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Another Week In Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/28-2/3
It's a sad day for the DS in Japan. As Media Create's hardware figures from last week were released, we found out that not only the Wii topped the DS (like the week before), but also the PSP managed to overtake the dual-screened handheld. Hardware: Wii: 94,473 PSP: 72,528 Nintendo DS: 67,472 PlayStation 3: 41,796 PlayStation 2: 12,115 Xbox 360: 6,060 According to Media Create, the DS only had one game in the top ten (Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games). That's not surprising, since there were many new releases on other systems, but it's far from the DS dominance that we're used to. Still, it was nice to see some low-key games like After-School Boy, Taiko Drum Master, and Doraemon Baseball getting love in Japan. Check after the break to see the full list of software rankings from last week.
Nintendo says Kirby, Animal Crossing, Super Mario Stadium this year
Nintendo of Japan just released a statement of their financial results (PDF link here) for the period from April to December of last year (spoilers: they did well) which includes a list of projected 2008 releases. Unlike the actual financial results, this bit contains some surprises! Seen above is the list for Japan.Both Animal Crossing and some kind of new Kirby game have general "2008" release dates, as does a thankfully still-planned Disaster: Day of Crisis. Also basically new is Super Mario Stadium Family Baseball, a game about which we've heard absolutely nothing since October, and not really anything then, either. We're also quite happy to see Mario Kart Wii planned for a spring release in the U.S. and Japan, and a Q2 release in Europe. [Via Game|Life]
Animal Crossing and Kirby coming to Japanese Wii in '08
According to Nintendo financial documents, "social networking MMO" Animal Crossing and a new Kirby title will hit the Japanese Wii this year, along with some other notable titles. ShackNews posted the Nintendo financial docs showing that beyond Animal Crossing and Kirby, there is also Wii Music, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Super Mario Stadium Family Baseball, and Everyone's Common Knowledge Television -- that last one sounds like it might stay in Japan. The document also shows that Mario Kart Wii is still expected for the spring in North America and Q2 for Europe, but there isn't much more beyond that at this time. That doesn't mean Nintendo doesn't have something up its sleeve, just that it isn't on this financial document from Nintendo Japan.
Fight those industry fat cats with this K.K. Slider hat
Of all the characters in Animal Crossing Wild World, we always felt closest to guitar-wielding dog and Roost regular K. K. Slider. It could be his tuneful, oddly wistful singing voice, or even his social awareness, but we know one thing: we now look forward to each and every Saturday night, when K.K. comes to town to entertain us, his adoring fans.Now we can pay tribute with our heads, thanks to this fine K.K. Slider hat, which has been lovingly crafted by Etsy user Penguinotic from white fleece and felt. The $20 price tag means that it will cost you about $20 more than K.K.'s music, but we think there's just enough of the northern winter left to justify this.[Thanks, Simca!]
Another week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/14-1/20
The DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games premiered last week, immediately shooting to the top of the charts. Only Wii Fit could keep the game from taking the number one spot. Aside from Mario & Sonic and the Professor Layton sequel, though, most DS games found themselves in the bottom half of the top twenty. Rune Factory 2 even threatens to slip off completely after a few promising weeks.As for the hardware numbers, it's the same old story. The DS continues to sell well, and once again takes the #1 spot with Japanese gamers.Hardware: DS: 91,000 Wii: 76,000 PSP: 65,000 PS3: 32,000 PS2: 13,000 Xbox 360: 4,400 The Japanese software numbers for the week of 1/14 are listed after the break.
Another week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 1/7-1/13
The PSP might be inching closer to the DS in hardware sales, but the dual-screened handheld continues to dominate the software charts. Half of the games in the top twenty were DS games, while the Wii, PSP, PS2 and PS3 shared the other half.Many of the top games were old favorites, but relative newcomers like Final Fantasy IV and Rune Factory 2 did well, too. Professor Layton 2 continues to help its predecessor sell more copies, giving the original Layton a chance to reach one million sales. For the most part, though, it was a quiet and predictable week in the Land of the Rising Sun.Hardware: DS: 103,000 PSP: 84,000 Wii: 82,000 PS3: 34,000 PS2: 15,000 Xbox 360: 5,500 The software sales can be seen after the break.
