Musicians have Vienna. Catholics have the Vatican. And gamers have Japan. While many significant contributions to the world of gaming have come from outside the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan is the unassailable fountainhead of modern video gaming. It's the birth and workplace of gaming giants such as Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, Yuji Naka, and probably others. To say that Japan is a place that hardcore gamers need to check out is an understatement at best.
Recently, I took a week to visit my brother who teaches English at a Japanese university near Nagoya. Hundreds of thousands of words could be used to describe the wonderful food, the beautiful temples, and the unique culture of the country. But being a life-long gamer, I paid special attention to the distinct connection between the country and the gaming scene we all know and love. For the Top 5, I usually come up with a topic, then list the top five items for that topic in order. For this edition, it was truly difficult to narrow it down to only five. With that in mind, here's my best attempt at listing the Top 5 gaming elements of my time in Japan.
The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, check out What Are You Playing?, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
We've got a quick question for you today: if you could choose something to be implemented on the Wii right now, today, would you choose downloadable demos of DS games (for the handheld, downloaded from the Wii), or would you be more interested in demos of Virtual Console games?
We probably could have just asked if you own a DS or not, since we think the first option would be super keen for those of us who don't often find themselves around a download station, but we're sure many among you would prefer VC demos.
Nintendo does it again, as they manage to utterly dominate the competition for yet another month. The latest NPD sales figures for May show Nintendo's DS and Wii topping the charts, with a surprise third place contender in Sony's PSP handheld (likely due to a price drop). The hardware break down is as follows:
Nintendo DS: 423K
Nintendo Wii: 338K
Sony PSP: 221K
Sony PlayStation 2: 187K
Microsoft Xbox 360: 155K
Sony PlayStation 3: 81K
Aside from the hardware sales, Nintendo's software also kicked some tail climbing to the top of the charts. Not only were the obvious poking men on the chart, but also some Nintendo software you might not otherwise have thought could have sold so well in May. The software figures are:
Reader Joe sent us his entry in the Nintendo Short Cuts Showcase competition and we have to give it to him and his friends. Having a Track and Field pad for a cape and a hollowed out NES for a mask are just too good. He's like a deformed combination of Batman and Captain Planet.
Nintendo UK guy-in-charge David Yarnton dropped some sales figures on us all, revealing global sales for Nintendo's hardware, as well as European and UK-specific numbers. As you can imagine, both the Wii and DS have done extremely well on both the global front and in Europe and the UK.
Yarnton explains that Nintendo's projected sales were well under the actual sales figures for the region, stating "Yes, we set targets originally and we have definitely exceeded those. They are continually being re-assessed all the time."
Gamefly has added Wii and DS listings for The Sims 2: Castaway Stories to its website. There's no official confirmation of the title yet from EA, who have only announced it for PC so far. As the title suggests, the game will offer a story mode featuring 'romance and dramatic twists.'
These games could work really well on DS and Wii, particularly if the online/wi-fi aspect is exploited - imagine being able to create and share your avatars - or replays of your characters' most entertaining moments.
Castaway Stories hits the PC in Winter, with DS and Wii versions hopefully arriving shortly after.
For how many hours we've spent playing the game (heck, we still play it on the Virtual Console almost daily), we can't say that we could clear world 1-1 with our eyes closed. Oh no, that honor is held down by the Japanese gamer above, who busts out the DS and shows us all how to do it. And, you know what? He doesn't make it look easy ...
Nintendo reported a final revenue of 966.5 billion yen and operating profits of 226.0 billion yen for the year ending March 31, 2007 today, managing to break previous records set by the company and completely stump the staff on how much that money would weigh if it were all laid out on one massive scale. We're pretty sure it would weigh more than a tractor trailer filled with bears riding scooters. In other words, it would be completely ridiculous.
The majority of this huge surplus in cash money for Nintendo comes mainly from the DS, which has sold over 23 million units and 123 million games over the last year. Of course, that's not to say the Wii hasn't done its part, managing to sell 5.84 million consoles in the less-than five months since its launch. Games for the system have sold a combined 29 million copies. Given these numbers, Nintendo must be expecting a lot from both systems over the coming year, right?
Yes, they do, stating that they expect the Wii to sell a total of 14 million consoles and 55 million games during the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2007. Nintendo also expects the DS to continue its strong sales, stating that they expect to sell 22 million dual-screened systems and 130 million copies of software for it. This brings the company to a projected consolidated sales increase nearly 18 percent to 1.14 trillion yen and operating profits growing nearly 20 percent to 270 billion yen.
Just for those of you keeping score, the Wii dominated hardware sales in January, did pretty well in that same month with software sales, then performed a repeat performance in February. Nintendo has gotten themselves a hat trick now, as they dominated the competition for a third month in a row with both the DS and Wii. GameDaily.BIZ has the skinny on exact figures from the month, which we've gone ahead and posted past the break.
