In case you’re not keeping up regarding Nintendo, things aren’t looking good. From dominating the handheld space a few short years ago, it’s now found itself in the position of finding its older handheld (the DS) outselling its newer model (the 3DS) by nearly two-to-one, and the new console having its price slashed, in an attempt to boost poor sales across the entire range. The company’s CEO has taken a 50 per cent pay cut, and Nintendo doesn’t seem to have any big answers to Apple’s iOS and even Sony, matching Apple in making genuinely multifunctional devices.

To my mind, Nintendo has the following options:

• Dig in. Nintendo has said it believes that dedicated gaming units are still the way forward. It could produce a follow-up to the 3DS (perhaps the Game Boy 2, to leverage that still-loved brand), but this would be a high-risk strategy. It’s increasingly common for kids to be armed with iPods, and once they have one, dedicated units look limited by comparison (especially those largely utilising physical media).
• Follow the crowd. Nintendo could fight back against Apple and Sony by nicking their best ideas. Have the next Nintendo console, at the very least, be fantastic online (for browsing, not just multiplayer games), work well as a media player, and have a top-notch games and apps list, which are largely available via download and for a more affordable price than existing Nintendo games. This has less risk in the sense of future-proofing, but Nintendo would have to take great care to differentiate.
• Do something entirely different. Apple—the company, remember, in part responsible for the Apple Pippin—largely blindsided Nintendo in handheld gaming. Apple didn’t design the iPod as a gaming unit, but it did design iOS devices as something different to what existed at the time. A combination of factors then led to devs and gamers flocking to the platform. Is Nintendo capable of creating something so awe-inspiring, new and innovative (rather than welding a 3D gimmick to an existing console) that it could go for this option? I’d like to think so, because while it’s also high-risk, it offers plenty of rewards if the Japanese giant got it right. And it’s not like Nintendo’s been bereft of new and exciting ideas in the past.

Whichever path Nintendo chooses, I think it’s got one more shot at this, before it finds itself in the same position as Sega around the time of the Dreamcast. If that ever happens, the company ends up with option four, which I’m sure it would never want to do:

• Be like Sega. Nintendo could give up on hardware entirely and go software-only in the handheld space, either with lucrative exclusive deals with a single platform, or by casting the net wide. Imagine if Super Mario Bros., MarioKart and other famous Nintendo brands were to officially exist for iOS. Angry Birds would be ousted from the number-one spot for good—those birds and pigs would never know what hit them. But this would come at a price—the ability to control the hardware and software, and to innovate when it comes to making new hardware. That said, given how regularly Nintendo recycles its famous IP, this wouldn’t necessarily be a poor option, especially for gamers.

TechRadar reports that the Nintendo 3DS is selling poorly compared to expectations, with the company now being bolstered by the Wii U. Nintendo blames the games:

During the three months ended June 2011, for the Nintendo 3DS The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was launched and favourably received, but Nintendo had few other hit titles

Big fucking surprise there, then. This is what has always happens with Nintendo handhelds. A few hit titles are rolled out, but the games releases rapidly trend towards Pony Game 7 and Pointless Dolly Dress-Up Bullshit 4. The difference this time round though is that Nintendo has massive competition from Apple. Instead of rushing out to buy a Nintendo DS with 3D, kids can for roughly the same price buy an iPod that:

• shoots HD video;
• connects to the internet, for Facebook, web browsing, and so on;
• stores and plays music, and;
• offers a staggeringly large games catalogue, with each title costing less than its 3DS equivalent.

On that last point, it’s still commonplace for Nintendo fans to claim the App Store is full of shitty games, and that happens to be absolutely true. But the App Store also has about 40,000 games at the time of writing. If only one in a hundred is worth playing, that still leaves you with 400 games. In my experience writing for Tap!, I’d say that ratio’s out anyway, because I find something new and exciting to play—often costing nothing or priced under a few quid—every single day. I own a ton of fantastic games across all genres, and many of these games have appeared since the 3DS arrived.