Our New Year's resolutions: DS edition
Yeah, we know what you're thinking: "Each and every member of the DS Fanboy team is pretty much perfect, so why the heck would such unblemished, shining beacons of humanity require New Year's resolutions?" We thought the exact same thing, before we each took a minute to stare deeply into the recesses of our souls, and realize that even we -- WE! -- could take steps to improve ourselves. And here's how we plan to go about it: Alisha: I promise to try not to go crazy and pee myself every time Square Enix remakes a game they've remade before, but it's going to be very, very difficult, and I will probably fail. Ask me again tomorrow. David: This year, I resolve to beat Contra 4 in front of a live studio audience. I will then reap the benefits and rewards of having a studio full of people not know who I am or what I am doing look at me with faces full of confusion as I rip my shirt off in conquest and scream wildly. JC: I resolve to play one of those RTS or SRPG or TRPG games. I've always believed I wasn't smart enough to play these things, while simultaneously believing that I was smart enough to pursue advanced degrees. Candace: I resolve that I will resist my urge to download the entire catalog of Phoenix Wright songs onto my cell phone. But not really. Chris: To not see in another New Year with gaming's answer to high-class narcotics, Animal Crossing Wild World. Also, to finally wrap up Trauma Center: Under the Knife, by which time I fully expect to boast the dexterity of an actual surgeon. Eric: I resolve to never trust a big butt and a smile. That girl is poison. Poison. So now we've shared, what about you, reader? If you haven't already, tell us about your DS-related resolutions for 2008.
NPD says games help reduce stress, we say Animal Crossing soothes us
NPD doesn't see fit to provide us just with monthly sales figures, apparently, as they also conduct research in their secret underground bunker. There, beakers full of bright, colorful liquid of an indiscernible nature and men and women in long white coats conduct experiments. Tirelessly disassembling current hardware on the shelves and occasionally injecting caged monkeys with unknown fluids, these vigilant smart types have come to a conclusion regarding the association between stress and video games. According to the NPD, 63% of U.S. citizens play games. 30% of these gamers say they're playing more games than they did last year. Many also cite that games are a way to alleviate stress and help them unwind. We can understand it, because there is something almost zen-like in fishing in Animal Crossing: Wild World. Actually, just about everything in that game is calming and helps us unwind, even picking weeds.
DS Daily: Emergence Crossing
The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing made one thing clear to us: Something Awful goons are really funny. Well, two things: the first one, and also that it is possible to view Animal Crossing very darkly. Arriving in town penniless and homeless, you're immediately indentured to Tom Nook and forced into labor, not only by him, but by the other animals as well. Sometimes they give you their garbage as a reward.We're pretty sure we only see the game that way because we're horrible people. The open-ended nature of Animal Crossing allows you to see what you want to see in the game, and to a certain extent fill in the life stories of your avatar and the surrounding animals. Whether this manifests in your mind only or in some kind of recorded tale like The Terrible Secret is just a matter of your own judgment. Do you see a narrative in your Animal Crossing life? Or is the game completely mechanical by now?
