Nintendo halve production costs of Wii console but no price drop for consumers...

If Koya Tabata, of respected financial institution Credit Suisse, is to be believed, the production cost of the Wii has nearly halved since the console launched.

According to the Financial Times, Tabata told investors in a recent note that the cost of making a Wii has dropped by 45% since it was first released back in late 2006.
The FT goes on to report that this gives Nintendo the scope to cut the price of the Wii should it need to stimulate sales. What he does not analyse, however, is whether this cut in cost is due to short term currency fluctuations or solid parts and manufacturing pricing.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? The FT's right, of course. Nintendo does have the scope to cut the price of the Wii. Whether that 45% figure is accurate or not, the cost of manufacturing the Wii will have dropped since launch. However, the message from the upper echelons of Nintendo management suggests a price cut is unlikely.

Read full post here on Spong...

Hinterlands - Orc Lords fantasy-themed game with fast paced RPG combat and strategic base building PC game

Tame the wild territory of the king's realm this May in this fantasy-themed game with fast paced RPG combat and strategic base building.

Got Game Entertainment LLC today announced that “Hinterland: Orc Lords” (PC), the fast paced RPG combat and strategic base building game, will be available for download purchase (via Hinterland-Game.com) and in retail stores across North America the first week of May 2009. “Hinterland: Orc Lords” is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB for Alcohol Reference/Fantasy Violence/Mild Blood and will retail for $19.99.

Loot. Level. Build.
In “Hinterland: Orc Lords”, the king has charged you with taming a wild territory of his realm by building a prosperous town and conquering all enemy sites in the region. You must bring a diverse cast of followers to your settlement, and then carefully select members of your village to join you on expeditions of exploration and conquest in the surrounding lands. There, you will encounter the characters and creatures of myth and folklore, and find much needed resources to expand your village, from iron to make weapons to a mystic tome to entice a great mage to join you. Should your forays meet with success, fame, fortune and prosperity await. But you must take care, for even the loss of a lowly farmer can spell disaster at harvest time.

“Hinterland: Orc Lords” Features:

* Party-based RPG Action - Variety of characters, weapons, and strategies. Will you lead the charge with a two-handed strike or stand behind the armored herder with your bow?
* Town Building - Choose who will settle in your town. Arm them for defense, or give them tools for production.
* Character Development - Command an Orc tribe as Lord or Shaman, or lead a Human village as Human, Dwarf, Elf, or even Undead Warrior. Develop lowly farmers into great warriors. Customize your character to help in adventure or improve village life.
* Random Fantasy World - New locations with different resources, items, enemies, and challenges for maximum replay. Orc war camps, dark elf raiding parties, goblin infested mines, ruined undead cities, and more.
* Customizable Gameplay - From hardcore game to a world without raiders, you decide the type of game you play.

For more information, visit the game’s official website at Hinterland-Game.com.

Burnout - The most popular car contest winners

The Super Computers of Paradise City have been crunching the numbers and we can now reveal March's Top 3 Most Popular Cars from our download packs.



Check out all the winners - including in third a bike! here...

No 1 iPhone application - Tap Tap Revenge game claims 32% of Ipod Touch and iPhone user have game

A list of the 25 most popular iPhone applications to date is nearly half-filled with games, with Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge coming out on top.

Tap Tap Revenge is only 1 of 122 games to make internet information provider Comscore's list of the 25 most popular iPhone applications, with a penetration of 32% among Apple app users.

This basically means that 32% of iPhone and iPod Touch owners who have used the App Store have purchased Tap Tap Revenge, 5% more than the second place application, Stylem Media's Backgrounds. Venture Beat takes this 32% and multiplies it by Admob's estimate of a 15 million strong Apple mobile user base, determining that Tap Tap Revenge has an install base of nearly 4.8 million users. That's rather insane.

Other games making the list include old favorites like Pac-Man, Hangman, and Soduku, interspersed with newer titles like Lightsaber Unleashed and Touch Hockey FS5.

Source: Kotaku

iFixit breaks apart the Nintendo DSi step by step guide to taking the new handheld to bits.

iFixit take apart the new Nintendo DSi.

A great step-by-step guide on how to unbuild the new Nintendo DSi. They also compare the old Nintendo DS with the new DSi model.

Explaining each of the many components...

