Monthly Archives: July 2009

A Telltale Games programmer has revealed on the firm’s official forums that iPhone is much more powerful than Wii.

The reasoning for the comment stemmed from complaints regarding framerate issues with the WiiWare version of Tales of Monkey Island.

According to a programmer, developers were limited to 40 megs for WiiWare because of hardware and file size restrictions, where as PC titles created were usually around 150 megs.

“The voices and textures are the way they are because we’re limited to 40 megs for WiiWare titles,” he stated. “The PC versions of our games are usually 150+ megs, and most modern games range anywhere from one to ten gigabytes or more. Talk to Nintendo about this one.

“Frame rate issues will probably get sorted out eventually, but keep in mind that the Wii is just not a powerful console. An iPhone is much more powerful than a Wii, even. The Wii and DS are extremely underpowered and their popularity doesn’t remove the hardware limitations.”

Yikes.

Thanks, GI.biz.

Square’s The Four Warriors of Light: A Final Fantasy Anecdote is set to arrive on DS October 29 in Japan.

The 2D RPG has a video for it posted after the jump courtesy of GameTrailers.

No word yet on a US or UK release.

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Assassin’s Creed 2 was on hand at Comic-Con, and there is a video posted after the break showing off the developers panel.

Courtesy of GamerTrailers, it has gameplay footage, a new form of assassination, and a double assassination.

Getting exciting.

Game’s out on PC, PS3, and 360 November 17.

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Gameloft has reported that the company saw a 20 percent increase in sales during the first half of 2009.

Figures released showed a 22 percent increase during Q1 and 17 percent in Q2, putting the publisher’s sales at EUR 60.1 million with a 16 percent growth.

Mobile sales accounted for 95 percent with console sales accounting for 5 percent. North American sales netted the largest growth bringing in 39 percent of sales and Europe representing 38 percent, which is being attributed to sales of iPod and iPhone game titles.

Thanks, GI.biz.

Sony has recorded a loss for the first quarter of 2009 with console sales, and software sales were down as well.

PS3 software sales hit 14.8 million units which is down year-over-year from 22.8 million.

PSP software was also down, with 8.3 million first-party titles sold compared to 11.8 YoY.

Software sales also fell to 8.5 million units for PS2, down from 19.3 million in 2008.

More via GI.biz.

doublesix announced today that its PSN title, Burn Zombie Burn, has achieved sales of 70,000 units

On top of that, studio head James Brooksby, commented that he wished platform holders would be more transparent with digital sales figures.

“We’re clearly delighted that ‘Burn Zombie Burn’ is performing well,” he said. “It’s our first experience of digital console publishing and we’ve found the entire process very exciting and rewarding.

“However, I do wish that all the platform owners would make their digital sales figures public. We feel this lack of transparency is hindering the development of these channels. We’re happy to back this opinion up with the release of the figures for ‘Burn Zombie Burn’. The game has now reached our internal sales target of 70,000 copies sold worldwide and that’s without the upcoming expansion packs, bundles, comic, player guide, Home space, competitions, Asian release etc.

“As a developer trying to decide which platforms to develop for, as well as what type of games to make, we’re currently in the dark regarding real sales performance for digital platforms and that makes it increasingly difficult to make realistic plans.

“I’d like to see some kind of verified sales charts on all digital systems to encourage more developers to support these channels and to help make sensible investment decisions.”

Full press release below
More »

Amazon has Gran Turismo 5 listed for December 29 in the US and is accepting preorders for the game at $56.99.

This could either be true, an approximation or pure speculation on Amazon’s part, but it is due this year sometime.

Sony’s response to CVG on the matter was: “We haven’t announced a release date for GT5 yet and can’t comment on the US”.

Until then, get your fix with Gran Turismo PSP come October 1.

That’s right. Screenshot overload.

Atari has sent us over no less than 53 lovely pictures of Star Trek Online.

Have you seen some of these? More than likely. Have you seen all of them? Probably not.

Hit the jump for the full gallery.

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Mythic has announced that Mac users will soon be able to play Warhammer Online with the PC users this fall.

The Beta of the Mac version of Warhammer Online will allow current players to download a client to their Mac computers and play with their live game accounts.

Players who do not have an existing live account, can download a 10-day beta trial account and receive an exclusive title and trophy reward for their characters within the game.

To get in on the Beta and get the 10-day free trial hit this link.

Press release is through the break.
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Software figures for Nintendo were down during the quarter, just like the hardware sales.

