For all the talk of Nintendo's "dominance", it's a relative thing. They're dominating videogame sales amongst a small percentage of the world's population. Namely, the developed world. North America, Western Europe, NE Asia, Australasia, etc. And a few other places. But why stop there? There are over 6 billion people on this planet, so Nintendo may as well go take everyone's money, rich or poor. Boss Satoru Iwata:

After we complete our mission in developed countries, then we'll have to start thinking about how to make our products appealing in developing countries. We'll have a whole new dimension of issues to tackle like pricing, quantity availability and regional adaptation. We're not going to meet our goals that easily.

In other words, take over the world. Satoru Iwata: part-time Nintendo president, full-time Bond villain.

Keeping Up Nintendo's Momentum [WSJ]

Look! Check out what Hobby Media discovered at this year's Wonder Festival: Airsoft pistol versions of the guns from Devil May Cry carries! That's right, here are pellet-shooting replicas of Dante's swish Ebony & Ivory firearms. Unlike those guns, these don't have unlimited ammo. Still pretty neat.

Hit the jump for ebony:

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The above graph was made by some dude (NOT ME) to show a correlation between the hours he spent playing video games and the chances of him having sex with his wife. As you can see, playing video games over an hour causes this fellow's odds of getting some to nosedive south. And more than two hours causes those same odds to hit near impossible.

But, as game blog Hawty McBloggy points out, maybe this guy's chances look more like this:

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As the headline says. It's the demo level from Mirror's Edge recreated in Portal, only with less jumping and scrambling. The fact you're not a jumpy, able-bodied girl with a laptop bag is made up for by the fact you're a girl with robot chicken legs and a teleportation device.

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During this past weekend's Square Enix event, Final Fantasy XIII director and scenario writer Motomu Toriyama reassured the fans that the game's development hasn't changed. What's more, he continued:

We're making the PS3 version first, and then porting to the 360 later.... I'm telling [the development team] to not think about the Xbox 360 right now. We can think about it after the development kits arrive... Right now, we're fully concentrating on the PS3 version.

Well that's good. The bad news is that, as GameSpot notes, the PS3 version will mostly likely be held back for that simultaneous platform release in North America and Europe. Wonder if the same will be true for Japan, where the Xbox 360 hasn't been announced. Boy, multi-platform is tricky!

Square Enix: 360 FFXIII development hasn't begun [GameSpot via EDGE]

While some could-be-real, could-not-be-real images and video of Vader battling Yoda in Soul Calibur IV have surfaced over the past few weeks, the rumour that both characters will feature as DLC (Yoda for PS3, Vader for 360) is far from confirmed. Enter Soul Calibur IV director Katsutoshi Sasaki, who...fails to confirm or deny said rumours, saying "We don't have any plans" to add the pair as platform-crossing DLC. Once was a day "no plans" meant just that, there were no plans, but these days it could just as easily mean "sure we will, but we'll announce it in a month's time when you're starting to get sick of the game".

XCN Soul Calibur IV Q&A with Katsutoshi Sasaki, Director [MSXBOX World]

Team Fortress 2 sure looks gorgeous, but nearly a year on from release, it's also looking...well, not stale, but perhaps overly familiar. So Valve are going to be adding not just new levels to the game, but new "environments". While the obvious possibilities are things like "snow levels" and "forest levels", it'd be neat if Valve messed around with weather as well - a snow level where falling snow not only obscured your vision, but slowed your outside movement would add a little spice to the tactical recipe.

TF2 Environments [TF2 Blog]

A taxi driver was killed by an 18-year old with a knife in Thailand over the weekend. Not exactly gaming news, except for the fact the teenager cited Grand Theft Auto as his inspiration. As a result, New Era Interactive Media, the game's distributor in Thailand, has requested stores remove the title from shelves, and the Thailand Culture Ministry has taken the opportunity to push for stronger classification measures.

Although the person in question was 18, surprisingly, the government identified parents as the important factor in keeping inappropriate games (and other mediums) out of the hands of their children. From the Herald Sun story:

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Retailer rumours? Bah! This is more like it. The Office of Film and Literature Classification has acknowledged that it is has a new version of Fallout 3 from Bethesda, and is in the process of judging its appropriateness for our market. Note this build could also be refused classification, though it's highly unlikely.

Last month, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the OFLC for its depiction of real-world drugs. An edited version will assure the game gets into the hands of the average consumer, however, those seeking sane pricing and a "pure" experience will still look to the miracles of importing.

