Via Gamesindustry

Nintendo has announced that according to Chart-Track figures, almost 200,000 Wii units were shifted in the UK over the Christmas period - while DS sales topped the half-million mark.

The Wii launched in Europe on December 8 and became the fastest-selling home console ever during its opening weekend. More than 700,000 units were purchased by European consumers, leading to empty shelves across the continent.

First-party title The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess also proved popular, with more than 500,000 copies sold - meaning that over 70 per cent of Wii owners bought the game. Around 320,000 copies of Wii Play, which comes bundled with a remote controller, were also sold.

In the UK, the number of DS handhelds sold during December topped 500,000 units. According to Nintendo, again quoting Chart-Track figures, it was not only the best selling console over the Christmas period but throughout 2006.

The figure for December DS sales across Europe stood at 1.7 million units. It was the best-selling console across the continent in 2006, and accounted for more than half of all December hardware sales.

"We have enjoyed one of the most successful Christmas holidays ever, with both Nintendo DS and Wii selling at staggering rates," said Nintendo Europe marketing director Laurent Fischer.

"We are facing such high demand for both platforms that unfortunately we are facing stock shortages. However we are doing everything possible to combat this by attempting to deliver both consoles and games to retailers on a daily basis."

Nintendo also enjoyed a successful Christmas in the US - more than 1.1 million Wii units have now been sold since launch, and 1.6 million DS handhelds were sold during the month of December alone. ...

via eurogamer

Online is likely to be the only key change to MotorStorm prior to its European and American launches this year, although developer Evolution has said it may introduce new features via download.

"There will be enhancements, but many will be under the hood," product manager Matt Southern told Edge Online. "A lot of the changes for the US and Europe are legal or even cultural - things like the gestures are specific to each territory and their respective age rating guidelines." (In the Japanese version, released in December, the AI racers often wave 'colourfully' when you piss them off.)

Southern says that the main change, as previously stated, will be the addition of online - something the Japanese didn't miss especially. "It's a cultural thing, really, which we had to learn from Yasu-san [Japanese external producer Yasuhiro Iizuka]. The Japanese are used to new iterations of a game at a later stage, and are also less bothered by online multiplayer. The scores seem to have justified our decision."

And we can expect that multiplayer element to offer voice comms, incidentally, "either using USB headsets or Bluetooth wireless sets. "Currently we have 12-player; recently we had 15 but we've had to cull this. We're still hoping for 16 but we can’t commit to that right now," Southern added.

Some of the surprise at the Japanese release's slightness stemmed from the absence not only of online features, but also additional gameplay modes and even split-screen. What's more, split-screen won't be added to the Western release, although Southern's keen not to rule out the possibility further down the road - "the beauty of online consoles," he notes, "is that the game can change in the future and we can sit down with SCEE and say, 'Let's offer this for download - the fans want it'."

Ditto the idea of recording replays. "Not for the boxed launch," Southern says when asked about it, "but as ever we'll see what is being demanded by fans when we start to offer download packs. Remember, we were up against it with MotorStorm, even with the timescale we had. The ability to pause and rotate the camera was added really late - it was classic feature creep." ...

XBList is a Windows program written in C# that can display your Xbox Live Friends List in a buddy-list format. It is designed to be simple and unobtrusive. It also has some integration with Xbox.com to display Gamer Tiles and Gamer Cards, and Bungie.net to display Halo 2 information and player emblems.


Source XBList

This is not a offically Microsoft release.

Download via comments ...

SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters DS will be released this spring in europe, according to Ignition and Atari.

The card battling game - a descendant of the excellent Neo Geo Pocket series - was originally announced at E3 last year, but nobody's made much noise about it in the interim.

At the time we were told to expect five-deck management, with over 300 cards to accumulate, a single-player "Card Tower" to scale and a two-player link mode.

There's also a "Recycle machine" for making the most out of duplicate cards, and shops for buying new ones.

Via eurogamer ...

Via engadget


More Info ...

