More Viva Piñata content

By Tom Bramwell Published 22 November, 2006

HATS!

Rare has popped some more Viva Piñata accessories onto Xbox Live Marketplace, giving you the chance to dress up your piñata with hats borrowed from Mr Pants, or Grabbed by the Ghoulies' Baron von Ghoul or Ma Soupswill.

The three accessories total 90 Microsoft points' worth of content, apparently, which is GBP 0.77 / EUR 1.05 in our special made-up denominations, and follow on from the first accessory pack, which costs the same and does much the same. You can preview the items by taking a close look at the accompanying graphic on Marketplace.

Viva Piñata is out now in the US (and region-free), with a European release planned for 1st December. And we rather liked it, in case you hadn't noticed. Although one of my crocodiles buggered off last night, which was very disheartening.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • AcidSnake #1 6 years ago

    Surely it wasn't called crocodile?
    Must be...Chocodile!
    Right?

  • brooza #2 6 years ago

    sorry to hear about the cocodile

  • escapedape #3 6 years ago

    I think it's Cocoadile actually...

  • peterfll #4 6 years ago

    Are you enjoying answering yourself this morning disc?

  • peterfll #5 6 years ago

    Yes you are.

  • Steroyd #6 6 years ago

    But Disc you pay £20 quid expansion to send your Sims on Holiday or on a date, or give them pets.

    Not spend 50p for each piece of clothing imagine if EA adopted the idea back then. o_O

  • Darren #7 6 years ago

    Oh yippee, 60p to buy another 108KB key that just unlocks content that is already on the game disc, just like the last one.

    Great value for money, right? /wink

  • Steroyd #8 6 years ago

    Better late than never I suppose.

  • AcidSnake #9 6 years ago

    Cocoadile?
    Well I was close...

  • Darkedge #10 6 years ago

    ooohhh HATS!

  • Horstachio #11 6 years ago

    Sweeeeeet! Me want hat.

  • speedjack #12 6 years ago

    Region free ?

    REALLY ?

  • escapedape #13 6 years ago

    It is indeed region free - although the bonus DVD isn't. Which is no great loss: if you really want to see an episode of the cartoon, YouTube is your friend.

  • bloodflowers #14 6 years ago

    Yup, what Darren said. Another one where they're selling people content already on the disc. This business model sucks.

  • Roamer #15 6 years ago

    ...must not..... moan about......microtransactions....

  • Psychotext #16 6 years ago

    I don't get it. If you don't like it - Don't buy it.

  • Carpathian #17 6 years ago

    10 - 20 hours of new Oblivion content = £6 odd

    Three hats in this = 77p

    I think the slang phrase "Rob-dogs" should be applied to the latter - it's just taking the mick, isn't it........

    I'd roll my eyes but they'd probably charge 40p for that.......

  • PlugMonkey #18 6 years ago

    Another one where they're selling people content already on the disc. This business model sucks.

    Just because it's on the disc doesn't mean you've already paid for it. It's budgeted seperately to the game. If they weren't going to sell it for extra afterwards, they wouldn't have made it in the first place. And if you don't want it, don't buy it.

    Honestly. It's like complaining because they made all 3 Lord of the Rings films at the same time, but then made you pay for THREE cinema tickets. THE SWINES!!

  • Steroyd #19 6 years ago

    But not buying Viva Pinata makes Microsoft sad. :'(

    I think it's the whole paying £50 for a game, then 50p for skins that takes the mick.

    Now that the PS3 is out i can't wait for what new inventive ways for devs to try and rip me off.

    edit:

    Which is why i never spent my own money watching Matrix Revelation in the Cinema, got me mate to spend it for me, 2 parted my arse on that one.
    Edited by Steroyd at 22/11/06 @ 14:43

  • Darren #20 6 years ago

    PlugMonkey - "Honestly. It's like complaining because they made all 3 Lord of the Rings films at the same time, but then made you pay for THREE cinema tickets. THE SWINES!!"

    That's an absolutely stupid analogy because when the first movie was out the second was still in post-production so unless the movies were delayed two years then you could not have seen all three at once anyway! :p

    With this Viva Pinata content, Rare have clearly sat down and made the game and then decided which content should be locked out to sell as extra content later on despite the fact that it was finished. That is not quite the same as completing a game then working on the content and selling it at a later date (which no-one would complain about).

    But I can see why they've done it this way... it's because they plan on adding the ability to view another person's garden over Xbox Live. Had they charged for proper downloadable content then anyone without that content would not see them in the other person's garden who does have it. As it is, everyone will be able to see these items because they're on the disc but only those that have paid for it can use it.

    It's still greedy though because they could have unlocked everything and everyone would have been happy. But if they'd done that way then they wouldn't have been able to make more money by selling locked parts of the disc off at 60p a time. And, let's face it, most people would not realise that they're in fact paying for these keys as opposed to downloading *new* content so the developers know they can get away with it.

  • PlugMonkey #21 6 years ago

    "With this Viva Pinata content, Rare have clearly sat down and made the game and then decided which content should be locked out to sell as extra content later on despite the fact that it was finished."

    Is that clearly what they did? I really just don't buy into this theory that the games development business model is to lock a load of people in a room for while, see what they come out with and then decide which bits of the finished game to offer as DLC. If DLC exists it's because some people were scheduled to work on that and not on the main game. If you took away the DLC, that doesn't mean that the people working on it would instead have been working on the main game. There would not have been the budget for the head count. Development team sizes are not infinite. If microtransactions offer increased revenue, that allows for people to work on it. Without the extra revenue, those people aren't there.

    So, for Rare (or anyone else) to offer the DLC they've had, say, four people working on it for, say, three months. It seems utterly bizarre to me that if they have these people create this content before the game ships, that's a total rip off. But if they have them create the content after the game ships that suddenly represents great value for money. The same people working on the same content to sell at the same price!

    Obviously, it makes sense for the developer to pay these people to create the content while the rest of the team is also working on the game, when they can QA the whole shebang in one go etc etc.

    Very much like how shooting three parts of a motion picture in one shoot is better than having 3 seperate shoots.

  • skillian #22 6 years ago

    I wonder how long it took a development team to make three hats...

  • morriss #23 6 years ago

    You've got a croc?! Bast!!

    I bought the DL'able content though. Sad as I am.

  • YourMessageHere #24 6 years ago

    Well, EuroSexMachine, I think I can safely speak for more than myself when I invite you to go and play games like a proper real gamer (possibly even a real next gen gamer) and stop having a go at people for commenting in the comments section. For a minute there I thought this had turned into another intelligent conversation.

  • Darren #25 6 years ago

    Well said.

    People who complain about people complaining are just hypocritical in my opinion and to suggest that you're a "real" gamer because you play games more than talk about them is just downright arrogant not to mention inaccurate in my case unless those people only play games in 5 or 10 minute spurts because that's as long as I spend on most websites! In fact, I tend to visit Eurogamer during work breaks which is when I onbviously can't play games anyway... ;)

  • GrandpaUlrira #26 6 years ago

    I want a hat. With a flower on it.