Nikkei: Nintendo’s Wii Fit plus coming to make weight loss competitive, Internet fun

Wii Fit not cutting the fat fast enough? Don’t sweat it, the house of Mario is getting ready to make your weight loss competitive. According to Japan’s Nikkei business daily, Nintendo will be launching its Wii Fit plus in autumn that will let users compete with friends and family over the Internet to “lose weight and other activities” — the latter presumably hinting at cruel taunting Miis with the ability to point and laugh at the fatties. The new balance board is said to feature more precise measurements to better hone your sense embarrassment and shame. E3 kicks off next week where we’ll undoubtedly hear more if the rumor is true.

Filed under: Gaming

Nikkei: Nintendo’s Wii Fit plus coming to make weight loss competitive, Internet fun originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 04:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DJ Hero website and pre-orders go live, Jay-Z Special Edition seen in the distance

With just days to go before the gaming world goes wild at E3, the hotly anticipated DJ Hero is now spinning on its very own website. Granted, a few of the sections are still labeled as “coming soon,” but we’re given a few more sneak peeks at the hardware, the gameplay and even a duo of handy links to pre-order it. According to listings on both GameStop and Amazon, the software and turntable are slated to ship on October 27th, with the bundle priced at $119.99 for all four of the major consoles (yes, new games are still being made for the PS2). Better still, the latter e-tailer has the Jay-Z Special Edition Bundle listed for Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii, though neither of those are accompanied by MSRPs or expected ship dates. And to think, those are just two of our 99 problems…

[Thanks, Joey]

Read - DJ Hero official website
Read - GameStop pre-order page
Read - Amazon pre-order page
Read - DJ Hero game trailers

Continue reading DJ Hero website and pre-orders go live, Jay-Z Special Edition seen in the distance

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

DJ Hero website and pre-orders go live, Jay-Z Special Edition seen in the distance originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 May 2009 11:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phantom Brave pushed out to August for Japanese voices

Brace yourselves. The upcoming port of Phantom Brave won’t possess Wii consoles in June as expected. Now, assuming you survived that Prinny Bomb, NIS America says in its press release (PDF link) that the delay will allow the niche publisher to put the oft-requested Japanese voice-over track back into the game.

It’s a gift, however, that requires some “extra programming and debugging,” and players looking forward to the moody strategy game will now have to wait until August 4 to get their grinding fix.

Phantom Brave pushed out to August for Japanese voices originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 30 May 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Weekly Japanese Hardware Sales Steady As Wii Tops Console Sales

Sales of video game hardware held steady in Japan for the week ended May 24, as the Nintendo Wii managed to edge out PlayStation 3 for the third week in a row, capturing the top home console slot. But it was the handhelds that once again ruled Media Create’s weekly hardware chart, with the Nintendo DSi generating 34,152 in unit sales, topping second-place PSP, which sold 27,536 during the week. Media Create records DS Lite …

Phantom Brave Delayed, Japanese Voice Overs Added

NIS America just revealed that Phantom Brave: We Meet Again won’t be meeting the Wii this June. Instead the game will be released on August 4th. The cause of the delay is due to the need to add in Japanese voice overs to please their loyal fanbase.

In appreciation of all the great fan support, NIS America negotiated with the developer in Japan and they have happily accepted the request. The development team has noted that “as long as fans and gamers can enjoy Phantom Brave we’ll do our best to get this feature in”. Due to the implementation of the dual voice-overs, the release date will be delayed until August 4th.

Rumor: Nintendo Planning Post-E3 Press Event for Japan

User “King Zell” of the NeoGAF forums posted the following:

Rumor has it that Nintendo will be holding a big press conference here in Japan immediately following E3.

Actually, this isn’t really a rumor. The source is the Sinobi blog — you know, the blog that always gives out the super early sales information on Fridays. It seems to be a pretty reliable source.

The press conference is mentioned as an aside as the writer discusses how absolutely atrocious the Japanese game market was in May. The writer suggests that Nintendo could end up showing its summer lineup.

That summer lineup will presumably be lead by Wii Sports Resort.

The blog post was made on the 27th, by the way.

GoNintendo posits that this is simply a means for the Japanese press to get their hands on whatever is shown/revealed at E3, perhaps some Japanese release dates for those items, and I’m inclined to agree with that assertion.

At the same time, you can’t help but wonder if something new might be revealed. You know, to “make it worth their time,” as it were.

Peter Cullen & Frank Welker Talk Transformers: ROTF

If you’ve always wanted to see the voices behind Optimus and Megatron at work, here’s Peter Cullen and Frank Welker discussing their reunion for the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen videogame.

There’s also more sneak previews from the game itself, which hits stores on June 23rd for the PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, DS and XBox 360.

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Rabbids Go Home, Steal President Obama’s Clothes In E3 Trailer

Ubisoft is having their Rabbids Go Home in their new Wii adventure game… only they’re taking everything they can with them including President Obama’s clothing.

Go Home this October.

