DSi gets it's first must own exclusive

The DSi has been out for about a month now and even with all its new bells and whistles it really is just a DS Lite with nicer screens and some cell phone cameras strapped on. But this post is not about the validity of the DSi but rather that it finally has an exclusive game that is a must own; Art Style Pictobits.
Art Style games started out as a Japan-only series of budget games for the Gameboy Advance with simple presentation and simple gameplay. They appeared in North America first on the WiiWare with Art Style Orbital, a port of one the Gameboy Advance games.
Art Style has kept the simple gameplay premise but moved on to become a series of download-only Wii and DSi games. The latest in the series is particularly special.
Art Style Pictobits is a colour matching puzzle game that uses the DSi touch screen with an 8-bit style.
The game works like this. You start with a cache of coloured blocks on the bottom screen. Coloured shapes will slowly fall from the top screen. If you match up 4 blocks of a like colour they will vanish. If you don't the falling shapes turn into blocks when they reach the bottom (or hit an obstructive block) and convert into more blocks to use to clear the level. As you clear the falling shapes the blocks you clear are sent to the top screen and converted into pixles that colour in an 8 bit Nintendo sprite on the top screen from a calssic NES game (Super Mario Bros., Ice Climbers, etc.).
If you get a chain going it gives you multipliers that helps fill in the image on the top screen.
The game seems pretty simple, but later in the game the falling shapes can fill the entire screen and leave you scrambling to match the colours as they fall, keeping your stylus busy.
The game has 15 levels in the standard mode, but since there is a "dark" version of each level(a totally new level that is super hard) unlocked with coins you earn from playing; that comes out to 30 levels to master. Also taking into account the game will really push you to just clear the standard 15 levels, making this one of the toughest puzzle games I've played in some time.
the real stand-out part of the game for me was the audio/visual presentation that was truly outstanding. All the menues and levels are heavily influenced by 8-bit games. The levels have stylish background built around the game the level is themed after. Even more impressive is the music. All the music is made up of Classic NES game remixes. However, unlike the remixes in something like Tetris DS where they had modernized beats, all the music is completely chiptunes. If you dig the retro style this game is for you. Hint: wear headphones while you play.
Simply put this is the reason to have a DSi. And at only $5 there is no reason not to download this gem right now. For those of you still holding on to your free Nintendo points you got with your DSi, this is the place to put them.
Not just the best game on the DSiWare line-up, the best puzzle game on the DS, period.

nintendo's mistake; Punch Out!! Vs. UFC

Punch Out!! was one of my personal most anticipated Wii games this year, but it looks like Nintendo may have dropped the ball in releasing it on May 19, as that was the same day THQ's UFC Undisputed dropped on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
While the games are world apart; one is a realistic fighter/Sim and the other is a timing based rhythmic arcade/action game (I'll let you figure out which is which), the fact is that Punch Out!! is bound to be completely overshadowed by UFC this week.
Speaking from personal experience as an EB Games employee, I can say that on day 1 UFC outsold Punch Out!! approximately 10:1 (at our one location). A sad turn of events since it is my opinion that Punch Out!! is one of the best games released this generation.
I doubt that UFC will hurt Punch Out!! overall, but I think Nintendo's decision to launch this week and not next will mean slower sales out of the gate.

Square-Enix and Intellegent Systems teams up for DSiWare

Pretty much anyone who knows anything about the video game industry is familiar with with RPG Juggernaut Square-Enix (of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy fame). If you own a Nintendo console or hand held you should also know Intelligent Systems by now because there is a good chance you already bought at least one of their games. If you've played Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Wario Ware, Paper Mario or Puzzle League (aka: Tetris Attack) you have Intelligent Systems to thank.
Well today Square-Enix announced a new game being co-developed with Intelligent Systems exclusively as a DSiWare title in Japan this winter; Dragon Quest Wars.
Not much is know about the game other than it will be a board game style tactics game where players will pit iconic monsters of the Dragon Quest universe against one another. Word has it there will also be online play via Nintendo's Wifi Connection.
The game will cost 500 Nintendo points, but there is no word yet on if the game will be available for download outside of Japan. Taking into account Dragon Quest's growing popularity outside Japan in recent years and that it's being developed by Nintendo's own Intelligent Systems I see little chance of it not coming to the West... eventually.

DSi Almost upon the English World

Nintendo has committed a release date for the DSi in North America, Europe and Australia this spring but there are still holes and unrest in the future of the unit.

