Gaming Console Platform

Nintendo recently reported a gargantuan 84.7 increase in net sales as compared to last year, giving them the cue to raise their net sales forecast for the year yet again. Yet despite the rise in sales, Nintendo’s shares actually fell 9.7 in the market.

One of the reasons for this is that their shares are sensitive to the movement of the dollar, which is weak right now. Another factor is that some institutional investors who bought a large amount of stocks over the years have pocketed their profits.

Whatever the reason though, analysts aren’t worried for Nintendo’s future. In the long haul, Nintendo remains to be an attractive investment for investors. They remain confident that the company will have strong growth next year.

Says Yasuo Imanaka, analyst for Rakuten Securities:

In the United States and Europe, shortages of the Wii and DS are getting serious. Nintendo will surely boost production in the next business year. […] And higher output will lead straight to higher sales of its game machines and game software. I think we are going to see Nintendo chalking up strong profit growth next year, again.

If you’ve been enjoying OpenTTD DS homebrew developer”>dominik81’s DS port of Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe (OpenTTD), we’ve got some good news. The developer has announced that a new game build is now available for download. This new build, dubbed Alpha 4, carries fixes for several bug that you may have encountered during the initial release. Quoting the readme:

• Changelog:
• based on r11899
• added a start icon and description
• the random seed works
• loading original TTD saves disabled (256×256 too big for DS)
• press A anytime (even after crashes) to toggle the console
• Fix:
• trains can load and unload now
• road depot window (and similar) doesn’t crash any more
• YAPF is completely disabled now. If the player enables it or it is enabled in a savegame, an error message is displayed and it is turned off
• saving games with bigger maps is now possible. Due to this savegames have to be uncompressed. Still 256×128 maps is the biggest possible due to memory limitations.
• Reduced viewport memory. crashes due to not enough memory available shouldn’t happen so often any more.
• The game bow the start menu at the beginning
• Added a 128×64 version of the title screen savegame
• Added a key combination for the cheat menu
• Some bugs not mentioned should be fixed due to general improvements

• Known bugs:
• graphical glitches (mostly during scrolling) because the nds blitter needs to be rewritten
• minimap glitches
• trying to create m ps bigger than 256×128 crashes
• the screen resolution is too small making it impossible to click some windows
• ships make the game crash (unconfirmed)

Keep note that this is release is an early development preview version. It’s not a public release, but rather is intended for use among other developers interested in helping fix its bugs.

Those interested in downloading OpenTTD Alpha 4 are strongly advised to view the file bundle’s readme for full details. If you do find any bugs, be sure to report them to the developer via the source link below.

Download: Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe DS Alpha 4

Ready to watch your illustration come to life? We’re letting the DS owners know that 0xtob has recent released v0.3 of the Pocket Physics homebrew, the app that turns whatever you draw on your touchscreen into a fully movable sprite.

This new release sports several improvements, including increased dual-screen functions and an enlarged workspace. Here’s the full readme:

• larger paper (3×3 screens)
• scrolling using either D-Pad, ABXY, or pen (hold L or R)
• dual screen support (overview on top, zoomed view on bottom)
• open shapes (drawn shapes are only closed if the end is close to the start)
• Using the actual shape for picking => o more accidental deletions
• updated to box2d 2.0 (svn r20)
• using ds hw div/sqrt in box2d
• if simulation is behind time, 2 steps are performed at once => subjectively faster
• faster and better drawing code
• pins are hidden during simulation

Full instructions for using Pocket Physics v0.3 are available in the file bundle’s readme. Also included here is Box2D 2.0 (SVN r80), a modified version of the engine by Erin Catto that 0xtob used to create Pocket Physics. Both Box2D and 2.0 (SVN r80) and Pocket Physics v0.3 are available here for download. Those looking for more details will want to visit  0xtob’s site via the source link.

Download: Pocket Physics v0.3
Download: Box2D 2.0 (SVN r80)

If anything, this week is a premonition. Last week was big since it saw No More Heroes and Burnout Paradise, and a good crop is in store this time to keep you mildly distracted before next week’s high profile titles. Electronic Arts is dishing out another fun expansion in form of The Sims 2: Castaway Stories, and Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice for the PlayStation Portable is finally heading to North America. Bomberman is also dropping bombs on the Wii, PSP, and DS. Everything else is listed below.

