Here’s a wild one: BioShock could be headed to the DS or the Wii sometime in the near future. It’s not definite by any means, but it makes sense to at least one person:

One of Take-Two’s big hopes for the future is the continued growth of the BioShock ’series’, says analyst Mike Hickey of Janco Partners, who believes that fiscal 2009 could see the game land on the Wii, PS3 and possibly handhelds.

A Wii-ified BioShock version would lack the graphical punch of the Xbox360 version, obviously, but could incorporate what’s been shown in Metroid Prime 3 (and improve upon it). BioShock Wii, worth it?

That quirky ball-rolling title Katamari has done an about face from the PS3 and is now quietly rolling towards the Wii, says IGN.

It’s not really a surprise. The title and console seem to just go together; an odd couple for the ages that sees the chaotic trash ball of Katamari paired up with the clean, inexpensive lines of today’s hottest selling console.

Fresh and piping hot from the rumor mill:

Namco Bandai revealed earlier this year that it was developing the next-generation Katamari Damacy sequel, Beautiful Katamari, for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Up until recently, the developer continued to work on both versions of the project. However, sources close to Namco Bandai tell IGN that the studio ran into some trouble with the port of the game to PlayStation 3 and these issues, coupled with the stalled sales of the system, have led to the project’s quiet cancellation. Looking to better-than-expected sales of Wii, the company has, say insiders, re-shifted resources to ready a Wii build of Beautiful Katamari instead. Given that the title cannot be ported from Xbox 360, the game is being re-concepted for Wii.

Better audience (read: larger), better money, brighter future. The fact that it’s still a go for the Xbox 360, and it this entire rumor is indeed true, does not bode well for the PS3. I mean really, how difficult can it be do port a game like Katamari??

I don’t particularly believe this weekend’s rumor that Nintendo games might soon be sold through Apple’s iTunes media service, but since Infendo hasn’t touched anything iPhone yet I thought I’d have a bit of fun.The rumor is just that — a rumor. Barely. I think I’m posting about it because this week is going to be super slow. The calm before the E3 storm, you could say.

Some site I’ve never heard of and will probably never visit again:

There is a rumor saying that the iPhone will support Nintendo games. They will be available through the iTunes store for $29 each. This rumor is not senseless, as Nintendo today has a large amount of games already working with a touch-screen on the Nintendo DS. Also we know that games will be targeted mostly at older audience so as not to block DS sales.

Both the Wii and the iPhone share a few things: they are both made up of pre-existing technology that’s been reshaped, marketed to a mass audience by geniuses, and have (so far) disrupted the heck out of their respective industries.

So that go me thinking. The iPhone has some Bluetooth capability, and so does the Wii. If some ingenious hacker out there was able to link these two hype machines together, I think the world would simply explode.

According to a post on GameInformer, three key executives are set to leave Nintendo when the company moves its marketing group to San Francisco or New York. The article lists Senior Director of Public Relations Beth Llewelyn, Vice President, Marking and Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan, and Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Communications George Harrison. This would be a major shakeup in the public facing side of Nintendo, but since no official confirmation has come from the company, I’m listing this as a rumor. Stay tuned to Infendo for more information as it becomes available.

Do you think these key executives are leaving Nintendo?

[Thanks for the tip, FnbyDstryr!]

Jeux France via Kotaku say they have their hands on some juicy and “credible” Nintendo rumors for this year’s smaller E3. They are…

1. The company will unveil a new Mario Kart Wii
2. Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. to get firm release dates
3. “Big hardware news” is coming (new hardware? doubtful…)
4. Blake probably won’t get into Nintendo’s keynote

Okay, the last one really isn’t a rumor, just a prediction of mine. The above three are, however, just rumors. But some nice ones to speculate on none-the-less. You buyin?

IGN is reporting that Nintendo “may be planning to close or restructure its official Nintendo Power magazine,” this according to moles deep within the company. They continue, “Sources close to the publication tell IGN that mass layoffs are underway and that employees are being told to look for new work by September of this year.”

Indeed, Nintendo Power announced the depature of Senior Writer/Editor George Sinfield in the latest issue, though he would still work as an ongoing contributor.

(more…)

Call me the cynical video game scientist, because when it comes to game development, I need to see screenshots and live action in-game trailers to believe a game actually exists.