As announced last Wednesday by Nintendo, the new DS update will become available outside Japan in the first week of April with Europe being the first region outside Asia to get the unit on April 3 and America being the last to have it released on April 5.

For those not in the know, the Nintendo DSi looks, essentially like a DS lite, only with two camera lenses (one inside the unit next to the microphone and another on the top the outer shell). Inside the unit has done away with the GBA port, allowing the unit to be slimmed down slightly, the screens are slightly larger (but display the same resolution), and has modestly upgraded guts with a more powerful CPU and about twice the RAM as well as more up to date wireless technology. In addition to this the system also features built-in memory that can be used to store the photos taken with the cameras, AAC music files for audio playback and even store downloadable content, in the form of DSiWare stand alone games, similar to the Wii’s Wii Ware or Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade.

In North America the unit will be getting its own unique colour. Alongside the standard black DSi available since last November in Japan, the United States and Canada will also get a unique (and gaudy) cotton-candy blue unit. Surprising since this means doing away with the white unit that would have been a match with the current Wii model. This almost implies Nintendo is looking to get away from the (seemingly) Apple computers inspired clean white look of the original DS and Wii. After all not too long ago Nintendo discontinued the white DS lite unit in North America in favour of the new silver unit.

The new colour has been met with mixed reactions (mostly negative) but I, for one, embrace it. Sure it’s not the cobalt I was hoping for, but it’s certainly different and since I’m sure most people will flock to the standard black unit, it will certainly stand out in a crowd.

Another thing that seems missing at the moment is that the DSi will apparently not feature any DSiWare content at launch in English-speaking regions. This implies one of two things; either there simply isn’t any English DSiware ready yet or Nintendo of America is taking the safe route and not immediately supporting the download service until they know there is a sizable audience for it. Considering that a number of people are waiting on solid DSiWare support as a deciding factor in whether they upgrade to the DSi or not, this could become a catch-22. Nintendo won’t support DSiWare because nobody will buy the DSi but people won’t want to buy the DSi until DSiWare is better supported.

That or maybe Nintendo is just holding off on the DSiWare announcement until closer to the DSi release date. There is still a good 5 weeks or so before the unit hits store shelves so maybe they will try to reignite the hype fires a little close to the shelf date with news on some solid DSiWare releases then. A boy can dream.

One last interesting bit of info. While Game Stop stores in the United states opened pre-orders for the unit the day after Nintendo announced the release date the Canadian affiliates, EB Games, have yet to begin to take orders, at least in the Greater Toronto Area.

More ports on the way from Square-Enix

Can't stop living in the past? Good news, Squenix's got you covered with a new port announced by ign.com today.
This time it is a 3D-o-fied remake of the Game Boy's Final fantasy Legends II (which was actually part of the SaGa series in Japan) to be released on the Nintendo DS sometime this year in Japan. According to Famitsu, the game will be remade in full 3D (ala: Final Fantasy III & IV on the DS) and may or may not be cel-shaded. Also there will (obviously) be major updated made to game core game system.
More on that when details are available.

Rumor: DSi In April

Nintendo's DS upgrade, the DSi, may be released sooner than expected.
According to a report by ign.com yesterday "numerous sources" have unofficially confirmed that the DSi will be released in North America on April 4. The unit will retail at $179.99, significantly more expensive than the current DS Lite model, which currently retails for $139.99.
The DSi is a slimmed down DS unit with no Game Boy Advance slot, two built-in camera's, music play-back and improved internet connectivity for a new game and application download service called DSi Ware.

New 360 firmware to feature game installs

The Xbox 360 has always had its share of hardware problems. One of which was that the system runs louder and has longer load times than the competing Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. With Microsofts new firmware they plan on ending that with the ability to install, much like most Playstation 3 games.

How does this benefit players? When running a game off the hard drive the system doesn't have to work as hard and there's no need to run the laser to read the disc, which means the system runs nearly silent, according to early play tests. However, games will also need to take up a lot more space on the hard drive (Fable 2 takes up more than 6GB) which may account for Microsoft upping the standard hard drive on the Pro model 360 to 60 GB (from 20). Needless to say, to take full advantage of the new feature players may want to invest in the Elite model 360 with it's 120GB Hard drive.

Just like the Playstation 3, even after installing a game on the 360 players will still need the game disc to run the game.

Since the system will be less strained and run cooler when playing an installed game, it's very likely that installing games could solve the 360 overheating (red ring of death) problem. The problem was ramped in 2005 when the 360 launched, and has since been stabilized with the new "falcon chipset" that allows the system to run cooler. Now with the game installs it may be possible to completely remove all risk.

