November was a good month for GameStop, as the retailer has announced sales for its new games were up 15 percent. We contacted GameStop to get some clarification on the vague 15 percent figure and VP Chris Olivera said this was compared to November 2008.
It's not that tough to gather how the company upped its profits. Aside from a massive used games sale, the company also offered some sweet Black Friday console bundles and a week-long sale on new games -- all of which managed to get folks in the store, spending cash.
Boolat Games' follow-up to PSN platformer Topatoi is aiming for a January-February release in 2010. The sequel, titled The Pillar of Skies, features a new environment, new enemies and "an extended gameplay experience." Promising a lengthier quest and brand new arcade levels, this announcement should come as a nice surprise for anyone that enjoyed the charm of the first game.
Catch the trailer after the break.
European retailers have updated their pages for Heavy Rain, predicting the game will fall on European store shelves on February 26. For those of you keeping score at home, Famitsu said the game is releasing to Japan in February as well, lending some credibility to the proposed February 26 release in Europe.
We contacted SCEE -- who gave us the cold shoulder -- but we also sent word to SCEA, who said: "We haven't announced a release date for North America ... but stay tuned as we will have a release date soon."
Source - GAME
Source - Gamestation
Source - Play.com
Let’s take a look back at the holiday/Christmas/Winter themed games that the industry has brought us over the past 30 years, shall we?
James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod
Okay, I’m done looking now. James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod has killed my holiday spirit.
The sole Virtual Console release this week is a reminder of a very odd time: when Sega thought Alex Kidd was a viable character. The company took an in-progress Shinobi parody game called Shinobi Kid, and then added the Alex Kidd character. Someone at Sega was under the impression that a game would sell better with Alex Kidd in it.
Also available: more Monkey Island, an expansion of one of Rubik's World's games, and Pallurikio, a cute platformer with a slingshot mechanic. And on DSiWare, it's ... a stripped-down version of Hell's Kitchen!
Pallurikio (WiiWare, 1 player, 1,000 Wii Points)
Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH (WiiWare, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 4 (WiiWare, 1 player, 1,000 Wii Points)
Alex Kidd in Shinobi World (Sega Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points)
PictureBook Games: The Royal Bluff (DSiWare, 1-4 players, 500 DSi Points)
Hell's Kitchen Vs. (DSiWare, 1-2 players, 800 DSi Points)
The official Japanese site for Final Fantasy XIII's soundtrack has gone live, offering the ability to listen to the first ten tracks from the four-disc mega-album. Andriasang reports that the site will be updated with all of the discs' contents over time, along with notes on the tracks by composer Masashi Hamauzu, who worked with Nobuo Uematsu on the score for Final Fantasy X.
You can listen to the tracks by heading to the site and clicking on the "track list" tab at the bottom of the page. The album releases in Japan on January 27 in both standard and limited "first cut" editions. If Square announces a domestic release, it'll be music to our ears.
[Via Nobuooo]
The upcoming Japanese DSiWare game Katamuction uses the system's cameras in a unique way: to simulate tilt control. Using Motion Cortex, technology originally designed for motion-based browsing on cell phones, the game uses camera information to sense the direction in which the DS is moved. And what is that technology used for? A game about running away from a dinosaur! Katamuction will be out December 24 for 500 DSi Points.
Fight with Pictures: Photo Fighter X from Nintendo uses the camera to create fighting game characters: you take photos of yourself in various poses, and the game makes a fighter out of it! It's out in Japan next week for 200 points.
Direct link here and here
Wow, that’s a spot-on riff in the beginning there…for the most part. You have to wonder, is this a coincidence or not? That question comes up quite often with video game music, and now 1up has a feature that pools together 4 pages worth of game music/music comparisons. [...]
In the sixteen hours since war was declared between the Demoman and the Soldier, a whopping 2,681,005 kills (and counting) have been tallied. That's bloody astonishing! And it's all thanks to you! You should all be proud of yourselves!
Yesterday's NPD announcement that New Super Mario Bros. Wii had sold 1.4 million copies in the November NPD period was impressive. But Nintendo topped it today by noting that, including sales after the NPD cutoff date, the game has reached a total of two million copies. It's not Modern Warfare 2 or anything, but it is a very strong start for a game that is likely to have a very long tail. Even just in November, it easily beat New Super Mario Bros.'s first month on DS (which, admittedly, was May and not November).
Nintendo also announced that the Wii has reached a US installed base of 23 million, and that the DS broke the November handheld sales record set by ... the DS.
Mr. Parish gets things back into action with his alphabetic adventure through gaming. Today we look at everyone’s favorite nearly-naked knight, Arthur. He’s been a part of gaming for a long time now, and he always brings around some of the most challenging gameplay that the entire industry has witnessed. Beware, Arthur’s [...]
