This week, reader Thomas Lin heeded our call and gave us a letter we could sink our teeth into. If you’d also love to feel this glory, hit us up at letters@bitmob.com. Now it’s time to crack open that bag…
Hey Bitmob,
Just a question and over/under time again because after last week’s mailbag, there needs to be some more excitement.
Question: Is Demian ever going to bring back Legendary Thread?
Over/Under
Times Wii Sports Resort will be sitting at No. 1 in the NPDs for the next year: 4.5
Millions of copies of Modern Warfare 2 sold in the first week without “Call of Duty” being anywhere on the box: 3.5
Millions of copies of Modern Warfare 2 sold in the first week with “Call of Duty” being somewhere on the box: 3.5
Reluctant Top 10 lists from Dan Hsu by the end of the year because he has good business sense (love ya, Shoe!): 6.5
Months from now before consumers see a real PS3 price cut: 4.5
Years when a public “OnLive-like” device hits the market: .5
Have a nice day!
Thomas Lin
Bitmob: Ah. Thomas comes back with our favorite type of letter: one you can bet on! (Note: Please don’t actually bet on our letters.) But first, to your Legendary Thread (that 1UP podcast focused on World of WarCraft) question, Demian responds: “Never say never? It’ll be ready when it’s ready? No immediate plans right now….it’s all we can do to keep up with the Mobcast.”
OK, on to the numbers:
Times Wii Sports Resort will be at No. 1 (4.5): This may be the toughest one, and it may actually be sabotaged by Nintendo itself. Coming out July 26, it should be No. 1 for July, most likely August, but then the trouble starts.
The beast known as The Beatles: Rock Band launches in September and will have a stranglehold on No 1 for a few months till either BioShock 2 or Modern Warfare 2 knocks it off in November.
Once the holiday-game excitement dies down in January, we could see it retaking the top spot, helped immensely by that Wii Motion Plus pack-in (not quite Wii Play’s pack-in controller, but it’s added value).
In fact, the biggest X factor is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. So long as it comes out in the fall, it’ll likely be doing the No. 1 dance with Wii Sports Resort for the first half of next year (with a little God of War 3 speed bump thrown in there).
Phew…all that said, we’ll go with the over, believing it can nab two No. 1 months right off the bat, then another three or more next winter/spring.
Modern Warfare 2 first-week sales without COD on cover (3.5 million): Under. Regardless of the franchise, 3 million in one week is a ton of units, and you bring up the important “lack of Call of Duty on the box” factor.
Modern Warfare 2 sales with COD on the cover (3.5 million): …but even with those magic three words, we still say under for the same reason. But we are tempted….
Shoe Tope 10 lists (6.5): Ha! He does always have part of his mind on business…but to reach the over he’d have to write more than one a month till the end of the year. We imagine he wants to stand taller than that, though, so we’re saying under. Between ones he writes and contributor top 10 lists he promotes, however, yeah, that’d be seven or more.
PS3 price cut (4.5 months): Sony seems steadfast on saying there won’t be a cut, but we think at some point they have to break and do one to generate excitment and drive sales (and more than just throw in some pack-in games). We say under.
OnLive-like device (.5 years): Over. Even if companies scramble to get something like this out, be it the real OnLive or an imitator, it seems like they’d want to capitalize on the holiday season.
We hope you’re keeping track of these results, Thomas, and will let us know just how poorly we do. What’s the over/under on percent correct from the Bitmob Mailbag — 50%?
Hey Bitmob,
Just wanted to say that I stumbled upon this site the other day while looking for the old Sore Thumbs blog and couldn’t be happier with what I’ve seen. I’ve always wanted to start up or be a part of a gaming site that is [we hope you mean “isn’t” here -Ed.] just a repeater of the other blogs and involves the gaming community in a way that benefits everyone and produces great original content.
I love writing about games myself and have always been inspired by Dan Hsu to try and achieve my goal of doing what I love for a living. I wish you guys the best of luck with this site, and I’ll try my hardest to provide some great content for you guys.
-Kamui
Bitmob: Aww. Thanks, Kamui. Better stop laying on the love, though. Doesn’t take much to choke Shoe up.
Hey Bitmob,
When will you update the site? I’m champing at the bit for an Alpha 1.1 release. You guys must have something in the pipeline!
Best regards,
Spencer Gregory
We asked a teary-eyed Shoe to give us the inside scoop: “Yup, new stuff’s coming! But please be patient with us. Keep in mind that we’re a small, bootstrapped start-up operation with no paid staff, so all our development work is being done on our developers’ free time, after their day jobs (weekends, nights, etc.). We have grand ideas, but until we get funded and we’re able to turn Bitmob into a serious business, the updates will appear when we can get to them.
“We know our MyBlog publishing platform is a bit slow right now, but we’re in the process of updating that now. Should be any day now, as soon as we figure out some browser incompatibility issues. Bigger, more exciting features are coming, though! Stay tuned.”
Hey Bitmob,
Great podcast, but I have to disagree with you on what killed the adventure genre. That genre was the one genre that was impacted by graphics and physics improvements in a negative way. The better the graphics the more artificial the genre became. Gabriel Knight 3 is a perfect example of the artificial nature the genre dead-ended into: contrived puzzles that make no sense in a realistic world.
The new growth of the genre seems to be tales that are not realistic, such as Wallace and Gromit and Sam and Max, where such puzzles are a strong part of the immersion. Of course, part of the whole adventure genre can be found in such games as Uncharted and the Tomb Raider series.
Very Respectfully,
Jim
Bitmob: You win this round, Jim…
And with that, we’re done with this week’s mailbag. Be sure to send in your questions, hate/praise, or theories to letters@bitmob.com.