Epic Games’ president, Mike Capps, reiterated what Epic has previously said in an interview with IGN, stating that Epic won’t ever be developing games for the Wii. It’s not about the success of the platform to him, but what can be done on it. When asked whether there would ever be a time when Epic would be forced to give in and create a game for the Wii, Capps said, “no, we go forward, not back. It makes more sense for us to invest in the next-generation tech.”

As for why he believes the Wii has become so popular, he says it’s like a virus that just keeps spreading:

It’s a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they’re like, “Oh my God that’s so cool, I’m gonna go buy it.” So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they’ve showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there’s a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I’m still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

Some in our forums have shared a similar sentiment regarding games for the Wii (at least this year), but others are very excited about the upcoming games for the system. It seems that in many cases it may just be personal taste.

Capps also talks about everything from Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Unreal Tournament III to the comics, paying for weapons, and Wii Fit, so if you want to hear more of what he has to say make sure to read the rest of the interview.

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Reports are flooding in from all over the place of the first ever death by video game. Early this morning 25-year-old Juan del Locomotion, a resident of Sacremento, CA, was found bludgeoned to death by a copy of Viva Pinata for the Xbox 360. His body was found by his neighbor, Chesty Laroo, who said she had heard exclamations of childish glee before nothing but silence for many hours. When she entered the room she found del Locomotion dead on the floor with the bloody Viva Pinata box learing over his body. Scared for her life she quickly retreated to her apartment where she called police.

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Chances are, if you’re a gamer, you have at least one reason to hate, or at the very least dislike, Uwe Boll. The man has done everything from making horrible movies based on games such as Bloodrayne, House of the Dead, and Alone in the Dark, to beating up film critics, and now he’s done even more to give us a reason to scorn him.

Recently Boll was on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News, and he had some pretty condemning remarks about our favorite hobby. In an attempt to defend his terrible movies, he had this to say:

“A lot of video games have no story. I did the movie House of the Dead and got bashed and I said, what were you expecting, Schindler’s List? …I don’t know what they were expecting if you make a movie based on an ego shooter where you kill ninety minutes of people non-stop.”

Ugh. Here we have a man who takes all of his “inspiration” (and I use the word very lightly) from games, and then turns around and slaps them in the face. I am becoming more and more convinced that Uwe Boll is not only a failure at making movies, but just completely a failure at life. When you can’t defend your works without resorting to petty excuses and mudslinging, then you should probably quit what you’re doing.

Via CVG

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In the life of the Wii, no game has been more hyped than Super Smash Bros. Brawl, follow up to the cult hit Super Smash Bros Melee. With so much anticipation, it’s no wonder how upset fans were both times it was delayed, the first time from Dec 3, 2007 to Feb 10, 2008, and again back to March 9, 2008. Most of the time, when a development team is forced to delay a product, they come up with some asinine excuses, which is why Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, is a bigger man for straight up apologizing for Brawl’s delay. The apology comes at the beginning of his interview with Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Brawl, on the official Wii website.

“…I would like to offer an apology. With the completion of the game falling behind schedule, we were unable to keep our promised release date, despite our greatest efforts in attempting to release this game on time. I would like to extend my most sincere apology to all of our customers that are anticipating the title’s release, and also to our retailers.”

This is how Nintendo continues to be the good guy of gaming. Humbleness, sincerity, and gratitude will get you a long way in an industry that is all about the bottom line. Then again, I would be the nicest guy in the world if I had two systems that printed money. (But seriously Iwata, Brawl on March 9 or else it’s mutiny time.)

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Interviews with the guys behind the Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios, are few and far between so when one like Next-Gen just did comes along I always jump at the chance to read it. I’ve been constantly impressed by how well the studio translated a 2D game into 3D and am always blown away by the level of quality in the Prime series. The far too short interview gives some pretty good insight into what working with Nintendo is like with game director Mark Pacini saying,

They hammer the game from every possible angle. It can be literally as small as moving a box one centimeter to the left. They can spot these little details that are so important to game flow.

Sounds pretty precise but I guess this explains why most Nintendo games (a) come out so well and (b) get delayed five times over. Moving every box a centimeter takes a lot of time. Sadly Next-Gen didn’t ask Retro about what their next project was going to be other than to mention that they won’t be working on a Metroid game in the foreseeable future. For a bit of discussion on working with the Wii remote and some other game design choices check out the full interview at Next-Gen.

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