nintendo

Nintendo announces WiiWare

Pretty soon the Wii's online store won't be just for Virtual Console games and Opera. Nintendo just announced WiiWare, a Wii software creation service for indie developers. Smaller game companies will be able to use WiiWare to produce downloadable games to distribute and sell over Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel.

Nintendo's move has shades of Microsoft's XNA Studio Express initiative, in which the Xbox community can create games and potentially make them available for play on the Xbox 360 or on Windows machines.

This is more than welcome news for Wii owners, who have been experiencing … Read more

Nicole Kidman has a 'Brain Age' of 52

Nintendo fanboys are now officially in love with Nicole Kidman. Starting last night, she began appearing in TV ads for the sequel to Nintendo's incredibly popular DS game, Brain Age.

Kidman on the Brain Age series:

"I love the concept that Nintendo is reaching out to new audiences with its self-improvement products like Brain Training. Most importantly, I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind feeling young."

Interestingly enough, this campaign is being launched only in Europe with no announced plans to bring it across the pond. One would … Read more

The Wii goes fishing

Being old enough to have watched the original SNL--before it was called SNL--we've always had a special place in our hearts for bass. So we may well have a skewed perspective on the the "Bass Fishing Wii" game coming out of Japan (of course).

Kotaku says the game has six stages and takes place in locales around the world, including the Grand Canyon. (We had no idea that bass fishing was so big there.) It sounds pretty boring to us too, which is why Kotaku speculates that Chisato Morishita--a "former race queen model"--was hired … Read more

Choose your side in the Transformers DS games and fight on the web

OK, movie tie-in games tend to suck. It's a sad rule with few exceptions, but most movie games feel phoned in and generic.

Hope springs eternal, though, and the allure of giant transforming robots is keeping me at least a little bit hopeful for the Transformers games. Yesterday we received copies of Transformers for the Nintendo DS. I can't really give it anything beyond my first impressions yet (keep an eye on Gamespot for the inevitable review, though), but it seems like a fun game. The graphics are extremely blocky, thanks to the DS' relatively low power, and … Read more

Cosmic Wii story wins film festival

If you had a hankering to win a contest to make the best short Nintendo-themed film, you're disappointed Tuesday. Unless your name is Jack Paccione, that is.

Paccione's film, Good vs. Wiivil, in which the successful video game console is placed in the middle of a cosmic struggle between right and wrong, won the first-ever Nintendo Short Cuts Showcase film festival. He beat out nine other entrants.

Nintendo was clearly happy about the more than 200 content entries given that each of these works celebrated the company and its work.

"It reinforced our innovation and our own … Read more

Wii Controls Gaming Market: Surprise of the Year?

At this very moment, I am looking at a paused Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game while an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are perched alongside the Wii collecting dust. Does that mean the 360 and Playstation 3 are inferior to the Wii or provide a less gratifying experience? No way. But what it does mean is that Sony and Microsoft underestimated Nintendo as well as the consumer base they try so hard to impress. The Wii's success may not have been a surprise to Nintendo fanboys out there, but it becomes more apparent that the Wii's success … Read more

Pikachu vs. Homer Simpson

As it turns out, Homer doesn't have a monopoly on yellow game boxes. Nintendo has answered the doughnut meister with a special edition of its own in the same color, albeit a portable one.

A limited number of DS Lites will be available in a glossy "Pikachu yellow" with a matching stylus and the prototypical Pokemon rodent's face etched in the lid's corner. It goes for $139, but Akihabara News says there are a few small catches: It's being sold at the Japanese Pokemon Center and, even then, only through a lottery. Good luck … Read more

Layoffs hit Sony's PlayStation unit

At least 80 employees in Sony Computer Entertainment of America's Foster City, California PlayStation unit have been laid off, according to a report in the popular video game blog, Kotaku.

But Kotaku quoted SCEA spokesman Dave Karraker as saying, "In an effort to accurately align the company to meet the changing needs of our consumers and our industry, (SCEA) has found it necessary to...restructure the company as necessary to continue our standing as the market leader."

And in an email to CNET News.com, Karraker confirmed the report Wednesday morning.

Given Sony's troubles--the much-hyped PlayStation … Read more

Nintendo Wi-Fi service reaches 5 million users

Nintendo said Wednesday that its Wi-Fi Connection service--which allows Nintendo DS users to play wirelessly against each other--has surpassed 5 million users.

All told, the video game giant said, users have initiated more than 200 million sessions, playing games like Animal Crossing: Wild World, Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime Hunters and others wirelessly.

And despite the attention paid to next-generation video game systems like the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, the DS is currently the best-selling system of all, having moved 470,000 units in April, according to NPD Group.