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  PAL PlayStation Store Update

  Is Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix available this week on the PAL PlayStation Store? Let’s check! Hmm…no, no Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix that I can see. Again. Which leaves the PAL Store update looking a little worse for wear. Oh, except for Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. That’s probably worth looking…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  Xbox 360 Lolita Arcade Shmup Gets Release Date

  Xbox 360 port of Cave’s Lolita arcade shooter has finally gotten a release date. It is April 23. Hooray! As we previously posted, there’s also a limited edition of the game (priced at ¥9,240 — US$103) besides the regular edition. The limited edition version also includes a soundtrack CD as well. Amazon Japan is offering…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  EA Hit The Reset Button On Need For Speed Franchise, 3 New Games Coming

  It’s official: the sheen has well and truly worn off the Need for Speed franchise. Once a guaranteed smash, recent titles have under-performed badly, leading EA to announce a total reboot for the series. Speaking with Eurogamer, EA have revealed that there’ll be three new NFS games released in 2009, the idea being to seperate…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  Microsoft Talks Future of Halo Wars And Ensemble Studios

  Just because Ensemble Studios is dead that does not mean the studios’ Halo Wars are gone. The game will live on! As Jason Pace, Halo Wars lead producer and MGS Halo franchise overseer, points out, Ensemble is forming a new company and will help support the game with bug patches and whatnot. When asked about…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  Is The iPhone Getting A New “Premium” Games Store?

  There are hundreds of games on the iPhone at the moment. Problem is, most of them are awful, little more than rubbish flash games with a $0.99 price tag. According to a report on PocketGamer, however, Apple may be looking at a way to get around this, by dividing the App Store‘s games into two…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  PlatinumGames Launches Website, Promises To “Get It”

  MadWorld developer PlatinumGames sends its new English language website into orbit today. The site’s first post lays out the site’s M.O. Japanese game companies are notorious for not “getting it”. They are thought of as slow moving, orthodox, and out of touch. One of the places where Japanese companies seem to not “get it” is…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  Let’s Break Down Nintendo’s Biggest Selling Wii Games (Let’s!)

  You’ve seen us break down Nintendo’s DS sales. Now let’s look at the Wii sales! Since this includes the Christmas quarter, sales are looking good, in both Japan and The West. These are the sales numbers for the period April 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, and include not just total Wii game sales, but…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  Nintendo’s 2009 Launch Schedule Includes Punch Out

  Nintendo announced its “Launch Schedule of Primary NINTENDO Products by Region (Jan. 2009～)” for Japan, The United States and Europe. There’s hardware, there’s software, there’s Nintendo, and there’s Giant Reggie Face. Japan • Nintendo DS DS Uranai Seikatsu 2009/1/15 Mario and Luigi RPG 3!!! 2009/2/11 Rittai Picross 2009/3/12 Tomodachi Collection(Temp.) 2009 Famicom Wars DS2(Temp.) 2009…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  Let’s Break Down Nintendo’s Biggest Selling DS Games (Let’s!)

  Nintendo has released the financial findings for its Nintendo DS games sold last year. Included are the numbers for the April 1 – December 31, 2008 financial period as well as the breakdown for Japan and overseas. What’s more, there are new life-to-date totals for the games. Here’s the breakdown: Brain Age: Train Your Brain…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  Survey: 47% Of PC Game Purchases Are Digital

  Getting sales data for the PC market is hard. The NPD Group try, but they don’t cover digital downloads, so there are big holes in their data. Enter Rock Paper Shotgun’s ginormous reader survey. In an effort to try and get a sense of how many PC purchases are of the digital variety, the PC-focused…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  Bruce Shelly And Ensemble Studios Say “Goodbye and Thanks”

  Ensemble Studios is being shuttered. The studio’s Bruce Shelly leaves us with one last (and bittersweet) blog post. He writes: “My expectation is that this is the final ES blog that I will write. I have enjoyed pulling it together for the past several years and sharing with you what I could about the inside…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 30, 2009
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  This Is The New Xbox Experience That Could Have Been

  Design firm Grid/plane worked with Microsoft on early design ideas for the New Xbox Experience. While the NXE we ended up with is a different beast, it’s interesting looking at what could have been. While Grid/plane’s ideas obviously centred around a new menu system, they also “dreamt up an immersive 3D environment for users to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2009
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  Has “Something Big Gone Wrong” At Nintendo?

  Respected analyst Hiroshi Kamide thinks so. Following Nintendo’s announcement last night of a cut in profit forecasts, Kamide thinks the revision was made because the company know “something big has gone wrong”. “Today’s revision suggests that the roaring pace of Wii growth that we’ve seen until now may be over”, Kamide told The Times. “The…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 29, 2009
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  SEGA Making 20 Player Mecha Arcade Game

  Border Break: SEGA NETWORK ROBOT WARS is an upcoming, well, networked robot wars arcade game from, yes, SEGA. There’s not an official image of the game yet, but rather, a large question mark placeholder. The game will be unveiled at the upcoming AOU Show in Japan. What we do know: Border Break supports up to…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 29, 2009
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  Batman: Arkham Asylum Screenshots, Trailer

  While one Batman game lies rotting in the dirt, another, more promising title lives on. And it’s been a while since we heard/saw anything on Batman: Arkham Asylum, so let’s go take a look! Or, more importantly, let’s take a listen. Ah, Mark Hamill. You were born to play Luke Skywalker, but we live to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 29, 2009
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  Here Are Good Ways To Study English Says Japan

  In Japan, there’s a great interest in learning the English language. It’s big business. Japanese speakers have several options to learn the King’s lingo. These are the most popular. Based on data from internet information sharing company iSHARE INC., 413 individuals answered a poll covering how they studied English. Out of the sample group, 52.3…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published January 29, 2009
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  Rumor: Need For Speed PSP, EA Canada Staffers Axed

  Another batch of Vancouver area game developers are looking for work, as sources tell us that EA Canada‘s Burnaby location was the latest to be hit by Electronic Arts’ ongoing layoffs. The count numbered as many as 55 EA staffers, according to a regularly reliable source, one who tells us that the cuts might also…

  By Michael McWhertor Published January 29, 2009
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  Get Secondhand Lands For Free

  There are two things everyone needs when the economy’s down: free stuff and a lot of laughs. Looks like you can get at least one of those from Secondhand Lands. Secondhand Lands is a fantasy satire MMORPG starring such parodies as the Sugar Prune Fairy, Princess Pwnies of the Apocalypse and cable trolls. Starting today,…

  By AJ Glasser Published January 29, 2009
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  Take A Closer Look At Halo 3’s Mythic Map Pack

  The official Austrian Xbox blog has posted a few screenshots of Halo 3‘s Mythic Map Pack, along with – for the first time – some names and descriptions to go along with them. The first map – Sandbox – has a variety of vehicles at your disposal, as well as allowing extensive modification via Forge.…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 29, 2009
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  Indiana Jones And The Staff Of Kings Revealed In New Nintendo Power

  We’ve already seen the trailer and been properly prepared by Nintendo Power‘s own teasing, so the cover treatment given to Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings isn’t exactly a shocker. But we’ll take it! The March issue of Nintendo Power promises the first (print, we assume) look at LucasArts’ next Indy adventure, in which…

  By Michael McWhertor Published January 29, 2009