Kotaku Australia » digital

DSi Now Comes With Pre-Installed Software

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Best Buy’s Black Friday catalogue has popped up online, and amidst the bargains is an interesting offer from Nintendo: a DSi console that comes with downloadable DSiWare pre-installed on the machine.

There will be two bundles available, each with five games included on the system. One includes a white DSi with three Brain Age Express titles, Clubhouse Games and Photo Clock. The other has a blue DSi with Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, WarioWare: Snapped, Dr. Mario Express, Mario Calculator and Mario Clock.

Both are advertised at $US169.99. It’s unclear whether it’s an offer that will be extended beyond Black Friday; we’ve contacted Nintendo, and will update if we hear back.

Kotaku AU Note: And we’ll contact Nintendo Australia to find out if anything similar is happening here.

Nintendo DSi Preloaded With DSiWare Games Coming On Black Friday [Siliconera]

Bad Ideas: R-Type, Ghosts ‘N Goblins For iPhone

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:30:00 +0000

R-Type is coming for the iPhone. Ghosts ‘N Goblins came out over the weekend. Who keeps signing these cheques?

R-Type, which is being ported by DotEmu, will be out “sometime in the next few months”, while Ghosts N’ Goblins was released in Japan on Sunday. So… take two games requiring fast, precise controls, then port them to a system capable of neither. What a great idea.

Exclusive: ‘R-Type’ Coming to the iPhone [touchArcade]
iPhoneについに『魔界村』、いまなら350円[税込] [Famitsu]

iPhone Games Caught Stealing Phone Numbers?

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:30:00 +0000

The fact the iPhone is a veritable wild west for developers can often be a good thing. Then again, when shadier outfits start releasing shadier apps, it can also be a bad thing.

Take iPhone game developer Storm8, for example. A class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco alleges that the company, who are behind iPhone games like World War, iMobsters and Vampires Live, “has written the software for all its games in such a way that it automatically accesses, collects and transmits the wireless telephone number of each iPhone user who downloads any Storm8 game”.

Apparently this number-farming went unannounced until August, when Storm8 finally ‘fessed up, saying it was a “bug”. Michael Turner, the man filing the suit, says “poppycock” to that and is after damages.

iPhone game dev accused of stealing players’ phone numbers [boing boing]

Commodore 64, Now On iPhone

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:30:00 +0000

Manomio’s C64 emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch – which was originally knocked back by Apple in June – has now been cleared for release.

It includes five “classic” games (though “classic” might be a bit of a stretch), those being Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack. What, no International Karate? Even though it’s in the demo video below? Hopefully that’s coming later.

[C64 @ manomio]

$1 Peggle “Hacked” The IPhone Store

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:30:00 +0000

If you took advantage of the crazy $US1 Peggle sale that took place last week, congratulations. You’re not just the proud owner of one of the best casual games around. You were also part of an experiment.

See, dropping the game’s price to $US1 was part-experiment, part-protest on the part of developers PopCap. As any iPhone owner will know, the device’s App Store charts are skewed heavily towards cheap, disposable apps; you’ll often see $US1 games clogging them up while better, more expensive games (with lower sales) languish unseen.

Case in point: before the sale, Peggle was sitting at around #60 on the App Store game charts. And after the sale? Peggle was sitting pretty at #1, having sold “nearly as many units in those four days as they had in the 3 weeks after the game’s launch”.

While it makes for a poignant statement on the way the App Store is structured, doesn’t it also make a good argument for pricing the game at $US1 permanently?

‘Peggle’ iPhone’s Meteoric AppStore Boost [MTV]