNECTS AS A FUCKING LOSS. Fixed that problem, didn't we?

2) No Online Voice Chat

Oh no! Someone said a swear! It's called a mute option. If you are afraid of little Billy getting T-bagged and called names, just give the option of turning voice chat on or off. Maybe they simply don't have their net code right to have voice chat, and if that is the case, it is an even bigger problem. Fix your joke of an online network Nintendo.

3) Friend Codes

Everyone should hate these to death. If you are in the "it's just like a phone number, what's the big deal" camp, I hate you. Again, Nintendo is throwing the Baby out with the bath water. If someone has a bad name, ban that name. Simple, huh? This problem greatly ties in with number 5 and 6.

4) Admitting The Game Will Lag

Instead of creating any sort of matchmaking system that shows you where the opponents you are playing are located, or a network where the effect of location on latency are minimized, Nintendo just opts to tell you the game will lag, deal with it. Have you ever heard a company admit their game will run slowly? No, so what this problem means is that SSBB is damn near unplayable online with random opponents who may not be near you.

5)No Way To Tell Who You Are Playing Against

Way to feed the rivavlry and competitive spirit. Every single player is anonymous, and combined with stat tracking, finally besting someone who routinely beats you will never occur, since you have no idea who it was. They should change this mode to "Super Smash Brothers Moral Victory." Did I just beat one of the best Samus players in the world, or was that little Billy Casual?

6) No Way To Add Random Opponents To Your Friends List

Social networking with competitive players you enjoyed? No thanks. Again, imagine XBL or PSN if you could only add people you have actually physically met before to your friends list. Probably removes quite a few people, doesn't it? In a game like this, adding people you play should be a routine feature in every game. Nintendo doesn't subscribe to that philosophy though.

Nintendo, you are alienating the people who supported you before you came up with waving your arms around like a mad man and convinced people it was the wave of the future. You say you don't need the hardcore gamer, but why not have both? If you would just take the time to do these things right, you could sell a lot of consoles to the 360 and PS3 owners, who you otherwise don't care about. Why would you turn that down?

Another Chinese death in a gaming cafe. After the man slumped over, the 100 other patrons apparently fled the cafe, probably to head to another cafe that wouldn't be shut down. That gold's not going to farm itself.

I'd really like to know what he was playing, but as you can imagine, my money is on WoW.

Via AP