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How Many Copies Does A WiiWare Game Need To Sell?
Last week, Gamasutra heard whispers about Nintendo placing sales criteria on WiiWare games. If developers didn’t reach them, they wouldn’t get paid. Well, we now know just how many they need to sell. Courtesy of a developer “familiar” with the subject, these are the targets a WiiWare game has to meet before the creators start…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2009 -
Unused Miyamoto Touch Screen RPG
Back before the DS was released, Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto was conceptualizing a touch-screen role-playing-game. The game’s patent has recently popped up online, and the RPG is heavy with RPG cliches (monsters, random battles, etc.). Though, the game does offer a fresh take on the genre. During combat, the monsters move in patterns,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 20, 2009 -
GPS For Your DS Lite
If you’re ever packing your DS Lite and end up lost in the jungle/emerging from a crashed plane in the Andes, you’ll be thankful if you bothered to purchase the “Ranger”. This unofficial Chinese…dongle, I guess we’ll call it, brings a full suite of global positioning capabilities to the handheld, featuring Google Maps support in…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2009 -
Nintendo Shares: So, So Oversold
According to financial experts Barron’s, shares in Nintendo are now “oversold”. Sounds bad! “Oversold” basically means that shares in a company have fallen too far, too fast. Like a knee-jerk reaction. Or, like what’s happened to Nintendo shares over the past few weeks, as falling sales data (particularly in Japan) has led many bandwagon jumpers…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 20, 2009 -
Wii Ghostbusters Debut Trailer
The debut trailer for the Wii version of Ghostbusters showcases the more cartoony art direction of the game, which is being handled by a studio different from the one that built the next-gens’ title. You can catch it over at VE3D. [via VE3D]
By Owen Good Published April 18, 2009 -
Nintendo Stock Takes A Hit
The market didn’t take the news of Nintendo’s year-over-year drop in Wii sales well. Despite having the bestselling hardware in the United States, that 17% drop in sales did some damage to Nintendo’s stock price. While the week was mostly positive for Nintendo—it had announced sales of 435,000 Nintendo DSi handhelds in its first week—it…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 17, 2009 -
Adult Gaming on the DS: The Chinatown Conundrum
With 100 million DS and DSi in the hands of gamers worldwide, Nintendo’s portable is a mighty tempting platform for developers. So why are only seven of the nearly 1,100 games for the DS rated Mature? A popular argument is that Nintendo’s portable is for kids and soccer moms only, something that the Japanese developer…
By Brian Crecente Published April 17, 2009 -
G.I. Joe DS Screens From The Top Down
Few publishers are brave enough to send us DS screenshots as large as the ones we received for EA’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. As Crecente reported last month, the Nintendo DS version of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a top-down action game with role-playing elements in which the player takes one…
By Mike Fahey Published April 17, 2009 -
MadWorld Sells 66K In The U.S., Sega Seems Pleased
NPD sales numbers procured by Gamasutra reveal that Sega’s M-rated tongue-in-cheek blood bath MadWorld sold 66,000 copies in the U.S. following its March launch, and the publisher feels encouraged. Despite a respectable Metacritic score of 82 percent, the M-rated MadWorld didn’t exactly explode off of the shelves when Sega released it last month. The stylishly…
By Mike Fahey Published April 17, 2009 -
Nintendo: Not Everyone Has Played Brain Age
With the gajillion titles of Brain Age and its sequel Nintendo has sold, you’d think pretty much everyone has played the game. You’re wrong. “Some people might think that, given the huge sales of the Brain Training series, there can’t possibly be anyone out there who hasn’t played it, but that’s not true at all”,…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 17, 2009 -
DSi Sells 435,000 In United States
If any of you were wondering whether the DSi would sell, what with some considering it an over-priced luxury, please, stop wondering. It’s selling just fine. Turns out there are plenty of people who either didn’t yet have a DS, or were swayed by the new handheld’s bigger screens and multimedia capabilities, because Nintendo have…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 17, 2009 -
Nintendo Responds To March NPD Sales, Seems Pleased
Sales were down for Nintendo over the same time last year, but Iwata & Co. aren’t bothered. And why would they be, when the company accounted for 58% of total hardware sales for the month. Yes, 600,000 Wiis and 563,000 DS handhelds sold would be cause for celebration enough, but add in the fact that…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 16, 2009 -
Resident Evil, Pokemon, Halo Top March Software Sales
February‘s U.S. software champ, Wii Fit, didn’t have the strength to fight off the combined forces of Resident Evil 5, Pokemon Platinum and Halo Wars, the top three bestselling games in March. The Xbox 360 version of the survival horror adventure walked away with the number one spot, moving 938,000 copies to U.S. consumers. Its…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 16, 2009 -
Nintendo Continues U.S. Hardware Dominance, Industry Hit Hard In March
Nintendo hardware continued to move in excess of over one million units a month in March, but the video game industry saw a severe drop in spending year-over-year, resulting in a 17% drop in revenue. Nintendo’s Wii and DS platforms held strong as the best and second-best selling hardware in March, moving a combined 1.16…
By Michael McWhertor Published April 16, 2009 -
EA Founder: The iPhone Is FREAKING OUT Sony, Nintendo
Trip Hawkins founded EA. He also did the 3DO, and is slightly mad, so you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt. Regardless, this is interesting. Speaking with VentureBeat, Hawkins – who now heads a mobile gaming company – says: Between the iPod Touch and the iPhone, I think the platform…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 16, 2009 -
DSi Includes New Anti-Piracy Protection?
The DSi doesn’t just include some hardware upgrades and the ability to download games directly to the system, it might also include more robust anti-piracy software as well. Reports of some DS games, perhaps bootlegged copies of these games, not working on the DSi have started to show up in our mailbox and on several…
By Brian Crecente Published April 15, 2009 -
The Conduit Multiplayer In Action
The latest trailer for High Voltage Software’s Wii shooter The Conduit gives a glimpse at the game’s robust online multiplayer gameplay. Of course robust online multiplayer is all relative when we’re talking the Nintendo Wii, but High Voltage is packing as much as they possible can into The Conduit. The originally promised 16-players online had…
By Mike Fahey Published April 15, 2009 -
Don’t Expect MotionPlus To Improve Your Old Wii Games
Do you think that – like trophy support on the PS3 – there is scope on the Wii for the new MotionPlus technology to be introduced for older games? Don’t be so optimistic. Responding to speculation that developers would be doing just that, Nintendo have told GameDaily “The Wii MotionPlus accessory is only for games…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 15, 2009 -
Yup, MotionPlus Ships Inside A Rubber Prison
Those whispers were right on the money: as you can see from the new Wii accessory’s packaging, MotionPlus will ship not as an elegant little add-on, but as a cumbersome rubber straitjacket. Yes, Nintendo needed to get a “new” jacket out there for insurance/legal reasons. And yes, like the old jacket, we’re sure MotionPlus just…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 15, 2009