However, unlike the Playstation 3, players will not be forced to install games to play them. If you want to save space on the hard drive or if you play on an arcade model and don't want to invest the extra money into an Xbox hard drive you can continue to play the old way.

LittleBig Planet-wide delay

Even though LittleBig Planet, the sidescroller for the Playstaion 3 with a focus on user-made content, has already shipped, Sony has requested that it be returned to the manufacturer.
Apparently during quality assurance Sony discovered the game had a song with two lines from the Qur'an. To avoid anyone getting offended, Sony has issued a world-wide recall on the game.
The game has been pushed "until farther notice". There is a good chance the game will not hit shelves again until early next month.

Nintendo to launch a series of Wii-makes in Japan in 2009

Last week Nintendo of Japan announced a new line of Gamecube game remakes for the Wii dubbed "Wii De Asobu Selection".
Reported by Ign.com and Kotaku.com last week, the Wii will be getting reworked versions of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Chibi Robo, Mario Tennis, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, Pikmin and Pikmin 2.
So far the games are only confirmed for Japan, no word on North American or European releases.

Nintendo addresses Wii storage problem

Since the Wii was released in 2006 one of the biggest problems Wii owners have had was having enough space to store all their downloaded content and games. At the conference in San Francisco Nintendo has finally addressed the issue publicly.
Nintendo siad that games will be downloadable directly to SD cards soon. Does that mean we can load and play striaght off SD cards? Lets hope so, or else this announcement was moot.

More in-depth look at DSi

The DSi is Nintendo's redesigned DS unit with added wifi, photo and music-playback functionality.
There were and still are many nay-sayers on the DSi that think that anything beyond the DS lite is not nessissary, looking back on the Gameboy Micro. The Micro was concidered a flop by most people. It removed Gameboy and Gameboy Color backward compatability and shrunk the screen size by 1/3. Nintendo promised a number of accessories for it that never saw the light of day (there was never any additional face-plates, link cables or wireless addaptors released for it).
But rather than being just a slimmed down DS lite (which it is) it adds all kinds of new functionality to the unit.
The feather in the DSi's hat is the dual cameras, one inside the unit, between the screens and one on the back of the unit on its outter shell. The inner camera is less powerful, comparable to most low end cell phone cameras at 0.3 megapixles. The outter camera is more of an all-purpose lens that has a much higher 3.0 megapixles. Photo editing software will also be built-into the DSi, much like the Wii. Photos players manipulate can be sent to friends online.
As for music play-back, so far Nintendo has only said it will play AAC format music files so you can "easily move songs from your computer to SD cards". That was the only format mentioned for the music playing function, no word on MP3s. The DSi music software will also allow players to manipulate their own music by speeding up and slowing down the tempo as well as other things such as being able to break down the song so you can listen to only the vocal track or just the instrumentals.
Nintendo's plans for the camera and music player goes beyond simply making the DS into a portable multimedia player.
"You have to understand that we didn't set out to create the world's best camera or the world's best music player," said reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America.
The idea behind the camera and music player is to push innovation in gameplay farther. Incorperating the camera and your own music into games much like they already have with the mic and touch screen on the older model DS systems.
What this also means is in the future we can expect a line of DSi exclusive software that can not be played on the DS or DS lite.
Beyond that it will have added online functionality. While the DS can play on the Nintendo Wifi Connection for online gameplay the DSi will also feature a modified version of the Opera web browser on the Wii and a game download service called DS ware, which will use Nintendo point cards like the Wii ware and Virtual console. DS ware will feature new games for download with prices ranging from free to 800 points.
There was no mention of Pictochat yet which means that it will either be removed or completely unchanged.
No word as to when the DSi will be available here in North America except that it will be "well into the 2009 calender" year which sounds like it will likely be sometime this spring. Hopefully at the turn of the new year Nintendo will give us a more solid release date.

