Via dsfanboy

Seeing as how Japan keeps extremely accurate hardware and software sales numbers on a weekly and monthly basis, it comes as no surprise when famed Japanese gaming rag Famitsu releases composite data for the first half of 2006. The question here is not "Did the DS Lite own faces?" but rather, "Exactly how MUCH face did the DS Lite own?" (This was a weak attempt at justifying the picture you see to your right...to be honest, I just thought it was hilarious, and decided to post it.)

Let's take a look. From December 26, 2005, to June 25, 2006, the DS and DS Lite have captured a whopping 63% of the hardware market (around 4 million units). That's not the portable market, that's the whole flippin' thing, folks. Second place belongs to the PSP at 16.1% of the total market, followed by the PS2 at 13.5%. GBA/GBASP/GBAMicro follow at 5%, and the Xbox 360 trails with a rather silly-sounding 1%.

In terms of software, the DS managed to claim seven of the top ten best-selling games in the period. The sequel to Brain Age took first place with over 2.5 million copies sold, followed by Final Fantasy XII for the PS2, and then New Super Mario Bros. in third.

That's a lot of face. ...

New Magazine for the GP2X released, heres the info:


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M-.-n posted this news:


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Gamedaily BIZ has a nice little feature up where they ask if Sony can do something that someone has never done before: dominate the industry for three generations. Based on a report run by BusinessWeek Online, they analyze Sony's high-priced offering and claim that developers are instead diverting resources to the more cost-effective Xbox 360 and Wii. To quote the article:

"At its autumn games preview on July 13, for instance, traditional Sony ally Electronic Arts spent far more time showing off innovative Nintendo games than it did titles for the PS3," emphasized BusinessWeek. "EA announced six Nintendo Wii launch titles and showed long working demos for two of those. But it offered only a short clip of a car-racing game for PS3. EA says it's still testing the potential of the PS3."

Makes sense since the development costs are already extremely high as it is and with the incredibly-cheap process by which developers can make games on the Wii, a process more expensive on the Xbox 360, however less expensive than on the PS3, we're sure to see this occur even more should the Wii strike gold once released to retail. ...

Quite some time ago, Suda 51 announced he was developing an exclusive game for the Wii. As the rather insane mastermind behind the bizarre Killer 7, this was caused a noticeable stir...yet, at E3 2006, nothing was shown.

Flash forward to today, where rival fellow Wii-centric news site The Wiire managed to hack obtain the official trailer for the game, slated to be shown at E3 by cancelled at the last minute. Though they promise to put up a higher resolution version in the near future, the three and a half minute trailer shows some good stuff.

Cel-shaded in a style similar to Killer 7, Heroes seems to share the assassination themes of its forebear. A man named "Travis Touchdown" uses a lightsaber to kill "Helter Skelter" and...well, maybe you should just take a peek yourselves. It's pretty insane.

Seriously, props to The Wiire for obtaining and hosting this video; we would have all our readers head over to their site to check it out. This is exciting, exciting stuff, and Heroes promises to be a HUGE game for the Wii. It's being developed by Grasshopper Manufacturer, and is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2007. ...

Shigeru Miyamoto shared info with IGN about the Wii:

Nintendo game master Shigeru Miyamoto, speaking with Japan's monthly Nintendo Dream as part of the magazine's 10th anniversary festivities, has shared a few intriguing details on the Wii, its controller, and his upcoming games.



Miyamoto first spoke about the origins of the system. "It was very important to have it become 'something that would be best to have there,'" he said, speaking of Nintendo's desire to make the Wii an attractive machine for households. Miyamoto feels that game machines had the status of a desirable household item at one point, but they lost it. The change happened when games "lost their fundamental nature as pure entertainment."

Wii development started with thoughts of "what kind of machine would make for a console that one wants to keep in the home?" The answer was something that doesn't get in the way, something "not frightening." The Wii project also began with the notion of making something "anyone can play, simply using one hand."

