Tag: Industry Gossip
Rumour Has Junction Point Hit A Dead End?
Troubling tales regarding Warren Spector's studio
Various reports have been circulating around the internet in the past couple of hours saying that Warren Spector's Junction Point has been suffering some problems, with the development studio being closed down by Disney. A tweet originating from Roberts Space Industries sparked the chatter, but it...
News High Voltage Employees Get Layoff Shock
25 employees given the dreaded pink slip
There was sad news this week in Hoffman Estates, IL as High Voltage Software joined the ranks of other several other development studios in reducing their headcount. 25 employees were laid off according to IGN. Here’s what the HVS representative had to say on the matter: I can confirm that High Voltage...
News More Metroid Prime in the Pipeline?
Developer interview hints that the series is far from over
When Retro Studios put the finishing touches to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it stated that it would be the final game in the series. The announcement of Metroid: Other M - which is being handled by Tecmo's Team Ninja - seemed to confirm this, despite the recent repackaging of all three...
News Sony: We Own the Living Room, Nintendo Owns the Closet
That's fightin' talk where I come from!
In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America Peter Dille and SCEA Corporate Communications Manager Julie Han let fly with what is likely to become a near-legendary series of quotes: JH: The other point, I think, to what Peter said earlier, is...
News Aussie Classification Board website hacked
Government website falls victim to satirical prank
The website of Australia's Classification Board has been hacked by an unknown individual in opposition to plans to "control and sheepify the nation". The site's regular introductory text was replaced with a satiricial message likening the Board's conduct to that of the Chinese government...
News Wisconsin Set To Tax Digital Downloads
With the popularity of digital downloads at an all-time high, it should come as no surprise that governments are beginning to look at ways to tax them.
The State of Wisconsin just recently signed a bill into law that allows for a 5% tax on all digital downloads spanning music, books, ring tones, and even video games. The state expects to rack up...
News Mercs Coming Soon, With a Different Name!
Capcom occassionally makes a blog post about their upcoming VC games - They've done it again today for Mercs. The game was already rated by various rating boards ages ago (And released in Japan not so long ago), so it's nice to finally see it released on VC in the US and Europe.
What's interesting is that the blog post also says they have renamed...
News Treasure: Buy Dynamite Headdy, You Fools
Highly respected Japanese developer Treasure has spoken about the Virtual Console service in a recent interview with 1up.com.
President Masato Maegawa said he was pleased with the commercial performance of titles like Gunstar Heroes and Sin & Punishment, but was sad to see that so few people had downloaded Dynamite Headdy – a game which holds...
News Virtual Console games to be directly downloadable to SD cards
At a press conference in Japan today, not only did Nintendo announce a barrage of new DS/Wii games and a new DS, they also announced something Wii fans have been wanting for a long time - A storage solution!
Sadly, it's not a hard drive like many people assumed. Instead, you'll be able to directly download games to SD cards. At the moment, the only...
News The DSi – One Step Closer to a Portable Virtual Console?
Nintendo has just unveiled details of a new handheld console called the DSi.
But before you get too excited and spill your Sunny D all over the keyboard, it’s worth noting that it’s essentially a DS with slight modifications rather an all-new machine. Improvements include larger screens (3.25 inches, up from 3 inches), two cameras (both 0.3...
News Bionic Commando Not Approved For Virtual Console
Way back in April we reported that Capcom’s Ben Judd stated that the NES version of Bionic Commando would not be coming to the Virtual Console.
Not content to leave it there, that old chestnut has been raised again as Bionic Commando Rearmed is due on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC soon. Here’s what he had to say on the subject in...
News Goldeneye Locked In Legal Limbo
WAAAAY back in the mists of time we reported that Nintendo was looking to bring Rare’s N64 classic Goldeneye to the Virtual Console.
Soon afterwards it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, and to make matters worse, it looked as if Rare’s new owners might bring the game to their 360 console via the Xbox Live Arcade service, albeit in...
News Publishers Remain Tight-Lipped On Black Monday Debacle
Boy, Monday was a real bummer, wasn’t it? There we all were, waiting in feverish expectation for the impending triple-whammy of Mega Man, Ys Book 1 & 2 and Samurai Showdown II, as we had previously been promised by the respective publishers of these games. Then Nintendo pulled the rug from beneath us and released Sonic and Splatterhouse II instead.
Feeling a sense of duty to the legions of Virtual Console fans all over the globe, we decided to get in touch with Capcom, Hudson and SNK Playmore to ascertain what the hell went wrong on ‘Black Monday’. Unsurprisingly, the response so far has been somewhat guarded...
