via Joystiq


In the US, Nintendo fans can celebrate the DSi's launch at the Universal CityWalk GameStop in Los Angeles. In Australia, early adopters can go to a launch party at the "Nintendo Experience" on Melbourne's Swanston St. Melbourne. Nintendo just announced that there will be no such event in the UK to celebrate the April 3 launch of the DSi.

A Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer that no such event is planned "because the handheld is an evolution of the hardware - and not a replacement," in a baffling instance of Nintendo downplaying its own product. Why not just tell people, "Hey, it's just another DS, don't worry about buying one, guys!"

According to the Nintendo spokesperson, even though there's no "official" shindig, you'll still be able to pick up a system at one of the 200 GameStations, 55 GAME stores and "select HMV outlets" that mistakenly think the DSi is a big product. ...

Bob the coder who tried his best to get Nintendo to take notice of amateur coders has released a demo of his game for the DS, heres the video to refresh your memorys:



Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

via Kotaku



I'm not normally hot for console mods, as they're often ugly, pointless or both. But this Dreamcast one catches my eyes because, well, it's so damn eye-catching.

Not only does it give you a Dreamcast that's practically all screen, but it can run on batteries (with 3-3.5 hours of game time) and gives you a sexy, ejecting CD drive as well.

Oh, and it has AV out, so if you like, you can use it as a normal Dreamcast and plug it into your TV. If that doesn't make it the perfect Sega home console in your misty, Sega-loving eyes, well, your standards are too high.


...

via Eurogamer


Although it probably won't come as much surprise to series followers, Namco Bandai has confirmed to Eurogamer that Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi is "not involved" in production of the upcoming PS3 version.

Announced last week in Famitsu, Katamari Damacy Tribute is a 1080p version of the classic roll-everything-up game that made its cultish name on PS2 before limping rather feebly onto Xbox 360 after its creator departed to do other things.

Speaking at GDC last week, Takahashi said that the original Katamari Damacy was a comment on consumerism, and that his current game, the downloadable Noby Noby Boy, was deliberately designed without objectives and with little intention of making money.


We do love Keita Takahashi.

We'll let you know more about Katamari Damacy Tribute when we do. According to Namco, the game's "in good hands". ...

via Computer and Video Games


Final Fantasy XIII will use "nearly 100%" of the PlayStation 3's hardware power, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase has claimed.

When asked how much of the PS3's tech muscle FFXIII will make use of, Kitase told Japanese mag Dengeki PlayStation 3, "doesn't the demo use about 50 percent of its power? Of course, I think the retail version will make use of nearly 100 percent."

The producer added that there won't be any disc swap issues on the PS3 version (there's no 360 release planned for Japan) due to Blu-ray and the console's hard drive.

The FFXIII demo is due to ship with the Advent Children Blu-ray release in Japan on April 16. Development on the trial was finished last year, says Kitase.


We wonder if it'll use 100% of the Xbox 360's power too? If it's only 99%, we're definitely buying the PS3 version. ...

via Eurogamer


Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has said Wii games don't start making money for their publishers until a million copies have been shifted.

That's according to an article in the New York Times, which also reports the average budget for making and marketing a game these days is USD million (GBP 17.5 million / EUR 18.8 million). However, the majority of titles only sell a maximum of 150,000 units.

Fils-Aime "said publishers of games for its Wii console needed to sell one million units of a game to turn a profit", according to the article. That might sound like a lot, but "he said that was a lower threshold than for the other consoles".

It's all thanks to the fact Wii games aren't in high-def, and are therefore cheaper to make - which Reggie reckons Nintendo took into account when developing the console.

NPD figures show that of the 486 games release for Wii, just 16 have sold more than a million copies - and nine of those are Nintendo first-party titles. ...

via Eurogamer


Microsoft has announced that James Silva's The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai will be released for Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow, 1st April.

The Dishwasher, which goes for 800 Microsoft Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60), is an expanded version of the idea that won Silva the 2007 Dream Build Play contest.

It's a 2D scrolling beat-'em-up where you play as an undead samurai dishwasher and fight an evil cyborg army with swords and "Dish Magic".

The story is told through graphic novel-style cut-scenes, and was inspired by Silva's own experience working as a dishwasher. Social mobility, kids.

Back at the start of 2008, when The Dishwasher was demoed as one of the XNA Community Games, we noted in our write-up, "Even in the first demo level you'll discover a fairly rich combo system, a hierarchy of power-ups and support items that can be purchased or earned, and a well executed boss battle."

It's also got arcade and campaign co-operative modes, and it's even possible to use the Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitar controller during a mini-game.

