million
Latest
Super Everything-But-Dodgeball DS screenshots
Even without the Cold War propaganda, we're still crazy excited about Super Dodgeball DS, setting our budgets, vacation time, and gods of worship around its release. These latest screenshots from the Kunio-themed sports title have us licking our lips, partly out of lust, partly due to chapped lips.If you thought Super Dodgeball DS's screwiness peaked with its "Panda Shoot" power shot, just look at the screenshot above. One player has crossed the line separating the two teams, a barrel hoisted over his head. His teammate below, encased in ice, is being punched back to the other side of the arena. One of their opponents has curled up into a morph ball while another lies on the ground, unconscious or maybe dead. Complicating matters, the Snowman spectators have even begun to wander into the match. The dodgeball sits to the side, completely forgotten.We've got more wild images past the post break -- Eiffel Tower summoning! A thrown mackerel! A small, yapper-type dog!
Promotional Consideration: Beaning the Red Army
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.With Arc System Works and Milliom [sic] laboring together on a return for the Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club, we finally have an excuse to bring out our favorite ads for the Super Dodgeball series. Put on your gym clothes, tighten your shoelaces, and run past the break to see what we've been waiting to hit you with.
It's time to look at Super Dodge Ball DS again
We had almost settled down a little from the last time we saw screens of Super Dodge Ball DS. Then Jeux-France threw these screens directly into our faces, and our blood is boiling hot once again. The very idea that it will be possible to play a new Super Dodge Ball game in the near future trumps just about all gaming news. Uh, that is, except for all the other great gaming news on DS Fanboy. That's all totally worthwhile.Today's Dodge Ball update comes in the form of a page from Nintendo Dream magazine, with two precious new screens included. We love that in one of the screens, the game has broken down into an 8-person brawl with some dodge ball happening on the side. Check after the break for the full scan!
Dodge Ball DS adds Dodge Fist, Dodge Kick and Dodge Panda
Million, the developer of Super Dodge Ball Advance and River City Ransom EX, is made up of former Technos employees, including founder Kunio Taki. It's as close to real Technos as anyone can get. That's why it's so great to see their name (misspelled as "Milliom" though it may be) in the copyright information on the Famitsu story about Cho Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball.We're happy to see a return to Kunio and gang after the bizarre character designs in Super Dodge Ball Advance. We're also happy to see insane new power shots, like the "Panda Shoot" seen here, as well as "Cactus Shoot." We're slightly troubled by what appears to be a touch-screen menu for power shot activation.The other big news in this iteration of Dodge Ball is the integration of River City Ransom-style fighting. In addition to beaning each other in the face, you can now just kick some dudes.
Super Dodge Ball DS beans you in the face
Oh, Nekketsu High School Dodgeball Club, how we've missed you! If there's one thing that the Nintendo DS has been missing, it's more Kunio-kun. The latest issue of Famitsu reveals that the hot-blooded gang will be returning with another entry to the beloved Super Dodge Ball series, bouncing the game off the back of our heads and onto the DS. Though online support hasn't been revealed -- and we don't expect it, however perfect the idea might be -- developer Arc System Works will include an eight-player free-for-all battle mode, via local download-play. We don't even know eight people! According to initial translations, Cho Nekketukoukou Kuniokun Dodge Ball DS will also feature customization options for players and even teams. We can only hope that a publisher will eventually pick up this title for North America, much like Atlus did with River City Ransom Ex and Super Dodge Ball Advance, both for the GBA. Guard your eyeglasses and scurry past the post break for the magazine scans of this gym class favorite.
50 million American homes to house HDTVs by 2008
Honestly, don't look so surprised. Just under two years ago, some 15-percent of American homes had at least one HDTV somewhere on the premises, and not long after, estimators were suggesting that a whopping 82-percent of domiciles would be HDTV-equipped by the end of this decade. Earlier this year, a more recent report found that over one-quarter of those residing in the US of A owned an HD-capable set -- though we'll never live down the embarrassment from the hordes of owners who've yet to figure out how to operate them. Nevertheless, an updated study has found that "more than 30 million US households now have at least one HDTV," and judging by recent sales figures, has estimated that 52 million homes will house an HDTV by the end of 2008. Now, how's about a few more HD channels for the growing sect, eh?
Virtually Overlooked: River City Ransom EX
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative.Talking about the execrable Renegade last week put us in a Technos kind of mood. It's not really fair to Technos or to you to focus only on their one terrible NES game. Let's cleanse our palates together with a good Kunio game. River City Ransom EX is a Game Boy Advance remake of the NES River City Ransom, which is significantly improved in almost every respect-- except boxart, unfortunately.
