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GameSpy announced that they have developed a middleware solution to provide online gaming support for the Nintendo Wii. According to GameSpy, their tools will allow friend lists, online rankings and matchmaking for the Wii. As previously announced, the first game to utilize online Wi-Fi gaming for the Wii will be Pokemon Battle Revolution, shipping on June 25. GameSpy’s press release indicates that the game will have online support similar to existing DS titles, which would seem to indicate that the friend code structure used on the handheld (and in the Japanese release of Battle Revolution) will be used again. Whether third-parties (or Nintendo) can move away from the friend code structure in the future is unclear.
Read More 
| Yahoo News
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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
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
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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
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
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
This Week’s Virtual Console Titles
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, SEGA, Wii,
Nintendo continues to drop additional Virtual Console titles for the Wii; this week three new titles are available, one each for the NES, SNES, and Genesis. The biggest title this week would probably be Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts for the SNES at 800 Points. The game is one of the classic platformers for the SNES and was known for its graphical excellence on the console as well as its strong difficulty.
Sword of Vermillion at 800 Points for the Genesis is worth more as a novelty than anything else. The game is an early RPG, developed by AM2. AM2 is probably more well known for their arcade efforts, including Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter, but Sword of Vermillion does little but give some insight into the development team’s history. There are some interesting action-RPG type elements in the game, but otherwise, the title isn’t really that interesting.
Elevator Action for the NES at 500 Points steps back in time to early arcade-style gameplay. There’s not a lot of depth here, and it might be worth tracking down the original arcade version rather than playing the NES port, but there are worse games than this for the NES.
Nintendo’s full press release continues below.
Click to continue reading This Week’s Virtual Console Titles
Stock Sale Gags Nintendo At GDC
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Chris Kohler at Game|Life is reporting that a major stock trade in Japan is restricting what Nintendo will be able to say and announce at the Game Developer’s Conference next week. Because of this trade, Nintendo executives and developers will not be able to give any new information to the press due to stock trade laws controlling forward-looking statements. This may cause problems with Shigeru Miyamoto’s scheduled keynote, and any other new product announcements Nintendo might wish to make during the conference. The odd part this revelation is that Nintendo itself requested that the Japanese government initiate the trade, which makes the timing of the request very strange. With Sony already looking to possibly show off their new community features and upcoming game releases like Killzone, and Microsoft also showing off their latest content and hardware offerings, this may push Nintendo into the background.
Read More | Game|Life
PCMag Loves Wii, Doesn’t Know How to Play Wii Sports Baseball
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Reviews, Simulation, Sports, Wii,
The Wii has already seen heaps of praise from major news sources sources such as The NY Times and The Washington Post. Well, some of those major reviewers are still catching up on with the Wii love bandwagon… this time it’s self-proclaimed console gaming hater John C. Dvorak over at PC Magazine.
For all the praise he heaps on the Wii, though, it seems like he didn’t read the instruction manual. Just look at this quote about how you’re supposed to pitch in Wii Sports Baseball:
Those news reports about people losing control of their controller and hitting the dog? They seem to stem from the baseball simulation, where you create a 100-mph curve ball by letting go of your controller while it’s still strapped to your wrist. And you thought real pitchers had it tough.
Is there some sacrasm I’m missing there? Or is Mr. Dvorak going to be next in line for a Wii replacement strap soon?
Read More | PC Magazine.com
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