While Virtual Console Arcade launched with a modest four titles, it turns out that there's more on the way -- a lot more!

In Japan, the service launched today with six titles. Four of these were from Namco Bandai, who went on to also reveal that it has an additional 26 games on the way!

The Japanese launch lineup for Virtual Console Arcade includes the following: Star Force (Taito), Space Harrier (Sega), Gaplus (Namco Bandai), The Return of Ishtar (Namco Bandai), Emeraldia (Namco Bandai) and Solvalou (Namco Bandai). Star Force is priced at 500 WiiPoints. Everything else, at 800 WiiPoints.

Different from the US lineup, Japan did not get Namco Bandai's Tower of Druaga or Mappy at launch. These will be added in the future. Here's the full list of what Namco Bandai has on the way for the Japanese VCA service:


Assault
Galaga 88
Cosmo Gang the Puzzle
Cosmo Gang the Video
Cyber Sled
Sky Kid
Star Blade
Splatterhouse
Xevious
Dragon Spirit
Dragon Saber
Dragon Buster
Tower of Druaga
Knuckle Heads
Burning Force
Pacmania
Finest Hour
Numan Athletics
Pehlios
Hopping Mappy
Mabael Land
Mappy
Rolling Thunder
Wonder Momo
Genpei Toma Den
Youkai Dochuki (Shadow Land)
These will be released gradually, at a rate of one per week. Each game will carry a 800 WiiPoint price point.

For screenshots, mostly of the title screens, see Namco Bandai's Japanese Virtual Console Arcade page.

Bandai Namco isn't the only company offering up future support for the service. Taito is planning on releasing the classic of all classics, Space Invaders. This, the company announced at an arcade event in Tokyo today, will be released in early April.

These announcements concern Japan only at present, but we won't be surprised if many of the games end up coming our way as well.

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/966/966579p1.html ...

Videogame makers have always confronted censorship issues from two sides: internal pressures for self-censorship and external pressures from political restrictions. Speaking in the panel "Silencing the Censors: Recent Developments in the Battle for Free Expression in Game Development," attorney Lawrence Walter recalled the late 80's when Nintendo refused to publish games with blood and required all enemies be armed or else made unkillable. Konami was forced to change the statue of a nude woman in the background of Castlevania IV (Super Castlevania in North America) to be cleared for release.

More recently, politicians around the country have tried to control the sale and promotion of videogames with a slew of state laws. In Utah, a bill co-authored by Jack Thompson, the disbarred Florida attorney with a long history of professional misconduct, proposes to restrict the sale of videogames to minors using tenants from a truth in advertising law already passed. Earlier this year, a California law proposed a label be attached to all violent videogames: "WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

A recent New York law proposes that violent videogames be displayed in a separate area at all game retailers, akin to the way pornography has been sectioned off in many video rental outlets. In Germany, Counter-Strike has been banned. Australia has no game rating in place for Mature titles, meaning anything inappropriate for teens is unsellable. In France a recent tax incentive for game development is restricted to only those developers making non-violent content.

Where such laws have passed in the US, they have been struck down as unconstitutional in almost every case. Earlier this year the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court struck down a 2005 law passed in California which restricted the sale or rental of violent video games to minors by penalizing merchants. The standards used to define violent content in the bill were inappropriately taken from a "harmful materials" portion of another law intended to protect minors from sex offenses. Elsewhere, courts have ruled that forcing publishers to label their games with an "18" marker qualifies as "compelled speech." Thanks to First Amendment protections, no person or party can be compelled to say something they don't want to say.

Still, videogames remain an easy target for politicians and conservative groups around the world. The games industry is getting ready to fight back. In another session promoting the Anti-Censorship and Social Issues Committee, Daniel Greenberg, a game consultant and lobbyist, laid out the framework for the continuation of his fight against videogame censorship.

There are three main tenants to Greenberg's call to consolidate a strong and powerful Anti-Censorship Committee in the games industry. The first and most important issue is the creation of an ESRB cheat sheet for developers and publishers to use so that they know what sort of rating they can expect from the ESRB. In the past, many developers have worked without any idea where there game would fall in accordance with current ESRB guidelines. Those guidelines have been available in the past, but as they continue to evolve, a Committee is needed to update those changes and make sure they are distributed as widely as possible.

The next essential action point is the creation of a Best Practices document that developers can use for guidance in addressing potentially sensitive themes or scenarios, as well as handling media interest in a potential controversy. According to Greenberg, some of the biggest pressures for limiting content can come from self-censorship. This Best Practices document would encourage developers to think about how to responsibly defend their creations.

Each game will require its own unique reasoning for potentially controversial content. "The Godfather is a very different movie from Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill," noted Greenberg. "Not that you shouldn't make violent video games, but we want to encourage thought about responsibilities."

The final component in the Anti-Censorship Committee would be the formation of Rapid Response that can be deployed across the country to testify at the local, state and federal level. Often politicians unfamiliar with the whole videogame "thing" will hold hearings to investigate their most extreme suspicions about social decay, and there are too few experienced advocated willing to step forward and speak in defense of the medium.

