DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
wraggster
by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:42
via wiifanboy
The Internet has been slightly a splode lately with rumors about a new Wii channel for game demos. Game blogs everywhere have been picking up the story, which originally came from German magazine Games Aktuell via their website, Cynamite. Unfortunately for those of us waiting for an announcement of a demo channel, this ain't it. Most of the sudden interest seems to come from a popular Digging of the article-- and both the Cynamite article and the Digg posting are, in Internet terms, prehistoric.
The Cynamite article uses (the German equivalents of) words like "official" and "confirmed", but we have our doubts-- stemming mainly from the fact that it was posted on December 1st of last year and nobody else has said anything about it since. We find it odd that Nintendo would reveal a new feature to only one magazine, over four months (or however long it may be before such an announcement occurs) before its official announcement in any region.
We also find it odd that this news would be delivered in Europe and nowhere else; Europe isn't exactly the first priority for video game companies, as any gamer living there has discovered. It seems more likely that this news would eventually come out of multiple Nintendo representatives in communication with multiple sources-- at least one per region. And we'd really expect this kind of big exclusive to come to a Japanese magazine like Famitsu.
Don't despair yet, small-free-game-segment fans. Just because this particular posting probably isn't an official announcement doesn't mean Nintendo won't eventually start offering demo downloads. They've got a nice Internet-capable console now, and they're delivering actual games over the Internet for the first time. Why wouldn't they throw some demos up on one of the Wii channels? ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:40
via PSU
Console and software sales for the month of February were recently announced, and both the PS3 and Wii did quite well.
In January, the average number of games owned by a PlayStation 3 owner was 2.7, while the average Wii owner had 2.2 games in his (or her) library. Only one month later, these numbers have jumped quite drastically to 3.4 and 3.6 respectively.
A representative from NPD commented: "While some detractors may consider the next generation cycle off to a poor start, we think that improving tie ratios indicate strong demand for the relatively light software lineup on the next gen consoles, and we believe that once a greater variety of compelling software is released later this year, demand for the new hardware will increase."
For the now current generation of consoles, it looks like there is no place to go but up. ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:37
Via mercury news
Less than three years ago, Nintendo, the venerable video game company, was looking like a fading icon.
With archrival Sony's PlayStation 2 game console leaving Nintendo's Game Cube in the dust, the company was in the midst of losing a second straight round in the video console wars. And Sony looked ready to replicate its success in the handheld arena, long Nintendo's strong suit. Though Nintendo planned to counter with a new handheld of its own, few gave its relatively dim-screened, underpowered DS much of a chance against Sony's powerful, multimedia PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Fast forward a few years, and things look a lot different. Sales of Nintendo's DS have trounced those of the PSP, thanks in part to Nintendo's focus on quirky, fun-to-play games for the machine.
The company is using a similar formula with its new Wii console - and seeing similar success thus far. The machine, which includes a unique, motion-sensing controller, has outsold Sony's new PlayStation 3 ever since they both launched last year, and Wii sales even topped Microsoft's Xbox 360 in January.
Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, says this is only the beginning. Sales of game consoles are typically dependent on the number and quality of the games available for them. As Fils-Aime, notes, there's been a major shift in the game industry of late toward developing titles for Nintendo's platforms.
At the Game Developers Conference earlier this month
Mercury News reporters Mike Antonucci and Troy Wolverton sat down with Fils-Aime to talk about this shift and Nintendo's resurgence.
Q The Wii has been hard to find in stores ever since it launched. Will there be any change in that any time soon?
A Mr. (Sarturo) Iwata (president of Nintendo) has already publicly said that we are increasing our capacity.
He did not give a timeline, and he did not give specific numbers. What I will say is we are all acutely aware of the issue. And we all recognize that we have a limited period of time to address the issue, because more so than the core gamer, the casual gamer will get frustrated if they cannot get their hands on the product. And so, certainly from a total company perspective, we're making a full-court press. Now the interesting thing about this - and this is where I'll look back - we had the same issue with DS all last year. And so, when a product is in such high demand, you can't solve it overnight.