Wii hits an unofficial eight million sold
Start your engines, fanboys. According to vgchartz.com, which is where we go to hang out when we're bored, the Wii just yesterday surpassed eight million units sold since its November 19th launch in North America. That's fast. That's really fast. Check out this graph with the option "align launches" enabled; it's staggering.So, here we go. By the end of year, Nintendo Wii sales will most likely have surpassed the Xbox 360's one-year head start to become the current generation leader, and heck, we might just "win" this thing. Who'd have thought such a turnaround was possible? And why the hell didn't we buy NTDOY stock? Dammit.Bask in the glory, guys. Most likely, one of those eight million is yours.
PS3 sales break million milestone in PAL territory
David Reeves, president of SCEE, spoke to MCV. about the console's surprising success. Since its launch in March, the console has sold through more than a million units in the European territories. "Early last week we went through the one million mark on PS3. And we did that in nine and a half weeks," he confirmed. He added, "That was faster than both PS2 and PSOne."Software sales have been fairly robust, with two million copies of first-party software sold in the region. Although the lineup since launch has been admittedly slim, things will definitely be picking up, with some new products to be unveiled soon: "Our big bangs will be arriving around September and October; Phil [Harrison] will be announcing these at a later date, but they will probably be in the arena of social gaming as well as more traditional games."[Via Next Gen]
New Pokemon duo sell 1 million in 5 days in US
In addition to announcing a megaton year in sales, Nintendo has released a statement congratulating themselves on the latest Pokemon duo Diamond and Pearl, which -- in the spirit of their titles -- have sold a combined total of 1 million units in five days since its launch in the U.S. According to Nintendo's press release, that is the fastest rate of any U.S. Pokemon titles to date. Massive damage, indeed.The figures should come as no surprise, as every single iteration of the franchise has reached platinum sales, and we expect both Diamond and Pearl to each hit that mark, as well. In Japan, the two titles have sold an aggregate of 5 million since its launch in the region September 28 of last year. Of course, these sales all but guarantee two more titles in the Pokemon franchise, Kryptonite and Adamantium.
Wii Sports and Wii Play sell one million copies each in Japan
Congrats are in order to Nintendo: both Wii Sports and Wii Play (Hajimete no Wii) have sold in excess of one million copies in Japan. Having two million-sellers already trumps the Gamecube, on which only Super Smash Bros. Melee reached that particular milestone.We know that the bundled Wiimote had a lot to do with selling Wii Play, though of course the degree to which it contributed cannot be measured. It makes sense that the two most casual, inclusive games on the system would sell to a Japanese audience that loves DS training games. We hope you guys like minigames, because it's safe to assume we're getting lots more of them!
Monster Hunter Portable 2nd sells a million in Japan
It's not unusual to see million-selling games on the DS (as Tom Jones would have crooned), but Monster Hunter Portable 2nd is the first PSP game to manage that feat inside Japan. The game got off to a great start last week and, according to a press release from Capcom, as of today one million units have been shipped to retail. Whether this is the start of something big in terms of a comeback for the PSP, or just a one-off success story, it still leaves Sony with an awful lot of work to do if it intends the PSP to ever catch up with the DS' phenomenal performance in Japan. Either way, it's great news for Capcom!
PSP's million sellers
Have you ever wondered how many games on the PSP have earned the Achievement of selling more than a million copies? According to data compiled from VG Charts, there are eight games so far that have sold such a mythic amount of copies. As expected, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories tops the charts, with a whopping 3.49 million copies sold! And that's with zero sold in Japan. Taking a look at the charts, it's clear that the Japanese have very different tastes than the Americans. For example, while Star Wars: Battlefront II did surprisingly well here, it was barely noticed in Japan. Monster Hunter Portable, on the other hand, became a million seller almost by itself in Japan.While the PSP has an impressive share of game sales, it still needs to think of a cross-cultural hit if it's ever to succeed like the Nintendo DS. The rival console has produced 21 million sellers so far, and cross-cultural successes (like Nintendogs and Brain Age) undoubtedly helped a lot.
Three million units sold?
VGCharts, the "premier source for videogame sales charts on the internet", has totaled worldwide Wii sales now in excess of three million units. The same list has Xbox 360 at 7.74 million, and the PS3 at a rather stunted 1.18 million. By comparison, other-unofficial-internet-tallying site NexGenWars has the three consoles at 9.18 million for the 360, only 2 million for the Wii, and 800,000 for the PS3.Which should you believe? We're inclined to roll with VGCharts, which seems to have a very meticulous method of gathering numerical data. The competition uses an arbitrary "unit sold every x seconds" formula until the site owner can alter the data manually after press releases and official data; in the first week of sales, the Wii inexplicably went from 700,000 to 400,000 in the blink of an eye.We all know that Nintendo promised four million worldwide by year's end, but over 75% delivered isn't such a terrible let-down. And hey! There are still five days left! C'mon, Nintendo, you can do it![Thanks, Richard!]