We'll admit, we haven't gotten that far in Super Paper Mario yet. That's why the above picture intrigued us so. Sent in by reader David, it hints at a future update that could allow Super Paper Mario and your DS to interact in some way. In which ways could the game and DS interact? We have no idea and, frankly, are incapable of even speculating at the moment, but if you want to see it for yourself, in-game, check around the kitchen on the first floor of Flipside. We just cannot conceive how the two would play nice together.
Any readers want to take a guess?
Update: Looks like the game won't have any DS functionality, as our Poppa site Joystiq, along with the comments, say otherwise. We want to believe though!
[Thanks, David! That's an awesome name, by the way.]
Reports are coming in from Taiwan and Germany that Nintendo has updated the Wii's motherboard with its latest shipments of the console. According to MaxConsole, one of the solder points has been removed from the altered board, shutting out quicksolder modification chips like WiiKey. Other similar tools that don't use the missing solder point should not be affected.
DigiTimes suggests that these changes to the circuit layout were made with the sole intent of preventing piracy by blocking these warranty-voiding installations. If that's the case however, why did Nintendo only take steps to block just the WiiKey, a modchip that was released only several weeks ago?
There were similar concerns in the past about Mario Kart DS updating the Nintendo DS' firmware as an anti-piracy measure, but it was quickly discovered that the handheld was only saving its WiFi settings. It seems far more likely that Nintendo has had the Wii's revised motherboard planned for months, and that locking out any modification methods was an unintended result.
Posted Mar 23rd 2007 1:00PM by Eric Caoili Filed under: News
We've been waiting for the Iron Chef license to appear on the Nintendo Wii ever since the cooking-friendly controller was revealed, but the culinary game show is still woefully absent from the system's lineup of upcoming titles. Anxious gamers have had to settle for the next best thing -- Cooking Mama: Cook Off.
Playing off the battle system in Cooking Mama where you can compete with rival chefs, 1UP has a creative piece comparing the Wii and DS versions of the game in a Kitchen Stadium contest. Fans of Iron Chef will be happy to see that the dramatization follows the Japanese show's format closely with an introduction by the Chairman and constant chatter from the commentators. Cook Off'smultiplayer mode and international menu are emphasized during this console-vs-handheld match-up to see which Mama knows best.
Though Cooking Mama: Cook Off's reviews have been middling at best, seeing the Wii game's strengths laid out like this has definitely renewed our interest. How else are we supposed to act out our epic Ronkonkai Chicken battle against Iron Chef Sakai that we've always envisioned in our minds?
During the Q3 2007 Preliminary Financial Results Conference Call for Activision, CEO Mike Griffiths has confirmed that Guitar Hero is headed to Nintendo platforms. Now, he doesn't confirm which platforms, instead choosing to be vague in his confirmation. Mike goes on to say "The key difference in our strategy versus the prior cycle, is that in addition to full support on Sony and Microsoft platforms, we will aggressively target the Nintendo platforms consistent with our multi-platform strategy and Nintendo's expected growth. In fiscal 2008, we will double our offerings on the DS and the Wii, including Spider-Man, Shrek, Transformers, and Guitar Hero."
One would think that he meant Guitar Hero would be headed to the Wii and the DS would receive the company's other franchises, however it isn't beyond possibility. Look at Elite Beat Agents and tell us that Guitar Hero couldn't work in a similar fashion on Nintendo's handheld. It could work, right?
If you're a keen observer of the site, and an avid commentator (we love those most of all, y'know), then perhaps you've seen the change in our commenting system. Yes, we've adopted the newer style that Engadget has enjoyed for many a moon. The new system allows commentators to have one name and password that works across all of our network sites, totally doing away with those pesky emails that demand confirmation before a comment shows up.
Now, with the new features comes a few snags, sadly. You will not be able to change your password for a little while (we're working on it!) and occasionally you'll notice a URL linked to your name, or your name for that matter, might come out with a couple mistakes. We're also fixing that, as well.Your password will be included in the first confirmation email, so be sure to not trash that one until we can roll out the password change feature.
Once again, I, as well as the rest of the staff, would like to thank you for your continued support of the Nintendo-based fanboy sites. You guys make this all possible for us, as well as enjoyable, and we couldn't do it without you. Hopefully the new comment system will see some more input on topics from those who have been turned away from the comment system of the past.
Coming in at over 50% of platform sales for the Month of December, Nintendo's handhelds and consoles kicked butt all over Europe this holiday season. The information comes via Chart Track, who also say that Nintendo's DS was the top selling platform for all of 2006. For those with a keen eye, this means that Nintendo's dual-screen handheld is the top-selling game system in every major gaming territory (with the other two being the US and Japan, natch).
How many of you in the region picked up a Nintendo product over the holidays?
The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, check out What Are You Playing?, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up. 
We've got a quick question for you today: if you could choose something to be implemented on the Wii right now, today, would you choose downloadable demos of DS games (for the handheld, downloaded from the Wii), or would you be more interested in demos of Virtual Console games?
