Games

Nintendo: More Wiis available for holidays

Updated at 10:42 a.m. PDT with new information from the rest of the Nintendo press event.

SAN FRANCISCO--Nintendo on Thursday said it expects to ship a much higher number of Wii video game consoles to retailers this holiday season than it did last year.

At its annual fall media event here, the Japanese company's North American president, Reggie Fils-Aime, told the gathered media that the company intends to try to address the well-documented shortages of the Wii that occurred during the 2007 holiday season.

He didn't say exactly how many Wiis had been available last year, nor how many more would be making their way into consumers' hands this time around. And he didn't even commit to being able to satisfy all demand this year.

"Will there be enough (Wiis) to meet demand?" Fils-Aime said. "Talk to me in January."

Still, it's important for the company to at least try to address the shortages that resulted in long lines at retailers that happened to have a few Wiis available.

But Fils-Aime added that the company is in uncharted territory with the Wii, and he suggested that the company doesn't have the ability to judge exactly how many units would be required to satisfy all consumers this holiday season.

He did say, however, that Nintendo expects to increase supplies of the Wii by about 50 percent in the fourth quarter of this year.

Asked how much more demand there had been for the Wii during last year's holiday season than available units, he said there was no way to quantify that.

"All we know," Fils-Aime told me, "is that as soon as units were available at retailers, they were gone in seconds."

Fils-Aime opened his remarks by unveiling Nintendo's new DS-i handheld console. However, because Nintendo also had a media event in Japan last night, that news had already made its way around the world.

He said the DS-i will not be available in North America until well into 2009 because there is still strong demand here for the existing DS Lite. He explained that the DS Lite is still selling better here than any device ever has and that there is still a large amount of penetration to be had.

In fact, he said that while one in every two Japanese households already has a DS or DS Lite, that number is just one in five in North America. Nintendo said it won't release the DS-i, which is expected to cost the equivalent of $180 in Japan, in North America until that penetration rate is higher.

Whether there are warehouses full of DS Lites that still need to be sold is not clear, and Nintendo isn't saying what its specific game plan is regarding the North American transition from DS Lite to DS-i. … Read more

Take-Two opts to remain independent

After fighting off an unsolicited buyout offer and reviewing its options with other potential suitors over the past five months, Take-Two Interactive Software announced on Thursday it has decided to remain an independent company.

Take-Two, publisher of the popular video game franchise Grand Theft Auto and other titles, said it has completed its strategic review and determined that it would like to continue operating as an independent entity, following a couple of strong quarterly results.

"Take-Two's recent performance demonstrates our potential to create value for the long term. We have delivered solid financial results and expanded our portfolio … Read more

GameStop to buy France's Micromania for $700 million

Video game retail chain GameStop announced Wednesday that it has agreed to purchase France-based Micromania for $700 million in cash from a private equity fund.

The acquisition is part of GameStop's efforts to expand in Europe, increasing its store count in that region to 1,077, according to a Bloomberg report. Texas-based GameStop currently has no stores located in France, while Micromania has 332 store locations in the country.

Under the deal, the company will purchase Micromania's outstanding shares from private equity fund L Capital, which gained control of the video game retailer in 2005, according to Bloomberg. … Read more

Rumor: Nintendo to have new Wii 'by 2011'

Update at 2:10 p.m. PDT: This story now reflects Nintendo's response to a request for comment.

If there's one thing that's sure to get video gamers talking, it's a rumor that there could be a new Wii, Xbox, or PlayStation console on the horizon.

Well, the hot topic of discussion du jour is that there could be a new Wii by 2011, according to a post on the blog What They Play.

That site "has heard from multiple sources in the game development and publishing community that Nintendo is currently showing early presentations of its next home console hardware. Apparently set to hit the market 'by 2011,' the device is said to be the true 'next generation' Nintendo console, and far more than a simple refresh of the current (Wii) hardware."

The post continued, asserting that this rumored new device could have high-definition capabilities, as well as a "greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content."

For its part, Nintendo said it does not comment on rumors.

It could be mere coincidence (because odds are that even if the rumors are true, Nintendo wouldn't want to confirm them for quite some time), but on Thursday, the company is hosting its annual media day here in San Francisco. And I'd been told that it would "have news" it would be releasing at the event. Until now, I'd assumed the news would be something only minimally consequential, but of course, announcing a new Wii development project would make a few headlines, I would think.