100 millionth Symbian smartphone ships
Break out the bubbly, it's party time! If you're a little software outfit by the name of Symbian, that is -- or Nokia, Sony Ericsson, or any other of Symbian's ten active licensees. The British company has announced that the 100 millionth phone running its goodies has shipped, 36 million of which have come in 2006 alone. If we were the betting type, we'd put our money on that 100 millionth handset being a Nokia piece seeing how their particular flavor of Symbian -- S60 -- accounts for an overwhelming majority of Symbian-powered devices finding their way into consumers' hands, but as we've seen, Sony Ericsson isn't about to give up on UIQ. Either way, Symbian's celebrating the occasion with their "Because of the Code" contest, which'll award 100 smartphones and other miscellaneous parting gifts to the best code samples submitted by January 7; meanwhile, non-developers can get in on the fun with the "Symbian Hundred Million Phones" quiz, offering handsets to another three folks randomly selected from the pool of those answering all the questions correctly. Here's to another 100 million, Symbian![Thanks, Wimbo]
Nintendo to launch 200 million dollar ad campaign
Nintendo has this nasty tendency to make money with their consoles, despite often being seen as the "loser" in the reputed console wars. Their stock holders are generally quite happy, especially in recent times, and believe it or not, Nintendo has a war chest of something like ten bazillion yen. Certainly a large R&D budget went into developing Wii technology, but everyone knows that the system is essentially a calculated risk. Nintendo needs to push its new brainchild, and it needs to push it hard; thus the chest springs open yet again.A recent Bloomberg article states that Nintendo will launch a year-long, $200 million ad campaign for the Wii. Further, 80% of that money will be solely devoted to marketing toward non-gamers, attempting to expand their market into the coveted (and excuse the generalization) "old people and women" demographic. That's a whole heck of a lot of money to get the word out ... be sure to do your part and invite your baby boomer neighbors for a quick session of Wii Sports. [via Joystiq]
"Black Diamond" WM5 Smartphone runs $300,000
If you're having a hard time justifying dropping a cool million on your next phone, might we turn your attention to the "Black Diamond," brought to us by Swiss manufacturer VIPN. Penned by Singaporean designer Jaren Goh, there's little question that the glossy black candybar is gorgeous -- but whether it's $300,000 gorgeous is another question entirely. Details are slim, but we know that the Windows Mobile 5 device should be rocking quadband GSM, WiFi, 128MB of memory with SD expansion, a 2-inch display, and a 400MHz XScale all wrapped up in titanium and diamonds. The touch sensitive keypad is Chocolate-esque, completely disappearing when not lit, while SIP is thrown in to keep your GSM usage minimum when you're in WiFi range (not to suggest anyone owning this phone is looking to save a few bucks). If we've piqued your interest, it looks like you've got until early 2007 to save your pennies, but keep your eyes peeled -- production is limited to 5 (yes, five) units.
"Diamond Crypto Smartphone" for the rich and paranoid
Thought we admire diamond encruster extraordinaire Peter Aloisson and his previous work, it suffered the same problem as other million-dollar cellphones have in the past: not enough cryptography. Happily, Russian firm JSC Ancort has developed a Windows CE-based smartphone ready for Aloisson's bejeweling that employs "powerful encryption technology" to "provide secure protection of information against kidnapping, technological blackmail, financial racketeers and corrupted state officials" -- sounds like marketing speak for a password-protected wallet app, but who are we to judge? Of course, with its $1.3 million price tag and 50 diamonds (10 of which are blue) we think you might start to have more trouble with mugging than with "technological blackmail," but there's only one way to find out for certain -- anyone want to donate the cash for a hands-on?[Via textually.org]
HDTV: It's not a million dollar home without one
If you want to keep up with the Joneses, it will take at least 720p, according to a new study by Coldwell Banker. Apparently among the million-dollar homeowner group, while only 14% enjoyed the toe-warming goodness of heated floors, about 85% (of the 59%) with a dedicated entertainment room) had an entertainment center featuring a big-screen HDTV. Particularly if you can afford one, an HDTV and home theater setup is becoming default. If you don't have one yet, visiting the home of a friend who does makes it seem like a necessity. Luckily, falling prices of high definition televisions mean even those of us in simple third floor walkups can enjoy cutting edge technology. Anyone got any ramen coupons?
