Despite the fact that Nintendo still seems scared to plunge fully into the realm of online gaming, the company seemingly has no problem with announcing milestones for the DS Wi-Fi Connection service. Today, Nintendo announced two more milestones: More than 5 million unique users have played online using the Wi-Fi Connection, and more than 200 million gaming sessions have been held.

Nintendo has yet to fully involve itself in the rapidly changing world of online games, but that hasn't stopped the company from racking up a huge number of unique users for its handheld's service. The DS launched in November 2005, and to date there are 65 games that can be played via the Wi-Fi Connection. The top five most popular games worldwide have been: Animal Crossing: Wild World, Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime Hunters, Pokemon Diamond, and Pokemon Pearl.

"Nintendo DS gamers globally use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection as an easy, fun place to find fellow players, all without paying anything extra for the service," asserted Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "The milestones represent millions of hours of fun and camaraderie despite miles between players."

Nintendo also brought attention to the popularity of the DS among traditionally non-gaming demographics. According to "internal Nintendo demographic tracking studies," over the last month, DS sales have increased by 42% among women, 127% among people aged 30-35, and 212% among people 35 and older.

Nintendo's hot Touch Generations lineup of games and non-games will be expanding into new territory over in Japan later this year. The latest from the company that brought us million sellers like Brain Age and Common Knowledge Trainer is Ganbaru Watashi no Kakei Diary. We hereby unofficially westernize the name as "My Household Budget Diary."

As suggested by the name, this new non-game promises to assist in planning a household budget. You use the stylus to directly input costs for eighteen areas of your life, including food, fashion and entertainment. The software helps you analyze your spending habits through monthly comparison charts. Also included is a mode that helps when planning for a loan.

Obviously, a title designed for a crowd outside of the millions who picked up New Super Mario Bros. And in case you were wondering, it's not the first of its kind. Last December, Bandai Namco released its own budgeting app for the DS, Dokodemo Raku Raku Kakeibo.

Nintendo's take on household planning will hit Japan on 7/12 at a price of 3800 yen.

Newly-formed publisher Gamecock has announced that its upcoming title Mushroom Men will be waging war on the Nintendo Wii and DS. The game promises to make use of the unique control schemes of each system. Mushroom Men was announced along with Gamecock's formation in February, but at the time the platforms that would grow the fungi were a mystery. The publisher apparently hoped to secure a home on Nintendo systems all along.

"From the minute we signed Mushroom Men, we've worked to bring it to the Wii and DS," said Rick Stults, Console Chief for Gamecock. "Both platforms are going to give Mushroom Men a life of their own as [developer] Red Fly Studio is building unique stories specific to each system."


The other spore game.

The war of the Mushroom Men rages in your backyard with weapons made from everyday items. Other forms of plant life will join the fight as players take on household pests with the Wiimote and DS stylus.

If you're looking for a chance at playing the next Phoenix Wright game a bit early, look no further than your nearest import game shop. Capcom officially announced the Japanese version of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations today. Carrying the title Gyakuten Saiban 3 Best Price! in Japan, the game is set for release on 8/23 at a price of 2,980 yen.

The "Best Price!" label has been given to the title because it's technically a budget version of the Game Boy Advance Gyakuten Saiban 3. As reported earlier here at IGNDS, Capcom has added a number of DS features to the game, including microphone support that lets you shout out "objection" directly.

Today's announcement is of concern to the English speaking world for two reasons. First, the Japanese version is scheduled to arrive one month in advance of the US version. On top of that, the Japanese version will include the full US game, English and all!

If you can't wait an extra month, you'll be able to put the DS's support for region-free gaming to use.

Vivendi Universal has officially announced that it's bringing the excellent Xbox 360 Live Arcade shooter Geometry Wars to Wii and DS this Autumn, along with a new mission mode and multiplayer.

Coming to Nintendo consoles under the guise of Geometry Wars: Galaxies, this latest instalment has plenty of exclusive features, including a campaign mode which sees you travelling between solar systems to take out the enemy ships. Alongside this new mode are new weapons, enemies and gameplay types.

Galaxies is also the first Geo Wars to feature a multiplayer, which includes a co-op mode, hot-seat battles and a traditional versus mode - which is all extremely exciting. Plus, if you buy both versions of the game you can use a Wi-Fi link between your DS and Wii to unlock new content.

Although development is being handled by UK-based Kuju Entertainment, Geometry Wars's original creator Stephen 'Cakey' Cakebread came up with the prototype Wii controls before handing the project over.

Bizarre's Ben Ward said: "We found at least 2 different methods which worked really well. We've prototyped on the DS too with similar success, so we're confident that the games will play superbly on the new platforms and will avoid the trap of adding a new control method just for the sake of it."

Getting your hands on all the Square Enix games out there is tough, with games from the publisher appearing on everything from the Xbox 360 to the latest cell phones. But one batch of games will be available for everyone to play -- well, everyone who has a PC, that is (and if you didn't, you wouldn't exactly be reading this now, would you?)

The company began today a beta test for Game Town, an online games service for members of its Square Enix Members rewards program. The site promises to offer free games based on Square Enix properties.

The first games are a series of flash-based mini games featuring Chocobo: Chocobo Flight, Chocobo Balance Stick and Chocobo Classmate. Once you've played these simple games, you can choose to post your scores to an online ranking mode.

