TNB Latest News

Despite consistent success for Wii throughout the world, Nintendo has no plans to move away from its Eastern focus when it comes to development of first-party titles, with the company’s George Harrison unaware of plans to produce more games aimed specifically at North American audiences.

Harrison, a senior vice president at Nintendo of America said, “I’m not aware of any plans to push for more software development here in the US. The actual decision about producing more software and who should do it is driven by Satoru Iwata and the management team, including Mr. Miyamoto, in Japan,” he said.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, one of the top-selling Wii games, was one of a couple of exceptions though, developed by Texas-based Retro Studios. Apart from that, Harrison indicated that Nintendo feels that third parties are catering well enough to Western audiences.

“They’re doing a great job both on DS and on Wii,” he said. “They tend to provide product in categories that we aren’t particularly good at doing, like sports or other genres. And since they’re Western publishers, they tend to be more in tune with Western tastes.”

One of the biggest games of the year is out nationwide today, along with a load of other titles on both Wii and DS.

The highlight of this week’s collection of newly released games is without a doubt Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy on Wii, and it’s joined by Dewy’s Adventure, Konami’s latest Wii exclusive, and the newest instalment in EA’s Need for Speed series.

Boogie’s also made its way to DS, along with a new pair of Mega Man games, and - as usual - a load of casual offerings.

Head here to discuss Galaxy and its release on our forums.

The Nintendo DS has set another record in the UK, with the portable selling through 191,000 units last week alone. This is more than any other hardware format had ever achieved in a seven-day period. Nintendo spoke out, saying “We’re obviously delighted to be able to announce this. Momentum has been increasing on DS sales and to achieve the highest weekly sales figure ever in the history of the games market is fantastic.” So who had the record the DS? Why it was the PSP on its launch week- a sure sign of how well the DS is going and perhaps its expanded market?

Nintendo of America have also announced that it’s reached record sales for the week between November 18 and 24, having sold more products than at any time in its history. And, these are only the sales figures for the first week of the holiday shopping season - so it’s likely there’s a lot more to come.

Show me more!

Something all of us Wii gamers can relate to these days is that of the quality of third party titles. With several third party titles not cutting the cheese, the creative director of Kuju Entertainment has come out and said that there are “a lot of lazy titles” on the Wii and that the developers are “under-exploiting” Nintendo’s little white console.

He further goes on to say that although the Wii is approximately 2 times more powerful than it’s predecessor, that developers are not taking “full advantage of the machine”. He also reveals that although their latest title, Battalion Wars 2, pushes the Wii to a higher potential than some other titles, that him and his team at Kuju entertainment are working on titles that “continue to advance the graphical standards”, with some games even having “room to do more”.

Tancred Dyke-Wells, the said creative director also promises that the Wii is a “pretty good piece of kit” and says that recent first and second party offerings such as Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy have served as a “bit of a wake up call and a better benchmark being established”.

Greenpeace has unveiled its latest environmental ranking of leading electronics companies, judged according to their timelines for eliminating PVCs and fire-preventing chemicals from their operations, along with their ability to collect hardware that has reached the end of its life cycle.

And, right at the bottom of the list of 18 companies was Nintendo, becoming the first company to score zero out of ten possible points. At the other end of the scale was Sony Ericsson and Samsung, each scoring 7.7 points as the most ‘nature-friendly’ companies under the criteria. Is this a bid to tarnish Nintendo’s success?

Greenpeace said that part of the reasoning for Nintendo’s poor ranking was due to it providing no information to consumers on the substances it uses or future elimination of hazardous materials.

Well here is a bit of a surprise for Japanese Wii owners - the Everyone’s Nintendo Channel has gone live! This is the channel that supplies Wii owners with trailers for games, DS demos to download, and more! Man, I really hope we see this channel go live in the rest of the world within the next 24 hours! Also, inside there’s a video showing you the channel and its features!

Show me more!

Square-Enix has signed a distribution agreement with Ubisoft that will see the put in charge of distributing two key titles in Australia and New Zealand in the first quarter of 2008. The games are Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. Crystal Chronicles is the handheld evolution of the GameCube title of the same name and is heralded as one of the most accessible titles in the series, featuring support for up to four players to co-operate in exploring a unique 3D world while battling enemies and solving puzzles.

This is certainly an exciting developement for the future, maybe leading into more overseas exclusive Square Enix games being released in Australia, due to Ubisoft’s bid to become a more top-notch publisher.

Show me more!

Gametrailers today have posted up an interesting video comparing Super Mario Sunshine (GC) with Super Mario Galaxy (Wii).

Pretty cool. Find it inside, and as usual, discuss on our forums here.

Show me more!

Play, a gaming retail site based in the UK has a listing for a new accessory that looks a lot like a Light Saber.

Officially named the Wii Light Sword, it powers up bright blue LEDs using three AA batteries.

Pretty cool. I hope it is life sized. How long it will take to get here is the real question though.

Discuss this article on the forums.

Show me more!

Nintendo Australia’s first quarter flood of games will commence on January 17 in 2008, with the arrival of Endless Ocean on Wii and Sight Training: Enjoy Exercising and Relaxing Your Eyes on Nintendo DS, the company has announced.

‘X’ doesn’t mark the spot though for Zack & Wiki, and although no specific dates have been divulged, Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure will also be released on Wii during the first quarter, as will Advance Wars: Dark Conflict on the Nintendo DS.

Dates for other first party games - which missed the 2007 end-of-year sales season - haven’t been mentioned.

Discuss on our forums here.