Rabbids E3 Trailer

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E3 2009 Predictions: (E)3 Thoughts - Brian Leahy, Games Editor

By now you may have heard about a little event called the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or by its street name "E3." In the days leading up to this catastrophic conflux of lights, sounds and adult beverages, we here at G4tv.com are taking turns with an annual tradition as reliable as salmon spawning and Cubs playoff collapses: wild speculation! We’ll be keeping track of what we get right for bragging purposes, and when we’re wrong we’ll be pointing over there because HEY WHAT’S THAT?!?! We’re calling this feature (E)3 Thoughts, because without limits, we could hypothesize all day long.

Previous Entries:

• Patrick Klepek, News Editor
• Andrew Pfister, Senior Games Editor
• Jake Gaskill, Feed Writer
• Stephen Johnson, Lead Editor
• Sterling McGarvey, Senior Previews/Reviews Editor
• Raymond Padilla, Managing News Editor

E3 and Me, or: "Bring the Noise, Bring the Funk."

This will be my third E3 and, technically, my first "real" E3. My first was the dreaded Santa Monica show and last year was the quiet, small affair that we all know and love. This year, the show is back, and I’m ready to see what it has to offer. I’ll be running the liveblogs of the press conferences and then hitting the floor to check out as many games as possible.
 
Three Most Anticipated Games

1. DJ Hero — As a huge Beatmania and rhythm game fan, I’m really looking forward to Activision’s offering. I was very impressed by Scratch when I saw it a few months ago, but I’m very curious about the differences with this game. If I don’t manage to get a hands-on, I’m going to kill someone.

2. Heavy Rain — I got to see Heavy Rain at Sony’s Pre-E3 Gamer’s Day and I want more. Actually, I just want the game to be out already. I’m definitely pulling for a release date announcement.

3. Supreme Commander II — I’m going to champion this game as I am a huge fan of Chris Taylor and the first game. I’m hoping it will be hands-on at the show, but I’ll settle for some gameplay footage. I want armies of 5000 units fighting!

Top 3 Hopeful Announcements

1. Metal Gear Solid 5 — Generally, Kojima fans aren’t supposed to want Kojima to keep making MGS games, but I do. Sue me. I don’t need another game with Snake as the star, but I’ll take a Raiden or Big Boss game any day of the week. Come on, Kojima!

2. Marathon — I’ve been getting back in to Halo 3 multiplayer pretty seriously and I’m really looking forward to the next Bungie game (not including ODST). Also, Master Chief is totally not dead and will be the main character when it links up with Marathon. Callin’ it.

3. Xbox Live Friends List Capacity Increase & Groups — Hey, Microsoft. You’ve already got the best online service, but capping my friends list at 100 is pretty crappy. Also, how about adding some groups so we can stop making free Silver accounts to aggregate gamertags?
 
Three Predictions for the Big Three

Nintendo

1. MotionPlus is going to be the focus of Big N’s press conference. Like, for everything. There will be a lot of on-stage demos of various people using it to do things in Wii Sports Resort. EA and Ubisoft will have some presence there to show off their MotionPlus offerings. It will make everyone wonder why the Wii wasn’t launched with this peripheral.

2. Charts! There will be a lot of numbers talk about the sales of the Wii and DSi. Nintendo. A lot of time will also go into discussing support from third-party developers in a sequel to Iwata’s GDC presentation encouraging developers to keep making games on Nintendo’s platforms.

3. Online functionality will either be completely ignored or Nintendo will actually get serious about their web-enabled offering. I’m guessing the former.
 
Sony

1. This will be entirely about games. Expect a lot of on-stage demos and gameplay footage. In fact, I would go so far as to expect a presence from some games that have already been released (inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2). Can’t hurt to keep showing them.

2. Sony will once again show off Home and fail to impress. It’s a lost cause at this point, Sony. You started the project when Second Life was the bees knees and now it’s time to put it down. Alternative reality prediction: Sony kills Home and brings all of the features they’ve been building into it will cross over to the XMB.

3. Release dates — Along with all of the demos, we’ll get some solid release dates for the upcoming PS3 exclusives. Comedy option: No release date announced for Gran Turismo 5.
 
Microsoft

1. Family & Casual Offerings! MS will trumpet Primetime and 1 vs. 100 along with other "casual" products. Could this be the rumored motion controller? I hope not. I don’t want motion on the Xbox 360 (or PS3).

2. Multiplatform games all over the place! Microsoft will feature a lot of games that you’ll also be seeing on the PS3, but they’ll emphasis their install base and Live when discussing them.

3. Halo. With Gears taking a break after the release of Gears 2, Halo is back up to bat and we’ll probably see a lot about ODST, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some idea as to what the internal Halo project is (the one Bungie isn’t working on).

 
Three Things For Third Parties

1. Modern. Warfare. 2. More of it. Now.

2. Wii games that make me want to turn the Wii on, not just mini-game collections. This should be read as: good use of MotionPlus.

3. Every PC game should be on Steam. Period.
 
Three Dream Announcements

1. PS3 version of Beatmania with every song ever and a new controller.

2. Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Release Date (that Valve actually hits).

3. New 2D Metroid Game

Daily Tech: Bing - What’s in a Name?