Fallout 3: May see an Australian release, after all [Internode Games Network]

Nintendo is doing its thing: Getting traditionally non-gamers to pick up a Wii. And for Nintendo, that's been very, very successful. But Sony isn't interested in going after silver gamers. Oh, no. Sony is keen on going after PS2 gamers. Says the company's Scott Steinberg:

I think the reality is that we will win hands-down if we convert the PS2 owners to PS3. When we look at the total available market, we salivate at the notion of converting our existing PS2 universe.

Every million units we drop into the PS2 is an annuity that's going to pay out later on for PS3 upgrades, and we've got some interesting ideas on how to reach out to those PS2 owners in the US and convert them up.

But I think the notion of that controller is a non-trivial point that you've brought up, that control and that familiarity is like comfort food — from my perspective, we lead, we don't follow. And as a brand, Nintendo's got their thing, and we're not trying to get the senior citizen group to get into gaming, we're looking to convert the PS2 owners and the tens of millions of installed base that were playing DVDs and playing games on their PS2, to now play Blu-ray movies and Blu-ray games with their PS3.

Hit the jump for more, including the always thrilling "ten year life cycle" line.

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Don't go expecting that Wolfenstein movie adaptation any time soon. A combination of the writer's strike and his own workload (plus, uh, some other stuff) means Roger Avary is still working on the movie's script. And with nobody else having seen it, it's to be presumed he's only just started it. Bummer. While id's Todd Hollenshead revealed to Eurogamer that the movie deal includes some "contract provisions", stating Avary can't just sit on the property forever, he also admits that it's not every day you get a chance to have an Academy Award winner write your movie. Not every day an Academy Award winner gets to write a movie about nazis, zombies and a mechanised Adolf Hitler, either.
Avary writing Wolf movie "right now" [Eurogamer]

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The Platinum Games developed SEGA published Madworld looks great. It's a black and white (and red) Wii title takes place in a "dystopian future" where a TV show called Death Watch has contestants kill each other. Like we said, seems great, but we're ready to find out the nitty gritty details about it. Game site Siliconera took at stab at finding out more, but got the run around from SEGA associate producer Christopher Kaminski:

Is Man Darts [smacking guys into a large dart board with a bat] is a party game or could be played like a party game?

I'm going to go with no comment with that one.

...So is MadWorld just a single player game?

No comment. [laughs]

...It's probably early to ask this question, but No More Heroes came out with a highly censored version to avoid a CERO Z rating. I don't think Sega has ever published a CERO Z game in Japan. Do you think MadWorld can be toned down where it can be a CERO D release? Or is it not even being considered for a release in Japan at this point?

I can't really comment on that one, but it's an excellent question.

To be fair, SEGA America probably really can't comment on what SEGA Japan does. Though, the other two questions are just examples of them not sharing. Boy, we totally hate it when people don't share.

Inside the development of Sega's MadWorld [Siliconera]

Hey, remember that Transformers mobile game from last week? Didn't it look (surprisingly) fantastic? Why not see if it plays fantastic. The developers have a java-based demo up on their site, which lets you get to grips with the key-based controls. Knock yourselves out, then get busy wondering aloud why a DS version hasn't already been announced.

Transformers Mobile Demo

30-year-old Raymundo Castaneda is suspected of having killed a man in December 2007 following a dispute over a soccer game. Wanted by the fuzz in Charlotte over the murder, Castaneda was apprehended by police in Jacksonville on Friday, who tracked him down after he was spotted at a local Wal-Mart. Spotted playing Guitar Hero in the games section. And playing it so damn hard he didn't even notice police first approaching, then surrounding him. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson:

A team of U.S. Marshals and JSO officers went in to get Castaneda, but he wasn't paying all that much attention to them. His focus was on this ... He was calm, cool and collected. Playing a video game. He didn't have a care in the world.

Reports claiming Castaneda only agreed to "come quietly" if the cops helped him beat the devil are unconfirmed.
Suspected Killer Caught Playing Air Guitar [News 4 Jax, thanks Brett!]

As announced at E3 (and leaked way before that), Microsoft is introducing Avatars to Xbox LIVE. Here are supposedly the first images of the Avatar creator. These screens are not from the actual Fall dashboard update, but rather, are a "image collage" put together by game site Xbox 360 Fanboy of thumbnails and artwork that will apparently be used in the creator. They should give you an idea of what Xbox LIVE Avatar making will be like — there are icons for clothing, skin colour, height, weight, hair style and accessories.

