Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime told MTV Multiplayer on Wednesday that the motion-sensitivity upgrade for Wii remote is looking good — and would not say that it’s delayed.
***
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s Game Developers Conference keynote address on Wednesday covered many of the topics about which Nintendo watchers have been expecting an update: DSi development, Wii storage improvements, and “Zelda” franchise progress.
What Iwata never mentioned in his hour-long address was Wii MotionPlus, the small add-on that plugs into the base of the Wii remote and improves the controller’s motion sensitivity. The device was shown at E3 last July and demonstrated with a working version of “Wii Sports Resort.” That game had been listed for a 2009 spring release by Nintendo and was expected to bundle the MotionPlus.
With the game no longer listed on Nintendo’s calendar as a spring 2009 release and Iwata not addressing it to a hall full of developers, I asked Nintendo of America president Reggie-Fils Aime what was going on:
MTV Multiplayer: At E3, we were told that “Wii Sports Resort” would be a spring game. We got our hands on Wii Motion Plus, which seemed to be working well. But “Wii Sports Resort” and Motion Plus are absent from the spring line-up. What’s going on there?
Reggie Fils-Aime, President, Nintendo of America: We haven’t announced the full spring line-up… And it feels like winter in Seattle right now.
MTV Multiplayer: The lack of MotionPlus and any specifics on when it’s coming out — even as EA has their tennis game slotted for mid-June and their “Tiger Woods” game slotted for June [both of which support MotionPlus] — has led to speculation that …
Fils-Aime: You know we don’t comment on rumor and speculation…
MTV Multiplayer: Ok. The logical conclusion is that there would seemingly need to be a MotionPlus out when these games are out in June. At the same time — now I asked about the speculation part; here’s the rumor part — there were problems with MotionPlus development. Do you want to put any of that to rest? Is this project not going where it needs to be going?
Fils-Aime: We do not comment on rumor and speculation.
MTV Multiplayer: What would you say the status of MotionPlus is?
Fils-Aime: The status of Motion Plus is consistent with what we talked about at E3. “Wii Sports Resort” looks great. I’ve played it.
MTV Multiplayer: Recently?
Fils-Aime: I played it two weeks ago. It looks phenomenal.
MTV Multiplayer: Better than it was at E3?
Fils-Aime: Yes.
MTV Multiplayer: Is the level of control nuance that I last experienced [at E3 in July 2008] equivalent to what you’re experiencing? Or are you experiencing better?
Fils-Aime: The level of full motion capability is far in excess of what we showed at E3.
***
As you can see, Fils-Aime was being guarded. But there still is a chance for Nintendo to meet the previously announced spring timeframe for MotionPlus, “Wii Sports Resort” or anything that has evolved from those two products. E3 takes place this year in the first week of June. Nintendo could update us on the status of MotionPlus then and still have almost three weeks of spring left during which to release something. We shall see.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/...spring-launch/ ...

The Rock Band franchise has officially surpassed USD 1 billion dollars in North American retail sales in 15 months, according to The NPD Group.

The Harmonix title has seen over 40 million individual songs tracks bought and downloaded via the Rock Band platform, since its launch on November 20, 2007, and was the number one title in North America for 2008 in terms of revenue.

Over 600 songs are offered for Rock Band, both on-disc and through the in-game music store, from 269 different artists.

Rock Band creators, Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, were honoured with the Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards last night in San Francisco.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-USD1-billion ...

Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet swept the Game Developers Choice Awards, claiming four victories - the do-it-yourself title won Best Debut Game, Best Technology, Best Game Design as well as the Innovation Award.

Bethesda's Fallout 3 was another star title, claiming the Game of the Year award and Best Writing. Meanwhile, Prince of Persia was awarded Best Visual Arts and God Of War: Chains Of Olympus, for the PlayStation Portable, took Best Handheld Game.

Best Audio went to Dead Space and Best Downloadable Game was awarded to World of Goo, reports Gamasutra.

Hideo Kojima, was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, while Rock Band founders, Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, picked up the Pioneer award and Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of Video Games Live, won the Ambassador Award.

"Over the past nine years, the Game Developers Conference has become the premiere videogame award show because it gives voice to those who understand games better than anyone; the people who make them," said Meggan Scavio, content director for GDC.

"The games being recognised here are virtuoso efforts that have truly advanced the state of videogames. Our congratulations to all the talented and hardworking teams that put so much of themselves into their art."