The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing
Have a free hour to waste? Spend it reading The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing, a twisted tale put together by Chewbot and the Something Awful forums. It's a mixed media production -- consisting of text, screenshots, artwork, audio (radio series-style), and even a Flash animation -- broken into twelve parts. Far from your run-of-the-mill fan fiction, The Terrible Secret is a captivating account of one boy's struggle to hold onto his sanity as he unravels the infernal mysteries governing the town that holds him prisoner. The story goes far beyond your typical "Tom Nook is a crook" plot, suggesting something much more sinister. Peek past the break for a larger version of the amazing promotional poster you see above.See also: Trouble in Paradise: An Animal Crossing homecoming
Today's most tedious video: Picking weeds in Animal Crossing
Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS loves guilting its players. Turn the game off before saving? Mr. Resetti shows up to give you a piece of his mind. Go several months without playing the game? Your once-beautiful town will be overrun with weeds that you'll have to pluck one by one if you want to re-beautify the landscape.Today's video shows just how absurd this process can be. It reportedly took 35 non-stop minutes to remove all the weeds that had grown over eleven months of non-play. Still, our videographers aren't without compassion: to alleviate the sheer tedium of the process, a clever editer has chosen to depict the entire process "Benny Hill" style. You can still see how ridiculous it all is, but at least now you can giggle instead of pulling your hair out. Check out the wacky gardening antics after the break. Update: Fixed the number of months.[Via DS Fanboy]
Don't mess with Animal Crossing
This video of a sped-up Animal Crossing cleanup initiative highlights one of the weirdest design decisions made for the game: weeds. We get the idea of encouraging the player to keep up a daily routine, but by punishing you for not playing, after a certain amount of time you no longer want to play the game again. We have long since exiled ourselves from our town, out of fear of facing a weed-infested wasteland, full of cute, yet angry neighbors who hate us for ruining their shot at getting that glasses case over to Admiral. Of course, two minutes of pulling weeds would not be entertaining at all to watch if Games Radar hadn't applied the basic principles of British comedy, as exemplified by Benny Hill: 1) speed up footage and 2) overdub "Yakety Sax".
A year of Wii: The PAL verdict
Being a devotee of Nintendo in a PAL region is probably a bit like marriage (I'd urge you to stick with me here, because I've thought this analogy through for at least four minutes). For years, you slog away at the relationship, mildly irritated by the other person's foibles and imperfections, like that weird bumpy mole on their back, or how they noisily slurp soup, or how they insist on playing nothing but Keane during long car journeys.Then every so often, you have your disputes, arguing about the merits of Magnolia Eggshell and Cream Eggshell in the aisle of Lowe's. And sometimes, these disagreements might build up to something bigger in your mind, begin to fester, and perhaps you occasionally think, "Is this it? Is this the rest of my life?" But then, something strange happens -- every so often, the other person does something really fantastic, something that reminds you exactly why you got hitched in the first place, and why you settled on this individual as your soul mate. And suddenly, everything is well with the world, or at least until it's soup night again.The point of this long-winded comparison being: as a gamer in the UK, that pretty much sums up my relationship with Nintendo. For years now, PAL region gamers have often been treated fairly shabbily by Nintendo. I'll freely admit it doesn't take much too rile us -- we hardcore types are notoriously tough to please -- though Nintendo doesn't always help itself. Its insistence that we receive games or hardware late, or not at all, or borked ... well it's just plain infuriating is what it is. The prices, as well, leave a lot to be desired. And totally rad free gifts? Yea, forget about those.
A heart-wrenching tale about Animal Crossing
We're not going to lie, this story moved us - not only for its content, but also because someone managed to use the YTMND format in a way that actually enhanced the storytelling process. This touching tale tells of the impact that Animal Crossing had on an ill family member. We don't want to spoil it, so check it out for yourself. The story is from "a member in IGN" and illustrated by ONESOUND from This Is Game. If YTMND isn't your thing, you can also view a full-sized copy of the comic here and save it for later, or print it out and show your loved ones.Update: As reader RySenkari has warned, the YTMND link had been "altered" to shy people away from the link, and the subsequent imagery was NSFW (try going to the site via Digg and you'll get an idea of what we're talking about). If you're sending this to family members or just don't want to risk seeing such things, we recommend either typing the URL in a separate window or just taking a look at the full-sized comic that we're hosting at the moment.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Animal Crossing story makes us sob like little babies [update 1]
What better way to start off a Monday than with a good cry?Just watch this story about a mother and her love for Animal Crossing, and we dare you not to feel anything. Even the most robotic, evil, and cynical of souls will feel this tug at their heart strings. There's really nothing profound enough that we can say about this tragic tale, except that it teaches a good lesson about taking the people you love for granted.Note: We know that the version portrayed here is the GameCube version, but since the game was quite the darling on the DS, we thought it would fit well here.Update: Due to YTMND antics (that will teach us to link there again), the flash has been messed with and we warn you not to go to the YTMND site as it's very NSFW. Instead, we posted the pictures with an English translation after the break. It doesn't have the same effect, but it's still a touching story nonetheless!