The fact that we sold 494,000 (consoles in January) ... certainly speaks to getting as much product into the marketplace as possible.
Q To what extent have you guys been surprised by the demand for the Wii?
A We knew we had magic in a bottle back at E3. Certainly our performance has been much more than the industry had anticipated.
Q Speaking of that, Electronic Arts said recently it's shifting resources over to the Wii and to the DS. Pandemic says it's doing the same thing. To what extent are you hearing about similar moves by other major publishers and developers?
A Every publisher has either made the decision and stated it publicly or made the decision and not stated it publicly, but the amount of resource shift has been tremendous. The natural follow-up question is, "What's driving it?" What's driving it is, they see the install base, they see the mix of established players ... with the potential for new gamers, and they see a business opportunity. Coupled with the lower development costs, it really is a no-brainer.
The decisions started at E3 for a lot of publishers. We had been having conversations with certain publishers, obviously, well before that. Ubisoft, for example, had early access. EA had early access. But a lot of non-traditional Nintendo developers really made the decision as they watched the lines and saw for themselves what the reaction was.
Q Outside the console arena, you guys saw strong sales of your aging Game Boy handhelds over the holidays despite having few new games. What was that about? Did it just get to the point where it's a stocking stuffer?
A Exactly. It's a mass market price point; fantastic library of games; frankly, better availability than DS; and that's what drove the numbers.
Q Conversely, you guys had a dip in U.S. sales of the DS in January. Sales of Sony's rival PSP handheld nearly caught up with you. What's the story there?
A Availability. All availability.
Based on worldwide production numbers, the Americas ran out of stock of Nintendo DS essentially on the 25th of December. And we were not back in stock until sometime the second week in January. So, effectively three weeks the consumer could not get their hands on a Nintendo DS. So what happened? They bought our competitor. And they bought Game Boy Advance. Now that we're back in stock, let's see what the February data says.
Q The data I've seen indicates that among the new consoles the Wii is the top seller in the U.S. and in Japan. What do European sales look like?
A Europe is in the same situation. They're selling out as soon as they're putting it ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:37
Via mercury news
Less than three years ago, Nintendo, the venerable video game company, was looking like a fading icon.
With archrival Sony's PlayStation 2 game console leaving Nintendo's Game Cube in the dust, the company was in the midst of losing a second straight round in the video console wars. And Sony looked ready to replicate its success in the handheld arena, long Nintendo's strong suit. Though Nintendo planned to counter with a new handheld of its own, few gave its relatively dim-screened, underpowered DS much of a chance against Sony's powerful, multimedia PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Fast forward a few years, and things look a lot different. Sales of Nintendo's DS have trounced those of the PSP, thanks in part to Nintendo's focus on quirky, fun-to-play games for the machine.
The company is using a similar formula with its new Wii console - and seeing similar success thus far. The machine, which includes a unique, motion-sensing controller, has outsold Sony's new PlayStation 3 ever since they both launched last year, and Wii sales even topped Microsoft's Xbox 360 in January.
Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, says this is only the beginning. Sales of game consoles are typically dependent on the number and quality of the games available for them. As Fils-Aime, notes, there's been a major shift in the game industry of late toward developing titles for Nintendo's platforms.
At the Game Developers Conference earlier this month
Mercury News reporters Mike Antonucci and Troy Wolverton sat down with Fils-Aime to talk about this shift and Nintendo's resurgence.
Q The Wii has been hard to find in stores ever since it launched. Will there be any change in that any time soon?
A Mr. (Sarturo) Iwata (president of Nintendo) has already publicly said that we are increasing our capacity.