Bomberman Land. This week’s first Bomberman offering is for the Wii and PSP, another of Hudson Soft’s creations that features the explosive mascot and his friends. Around 50 minigames of all sorts are there to cater to fans of even extreme sports and sci-fi.

• Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Portable - January 29, 2008
• US 29.99
• ESRB E (Everyone)
• Hudson Soft

Bomberman Land Touch! 2. Much like Bomberman Land on other platforms, a plethora of minigames make this bite-sized title a competitive party game. All you need to get friends to join is one cartridge, so it won’t be much of an investment to share the pleasures of good ‘ol Bomberman with friends.

• Nintendo DS - January 29, 2008
• US 29.99
• ESRB E (Everyone)
• Hudson Soft

King’s Bounty: The Legend. Developer Katauri has something with much promise for fans of PC adventure games. King’s Bounty: The Legend is an adventure in which “classic real-time meets turn-based gameplay” with typical character classes we grew to love in RPGs, such as warrior, paladin, and mage.

• PC - February 1, 2008
• US 39.99
• Atari and Katauri Interactive

Pacific Storm: Allies. Because we can never get enough of video games set in World War 2, here’s an expansion to the deep RTS released back in 2006. As a continuation of the heated battle between the Allies and Axis, new nations including Germany and the UK will be involved. New elements such as the hit location system and improved mod system are also set to give players an authentic WWII experience.

• PC - January 29, 2008
• ESRB T (Teen)
• Lesta Studio and Buka Entertainment

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. If jumping from one moving car to another is your thing, BigBig Studios‘ latest game has more than you can hope for. When not doing death defying stunts on the road, you as the Commander of the Pursuit Force can jack even boats just to catch that criminal.

• Sony PlayStation Portable - January 29, 2008
• US 29.99
• ESRB T (Teen)
• BigBig Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment

The Sims 2: Castaway Stories. Coming from The Sims Stories product line made with laptop-friendly controls, Castaway Stories is for everyone who wants an easy-to-play version of The Sims 2: Castaway. It’s divided in chapters, so you’ll be able to control how your Sims survive the remote island day by day.

• PC - January 29, 2008
• US 39.99
• ESRB T (Teen)
• Maxis and Electronic Art

Buy: [ Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice (PSP) ]

Buy: [ Bomberman Land (Nintendo Wii), Bomberman Land (PSP) ]
Buy: [ Bomberman Land Touch 2 (PSP) ]
Buy: [ Pacific Storm Allies (PC) ]

Despite the Wii shortage during the holiday season, Nintendo still managed to make a killing in the market. According to the latest financial report of the period from April to December, Nintendo’s net sales have increased 84.7 compared to the year before.

Analyst Yuta Sakurai recently commented that Wii sales could reach 100 million worldwide. While this is certainly a possibility, it may not be enough to make the Wii the absolute king of gaming. It could be outsold by its own little brother: Nintendo’s DS handheld.

According to the financial report, Nintendo has now sold 64.79 million DS units worldwide. 24.5 million of those units were sold in the nine months before December. One of the most popular games for the DS is The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

As for the Wii, 20.13 million units have been sold worldwide. Some 14.29 million of those were sold in the nine months before December. The most popular games for the Wii include Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Party 8.

Because of the tremendous success, Nintendo has raised its net sales forecast for the full year to YJP 1.63 trillion (US 15.27 billion).

With news from Lucas Arts that they will be releasing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed this March, platforms such as Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, and DS will be treated to a new Star Wars game unlike any other.

In this video we were able to get, the people behind the development talk about the three physics engines that were used in order to effectively render the galaxy of Star Wars. Havok, Euphoria, and Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) were all used in order to bring new life into the game.

Havok is an engine that corresponds to the physics related to objects found in the game such as crates, barrels, and ships. The Euphoria engine is used for the bio-mechanical AI of the game. it is responsible for the behavioral AI of the characters in the game. For DMM, it simulates the substance of objects providing an authentic Star Wars environment. An example would be when a glass breaks, and you get to see the particles that make up the glass when it shatters into pieces.

Check out the video below to know more about the engines used to develop the game. As for us, we’ll be providing you with more updates as they come.

After Nintendo’s recently released statement showing the next nine months of the company’s fiscal calendar for 2008, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter says that Nintendo’s forecasts remained rather conservative and that they could still do better.

In Nintendo’s announcement, it expects to raise its fiscal 2008 sales forecast by up to 5.2 percent of 1.63 trillion, with a net income of 275 billion by the end of the first nine months. According to Pachter, Nintendo’s assets should hit around 1.66 trillion instead.