If you want to sample these and future games at the Square Enix Game Town site, you'll need to get yourself registered at the Square Enix Members site. Registration is free, but you'll have to do your best to work through a few pages of Japanese text. Here are some page-by-page hints:

1. Enter your e-mail address at this page

2. Open your e-mail software and click on the link at the top of the e-mail from [email protected]

3. At the contract page, ignore all the text and click the right button.

4. Enter a login ID, then enter a password twice. You'll then have to select a secret question from a list and input an answer on the next input line. Your answer has to have Japanese characters in it, so we'd suggest simply selecting the first question, then cutting and pasting the text from elsewhere on the page (make sure the text doesn't have kanji characters in it -- just grab a couple of characters from the text to the left of the password entry boxes)

5. Enter a nickname (must be different from your login), select your sex, enter your birthday, then select your location and profession and click the right button at the bottom of the page. Note that the first three items can never be changed. NEVER!

6. Select your mailing preferences for receiving junk mail... err, updates... from Square Enix. For maximum ease quotient, click the second circle box from the left for both bottom items, then click the right button at the bottom of the page.

7. Ignore all the survey questions and click the right button. Or, totally screw up Square Enix's survey by making choices at random before clicking the right button.

8. At the final confirmation screen, click the right button.

That's it! Click the Square Enix Members icon and select "GameTown" midway through the page to enter the world of Chocobo-based mini-games.

We knew it was coming, but today Traveller's Tales officially announced that LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga would be making its way to "next-generation" game consoles this fall. Players will be able to experience all of the block-sized Star Wars action with an added bonus of new characters, levels, and features on the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360. Additionally, Traveller's Tales will be creating a completely new DS version of the game, redeveloped from the ground up.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga encompasses events from the first two games, along with other major sequences from throughout the Star Wars storyline. In addition to all the content of the first two games, The Complete Saga includes Episode II's high-speed pursuit of Zam Wessell, as well as new playable characters including Watto, Zam Wessell, and Boss Nass. This brings the total character count to over 160. On top of that, the game is said to offer new bonus levels and ten additional Bounty Hunter Missions.


These aren't the droids you're looking for...

In addition to all this, the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will feature an online co-op mode for the first time in the series. These versions of the game will also showcase newly recreated high-res visuals. The Wii and DS versions will take advantage of those systems' unique capabilities to offer motion sensitive or touch-screen controls.

No specific release date was provided, but we will be sure to let you know when one does materialize.

The public face for most Square Enix titles in Japan has been Akitoshi Kawazu, who normally gets an "Executive Producer" credit in the staff roles at the end of all those lengthy RPGs. One of the original designers of the Final Fantasy and Saga series, Kawazu is in charge of the company's game development, and is also a member of the company board, putting him in close quarters with president Yoichi Wada.

According to the online version of Japan's Mainichi Shimbun, Kawazu will be dropping one of these roles shortly. The producer will leave his board position as of 6/23, the site reports today, and will focus his efforts squarely (har, har, har) on game development.

We're not sure if he'll go hands-on old school style, though, as he will still serve as "Executive Producer" on upcoming games.

Remember Project O? You know, Marvelous Interactive's original Wii game that drew attention at its announcement a couple of months back due to some of the players involved, including Hideo Minaba (art director on Final Fantasy XII), Kazuyuki Kurashima (designer of Moon and Endnesia), Youichi Kawaguchi (main programmer on Dragon Quest VIII) and Yoshirou Kimura (Moon, Chulip)? The mysterious game is back in the news again following an interview with Kimura, producer, Minaba, character designer, and Kurashima, monster designer, the latest issue of Famitsu.

The three first began by offering details on how the project came about. It all started, according to Minaba, when Kimura asked him for advice on what kind of art style should make it into the game. Kurashima recalled being called into a Watami (a Japanese restaurant chain) in Tokyo's Shinjuku district; apparently, this was Minaba's doing. And so began design work on Project O, with initial discussions centering on art and character designs.

We'd make our way to the Shinjuku Watami to scan the floors for any clues or forgotten pieces of art, but it turns out that there are quite a few Watami's in the Shinjuku area.

Following this initial work, the project was interrupted as Kurashima found himself in the hospital. He spent a month in a bed, he disclosed to the magazine, although he's feeling better now . In fact, the week following his release from the hospital, he apparently began creating rough sketches of the game's monsters.

Minaba and Kurashima provided a couple of pieces of artwork to the magazine. Kurashima's monster designs are a bit out of the ordinary. There's a chicken standing upright and flexing its muscles, an insane-looking bipedal cow, a tiny creature with a giant turnip on its head (or maybe that is the head!), and a volcano with what appears to be a single hand at rest beside it. Minaba's artwork shows a crowd of these creatures in a market beside a wooden structure that seems to be under construction.

"There are people who make things, and people who destroy things," commented Minaba of his artwork. Kimura continued, "Development and destruction are the keys to this games. In town, there are groups of people. Outside of town, there are groups of monsters. Development and destruction continues to take place, but it's all done via AI. I can't say anything clearer yet, though."

Kurashima provided the one small bit of solid info in the entire interview. We can look forward to over 60 creature forms, although he admitted that he's made rough sketches for only 50 of them at this point. He's going for a European essence with the art, which Kimura commented resembles something out of a European short animation.

While the three interviewees didn't give too much information on their project, Famitsu's summary of the game has us intrigued. The magazine describes the game as one part life simulation, where you view the action from afar and characters carry out their lives according to AI routines, and one part adventure game, where you follow the storyline of the main character from a closer perspective.

Two updates and Famitsu, and still only vague hints at what we can expect. Project O isn't due for Japanese release until 2008, but we presume Marvelous will start giving solid details before then. We'd suggest checking back close to the September Tokyo Game Show, where Nintendo and the Wii are expected to have a big presence.