As game makers continue to push the boundaries social and political forces will continue to push back. An organized committee with experienced industry veterans, would be the best way to ensure the expressive freedom of all future game designers.

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/966/966545p1.html ...

In celebration of the upcoming Punch-Out!! revisit on Wii, Nintendo will be offering the Super NES sequel, Super Punch-Out!! on its Virtual Console this coming Monday, March 30.

The last time Super Punch-Out!! showed up on a Nintendo console was as an unlockable in Fight Night Round 3 on the GameCube. This time you'll be able to download it straight to your Wii. The original NES Punch-Out!! has been available since April 2007.

We're expecting the pricing of Super Punch-Out!! to remain the same: 800 points for the standard Super NES offering.

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/965/965800p1.html ...

News from Marcan:


http://hackmii.com/2009/03/hi-there-nintendo/ ...

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Poll shows 30 per cent fewer people consider themselves gamers compared to a year ago
New research from Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association suggests that the number of people in Japan who consider themselves to be gamers has reduced significantly in the last year.
The organisation polled over 1,000 individuals aged between three and 79. The number that claimed to be gamers had dropped by 30.3 per cent compared to when the same poll was run in 2007.
Kotaku calculates that in broader terms, this means there are six million fewer gamers in the country now than there were a year ago.
Of those who said they did not consider themselves gamers, the most common reason was simply a lack of interest in gaming with the second most common response being that there were other things people would rather do.
The results back up 2008’s market figures which showed that despite ongoing growth in regions such as the UK and North America, the Japanese video games market is in steep decline, shrinking 15 per cent last year.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/33726/Japa...on-the-decline ...

Before the launches of the Nintendo DS and Wii, almost no one expected them to reach their current level of mainstream acceptance, remarked Nintendo president Satoru Iwata at the GDC keynote Wednesday morning.

Now Nintendo is hearing similar misgivings from external developers. Many, says Iwata, have questioned whether their games would be able to sell on the system. Many have asked if third-parties can succeed. There is a general belief, he says, that third-parties cannot compete with Nintendo.

Iwata says they are wrong. Seventy-three titles have sold 1 million copies on the Wii. It is not a matter of Nintendo's branding or monetary funds, rather, says Iwata, it is a difference in approach.

The Nintendo president used to hold similar views himself. When he worked for HAL Laboratories, he believed Nintendo could make better games because it had more money and therefore more time to spend during the development process. Once he was inside, he realized that their success stems from a philosophy similar to the rapid prototyping found in the Experimental Gameplay Project.

In particular, it is how game designer Shigeru Miyamoto works that makes Nintendo so different. He sees game development opportunities where others don't, and leverages them for game players better than anyone else in the world today, says Iwata.

Miyamoto takes his ideas from observing how others have fun, but he never writes a design document. Instead, he assembles a small team to build a rough prototype that is very limited in scope but clearly defines what the game is about. The objective is to create fun through trial and error with the smallest number of developers possible. Only when the concept is ready for mass production does Nintendo begin to assign more developers and begin building art assets.

Sometimes this prototyping stage lasts more than two years. Sometimes they are abandoned. But this way Nintendo doesn't waste money. And if a concept doesn't work, there's nothing to prevent it from showing up in other games.

The Game Boy Advance version of Rhythm Heaven was made by a team of five people, says Iwata. The DS version was made by a team of three.

Miyamoto's other secret is "random employee kidnapping." He steals a Nintendo employee who is not involved in development and asks them to play through a game, watching where they have fun and where they become bored. Nintendo can't send a developer to every household, so Miyamoto has to make sure people can always figure out the games on their own, says Iwata.

"If it can't be enjoyed, it is not the consumer's fault," he says. "The fault belongs to us."

Gamer evangelists

"We work in a time of rapid change," he notes. Much has been made of videogaming's expanded audience. But when videogamers make purchase decisions, one rule remains the same: software sells hardware, he says.

To date the company has shipped 100 million DSes and 50 million Wiis worldwide. The videogame industry has rapidly grown in North America and Europe.

People think this industry growth is a result of the expanded audience, he says. But according to research firm NPD Group, only 20 percent of Wii-owning households held no consoles before Nintendo's motion sensing system.

Wii's success is dependent on established game players introducing the Wii to new consumers. They are the ones supporting the industry, says Iwata.

Iwata also notes that the reason why Nintendo released a Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros. and Mario Kart so early in the console's life cycle was to expand the install base, which should expand everybody's ability to sell games.

WiiWare and DSiWare

Iwata closed his talk by championing development opportunities on WiiWare and DSiWare. On WiiWare, 90 percent of all games were developed by third-parties. To help spur creativity, he showed off a few upcoming projects:

Rock & Roll Climber is a rock climbing game for WiiWare that makes use of both the motion-sensing capabilites of the remotes and the Balance Board to let gamers virtually climb rock faces.

Nintendo also showed off what it dubs "Moving Memos" for the DSi, which is best described as Hypercard for a handheld. It lets people animate pictures and then upload and share their creations through a central server.

