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NiGHTS Wii

Game magazine Maxi Consolas has preview screens and an interview with designer Takeshi Iizuka about the upcoming sequel to the original NiGHTS Into Dreams on the Sega Saturn. The original game was a psychelic, “dream-like” game world that was introduced on the Saturn with the 3-D controller; it has been over ten years since the game’s original release, and NiGHTS fans still haven’t stopped clamoring for a sequel. NintendoGal has scans of the magazine, and a loose translation of the interview with Iizuka. From the interview, it sounds like NiGHTS and the Wii controller will be a good match, and hopefully Sonic Team can get back on track with this release.

Read More | Nintendo Gal

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Mario & Sonic

Nintendo and Sega today announced that two icons of past console wars, Mario and Sonic, will be teaming up for a licensed game set at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Titled Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, the new title will be available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS. No official pricing or launch date was set for the titles, but additional details have been revealed in an interview held between Sega and Nintendo representatives and N’Gai Croal at the Level Up blog. While the interview tends to focus a little more on the rivalry between the two companies, a few nuggets of development information can be found. First, while Sega will apparently be handling the development of the game, Shigeru Miyamoto will be overseeing the development process to some degree. Also, Sega’s Sonic Team apparently will not be involved, which may be a good thing given the spectacularly bad reviews that Sonic on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 received. This mascot match-up has been a long time coming; here’s hoping it lives up to the hype.

Nintendo and Sega’s press release continues after the jump.

 

Click to continue reading Mario And Sonic Finally Meet

Read More | Level Up

WiikeyReports in Taiwan indicate that Nintendo may be altering the circuit board layout of the Wii to make mod chips more difficult to install. According to Digitimes, however, new modchips to deal with the changed layout may be less than a month away. While these changes probably won’t be difficult to work around, other mod chip installers believe that there are more complex methods available to Nintendo to block modifications for a longer period of time.

Read More | Digitimes

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Romance of the Three Kingdoms IVKoei has been milking the Dynasty Warriors franchise for a while, with seemingly dozens of releases hitting every platform from the PlayStation 2 to the Xbox 360. But the series actually spun off from another franchise for the company, the strategic Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. In fact, the Dynasty Warriors release pattern mirrors that of Romance; take a good idea, and run it into the ground with more releases than the public can handle. Still, the SNES release is one of the better entries into the series, and for 800 Wii Points, one can experience the property as it was originally intended. Having this as the sole retro release this week is a disappointment, however.

Read More | Nintendo

Boogie

Electronic Arts had previously announced both that it would be focusing more of its development efforts on original IP as well as moving resources to Nintendo’s Wii. Today, EA revealed an original IP game for the Wii called Boogie, a party-style game that will combing dancing and karaoke-style gameplay, which would seem to lend credence to a Wii microphone peripheral in the future. The game is being developed by EA Montreal, developers of SSX Blur. The game’s character design definitely looks interesting, and hopefully third-party developers continue to bring original creations to Nintendo’s console.

Read More | Gamasutra

Opera Browser It looks like Nintendo Wii owners will have to wait just a bit more for the final version of the Opera browser. According to GameSpot, Nintendo has announced that the browser, initially scheduled to be finalized in March, has been pushed back a few weeks to an April release. Nintendo claims that the extra time will be used to implement a number of changes including:

improved zoning and scrolling, a better zoomed font, quicker start-up times, faster access to favourites, the ability to erase the toolbar, and pre-set buttons for phrases like www and .com.

A toggle-able toolbar would help for viewing full-screen video and playing Flash-based games on the Wii, and the improvements to scrolling will help as well. With this announcement, it also looks like USB keyboard and mouse support is off the table; with the Wii-remote, this isn’t actually a huge deal, but would help with long input forms.

Read More | GameSpot

The Glowing NunchukFirst there was the the totally sweet glowing A Button, then there was the the multi-color glowing A Button mod. And now, we bring you the glowing Nunchuk mod.

How much longer can it be until some enterprising hacker unveils the multi-color glowing A Button AND Nunchuk mod which will no doubt drain the poor batteries in seconds? I’ll lay money on about 3 weeks…

Read More | WiiCade Forums

SplatterhouseSome times with Nintendo’s Virtual Console releases, it feels like you are getting filler. This week, though, highlights three better than average games that should get those nostalgic feelings flowing again. Excitebike, of course, is Nintendo’s side-scrolling motorbike racer for the NES. Like all NES titles before it, the game sells for 500 Wii points. The other two releases this week might have gotten slightly less attention at first release. Fewer people may have seen Splatterhouse because of the platform it appeared on, but it is a generally decent side-scrolling action game that inspired a number of the survival horror games that would follow. Splatterhouse sells for 600 Wii points. Beyond Oasis is a decent, if a little short, action RPG. The prequel to this story was released as Legend of Oasis on the Sega Saturn. Beyond Oasis sells for 800 Wii points, which might be a bit much for this RPG, but those familiar with the Saturn entry in the series would do well to try the Genesis version out.

Nintendo’s full press release continues below.

Click to continue reading Excitebike, Splatterhouse, Beyond Oasis Hit Virtual Console


Screenshot 1 Nope, it’s not a port of a PS2 or Xbox title, it’s not a me-too entry, and it’s not even a Virtual Console game. CAPCOM today announced their first real, honest-to-goodness Wii exclusive, currently titled Project Treasure Island Z (working title, of course). The adventure game is geared towards puzzle solving with your Wiimote and features crisp, bright slightly cell-shaded graphics, making it look an awful lot like some of the latest Monkey Island entries.

Thanks to the point-n-click abilities of the Wiimote, I’m hoping to see a resurgence in adventure games, that genre of an era gone by. Lucasarts, do you hear me? Telltale? A little Sam and Max love would be nice too :-D. Click the jump for the full press release and the first set of screenshots.

Click to continue reading Capcom Announces First Wii Exclusive Title


Wii February’s NPD data has been released, and things look good for Nintendo. 1up has the details on video game sales for last month, and the Nintendo DS sold 485,000 units, the Wii 335,000. For the rest of the next-generation hardware, Microsoft maintained its sales pace by moving around 228,000 consoles, while the Playstation 3 saw a significant drop to 127,000. The PSP didn’t do much better against the DS, moving 176,000 handhelds.

The only bright spot for Sony would be that in the non-handheld category, the PS2 took second behind the Wii, selling 295,000 units, showing that their now last-generation technology still has plenty of legs at retail. Still, having their PS3 sales drop by nearly half over last month’s sales is a significant change; if new software from Sony can’t change course, the company may have to do something drastic to turn things around.

Microsoft should be pretty happy; while they didn’t lead the pack, the company will surely trumpet their increase in year-over-year sales. That, and having the number one game at retail for the month of February, Crackdown will also help. 1up’s article also further details the rest of the software charts for the month.

Read More | 1up

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