Nintendo has announced this week's line-up of Wii and DSi digital downloads due Friday.

Top of the list is WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase, a WiiWare accompaniment to the DS make-your-own-microgame game which also hits Europe Friday. The WiiWare Showcase will allow players to download show off various DSi microgame creations on the big screen. This costs 800 Wii Points (£5.60/€8).

Also hitting WiiWare on Friday are Mega Man 10 DLC - Endless Attack mode (300 Wii Points - £2.10/€3) and Special Stage 2 & 3 (100 Wii Points - £0.70/€1 each), and Nordcurrent's imaginatively titled budget release 5 Arcade Gems (700 Wii Points - £4.90/€7).

DSiWare downloaders get a bevy of releases this week. Electronic Arts' Surviving High School (800 DSi Points - £7.20/€8) - an education-themed mini-game collection that promises to let you "cause all the drama!" - seems the most potentially interesting of the bunch.

Also available are touch-screen controlled VT Tennis (500 DSi Points - £4.50/€5), dinosaur adventure game DodoGo! (800 DSi Points - £7.20/€8), environmentally-themed puzzler Save the Turtles (500 DSi Points - £4.50/€5) and Simply Solitaire (200 DSi Points - £1.80/€2), which we sure hope provides just what it says on the tin.

Classic fighting game fans can also enjoy a Virtual Console version of SNK's The King of Fighters '95 for 900 Wii Points (£6.30/€9) this week.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wa...endo-downloads ...

Nintendo has published an official translation of its "Iwata Asks" feature about Sin & Punishment 2, in which president Satoru Iwata and men from Treasure discuss how bats*** difficult it was to make anything work on the N64.

"That was because Nintendo 64 drastically changed how things were made up through the Super NES system," Iwata explained in the piece, reminiscing about his time at HAL Laboratory. "We ran up against how to make the best use of 3D graphics, and the team had quite a hard time."

Overall it was worth it, he told an assembled group of Nintendo and Treasure staff brought together for the feature. "Nintendo 64 had a number of restrictions, but it truly was a full-blown 3D machine. Nonetheless, the limits it had were such that, unless you used it right, it wouldn't run well."

And on he went. "With the Nintendo 64, the size of textures was severely limited. If you didn't contrive something clever when making the data, the processing speed would drop dramatically."

He wasn't the only one who struggled with Nintendo's last cartridge-based home console though, as his conversation with Atsutomo Nakagawa later on reached the point where he remarked: "It seems your experience developing Sin & Punishment for N64 was so painful it still causes you to sigh loudly."

The original Sin & Punishment was a headache for Treasure to make for a number of reasons, apparently, one of which was its unorthodox use of the N64's three-pronged controller. But another difficulty was the, er, difficulty.

"When I said, 'It's too difficult. I can't do it,' they responded, 'Then you're not good enough to be in charge of this project,'" Nintendo's Hitoshi Yamagami explained. "When I said, 'But normal people can't do this!' they said, 'Everyone in our company can do it. Anyone who can't do this can't be on our team.'"

Treasure president Masato Maegawa replied: "We wouldn't be worth much if we crumbled just because we were ordered to do something.

"If you do something just because you're told to, even though you don't agree, the game will fall apart. But Yamagami-san was persistent in continually hammering away at our staff."

"If I had really laid on them," Yamagami continued, "we probably could have brought the game out before 2000, but I told them I wouldn't order them to make it easier. I kept saying, 'I won't order you to do it until you understand. I'll keep talking to you until you understand.' If I hadn't, there would have been no point in working with them."

Iwata went on to quiz the developers about Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Skies, which is due out in Europe on 7th May for Wii. Look out for our European review of that soon.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/iw...dev-challenges ...

Microsoft has said that further updates to its Xbox Live Game Room retro-arcade have been pushed back "until further notice".

The delay was announced via Twitter by Microsoft EMEA Xbox editor Daniel Maher who said: "The latest batch of Game Room content has also been delayed until further notice - I'll let you know once a new date is confirmed."

Since the service's initial unveiling at this year's CES when Microsoft said that it intended to offer over 1000 titles in its first three years, it has already faced one delay.

At the end of March, the publisher said it wouldn't be adding any new arcade games to the Game Room for a month and that weekly updates wouldn't begin until a later-than-planned late April.

