via wiifanboy

Details on Blazing Angels have been thin, and the game's release date was shaky for a long time as well. Given those factors, it's understandable that rumors can sprout from the tiniest things -- like a WiFi logo on a placeholder box at IGN. We've seen placeholder boxes start a ruckus before, but this time there may be more too it than a simple mistake.

Blazing Angels was, as far as we know, slated to be online all along. It's not unpossible that we'll see online dogfights, but it may be very, very unlikely. However, this game was originally slated for an earlier release, so maybe we can cross off at least one "very" from that statement. We know online devkits went out, and that with the game's delay ... well, we can definitely understand the speculation.

Reggie Fils-Aime said the Wii should be online by Q2. But here's the thing -- that article didn't specify whether we're talking about the second quarter of the fiscal year or the year by the calendar -- and either way, late March is on the cusp. So it's actually more feasible than, say, hell freezing over this afternoon, but maybe only just.
However, you'd think if Blazing Angels were slated to feature online competitive play, Ubisoft would be promoting this game in spectacular, heretofore unseen ways. But let's not forget that lately, when it comes to the Wii, sometimes things get sprung on us out of nowhere.

Go Nintendo has a collection of information from different sources that refer to online play, and it's difficult to determine if this is generic info (since this is a cross-platform title) or specific to the Wii. We've e-mailed our Ubisoft rep and hope for a response, or something that clarifies the situation, but it's late on a Friday afternoon, so hopes are not high when it comes to getting a straight answer today. ...

via spong

As you may be aware, Nintendo made a somewhat muted announcement that was to see SNK titles hitting the Wii Virtual Console. No games, franchises or a release date was known. We spoke to SNK US boss Ben Herman to find out more.

"Nintendo is going to be adding Neo Geo games to Virtual Console," Explained Herman. "The games will be available at some point this year. I can't say exactly when. I expect that we'll be putting out a certain limited number of titles per month.

"I can't say which games or franchises will come available right now, though that is being worked out in Japan as we speak. Of all the MVS and AES games in the Neo Geo Library, I'd say that any of them would be available.

"I know that Nintendo has all the code for NES and SNES titles, all of the manuals and so on. They have a pretty good filing cabinet and all they have to do is seek permission from the IP holder to put the game out over Virtual Console, then share the income. When this was announced, I said to you, wouldn't it be great if they could put the Neo Geo system on there. I didn't mean the arcade system, rather the AES home system. Right now I don't know if the focus will be on AES or MVS, even though they are largely the same, but the fact that the Neo Geo is being added is a very exciting thing."

So how will this news impact on SNK's traditional business areas of delivering home versions of its coin-op offerings? We're aware that SNK has encountered some trouble in the US domestic market with platform holders over content issues with modern released of older titles... "It's difficult to say," continued Herman. "If you're dealing with a customer, who wants to download games through Virtual Console, that's great. I think that if anything, it's going to make our consumers who know us, as well as a lot of new players who do not know us, become much more familiar with the SNK franchises."

So no conflict between the boxed SNK releases? "No. I think that if we were to release games that have not been available on modern systems... There are a lot of games that people want from us that we have been unable to release for whatever reason, and it would be a nice opportunity to deliver these games. There'd be a lot of money involved in releasing a version of a game that has limited or niche appeal. This way, if people want to buy something, they can just buy it. \

"I think that when we're added to Virtual Console, if people don't know Neo Geo, they're going to see it on Virtual Console, look at it, taste it and in that sense, it's going to be a very good thing for SNK's visibility and the world rediscovering who we are."

How does this impact on the deal with Sony, being penned out right now, for Neo Geo content on the PlayStation 3? Will certain titles be exclusive to one system's online offering?

"What I would say is, right now, I personally have not seen anything to suggest that there will be any exclusivity of titles for either machine. Microsoft has been very selective and is not looking for everything... Sony is just getting started. Nintendo is being careful, with NES and SNES titles, not to over-saturate the market. Microsoft has shown us that online games can be a strong part of a machine's offering. Nintendo is still not letting Wii third-party publishers include online capabilities in their games and it doesn't look like they will during 2007. So the best chance they have at building an online presence appears to be what they're doing with Virtual Console.