Nintendo isn’t doomed. Writing off the company would be ridiculous, since it is generally pretty smart and the closest thing to Apple in gaming, daring to innovate. But it dropped the ball on this generation’s handhelds, trying to eke out another round from an old idea while Apple blazed past with something new. Apple should perhaps be wary now, because, historically speaking, leaders in the games industry have tended to get complacent, allowing rivals to steam ahead. This appears to be the case with Nintendo now, so perhaps it can fight back next time round. If not, it’ll be increasingly reliant on its TV consoles, and if they go belly-up, it’ll be the latest Sega.

I’m not exactly Stephen Fry on Twitter. At the time of writing, my main @craiggrannell account has about 1700 followers, and I get one or two new ones daily. Therefore, it’s easy for me to check every new follower, in case they’re someone interesting. One of today’s most certainly is: Tim Langdell, or rather, Edge Games, his nom-de-plume in the videogames industry. Yup, he signed up at @edgegames and currently appears to be following me, someone who retweeted the most recent article I wrote about his interesting take on his court cases, and precisely one other person. ‘Yay.’

Anyway, he provides some exciting extra insight into his thinking about current events, including the following gem:

Bobby Bearing 2 is finally on AppStore! (as EDGEBobby2 since the full name wouldn’t fit into 12 Chrs for a good fit name)

The bizarre name of his new game is something I and other people have raised, wondering if it was to be used during appeal, in order to say “hey, look, I am still using this Edge name and Mobigame were big, fat liars”; as it turns out, he’s now hugely in love with Mobigame, and everything he’s done for years was down to EVIL FUTURE PUBLISHING:

Since we’re now free of restrictions and requirements on us by Future, we’re now heartily promoting Mobigame’s games. They rock!

Mobigame’s response to this has been a whisker away from telling Langdell to get stuffed, and the EDGEBobby2 thing makes no sense either. I assume he’s suggesting 12 characters is a “good fit name” for the iOS home screen, but I have games that happily have 15 characters, which, by stunning coincidence, is the number of characters in ‘Bobby Bearing 2’. Additionally, you can name things differently on the App Store and the iOS home screen, and so there’s literally no reason why the App Store displays EDGEBobby2 as the name of Langdell’s new game.

Anyone still following the story might also be interested to see the new and stripped-down Edge Games website, where Langdell now pitches himself as an ‘indie games developer publisher’ rather than selling a ton of games across multiple platforms. Now there’s merely EDGEBobby2/Bobby Bearing 2, an ‘advert’ for Mobigame that Mobigame doesn’t want there, a curious statement that Future’s Publishing’s Edge trademark for its newsletter and website is still under licence from Langdell, and the usual pile of trademark and copyright notices.

So, Langdell’s down but not out, and he still claims everything that happened wasn’t down to him and that we’ve not heard Edge’s side of the story (aside from the many times he’s written to websites to tell his side of the story). In fact, he just emailed me out of the blue, providing the entire release sent to Eurogamer, and stated:

Also, do you think David Papazian is aware that Edge still owns registered trademarks for EDGE in the US and UK? And common law rights elsewhere worldwide? We were puzzled by the DCMA reference for two reasons (i) a DCMA is surely for copyright and David has written to us to say there is no copyright infringement, (ii) if he got confused and meant trademark infringement then obviously Edge is not infringing its own trademark, even if David also owns Edge registrations.

I guess if you want to untangle the mess directly, you can pop over to @edgegames and quiz Langdell yourself; as for me, I’m thoroughly bored of this entire situation now, and so this will be the last thing I ever write about Langdell on this blog.

Tim Langdell claims in an document sent to Eurogamer that he’s not, in fact, a trademark troll. Oh really? (Note: if you’ve missed previous episodes of Tim Langdell Is Clearly Delusional, check out ChaosEdge for the full and exciting story.)

