Nintendo has been talking about the difficulties of creating the next generation Wii console for several months now, with one of the creators of the device – and indeed designer of some of the company’s finest games – Shigeru Miyamoto saying, “I think that in the next generation of (Wii) hardware, the challenge is how unique and different a product Nintendo is able to make.”

However, it now appears that the Wii will only see mild evolution rather than all round revolution in 2011 though, as rumours grow of a HD Wii 2 coming out next year. Continue Reading

Dr Richard Marks – who many will know as being the creator of Sony‘s PlayStation Move technology – has got in a nice dig at motion control rival Kinect, saying that Microsoft’s decision to have no controller at all on the product could actually end up being quite “limiting”.

The Kinect doesn’t look too limited here anyway.

Speaking T3, Marks claimed that Sony had considered doing away with the controller in the same way that Kinect does, but that ultimately it did not allow enough freedom for the gamer. “I think it depends if you believe that controller-less is necessarily better which I don’t believe,” said Marks. Continue Reading

The summer lull is as evident as ever on the games industry, with June’s retails sales of hardware, software and accessories down by 6% compared to the same time last year. Microsoft’s introduction of the new Xbox 360 250GB has seen sales of the console bounce by 88% (to 452,000 units) compared to last year though.

'Red Dead Redemption' for the Xbox 360 was June's best-selling title

These US-based figures (in which total games industry sales were said amounted to $1.1 billion) from market research giants, NPD Group show that game software took the biggest tumble, falling by 15% to  $531.3 million. Hardware sales climbed 5% to $401.7 million.

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A few years ago I witnessed the quite, quite disturbing sight of a bloke in his forties attempting to sing ‘Stan’ in possibly the dingiest pub I’ve ever been in. Thankfully though, that man never has to bother the greater public again with his hip hop stylings due to the impending release of Def Jam Rapstar.

"Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa has made it on to Def Jam Rapstar.

Using the language of the street, PC World has said that Konami will “drop” its hip-hop music game Def Jam Rapstar in the US on October 5 with a European release set for exactly a month after.

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It may not completely turn around the falling sales figures, but the Wii has just got a ringing endorsement from the American Heart Association, which has announced that’s it’s to work with Nintendo to promote “the benefits of active-play video games”.

Hard to believe but they were all over 20 stone during their PC gaming heyday. Look at ‘em now!

“Nintendo has demonstrated clear leadership in active-play video games with the popularity of the Wii system, and I’m confident that together we can encourage Americans to become more physically active,” said Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association.

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The usual pre summer slump for games sales in the US were confirmed by new figures from market research giants NPD Group, though this time around the slump is more like a crater with game sales nose-diving by more than a quarter last month. US game sales were worth $766 million, down from a $1 billion in April last year.

'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction' was the only major release last month.

An Associated Press report on the news told how hardware sales plunged 37% compared to the same month last year with sales totalling $249.3 million; while software sales dropped 22% to $398.5 million. A lack of new releases bears the brunt of the blame according to NPD. Continue Reading

Nintendo has seen its profits fall for the first time in fully six years, thanks in no small part to the flagging interest in its motion-sensitive home console, the Wii.

Could the 3DS pull Nintendo back to record breaking profits?

Nintendo’s fiscal year ended on the last day of March, and its own report on its earnings shows that the Japanese gaming giant is finally starting to see some fall in its earnings. Indeed, its managed to set record figures almost every year for the last six years, so a fall in profits isn’t necessarily the bad news it could have been. Still, it does go some way to indicating that there’s been a fairly global sag in interest in Nintendo’s Wii, as had been predicted last November.

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US sales numbers for games have been more than a little sluggish for over a year now but this month has seen business pick up as sales of games and consoles rose by 6% to a combined value of $1.5 billion compared with $1.4 billion a year ago.

Top of the pops… God of War III

The gain was only the industry’s third since February 2009 and is driven by a sterling line up of title launches including God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII.

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A patent violation lawsuit has been filed against both Nintendo Japan and the company’s US arm by a State of Maryland-based interactive exercise specialist, IA Labs (InterAction Labs).

The Redknapps… they love the Wii for the family fun and enormous endorsement deals it brings.

Nintendo stands accused of infringing upon two IA Labs patents in connection to motion-based Nintendo hardware and peripherals such as… well, a shed-load of Wii products including the Wii home console, Wii Remote and Nunchuk, Wii MotionPlus, Wii Wheel, Wii Zapper, Wii Balance Board, and first-party software package Wii Fit. Continue Reading

Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary Nintendo games designer, has talked about the difficulties facing the company as they look to bring the Wii on to its next phase.

Miyamoto – possibly trying to build up a little hype before the expected announcement on Nintendo’s plans for the Wii at E3 this summer – argues that since new gaming technologies are now pretty much equally available for most manufacturers, Nintendo’s focus for Wii 2 is on how they use technology to differentiate themselves from Sony, Microsoft and others. Continue Reading

There’ll be high fives and back slapping galore at Opera’s Oslo HQ today as the company hit the 100 million mark for global users of its browsers. Lars Boilesen, Opera CEO said the record numbers shows “that we are on the right track, and that as user needs grow, we are growing right along with them”.

Opera has been hugely boosted by the Windows ballot screen.

As a TechRadar report on the 100 million user milestone notes, “with a 50/50 split between PC users and people who use Opera on mobile devices, the company is celebrating a 30% year-on-year growth for its flagship desktop browser, according to March figures”.

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One of the guides we’re asked to do fairly often is a relatively straightforward ‘How To’ article on putting together a nice, low-budget build for a home theatre PC without too much trouble.

Windows Media Centre is gorgeous, but it's not everyone's cup of tea

The fact is that building your own home theatre PC (or HTPC) isn’t as difficult as many might consider it to be, but when you get right down to it, there will be plenty scared off the idea by the fact that they have to actually sit down and assemble their own PC to do it; it’s a process that many simply aren’t comfortable with (indeed, that’s the reason we’re currently running a series of Build Your Own PC classes).

Many have argued that the easier option can be to pick up a games console and repurpose that to serve as a network friendly media centre… it’s not too difficult and can save you money over building yourself a HTPC, depending on what kind of build you go for and what consoles you’re looking at.

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