Read the post and view the pictures here on iFixIt

Flock UFO sheep herding game on Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network

Herding Hijinks and Farming Fun Arrive on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and Windows PC

Capcom Entertainment, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today launched their newest digital download, FLOCK!.

The Windows PC version launches today April 7, the Xbox LIVE Arcade version for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft launches tomorrow, April 8, and the PlayStation Network version launches on Thursday, April 9. This unique puzzle-platformer for all ages is developed by Proper Games, whose talented team members are known for their previous work on Lemmings, Crackdown, and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. In FLOCK! players take control of an alien UFO that’s been given the challenging task of herding animals to its mothership through a variety of interactive levels.



Players will have to overcome the different behaviors of the animals to herd them successfully. This will require the use of quirky humor-filled strategies, as well as completing a series of physics-based puzzles. By finding or creating a passable route, players can herd the animals safely toward the ship. Solving the puzzles within the suggested time limit yields exciting rewards but players can also take their time to find more hidden bonuses for extended gameplay. With a unique theme, clever humor and easy pick-up-and-play controls, FLOCK! promises to be an instant hit with gamers of all ages!

The game is played from a third-person, top-down perspective, where users take control and pilot the UFO around a series of small “plushie” islands surrounded by water. The animals that populate these islands – sheep, chickens, pigs, cows and more – respond to the UFO in all kinds of interesting ways based on their nature. The challenge is to take advantage of these behaviors in order to help guide them to the mothership and rack-up points

FLOCK! uses a sophisticated physics engine to drive the challenging puzzle elements of the game. Whether it’s using the tractor beam to move obstacles out of the way or the depressor beam to stamp out crop circles to guide your herds, being an extraterrestrial has never been this fun! Friends can also join in through co-op play and when all the levels have been completed, users will be able to make their own plush and puzzle-filled levels using the level editor that comes with the game. Flock comes packed with so much content, the potential fun is out of this world!

Rated E for Everyone, FLOCK! is now available to download for Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360, PlayStation Network and Windows PC.

New PSP to have slide out controls and D-pads to combat iPhone and iPod Touch...

Report from Pocket gamer...

Whether it's labelled the PSP 4000 or the PSP 2, there's been a lot of rumour recently about an imminent successor to Sony's handheld console. There's also been a lot of talk about how Sony might react to the competition on offer from the phenomenal success of Apple's iPhone and iPod touch.


Unsurprisingly the console manufacturer has been comparatively mute in both cases, denying the existence of a PSP sequel and any threat from Apple. However, having spoken to an insider source – who's not Dave Perry, but is a developer working on the new hardware – we can reveal that the new handheld will arrive before Christmas and will be far more similar to the iPhone than the current device.

Read full post here...

Grand Ages - Rome – Patch 1.11 released!

Kalypso Media have today announced a patch for their classic city building game GRAND AGES: ROME. Patch 1.11 provides the gamer with a new map, Iris, and the following improvements:

• Military behaviour fixes.
• Map overview tweaks.
• Improved worker reallocation.
• Trade buildings remember last route.
• Capped Trade Contract benefit.
• Fixed riots under Martial Law.
• Colorized outposts on map overview.
• Multiplayer desync fixes.

All updates & patches are available via the auto-update-function.

http://www.grandages.com/en/gr_updates.php

An established internet connection is required.

Trine, an absorbing action game that challenges players to battle with the forces of space, energy and motion in a magical kingdom

With the impending UK release of Trine, an absorbing action game that challenges players to battle with the forces of space, energy and motion in a magical kingdom, the game’s publisher Nobilis recently met up with developer Frozenbyte to provide an insight into the game.

Below, Lauri Hyvärinen, Designer at Frozenbyte, talks to David Costarigot, Project Manager at Nobilis, about some of the main aspects of the game.

David: How did you come up with the idea for Trine?
Lauri: Trine has been a team effort and the idea has changed a few times during the development process. It was originally initiated by our lead gameplay programmer, before evolving a great deal in a short space of time and becoming the game that we now know. The relationship between us designers and the artists has been critical to the whole project. Designers can inspire artists with ideas and artists in turn create such fantastic art that it motivates designers to create great gameplay, and so on. We also have regular design evenings with the team. This usually results in good ideas being presented at the start of the evening and more wild ideas developing as the night goes on. Ultimately, the programmers are the ones who have to implement all the suggestions, so our producer works hard to eliminate the not-so-good ideas.

