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Imagine if your TV was strong enough to withstand any Wii-mote strikes, you could then indulge in your favorite Wii games wholeheartedly without worrying about accidentally damaging your expensive TV. Panasonic has unveiled a new line of Wii-proof plasma TVs at its HD Networking Conference in Valencia, Spain.

Panasonic claims that the plasmas can resist up to 4 joules of energy, which is enough to protect it from a flying Wii-mote unless it is purposely thrown with great force…

Read [Gamertell]

At least, that’s what the sales figures for American consumer games market share in February shows as compiled by NPD Group. Nintendo blew away competitors by the thousands. The company sold 485,000 DS units and 335,000 Wii consoles in the month. Microsoft, on the other hand, only managed to sell 228,000 of its Xbox 360, while Sony was struggling to move 127,000 units of its PlayStation 3 out of its stores.

The popularity of the Wii console was evident in the impact its sales had on the company’s supply chain, Nintendo said. Gamers were “snapping up virtually every system available in America,” the company added.

Combined, Nintendo game systems “represented 54 percent of all hardware sales in February, more than those of all other manufacturers combined,” noted the company.

Nintendo’s success was attributed to the simplicity of it’s products.

“The DS has games that go down to pre-school level and the Wii has games where you don’t even need to crack the instruction manual at all to play.”

Xboxers and Playstationers.... what say you?

Read [Tech News World]

Did we say Sega Saturn? Oh yes and we’re not kidding. The latest Wii rumors are that we can expect to see the lost Sega system popping up on Wii Virtual Console. The rumor started back at DigiPen, who shares an office building with Nintendo America.

Now when I think retro SS hardly ever pops into my mind but why not bring Sega’s 32-bit, CD based gaming system to a whole new generation. If you remember the Saturn to rendered First-person shooter games better than other consoles at the time, games like Quake, Powerslave, Duke Nukem 3D, HeXen.

And now a history lesson from our friends at Wikipedia:

In early 1995 Sega president Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would launch in the U.S. on “Saturnday”, (Saturday) September 2, 1995. This date was greatly anticipated by gamers and the media. It also allowed Sony to announce that the Playstation release date would be one week later on September 9, 1995. However, at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 in May 1995, Kalinske announced that the “Saturnday” date was a ruse and that the system was being released nationwide by a few select retailers immediately.

This surprise move shocked everyone in attendance (Sony most of all) and it appeared that Sega had a real opportunity to take a commanding lead in the 32-bit race by beating the Playstation to the market. In reality the “surprise attack” launch backfired for Sega. The Saturn was released at a high price point of [USD]$400 (Sony announced a $300 price for the Playstation at E3).

By the time of the Playstation’s release on September 9, 1995, the Saturn had sold approximately 80,000 systems. The Playstation sold over 100,000 units upon release in the U.S., a record at the time for a new system.

Read [T3]

Earlier today, Nintendo’s Miyamoto took the stage at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.  Here’s the run-down of the keynote…

Miyamoto talked about the evolution of his wife interacting with Nintendo game consoles.  He refers to this as the “Wife-o-Meter.” The more they can get the wife’s to interact with the console, the more successful the console is.  He starts talking about how back in the day when Tetris, Mario, and Link were hot stuff, his wife was not affected at all.  He then moves on to Nintendogs and says that raised the Wife-o-Meter a bit.  And then Brain Age - and now gaming is a part of her everyday life.  Now she is challenging him in her favorite games.

Moving on, Miyamoto talked about how great of a job the three main teams (hardware, software, and third-party relations) did at collaborating on the Nintendo Wii.  He talks about how the decision to move forward with the Wii Remote (AKA Wiimote) was made possible by all of the above.

Lastly, he spoke about Risk.  Miyamoto speaks of how the Gamecube was “really a half-step” into the whole idea of making Nintendo mainstream.  They tried to make it even easier than ever before to have new gamers pick up the controler and actually play.  And finally came the Wii, the biggest risk of them all.

Miyamoto moved on to the communication involved in the Wii.  He mentions how character creation is not a new idea (Mii), but he is working on a new Mii channel that compares Miis you’ve created to hold popularity contests among users/your friends.

He finishes up saying how it’s just a matter of time before everyone becomes a convert.  “If we can convert my wife, I believe we can convert anyone.”

Read the full play-by-play [Gizmodo]

The Wii has now been out for a few months, and the guys over at CycloWiz have already begun shipping mod-chips for the popular console.  Similar to other mod-chips you’ve become familiar with over the years, the CycloWiz allows you to backup your Wii games so you can load and play them conveniently without the game discs.  Additionally, it makes your Wii compatible with DVDs so you can play your friends games as well.  Sorry gaming industry - I’m just speaking the truth.  It looks like they’ve got two distributers in the US, so hit the link below for more.

Product Page [CycloWiz] Via [CrunchGear]

This has got to be one of the coolest Wii ads I have seen so far. If I were the owner of Nintendo, I’d asked my PR department to checkout on Super 78 and track down the person who had come up with the idea for this ad.

To make things a little bit more interesting, Super 78 should create something for competing game consoles as well and see who gets to them first for their next advertising job. By then, my guess is that there could be a lot of USD potentially change hands and someone will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Read [Guardian Unlimited]

There were many gamer-friendly gadgets at this year’s CES but, due to technological limits and simple human exhaustion, we couldn’t quite get them all on Gadgetell.

