First six months were still profitable, but sales below forecasts.

In their earnings announcement, Square Enix announced that they saw a drop in sales and earnings for the first six months of 2010. Figures provided for the second quarter show that sales went down to 68,056 million yen ($836 million) from the 90,561 million yen ($1.11 billion) from the year prior. Income fell from 13,091 million to 5,712 million yen ($161 million to $70 million).

Six of the ten games are Nintendo titles.

In honor of their ten-year anniversary, Amazon Japan has released their list of the top ten best-selling games of the decade, starting from October 1, 2001 and ending on June 30, 2010.

Out of the top ten titles, six of them are Nintendo titles. In first place is Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the... Read more...

Pre-order to get Ghost Trick and the first Phoenix Wright title together.

The Capcom Store is now offering pre-orders for a bundle of two Nintendo DS games. The Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective New Classic Bundle includes Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney together for $39.99, $10 more than Ghost Trick alone.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is the first game in the Ace Attorney series; this title is currently difficult to obtain as it is out of print. 

Posting pictures of a Chaoboo, the man was caught by cyber patrolmen.

A fan who intended to "show everyone the characters that haven't been made public yet" might be in trouble (one could even say double trouble) after revealing six pictures of a Chaoboo and two other new pokémon online on September 1st, a full 17 days before they made their appearance in Black and White, the latest Japanese releases of the franchise.

Going forward, the mega-publisher will be paying special attention to 3D gaming, including the 3DS.

Electronic Arts is embracing 3D with open arms. Not only are they future-proofing recently released and upcoming games to be played on 3D-capable televisions, they're also very interested in the Nintendo 3DS. During an investor's call this morning, they expressed serious interest in the upcoming handheld, saying, "[3D will be] a little more interesting next year, certainly very interesting on the 3DS which has 3D built into it."

The incomparable prosecutor comes to life as a figurine.

While a US release of the second Ace Attorney Investigations game has yet to be announced, today a Japanese release date was set for February 3, 2011.

The game will be available in three packages. Firstly, the game alone will be sold at standard price, ¥5,040. For a premium, there is a selection of a special edition box sets.

Smaller loss than last year, but huge drop in Wii software sales.

Electronic Arts has posted a net loss of $201 million for the three months ending September 30, the second fiscal quarter. This is a better result than expected, with the same period in 2009 recording losses of $391 million.

Wii software sales dropped dramatically, with 82 percent fewer sales compared to the same period in 2009. Wii games accounted for only six percent of EA's total output. Nintendo DS game sales were one percent. 

Nintendo's famed creator believes that 3D will give Mario "a great feeling of existence."

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto told investors that the company plans to make 2D and 3D Mario games for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, according to Andriasang.

"When asked 'what will we do on 3DS,' the answer is, of course, we'll make both," Miyamoto said. "They both have their own appeal."

He also talked... Read more...

The DS sequel is coming to a handheld near you in March 2011.

Capcom announced a March 15, 2011 release date for Okamiden today.

The sequel to Okami, the critically acclaimed PlayStation 2 and Wii game, Okamiden takes place months after the original, putting players in control of Chibiterasu, the son of the original game's protagonist.

GameStop will have an exclusive pre-order bonus, including a paint brush stylus and a screen cleaner featuring art from the game.

You take the realistic Fender Squier home next year for under $300.

Fender announced that the Fender Squier Pro Guitar for Rock Band 3 will be available on March 1, 2011 for a price of $279.

Pre-orders for the instrument will start on January 1, 2011. The Squier has real strings on it, and can be used as a real instrument and a video game controller.

The Fender... Read more...

Four demos available as the service launches for the European Wii Shop Channel.

Starting November 5, the European Wii Shop Channel will feature ongoing downloadable WiiWare game demos. The demos will be free of charge and available to download for limited periods of time as the selection is updated.

Demos for Furry Legends, Jett Rocket, Zombie Panic in Wonderland, and Nintendo's... Read more...

Crytek UK, formerly Free Radical Design, is trying to get new TimeSplitters off the ground.

The TimeSplitters series, which last saw an entry in 2005, is being shopped around by developer Crytek UK, according to Eurogamer.

The company, formerly Free Radical Design, is talking to publishers about bringing a new entry in the multiplayer-centric first-person shooter to consoles. They are also pitching an original first-person shooter, too.

Nintendo's flagship store in New York City gets a new coat of paint and then some.

The Nintendo World Store, Nintendo's flagship retail center in New York City's Rockefeller Center, recently underwent renovations. With a November 7 party in the works to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., the store is looking better than ever.

The location has become more of a Nintendo shrine than ever before, thanks to an expansion given to the museum area. The store also added new Nintendo DSi demo stations.

Reports indicate that Nintendo is bringing demos back its online service.

Website NintendoLife is claiming that Nintendo's abandonment of WiiWare game demos earlier this year was not permanent.  WiiWare demos will apparently return to the service in "the near future" for at least a limited run.According to "several WiiWare developers", Nintendo has again begun accepting... Read more...

Science and basketball rules this week's selection of games.

This week's update sees a total of six games, two for WiiWare, three for DSiWare, and one for the Virtal Console. The lone Virtual Console title of the week is Street Slam for the Neo Geo. Street Slam is an arcade 3-on-3 basketball title for up to two players. It can be downloaded for 900 Wii Points ($9.00).

The two-man development team is having trouble compressing the game under the WiiWare limit.

Super Meat Boy developer Team Meat announced via Twitter that their game isn't coming to WiiWare in November like originally planned due to the fact that it is currently too big for Nintendo's download service.

The tweet read: "attention internets, the wii version is NOT coming out in Nov its impossible. we havent even gotten the size down under 50mb yet (goal=39mb)"

Pokemon takes a back seat while Mario celebrates with 300,000 copies of the Super Mario Collection sold.

After leading the Media Create sales charts for five consecutive weeks, Pokemon Black and Pokemon White’s reign atop the summit has come to an end as they step aside for Mario and his latest Wii offering.

Super Mario Collection: Special Pack began its life in Japan in the top spot with sales... Read more...

Mario Party 2 and Super Bonk highlight the month's lineup of releases.

Nintendo has announced their November lineup of classic games for the Japanese Virtual Console. The first of these is the Nintendo 64 title, Mario Party 2. Released December 17, 1999 in Japan and January 24, 2000 in North America, Mario Party 2 includes six themed boards, the ability to practice a mini-game, and new spaces on the board. Mario Party 2 is set to be released on November 2, priced at 1,000 Wii Points.

Some video showing the Shop Channel equivalent for 3DS.

Part of the presentation at today's Nintendo Operational Briefing showed a video example of the Shop Channel for Nintendo 3DS.

Mario, Donkey Kong, Dr. Mario, and utilities such as the Mario Clock are shown in the clean new interface. The video also shows a Super Mario Land video loaded and played from the service.

Four games expected around launch, more to follow.

Following Nintendo's Financial Results meeting today, where figures for all of Nintendo's sales and profits for hardware and software were released to investors, a supplementary information document gave a launch schedule for October 2010 onwards, including a preliminary list of Nintendo published games for Nintendo 3DS.