(Wii) Imabikisou/Chunsoft
-8/7 Release
-6090 Yen
(Wii) Pro Golfer Saru/Namco Bandai
-Fall 2008
-6090 Yen
EA discussed official sales numbers of Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox, although the company did not specify whether the numbers are worldwide or just in the Americas. Since its launch date, Boom Blox has managed to sell through 450,000 units – a respectable sales figure for a new IP. Additionally, EA has commented on a Boom Blox sequel, noting, “It’s premature to talk because we have a key partner on this. Certainly, it’s a franchise we’d like to see more from.”
Rumors began to circulate this morning about Cave Story releasing on WiiWare when a news post over at Amigaworld indicated an upcoming announcement. However, the post has been since taken down and the original author explained that the situation was nothing more than a mix up on his part. This doesn’t mean that Cave Story will never come out for WiiWare, but for now, there seems to be no plans for the game on WiiWare.
Hudson recently sat down with PlanetNintendo to discuss a variety of topics, including Hudson’s plans for the future. Although the interview was translated, there seems to be news on some new projects from the company. Hudson’s Hiromi Tomisawa seemed to reveal that Bomberman 2 for the DS, Kororinpa 2, and a new project called “Hard Working People” – both for the Wii – will be shown off at this year’s Leipzig. Not too many details regarding “Hard Working People” were discussed, although the game is a new IP. The developmnent team working on “Hard Working People” are putting a lot of effort into the game and promise that the game will be fun.
Talking with MCV, Kaz Hirai of Sony declared, “If we’re talking about the casual gamer, the PS2 is probably the right choice for them. We don’t need the PS3 to feel like the console that will appeal to everyone at this point. We don’t need to have one console try to be everything to everybody just yet.” As much as it pains many Nintendo fans, they will be the first to admit that the Wii and DS have the most casual gaming experiences. The PS2 does possess many titles suited for all types of players, but both Nintendo systems have a slew of games for everyone.
Those who are awaiting even more details on Tactical Guild can expect character sprites to be based around the items you are using/outfits you are wearing. Also, there are multiple endings.
Admittedly, Tiger Woods 09 All-Play is turning out to be a very great experience for golf fanatics. The game has nearly all of the qualities of a perfect golf game, albeit 100% precise controls. Precision is something EA is aiming to fix in next year’s iteration, with Wii MotionPlus. In an interview with VideoGamer, EA’s Greg Rinaldi divulged plans that partially explains the new peripheral’s role in future Tiger games. “Twisting the controller in 3D space, we can read some of that, but it’s a lot of software trickery for us to do that. We spent a lot of time on that because it’s not in the hardware. The current hardware is focused mainly on velocity and speed. So what the MotionPlus does is actually allow you to get that 3D positional data. Adding that to something like Tiger next year, which is something we’re 100% on board with, we’re hoping that people get the add-on, because it allows us to get as close to a realistic golf swing as possible on commercial hardware like this.”
Activision Blizzard – keep
Crash Bandicoot
Ice Age
Spyro
Prototype
secret title
Activision Blizzard – losses
Bourne
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
World in Conflict
Activision Blizzard – unknown
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
WET
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
According to a Sierra statement, we shouldn’t have to worry about Ghostbusters. The game is still scheduled to launch this year.
“We always consider the territory and hardware for titles, and I just want to make sure that we’re neutral about dealing with companies. …We’re now in the age of the multi-platform, but depending on age and territory, users have different tastes. Therefore it’s very difficult to just deal with one company or one hardware platform – in order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms.” – Yoichi Wada, Square Enix president
It was only a few years ago that Square Enix was not even supporting Nintendo systems. Now things are quite the opposite. The Wii, and especially the DS, continue to receive some of the best third-party games from Square.
For all the collectors out there, the fine art team at Red Fly Studio put together some kick-ass trading cards, a poster, and hero statue that will be floating around out there. The poster will be available with Rise of the Fungi (DS) pre-orders and the life-size statue with The Spore Wars (Wii) pre-orders. The first 3 trading cards are in the current issue of Nintendo Power (August issue, along with a contest where 2 families can win a trip to NYC for the 20th Anniversary party at the Nintendo World Store in Sept). You’ll also be able to get them at PAX, the 20th Anniversary Party mentioned above, LesClaypool.com, and more. The easiest way to make a complete set of 24 cards will be by pre-ordering the games at GameStop (get a pack of 11 for Rise of the Fungi and different 11 for The Spore Wars and then 1 card will be included with each version of the game).
Mushroom Men Sail the Seas of Cheese…
Les Claypool will be headlining and Mushroom Men will be in full effect aboard Jam Cruise 7 (http://jamcruise.com/). Leaving out of Ft Lauderdale January 4, 2009, they’ll be tons of artists playing day and night as the ship ports in Belize City and Costa Maya.
For anyone interested in winning their way aboard, GameStop is running a special sweepstakes. Visit http://www.gamestop.com/mushroommen for more on that. And for those actually going, they’ll be more great contests to win Mushroom Men stuff while out on the open waters.
Tall Tales of Mushroom Men
There is also a custom Mushroom Men VW Bus in the works (details coming to www.MushroomMen.com soon). And the Space Squid writing contest has 1 week left for submissions (details: http://spacesquid.com/free_writing_contests.htm).