The results of the Game Developers Choice Awards follows:

Game of the Year:

Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks)

Best Game Design:

LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Writing:

Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks)

Best Technology:

LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Visual Arts:

Prince of Persia (Ubisoft Montreal)

Best Debut Game:

LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Handheld Game:

God Of War: Chains Of Olympus (Ready at Dawn)

Innovation Award:

LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Audio:

Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores)

Best Downloadable Game:

World Of Goo (2D Boy)

Lifetime Achievement Award:

Hideo Kojima

Pioneer Award:

Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy

Ambassador Award:

Tommy Tallarico

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-at-gdc-awards ...

The Japanese software chart has a new number one in Super Robot Taisen K, the Nintendo DS title from Namco Bandai, selling 117,000 units in the process according to data from Media Create for the week ending March 22.

Second-placed Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009 and third-placed Amagami were also both new entries - and both for the PlayStation 2 - selling 50,000 and 42,000 respectively.

Mario and Luigi RPG 3 for the DS was in fourth, followed by PlayStation 3 pair Musou Orochi 3 and Resident Evil 5 in fifth and sixth places.

Rittai Picross 3D was seventh, followed up Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP the Best) which passed the 500,000 unit mark in that week.

Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009 for the Wii and Shin Sangoku Musou: Multi Raid rounded out the top ten.

In all the split of platforms in the top ten was fairly even for a change, with the DS taking three titles, the PlayStation platforms taking two apiece, and the Wii responsible for just one.

The full top ten is as follows:

1. Super Robot Taisen K (DS): 117,000
2. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009 (PS2): 50,000
3. Amagami (PS2): 42,000
4. Mario and Luigi RPG 3 (DS): 39,000
5. Musou Orochi 3 (PS3): 36,000
6. Resident Evil 5 (PS3): 29,000
7. Rittai Picross 3D (DS): 24,000
8. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP the Best) (PSP): 23,000
9. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009 (Wii): 22,000
10. Shin Sangoku Musou: Multi Raid (PSP): 19,000

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...japanese-chart ...

IGN's gotten a preview of the Gametrak Freedom motion-controller we first spied back in September. Designed by Performance Designed Products (PDP), the Xbox 360 (which will probably also be available for the PS3 at some point, too) stick's looks have changed quite a bit since then. Like most other motion controllers it uses accelerometers, but also adds ultrasonic 3D positioning using two sensor bars mounted to the display, which can triangulate the device's positioning to precisely calculate its distance, orientation and speed. Though the Gametrak Freedom is expected for Xbox 360 in the fourth quarter of this year, there are no specific details about pricing or availability yet.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/g...-outed-at-gdc/ ...

IGN's gotten a preview of the Gametrak Freedom motion-controller we first spied back in September. Designed by Performance Designed Products (PDP), the Xbox 360 (which will probably also be available for the PS3 at some point, too) stick's looks have changed quite a bit since then. Like most other motion controllers it uses accelerometers, but also adds ultrasonic 3D positioning using two sensor bars mounted to the display, which can triangulate the device's positioning to precisely calculate its distance, orientation and speed. Though the Gametrak Freedom is expected for Xbox 360 in the fourth quarter of this year, there are no specific details about pricing or availability yet.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/g...-outed-at-gdc/ ...

The fine folks at BSQUARE have announced that they'll be porting Adobe Flash to Google's Android on behalf of a "global Tier 1 carrier." Whether or not that implies this "global Tier 1 carrier" will have exclusive access to Flash out of the gate remains to be seen. Details are otherwise very scarce, and it's unclear how this relates to the demo of Flash Andy Rubin showed off at Adobe MAX last year. However, BSQUARE bought NEC's Adobe® Flash® Technology Consulting and Distribution business 12 months ago, and has done Android work for other customers, so the expertise should certainly be there -- and naturally we wouldn't expect them to go shouting about this if they didn't have Adobe and Google's blessing in one form or another.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/f...sy-of-bsquare/ ...

While Nintendo has been pretty good so far with the Game Boys of yore and the DS / DS Lite at keeping backwards compatibility pretty much at a maximum, the DSi's added functionality and processing power is going to test that a bit. Nintendo has confirmed that there will be two new types of DS software, "DSi Cards" and "DSi Enhanced Cards." The former will only work with the DSi (and with the current DS install base, we're guessing they won't be incredibly common, but the DSi's off to a strong start) and the latter will offer expanded functionality on the DSi (like mapping a photo onto a character) but will still downgrade gracefully to regular DS handhelds. This could certainly cause some confusion, but hopefully anything DSi specific will be very obviously DSi-centric, like a camera app or something to automatically spend thousands of Nintendo Points on classic titles in a flailing attempt to relive your childhood.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/26/n...nced-software/ ...

As the topic says, FileFront will be shutting down it's site indefinitely on March 30th 2009.

Here's what it says on the site:


http://farewell.filefront.com/

This is sad news to many and at such a short notice too. Wonder what other sites will be affected by the current economic situation. ...