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Nintendo has finally responded to the widespread fan movement campaigning to get Japan-only titles The Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora's Tower localised for the US market, and the news isn't good.

A post on NOA's Facebook page yesterday read: "Thank you for your enthusiasm. We promised an update, so here it is. We never say 'never,' but we can confirm that there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time. Thanks so much for your passion, and for being such great fans!"

The movement, dubbed Operation Rainfall, started last week in IGN's forums with disgruntled Wii owners spamming Nintendo's Facebook page and launching a snail mail campaign demanding the games get a US release.

They also managed to get Xenoblade to the top of Amazon's US game chart, with fans pre-ordering it under its long-dormant Monado: Beginning of the World listing.

Alas, it seems it was all to no avail. However, Operation Rainfall has vowed to keep up the pressure on Nintendo.

"Okay @NintendoAmerica you may not have plans, but we do. We wont stop. Let them know how you feel as fans people! With respect though please," read a post on the campaign's Twitter feed.

On the bright side, European gamers get special treatment. Xenoblade Chronicles is out here on 2nd September. Nintendo's French office has also claimed The Last Story, developed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, will arrive on these shores in 2012.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-fan-campaign ...

We've seen this sort of preposterousness before from BigBen, and we're no closer to falling in love now than we were back in 2009. This behemoth allows you to get the full experience in the console's Cyber Cycling Sports title, and the feeling of actually accomplishing something in the process? A presumably marketable side effect. The updated Cyberbike Magnetic Edition is available in North America this time around, relying on -- surprise, surprise -- magnetic resistance to offer a costly workout for those under 286 pounds. This oversized peripheral is available now for $199.99 (bike and game combo), which puts it a bit too far above the cost of an actual console ($150) for us to consider giving it a shot. Plus, we've already committed to biking downtown for our eventual Wii U pickup -- and frankly, that's enough to cover our yearly workout quota.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/30/w...the-system-it/ ...

Go shopping online for a microSDHC card and you'll find that while manufacturers don't hide the speed specs, they're not exactly crowing about 'em either. Make no mistake, though: Samsung is mighty proud of its new 32GB number, which boasts a class 10 speed rating and read / write rates of 24MBps and 12MBps -- ideal numbers for those of you who plan on making good use of your phone's 1080p camera. If you're a storage buff, you know that class 10 is the highest speed category for SD cards at the moment, and that it sits above classes 4 and 6 -- the tiers covering many other microSDHCs on the market. No word just yet on pricing, but we think it's safe to say you'll be dishing out a premium.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/30/s...ps-write-spee/ ...

We've already seen press shots and teaser videos of Sony's S1 Honeycomb tablet and dual-screen S2 (and had our eyes on them ourselves), but Germany's Golem website managed to spend a bit of time with both of the devices at an event in Munich, and has now provided what's surely the best look at them to date. Unfortunately, that's still not exactly a thorough look -- there's just the single image of the S1 above, and an 18 second video of the S2, which you can check out after the break

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/30/s...riefly-on-vid/ ...

Michael Schade, CEO of Fishlabs, has told listeners at Gamelab that if a bigger competitor drops their prices, you should raise yours in reply.

Rather than entering a price war with a company which has superior resources, Schade believes, mobile developers must instead be brave enough to raise prices beyond the common range - not only to increase revenues, but also to increase sales.

"When you try and get into a price war with someone like EA you lose," said Schade. "When they dropped their prices down to 99 cents, instead of trying to compete, we put the price of Galaxy on Fire up from $6.99 to $9.99. Not only did we see an increase in revenues, but also in sales."

Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz after the roundtable discussion, which also featured Torsten Reil of Natural Motion and Xavier Carrillo of Digital Legends, Schade clarified his position.

"Obviously we observed the episode quite closely and we saw that the big guys were trying to squeeze out the smaller guys by having their AAA, high production values at 99c. I believe that if the top ten or twenty positions are already cluttered with these games, it doesn't make sense to price drop.

"It rather works if you go up in price and try to differentiate yourself, because on the categories you might still be top ten, so people can find you if they look for a specific genre of game."