Of course, every Wii includes, in addition to the Wii-mote, the nunchuck accessory. Miyamoto explained the origins of the secondary device and its name. When Nintendo first made demo units, the development staff referred to the device as a nunchuck simply because it looked like one. American staffers referred to the device as nunchuck as well, so it became a development code for the device. Eventually, Nintendo investigated the copyright status of the term "nunchuck," learned that it was free to use as a standard word, and went with it.

Nunchuck isn't the precise name for the analog expansion unit that will ship with every Wii, though. Anything that's attached to the Wii-mote in similar fashion to the analog expansion unit is said to be in a nunchuck style position. Anything that's fixed to the remote similar to the gun expansion that was shown at E3 is said to be in zapper style position.

Earlier in development, the Wii-mote was referred to as the "Core Unit." The devices that attached to it were referred to as the "Peripheral Unit." This naming originated when Nintendo came up with the idea of splitting the controller into separate units. The biggest cost to the controller comes from wireless functionality and power consumption. Nintendo realized that by placing these costly capabilities into one device, the Core Unit, they would then be able to make and release a variety of Peripheral Units at cheaper cost to users.

Miyamoto also touched upon one of the last areas of the controller's functionality, its speaker. "We had a lengthy discussion on the matter," said Miyamoto about the decision to include either a speaker or a microphone in the controller.

There was apparently even some consideration of including neither in order to keep the controller from becoming too complicated, but this was vetoed. "Because you're using a wireless, rod-shaped remote control to play, it's important to have feedback and reaction to the actions that you take," said Miyamoto. "Controllers until now have used rumble, but we felt that rumble would be insufficient, and ended up keeping the speaker in."

He let out one bit of information, confirming first if it was okay to reveal it. Nintendo is making a game in which four players play together by passing a single controller around. The controller calls out player names in order to indicate whose turn it is.

He also suggested another idea, a game where the controller quietly gives out secret information to individual players as their turn comes about.

One of the main driving forces for the inclusion of the speaker was third parties. Nintendo actually considered removing the device for cost reasons, but found third parties requesting that it be left in.

Interest wasn't as high inside Nintendo from the start. "When we first started talking about the speaker, there was absolutely no reaction," revealed Miyamoto. This changed when people heard the sound effects generated by the speaker while swinging a sword in Zelda and noted that it sounded like swinging a Light Saber.

Asked about reactions from E3 which claimed it difficult to go back to using a standard controller after having used the Wii controller, Miyamoto said, "That's because once you've gotten used to free style using the remote control, going back to a controller where you use both hands, you're unable to move your hands and end up feeling a lack of freedom. However, I have absolutely no intention of being negative about current controllers. We are, after all, preparing a standard style controller in the form of the Classic Controller."

Miyamoto feels that some games will actually work better with the classic controller. He mentioned F-Zero as one such game.

The dialogue turned at one point to, of all things, left-handed and right-handed gaming. Miyamoto is left-handed, and he said that he's recently been trying to get used to using the remote/nunchuck pair in the "reverse" way -- that is, the ...

LiraNuna has posted a new released of his Wonderswan Emulator for the Nintendo DS:


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Latest Sales for the 10th-16th July

- DS Lite: 140,858
- PSP: 35,283
- PS2: 23,927
- DS Phat: 11,821
- GBA SP: 2,619
- Game Boy Micro: 1,581
- Xbox 360: 1,105
- Gamecube: 928
- GBA: 28
- Xbox: 10

The DS is still gong very strong in Japan, just about everybody there must have one by now ? ...

Remember the new Xbox 360 bundle with PGR3 we thought was coming? Well, a tipster says:

Just saw the sku pop up in our POS screen.
"Xbox 360 PGR Bndl
Price 499.99 Cdn."
Also the company is offering Employees a 360 Plat for $50 off. Looks like with the new sku and price drop, making room for the new Platium system bundle.
He also says there may be some bundle coming up with the HD DVD drive, but nobody's sure of that yet. ...