So it is today that I have come to the conclusion that Nibris is not developing a game in Sadness, but an art book. Wii Fanboy has some new “exclusive screenshots artwork” today that, for the first time, has let me down. And this is with the lowered expectations I had as a result of yesterday’s post, so things are getting pretty grim. Like black and white grim.

Why all the hate for Nibris now? I’m not entirely sure. I think I saw the potential, as did everyone else who was Punk’d by the E3 trailer, and really put all my chips behind them. I think I was hoping they would deliver the next great thing — indie developer style — and make the big stuffy publishers take notice that gamers really don’t want FPS IV, or Halo 10, or Murder a Pedestrian 6.0.

But with today’s artwork release, I can only conclude that Nibris has fooled us all with some kind of musical mp3-playing art book. Bad form.

I’ve got hunch today that Nibris and its stable of “almost done, we swear!” titles will either be remembered as the beginning of a prosperous new era for indie developers, or the most colossal non-starter dud since Duke Nukem Forever. There’s going to be no middle ground on this one.

Here’s what we’ve seen so far: A woman prancing about on a sound stage with an umbrella in back and white (that’s Sadness); a few seconds of a top-down shooter that might as well have been some graduate student’s final project (that’d be Raid over the River); and a blindside out-of-the-blue announcement about a puzzle game called Double Bloob. Oh, and don’t forget the rumors that Nibris sorta maybe coulda had a publisher, but maybe not.

Call me cynical, but all the wide-eyed excitement and cock-eyed optimism I’ve shown in spades over the past year over Nibris has melted away into, well, a puddle of sadness. And this is the kind of sadness that doesn’t have attractive young women prancing about waving umbrellas at me like some kind of naughty Mary Poppins.

So, that said, what are we to make of today’s revelation at Cubed that there are some in-game music tracks available from Nibris for Raid over the River? I don’t know about you, but this developer is either the slickest bunch of snake oil salesmen this side of the thoroughfare, or their avant garde approach to marketing and hype is sheer genius. I’m a cynic, so I’m calling BS until I see something a bit more concrete. Like box art. Or me playing Raid on my DS. Or Santa Claus descending from the heavens with titles in tow.

Get ready for more lines, readers. Nintendo is reportedly buying space at this year’s TGS. It’s not quite what we’d call confirmed just yet, but Kotaku is saying some highly placed sources (”multiple, highly placed insiders confirm that the company will be in attendance” to be precise) at Nintendo have all but came out and said the hottest video game company of the moment is going to have a significant presence at TGS 2007.

The move would mark the first time in 11 years that Nintendo graces the show with its presence. No doubt the change is because Nintendo is currently sitting pretty at the top of awesome.com mountain. It could also have something to do with the Dragon Quest IX coup that Square Enix pulled with the DS earlier this year too.

From GamePro:

Since 1996, Nintendo has preferred to host its own media events rather than partake in the Tokyo Game Show, so fans may be curious as to why Nintendo has changed its policy for this year. Kotaku speculates that the appearance of Square Enix’s Dragon Quest IX at this year’s show has influenced Nintendo to fully promote its DS version of game. A perennial Japanese favorite and quite possibly the most successful RPG series in the Japanese market, the prospect of hosting Dragon Quest related events was an opportunity that Nintendo could not ignore.

Harumpf. I still think it’s because of awesome.com mountain.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree drops on June 11, which is before Pokemon. This is the official Nintendo box art, as supplied to us by Play Nintendo. Are the folks at Nintendo planning a little surprise?

NOTE: With all of the “real” video game blogs out there still reeling after running with a satire article as real news last week, I am stamping this post with a RUMOR tag.

UPDATE: A gentle coughing in the comment section has pointed me to the obvious “Mario Strikers (Europe May 25) is you idiot” realization that seems to have somehow passed me over this groggy Monday morning.

Cubed has a scoop today involving a press release from eSOL. The press release says:

(Tokyo, Japan - April 4, 2007) eSOL Co., Ltd. announced today that their leading embedded middleware products, “PrFILE2″ FAT file system and “PrUSB/Host” USB host stack, were selected for the “Wii”, from Nintendo Co.

Both software products constitute fundamental functionalities in the Wii console - managing and transferring data and files with external media. In particular, PrFILE2 provides file management functions which read and write data of theSD memory card, as well as other media; PrUSB/Host functions are used in Wii, to provide USB host functions.