What’s that, Tim? We’re all wrong? You want to defend yourself? OK, fair enough. Go for it!

Previously Edge Games and Tim Langdell

Oooh. Bad start, Tim, given that you are Edge Games.

have made virtually no public statements about the various Edge disputes over the past two years since it seemed clear any statement they made would not be reported fairly

Translation: because ChaosEdge and others showcased how blatantly we bullshitted the USPTO, I realised the game was up and finally learned to keep my mouth shut. But now I figure enough time has passed and I have lots of EDGEWOOL™ to pull over people’s EDGEEYES™.

However, they believe the time has come to try to set the record straight on a sizable number of misconceptions and falsehoods that have been circulating on the internet.

Sounds great.

Eurogamer then says Langdell claims it was, in fact, Edge magazine publisher Future Publishing that demanded Langdell take action to protect the Edge trademark, following agreements between the two in 1996 and 2004 to share ownership of the name. Langdell claims Future

required Edge to challenge rival attempts to register or use the Edge mark or face severe penalties from Future for failing to do so. Edge would never have taken the action [against EA] if Future had not required it under the agreement between Future and Edge

This would be the, by that point, non-existent agreement between Future and Edge, presumably. And that would also be the Edge magazine whose logo Langell duly ripped off. And the Edge magazine he kept banging on about ‘spawning’. And the Edge magazine he mocked up a non-existent US cover of, in order to fool the USPTO. OK, got it.

Eurogamer then says Langdell argues he/Edge has

never sought to extract payment from other companies for game licenses, “other than very rarely taking a token payment when the other party was happy to offer it.”

That sound you just heard was David Papazian of Mobigame quite literally exploding. We’re so sorry, David. (Apart from Langdell, who’s sorry you managed to get the press and, later, EA on your side.)

The suggestion that Edge or Tim Langdell acted as ‘trademark trolls’ by bullying people or taking legal action to force companies to pay license fees is an entirely false allegation. They have never done that.

Apart from, obviously, when they did precisely that. And, yes, I’ve seen the documentation to back this up.

Edge and Langdell have always acted ethically and with integrity.

That sound you just heard was me quite literally exploding. This blog will now be written by Zombie Craig.

Edge does not make a habit of taking legal action over the Edge mark: in the past 20 years Edge has only ever taken only two legal actions: one against Future Publishing (in 1994) and a second against EA (in 2010) – and the latter was because Future required them to do so.

Hrrrggnngnnzzzz! Whrrzz ahnn lohhhzd ovvvv blllcckkzzzz. Brrraaainnzzzzzz!

Edge has released new games on a regular basis at all times in the past 20 years, albeit at a lower rate than it did in the 1980s.

Hllrrkk! Gmmzzzz ohnnn duh-vzz-dzzz dnttz cnnnnnzzzttt. BRRRAIIIINNNZZZZ!

At this point, the blog police swoop in. This zombie joke has gone on too long and isn’t funny enough, they say. We are therefore going to turn your life into a videogame and award you an extra life, at the expense of 10,000 points. Also, as further punishment, we will double the number of people on your Twitter feed who joke each day that you look just like Seth MacFarlane. No, don’t complain, it’s your own fault.

Onwards!

Despite the false reports, Edge has released a number of games since the mid 1990s, continuously selling and releasing new games at all times from 1984 right through to Bobby Bearing 2 in 2011.

As ChaosEdge noted, Langdell’s games for the past decade have largely involved the odd Java remake or buying dead properties and ‘releasing’ them on DVDR. His beef with Mobigame was that its Edge (essentially a time-attack platform game that was like a cube-based Marble Madness) was passing off on Edge’s ‘famous’ brand. And this was because one of its games from 1986, the Q-Bert! and Knight Lore inspired Bobby Bearing, had a similar viewpoint. This, note, also being the Bobby Bearing that its creators, Robert Figgins and Trevor Figgins, are pretty sure Langdell no longer has any rights to whatsoever.