"You have two platforms out now that run high-def games and a lot of our catalogue merchandise is not in high-def, obviously. There will be new arcade development, and the arcade development that was announced last year at the Tokyo Game Show, will include high-def content because unless you have a high-def product, you're not going to put out a PS3 of an Xbox 360 game. Right now we have PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo Wii and DS, for which I would like to get more product, though we have the first DS product coming out this spring... These are great platforms and we're participating in many of them."

So, any exciting peripherals for the VC? There's speculation that we might see a huge dirty wireless arcade stick...

"Two things: One, Nintendo has told the games community to go out and developer peripherals that will work with whatever games are coming out for the Wii. Two, there's a number of peripheral companies. It's their job to do this and those are the companies that will work on that. Of course, one nice thing Nintendo did was to release the Classic Controller..." ...

Madoul has released a new "Silk Glow" Theme for the PSP, heres the details:




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David Hawley has posted a ton of info of how to edit your Mii, heres an excerpt:


More Info --> http://www.davidhawley.co.uk/blog.aspx ...

via play nintendo

Through various forums, I've been able to compile a list of games we SHOULD be seeing this Monday on the Virtual Console.

*Sword of Vermilion - Genesis
Elevator Action - NES
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - SNES
Excitebike - NES

*Game has been confirmed.

It appears that Excitebike, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and Elevator Action have all been found on Nintendo's servers. Sword of Vermilion has already been confirmed through Sega's Virtual Console page. Tecmo Bowl is also being speculated. ...

via palgn

Nintendo has updated the demo games at its Wi-Fi enabled locations, meaning DS owners can now take their DS along to one and try out the likes of Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?, Big Brain Academy, Clubhouse Games, Mario vs Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Elite Beat Agents.

You can also download extra items for Animal Crossing DS, as well as a special function for Nintendogs which lets you use bark mode without havng someone else physically there to play with. ...

via kotaku

Here's a hot deal for all you Castlevania fans out there. Amazon.com is currently offering Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the DS at the low, low price of $21.99! Also available is the sometimes hard to find Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for $20, which seems to be the regular going rate for this title now. Both games are eligible for free shipping so you can get both of these solid Castlvania DS titles delivered to your doorstep for a mere $41. If you haven't checked out either of these games yet, they are well worth having, especially at such a cheap price. So, fire up that credit card and get your Castlevania on!

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin [Amazon]
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow [Amazon] ...

via kotaku

Not too long ago, Amazon.com started a new feature in their video games section called Deal of the Day where they offer a popular game for a really cheap price for 24 hours. Recently we saw Rockstar's Bully for $25 and several other really great bargains. Definitely a feature to keep your eye on if you are looking to get some great games you may have missed on the cheap.

Today's featured Deal of the Day is Elite Beat Agents for $20. For the record, I am much more enamored of Ouendan! than Elite Beat Agents, but for twenty bucks I might be able to swallow my pride and sit through the likes of Ashlee Simpson and Cher. Combine this with the earlier Castlevania deal and you can get three DS games for the price of one PS3 or 360 game with no shipping! Pretty sweet

Check out Amazon.com ...

via /.

IEEE Spectrum is running an article on the inventor of the motion sensor that the Wii uses. The microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gives Wii its core ability to sense motion in the controller. What's really interesting is where Benedetto Vigna wants to take this technology. He has plans to make the sensor smaller and tougher, and hope to place it inside of things like shoes, textiles, and medical devices to aid in data collection. He continues, 'Then I want to make a three-dimensional gyroscope, to measure rotation around three different axes. Today, such products are quite big, a cube 10 centimeters on a side. We want to do this in less than a 30-millimeter cube, to serve as an image stabilizer in cameras and to track a person's position in the intervals when he can't get a GPS signal ...