Quote:Nintendo have stated that their profits had risen to 22.6 billion yen for the period from April to June. For the same period, a year before, their profits were 11.5 billon yen. This comes due to the strong demand for the GameCube in the US. Also sales of software for the GBA remained firm. Nintendo stock had ended the day up 3.24% at 12,100 yen.

Quote:Electronic Art's purchase of Criterion means that Electronic Art's will be able to further expand the number of games they create with the help of the Guildford studio, which contains more then 60 developers.

The purchase also means that Electronic Arts now own the rights for the Burnout and Black franchises, which have been selling well recently. As with all purchases this will mean that Electronic Arts has a much wider library of staff and resources to create games for all consoles.

Along with Criterion Electronic Arts have essentially purchased their RenderWare technology, one that is used in about a quarter of games. The company will keep lending RenderWare to other companies but also work on RenderWare4 for the next generation consoles.

“This is a great fit,” said EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst. “Criterion offers us studio talent and a proven management team, globally recognized intellectual property and technology infrastructure that will accelerate our readiness on the next generation of consoles.”

“Combining EA’s tools and technology libraries with the existing RenderWare technologies will create a superior platform for game development,” said Criterion CEO David Lau-Kee. “This system will provide the most powerful common technological framework for creating great games. Our work on RenderWare4, combined with EA’s next generation efforts, will also boost development efforts on the next generation of consoles which are expected to debut over the next two years.”

“Our mission has always been to create exciting new franchises that appeal to the widest possible audience,” said Fiona Sperry, Head of Criterion Games. “Within EA, we can now secure our future as one of the world’s leading development studios.”

From IGN:

Quote:July 28, 2004 - Nintendo this morning revealed that the Nintendo DS, the company's upcoming dual-screen handheld system set for release at the end of this year in the US and Japan, will retain the codename as its official name. The company also revealed the system's newer design that's been sleeked up since its debut at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo two months ago.

The retooled Nintendo DS features a thinner, black base and an angular platinum flip-top cover. The face buttons and shoulder buttons are larger, and some have been reconfigured for optimum use. The unit includes a new storage slot for the touch screen's stylus, and the speakers now broadcast in stereo sound, with or without headphones.

Software companies worldwide have more than 120 Nintendo DS games in development. Nintendo alone is developing more than 20 titles, and in excess of 100 companies have signed on to create games for the new system. The company is expected to announce the launch date, price, and game line-up in the near future.

"The Nintendo DS will change the future of hand-held gaming," says Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo Co., Ltd. "Dual screens, chat functions, a touch screen, wireless capabilities, voice recognition - these abilities surpass anything attempted before, and consumers will benefit from the creativity and innovation the new features bring to the world of video games."

-- Craig Harris

It's not quite appropriate but it's the best I got!

Happy birthday #22, toots! I love you like a sister (in West Virginia)!

:kiss:

Quest for Glory Collection. $5. Same for QFGV, but that's a more common game. ... QFG Collection runs upwards of $50 on EBay... which would probably be worth it for this great series, but when you get a chance like this you take it immediately. And thank people in the community selling off their old games to game stores... :)

That's right, I've finally gotten around to making a special partition so I can fingure out Linux. I picked Mandrake 10 if you are interested. Anyway, for other Linux owners (specifically those familiar with this flavor), a few tips regarding this OS would be welcome.

http://streamingmovies.ign.com/pocket/ar...CURL%2F%3E

Quote:In the latest issue of V-Jump magazine, Square Enix revealed that besides Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (video) and Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis (mobile phone), there is another massive project surrounding the Final Fantasy VII, which will be revealed soon;

Quote:According to NPD, the marketing information provider, the whole video games sales in America dropped 2.5% during the first six months of 2004, compared to the same previous year period. Although both console hardware and portable software had an increased drop (17% and 12% respectively), software and accessories saw a raise in terms of sales.

While hardware sales were down, the situation could have been worse. Fortunately Microsoft's XBOX and Sony's Playstation 2 price drop, helped in the last two months of the first quarter. Furthermore, the top-10 console games for the first half of 2004 according to NPD were:

1. Fight Night 2004 (PS2) - EA
2. NBA Ballers (PS2) - Midway
3. MVP Baseball 2004 (PS2) - EA
4. Fight Night 2004 (Xbox) - EA
5. Pokemon Colosseum (GC) - Nintendo
6. Halo (Xbox) - Microsoft
7. Red Dead Revolver (PS2) - Take-Two
8. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox) - Ubisoft
9. Shrek 2 (PS2) - Activision
10. Spider-Man 2 (PS2) - Activision
Update

The Game Boy Advance sold the most units last month in America, however the GameCube sold the least.

No. Console June Sales May Sales
1 Game Boy Advance 521.000 NC
2 PlayStation 2 427.000 253.454
3 Xbox 262.000 216.997
4 GameCube 109.000 77.827

That's the name Star Wars Episode III
It's a better name than Attack of the Clones.