The latest consoles hardware sales from the land of Japan is in show below as follows:


Nintendo Wii: 78,583
Nintendo DS Lite: 62,362
Playstation Portable: 59,654
Playstation 3 : 17,637
Playstation 2: 11,266
Xbox 360 : 2,198


Wii stays on top, takes roughly a 3,000 unit drop. DS replaces the PSP in secound place, increase 2,000 while the latter experiences a 15,500 decrease. PS3 goes down 6,000, PS2 200 up and Xbox 360 dips by extactly 417. ...

via Eurogamer


Sony's Phil Harrison, head of worldwide studios for Sony, has expressed his frustration that the company's Japanese division was too slow at accepting the ideas of social gaming - a market now dominated by rival manufacturer Nintendo and its Wii console, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Sony Europe already had three products on the market designed specifically to encourage social gaming in the living room before the Wii was even released - the EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz - but Japanese execs didn't believe in the concept of families enjoying gaming together.


Harrison said that he thinks Wii Sports is a title that encapsulates the idea of a true 'next-generation' game, and he admires Nintendo's success in marketing and sales.

"What's interesting with Nintendo adverts - and they are the same the world over - they always show the view from the television back to the sofa, which is very clever. And what do you see? A family or friends all on a sofa," he said. ...

Ok, so anyone who is a regular here at DCEmu has probably read one (or more) of my off-topic rants about how much I love the idea of incorporating head tracking into games.

For the rest of you: Head tracking is a way of letting the wii know where your head is relative to the TV. Knowing this allows the game to show a view of the game that takes into account the angle you are looking at the TV from, and to change how the game looks if you move around to a different angle.

Since seeing the head tracking video (embedded below) a while back I just couldn't comprehend how something this cool was not being attempted by commercial game developers, after all the Wii is all about promoting new ways of interacting with games. It seemed like such a great way to bring something new to games relatively easily and would perfectly fit in with the 'get up and play' style of games the wii is great at.
You want to see around that tree? Just move to the side a little.

Well Game Developers Conference 08 brings news that the game Boom Blox (the 'Stephen Speilberg game'), will incorporate some form of head tracking, although it will be presented as more of an 'easter egg' than a selling-point feature.
It will be used (obviously) to allow the gamer to control the camera by moving their head. Now while that may not sound like a big deal, the increased 3d effect it allows the screen to display (as seen in the demo video) is extremely exciting.

If it's 1/10th as impressive as the original Head tracking demo by Johnny Chung Lee then I can really see it generating a buzz that could influence more developers to see what can be done to enhance gameplay.

After all, the only thing a user needs apart from 2 Wii-motes is a couple of cheap IR LEDs that can be attached to glasses or on a headband etc, which could be mass produced for next to nothing.

The original head tracking demo by Johnny Lee:



A preview of the Boom Blox game:


Original Article (Joystiq). ...

Gamespot UK is hosting a competition for residents of the UK. The prize? A GoW: Chains of Olympus UMD demo. There are only 5,000 copies so act fast. This will be the very first UMD demo for us!

Click HERE to enter the prize draw. Good luck!

http://www.pspdemocenter.org/page.php?id=841 ...

All six major Hollywood studios are now in the Blu-ray Disc camp, a day after Toshiba has pulled the plug on HD DVD and Blu-ray became effectively the only next-gen game in town.

Paramount Home Entertainment quietly came onboard via a statement sent exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday: "We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer," the statement reads. "As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly."

Universal Studios Home Entertainment, in contrast, cast its lot with Blu-ray within hours of Toshiba's announcement Tuesday morning that it was ending the format war by ceasing the development, manufacture and marketing of HD DVD players by the end of March. Universal made a big splash with its announcement, sending media outlets a statement from division president Craig Kornblau in which he said, "While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...969933f25fc601 ...

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via Eurogamer


Game creator Masahiro Sakurai has "no plans" to make a Smash Bros. game for DS.

It would work on the platform, he told IGN at the Game Developers Conference, but it is not something he sees himself doing.

"Seeing the success that Brawl has had with the Wii remote being played sideways, I don't think that there are control limitations that keep it from being ported to the DS," said Sakurai. "But I personally have no plans to do this myself.

"If, in the future, such a thing was to be planned, it would be up to Nintendo to decide how and when and in what way they would like to create that sort of game."

So, nothing appears to be in the works at the moment, but a DS version is far from dead and buried. It's quite usual for a different team to take control of a handheld version.

But it gets us no closer to a European date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Which is a little frustrating, seeing as Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit were both recently given April launch windows here. ...

News/release from AgentQ


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via Computer and Video Games


THQ is preparing to release Big Beach Sports for the Wii in the summer of 2008, clearly tapping into an overlooked genre on Nintendo's system.

Big Beach Sports lets players compete in a number of outdoor sports, including American football, volleyball, football, cricket, disc golf and bocce, the later of which is like the best winter sports game of all time, curling. Except without the winter bit.

The game is being developed by HB Studios Multimedia, who has previously produced a series of EA Sports games for the PlayStation 2 and notably co-produced Madden NFL '07 for the Wii.

Up to four players can compete in the game, while the structure of the single player tournament encourages players to master each sport through the use of real-life sport motions.

How this applies to the football mode we can only guess - are you supposed to kick the Wii Remote around the floor? That'll hurt. ...