Wii Availability

Disney Interactive had released Spectrobes for Nintendo DS two years back under Buena Vista Label. It was a good game but due to its monster catching systems, people simply saw it as Pokemon clone.

Disney has finally decided to move onto consoles after selling two hand-held console titles with a sale of 1.6million units. Disney Interactive has announced Spectrobes: Origins to be released for the Nintendo Wii. Kentaro Hisai, producer of Disney Interactive Studios, Japan has to say that Spectrobes: Origins will take players to an incredible distant universe for an engaging storyline and innovative game-play that will entertain them for hours.

It was revealed last May that Nintendo’s ex-chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi had become the richest man in Japan, mainly due to the rising price of the company’s stock and the explosive growth of the Japanese yen.

Nearly after a year later, the country has gone through the worst financial crisis in decades along with the recession that has turned many fortunes upside down. As a result of all this, Yamauchi has also fallen to the third richest from Japan’s richest. This has been reported according to the latest figures from Bloomberg. Clothing retailer, Tadashi Yanai has taken the top spot from Yanauchi.

Retro Game Challenge is a misty-eyed game and is a love letter to the days of plating your first system. It reminds you of those old days when you passed on the controller back and forth to your friends trying to beat each other’s high scores, reading magazines and becoming obsessed with the 8-bit games.

The set up of the game comprises of a man who is frustrated with the modern games and turns back to a child through a digital representation and sends you back in time to play games against his younger self. The two screens of the DS are used smartly with the game taking place at the top and the two children actually watching you play on the bottom screen.

Apart from spending millions on research and development, Nintendo is opening another Pokemon Center in Sapporo, Japan. Pokemon Centers are places in the game where the trainers can go to heal their Pokemon. The cartoon shows the trainers being offered a place to eat and spend the night. This causes a number of teenagers wandering about being homeless in Johto.

However, these Pokemon Centers are wonderful stores full of Pokemon toys, clothes, cards, games, accessories and limited editions of Nintendo consoles. The other Pokemon Centers of Nintendo are in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Yokohama. The store in Sapporo opens on March 6, 2009.

Nintendo’s other titles gained much popularity than Nintendo’s Wii Music. The game was entertaining but it didn’t stand a chance for a lasting appeal to the gamers as they has expected. Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata admitted during a recent financial results briefing that the game Wii Music had some shortcomings, though he still has some hopes.

Despite the game’s disappointing sales, Nintendo’s game always tend to sell steadily. This has given hope to Iwata that Wii Music also has a chance to become a hit. Its difficult to argue with Iwata’s sentiments as there are many games of Nintendo which were not huge hits so the Wii Music still has a good chance to become a bestseller.

After the huge success of games like Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones, its time for TT Games and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to plan for creating a new title in the series exclusively for the Nintendo DS This new game will be called Lego Battles and is expected to release this summer.

The game has the three most successful Lego settings which are Space, Pirates and Castle. They will together create a video gaming experience connecting them in meaningful ways. This will thus, allow the players to build their bases and armies before they get engaged in the epic combat against their enemies. The gameplay includes the idea of customization and humor. This, in a way entertains the players while they put their efforts on the Lego pieces on the DS screen.

Harmonix and Electronic Arts are announcing that they have another batch of six tracks that Rock Band 2 players can get for the Wii version of the game. It's nice to see that the companies are moving quickly to add songs for the game after the official inauguration of the Rock Band Wii Store.

Recent data released by the NPD Group, which tracks sales of videogame hardware and software, shows that Guitar Hero: World Tour from Neversoft and Activision Blizzard sold twice the number of copies moved by Rock Band 2 created by Harmonix and MTV Games. One of the reasons cited by analysts is the fact that the latest Guitar Hero game launched at the same time for all platforms, including the Nintendo Wii, while the latest Rock Band had a staggered release, with the Nintendo Wii version coming some time after the Xbox 360 one. Getting the Wii track store up is crucial to Harmonix, as the company manages to sell more tracks than its direct rival and also because the Nintendo made home gaming console has a huge install base.

 Nintendo’s Net income will probably be 230 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in the year ending March 31, 33 percent less than projected in October, Nintendo said today. The company also cut its forecast for operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and managerial expenses, by 16 percent to 530 billion yen. Nintendo cut its Wii sales forecast for the first time, hurt by recessions in Europe, Japan and the U.S. that forced Sony Corp. to project a record operating loss. The Kyoto-based maker of the motion-sensing Wii said the stronger yen will also erode earnings.
Last year, 10.2 million Wii consoles were sold in the U.S., the world’s largest video-game market, exceeding the joint 8.2 million for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, according to figures from NPD Group Inc.  “Seemingly unstoppable demand” in the U.S. and Europe had fueled conjecture that that game may be “recession-proof,” KBC Securities Japan said in a report this month. Still, the industry isn’t resistant to the global downturn, KBC said in the Jan. 22 report.

Nintendo has something to say about its latest line-up, coming up for the first quarter of 2009 and it looks like there's a few familiar faces and concepts coming our way. There are lots of family-friendly title aimed this time at getting us all up and walking. Walk with Me! Is due for release on February 20th and will come packaged with two pedometers which users can carry around with them wherever they go.

The more steps you do, the more you'll be rewarded when you plug in the pedometer. Rewards come in the form of games, counting allowing you to “draw” a picture of a global landmark after you've achieved 1000 steps. Once the picture is finished a piece of trivia is unlocked.

In spite of the success of Wii bowling and our love for it, video games live largely to give most of us capabilities we don't already have. Even if I got off the couch and started working out every day, I still couldn't pull off such feats with the flair of a video-game star like Lara Croft. Perhaps she'll motivate a younger age group of gamers to take up aerobics.

We are thrilled when we can create one of her moves by pressing the buttons on an Xbox controller. "Prince of Persia" (Ubisoft, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $59.99): The latest incarnation of Ubisoft's Prince is one of the most acrobatic game heroes ever. He can leap across pits, scramble along walls and flip over rivals.