Dig up this Animal Crossing necklace
We love Etsy. We just can't help it. The online craftster's marketplace seems to have a never-ending supply of Nintendo-related goodies. Well, never-ending until each one sells out, of course, but not to worry -- more items pop up to replace those that disappear. This one certainly popped up (oh, forgive us our puns) when we were digging around the marketplace this afternoon, and for Animal Crossing devotees, it's just adorable.Also, it glows in the dark, which is an automatic win.[Update: Except, like, it's not a necklace at all, as was helpfully pointed out by commenters. However! It's still cute. Who's with me? Yeah?]
Animal Crossing MMO for the Wii confirmed
Our good friends at Joystiq are reporting that Edge, a European gaming magazine, has confirmed that the next version of the realtime animal friends/life simulator Animal Crossing will be a "social networking MMO" for the Wii. This had been rumored before, and it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's ever played Animal Crossing-- raises hand for both the DS and the Gamecube-- as it already works more or less as an MMO, and taking the whole thing to the next level will just make it that much more addictive as a game. And it will be fun to see what Nintendo does with social networking and the MMO format.Of course, this probably also means that we'll have to start working the graveyard shift coming up with bells for that slum lord Nook again. That shifty raccoon is a slave driver, you hear me? A slave driver! At least now we'll be able to commiserate virtually together.
Edge: Animal Crossing Wii is a social networking MMO
Reputable European publication Edge magazine is reporting that the upcoming Animal Crossing for Nintendo Wii is indeed going the MMO route, as previously rumored by fellow Future Publishing siblings Next-Gen. "A Japanese source has confirmed to Edge that the upcoming Wii iteration of Animal Crossing is set to be a social networking MMO," reports the magazine. No other details are known at the time, Nintendo has not provided any official confirmation. The article is found on page nine of the latest issue, which prominently features the PlayStation 3 on both the front and back covers.
Penny Arcade's take on Assassin's Creed DS
It's difficult to imagine what steps Ubisoft will take to adapt Assassin's Creed for the Nintendo DS, what with the console game's "next-gen" graphics and mature themes, but the theorists at Penny Arcade took a stab at predicting its presentation, holding up a bloody, lacerated comic to demonstrate their prophecy.We wouldn't be too upset with their proposed game, a marriage between Assassin's Creed and Animal Crossing. Not every console title can make as successful a transition to handhelds like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. Compared to some of the other multiplatform titles that've appeared on the DS -- Peter Jackson's King Kong and TMNT, for example -- the game sounds like a treat. We would be lucky if Assassin's Creed DS turns out to be half as good as this infantalized Assassin's Crossing concept.See also: DS Daily: Card-based RPG or minigame collection?
MMOs to get more massive, even mobile
As if our lives aren't dominated enough by raids, guild-runs, and the newest beta tests, it would appear that the next trend in MMO development is finding ways for games to reach you when you're away from the computer. At the recent Virtual Worlds Forum, business leaders have been salivating at the opportunities posed by expanding their IPs to mobile platforms. Moshi Monsters, an MMO from Mind Candy aimed at kids, banks heavily on their MoPod technology. MoPods are small, cheap, virtual pet-esque devices that kids can bring with them to school to keep plugging away at the game's puzzles on the bus or in the cafeteria.Then when you consider that Katsuya Eguchi, lead developer in the rumored Animal Crossing MMO, has talked openly about integrating mobile phone and PC applications into their new game, it could very well be the beginning of a new wave of mobile integration. Publishers are always looking for new ways to boost their numbers, and this would certainly be a very marketable away to go about it. It doesn't take a genius to imagine the possibilities of the technology: they could give players the ability to monitor the auction house from their phone or allow you to raise a pet on a portable gaming platform and then use it in-game. In addition to being marketable to current MMO fans, this sort of pan-technological approach to games also has a strong appeal to casual gamers, a coveted demographic if ever there was one.It's an idea that's probably still a long way from coming to light, at least for a mainstream MMO, but it's fun to speculate about, and it's a trend we'll definitely be keeping our eye on.