DSi import only until 2009

The mega popular Nintendo DS handheld is getting a face lift and a pretty new hat, but looks like we will be waiting upwards of 6 months to try the new hat on.
Yesterday in Kyoto, Japan, Nintendo of Japan showed the snazzy new DSi unit, the latest in the DS line that is something of a missing link between the DS and some kind of crazy next-gen handheld.
The DSi will have not one, but two built-in cameras, one on the outer shell, which will be a 3.0 megapixle lense, and a second inside the unit where the mic is placed on the current DS Lite, which will be 0.3 megapixles. Clearly the external camera is meant for general use while the internal one is planned to be Incorporated into gameplay in some way or another.
Additionally the DSi will feature MP3 playback, which means no more dealing with external flashcards to play music on the DS. but does this mean we will be getting a sound card upgrade in the DSi? I can say from experience that the DS Lite, while not bad, didn't exactly provide the best audio quality when using MP3 flashcards.
But where will all your photos and music be stored? The DSi will feature built-in flash memory (exactly how much Nintendo has not yet stated, but I'm going to ball-park somewhere around 256-512 MB) and will also have a slot for an SD card for memory expansion. Hopefully Nintendo has learned its lesson with the Wii and will allow us to save to and load directly off the SD card from day-1.
According to Nintendo, on top of that, the screens will be 17 percent larger and it will be 12 percent slimmer. But in order to slim it down in such a way Nintendo had to sacrifice the GBA port, which will surly upset a number of people, namely those of us who play Guitar Hero On Tour and do not have access to the a working Gameboy Advance.
But the fanciest part of Nintendo's new hat is yet to come. Much like the Nintendo Wii, the DSi will have a download service called DS Ware, new downloadable games that can be purchased, like Wii Ware games, with Nintendo points cards. DS Ware will range from 200 points - 800 points depending on the game. Some applications will be free, like the new Wii Channels.
And when can we get our filthy hands on the new unit? Only Nintendo knows, and even they don't really seem to know for sure. Nintendo of Japan will be launching it in their region on November 1, 2008. As for Nintendo of America, the only thing they have stated is that it will launch here "well into calender 2009". So it looks like we will be waiting upwards of 6 months for the fancy new hat.
"There is currently still much demand for the current model of the DS Lite in the US," said Nintendo of America's president, Reggie Fils-Aime. According to him the DS Lite has already surpassed 2007s record-breaking DS sales by 22 percent and they plan on continuing with it at least until the holiday season is past.
Looks like we will be getting our fancy new DSi next year, but Nintendo is reluctant to set a date as of yet. Guess we will just be left waiting until next year.

More PixelJunk on the network

The Q-games created series of simple but addictive game on the Playstation network has grown with the release of the third game; PixelJunk Eden.
I was a moderate fan of PixelJunk Monsters, the tower defense game released on the network a while back. When I say moderate fan, I mean I was interested in the game, played around with it and enjoyed myself, but never really put too much time into it. I passed up PixelJunk Racer all together. Last night I took the demo of the new game, Eden, for a test run.
It is a very unique game in the series and on its own. While older PixelJunk games tend to be more like retro remixes of older games, Eden stands on its own in being a completely unique concept.
It is, in essence, a side-scrolling platformer with a heavy emphasis on physics. You can walk only on the ground, but you won't be spending much time there. The point is you can hop around the plant-like levels. when you hit a vine, stem or any other parts of the garden you're exploring you stick to it, spiderman style. When you jump off, you automatically leave a tether which you use to swing around and propel you to other plants as you collect crystals, which allow you to extend your time in the level, and pollen, which makes other plants grow, so you can reach higher points in the level.
the simple graphic style and mix of physics with platforming reminds me a lot of the PSP game LocoRoco (one of the best reasons to own the PSP).
For only $10 it seems worth checking out. I will likely download it in the near future.

www.godsavethepress.com coming soon...

I just bought a new URL for www.godsavethepress.com. unbelievably it wasn't taken already so I bought it while I could. I'll continue to blog here for now, but as soon as the website is up and running I'm going to redirect my blog onto the website.
Both my blogs will be moved when the site launches.
More information closer to the web site's launch.

Activision dumps anticipated games

The Activision/Vivendi merger has been all over the gaming news for a while now, but Activision has recently announced that it will be dropping two highly anticipated Vivendi games as the publisher, leaving them in limbo.
Brutal Legends, the new Tim Schafer game (of Phychonauts, Monkey Island and Grim Fandango fame) and the new Ghostbusters game have both been dropped by Activision. As a result neither games have a publisher. This doesn't make them cancelled, but it also means their future is a might foggy.
I am not too worried about either game, since they both have enough hype behind them I think it would be unreasonable to not assume another publisher will be eager to jump on board.
Also the new 50 Cent: Blood in the sand has been dropped by Activision. While we are all hoping for a new publisher to pick up Brutal Legends and Ghostbusters, lets hope for the opposite for 50 cent.