Here a reduced version of the list I compiled for my local CiN Weekly column featuring the better gaming gadgets and announcements from CES 2007.  Read on for the list…

• Razer Reclusa gaming keyboard with gold-plated USB plug


• Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse


• Nyko WiiMote charger

• Nyko PS3 wireless controller charger (4 controllers at one time)

• Novint Tech.’s Falcon 3D controller, maybe the weirdest item I found. The pointed mouse floats on robot arms and gives back a bit of resistance so it feels like you are touching the items on your computer.


• Alienware m9750 laptop (bling and caching)

• TDVision Systems’ 3D visor that turns any 2D video into 3D


• Samsung’s Series 53 and 54 LCD HDTVs with increased viewing angles and extras ports for game systems.

• HotSeat Chassis with a metal frame, 23 in. LCD HD widescreen monitors and surround sound. Pricey but dern cool. Frame only kit is $600, full setup can cost $4000.


• PCGamerBike to power your PC and control avatars in compatible games. Coming next month for $1100. Mini version available now for $180.


• D-Box GP-100, the uber plush sound-sensitive chair that reacts to on-screen action. A hard sell for $15K,000.


• N-Gage will become a software package that will work with their NSeries devices and will not be a specific N-Gage branded hardware device (I confirmed this with Nokia).


• Zune will play games by July 2008


• Sony, besides the unfortunate PR blunder, won two Emmys and announced and agreement with Midway to offer more downloadable games.


• Nintendo was a no-show but Wiis were on display everywhere and they won an Emmy for their D-pad.


• Microsoft promoted Vista with the FPS game, Crysis, showed off the Xbox 360 controller working with a Vista PC, console and PC content sharing, a raise in the 50MB download cap on games and some Zune integration.

Read [CiN Weekly]

Finally (!), Nintendo has announced that the Wii’s News Channel will go live on January 27, 2007, featuring news from Associated Press (AP). The News Channel has appeared on the Wii’s main menu for quite some time, providing the equivalent of a “Coming Soon” link.

Nintendo also announced that Mario Kart 64 will be available next week for download on the Wii’s Shop Channel. The Wii Shop Channel, aka Virtual Console, currently has 42 downloadable games available for purchase, with a few new games available each Monday. The most recent addition to the Channel was Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super NES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points):.

There are only 34 Wii console games currently available, with the following to be available in stores during the next couple months:

• Wii Play with Wii Remote (Feb. 14, Nintendo)


• Disney’s Meet the Robinsons (March 27, Buena Vista)


• Bust-A-Move Bash (March, Majesco)


• Prince of Persia Rival Swords (March, Ubisoft)


• TMNT (aka Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, March , Ubisoft)


• Bionicle Heroes (March, Eidos)


• Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII (March, Ubisoft)


• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (Q1, EA)


• SSX Blur (Q1, EA)


• The Godfather Blackhand Edition (Q1, EA)


• Medal of Honor Vanguard (Q1, EA)


• Sonic and the Secret Rings (Q1, Sega)

Look for Mario Party 8, the first Mario Party for the new system, Q2 2007.

Site [Nintendo Wii]

We can finally talk about NPD Group’s real report on video game sales for 2006. In the US, the game industry raked in $12.5 billion (that’s frickin’ beeelion), a $2 billion increase over 2005 sales. Add another billion to include PC game sales as well. December sales were a major factor with hardware making up nearly half of the month’s $3.7 billion in sales. Annual hardware sales were up 42.8 percent over 2005, likely due to the two new consoles, and software sales increased 6.4 percent.

For consoles, PS2s sold the most with 1.4 million in December (37.1 million overall), while Xbox 360s sold 1.1 million (4.5 million overall), the Wii sold 1.1 million and the PS3 sold 687,300. For handhelds, the DS won holiday sales with 1.6 million sold in December 2006, PSP with 953,200 and, the li’l system that keeps on kickin’, the Game Boy Advance (GBA) with 850,700.

According to NPD, the top ten games sold in 200 were:

• Madden NFL 07 (PS2, 2.8 million)


• New Super Mario Bros. (DS, 2.0)


• Gears of War (X360, 1.8)


• Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2, 1.7)


• Guitar Hero 2 (PS2, 1.3)


• Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 1.3)


• Brain Age: Train Your Brain (DS, 1.1)


• Madden NFL 07 (X360, 1.1)


• Tom Clancy’s G.R.A.W. (X360, 1.0)


• NCAA Football 07 (PS2, 1.0)

The top accessories included the wireless controllers for each system (Xbox 360, Wii and PS3), PS2 memory cards and PS2 controllers. Top PC games included Madden NFL, Cars and one of my favorite fun-time games, LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy.

Read, Read [GameDailyBiz] Site [NPD Group]

Are you a Nintendo Wii owner who’s not satisfied with just going through the motions of swinging a baseball bat or tennis racket or a golf stick? Do you ever wish you were holding an actual bat, racket and/or golf stick? Well, here’s an accessory pack that will satisfy your need: the Wii sports pack. It includes a baseball bat, tennis racquet and golf stick extension that attach to the WiiMote for $22. Of course it doesn’t take a genius to predict that this will cause more window and TV damage than just a (flying) Wii-mote itself. Even if the accessories are safe as advertised and fit the Wii-mote perfectly, in the heat of the moment, furniture (and people for that matter) around the player would be in danger of getting smacked silly. It’s probably a good idea to make sure you have tons of empty space around you before using this pack. On a side note, if they extended that bat a bit, and put a green/blue/purple glow on it, it would really be a cool imitation of a Jedi Light Sabre.

Read [Addict3d] Product [Videogame.Brando] Read [GamerSquad] Read [RoJo]