Via engadget

As with some other recent reports concerning the trio of new consoles, we're not asserting that this decibel test is entirely accurate, as the methodology was far from scientific, but the results were interesting -- and a bit unexpected -- to say the least. While users have long since complained that the Xbox 360 kicked out an unusual amount of fan noise courtesy of the overheating problems it's been plagued with, one lucky owner of all three consoles found that Microsoft's unit actually wasn't the biggest racket-maker in the bunch, all things considered. By utilizing a standard handheld decibel meter, he measured the ambient sound output of the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 just after start-up, playing games sans an optical disc, and during disc playback to judge which console is noisiest overall. While results were noticeably mixed, it was concluded that the Xbox 360, on average, was actually the quietest of the bunch, and while the PS3 remained fairly calm initially, an extended period of play threw its fans (and consequently, the noise factor) into overdrive. Interestingly, Nintendo's Wii kept nearly silent during bootup, but after playing a few rounds of Wii Sports, it actually became the loudest of the three, clocking in at 70dB, or nearly 8dB higher than the nearest competitor. Granted, most folks won't notice the background whir when the 5.1s are thumpin' and folks are getting rowdy on the last lap of Excite Truck, but c'mon, this is the stuff we geeks are made to scrutinize, so be sure and hit the read link to make of it all what you will. ...

Via engadget

As with some other recent reports concerning the trio of new consoles, we're not asserting that this decibel test is entirely accurate, as the methodology was far from scientific, but the results were interesting -- and a bit unexpected -- to say the least. While users have long since complained that the Xbox 360 kicked out an unusual amount of fan noise courtesy of the overheating problems it's been plagued with, one lucky owner of all three consoles found that Microsoft's unit actually wasn't the biggest racket-maker in the bunch, all things considered. By utilizing a standard handheld decibel meter, he measured the ambient sound output of the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 just after start-up, playing games sans an optical disc, and during disc playback to judge which console is noisiest overall. While results were noticeably mixed, it was concluded that the Xbox 360, on average, was actually the quietest of the bunch, and while the PS3 remained fairly calm initially, an extended period of play threw its fans (and consequently, the noise factor) into overdrive. Interestingly, Nintendo's Wii kept nearly silent during bootup, but after playing a few rounds of Wii Sports, it actually became the loudest of the three, clocking in at 70dB, or nearly 8dB higher than the nearest competitor. Granted, most folks won't notice the background whir when the 5.1s are thumpin' and folks are getting rowdy on the last lap of Excite Truck, but c'mon, this is the stuff we geeks are made to scrutinize, so be sure and hit the read link to make of it all what you will. ...

Via engadget

As with some other recent reports concerning the trio of new consoles, we're not asserting that this decibel test is entirely accurate, as the methodology was far from scientific, but the results were interesting -- and a bit unexpected -- to say the least. While users have long since complained that the Xbox 360 kicked out an unusual amount of fan noise courtesy of the overheating problems it's been plagued with, one lucky owner of all three consoles found that Microsoft's unit actually wasn't the biggest racket-maker in the bunch, all things considered. By utilizing a standard handheld decibel meter, he measured the ambient sound output of the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 just after start-up, playing games sans an optical disc, and during disc playback to judge which console is noisiest overall. While results were noticeably mixed, it was concluded that the Xbox 360, on average, was actually the quietest of the bunch, and while the PS3 remained fairly calm initially, an extended period of play threw its fans (and consequently, the noise factor) into overdrive. Interestingly, Nintendo's Wii kept nearly silent during bootup, but after playing a few rounds of Wii Sports, it actually became the loudest of the three, clocking in at 70dB, or nearly 8dB higher than the nearest competitor. Granted, most folks won't notice the background whir when the 5.1s are thumpin' and folks are getting rowdy on the last lap of Excite Truck, but c'mon, this is the stuff we geeks are made to scrutinize, so be sure and hit the read link to make of it all what you will. ...

Rock-heads have only just got their hands on the excellent second Guitar Hero instalment, but already developer RedOctane is prepping the next game in the series Guitar Hero: 80s Edition, according to US mag EGM.

The 80s-enthused version is apparently due on PS2 this Spring, with no word on an Xbox 360 edition as yet (Guitar Hero II is out on 360 in March). No new features or additions are highlighted in the mag, though we're expecting something more in the way of an expansion pack than a full-blown sequel.

We're currently awaiting official word from Activision on Guitar Hero: 80s edition, and we'll let you know when they get back to us with the good news.

via cvg ...