We’ll keep an eye on this one, but it looks promising. Let the Virtual Console download floodgates open if it’s true. Is anyone having storage problems yet?

UPDATE: Thanks to Infendo reader lu, we know this is PR at its finest/worst.
“This product contains PrFile(r)2 FAT file system, PRmail client library and PrUSB/Host USB host stack of eSol Co. Ltd.”

That’s right … this days old press release is announcing a feature that was already in the Wii nearly six months ago. ESol isn’t announcing a new business deal or a new feature for the Wii — it’s simply trumping up an existing relationship in light of the Wii’s recent success.” (Joystiq) Sigh.

[Thanks, Brian]

Take Two Interactive, the company behind GTA, is in trouble. Microsoft was floated as a potential buyer, but today Infendo reader Gaumer asks, why not Nintendo?

Gaumer’s email to the Infendo Tip line:

I assume you have heard of the probable (and from what I have read as recently as today, inevitable) sale of take 2 interactive the great publisher/developer of games like GTA and Bully and Table Tennis. I was thinking about who might purchase this company and I wanted to get your guys’ opinion to an idea of mine and maybe an insight of what company you think will or should snatch them up.

With TakeTwo’s current situation of being bashed by gamer-hating lawyers and having their stockholders bale on them because of it despite having terrific sales I think Nintendo would be a perfect company to buy them up. Nintendo’s stock, considering what they have done with the Wii and DS, i dont think anything sort of a nuclear disaster could hurt nintendo right now. Nintendo has also fell into a stigma in the past few years (mostly of their own doing) of being the ‘kiddy game company’. Owning the license to perhaps the most mainstream adult game ever created would sure help end that problem for Nintendo.

Plus we would get all the great cameos in our Mario games and maybe even a new SSB character

My response, via the secret intertubes of the Infendo back end (gmail):

My thoughts, and my thoughts only — not all of Infendo — is if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.

Nintendo, for all the supposed negative press out there about their kiddie image, is doing gangbusters. To take on the legal risks associated with Take Two right now would be an unnecessary risk. I’m all for taking risks, but I think we should see how more mature titles like Project HAMMER, Godfather, Sadness, and Resident Evil do on the Wii before we start talking about acquisition.

Plus, who’s to say the GTA ship hasn’t sailed? Is it going to be just another open world GTA with “new content” or is it going to be something completely innovative worthy of my additional $10? Is this pending sale going to affect game quality?

I think all Nintendo needs to do is wait and see, get Take Two to make a great game for it in the future like all the other third party guys are trying to do, and stay out of the legal mess surrounding it. It’s just the wrong type of risk for them to be taking right now.

Again, just my opinion

thanks for reading
-jack

Now, what say you?

Paul W.S. Anderson, director of such films as Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and Alien vs. Predator, has apparently left development of the Castlevania movie. Check out Dread Central for more information.

Who do you think should replace him?

[Thanks, Garth!]

I really don’t care what the eventual Wii Friend Code outcome is, but seriously this friend code debate (or is that fiend code to some?) is getting me downright dizzy. At first each console had one code, then each game had their own code a la the DS, and then today GoNintendo digs up yet another magazine scan that shows NGamer dropping a new bomb on the pile.

This whole “controversy” seems to hinge on this “Falafelkid” character, who has since claimed he has inside knowledge on this new matter and has “debunked” the magazine scan. In just this case, I’m going to side with a magazine over an anonymous Internet handle who has access to a magic telephone. Just this once.

I guess we’ll just have to wait until the U.S./U.K. launch of Pokemon so we can confirm what’s really going on and therefore move onto the next rumor, like whether or not the Wii’s unicorn breeding powers are really all they’re cracked up to be.

If by “confirmed” you mean maybe, the NiGHTS is already in development for Wii and is coming soon!

Spong, via Cubed:

Quick News - Following years of speculation, it has finally been confirmed that a brand new NiGHTS from Sega is coming to Nintendo’s Wii. Whilst both companies refuse to comment at present, Spong has it on good word that is definitely in progress right now.

Spong and “fact” go together like oil and water, so let’s see what happens. This and the Official Nintendo Magazine teaser lead me to believe this rumor has more weight than most, but again, ONM is the Perrin Kaplan of game magazines, or so I’ve heard.