WarioWare Snapped takes advantage of the device's on-board camera, merging addictive WarioWare mini-games with EyeToy-style gameplay. You'll be asked to rapidly shake your head to get a dog to shed water from its coat, or quickly match your face and hands up with on-screen symbols. Later, friends will be able to watch a video of your recorded actions.

Nintendo also announced its new storage solutions for the Wii. A new system update allows players to save WiiWare and Virtual Console games directly to their SD cards, as well as launch saved titles from the cards. The system update also makes the Wii compatible with high-capacity SD cards that will be capable of holding up to 240 game files apiece.

It will also add ...

Before the launches of the Nintendo DS and Wii, almost no one expected them to reach their current level of mainstream acceptance, remarked Nintendo president Satoru Iwata at the GDC keynote Wednesday morning.

Now Nintendo is hearing similar misgivings from external developers. Many, says Iwata, have questioned whether their games would be able to sell on the system. Many have asked if third-parties can succeed. There is a general belief, he says, that third-parties cannot compete with Nintendo.

Iwata says they are wrong. Seventy-three titles have sold 1 million copies on the Wii. It is not a matter of Nintendo's branding or monetary funds, rather, says Iwata, it is a difference in approach.

The Nintendo president used to hold similar views himself. When he worked for HAL Laboratories, he believed Nintendo could make better games because it had more money and therefore more time to spend during the development process. Once he was inside, he realized that their success stems from a philosophy similar to the rapid prototyping found in the Experimental Gameplay Project.

In particular, it is how game designer Shigeru Miyamoto works that makes Nintendo so different. He sees game development opportunities where others don't, and leverages them for game players better than anyone else in the world today, says Iwata.

Miyamoto takes his ideas from observing how others have fun, but he never writes a design document. Instead, he assembles a small team to build a rough prototype that is very limited in scope but clearly defines what the game is about. The objective is to create fun through trial and error with the smallest number of developers possible. Only when the concept is ready for mass production does Nintendo begin to assign more developers and begin building art assets.

Sometimes this prototyping stage lasts more than two years. Sometimes they are abandoned. But this way Nintendo doesn't waste money. And if a concept doesn't work, there's nothing to prevent it from showing up in other games.

The Game Boy Advance version of Rhythm Heaven was made by a team of five people, says Iwata. The DS version was made by a team of three.

Miyamoto's other secret is "random employee kidnapping." He steals a Nintendo employee who is not involved in development and asks them to play through a game, watching where they have fun and where they become bored. Nintendo can't send a developer to every household, so Miyamoto has to make sure people can always figure out the games on their own, says Iwata.

"If it can't be enjoyed, it is not the consumer's fault," he says. "The fault belongs to us."

Gamer evangelists

"We work in a time of rapid change," he notes. Much has been made of videogaming's expanded audience. But when videogamers make purchase decisions, one rule remains the same: software sells hardware, he says.

To date the company has shipped 100 million DSes and 50 million Wiis worldwide. The videogame industry has rapidly grown in North America and Europe.

People think this industry growth is a result of the expanded audience, he says. But according to research firm NPD Group, only 20 percent of Wii-owning households held no consoles before Nintendo's motion sensing system.

Wii's success is dependent on established game players introducing the Wii to new consumers. They are the ones supporting the industry, says Iwata.

Iwata also notes that the reason why Nintendo released a Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros. and Mario Kart so early in the console's life cycle was to expand the install base, which should expand everybody's ability to sell games.

WiiWare and DSiWare

Iwata closed his talk by championing development opportunities on WiiWare and DSiWare. On WiiWare, 90 percent of all games were developed by third-parties. To help spur creativity, he showed off a few upcoming projects:

Rock & Roll Climber is a rock climbing game for WiiWare that makes use of both the motion-sensing capabilites of the remotes and the Balance Board to let gamers virtually climb rock faces.

Nintendo also showed off what it dubs "Moving Memos" for the DSi, which is best described as Hypercard for a handheld. It lets people animate pictures and then upload and share their creations through a central server.

WarioWare Snapped takes advantage of the device's on-board camera, merging addictive WarioWare mini-games with EyeToy-style gameplay. You'll be asked to rapidly shake your head to get a dog to shed water from its coat, or quickly match your face and hands up with on-screen symbols. Later, friends will be able to watch a video of your recorded actions.

Nintendo also announced its new storage solutions for the Wii. A new system update allows players to save WiiWare and Virtual Console games directly to their SD cards, as well as launch saved titles from the cards. The system update also makes the Wii compatible with high-capacity SD cards that will be capable of holding up to 240 game files apiece.

It will also add ...

Bungie's revealed that it has plans to produce more Halo 3 content, or support ODST for a while at least.

That's despite previously saying that it's viewing ODST, the stealth-orientated spin off of Master Chief's trilogy, "as the final exclamation point in our ongoing efforts to extend the Halo 3 experience".

It doesn't sound like the developer has small plans for the title either, saying it'll likely be producing Halo 3 goodness for another couple of years.

"Halo 3 took two and a half years to make, and we're still working on it," producer Allen Murray told Joystiq. "We'll probably be working on it for two more years."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=211783 ...