In a recent Nintendo corporate interview Satoru Iwata revealed that Nintendo are working on several closely guarded first party titles this year.
Whilst he couldn’t comment on the wealth of top secret third party games due this year, he did however mention that Nintendo are working hard on several big titles that are due for release later in the year.
Rockstars well received Grand Theft Auto: ChinaTown Wars has sold over 70,000 copies in the title’s second month of release.
According to the recently released NPD figures for April 2009, Grand Theft Auto: ChinaTown Wars has enjoyed a second successive month of steady sales, racking up a rather tidy 74,000 copies.
Whilst its initial sales were slightly disappointing for such a highly regarded franchise as the Grand Theft Auto series, its current sales seem to indicate the title has a fairly positive shelf life.
Bethesda, the critically acclaimed developer behind the Oblivion and Fallout franchises have announced that they’re working on a new ‘mature’ title for the Nintendo Wii.
Whilst no tantalising hints have been given regarding the nature of the title, it’s great to see such an esteemed developer such as Bethesda developing and creating a sure-to-be hit franchise for the Nintendo Wii.
“We are going to make an announcement on a really big Wii game this year, we’ve got a couple of other things in the pipeline, and it’s a format we’re really looking at with the right approach,
- Bethesda
Nintendo has revealed two new Wii Sports Resort mini games in its advertising campaign for the aforementioned title.
The first new addition to Wii Sports Resort is the inclusion of Wii Mini Golf giving you a whole new perspective on the game due in part to the addition of the Wii MotionPlus peripheral. The second new mini game is Wii Table Tennis, which previously appeared in the top-selling Wii title, Wii Play.
Those of you situated in New York may wish to head over to the Nintendo World Store where the retail outlet is hosting a Punch Out!!! party.
The Punch Out!!! pre-launch event has seen gamers descend upon the Nintendo Store to fight it out in bouts of the forthcoming boxing extravaganza. Luxuries up for grabs at the well attended event include ‘free t-shirts, candy bars and one title’.
During April 2009 the recently released Nintendo DSi outsold its predecessor by an incredible four to one.
Nintendo has issued a press release informing everyone that the Nintendo DSi and DS Lite’s sales combined amounted to 1.04 million sales during April 2009. The figures that were spouted also clearly show that the DSi’s predecessor, the DS Lite, was outsold by a ratio of four to one by its fresher and newer brethren.
Whilst the Nintendo DSi continues to take American consumers by storm, other gaming formats aren’t fairing quite so well.
According to Aprils NPD figures the recently released Nintendo DSi is still truly captivating American audiences, whilst the Wii, Xbox 360 and particularly the PS3 are having a fairly difficult time. To put things into perspective last April saw the Nintendo Wii sell in excess of 714,200 consoles, this year however sees it only managing to shift a mere 340,000 units.
Outspoken former Xbox chief Peter Moore believes that making Wii games isn’t exactly rocket science.
Speaking from a third party perspective Mr Moore believes more could be done to utilise the essence of Wii, rather than continuously pump out mediocre tacked-on shovelware as many a third party developer has been found guilty of. Perhaps these harsh but ultimately true words will make an impact throughout the industry?
I think the emphasis is on the third parties to crack the code on the Wii, and there are some games that have done well from third parties, and figure out what we need to do when we’re playing on the Wii to make that game successful. But at the same time, it’s not rocket science, and we in the publishing community have got to go and figure that out.
- Peter Moore, EA
Martin Hollis, lead designer for GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64, is currently pining for the franchise to appear on the Wii Virtual Console.
Whilst he doesn’t believe we’re going to see the fabled first person shooter on the system due primarily to the ongoing battle between Microsoft and Nintendo, he’d still be absolutely overjoyed to see it happen.
There’s always someone with some exclusivity agreement, so there’s lots of lawyers… I’m not going to hold my breath. I’d love it to happen, but I can’t see it.
- Martin Hollis, GoldenEye 64
Jason Vandenburghe, the creative director on Red Steel 2, has announced the highly anticipated first person title will only be playable for gamers who have purchased the Wii MotionPlus peripheral.
“It’s a huge risk. We have no idea what the penetration rate for Wii MotionPlus will be. “We assume high. We would like it to be high. I would love to say to you that it’ll be compatible with just a regular controller, but the gameplay simply isn’t there without MotionPlus. That core experience just isn’t there without it.”
- Jason Vandenburghe, Red Steel 2
