Joystiq has commentary on the possibility that Nokia plans to keep the N-Gage around for the forseeable future. We've previously discussed the waning N-Gage market impact, but with statements like "Our approach to this is, let’s continue to take what we’ve learned, what we’ve done right, and where we need to make corrections, and that’s in retail, in games development and in the deck itself...", it's possible that Nokia plans to try another iteration of the cell phone/game deck. ...

It's official: the Gizmondo will be available to buy in the UK from 19 March 2005. Then, you'll be able to buy one from any Gizmondo retail partner, or from the brand new Gizmondo flagship store on London's Regent Street, which opens its doors for trading on that day. [br][br]The Gizmondo will be available for GBP229 (inc VAT) and will ship with a charger, a contract-free SIM card, an SD card with music, movie and games demos, in-ear headphones, driver software and as USB cable. Gizmondo games will cost GBP9.99, GBP19.99 and GBP29.99. [br][br]"Gizmondo is the British challenger in a market that will witness a spectacular boom this year," commented Carl Freer, Gizmondo Europe MD. "We've been able to introduce exciting new features like GPS into gaming, and with such a remarkable list of features, the Gizmondo is the most powerful, feature-laden piece of multi-entertainment hardware available." ...

Nintendo has lit the DS touchpaper, and the handheld's about to launch on these shores.[br]Over 650,000 DS units will be winging their way into over 30,000 shops across Europe, with over 2.5 million pieces of software alongside them. Nintendo has been churning the little babies out on a specially-installed production line we're told can spew out 144,000 units of software a day.[br][br]And as a special treat we've even got some candid photos of that same production line for you to enjoy. Look at all those games seductively shining their glossy covers at you, and those dirty DS boxes offering a snatch of their internal stash. Sexy or what?[br][br]Impressive numbers, but the ones that matter the most to gamers are £99 and 149 Euro. That's how much you'll be able to pick up a DS complete with PictoChat and a demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters for on March 11. Games will set you back between £19 and £29.[br]But you don't necessarily have to wait until next Friday - if you live in London you can pop down to the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street at 11am on Wednesday March 9 you'll get the chance to meet The Bear from Bo Selecta and try out a DS.[br][br]Likewise, if you're desperate to get your DS before everyone else, Virgin Megastores in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and Cardiff will all be opening at midnight on Thursday March 10. Best of all, lucky punters in the London queue will get the chance to win a trip to Japan and meet Mr. Mario himself, Shigeru Miyamoto. Not bad, eh? ...

Stephen Stair has now publically released his GBA (GameBoy Advance) emulator for windows, heres the news from this release:[br][br] Ok, I've finally decided to release something for a change. As development has been slowed on this project considerably, I'm releasing a Work In Progress build, so people who want to can play with it. This version requires a gba bios file for full functionality, the bios should be named gba.rom and put in the same directory as the emulator. [br]Bugs that I know about already include items listed on the compatibility pages as not being done, and:[br][br]Sprites don't flip yet, rotation/scaling sprites not supported. [br]There is a bug that causes pc to move to an odd-numbered location (probably when returning to thumb mode) - the cause of this is presently unknown, and prevents several commercial games from running [br]A few instructions are still unimplemented, specificly the memory SWP instructions in the arm core. (used in practically nothing though [br]The memory loading/storing doesn't mimic the gba for unaligned writes. [br]There are probably other small problems, but I don't remember/feel like listing them [br][br]Download from HERE [br][br]Download Public Domain GBA Roms Pack from Here ...

According to retail sources, Konami will release Bomberman for the Nintendo DS on May 26 in Japan. The game will be priced at 5,040 yen ($48). [br][br]Bomberman for the DS will feature 10 areas that contain a total of 100 stages. Each area comes with a powerful boss for you to challenge. Gamers can control items they obtain by using the touch screen. [br][br]With the DS's Wi-Fi connection and game-sharing capabilities, up to eight players can enjoy versus mode on Bomberman with just one cartridge. The versus mode features three game modes: the normal mode, where the objective is to beat opponents by bombing them; crown mode, where the first person to pick up the crown wins; and panel mode, where gamers bomb tiles in the floor to flip them to match their team's color. ...

