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Tecmo Bowl Hits Virtual Console
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, Virtual Console, Wii,
The original NES Tecmo Bowl hits the Virtual Console this week, along with Sonic Spinball for the Genesis and Double Dungeons for the TurboGrafx-16. Tecmo Bowl might now be more famous for its gameplay glitches and balance problems than anything else, but despite these, the game still maintains a fun-factor due to nostalgia. Tecmo Bowl has the standard NES pricing, at 500 points. Sonic Spinball is the pinball-based spinoff of the classic platformer; the game isn’t the strongest pinball entry on the Genesis, but as a mix of action from the Sonic franchise and at 800 points, it isn’t all that bad. Finally, Double Dungeons for the TurboGrafx-16 is a dungeon hack-style game; it is interesting in that it supports two player split-screen action through a 3-D first person-style viewpoint, but overall the lack of depth of gameplay makes this title suffer. Still, you only risk 600 Wii points for the game, but you might find better options among the other titles in the Virtual Console back catalog.
Nintendo’s full press release continues below.
Click to continue reading Tecmo Bowl Hits Virtual Console
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NPD Numbers Release Soon, Pachter Makes Predictions
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii,
NPD’s official video game hardware and software sales numbers for February should be released soon. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan has his predictions ahead of the data, as reported by Gamasutra. His predictions have the Wii leading the PS3 again, with an estimated 350,000 consoles sold verses the PS3’s 200,000. The Playstation 2 should still see strong sales numbers, with marginal declines year over year. The Wii numbers seem to reflect the short month along with Nintendo not meeting customer demand; 350,000 seems like a small number to ship into the channel. Pachter also analyzes software sales, pointing to Crackdown, Guitar Hero 2, and Virtua Fighter 5 among the leaders last month.
Read More 
| Gamasutra
A couple of new Wii commercials should start hitting the airwaves in the next week or so and previews of the commercials have been uploaded to YouTube. The commercials do a good job of highlighting the personalization aspect of the Wii, something that really hasn’t been touched on in previous ad campaigns. With added advertising coming soon, will Nintendo step up the console supply to the United States?
The second commercial is linked after the jump.
Click to continue reading New Wii Commercials Highlight “Mii”
GDC: Eiji Aonuma Talks Zelda
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Role Playing Games, Wii,
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess represents somewhat of a rebirth for the franchise, and its creator, Eiji Aonuma, talked about how the turnaround came about. While the Zelda series has certainly hit more high notes than other series, Wind Waker and Four Swords represented a sales disappointment for Nintendo. According to 1up’s report on Aonuma’s talk, the Japanese turned away from Wind Waker because of its complexity, while US audiences couldn’t seem to get past the cartoony look. Nintendo was determined to turn this around with Twilight Princess and the return to a more realistic look was only part of the equation. A number of the design decisions, such as the dual world and the Wii remote controls are discussed by Aonuma, giving some great insight into how Nintendo turned the feedback they were getting from Wind Waker into the massively popular and critically acclaimed Twilight Princess.
Read More | 1up
Playstation 3 Home Beta Placeholder Site Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3,
Following Phil Harrison’s PlayStation Home announcement at the GDC, Sony has put up a placeholder site for the beta trial of the service, scheduled to start in April. Right now, there is nothing but a splash page, but the site recommends that gamers keep checking in for sign up instructions when the beta program is ready to go. Those gamers that find long lists of legalese entertaining can also read the end user license agreement and the terms and conditions of the beta online.
Read More | Home Beta Trial
Miyamoto GDC Keynote Roundup
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Shigeru Miyamoto’s GDC Keynote got a lot of coverage around the web; as expected there was little in the way of real announcements due to an information blackout enforced by Nintendo’s upcoming stock sale, but there were a few tidbits to be had, like a new Mii Channel that will allow users to compare Miis and have contests. Miyamoto also led attendees know that Super Mario Galaxy will be coming this year as he showed off a little of the game in development.