DS software sales hit 29.09 million compared with the same quarter last year which netted 36.69 million. However, DS software sales in Japan were up 7.17 million units compared to 4.93 million last year.

Wii software sales came in at 31.07 million compared with 40.41 million for the same period last year and software sales were down by over half in Japan.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Hidden in the PDF file we posted earlier for you chock full of Nintendo financials for Q1, were figures for lifetime sales of current Nintendo consoles.

Well, just for Wii and DSi really.

Here’s the rub:

Wii: 52.6 million
DSi: 6.7 million

Note that the DSi launched in Europe on April 3, followed by North America three days later. It debuted in Japan November 1, 2008.

The US Home update is live and it includes the Movie Theater, with a brand-new 10-screen layout, a new lobby, and the ability to unlock rewards in select screening rooms. Future updates include the possibility of full-length TV shows or movies, and not just videos.

Burn Zombie Burn has a crypt for lounging in while you watch Burn Zombie Burn videos, a zombie-infested maze mini-game where you’ll be challenged to find your way out before you get zombified, and an exclusive reward.

The first wave of MotorStorm content will be arriving with MotorStorm Pacific Rift Game Launching functionality soon, just like in Europe. Same with the new Fat Princess space.

US Home users can find out more over on the US PS Blog.

A video for Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 has landed on IGN.

It’s more or less a music video featuring zombies and zombie dogs coming after everyone and getting shot and blown up in the process.

Rather entertaining.

The new DLC includes three new multiplayer maps and one zombie level.

It’s out in August.

Watch after the jump.

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Irem Software announced in Japan that a sequel to R-Type Command is in development and is called: R-Type Tactics II: Operation Bitter Chocolate.

The premise of the sequel has two human factions at war with the same types of weapons as the previous iteration. However, there are over 200 units this time around and some extra abilities.

Due on PSP October 29, US and UK details have yet to be announced.

Meanwhile, get the full thing over on 1UP.

Telltale has revealed that the popularity of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal has exceeded its expectations, making the game the firm’s best performing title to date.

“It was a great launch for us. We’re really happy with it. I think it even exceeded our expectations,” Dan Connors, founder of Telltale, told Videogamer. “It’s been pretty shocking how much love there is still out there for the Monkey Island series. It seems like a generational thing as well.

“Unfortunately I can’t get into the specific numbers, but I would definitely say it’s our strongest performing franchise to date. We’re pretty excited. It was number one on Steam for a few days. It did really well. It’s been our best performing title from our side as well.”

It’s out on Wii and PC right now.

Activision hs sent us over a presser unveiling all 85 songs present on the Guitar Hero 5 retail disc.

Loads of goodies in there too if you are still interested in this sort of thing.

Highlights include Beck, Johnny Cash, Garbage, Megadeth Muse, Queen, The Killers, Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Iron Maiden, Kings of Leon, Frampton, Smashing Pumpkins, and many others you may like.

Full press release is after the break along with the list.

It ships September 1.

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Media Molecule has confirmed PS3 connectivity for LittleBigPlanet PSP.

Those that purchased the original game can unlock bonus content through a feature called Cross-Talk when the PSP version is released. Plans for a demo of the game through PSN are in the cards.

No word yet on what the bonus goodies are, but according to a leaked retail sheet, Sony plans on pushing a multi-million dollar marketing program for the title which, according to Joystiq, will coincide with the release of PSPgo.

Sounds good.

Naughty Dog’s Christophe Balestra has revealed the number of participants in the Uncharted 2 closed Beta during June.

According to his Twitter page, the co-president revealed that 130,543 total had a hand in it, and 63 percent were from the US.

Here are the figures broken down by other regions in percentages or numbers if known:

• Finland – 397
• France was 4.12%
• Mongolia – one player
• Argentina -88 players
• India had 79 players or 0.0605%
• Spain was 2.4%
• Panama – 28 players
• Greece was 0.01%
• Malaysia was 0.0452 %
• Switzerland 0.27%a
• Canada 9.71%
• Portugal 0.73%
• Germany 1.064%
• England 6.55%a

Get the full tweet here.

Want to see what happens when you ask Media Molecule co-founders Kareem Ettouney and Mark Healy if they’re working on a disc-based sequel to LittleBigPlanet?

Hit the link.

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Sega Europe’s told VG247 this morning that it has “no current plans” to bring Yakuza 3 to the territory.

Sega of America said overnight that it’s not heading to the US either.

Fin. Keep dreaming.