Still, Bobby Bearing 2, eh? That seems like a sensible name for a sequel to the original Edge game, so presumably it’s just an error that it’s called EDGEBobby2 on the App Store; also, I suspect that game wasn’t at all created to try and win the court case against EA, but sadly wasn’t ready in time.

Sidebar. Best review of EDGEBobby2 on the App Store:

This is a direct rip off of Edge by Mobigames and Future Publishing’s iconic logo. Don’t buy this, buy the Mobigames original!

Langdell finishes off by saying he’s appealing against Future kicking its arse and is

confident of prevailing

This being the court case where, according to a report by John Walker, Langdell had a dubious grip on truth and reality. And, to add a wee cherry on top, he’s now asserting he’s filed a counter-claim on the grounds Future

damaged the reputation of Edge and Tim Langdell by forcing Edge to take action against French developer Mobigame and EA.

Yes, you read that right. If it wasn’t for nasty old Future Publishing, none of this would have ever happened, because Tim Langdell is a gaming saint. If we ignore the threatening emails he sent developers, obviously. And his successful attempts to mislead the USPTO with doctored documentation, obviously. And I’d say just about the only way he could have damaged his reputation in this industry any worse is by somehow breaking into Nintendo’s manufacturing plant and changing all their game masters to Watch Tim Pooing, a 30-second loop of Langdell on the toilet.

Amusing update: Pocket Gamer reports that Mobigame has just slapped Langdell with a DMCA notice to his web host, along with sending a cease and desist to Apple over EDGEBobby2, which “infringes Robert Figgins’s copyright [and] also infringes Future Publishing logo, our trademark EDGE, and confuses our fans”.

One of the disadvantages of going on holiday, to a place without web access, is that you miss slices of pure crazy. This one involves everyone’s favourite games industry celeb Tim Langdell.

If you don’t know the story, Langdell ran a couple of software companies in the 1980s that released games for home computers. One of the most fondly remembered is Bobby Bearing, an isometric adventure game created by Robert Figgins and Trevor Figgins. Little was heard of Langdell during the 1990s and beyond, but he rose to infamy when he started suing the pants off of iOS developers (and others) who had the audacity to use the word ‘Edge’ in their videogame titles and other products. (The full story can be found at ChaosEdge.) Indie game developer Mobigame got hit particularly hard, with Langdell claiming its Edge game was somehow ripping off both his brand and Bobby Bearing, arguing that it had been named to capitalise on Langdell’s ‘famous’ trademark. This was, of course, total bollocks.

Langdell came unstuck when he decided to sue EA over Mirror’s Edge. The software giant used its powers for good, assisted indie developers being attacked by Langdell, and pretty much smashed him into the ground, culminating in his marks being removed. And with Langdell using all kinds of bizarre material in his ‘defence’, including a fake cover of a non-existent US version of Edge magazine, along with using a variant on the magazine’s logo for his company, he awoke the sleeping beast that is Future Publishing’s legal department. John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, offers a fantastic report into how Langdell fared there. (Spoiler: not well.)

Amazingly, though, on June 30, Edge did actually release a new game, which is supposedly a sequel to Bobby Bearing. Presumably, it’s called Bobby Bearing 2, you’d think, but you’d be wrong. Sort of. While the game is called Bobby Bearing 2 – “ReRolled” on its title screen, it has a subtly different name on the App Store: EDGEBobby2. Yeah, that sounds like an obvious, intuitive name for the game, and not at all some kind of attempt to ‘prove’ to courts that Langdell was making games that utilised his ‘famous’ mark (that, note, he no longer holds). I only hope he won’t use this to launch yet more crazy attacks on iOS developers.

Oh, and the game not only looks like crap but also plays poorly and isn’t a patch on its 25-year-old prequel-of-sorts.