The Nintendo Wii has now sold over 2 million Wii hardware units in Japan as of April 13, Famitsu publisher Enterbrain reported today.
The Wii reached the milestone in about 19 weeks, not quite beating the speedy sales of the PlayStation 2, which sold the same amount in the 15 weeks after its launch.

Nintendo had a rather soft start in the region with only 400,000 units available for launch in Japan because of shortages. But the company managed to sell a million units during 2006 in the region and sales are expanding.

At the same time, the Wii managed to already pull off a couple million-seller titles with “Wii Sports” (which isn’t bundled with the Wii in Japan) and “Hajimete no Wii”.

The Wii has sold in excess of 2.5 million units in North America and more than 2 million in Europe, bringing the worldwide grand total to over 6.5 million units.

via nextgen ...

After what happened to Lik Sang last year a new loophole has opened that should be great for all importers of games and consoles to the UK.

Heres the newspost from MCVuk


Cheaper Games, DVDs etc mean that the expensive UK Market keeps prices down.

SPREAD THE WORD

...

via zelda universe

I'll admit it, I'm not very good at Japanese, but there's one piece of news that I was able to dig out of the Phantom Hourglass feature in the latest issue of Famitsu... Phantom Hourglass will allow players to voice chat with each other!

So I've been only trying to learn Japanese on my own, so it takes a long time for me to translate anything decently. But from the little I know, I was able to piecemeal this together from the main text of the article. Now let's just hope I didn't screw anything up in translation!



"The Nintendo DS reaches its full potential in the latest work of the Legend of Zelda series! The game's greatest trait - the stylus control system! In this series's latest game, you use the stylus to draw the moment of the boomerang and other weapons, as well as the ship's route. Also, the game employs the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection to allow people to compete and even voice chat with each other."
People outside of Japan have been waiting a long time for the DS Chat Headset to come out, and it will first see the light in America on April 22nd along with the newest games in another classic series. The DS headset will be used to help promote Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, but it looks like Zelda fans will probably have a reason to get their hands on one of the accessories as well. ...

via zelda universe

I'll admit it, I'm not very good at Japanese, but there's one piece of news that I was able to dig out of the Phantom Hourglass feature in the latest issue of Famitsu... Phantom Hourglass will allow players to voice chat with each other!

So I've been only trying to learn Japanese on my own, so it takes a long time for me to translate anything decently. But from the little I know, I was able to piecemeal this together from the main text of the article. Now let's just hope I didn't screw anything up in translation!



"The Nintendo DS reaches its full potential in the latest work of the Legend of Zelda series! The game's greatest trait - the stylus control system! In this series's latest game, you use the stylus to draw the moment of the boomerang and other weapons, as well as the ship's route. Also, the game employs the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection to allow people to compete and even voice chat with each other."
People outside of Japan have been waiting a long time for the DS Chat Headset to come out, and it will first see the light in America on April 22nd along with the newest games in another classic series. The DS headset will be used to help promote Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, but it looks like Zelda fans will probably have a reason to get their hands on one of the accessories as well. ...

via zelda universe

I'll admit it, I'm not very good at Japanese, but there's one piece of news that I was able to dig out of the Phantom Hourglass feature in the latest issue of Famitsu... Phantom Hourglass will allow players to voice chat with each other!

So I've been only trying to learn Japanese on my own, so it takes a long time for me to translate anything decently. But from the little I know, I was able to piecemeal this together from the main text of the article. Now let's just hope I didn't screw anything up in translation!



"The Nintendo DS reaches its full potential in the latest work of the Legend of Zelda series! The game's greatest trait - the stylus control system! In this series's latest game, you use the stylus to draw the moment of the boomerang and other weapons, as well as the ship's route. Also, the game employs the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection to allow people to compete and even voice chat with each other."
People outside of Japan have been waiting a long time for the DS Chat Headset to come out, and it will first see the light in America on April 22nd along with the newest games in another classic series. The DS headset will be used to help promote Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, but it looks like Zelda fans will probably have a reason to get their hands on one of the accessories as well. ...