That differentiation is the key factor, Schade argued, saying that the obverse tactic is equally effective.

"It works the other way round," the CEO continued. "If EA or whoever have the higher price, then should have a price drop. You have to differentiate. For a smaller developer, you will always lose the fight against the big guys if you do the same stuff at the same time.

"Always do the opposite of what the big guys do. So we switched from $6.99 to $9.99, and it was around Christmas. Everyone was going for 99 cents or free.

"Of course, the game has to deliver the right quality and the experience has to be top notch - then you can differentiate. I mean we had close to a five star rating at $6.99, then we raised it to $9.99 and that rating stayed there."

But Natural Motion's Torsten Reil told GamesIndustry.biz that it's also possible to pull the same trick by following the lead of the bigger players.

"Just to add a slightly different data point to that argument," Reil interjected, "when EA dropped all the prices over Christmas, we did the same and dropped ours. We stayed in the top 20 and we got seven times our sales."

Whilst both tactics can prove successful, both Reil and Schade agreed that it was likely the result of the two companies' different audiences.

"I think you have a larger audience," Schade told Reil. "Backbreaker was 7.5 million? Galaxy on Fire was 2.5."

Reil agreed that Natural Motions Backbreaker was aimed at a more casual audience than Galaxy on Fire's core space sim mechanics. That core audience will enable Fishlabs to take a different approach to future iterations of its flagship game.

"Actually," Schade continued, "for upcoming versions of Galaxy on Fire we will take a pricing approach that's more similar to a PC digital download game. You can say, I don't care what others do on iOS - if you want to play Galaxy on Fire, you're part of our core fanbase, that's our price."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ou-raise-yours ...

Microsoft has clarified the advice it gave users whose Windows PCs are infected with a new, sophisticated rootkit dubbed Popereb that buries itself on the hard drive's boot sector, noting Wednesday that a complete OS reinstall is not necessary. 'If your system is infected with Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E, we advise fixing the MBR using the Windows Recovery Console to return the MBR to a clean state,' MMPC engineer Chun Feng wrote in an updated blog entry. Feng provided links to instructions on how to use the Recovery Console for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Once the MBR has been scrubbed, users can run antivirus software to scan the PC for additional malware for removal, Feng added. Several security researchers agreed with Microsoft's revisions, but a noted botnet expert doubted that the advice guaranteed a clean PC. But an internationally-known botnet expert disagrees. Joe Stewart, director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks, said, 'Once you're infected, the best advice is to [reinstall] Windows and start over ... [MBR rootkits] download any number of other malware. How much of that are you going to catch? This puts the user in a tough position.' MBR rootkit malware is among the most advanced of all threats.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/3...moving-Rootkit ...

It's official: open fields of green foliage will look awesome in Unreal Engine 3. Our day is now a good one.

The pictured screenshot shows off just how sweet leaves and grass and stuff like that will look in Epic's flashy new engine, which will power next-generation games in years to come.

The shot, shared by Epic PR Manager Dana Cowley, is apparently 100% real-time and in engine, giving you a very real idea of this impressive engine's capability. For a better idea though, you should have seen the incredible 'Samaritan' tech video.

Gladly, UE3 tech has been confirmed for PlayStation Vita and Wii U.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

If the hardcore gamer had hopes of seeing a Nintendo bundle made especially for her at E3, the return of the family-friendly Wii mantle was probably a bit disappointing.

Perhaps not enough to cause a mini-sick, granted, but certainly enough to sink the heart knowing that mum, grandma and little sis will yet again be coming along for the ride.

But the old hardcore-casual argument isn't the niggling problem I have with Wii U: there's something more fundamental about Nintendo's new console that suggests to me we might have to wait much longer for it to appeal to the avid gamer again.


We should give Nintendo credit, don't get me wrong. It now has a truly current-gen console in its ranks and with titles like Aliens: Colonial Marines, Assassin's Creed and (hopefully) Battlefield 3 the hardcore is definitely being catered for.