David: What exactly is the ‘Trine’?
Lauri: The ‘Trine’ is an old artefact which has been placed in the Astral Academy and is protected by powerful spells. However, the peace of the kingdom is disturbed as the undead armies begin to march and the protection around the ‘Trine’ weakens. Whilst this is happening, our character the Thief has a cunning plan to steal it and makes her way to find it, where she also happens upon the other characters, the Wizard and the Knight. This causes a commotion that ends up binding their souls to the ‘Trine’ and changing the course of history. Now only one character can be outside the ‘Trine’ at the same time and our game’s heroes begin their journey looking for clues as to what the ‘Trine’ might be, why they have been trapped inside and what they must do to get out.

David: What are the most important and entertaining features of Trine?
Lauri: I think the most fun element in Trine is the creative and clever use of the three characters. Players can use any one of the characters to crack any puzzle, although with some characters solving certain puzzles is much harder than with others. Our level design team worked really hard to improve each level and make it challenging enough whilst still keeping the fun and the flow of the game. There are multiple solutions for each puzzle, some more difficult than others, and often the easiest solution is the hardest to carry out. Test players have also solved puzzles in ways that we never thought of which is simply fascinating.

David: What inspired the choices of characters and the gameplay in Trine?
Lauri: The characters are based on our art team's vision and there must be a dozen different images for each part of each character, making a total of hundreds of images to create just one character. The gameplay is based around the idea “what if the player could freely create and bring physical objects into the world” and this is mostly displayed through the abilities of the Wizard. With regards to the other characters, we had numerous very good gameplay ideas and we split these between them. Eventually we had created three totally different characters, not just by their personality and looks, but also their individual abilities and this is the core of the game.

David: Considering the Trine graphics engine, what specific things can players do in Trine?
Lauri: Trine has almost all of the latest visual effects and new ones can also be added easily. However, the best part of the game comes from the solid attachment to the PhysX engine for the physics element in the game. Unlike normal games, we use physics as a major gameplay feature and players can freely create and bring physical objects into the game. In other words, physics is not just seen as ‘eye candy’ because players simply cannot advance in the game if they don't use the physics simulated objects or machinery to their advantage.

David: Playing in co-operative mode is not that common in a platform-based game, what made you come up with this idea?
Lauri: We had some sort of co-operative gameplay in one of our previous titles Shadowgrounds and thought it would also be perfect for Trine. Of course, given that the game has only three characters that is also the maximum number of players that can play in co-op. Players can invent hilarious solutions to puzzles, for example, using the Knight to throw a box in the air whilst the other players use a different character to stand on the box. In our test sessions the co-op has proven to be really popular with all testers.

David: Finally, can you tell us a little bit about Frozenbyte?
Lauri: Frozenbyte consists of a team of 20 game enthusiasts, located in Helsinki, Finland. We are most known for our Shadowgrounds action game series, although behind the scenes we have also helped other developers with their games. Finland is home to a lot of high technology expertise and the gaming business is increasing at a tremendous pace. For example, when Frozenbyte was founded in 2001 there were only a handful of game companies and there are now over 50.

Trine will be released on PC in summer 2009 by Nobilis and Ascaron Entertainment.

Fast facts:
Publisher: Nobilis
UK Distributor: Ascaron Entertainment
Web: www.trine-thegame.com
Developer: Frozenbyte
Release date: Q2/Q3 2009
PEGI: 12+
Format: PC
Genre: Action / Adventure

Vektor Tank new Nintendo Wii video game

Bplus, independent software developer, today officially announces Vektor Tank, a brand-new title under development by Bplus for Nintendo Wii.

Vektor Tank is a totally original genre-mix featuring action-packed shooting gameplay, exciting tactical tank combats in a destructible environment and of course lots of explosions.

After the success of Niki – Rock 'n' Ball, Bplus now makes another game in stylish retro fashion: featuring classic mid-nineties vector graphics, Vektor Tank is a real blast to the past.

Key Facts:
Genre: Action
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Developer: Bplus
Players: 1 or 2 Player cooperative, up to 4 Player Battle Mode
Control Style: Wii Remote only - pointer and accelerometer
Presentation: Classic retro-style vector graphics
Video Modes: 480p, 16:9 widescreen
Release Date: TBA