Nintendo Wii Tracker

Natsume has announced that it will be publishing Harvest Moon: Frantic Framing for Nintendo DS this spring. The first screenshots and game-play details were also released by the company. The game will hit the store shelves this May.

Harvest Moon: Frantic Framing is set in the same world of island of the recent DS hit Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. It continues the tale of the island and its residents. Players can choose from 12 playable characters where each one of them will have a unique story. The game has a variety of modes full of excitement to play. Players can also unlock character art, music and some special surprises in their Collection Room.

According to Gamasutra’s weekly column has provided an important update of sales patterns worldwide. Last week, Sailing the World: Street Fighter IV covers the top five sellers for all available platform in the U.S., Japan and Europe.
The chart of the last week found Street Fighter IV outselling all competition on the XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America and the UK. Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Demon’s Souls are the leading games in Japan.

Amazon has reported that Wii Fit is currently in stock and is having a steady supply. This can be an indication that the title’s supply shortage may finally be over. Wii Fit is still ruling the charts but Rock Band 2 has slipped to 5th position from its second place.

Its time for the analysts who are watching the video-gaming industry to pitch in and predict the way January will shape up for the various hardware producers. It seems that video game sales will rise by more than 12% in January. Even though the supply of Nintendo Wii was stressed due to the huge sales in November and December in North America, still Jesse Divnich of EEDAR believes that hardware sales of all platforms will increase by 55% over January 2008.

Nintendo Wii is set to come in the first place with about 550,000 units sold while the XBox 360 will sell more than the PlayStation 3. All sources agree on the fact that Nintendo will continue to sell a lot of Wiis and make a pile of money.

The Nintendo Wii is still in huge demand proving that casual gaming is the biggest segment ever to appear. However, there are some big potential that have led to some very poor quality titles. 2K games Global president, Christoph Hartmann states that these titles would eventually lead to the downfall of Wii. The gamers would stop buying the games as only a handful of casual games are good while the rest fall in poor quality category.

It is mainly due to the excellent marketing strategy that the gamers find almost any game as the greatest. A lot of people don’t even bother to check the specialized websites for reviews to see if their possible future purchase is good. We can just hope that the developers make good and high-quality games for the Wii.

The third quarter of EA’s sale growth was weak enough to lower its share prices. It thus, outlined a number of ways for cost-cutting measures to boost profits. The Redwood city, Calif-based company’s chief executive, John Riccitiello accepted that the low economic conditions were to be blamed for this result. The low profit and sales is due to the company’s own performance with the games that did not do well in the market.
 
To go ahead with the cost-cutting measures, EA is cutting 1,100 jobs or 11 percent of its work force, closing the studios and working on games to focus profits. It is also working on developing more good games for Nintendo Wii but is also criticized for not dong well there either. It as already delayed the release of three games saying that it will set up its marketing campaign.

The downloading games have become much more popular among iPhone users than smart phone users. iPhone users are about ten times more likely to download games for their phones other than smart phone users. A ComScore report revealed that iPhone users were responsible for 14% of all mobile game downloads last year.

The credit for making a platform of games on the iPhones goes to the Apple’s head of iPhone software development, Scott Forstall. All this seems like a threat to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. But it is hard to believe that a phone could beat out dedicated handheld gaming systems unless Nintendo DS or the PSP adopts the phone technology.

One could really be wrong about the summation of City Interactive’s publishing abilities for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, but I’m really guessing that this is all about shovel ware. In spite of, the company will be developing and publishing titles for the aforementioned Nintendo gaming platforms this year.

"Branching into developing and publishing for Nintendo platforms marks an exciting new chapter for City Interactive," said Mark Rudolph, Marketing and Operations Manager for City Interactive. "We're honored to be working with Nintendo, with its rich history of groundbreaking achievements in the videogame industry, and eager to begin creating games for Nintendo's astoundingly successful current-generation systems.” There’s always the possibility that City Interactive games being developed for the DS and Wii might actually be worth playing, but again, they have a lot to prove from where a lot of hardcore gamers stand.

There’s one that always goes with Sony, it's "hubris." Sony Computer Entertainment America President and CEO Kaz Hirai likes to talk big, but I'm a little worried about what world the head honcho is living in. Kaz declared in the February issue of Official Playstation Magazine --in the same article he says the Xbox 360 "lacks longevity"--that he believes Sony is the "official industry leader" in the gaming console market. How does he reach this conclusion? After all, the PS3 is in third place, according to data from research firm The NPD Group.
He's got no kind words for Nintendo's Wii, either, basically sending it away as a non-competitor. But Kaz, whether or not you like it, you're in a three-horse race. The Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 are all good consoles that go in very different directions. And we're all for clattering sabers. Both of those are good things for technology and for gamers; not only do they power the console makers to continually one-up each other, but they give the users far more variety.

Sequels like MTV Games' ‘Rock Band 2,’ Bethesda Softworks' ‘Fallout 3’ and Konami Digital Entertainment's "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" won over game critics and consumers. "In uncertain economic times, gamers do what every other consumer does focus on quality brands," said Sid Shuman, senior editor at GamePro Magazine.

Think of them as gaming comfort foods." 2K Games' "Grand Theft Auto IV," which was released back in April, has sold over 11 million copies worldwide. Xbox 360 gamers will be brought in to a new storyline come February 17 when "The Lost and the Damned" expansion pack is released digitally via Xbox Live with the new episode commenced Johnny Lebitz and his biker gang, The Lost. With the average age of a gamer today 35, mature-rated games like developer Epic Games' "Gears of War 2" have risen to the top of the worldwide charts.

For those not recognizable with Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, it is a Revolution Software developed point-and-click adventure game released on PC back in 1996 which saw subsequent ports to PS1 and Game Boy Advance. The genre has seen something of rebirth thanks to Sam & Max. "These new platforms and their innovative controls enabled us to translate and enrich the point-and-click gaming experience in a way that no other console allowed before," said Revolution founder Charles Cecil.
‘Through Dave's animated faces, the game's characters are portrayed as empathetic and emotional driving the narrative in a way that has never been done before in an adventure game. The Director's Cut has permitted me to bring my true vision for the series.’