He did not give a timeline, and he did not give specific numbers. What I will say is we are all acutely aware of the issue. And we all recognize that we have a limited period of time to address the issue, because more so than the core gamer, the casual gamer will get frustrated if they cannot get their hands on the product. And so, certainly from a total company perspective, we're making a full-court press. Now the interesting thing about this - and this is where I'll look back - we had the same issue with DS all last year. And so, when a product is in such high demand, you can't solve it overnight.
The fact that we sold 494,000 (consoles in January) ... certainly speaks to getting as much product into the marketplace as possible.
Q To what extent have you guys been surprised by the demand for the Wii?
A We knew we had magic in a bottle back at E3. Certainly our performance has been much more than the industry had anticipated.
Q Speaking of that, Electronic Arts said recently it's shifting resources over to the Wii and to the DS. Pandemic says it's doing the same thing. To what extent are you hearing about similar moves by other major publishers and developers?
A Every publisher has either made the decision and stated it publicly or made the decision and not stated it publicly, but the amount of resource shift has been tremendous. The natural follow-up question is, "What's driving it?" What's driving it is, they see the install base, they see the mix of established players ... with the potential for new gamers, and they see a business opportunity. Coupled with the lower development costs, it really is a no-brainer.
The decisions started at E3 for a lot of publishers. We had been having conversations with certain publishers, obviously, well before that. Ubisoft, for example, had early access. EA had early access. But a lot of non-traditional Nintendo developers really made the decision as they watched the lines and saw for themselves what the reaction was.
Q Outside the console arena, you guys saw strong sales of your aging Game Boy handhelds over the holidays despite having few new games. What was that about? Did it just get to the point where it's a stocking stuffer?
A Exactly. It's a mass market price point; fantastic library of games; frankly, better availability than DS; and that's what drove the numbers.
Q Conversely, you guys had a dip in U.S. sales of the DS in January. Sales of Sony's rival PSP handheld nearly caught up with you. What's the story there?
A Availability. All availability.
Based on worldwide production numbers, the Americas ran out of stock of Nintendo DS essentially on the 25th of December. And we were not back in stock until sometime the second week in January. So, effectively three weeks the consumer could not get their hands on a Nintendo DS. So what happened? They bought our competitor. And they bought Game Boy Advance. Now that we're back in stock, let's see what the February data says.
Q The data I've seen indicates that among the new consoles the Wii is the top seller in the U.S. and in Japan. What do European sales look like?
A Europe is in the same situation. They're selling out as soon as they're putting it ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:37
Via mercury news
Less than three years ago, Nintendo, the venerable video game company, was looking like a fading icon.
With archrival Sony's PlayStation 2 game console leaving Nintendo's Game Cube in the dust, the company was in the midst of losing a second straight round in the video console wars. And Sony looked ready to replicate its success in the handheld arena, long Nintendo's strong suit. Though Nintendo planned to counter with a new handheld of its own, few gave its relatively dim-screened, underpowered DS much of a chance against Sony's powerful, multimedia PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Fast forward a few years, and things look a lot different. Sales of Nintendo's DS have trounced those of the PSP, thanks in part to Nintendo's focus on quirky, fun-to-play games for the machine.
The company is using a similar formula with its new Wii console - and seeing similar success thus far. The machine, which includes a unique, motion-sensing controller, has outsold Sony's new PlayStation 3 ever since they both launched last year, and Wii sales even topped Microsoft's Xbox 360 in January.
Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, says this is only the beginning. Sales of game consoles are typically dependent on the number and quality of the games available for them. As Fils-Aime, notes, there's been a major shift in the game industry of late toward developing titles for Nintendo's platforms.
At the Game Developers Conference earlier this month
Mercury News reporters Mike Antonucci and Troy Wolverton sat down with Fils-Aime to talk about this shift and Nintendo's resurgence.
Q The Wii has been hard to find in stores ever since it launched. Will there be any change in that any time soon?
A Mr. (Sarturo) Iwata (president of Nintendo) has already publicly said that we are increasing our capacity.