Last week news surfaced that Australian Game Room developer Krome Studios had been forced to axe more staff due to economic pressures.

Details weren't offered by the studio, but reports estimated that between 30 and 50 employees were laid off.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ofts-game-room ...

The long-running feud between Apple and Adobe took another twist today. Steve Jobs has today published a long essay explaining why Apple isn't interested in letting the multimedia platform - popular on the web - run on its handheld devices.
The Apple CEO goes so far to brand the platform as increasingly 'unnecessary'.
He said: "Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.


"The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.
"New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."
Jobs says that Adobe's push towards multiplatform doesn't vie with Apple's desire to have programmers write directly for its devices.
He said: "Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.
"Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform."

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/300...nger-necessary ...

Microsoft has given its reaction to today's news that Activision has signed a ten-year exclusive publishing deal with Bungie.

A company spokesperson told CVG in a statement:

"Our partnership with Bungie as a first-party developer for Xbox 360 remains unchanged, and right now we're deeply engaged with them on the development of Halo Reach, which is poised to be the biggest game of 2010."

So there you have it. Single-mindedly concentrating on Reach. Bungie's last project before it releases new IP exclusively handled by Activision.

Nope, we still can't get our head round it either.

Earlier this year, Bungie refused to comment on whether its next project would be coming to PS3. Today's announcement suggests a multi-platform release.

Bungie was previously owned by Microsoft, but split with the company back in 2007 to become independent.

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

Earlier news that Bungie has signed an exclusivity deal with Activision now spells the end of a decade-long exclusive partnership between the Halo developer and Microsoft.
Earlier today it was reported that Bungie has signed a ground-breaking exclusivity deal with Activision publishing.
Activision announced that it now has the rights to publish all future Bungie games across multiple platforms and devices, meaning that the Halo studio’s exclusivity partnership with Microsoft is now over. The developer is now free to develop PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, iPhone titles and more.
Though it may have been immediately speculated that Bungie would take over the highly lucrative Modern Warfare IP, the deal will in fact see Bungie develop “new intellectual property”.
In a move that may be seen by some as lesson learnt for Activision, the deal allows Bungie to keep their own their intellectual property throughout the deal.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...exclusive-ties ...

Publisher Activision has signed a ten year deal with Halo developer Bungie that grants it worldwide publishing rights to a future multiformat release.
The move brings one of the most acclaimed developers into the Activision stable and is all the more notable considering the recent fall-out with super high-profile developer Infinity Ward.
Just as important as the monetary gains it will bring to Activision is the message it sends to an industry that has been ripe with discussion of how Activision treats its development partners.
The press release says that the partnership will bring Bungie’s “next big action game universe to the market”. The deal covers new IP only, meaning that the Microsoft-owned Halo franchise will not only remain an Xbox and PC exclusive – it will also move away from its parent studio permanently after the release of Halo Reach later this year.
It’s the first publishing agreement Bungie has signed since it split from Microsoft in 2007.

“We chose to partner with Activision on our next IP because of their global reach, multi-platform experience and marketing expertise,” Bungie president Harold Ryan stated.
“From working together over the past nine months on this agreement, it is clear that Activision supports our commitment to giving our fans the best possible gaming experiences.”
Activision’s Thomas Tippl added: “Bungie is one of the premier studios in our industry and we are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to work with their talented team over the next decade.
“Bungie has developed some of the most compelling and successful games, multiplayer experiences and thriving fan communities, and this alliance underscores our long-standing commitment to foster the industry's best creative talent. Our unprecedented partnership with Bungie will enable us to broaden our pipeline of exciting new games as we continue to strengthen our industry position and pursue long-term growth opportunities.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/38764/Activision-signs-Bungie ...

Rare is set to deliver a design keynote on making games for Natal at July’s Develop Conference.
The studio’s creative director George Andreas will speak in a session called ‘The Future IS Controller-Free Games and Entertainment’.
Rare is working on ‘one of the premier launch titles’ for Microsoft’s new controller, according to Andreas.
His talk will look at ‘the challenges faced regarding the new design philosophy at the studio’.
In a short quote provided to the organiser describing his session he warned: “Everything you’ve learnt over the last 25 years – throw it away!” 

He will also ‘take a brief look at Rare’s last foray into the physical play space from yesteryear, and outline Rare’s vision for the future of physical based gaming’.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...in-for-Develop ...