More likely, the news that Nintendo will put out Thursday will be about a new multimedia DS handheld device, such as the one the video game blog Joystiq says could be unveiled at a separate press event in Japan Wednesday night. … Read more

EA kills 'Tiberium,' says misses quality standards

For fans of the Electronic Arts franchise Command and Conquer looking forward to the spinoff game, Tiberium, I'm afraid I have some bad news.

According to a story in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, EA has decided to shutter production of the new first-person shooter, citing quality issues.

Tiberium was "not on track to meet the high quality standards" EA sets for its games, a spokesperson told the Journal. "A lower quality game is not in the best interest of the consumers and would not succeed in this market."

The Journal article calls the move … Read more

Nintendo strikes Wii hotel deal

If you're going to be staying at the Renaissance New York Hotel Times Square on business, you might need to have someone come get you when it's time to leave for your meetings.

That's because the hotel, and several others in the Marriott chain, will now be featuring Nintendo Wiis in their rooms, along with a selection of 20 games. Mass meeting delinquency is sure to follow.

According to a release from Nintendo on Tuesday, the Times Square hotel, along with Marriotts in five cities around the country, are going to begin stocking hotel rooms, or the … Read more

New Xbox 360 motherboards could mean fewer crashes

Update (12:57 p.m.): The story now reflects Microsoft's response to a request for comment.

For Xbox 360 users, the so-called red ring of death is a worst-case scenario that can cause nightmares about total system failure and the inability to play any more Halo 3.

Since the introduction of the console, in late 2005, some users have suffered through a well-documented series of quality control problems and some have endured system failures on machine after machine after machine.

Microsoft has attempted to handle the problems--and last year extended the warranty for the machine, leading some to feel … Read more

Shufflebrain: Making a social-game company

For years, Amy Jo Kim has been a well-known and respected member of the video game design community, as well as the author of perhaps the best book ever written on building online community.

But for the most part, through years of working on other peoples' projects--Ultima Online, The Sims, the virtual world There.com, Rock Band, and many others, as well as consulting for countless companies--Kim has played a supporting role.

That's all set to change. Kim, along with her husband and consulting partner, Scott Kim, are in the midst of what might be their most ambitious project ever: Building their own game company from the ground up.

Their start-up, known as ShuffleBrain, plans to announce the public beta of its first effort, a Facebook game called PhotoGrab, in a matter of weeks. On the one hand, PhotoGrab is a puzzle game, tasking players with matching small snippets of photographs with the full pictures they're taken from--and doing so against a clock that's quickly counting down. The more accurate the placement and the more snippets you can match, the higher the score.

But PhotoGrab is also a social platform that is built around the idea of encouraging photographers to upload groups of their own pictures and make their own games from them.

So, for example, after playing for a little while with a few of the games already in the system, I uploaded five pictures I took last summer while visiting the Corvette factory in Bowling Green, Ky., on my CNET Road Trip 2008 project, and then spent a few minutes selecting small circular pieces of the photos for players of my game to identify. … Read more

Report: Jack Thompson, game industry scourge, disbarred

Executives throughout the video game industry may be breathing a big sigh of relief. That's because it looks like one of the industry's biggest critics, Florida lawyer Jack Thompson, has had his voice cut off at the knees, to mix a metaphor or two.

According to a Thursday report on the popular video game blog Kotaku, Thompson has been disbarred by a Florida judge who ruled he has been guilty of some seriously unbecoming conduct.

Essentially, according to Kotaku, the court ruled that Thompson "made false statements of material fact to courts and repeatedly violated a court order...communicated the subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel...engaged in prohibited ex parte communications...publicized and sent hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes and press releases to the affected individuals...targeted an individual who was not involved with (Thompson) in any way, merely due to 'the position (the individual) holds in state and national politics'...falsely, recklessly and publicly accused a judge of being amenable to the 'fixing' of cases," and so on.

Thompson might best be known for his withering attacks of Rockstar Games for the sexual content that was hidden in its hit game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. But he has also been vocal in his criticism of countless other games for what he saw as too much violence and sexual content. … Read more

EA hit with class action suit over 'Spore'

Electronic Arts may have attempted to appease angry customers by amending its digital rights management policy on Spore, but the company's DRM troubles aren't over yet.

Earlier this week, a class action suit was filed in the Northern District of California Court on behalf of Melissa Thomas and all other Spore purchasers. The suit contends that EA violated the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law by failing to inform consumers that by installing Spore, they also inadvertently install a program called SecuROM. SecuROM is a copy protection program that limits the number of times software … Read more