But there's still an itching, worrying feeling in my chest that Nintendo's not quite going all-in to reclaim the core audience, and - shudder - it might even be cutting some corners.

As far as I'm concerned, for hardcore gamers Wii U could easily end up being seen as a console of half measures, a machine that makes an effort but doesn't quite deliver a five star package. I'm worried it'll end up an amalgamation of 'almosts' that falls just short of the luxury we've come to expect from the top end machines like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

What's distorted my anticipation for Nintendo's plans is the way in which a lot of our expectations have steadily been dismissed by Nintendo one by one.

First of all, let's set the smaller details straight; that appears to be a standard definition screen on its otherwise exciting controller - you won't find anything HD on there. It's not OLED either, unlike the stunning hi-def screen on Sony's PlayStation Vita.

That leads me to wonder how long it will take core gamers to ignore the handheld feature altogether, at the thought of having to play Arkham City on an SD screen.

And there's more: those are analogue nubs - circle pads like you'll find on the 3DS or the waning PSP, not proper sticks that core gamers demand, and as featured on every controller anyone ever hammered a game of PES or Call of Duty on.

Soon after E3 came to a close, more issues started to emerge as well. Wouldn't it be great to get involved in some split-screen FPS multiplayer with those Wii U controllers on something like Battlefield 3? Having a full map between the sticks (sorry, nubs) at all times for guiding air strikes?

The good news is that once Battlefield 3 arrives on the Wii U, you'll more than likely be able to do just that. The bad news? You're going to have to gingerly offer your mate a Wii-mote and hope he understands.

I know that the Wii U controller is going to be far too expensive to have a couple of spares stashed in the cupboard (that's another stumbling block in itself) but, as Nintendo fidgets around for a solid answer to the multiplayer problem, the 'one Wii U controller per console' feels like another element that isn't up to modern day gaming needs.

Much like the lack of Blu-Ray or even DVD playback, for example. I like many others use my PlayStation 3 as much for media as I do gaming. It's another important part of the hardcore scene that Nintendo is still refusing to cater for.

Nintendo's discussions on online gaming too have been worryingly ambiguous. Reggie's come out and said that Wii U's approach to online "will be a flexible one", literally taking the best of what each of our third party partners has to offer, marrying that with the best of what Nintendo does, and bringing that with a more rigid, a more closed type of environment.

A flexible, closed system taking the best from third party developers? I desperately want Nintendo to blow us away with online features but all I'm getting is flakes of ambiguity and hints of confusion. If Nintendo wants to compete with Xbox Live and PSN online (and it absolutely has to) it needs to come up with a clear, bold, feature rich plan.

Add all of these points together and you can see why underneath Wii U's otherwise exciting and potentially fantastic features, I'm worried Nintendo's failing to meet Sony and Microsoft toe-to-toe.

And it should: it's clearly an incredibly creative, hugely resourceful company with bags of money and tonnes of influence. Then why does it keep penny-pinching on simple DVD playback and now, standard analogue sticks?

The innovation's still there though in abundance of course; Nintendo can still pull off innovative feats its straight-faced rivals wouldn't even understand.

That's the card that Nintendo's playing and from the fleeting bits of tech demo we've seen so far it looks like the mass of third party devs behind the console could come up with some really creative pulls.

I question, however, without the entire list of bullet points core gamers regard as standard, Wii U's augmented reality or motion-sensing capabilities will be enough. Whether somewhere down the line the problems listed ...

If you're looking to have some bargain-priced fun with your PSP as you wait for its successor, we might point you to a new Frima bundle on the PlayStation Store that includes five PSP Minis games for just $5. They are:
A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks!
Young Thor
Widgets Odyssey
Widgets Odyssey 2
Zombie Tycoon
We're sure there was a lot of excitement in the Frima offices when the "Awesome Summer Minis Bundle" was compiled, and we wish the dev the best. But it must have been a sobering moment to look at all the games together like that and realize "Hey, you know what, guys? We're not very good at making up names for things."

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/29/fr...errible-truth/ ...