With shades of Namco, Capcom has gone on something of an IP land grab as of late, even going as far as to snatch what was once Namco's. Capcom has officially secured the exlusive rights to the MotoGP license for use with the PlayStation brand until the year 2012.

What this means is that while no one else can make a PlayStation or PSP title officially based on the popular motorcycle sport, the doors are still open for other platforms, as is the case with THQ's Moto GP series for Xbox 360. The secret is in the space.

Though no actual gameplay was shown, Capcom states that their first entry in the series, MotoGP '07 will be released this Fall for the PlayStation 2.

via joystiq ...

Capcom is reaching for a broader audience to grow its business, including several upcoming mobile phone titles. A direct port of Mega Man II and a looser, but faithful port of Street Fighter II will ship in June; trivia game, Millionaire Music Edition, will be released in May; and MMO, Shade II, is scheduled for the first quarter of 2008. All titles will be available on various carriers and support Java and BREW phone platforms.

Mega Man II and Street Fighter II may resonate most with long-time gamers. Capcom said that Mega Man II is a literal port of the original. Street Fighter II, however, has about "80 percent" of the original game's combinations in order to adapt to more awkward keypad mashing. In-development versions of both titles seem about as fluid as their originals; maybe there's more to this mobile gaming thing than trivia. (If not, there's Millionaire Music Edition, as in "Who Wants to Be A ...")

Shade II -- there were so many unanswered questions from the first Shade -- seeks to expand the MMORPG mobile space. Capcom was cagey with statistics about the popularity of Shade, saying that it has 600,000 unique users, but not saying how many concurrent players are in the game. Still, like the first game, Shade II will be a basic MMO with quests, leveling, cooperative play, and even PVP. Maybe that New York electronics law is to protect ourselves from injury if mobile MMOs become popular.

Prices will vary with carriers, but the games are expected to cost a couple dollars or less on a monthly subscription, or less than $10 to buy.

via joystiq ...

via joystiq

With 13 years of competitive play under its belt and counting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo is widely considered to be 2-D fighting perfected. A high octane, extremely offense-minded fighter, how is it that Capcom plans to improve upon perfection? By bringing in the comic masterminds at UDON to redraw the entire game, pixel-for-pixel.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (wow again) for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN mirrors the same tactic Capcom utilized with their Hyper Fighting release - the goods you remember, only with online play. This time, however, Capcom is taking care of business in-house and utilizing the insight that 13 years of worldwide, top-tier competition has brought to the game.

While SSF2T HD is a pixel-for-pixel recreation of the game, they aren't ruling out making slight changes to the game. It will be lost on the average player, but when the faithful get a load of the slight but sexy frame tweaks, they'll freak out. And they will love it.

Capcom didn't have anything to show on the project, but they did say that the entirety of the game is being redrawn, from the character select, all the way through to backgrounds and endings. While it would be heaven in a download if they could also work in the original SSF2T, it is something they are currently considering. Capcom is aiming for a release this Fall. ...

via joystiq

With 13 years of competitive play under its belt and counting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo is widely considered to be 2-D fighting perfected. A high octane, extremely offense-minded fighter, how is it that Capcom plans to improve upon perfection? By bringing in the comic masterminds at UDON to redraw the entire game, pixel-for-pixel.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (wow again) for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN mirrors the same tactic Capcom utilized with their Hyper Fighting release - the goods you remember, only with online play. This time, however, Capcom is taking care of business in-house and utilizing the insight that 13 years of worldwide, top-tier competition has brought to the game.

While SSF2T HD is a pixel-for-pixel recreation of the game, they aren't ruling out making slight changes to the game. It will be lost on the average player, but when the faithful get a load of the slight but sexy frame tweaks, they'll freak out. And they will love it.

Capcom didn't have anything to show on the project, but they did say that the entirety of the game is being redrawn, from the character select, all the way through to backgrounds and endings. While it would be heaven in a download if they could also work in the original SSF2T, it is something they are currently considering. Capcom is aiming for a release this Fall. ...