A musical racing game and a zombie-killing Little Red Riding Hood are the highlights of this week's update.

Seven new games have been added this week to Nintendo's downloadable game services, three for WiiWare, one for Virtual Console and three for DSiWare. To kick off the week, gaijin games released lilt line, a musical racing game where players guide a line through a series of notes in order to create a full tune. The full game has been priced at 500 Wii Points ($5), while the demo version is available for download free of charge.

WiiWare developers launch a contest to keep their demos on the Wii Shop Channel longer.

Broken Rules and Gaijin Games have announced a contest to win free copies of their WiiWare titles, And Yet It Moves and Bit.Trip Fate. The reason for this contest is to keep the demo versions of these titles on the Wii Shop Channel for a longer period of time.

Game demos on the recently reinstated... Read more...

Nintendo scores big in November with three top ten titles and 2.7 million systems sold.

The Nintendo DS was the top-selling video game system in the critical sales month of November, according to the NPD Group. In addition, the top ten software sales list included three Wii-exclusive titles.

Although sales figures were not released for the specific systems, NPD analyst Anita Frazier... Read more...

The disco-loving and puzzle-solving robot will make his gaming debut at the end of December.

Developer Fugazo recently announced that their first WiiWare title, Frobot, will be available for download in North America on December 20. Retailing for 1000 Wii points, Frobot will feature a puzzle-filled single player campaign along with a local multiplayer mode for up to four players. 

The... Read more...

Level-5 is expecting their Studio Ghlibi collaboration to perform well at retail in Japan.

Level-5 announced that the initial shipment to Japanese stores for the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni is around 600,000 units in total.

The fantasy RPG comes with a magical book that is used while playing the game to look up spells and monsters. The game, which is released in Japan on December 9, is the first game where the animation company Studio Ghlibi have been involved with development.

Bonuses are again the highest in Japan, despite financial losses for the preceeding half-year.

Nintendo's employees in Japan are set to receive a winter bonus of 1,453,703 yen (roughly $17,000). 

This is slightly more than the 2009 bonus of 1,453,206 yen, reported then as the largest bonus among Japanese companies that year. These lofty figures are surprising considering the company posted their first loss in seven years for the first-half fiscal term that ended in September.

WiiWare sees a lot of fluid in this week's game updates.

The highlight of the week lies on WiiWare with both the full game release and demo of Fluidity, published by Nintendo, an action puzzle game in which players control a pool of water that can turn into ice and steam in order to travel the various game worlds. Tilting of the Wii Remote is used to control... Read more...

European gamers have a couple of months before they can unravel Kirby's Epic Yarn.

The European release date for Kirby's Epic Yarn has been announced for February 25, 2011. 

While Donkey Kong Country Returns was released in time for the holiday season, and has been available since December 3, shortly after the US release of November 27, Kirby's Epic Yarn will not be available until early next year in Europe. 

We're doing the podcast LIVE, all day long, to raise money for Child's Play. Content schedule added!

It's over! Thank you so much for helping us raise over $2000 for Child's Play. Our donation link will be up for a little while yet, so you still have a chance to contribute to this great cause. The recording is now available for download: part one, part two and part three.

The game is finished but not expected for a release this year.

Details have emerged for the final installment of the Bit.Trip series, titled Bit.Trip FLUX. The game is complete and is likely to be released in early 2011, Gaijin Games programmer Chris Osborn told Destructoid. He also mentioned that the game is not meant to be Wii Zapper compatible, unlike the previous game in the series; it would be possible, but difficult to play using that control scheme.

"If you want to make a hit, you have to give a game time to get to quality," says company president. 

EA Games is not keen on licensed games anymore, according to President Frank Gibeau in an interview with Develop.

"The days of licensed-based, 75-rated games copies are dead like the dinosaur," Gibeau said.

He specifically called out the James Bond franchise, which EA worked with last generation,... Read more...

Even more Brain Training coming to a Nintendo platform.

In his book, Saraba Nou Game (Farewell Brain Games), Professor Ryuta Kawashima confirms that the next Brain Age game is in development. At the time the book was written, the game's release was expected by the end of 2010. As the Nintendo 3DS was previously expected to be released this year, it is possible that the 3DS is the target platform. A Brain Training tech demo for 3DS was shown at E3 2010.

Holiday shoppers eat up Wii and DSi systems.

During Thanksgiving week, beginning November 21, Nintendo sold 900,000 DSi units, while the Wii managed to move 600,000 units according to Nintendo's internal sales data. These sales include the recently released bundles for both systems -- the limited edition Super Mario 25th Anniversary red Wii... Read more...

Cave Story explores the DSiWare service, and its WiiWare counterpart receives a demo.

Headlining this week is Cave Story, Nicalis's indie sensation. Starting life as a free PC game by Pixel, the game received a WiiWare update, which was released on March 22, 2010. Today, a demo of the WiiWare version has been added to the demos section of the Wii Shop Channel. In addition, a DSiWare version was released today. For 1,000 DSi Points ($10), players will get to experience Mimiga Village and uncover the plot behind their existence.

Public 3DS showcase will take place in January.

Nintendo's previously announced Japanese Nintendo 3DS demo event, where the public will be able to try the Nintendo 3DS for the first time, will take place in Tokyo on January 8-10, 2011. The venue is the Makuhari Messe convention center and admission is free.

The last time Nintendo World took place was in 2006, focusing on Wii following the reveal at E3 that year.

Level-5's soccer RPG series is being translated for release in Europe.

The first of Level-5's Inazuma Eleven games for Nintendo DS will be released in Europe under distribution by Nintendo. The release date is set for January 28.

Initial screenshots show that the game will keep its Japanese title, rather than using the translated name - Lightning Eleven. This is the first time the soccer RPG series, from the company that brought us Professor Layton, has been announced for a release outside of Japan.

Update: Announcement was made in error, Nintendo will have no show floor presence.

Update: A press release from the planners of CES, the Consumer Electronics Association, states that the announcement that Nintendo of America would be exhibiting at the show was made in error. Nintendo has meeting rooms booked only.

Nintendo have been announced as an exhibitor at CES 2011, the... Read more...

WiiWare demos reign supreme in this week's update.

As announced by Nintendo last week, WiiWare demos return to the Shop Channel. The first four demos are And Yet it Moves from Broken Rules, BIT.TRIP Fate from Aksys Games, Jett Rocket from Shin'en Multimedia, and Thruspace from Nintendo. All of these demos are free and will be available for a limited time. New demos will be added in the coming weeks.

Mario and friends invade Namco's latest drum master game.

The third Japan-only Taiko Drum Master game for the Wii will include a track from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, among other video game songs. When playing the game, the background will feature Mario and Luigi dancing along with other characters such as the Koopa Kids.

Other video game cameos in the... Read more...

Nintendo releases new DSi bundles for Black Friday.

For Black Friday, green and orange Nintendo DSi bundles will be released, containing a console and a copy of Mario Party DS in the box.

The DSis will be available from November 26 at a suggested retail price of $149.99, while supplies last. 

In Nintendo's announcement for the consoles, they... Read more...