Source: First images from 360 Avatar creator [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus guy Fumito Ueda is hard at work on a PS3 title. Oh yes, but what's going on with that? Sony's Shuhei Yoshida explains:

They are working on a title. I started the ICO project. Ueda-san joined my team in Japan as a cinematic animator, but he created a short movie and presented it to me and said, 'I want to make this game.' I said, 'Yes, let's do it, but you have never made a game. We have to have experienced people do it,' so it took a while, recruiting one person at a time. And because Fumito Ueda doesn't compromise, we had to move the development from PSone to PlayStation 2. Then I couldn't complete the game because I moved to the United States. It took four years and the second game took four years too. So I started calling them the 'Olympic Team.' They haven't released a PS3 title yet — of course not — they'll take four years! But they have something really, really good on the way.

Then patient we will be!

They have something really, really good on the way [NeoGAF via VG247]

Metal Gear Solid 4 may been released earlier this summer, but that doesn't mean the merchandizing is gonna stop! This December, Konami is releasing a set of 7cm "Fugimate" MGS4 figurines. Priced at ¥2,940 (US$US 27), the set includes Snake, Raiden, Ocelot and Otacon — all as shoeless little girls with giant heads.

MGS4 Figures [Konami Style Thanks, Randy!]

Bungie Promises Uber-Banhammer for Porn Filesharers
Guess it's back to BitTorrent for you!

Xbox Developer Dead in Murder-Suicide
Tragic and unfortunate. Makes you wonder how situations escalate to this.

Kotaku Originals: Early Builds R Us
All the best stories from last week, right here.

Oh man, Hannah Montana or the Cheetah Girls. Hannah Montana or the Cheetah Girls. Let's not miss the bigger picture here: Hannah's on the PS2 only. Nintendo, you been served notice that Sony's in your henhouse, gonna break your hold on tweentertainment bubblegumware. This totally makes up for Final Fantasy XIII.

Monday (Aug 4)
King of Clubs (Wii)
Tuesday (Aug. 5)
Beijing 2008 - The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games (PC)
Ford Racing: Off Road (PC)
B-Boy (PS2)
Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour (PS2)
Monster Madness: Grave Danger (PS3)
Little League World Series 2008 (Wii, DS)
Crash Time (360)
GRID (DS)
Puzzler Collection (DS)
The Cheetah Girls: Passport to Stardom (DS)
Quick Yoga Training (DS)

Wednesday (Aug. 6)
Braid (360)

Friday (Aug. 8)
Fate: Undiscovered Realms (PC)

Trade-ins and the resale market are a great benefit to cost-conscious gamers (not to mention retailers gigging the trade-in values and resale markups). They're also a pain in the arse for developers, especially the smaller ones, who face creating popular but poor-selling titles because everyone swaps it around. In an interview with Develop magazine, Frontier founder David Braben says developers should stop complaining to retailers and figure out ways to make owning first-buy copies of their games essential.

"We need to help retailers", Braben said. "In fairness, they're probably doing it because they're struggling. But there are ways of tracking and deterring pre-owned sales".

His ideas: Unique codes on boxes, similar to those used for PC online games, to ensure the games can't be sold. Or, special content that can only be unlocked with a scratch-off card containing a one-use code.

But most likely, small developers will look to the downloadable channel as the way to go, Braben says. This will certainly become more viable in future generations of consoles, meaning devs still must cope with retail markets for the forseeable future.

Braben Questions Game Prices [Develop, via Destructoid]

Back in January we pointed out that research was underway in Phoenix to create a surgery-practice application using the Wiimote. They've finished the project. That's the device at the left, and the researchers have found that for a fraction of the cost of a high-tech simulator, they've improved residents' skills in certain procedures by 50 percent.

"One of the problems we've had over the years is we had no method to teach surgeons surgical skills without going into surgery", said Dr. Mark Smith, a co-developer and a gynecological surgeon at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. "We now have simulators that help them develop those skills. The problem is they are incredibly expensive -- like a flight simulator for a pilot. This gives us a much less costly way to train these fine motor skills that the surgeons employ during surgery".

WABC-TV in New York did a story on the Wii simulator, which includes video. News8 Austin, a Time-Warner cable news channel, also features a Q&A with Dr. Smith on its site (where we got the pic).

Nintendo Wii Improves Skills, Trains Surgeons [News8 Austin]
Surgeons Use Wii to Hone Skills [WABC-TV}

Destructoid found some pr0n in a user's shared photos on the Halo 3 file sharing system back in July. Now Bungie is laying down THA LAW. They've got some draconian punishments for "authoring modified content in a file share" and "uploading modified content to your file share", where "modified content" means "teh boobie".

Authoring gets your account permanently banned from Matchmaking, permanently stripped of file share functionality, and a hardware ban that keeps you from playing Halo 3 for a month. Uploading just strips you of file share permanently.