The rest of the keynote really seemed to focus on the development process at Nintendo. Miyamoto touched on expanding their gaming audience using his “Wife-O-Meter” to gauge casual gamer interest in what the company is working on. He also discussed Nintendo’s entertainment focus, and how their hardware and software teams collaborated to bring the Wii remote about. The last two ideas he focused on were risk, Nintendo’s willingness to experiment and fail, and tenacity, the way that Miyamoto focuses on ideas that may take years to come to fruition. Overall, the keynote offered more insight into the mind of Miyamoto than into anything Nintendo has in the works for the future. It wasn’t as product focused as Phil Harrison’s keynote but it was still worthwhile to understand how Nintendo’s game master works. In terms of GDC coverage, 1up and Eurogamer seemed to be the most detailed, but Gizmodo has a great gallery up of pictures from the event.
Update: The Super Mario Galaxy trailer is now linked above; this game looks insane…
Read More 
| 1up
Read More | Eurogamer
Read More | Gizmodo
Read More | Joystiq
One of the more interesting and quirky titles to hit the Nintendo DS last year was the rhythm game Elite Beat Agents, which was a follow-up to the successful Japanese title Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. At the GDC, iNiS Vice President of Development Keichi Yano spoke about the process in localizing and adapting a uniquely Japanese title for American audiences, and Gamasutra has a summary of his remarks. Yano talked about his first title, Guitaroo Man, which gathered a cult following in the US, but never sold particularly well, and his move to portable platforms with Ouendan. In localizing Ouendan, Yano apparently experimented with a number of different looks for the Agents in the game, including a set that looked somewhat like the Village People. Yano also dropped some hints about the upcoming Japanese sequel to Ouendan as well; it seems doubtful that the game will have a direct port in the US, but certainly a lot of the ideas for the Japanese sequel could be used for a future Elite Beat Agents 2, should one be developed. For those that enjoyed Elite Beat Agents, it is definitely worth importing the Japanese original, if only to see the origins of Yano’s music game.
Read More | Gamasutra
Read More | Famitsu (Session Images)
Nintendo’s Second Quarter Titles Announced
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Release Dates, Wii,
Nintendo announced today their second quarter line-ups for both the Wii and the DS today, and while there are a lot of titles listed, unfortunately the latest Metroid didn’t make the list. Still, there seems to be a lot to offer, including the arrival of Super Paper Mario on April 9th, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and Mario Party 8 in May, and Big Brain Academy and Pokemon Battle Revolution in June. Pokemon Battle Revolution will be the first online-enabled game for the Wii. On the DS side, gamers can look forward to the latest RPG entry in the Pokemon series for handhelds, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. It looks like the DS browser will also finally hit the US DS in June as well.
The full press release and release list continues below.
Click to continue reading Nintendo’s Second Quarter Titles Announced
PS3’s Game 3.0: LittleBigPlanet
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Culture, Internet, PlayStation 3,
The main software title that Phil Harrison used to demonstrate what he believed to be the key differentiating factors for Game 3.0 was the Media Molecule title LittleBigPlanet. Scheduled for release in 2008, with a demo coming this fall, the title shows off an amazing visual design and overall look-and-feel, with impressive physics modeling as well. But beyond the normal gameplay, Sony’s hope for the title is that it will encourage community contributed content in the form of user-designed levels featuring custom designed environments. Overall, the game got a huge response from the GDC keynote crowd and looks to be one of the strongest console-exclusive titles coming to the Playstation 3.
Read More | 1up
EA Partners With MTV, Harmonix
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Electronic Arts, Music,
EA announced at the GDC that they would be publishing a new title from the MTV/Harmonix partnership. While Harmonix has been booted off of the Guitar Hero franchise with Activision’s acquisition of Red Octane, the next title from one of the big names in the music game genre is drawing a lot of attention. Unfortunately, aside from the detail that EA is publishing this next mystery game and that the parties involved believe that this is their most ambitious title to date. It may be hard to follow up the fantastic success of the the Guitar Hero games, but Harmonix may be the developer to do this.
Read More | Mercury News
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