Wii Gaming News

Red Faction: Guerilla has done quite well for itself, selling more than a million copies since it launched back in June. THQ CEO Brian Farrell thinks that they could have done a better job of marketing Red Faction though, saying that he would give the marketing campaign a “B.”

“Frankly, I think on the next generation of Red Faction Guerilla we need to do a better job of creating day one demand. That being said, we do like the sales curve that its been exhibiting which shows that quality and word of mouth and downloadable content matters,” he said in a financial call to investors (via Videogaming247).

Activision showed off the full setlist for Guitar Hero 5 today. The Guitar Hero World Tour sequel is set to include a total of 85 songs when it arrives this fall, ranging from Grand Funk Railroad’s classic “We’re An American Band” to tracks from more modern acts like Eagles of Death Metal and TV on the Radio.

Peep the massive list of Guitar Hero 5 tracks below, and be sure to let us know which ones you’re most/least excited for:

After a tremendously long wait, the much anticipated Fat Princess has finally been released on the PlayStation Store today. As announced earlier this week, it costs $15 — right in the price range that’s been the target of many complaints from Xbox Live Arcade gamers, but Fat Princess looks to really be worth it. On the other hand, the newly released Watchmen: The End is Night Part 2 also has an asking price of $15. Anyone who has read 1UP’s review might have some reservations about spending that much, though there is a demo available.

Along with the demo of Watchmen comes the much awaited Madden NFL 10 demo that Xbox Live Gold members have been enjoying for a week now. Rounding out new downloadable games for the PS3 is the PSone Classic Spec Ops: Airborne Commando ($6), also available on PSP. As for PSP-only games, there are three new ones this week: Brave Story: New Traveler ($15), Pocket Pool ($10), and Strikers 1945 Plus ($12).

Downloadable content is fairly light this week, with the usual assortment of new music for Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Rock Band: Unplugged. Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires gets a few free sets of armor, Cross Edge gets some new gear and a free DLC pack, and Rag Doll Kung Fu gets a “Time Saver” pack that unlocks the various customization options for your characters. And that’s all — told you there wasn’t much.

If you’ve downloaded the WiiWare version of Tales of Monkey Island, you may have noticed that it has a few framerate issues. Some of the problems can be attributed to heavy compression, but one Telltale representative thinks that there’s a larger issue at work.

“The voices and textures are the way they are because we’re limited to 40 megs for WiiWare titles. The PC versions of our games are usually 150+ megs, and most modern games range anywhere from 1-10 gigabytes or more. Talk to Nintendo about this one,” a Telltale programmer under the name of Yare wrote on the official forums (via GameZine).

“Frame rate issues will probably get sorted out eventually, but keep in mind that the Wii is just not a powerful console. An iPhone is much more powerful than a Wii, even.”

Want to play Avatar in 3D? Well, if you own an Xbox 360, you’ll need more than a specially-equipped television to enjoy the fancy effects. You’ll need an HDMI-out.

Avatar’s senior international brand manager Luc Duchaine has told MTV Multiplayer that the 3D effect will require a setup the supports full 1080p resolution. So if you own an early model Xbox 360, you may be out of luck in that regard.

Aside from that, you’ll need the 3D glasses that will be included with the game, and a compatible 3D 1080p, 120Mhz TV set. Such televisions can be currently found for about $1000.

And there goes another one. Dark Void is the latest game to be pushed back into 2010, joining the likes of BioShock 2, Bayonetta and Splinter Cell: Conviction.

The publisher announced that they are moving it into 2010 to avoid the “crowded fall game season.” At this point though, the holiday season isn’t looking all that crowded, as 2010 looks to be frontloaded with everything from Red Steel 2 to Mass Effect 2.

Nevertheless, Dark Void will be joining them. We praised it in our preview for its sense of freedom and its unique jetpack, which results in gameplay that is described as being very similar to Crimson Skies.

Activison would like to, at the very least, delay the release of Double Fine’s Brutal Legend — currently scheduled for October 13 in the United States — and is awaiting a judge’s decision in the case. But any such ruling has itself been delayed to August 6 due to a full court schedule, despite a hearing originally being set for today, July 30. By August 6, the two companies’ attorneys will have had time to make their respective cases. At this point, however, things aren’t looking good for Activision. The judge involved in the case has reportedly said he isn’t “inclined to delay the release of Brutal Legend,” according to the AP.

That’s certainly good news for EA and developer Double Fine, the latter of which recently countersued Activision for attempting to block the game’s release. Double Fine’s suit claims Activision’s “purpose is not only to cancel Brutal Legend, but to kill it completely so that Guitar Hero would not have to face the competition.”

Whether that’s true or not, things don’t look good for Activision’s case. Unless the judge changes his current position, gamers shouldn’t have to worry about the release of Brutal Legend this fall.

Nintendo’s overall profits may have dropped 60 percent since this time last year, but they’re still doing quite well for themselves. Tucked away in their financial report were lifetime, worldwide sales for both the Nintendo Wii and the newly-released DSi, and both continue to do well.

At the moment, the Nintendo Wii is sitting at 52.62 million units sold, while the DSi is at 6.68 million. That’s on top of the some 100 million Nintendo DS’ that have been sold overall since March. The DS continues to edge closer to the Game Boy’s lifetime sales mark, which sits at 119 million units sold.

The Nintendo DSi arrived in Japan in November of last year, and North America this past April. It went on to sell 435,000 systems in its first week in North America, nearly double that of the DS Lite, which sold 226,300 systems.

It’s the middle of 2009, and the PlayStation 2 is still chugging along. In fact, thanks in part to a recent price cut, it’s actually outselling both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable.

Sony recently released its results for the first quarter of fiscal 2009, which saw PlayStation 2 sales jump from 1.5 million to 1.6 million. As sales spikes go, it’s not huge, but the PS2 appears to be faring better than Sony’s other two consoles.

PlayStation Portable sales were the hardest hit this quarter, dropping from 3.7 million this time last year to 1.3 million. With the PSPgo looming this holiday season, it seems that prospective customers may be holding out for the new machine. Regardless, the decline has been painful for Sony, which singled it out as a key contributor to the 38.7 billion yen loss suffered by Sony’s Networked Products & Services Group.

Telltale Games has done quite well for itself, thanks in large part to the likes of Sam & Max. But the recently-released Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal has done even better than expected, making it Telltale’s bestselling game to date.

“It was a great launch for us. We’re really happy with it. I think it even exceeded our expectations,” Telltale founder Dan Connors told Videogamer.

“It’s been pretty shocking how much love there is still out there for the Monkey Island series. It seems like a generational thing as well.”