Here in the states, the Xbox has proven its mettle. Gamers are enthusiastic about Xbox Live and sales of the hardware have picked up speed in recent months. But in Japan, the machine is a flop. Since the unit's Japanese launch in 2002, the software-giant-turned-console-maker Microsoft has sold 463,000 units, according to Enterbrain, a local tracking company in Japan. As reported in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, that figure compares with 3.7 million units of Nintendo's current-generation console, the GameCube, and over 17 million units of Sony's market leader, PlayStation 2. [br][br][br]But news today out of Redmond suggests Microsoft is getting ready to fight back in the next-gen war that will see PlayStation 3, GameCube 2, and Xbox Next square off later this year, or at the latest, next year. [br][br]To that end, Microsoft today confirmed that it had entered into two separate agreements with Yoshiki Okamoto, president and CEO of Game Republic Inc., and Tetsuya Mizuguchi (shown above), chief creative officer and producer of Q Entertainment Inc., for an unspecified number of exclusive Xbox Next games. Neither deal prevents the developers from working with other companies or on other platforms. No additional details were revealed in today's announcement. [br][br]The news today follows a similar announcement made last week, which was former Square producer, Hironobu Sakaguchi, now with his own development studio, Mistwalker, would be creating two Xbox Next-exclusive role-playing games. [br][br]Yoshiki Okamoto is a former Capcom producer who found traction with gamers in Japan with his Street Fighter and Resident Evil franchises. Since mid-2003, he has been the head of his own development studio, Game Republic. [br][br]Tetsuya Mizuguchi brings a similarly rich history of game development and game design to the deal. After years of leading the arcade and home units responsible for the Sega GT and Sega Rally brands, he turned his energy toward more creative efforts including Space Channel 5 and Rez. [br][br]After leaving Sega in late 2003, he founded his own company, Q Entertainment, and has two PSP titles, Meteos and Lumines, on the cusp of releasing. [br][br]Mizuguchi and Okamoto are also involved in their own company, Mobcast, which is focused on mobile game development. [br][br]In a conversation yesterday with Microsoft Game Studio head Shane Kim, we learned that the strategy behind the high-profile (and, likely, very expensive) additions to the Xbox Next team is to demonstrate to those uncommitted Japanese designers that Xbox Next is a desirable platform to work on. Whether or not that theory will pan out as Kim and his Microsoft team expect, with Japanese designers jumping on the Xbox Next development bandwagon, should become apparent in the coming months leading up to the new console's launch. ...

Squidge has updated the Commodore 64 emulator for the Tapwave Zodiac with a new release, cant say whats new but download and try for yourself by downloading Here. ...

The Gameboy advance/ Nintendo DS WIP emulator for windows has seen another update, heres the news from this release:[br][br] With immense thanks to gladius, I now have a new tiled-mode renderer for the GPU. I managed to track down the source of all the breakages; turns out to be in my poorly-coded sprite code. That means I can't have sprites for the moment, but I can have multiple backgrounds. And that means Tetris.DS can render fully on the main screen. Take a look at the screenshots for a picture.[br][br]On the CVS side, I've managed to check all the code in; anonymous checkout access is currently being set up server-side. When it's all set up, you'll see more news here. [br][br]Download Here [br][br]Heres some Nintendo DS public domain roms Here ...

Noted Japanese developers Yoshiki Okamoto of Game Republic and Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Q Entertainment have both signed up to develop Xbox 2-exclusive titles for Microsoft Game Studios.[br][br]The announcement follows last week's revelation that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguichi has committed his Mist Walker studio to developing a pair of RPGs for the next-generation platform, and is expected to greatly increase Microsoft's standing in the Far East.[br][br]As with the Sakaguchi announcement, however, it does not appear that the two designers and their respective studios will be limiting their entire output to the Xbox 2 platform, as some may fear glancing at headlines.[br][br]As a former Capcom executive, Okamoto has of course been involved with Xbox before - Capcom being one of the few Japanese firms to lend support to the console in its current incarnation - but Game Republic is still a feather in Microsoft's next-gen cap regardless.[br][br]Equally, there's no question of how important Mizuguchi's involvement will be to hardcore gamers around the world who have come to love his distinctive work, which includes the likes of SEGA Rally, Space Channel 5 and Rez.[br][br]Microsoft today argued that the announcement underscores "a growing preference... for the next generation Xbox platform" among developers. VP Peter Moore reckons "Gamers will be riveted by the experience enabled by such creators when given the proper canvas and tools."[br][br]Okamoto, whose previous life at Capcom included spells on Street Fighter and Resident Evil, amongst other things, said his goal "is to make completely fresh and riveting experiences that gamers have never had before," and like Sakaguchi last week he said that he felt with Xbox 2 he could "turn this vision into a reality".[br][br]Mizuguchi, meanwhile, said that he hoped to graduate from games that brought "ultimate fun" to games that would "give gamers the most emotional and thrilling gaming experience possible - joy, thrills, sympathy and speed". [br][br]Mizuguchi and Sakaguchi's shared emphasis of "emotion" in describing their goals for next-gen Xbox titles in the last week is an interesting and Microsoft will hope symbolic reflection of the rhetoric surrounding the launch of the industry-leading PlayStation 2 four years ago, when the "Emotion Engine" was the hype du jour. [br][br]Xbox 2, which Microsoft plans to launch in late 2005, will be the first next-gen platform to market, and the company hopes to capitalise on the significant gap in the market before PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Revolution appear in 2006 - just as they believe Sony did with the PlayStation 2, which emerged long before Xbox and GameCube.[br][br]"The power and advanced technologies of the next-generation Xbox platform will enable winning games with powerful emotions, high-quality graphics and sound," Mizuguchi concluded. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen, but with names of this calibre on the credit list we can at least say that Japan will be waiting to see this time around, too, rather than just staring on indifferently.[br] ...