If you fancy putting that to the test, Silva himself will be online this Saturday from 6-9pm PST (Sunday 2-5am GMT - good luck with that) to play with people. ...

via Games Industry


Microsoft's Xbox 360 console has finally broke the one million sales mark in Japan, after first going on sale December 10, 2005.

According to figures from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain, translated by Kotaku, as of March 29, 1,001,191 units have been sold to consumers.

Enterbrain also revealed that the PlayStation 3 has sold over three million units, totalling 3,008,395 units. The system launched almost a year after the Xbox 360 in Japan, on November 11, 2006. ...

GameDaily BIZ just got off the phone with John Koller, Director of Hardware Marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America, to discuss the news of PS2 dropping down to just $99. And of course, we had to talk about PS3 NOT getting a price drop as well...

BIZ: I think a number of industry pundits were expecting a PS3 price drop today in addition to or instead of the PS2 price cut. With the fiscal year having just ended, we thought Sony might kick off the new year with a bang... So my question is why not PS3 right now? And for the PS2, was this move already pre-planned long ago?

John Koller: So, I'll take the last question first. We do plan price cuts and most major moves well in advance; they're done for a variety of reasons. This particular reason on the PS2 price cut was done really to extend the overall viability and versatility of the platform. We're looking at 70-80 titles launching on PS2 this coming year, and about the same number next year in 2010. PS2 shows very little signs of slowing down, and we wanted to continue to really target that lower income consumer, as well as that lapsed gamer or young family consumer that is still purchasing PS2 and wants some of that evergreen entertainment – the social gaming and sports are what they are particularly gravitating towards. A lot of the development is going in that direction.


"We do look at those as similar consumers. So, yes, we do think the $99 price point could steal some share [from Wii]. From a technological standpoint, the Wii is much closer to the PS2 than it is to the next-gen consoles."


In terms of the PS3, our is on the versatility of the system and the overall value that's inherent to the system. We've been focusing on development of key software franchises, and this year should be the best software year launched yet. On PS3, we look at that as a significant advantage versus Xbox 360. In particular, our first party group has really stepped up with some tremendous franchises, whether they're iterations [of existing properties] or new IP like LittleBigPlanet, MAG, etc. You also look at the continued strength of the Blu-ray format and we're starting to see some cases where movies are helping to sell hardware - Dark Knight certainly did for a time in December. So we're seeing different patterns of growth. Last year was the best sales year ever for PS3 and we are very bullish on the platform this year.

BIZ: Although sales for PS2 have remained quite strong for a nine-year-old platform, PS2 has withered somewhat as this generation of consoles takes hold. What kind of uptick are you anticipating in terms of hardware sales thanks to the $99 price point?

JK: Good question. We can't give specific number, but I can tell you that last year the NPD number was 2.5 million units [sold], so we expect at or north of that number [this year]. And certainly when you're looking at the game pipeline and also what Nielsen reported about PS2 being the most played console in 2008, there's still a lot of viability left. A lot of people tend to think there's only life in next-gen, but in reality there's life in next-gen, in our handheld business and in PS2. We enter the 10th year of its life-cycle in October of this year, and there's really no sign of slowing down. We ended up 'sunsetting' the PSOne because the development spigot kind of dried up, but that's not happening with PS2 right now. With 1,900 games (250 Greatest Hits), there's really a wide variety of game options for that new consumer to the category.

BIZ: PS2 is already the best-selling console ever, so wouldn't Sony rather drive these consumers to convert to the PS3, instead of continuing to propagate the PS2 message?

JK: We don't look at it as an either/or situation – it's really an and. So if you look at when PS2 consumers purchase, that's how we analyze when they'll be ready to move up the loyalty chain to PS3. The PS3 cross-ownership rate with PS2 is about 80 percent, so much of the PS3 installed base is a PS2 consumer or had been at some point. You have to look at when they're purchasing; there's certainly strata of purchasers in the PS2 world. So if someone purchases tomorrow for the price drop, then we believe that's a PS3 owner in the future. It may not be April 2nd, but it will be in the future. By definition, they're a bit of a later adopter, so that's someone that we think will gravitate towards PS3 as we continue along the growth curve... Currently, we're making a big push to grab the PS2 consumer that purchased in the middle part of this decade (maybe 2002-06), because that was an early to mid adopter and someone very interested in the large franchises on PS2 like GTA and Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo and Madden. That consumer is probably ready [to buy a PS3]. We've made a concerted push against that individual. But we don't give up on any of the PS2 consumers – they're PlayStation fans for life and we believe they will eventually purchase a PS3 at some point in time. ...