He did not give a timeline, and he did not give specific numbers. What I will say is we are all acutely aware of the issue. And we all recognize that we have a limited period of time to address the issue, because more so than the core gamer, the casual gamer will get frustrated if they cannot get their hands on the product. And so, certainly from a total company perspective, we're making a full-court press. Now the interesting thing about this - and this is where I'll look back - we had the same issue with DS all last year. And so, when a product is in such high demand, you can't solve it overnight.
The fact that we sold 494,000 (consoles in January) ... certainly speaks to getting as much product into the marketplace as possible.
Q To what extent have you guys been surprised by the demand for the Wii?
A We knew we had magic in a bottle back at E3. Certainly our performance has been much more than the industry had anticipated.
Q Speaking of that, Electronic Arts said recently it's shifting resources over to the Wii and to the DS. Pandemic says it's doing the same thing. To what extent are you hearing about similar moves by other major publishers and developers?
A Every publisher has either made the decision and stated it publicly or made the decision and not stated it publicly, but the amount of resource shift has been tremendous. The natural follow-up question is, "What's driving it?" What's driving it is, they see the install base, they see the mix of established players ... with the potential for new gamers, and they see a business opportunity. Coupled with the lower development costs, it really is a no-brainer.
The decisions started at E3 for a lot of publishers. We had been having conversations with certain publishers, obviously, well before that. Ubisoft, for example, had early access. EA had early access. But a lot of non-traditional Nintendo developers really made the decision as they watched the lines and saw for themselves what the reaction was.
Q Outside the console arena, you guys saw strong sales of your aging Game Boy handhelds over the holidays despite having few new games. What was that about? Did it just get to the point where it's a stocking stuffer?
A Exactly. It's a mass market price point; fantastic library of games; frankly, better availability than DS; and that's what drove the numbers.
Q Conversely, you guys had a dip in U.S. sales of the DS in January. Sales of Sony's rival PSP handheld nearly caught up with you. What's the story there?
A Availability. All availability.
Based on worldwide production numbers, the Americas ran out of stock of Nintendo DS essentially on the 25th of December. And we were not back in stock until sometime the second week in January. So, effectively three weeks the consumer could not get their hands on a Nintendo DS. So what happened? They bought our competitor. And they bought Game Boy Advance. Now that we're back in stock, let's see what the February data says.
Q The data I've seen indicates that among the new consoles the Wii is the top seller in the U.S. and in Japan. What do European sales look like?
A Europe is in the same situation. They're selling out as soon as they're putting it ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:34
and heres what they posted:
Hi.
I'm very aware how much coverage our Next Month page is getting across the globe right now. I have to admit -- I thought it was a cool little teaser when we did it -- but I didn't anticipate it blowing up quite so much! I've seen everything from Family Guy to Woody Woodpecker fitting perfectly in that star cluster!
Anyhoo, I'm here to iron a few things out. This is not an April Fool. I remember once I did an April Fool on CUBE with Gannondorf Photoshopped into Soul Calibur II and people got really upset when they found out it wasn't true so we don't do those kind of things anymore. I think they're just a bit of a laugh but obviously other more sensitive people don't. . .
Also, we do have respect for our readers and we don't set out to purposely mislead people. The whole point of the Next Month image is to be a teaser and to get people guessing. It's just A BIT OF FUN. There are no lies in there. Innevitably the situation might change between the time of the mag going to print and the release of the next issue (it is a good six weeks after all). The game may end up being announced online before we hit the shelves. Ocassionally these things happen and it's completely out of our control. However, the point is that we are not misleading you -- there is a new game due to be announced.
In summary then, please take a deep breath and count to ten when you're thinking about this. There are quite a few images that perfectly fit into that star cluster. We've never mentioned any names -- it could be anything. ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:30
Obiwan222222 posted a neat video the other day of his PSP displaying Wii graphics via the location free player.
