Michael McWhertor

What Was 2008’s Best Selling Game In The U.S.?

To be honest, we’re still not sure. The NPD Group released data for the “Top Selling Games Annual 2008” with Wii Play coming in at number one, boasting 5.28 million copies sold. Wii Play‘s sales for the year beat out Grand Theft Auto IV with a combined total of 5.18 million copies sold on the…

December’s Biggest Game In The U.S. Is… Wii Play

Call of Duty: World at War couldn’t win the battle against the Wii in December, selling 150,000 units shy of Wii Play‘s staggering 1.46 million copies. Yes, that’s a lot of Wii Remotes. The mini-game compilation and NPD top ten mainstay fought off the Xbox 360 version of the latest Call of Duty handily. Factoring…

Nintendo Breaks More Sales Records, Sells Over 5 Million Consoles In December

The holidays were very merry for Nintendo which sold 3.04 million Nintendo DS handhelds during the month of December, ending 2008 with the best-selling console in the United States, blowing far past the console competition. Nintendo hardware secured the top spot last month — as it had done every month in 2008 — thanks to…

Guitar Hero: Metallica Dated For North America

Metallica’s own Guitar Hero game will be riding the lightning on its way to retail shelves on March 29 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, according to the band’s official site. The second-class consoles, Wii and PlayStation 2, will get their own versions of Guitar Hero: Metallica, but not until Spring, which translates to…

DICE Rolls Out Speakers: Riccitiello, Takeuchi Will Say Awesome Things

This year’s DICE Summit is bringing in the video gaming industry’s big guns. Who will be talking about the business of Designing, Innovating, Communicating and Entertaining? EA’s John Riccitiello for one, with an encore performance. Riccitiello will join Resident Evil 5 director Jun Takeuchi, Chris Cao, creative director of Sony Online Entertainment Austin, and Fallout…

Molyneux Deems LittleBigPlanet “Most Important Creative Innovation” Of ’08

Lionhead Studios main man, Peter Molyneux, has gushed once again about Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet. He’s nominated the PlayStation 3 game as “the most important creative innovation of the last twelve months.” (We agree.) Sir Molyneux has lauded the creative platformer before, telling the BBC the game was a product of “superb artistry and a fantastic…

Dissidia, Monster Hunter Top Japan’s No-Release Week

With virtually nothing hitting Japanese retail shelves this past week, 2008’s biggest releases got another chance to shine, sales-wise. That keeps Square-Enix’s Dissidia: Final Fantasy at the number one spot for one more week. Somewhat surprisingly, Capcom’s mega-hit Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G rockets up to the second place spot. That’s the budget version, the…

Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg Talks CES, Xbox 360 In ’09 And Beyond

We caught up with Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE, to chat about the console’s presence at CES, the year ahead and the number 17 million. While Greenberg was appropriately coy about the Xbox 360’s upcoming line-up beyond what has been announced — yes, there are more games…

Sony Surveying Gamers On Next PSP Features?

Sony may be testing the waters of public opinion on the direction of the next PlayStation Portable, surveying gamers on a host of new hardware and software features for a possible PSP2. Kotaku reader Charlie forwarded us details on the survey, which asks a the participant to rank a suite of currently unavailable features from…

Judge Upholds $28 Million Award To Retired NFL Players Over Madden Suit

U.S. District Judge William Alsup upheld a decision to award retired NFL players $28.1 million in the group’s lawsuit against the league’s player union over allegations they were cheated by an unfavorable deal with EA. A federal jury ruled in November that the former NFL players were due $7.1 million for the use of their…

Bioh4zard 2 Recreates Resident Evil 2 In Left 4 Dead

We can become pretty calloused toward user created mods, but when someone goes to the effort of recreating Resident Evil 2‘s entire scenario in Valve’s Left 4 Dead, our cold hearts melt. Such is the case with Bioh4zard 2, a work-in-progress user created campaign that recreates the locations — but not necessarily the exact events…

Here’s What PlayStation 3’s Dress Looks Like

Sony introduced Dress to Japanese PlayStation 3 owners today, the fashion application that allows users to design new clothing and dress up their avatars — for a price, of course. How does it look? Well, the clothing looks good, considering Sony has partnered with real-life brands like Puma and Beams to give Dress users ready-to-wear…

LocoRoco 2? Cheap!

Sony is letting you have LocoRoco2 for a song. In brand new video game terms, that’s $19.99 USD or, in SCEA pricing terms “the cost of just two movie tickets.” Following a PSP pricing strategy similar to the one SCEA used with the original Patapon, the sub-twenty dollar scheme may simply be a “please, please,…

Prep Up Your NXE Avatar With New Threads

Your New Xbox Experience avatar just got a wardrobe booster, thanks to the fashionistas at Microsoft and Rare. It’s a noticeably preppy update to the Avatar closet, perfect for a weekend beach house getaway. Fans of polos, cardigans, chinos and other yacht-appropriate casual wear will want to deck out their Avatars with the latest threads.…

Rumor: Next Grand Theft Auto Could Hit By The Holidays

We’d think that the next proper Grand Theft Auto game, Xbox 360-exclusive expansions notwithstanding, is a long way off. Not Game Informer, though. The magazine is reportedly expecting the next entry by end of year. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Didn’t Grand Theft Auto IV just ship? Well, if Game Informer’s “Loose Talk” is correct, pegging…

.hack Is Coming Back On PSP

The latest issue of Famitsu has confirmation on the next video game episode long-running, but niche appealing .hack series from CyberConnect. .hack//LINK is making the jump from manga to the PSP in 2009. In what we’re guessing is an attempt to glom on to the success of Capcom’s Monster Hunter Portable series, CyberConnect and (we’re…

Kojima “Addicted” To Left 4 Dead, Considers Renouncing His Japanese Status

The man behind Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima, has got Left 4 Dead fever, a first-person shooter addiction rare in the typical Japanese video game fan. “Maybe I should quit being Japanese,” Kojima joked. In a newly published Famitsu interview, by way of 1UP, the Kojima Productions head worries further about the disparity between Japanese…

Rumor: EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios Down Under

Electronics Arts has shuffled off Pandemic Studios’ Brisbane office, a reliable source tells Kotaku. The Australian developer was best known for Destroy All Humans! and its rumored development of an ill-fated Batman game. According to the information we were provided, Pandemic’s Brisbane staffers weren’t necessarily laid off by EA corporate, which purchased the developer alongside…

New Game Informer Reveals Activision’s Singularity

The February issue of Game Informer drops a “world exclusive” on us, Activision and Raven Software’s Singularity. What is it? A sci-fi shooter, if you can possibly believe that. According to the magazine’s teaser, Singularity “features mind-bending gameplay that not only has the player jumping through time, but using it as a weapon.” You get…

Analyst Dates PlayStation 3 Price Drop For April

Microsoft says its anticipating a PlayStation 3 price drop in the “springtime,” but what about the video game industry’s best-known analysts? One has pegged Sony for a PS3 price cut as early as April. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has consulted the spirit world (and probably a spreadsheet or two, to be fair) bringing back…