Nintendo embaces 2D with new Wario game on Wii

being a gamer who has been around since the 2D sprite days of the 8-bit generation (NES and Master System), I've always been a fan of well done sprite games and think they can still have a place with modern photo-realistic games of today. The best examples of this would be games like Odin Sphere.
When Nintendo announced a new Wario game for the Wii I had visions of the Wario World game from the Gamecube in my head, and lost interest. If it has Wario's name in the title it better be followed by "ware" to keep me interested for long.
However, then I saw the in-game at E3. What is this? A fully 2D sprite game on the Wii? And it's not even a Wii Ware title? It's a full game!
Now my disinterest has seen a full 360. It has some big, beautifully animated sprites. This is the kind of thing we see all the time on the DS but rarely on the consoles.
The visual style looks great, lets hope the gameplay follows suit.

Wii still has no real storage expansion

E3 was something of a flop for a lot of gamers this year, which may be a testament to how little weight it carries now with the smaller design, but more importantly, Nintendo has, yet again, now given Wii owners a feasible storage alternative.
For almost two years now Wii owners have been crying out in wanting of a way to store all their Virtual Console and now Wii Ware games without having to fumble with constantly transferring files back and forth between SD cards and the internal memory.
Given that the Wii currently has only 512 MB of space - roughly 1/40 the space on the smallest model of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 - i believe it is justified for gamers to want more.
Yes, games you download can be re-downloaded for free an unlimited number of time. Yes, you can back them up on an SD card. The point is we shouldn't have to re-download something again and again and why is it we can't simply boot a game straight off our SD cards? Isn't this something that could be fixed with a simple firmware update?
frankly, I would be happy just to be able to boot off an SD card. having an extra 2GB would still be better. But this subject has been done to death.
Ign.com asked about it at E3.
"There isn't anything that we can announce today, but we have been thinking along a variety of different lines regarding this matter for some time now," said Shigeru Miyamoto told ign.com, "So my hope is that sometime in the not too distant future we will be able to discuss some concrete solutions."
What is beyond me is that it seems like an open-and-shut case. give us a USB Hard drive. Let us boot off an SD card.
piracy is likely one of the reasons Nintendo is being so cautious with the Wii already prone to being hacked by mod chips and the DS losing software sales due to flashcard devices. However they can not ignore the obvious storage problem. They already solved the online chat issue with the Wii Speak public mic device, lets hope we get an answer about this as well, sooner rather than later.

E3 2008 Part 3: Sony

Sony spent the week showing some solid new installments in its core franchises but had little new to bring forward.
E3 is over and Sony has ended up being one of the three that I ended up the least interested in, even though I own both a PS3 and PSP. That's right, Microsoft caught my eye more even though I have no Xbox to speak of. Of course Microsoft also caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.
But I digress, this post is about Sony. While the showing from Sony wasn't really disappointing as a whole, it just seemed to be a lot of stuff that we all already knew about. Killzone looks incredible, but shooters tend not to excite me. The same can be said of Resistance 2 and the surprising PSP edition of Resistance.
There was God of War "shown", and by shown I mean we got to see a prerendered clip featuring Kratos. However, go ahead and burn me alive on a steak for it, but God of War never really appealed to me. To me it was always "Zelda for jocks", even if that's wrong of me to say.
I still haven't jumped on the LittleBig Planet bandwagon yet, since I still don't know what the hell it is, no mater how many articles I read or videos I watch. Does it have any premade levels? Is it just a platformer that I get to build? from what i understand it is a side-scroller with 100% user made content. A cool idea, but i will see how far the idea really flys. Either way, it will be very original and should be a highlight of the Playstation 3 library.
one new Playstation Network game that looks very cool is FLOWer, a game that seems to have you blow around flower petals to create unique music. Looks like a great game to wind-down with. And frankly, the PSN really needs more content.
Unfortunately a lot of Sony's big titles were already showcased at Microsoft's show, like Fallout 3, resident Evil 5 and the bombshell that was Final Fantasy XIII being released on both systems.
Other highlights were the news of both Locoroco and Patapon getting second games. this is good news because my PSP has been gathering dust for the short while I have owned it. Those mixed with the announcement of the Star ocean games coming to North America in the coming months will give me something to do.
One interesting piece of news was the new Ratchet chapter exclusively for the Playstation Network that was quoted as being "a movie length ratchet game". It looks like it will be of the same high graphic quality as Ratchet & Clank Future, which would explain why the downloadable game will only be a couple of hours long. It is supposed to answer some questions left open by the end of R&C Future. It leave one to question if we will see another full-length Ratchet game on the Playstation 3 or if these mini chapters will fill in the gaps from now on. An interesting idea, at least.
Sony still has a big obstacle to pass if they want the Playstation 3 to take the number one spot like it has for the past two generations and that road is paved in exclusive titles. Wii has it own set of games unlike any other. Microsoft has a library of its own games that range from shooters like Gears of War to epics like Lost Oddessy. Playstation 3 is going to have to prove to developers that it can move hardware and make it worth while to make games Playstation 3 exclusive which would in turn entice gamers to pick up a Playstation 3. It's going to take more than Gran Turismo, Metal Gear and LittleBig Planet. Losing Final Fantasy XIII will hurt Playstaion 3 in the long run for the RPG crowd as well, since the biggest RPG of this generation will be multi platform and most others are Xbox exclusive so far (Lost Oddessy, Mass Effect & Star Ocean come to mind).
here's hoping Final Fantasy Versus XIII remains a Playstation only game, for their sakes.