Video Here ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 23:16
via joystiq
Towards the end of GDC, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto revealed they had been toying with the concept of Mii creation for almost 20 years but were "never able to turn it into much of anything". It finally found a home on the Wii, but a recent developer's chat uncovered a few early screenshots of the Mii editor -- on the DS.
The concept doesn't seem to have changed much from this build to the final product, though the visuals did go through a much-needed evolution. Having a portable version of our Mii does have a certain charm, but it isn't likely Nintendo will invest resources in a pocket-sized Mii creator. ...by Published on March 18th, 2007 21:55
via joystiq
Last weekend we reported that Jack Thompson plans to sue Take-Two over concerns about the release of Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV. A few days ago Take-Two countered saying that Thompson was simply bringing another nuisance suit to the courts. Thus, the circle of Jack Thompson life continues. We could attempt to ignore Jack Thompson the same way the Associated Press attempted to ignore Paris Hilton, but then we couldn't tell you about Jack's latest email to the press (full text after the break).
Thompson begins by saying that he has been "praying" for Take-Two to sue him and that this "misstep would enable [him] to destroy Take-Two" and his "prayers are finally answered." He then goes on to quote scripture. He closes with, "Amen, and Praise be to God Almighty, maker of Heaven, Earth, and yes, the maker even video games." This is a whole new level for Jack Thompson. Get ready to experience Thompson v2.0.
Dear Gamers and Gamer Publications on the Internet and Elsewhere:...
I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid, so arrogant, so dumb, even dumber than what they have to date done, that such a misstep would enable me to destroy Take-Two. With the filing of this SLAPP lawsuit last week, my prayers are finally answered.
This lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I have ever seen any lawyers do in my thirty years of practicing law -- while in continuous good standing to do so with The Florida Bar, I might add, the shock radio and video game industry's efforts notwithstanding.
I encourage folks to read Psalm 35, a Psalm of David, which is brilliant in its entirety (since God Himself wrote it), but for those who don't own a Bible or who think their hands will catch on fire if they touch one, here is the salient portion that applies to this lawsuit:
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit,
which without cause they have digged for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares;
and let his net that he hath hid catch himself:
into that very destruction let him fall.
9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD:
it shall rejoice in his salvation.
The pit Take-Two has dug for itself will be patently clear next week when I strike back. Oh, and by the way, the entire Take-Two management and board will be gone on March 23, so this pit-digging comes at a very bad time indeed.
Amen, and Praise be to God Almighty, maker of Heaven, Earth, and yes, the maker even video games.
Jack Thompsonby Published on March 18th, 2007 21:52
via insert credit
For those who don't know Sega Tec Toy, Tec Toy was formed in brazil in 1987 to create electronic toys. They partnered with Sega to bring the Master System and Genesis to brazil, and continued to release games for the SMS well into the 2000s, including a number of brazillian exclusives and impressive ports. The company recently released (in 2006) a version of the Master System with 120 games, some of which are brazil-originals (but no cart slot - see digital press forums for a good discussion of that), so apparently that business is still going strong.
But most people know about Tec Toy's SMS ports - and maybe a few even know about their Mega Drive exclusives, like Duke Nukem 3D. But what grabbed my attention upon browsing their new site, was the Saturn and Dreamcast stuff. While (as far as I know) no brazil-exclusive games were published, it's interesting to see which games they chose to release. Here's the Dreamcast list, and the Saturn list. Mostly early titles, with a smattering of newer stuff, like Burning Rangers and Sonic Adventure 2, respectively. It's also worth noting that they (apparently) released the smoke Saturn in brazil, which is quite hard to get over here. Shame Tec Toy didn't really give the Saturn and Dreamcast a second life as with the SMS, but it's still pretty nostalgaic to watch old videos of Dreamcast games... and the company is currently running the servers for Ragnarok Online in brazil, so it seems like they'll be around for at least a little while longer. Incidentally, if anyone out there speaks portuguese fluently and wants to help me get a little more information, I'd appreciate an email!
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