Kikizo Games' 2005 Review

Our review of the year concludes with a lookback at Sega Sammy, next-gen handheld launches, videogame mega-sales, console shortages, working conditions and more besides. What a year!

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October: With the year's big game shows out of the way (well, almost), the arrival of autumn signals crunch time for games publishers, who try to get as many titles out for the Christmas rush as possible. The drought of the summer was quickly forgotten as more and more games (and some good ones) started to hit stores.

The world went crazy for Nintendogs on the DS

One of the breakout mainstream hits of the year was Nintendogs for DS. The game, a virtual puppy simulator, saw a similar sort of mainstream appeal in the UK as it did elsewhere around the world. Unfortunately for Nintendo, the flirtations with non-gamers didn't have the legs it did elsewhere and the trio of Nintendogs versions quickly fell down the ranks.

The global success of Nintendogs and other non-games and the arrival of better games for gamers meant that the DS was enjoying the majority of the portable attention. It wasn't quite as straightforward in the UK, though, as delayed DS releases and rabid uptake of the PSP meant that things were more even.

Giga Pack looks nice but some 'bundles' created misery

Bizarrely, the PSP was still being held back by low in-store stock, despite an announcement from Sony that seemed to indicate it had hundreds of thousands of the portable on hand. To make matter worse, Sony announced a new PSP bundle that included a 1 GB memory card for only fractionally more than the Value Pack, but bundling shenanigans at several retailers meant that Britons missed out on a great opportunity.

October also saw Microsoft get things in order for November's US debut of the Xbox 360. The company held X05, an Xbox 360-only event in Amsterdam in early October, but even at this late stage a lot of the launch software failed to draw the attention Microsoft was so sorely looking for.

Microsoft's X05 event got pulses racing.

Not to be outdone, Sony boss Ken Kutaragi was at it again, extolling the technical virtues of the far-from-ready PlayStation 3. While Kutaragi had told people earlier in the year that they should work harder to afford the PlayStation 3, now he was telling them that they wouldn't even be able to see it properly, as it would be possible for games to run at 120 frames per second - more than TVs can actually display.

November: The days after Halloween were heady for soccer fans, who snapped up perennial adversaries FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer in droves, keeping the pair near the front of the UK sales charts for weeks on end. Old-school footie favourite Sensible Soccer was also revealed to be in development, with the revamped classic hitting in 2006.

After a bare few months with little in the way of new releases, the PSP finally saw a big hitter arrive. Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories may have been denigrated by some as just another Grand Theft Auto on the PSP, but proponents of the ambitious project countered that it was in fact another Grand Theft Auto - just on the PSP.

Liberty City Stories - a good PSP game

The DS was still seeing healthy sales in November despite several games taking months between their US and European releases. No matter. Nintendo signed a deal with two major WiFi providers in the UK that would allow DS owners to take to the Net with Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World and all the other online-enabled DS titles at more than 7,500 locations - all for free.

One of the big question marks surrounding the Xbox 360 was finally cleared up in November. Just weeks before the console worldwide debut, Microsoft finally revealed which Xbox games would be playable through the Xbox 360's software emulation.

Hooray! Xbox 360 is finally out Stateside.

Not that this was necessary of course. The launch of the console in the US on 25 November was greeted by endless lines across America as desperate gamers tried (and failed) to get one of the coveted consoles. As promised, Microsoft delivered much more of the hard drive-containing Premium bundle than the neutered Core system, but there weren't enough of either to go around. It was a portent of things to come in Europe.

December: The final month of the year started with the UK launch of the Xbox 360. Much like in the US, there were way too few consoles to go around and even now, weeks after the launch, retailers are forced to turn anxious gamers away.

The UK Xbox 360 launch went with a bang

Microsoft's stubborn refusal to be drawn into specifics regarding numbers of consoles sold and coming only frustrated those that didn't know whether they should succumb to the snake pit that was eBay in the weeks after the launch, where Premium Xbox 360 bundles were routinely selling for more than double the street price.

The end of the year also saw the opening of several big Hollywood movies, including big names such as Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire, Chronicles Of Narnia, King Kong and more. The hysteria surrounding these long awaited flicks spilled over into their video game counterparts, earning regular places near the top of the UK sales charts.

The delectable Ms Maran helped Most Wanted to No.1

Bookies in the UK even went to so far as to tap Chronicles Of Narnia for victory in the race for the Christmas No. 1, but EA's Need For Speed Most Wanted showed again how successfully the company has managed to woo the mainstream and pulled in a fourth Christmas No. 1 in five years for the publisher.

Things weren't nearly as good for Microsoft on the sales charts. Despite seemingly boundless excitement surrounding the launch of the console and its blatant popularity, there simply weren't enough consoles in living rooms for the company to eke out any substantial places on the charts.

Some say Call of Duty 2 is the best 360 launch game

What's worse, while the Microsoft's launch trifecta - the UK-developed Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements Of Power - were popular in the UK, outside it was Activision's Call Of Duty 2 that led the way - hardly what Microsoft would prefer to see after dropping $375 million for Rare.

But it was Sony that was to have the last shot of the year. While Microsoft was struggling with its global launch, which by its own admission was perhaps overly ambitious, Sony calmly reminded everyone that the next generation didn't truly begin until the PlayStation 3 arrived - and that it's happening this spring.

Ken reminded everyone PS3 is still coming in 2006.

And with that, 2006 could well be the year that 2005 sort of promised it would be. Stay with us for coverage through the year that Sony would have you believe introduces the next generation for real, and in which you might actually be able to buy an Xbox 360.

Happy New Year!

Kikizo Staff

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