News Nintendo Responds To US Release Date Queries
Following Monday’s US Virtual Console release debacle, Nintendo has responded to enquiries about how three different publishers were issuing statements claiming that their games would be coming out on the 4th, only for Nintendo to release two entirely different games instead.
Speaking to GoNintendo, the company had this to say: A number of...
News ESRB To Crack Down On Early Leaks Of Games
Since the very beginning of VC Reviews we have rounded up the latest games which should be headed to the Virtual Console on our coming soon list so you have the inside scoop on what games are coming up.
One of the primary ways we do this is by checking game content ratings on the ESRB website. Basically if a game doesn’t get rated there then it...
News Nintendo Wii hard drive coming soon?
A recent press release from Nintendo makes interesting reading. In addition to news that the company's fortunes continue to soar there was also an interesting bit of information from company president Satoru Iwata in regards to the hot topic of the Wii's limited flash memory:
Q6 I am personally enjoying WiiWare and Virtual Console but feel Wii’s...
News South Korea gets their own Virtual Console
Interestingly the Wii finally went on sale in South Korea for the first time yesterday on the 26th April. This wouldn’t normally be a news item for us but with the Wii launch comes a whole new Virtual Console region with different prices!
Let’s take a look at the launch games as listed on the Korean Nintendo site: Famicom / NES (400 Wii...
News Super Turrican - Director's Cut Possibly Coming To VC?
As you might know, videogame forum NeoGAF is quite popular among people in the industry - Various videogame developers and publishers post there. One individual, called Turrican, claims he works at Factor 5, and has given some information on Turrican's VC future in NeoGAF's Virtual Console thread.
First up, if you downloaded Super Turrican, you...
News Wii to support BBC's iPlayer (UK only)
An update is now available to allow Wii users to use the BBC's iPlayer on their Wii console via the Internet Channel. The BBC said a message would be sent to Wii owners to alert them to its availability. This appears to be for the United Kingdom only at present.
The BBC's iPlayer video service will soon be available via the Nintendo Wii. The video...
News Commodore 64 coming to Virtual Console
Regular readers will remember that quite some time ago we reported on C64 games coming to the VC. We ended up with egg on our face as it turned out to be some sort of mistake on Nintendo's Norwegian website and no more details about this ever materialised.
It is now the turn of Nintendo's Finnish site to break the news about C64 games coming to the...
News Virtual Console Passes 10m Downloads Milestone
Nintendo has confirmed that its Virtual Console service has successfully recorded 10 million downloads in its opening year.
Nintendo Supremo Satoru Iwata revealed: Virtual Console saw over ten million downloads by the end of last December. That's the total number of titles people paid to download. I think that selling over ten million classic games...
News Master System Games Coming to The VC!
The first new Virtual Console channel of 2008 has been confirmed and Sega fans should be rejoicing as it's the 8-bit Master System that will be getting the VC treatment. Game Gear software will also to be released under the same channel (which makes sense as technically the two consoles shared the same technology).
The first games in Japan will be...
News Goldeneye NOT Virtual Console Bound?
Xbox site Xbox Evolved has posted a rather worrying story regarding the N64 classic Goldeneye. According to the site, Rare is gearing up to publish the game on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service.
Rare apparently has already started to seek the permission of current Bond licence holder Activision. Other classic Rare titles such as Perfect Dark and...
News Nintendo of Europe relaunches with Wii Points exchange!
After a little over two weeks of downtime, the Nintendo of Europe site has relaunched with a totally new look and new features. One of these is the ability to swap your stars for Wii Points!
Go to and select your country. After logging in you can exchange your hard earned stars for Wii Points! They come rather expensive though - 4 stars for 1 Wii...
News VC Earns over $30 million so far
A recent press conference in Tokyo shed some light on the astonishing success of the Virtual Console service so far.
Nintendo's own Shinji Hatano reiterated a previous figure of 7.8 million downloads and then went on to reveal that currently the service had generated 3.5 billion yen ($33 million / £16 million) The humble Nintendo exec then saids of...
News TMNT increases in price for Europe
A strange development recently (We are unsure when), as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now also costs 600 Wii Points in Europe (And Australia) instead of 500, just like America.
Not that this really matters, as the game's not very good. We sincerely hope that you don't download it now, why would you buy a stinker for an increased price!? Save your Wii...
News SMB: The Lost Levels removed from EU Wii Shop
Sunday was the last day of September. As such, the Hanabi Festival has now come to an end, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels has been removed from the Wii Shop. If you didn't download it, you might've missed it forever! Nintendo stated that it was a "collectors' item", which implies that it might not return for a second chance. Still, anything's possible, so if you did miss it, just hope for the best!
To clear up the confusion which seemed to exist - No, the other Hanabi Festival games are not gone. The Lost Levels is the only game that was available for a l...
