Features// SPOnG's Review of the Year 2011: August

The biggest news story of August was undoubtedly the London riots which then spread across the UK in early August. But what does that have to do with gaming?

Well, much to SPOnG‘s dismay, the riots prompted a renewed attack on the‘ gaming industry by papers such as The Daily Mail, which apparently thought that the riots had everything to do with gaming.

We had actually had enough of this kind of lazy and counter-productive reporting:

‘Stop It! Daily Mail Now Blames Grand Theft Auto for Riots.’

was our take. This was mainly because the ‘report’ was based on the views of one - probably very over-worked police officer. But this is what the mainstream rag made of it:

"A policeman said last night that children involved in the rioting and stealing were inspired by violent video game Grand Theft Auto.

"‘When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they’re playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.’”

Oasis star Noel Gallagher and TV‘s ‘Supernanny’ Jo Frost were some of the vaguely-celebrity-like figures who jumped on the bandwagon.

Fortunately this nonsense didn‘t take off too much and little things like Britain‘s financial crisis and massive unemployment rates took most of the blame for the nights of wild looting and violence.

In more bad news for some people, Sony confirmed that the PS Vita would not be available outside of Japan until early 2012 despite initial plans for a fairly close worldwide release.

The company also stood by the handheld‘s high price, citing the technology of the game and denying a need to compete with Nintendo‘s own price cuts on the underperforming 3DS.

Speaking of the 3DS, Nintendo finally shared their thoughts on the underwhelming sales performance that led to them giving the handheld its massive price cut, admitting that a weak software line-up is probably to blame.

Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime‘s, of course, had a thing or two to say about this.

"We've seen very positive reaction to the digital offerings but it needed to be much sooner in the launch window. As a result that created a situation where the momentum wasn't sustained."

Reggie added, noting that this was the reason for the price cut. "That's why we have now had to go back and reduce the price and reduce the price by a large amount in order to make sure we have stronger momentum beginning on Friday and powering through."

With rumours growing stronger all the time of a new Xbox incarnation on the horizon, Microsoft saw fit to muse on how they‘ll handle the changeover from the still going strong 360.

Chris Lewis, the European boss for Microsoft's Xbox division pointed out that:

“Well, we think we’re more than halfway through but given we are still growing, we think we’re at a healthy part in the life cycle still because we’ve pumped this adrenaline into the arm of the business with Kinect..."

"... so we think we’re a little over halfway with the life cycle of the console, but that’s not to say there won’t be an overlap."