In terms of hardware sales, Pachter continued by saying that estimates for both the Wii and DS were still low considering its robust sales during the previous year. Nintendo estimated Wii sales to be around 18.5 million, while DS sales averaging 29.5 million units.

Pachter explained the conservative numbers Nintendo released by saying:

As we expect Wii production levels to be slightly higher than 20 million for the fiscal year, we think that there may be 1 million units upside to the company s guidance… [We] think [Nintendo s] DS software estimates remain too low.

DS software sales are plentiful, with an attach rate over 2.5 units per hardware unit during the fiscal year. This tie ratio suggests to us that the company could sell close to 250 million units of DS software next fiscal year.

In Alone in the Dark 5, you’ll be more “alone” than ever before. The game won’t have an HUD so you won’t have any instant visual confirmation of your health or ammo. This and other details are revealed in a new video interview with Todd Slepian.

Slepian is the producer of the latest installment to the Alone in the Dark franchise. In the video, he reveals new features in Alone in the Dark 5. We’re also shown gameplay clips, some which show off the game’s realistic fire graphics.

The game’s looking pretty impressive, and the creepy audio track playing in the background gives us a bit of goosebumps. Here’s hoping it’s part of the game’s soundtrack. Alone in the Dark 5 will be released for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2 and PC (and supposedly for the PSP, and DS too). Here’s the video:

Daniel Kim, a senior at Virginia Tech, was found dead in the parking lot of a Target store in Christiansburg, VA. Preliminary investigation immediately determined that the 21-year old died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Upon further investigation, it was found that Kim was an avid World of Warcraft gamer, thus linking another tragic death to gaming.

While official reports do peg that Kim spent hours online on Blizzard Entertainment’s cash cow MMORPG, the fact that players he befriended online were aware and duly concerned of Kim’s waning emotional health also did not go unnoticed.

Apparently, emails from his WoW pals were sent to Virginia Tech in hopes that the administration would resolve Kim’s emotional issues before things got out of hand.

Shaun Pribush, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, explicitly stated that they knew Kim had purchased a US 200 pistol and had tried to commit suicide several times before. It was noted that the such attempts failed before, and Pribush remained in contact with university officials to ensure Kim’s safety.

Unfortunately, Virginia Tech’s Care Team, the ones in charge of monitoring student welfare, apparently could not prevent the death of another student. Though Kim was found and questioned before he committed suicide, the young male replied that he was okay. The police and the Care Team did not press further.

While several third-parties have begun to question the manner that the case was handled - and how it ended so tragically despite ample time and warning - there were a few parties that were allegedly linking Kim’s death to gaming.

Additional information we’ve scrounged for did not explicitly name World of Warcraft as the reason for the Kim’s suicidal tendencies. In fact, it has been speculated by many experts commenting on the recent incident to be the effect of low self-esteem. Further insight into the case eventually revealed that Kim may have been emotionally distraught from a case of identity crisis.

William Kim, Daniel’s father, revealed that his son had a haircut one evening after coming home to Reston, Virginia. Apparently, the haircut was said to have disappointed Daniel. William said it made him look too much like Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter of the April 2007 killings at the same university. “He said ‘I look just the same, they can’t tell the difference,’” William Kim said.

Months after the shootings, William noted that his son left home donning a cap and sunglasses to disguise his looks. And disguises seemed to be the young male’s forte, for his father and even his sister, Jeannette Kim, couldn’t tell if anything else was wrong. More details on this as we come across them.

We extend our deepest condolences to Daniel Kim’s family and friends. This is truly a tragic loss - to loved ones, to classmates, and to fellow gamers alike.

The list of the top 10 best selling games on the PC for 2007 was recently released by the NPD Group, but it seems there were some errors. They’ve corrected this list and while most of the original entries are still there, one notable entry is MS Flight Simulator X.

Also of note is that the first two spots remain untouched and the World of Warcraft franchise still has a firm and uncontested grip on first and second place. The rest of the entries from the original list have been rearranged according to their corrected number of sales:

• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - 2.25 million
• World of Warcraft - 914K
• The Sims 2 - 534K
• The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack - 433K
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 383K
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - 350K
• MS Age of Empires III - 313K
• Sim City 4 - 294K
• MS Flight Simulator X - 280K
• The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack - 272K