E3 2008 Part 2: Nintendo

Nintendo's show is one that was shrouded in rumor and hearsay, everyone seemed to be expecting big things from them this year, but it looks like Nintendo played it safe with some interesting new devices announced, but little else we didn't already know about.
Those that know me know that I have been a big supporter of Nintendo for as long as I played videogames. So I tend to look forward to the Nintendo conference more than any other. In the end i was not disappointed so much as I felt the show was a bit too dry. Then again the show really wasn't meant for me, it was meant for intriguing the casual crowd and shareholders.
The show opened up with a bit about the new Wii balance board, a device that can sense a subtle shift in the players weight to do some genuinely great stuff, but thus far there hasn't been any games to use the device that really interests me.
In typical Nintendo fashion, they introduced this years pseudo-celebrity to push a new game. this year it was Snowboarding Gold medalist, Shaun White, for the new snowboading game for the Wii baring his name, much like the popular Tony hawk Skateboading games and adequately popular Dave Merra BMX.
It was a nice show, for what it was, but still didn't do much for the hardcore gamers. Skipping ahead we saw all the things we expect from a Nintendo show, most of which are just slide-show sales figures that show just how well the Wii is doing followed by President Iwata's speech on innovation.
One part that kind of caught my eye was more info (ie: actual in game footage) on the new Animal Crossing (City Folk). Along side it we also saw the new voice chat alternative for the Wii, simply called Wii Speak. A device that will be placed on or under the TV and allow for "group chat", meaning everyone in the room will be able to talk to the person/people you're playing online with, rather than having a personal headset.
Given Nintendo's emphasis on having people play together in the same room over online play it makes sense they would use a device like this so that everyone can get in on the game, even if they're not necessarily playing it. Also, it is safe to assume that most (or all) games that use Wii Speak will likely require friend codes to be able to actually talk to each other (like almost any DS game to use the headset).
The other device that Nintendo showed at E3 this year was the new Wii Motion Plus, an accessory that will snap onto the end of the Wii remote (where the nunchuck or classic controller normally connects) and allow for true 1:1 control where the Wii remote will be able to exactly mimic your arm and hand motions in real time.
Along with it they showed the game that will be bundled with the device, Wii Sports Resort. It seems the new Wii sports will have a handful of new minigames based around the beach that include Frisbee, a wave race-like Jet ski game and a sword dueling game, each showing how the 1:1 motion can be used to improve gameplay.
While that was all very cool to see in motion, I have only one complaint about the whole thing. Didn't Nintendo tell us that the Wii remote could already do 1:1 motion two years ago? Now they're telling us we have to go spend another $20+ to get our remote to do what it was designed to do? Will they release a new Wii remote v. 2.0 with the technology built in, or do we need to use the device and make our remotes just a little bulkier? If they don't make a whole new remote will the Motion Plus at least come packaged with remotes in the future as well as coming solo? if we do have to buy them separately, that means the full Wii controller setup will cost upwards of $85-$100 for each controller.
Anyway, all that aside, the new Wii Music game looks like it could be fun, as long as the game doesn't just auto-play itself with you only selecting the tempo and there still is no answer to the Wiis storage dilemma, but overall a decent showing, just not a whole lot to really get me too excited yet. But the week isn't over yet.

The joke trailer to end all joke trailers

Behold, the epically hilarious new Duke Nukem trilogy teaser for the Nintendo DS.
I think it speaks for itself.