Bungie advertised the penalties in an official blog post on Friday. The tone is pure Bungie:

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From the "Kids are Good for Work" file. Reader Brian C. (OK, the bossman) pointed out this WTF paragraph in a story about uber-green home design. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is exhibiting just such a home, which features "a bicycle in the children's bedroom [that] must be pedaled for 30 minutes to charge a battery to power video games." You can see this -- God, I hope you can even ride it -- at the museum from now until Jan. 9.

The manifestations of this torture device are all delightful: Older brothers forcing younger siblings to chug away for marathon sessions of MGS4 -- "Keep going Billy! We have another 36 minutes left in this cutscene!" Timers going off and mad dashes back to the bike to supply enough juice and preserve your Lego Indiana Jones gamesave. A bike/Wii Fit combo regimen. Can you imagine being the kid who lives in the Al Gore house? "Hey, Owen got Soulcalibur IV, let's go over and create Striker and Blade from Bad Dudes ... Oh wait, I don't want to ride that fucking bike".

The story says the machine was assembled from parts you can buy at electronics store. I did some googling and found this (sans bike), and I wonder if it's the same.

Any electrical engineers in the house? How much gameplay would you get out of charging up a battery like this for 30 minutes?

Going Green a Growing Trend Among Homeowners [AP on CNN.com]
Smart Home: Green + Wired [Museum of Science and Industry]

The "Cagney" update for Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360 will arrive via Xbox Live tomorrow. Developer Criterion posted confirmation of the release date on Friday, and commenter Sean Beanland mentioned it in yesterday's discussion of Burnout Bikes.

"Cagney", already applied to the PS3 version, was originally slated for release on July 10. The update is free and is far more than a patch or a fix. Three new online game modes, two additional cars, and 70 new timed multipart challenges come with the new version, as well as "a complete overhaul of our Online Racing System and a stack of other major improvement", says Criterion. A full listing of features is in this announcement.

Cagney Pack Dated [Criterion]

Official Playstation Magazine's latest edition says that Left 4 Dead, Valve's forthcoming survival-horror title, will indeed be coming to Playstation 3. Electronic Arts will be in charge of the port.

"Valve's survival horror game Left 4 Dead is coming to PS3, but EA will be taking on development duties in-house", says OPM, in an item noticed by many. (We saw it through N4G thanks to a tip from reader Nick T., and found the image at PlayStation Beyond).

N4G mentions the PS3 Orange Box fiasco, also a collaboration between Valve and EA, and wonders if the bad will created there will keep PS3 players away from this, too. It's a fair question.

As for that other item -- Rockstar is working on a "cool" licence? I am absolutely one billion percent certain that it's a game adaptation of The Ice Pirates. Space herpes?! On this ship?!

Left 4 Dead Coming to PS3, Ported by EA [N4G.com]
Picture

In China, a guy known only by his surname "Yang" faked his abduction because his skinflint parents wouldn't buy him "a Nintendo computer", according to the China Daily. The scheme crowbarred about 10,000 yuan ($US 1,400) off the 'rents, but the kid and his two captors were snagged trying to get the dough out of an ATM.

I'm not a kidnapper, but if I wanted any amount of money in trade for the life of someone's son, even if I was that son, I'd probably ask Dad to like, withdraw it himself, bring the cash, alone, no cops or you'll never see me again, etc. etc. I'd use one of those creepy voice modulators too, because that's rad. And I would use it to buy a Coleco Adam.

Anyway, Yang is in trouble with the cops. And his folks, I assume. No word on whether he got his Nintendo Computer.

Computer Crazy Youth Fakes Self Abduction [China Daily via Destructoid]

Very sad news from Redmond, Wash. Melissa Batten, 36, a software development engineer in Microsoft's Xbox division, was murdered by her estranged husband, who then shot himself to death, earlier this week.

Batten, a Harvard-educated lawyer, was a Software Development Engineer in Test for Microsoft, supporting Rare on its 360 titles work. She had worked for Microsoft since 2002, earning credits in Halo 3 and Gears of War as an SDET. Earlier, as a lawyer, she had been a public defender for the Mecklenburg County (Charlotte, N.C.) Public Defender's Office.

Her husband, Joseph Batten, was also 36. He had also worked for Microsoft but most recently worked for Wizards of the Coast, publisher of hobby games such as Magic: the Gathering. Melissa had obtained a restraining order against her husband on July 21. Another news story describes Joseph Batten as obsessive and verbally abusive, and when she learned he had obtained a handgun, she sought the protection order.

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