Pictured: The inferior ‘Coitfelis Subhumanis’.
Scientists Agree: Zestria Rejection a Sign of Human Regress
If an army can be said to march on its stomach, then the Lusipurr.com corps are in high spirits indeed, thanks in large part to Zestria™ (the revolutionary new additive that simply everyone is talking about!). This week Lusipurr.com cadets have been kicking arses and crossing off names, namely those of the villain Chris Privitere and his female collaborator, both of whom have been struck from the Lusipurr.com honorary staff membership roll.
But it is not just the Lusipurr.com army that has been on a roll this week, as the Lusipurrian science division have been making significant progress on the home front. Lusipurrian scientists have been tasked with researching the ways in which humanity can be understood when viewed through the prism of Zestria™ (the revolutionary new additive that simply everyone is talking about!), and this week they have made a stunning breakthrough which suggests a hitherto unacknowledged branch in human evolution.
It has been noted that in many cases the readers of Cat Fancy exhibit common physical traits. They have a forehead which is, on average, 2.1cm shorter than that of the average Lusipurr.com reader, which causes it to protrude somewhat in a brutish fashion – suggesting that they are possessed of flatter brains than normal humans. Similarly, Cat Fancy readers can be seen to feature eyes which are spaced, on average, .7cm further apart than the typical Lusipurr.com reader, leading to a bifurcated worldview. Moreover, trends reveal that Cat Fancy readers tend to have shorter, squatter physiques, with stubby fingers, more suited to manual labour, whereas the Lusipurrian class of gentlemen is of an altogether finer build, more suited to the management of lesser peoples.
The drastic difference between these two groups of people, as evinced by the available literature*, led to Lusipurrian scientists hypothesising that these differing physical traits were present on account of a deficiency of Zestria™ (the revolutionary new additive that simply everyone is talking about!) in the diets of Cat Fancy readers. To test this theory Lusipurrian scientists conducted clinical trials which focused on the dietary preferences of a randomly selected sample of twenty Cat Fancy readers, which were then contrasted against a control group of twenty Lusipurr.com readers. The results were conclusive – when given the choice, all twenty test subjects selected meals which contained regular table salt, whereas all twenty members of the control group requested that their food be garnished with Zestria™ (the revolutionary new additive that simply everyone is talking about!). The significance of this result is greater than several standard deviations, leading Lusipurrian scientists to conclude that a new evolutionary branch has manifested in humanity’s genetic trajectory; the inferior Coitfelis Subhumanis and the dominant Lionis Zestralis.
Pictured: Iwata has surrounded himself with trusted advisers.
Nintendo Unveils New Plan to Make Wii U Irrelevant
Nobody has done more to retard the sales of Nintendo’s eighth generation console than Nintendo themselves. They produced mediocre hardware which they looked to sell at a premium price point. They named it the Wii U, causing acute brand-confusion with its predecessor, the Wii. Just this week Nintendo elected to take a blowtorch to their own good advice concerning the fact that putting their franchises on smartphones would only serve to degrade said franchises and diminish any inclination that casual players might have to purchase Nintendo hardware. They did this by granting licenses to DeNA [owner of Mobage] to produce games using Nintendo franchises for smartphones.
Sadly, the DeNA deal was not the last boneheaded decision that Nintendo would announce this week. For whatever reason Nintendo thought that it would not only be a good time to announce the console that they are developing as a replacement for the Wii U, but also to announce the year of its release. If all goes according to Nintendo’s plans then the [code name] Nintendo NX will release in 2017. It will be properly unveiled in 2016. And just like that what little oxygen yet remained to the Wii U was sucked from its ecosystem. 2014 was the first year of the Wii U’s lifespan where the console actually seemed to have some life in it, and now in 2015 Nintendo has killed its momentum dead. Why would anybody buy a Wii U now that Nintendo have effectively announced its used-by date? In 2017 the Wii U and its entire library will be available at a much reduced cost, and there is every possibility that the Nintendo NX will be backwards compatible anyway, leaving very little incentive to pick up the hardware this year or the next. Nice going, Nintendo!
Pictured: The kind of games that will no longer be produced by Konami.
Hideo Kojima Will Leave Konami After Metal Gear Solid V
Konami is finished. There is nothing left. All of their internal talent is now gone. All they have now are the brands of their IPs, and those IPs are dropping like flies. First they farmed out Silent Hill until the series was worth less than a shit to gamers, and then they did exactly the same thing to Castlevania. Now Metal Gear is the next series on the chopping block.
Eyebrows were raised this week when ‘A Hideo Kojima Game’ and the Kojima Productions logo began to disappear from all of Konami’s Metal Gear Solid V visual media. Then came news from an anonymous source inside Konami that Hideo Kojima and his entire staff were now employed as contract workers until the release of Metal Gear Solid V, and that the entire team now only has limited access to phones, email, and internet. Then finally Konami more or less admitted that this was the case, and that they were shuttering both the Japanese and American Kojima Productions studios.
“Q: Is it true that KojiPro’s staff have restricted internet and e-mail access?
A: It is true that the reorganization has resulted in this. This is done in order to provide a greater development environment.”
Nothing contributes to a ‘greater development environment’ like not being able to send emails. Kojima has committed to remain as Metal Gear Solid V‘s director until the game sees release later this year, after which he is gone. It has been heavily rumoured that this parting of the ways was brought about due to Kojima getting in a heated argument with Konami management, and it has been suggested that this disagreement may have centered around Konami’s intent to turn Metal Gear into an annual or bi-annual franchise – though this is speculation. To this end Konami has announced their intention to develop Metal Gear games without Kojima’s involvement, and have begun hiring for the next Metal Gear game. Given how much of himself Kojima has invested into the Metal Gear series, any future entries are bound to feel like glorified fan-fiction. It also stands to be said that Kojima’s departure may signal an abortive end to the development of the forthcoming Silent Hills. At any rate, Kojima was Konami’s golden calf, the one asset they had which still allowed the moribund company to tread water, and now they have gone and killed it – and with it their future.
On a more positive note, the fact that Kojima’s entire team have been made contract workers suggests that he intends to take many of them with him when he leaves, meaning that he will have a competent team behind him for whatever comes next in this post-Konami stage of his career.
