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After playing with a friend’s Nintendo DS a few days ago, I could not help but come away impressed. You see, the friend is a middle-aged person that’s not a game player.

What was he playing? Brain Age 2, a non-game for the portable game player that has its sights set on helping memory skills in anyone that wants it.

The ‘game’ features quite a few brain teasers that I thought were very challenging. The execution of all of them (especially the Sudoku game) was excellent, and it’s another reason why more people outside the regular gaming community opt for gaming systems like the Wii and DS game systems. Nintendo continues to impress me.

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Activision announced today that they have signed an agreement with Scholastic Inc., to distribute two new titles to the DS. I SPY Fun House and Animal Genius will be released in North America for $29.99 and be rated E for Everyone.

“Scholastic is a worldwide leader in children’s publishing and education and we are delighted to have the opportunity to team up with them on these games,” said David Oxford, SVP for Activision Publishing, Inc. “I’m confident that the collaboration between Activision and Scholastic, will offer consumers exciting interactive entertainment experiences.”

I remember in elementary school running home with the Scholastic order sheet ready to order everything on it. My favorite school day was the day we received those orders. Scholastic did a great job with quality products to encourage reading to kids and it’s great to see them continue that trend into the video game industry.

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Small is beautiful, the less powerful Nintendo Wii outsold the mighty Sony Playstation3 by more than five consoles to one in Japan and in the US the figure is about 4 -1, putting Sony’s mighty graphic processing power to shame.

Some of the possible reason are:
- Lack of games
- The high price

But then again, these consoles are only into their first year cycle and more to more, remember that Nintendo’s Wii is going after a totally different market, where else Sony Playstation 3 is for the grown ups.

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Namco Bandai announced this morning that they have sold the majority of their share in Tokyo-based developer Monolith Soft to Nintendo.

Monolith Soft is the creator of the Xenosaga RPG series for PlayStation 2 and the Baten Kaitos series for Nintendo GameCube. (They are not to be confused with Monolith, the developers of FEAR.)

At E3 last May, Nintendo announced that Monolith Soft was creating a Wii game to be published by Nintendo called Disaster: Day of Crisis.

Namco Bandai held 96% of the stock in Monolith Soft. It will retain 16% of the stock, and Nintendo will become majority shareholder with 80%.

In today’s statement, Namco Bandai said that it would continue to work closely with Monolith Soft on game development in the future.

The first Baten Kaitos game was published by Namco Bandai in the US, but Nintendo themselves published the sequel, Baten Kaitos Origins, in the US last year.

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Since E3 was pruned last year, they’re down to 33 exhibitors from over 400.

Huge drop in the number of participants in E3, here’s the confirmed list so far: 1C Company, Activision, Akella, Atari, Atlus, Bethesda Softworks, Disney Interactive Studios, Capcom, Codemasters, Crave Entertainment, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Konami, LucasArts, Majesco, Microsoft, Midway, Namco Bandai Games, NCsoft, Nintendo, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, THQ, Ubisoft, Vivendi Games, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Blizzard and NVIDIA are among the absent list, and it seems only two independant developers will be present, iD software and Foundation 9. The guest list has also been scaled back… from around 60,000 to about 4000.

E3 runs from July 11-13. I’m not sure how the smaller numbers will affect the goings on, but it will be interesting to read the comments on it from those invited as well as those involved in hosting E3.

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Nintendo made a point to applaud the US Trade Representative seeking formal meetings with China regarding its failure to meet World Trade Organization obligations concerning intellectual property protection and enforcement in China.

China has become the leading production site of counterfeit Nintendo products.

“Nintendo will continue to work with the U.S. government while aggressively pursuing counterfeit Nintendo products in China,” says Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America’s senior director of anti-piracy. “We’re pleased the U.S. government is pushing China to comply with its trade commitments in an effort to protect the lifeblood of the copyright and trademark industries.”

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For those who like to sit on a comfy couch while awkwardly browsing the web (and I don’t mean WebTV, now MSN TV), now you can even lie in bed, under your covers and squint while doing it.

Opera Software announced that the Nintendo DS will be the next game system to carry its Opera web browser in the US on June 4, 2007. Already available in Japan (July 2006 for 3800 yen) and Europe (October 2006 for 39.99 Euros), the beta version has been available for free on the Wii since December 2006 (and the full version is expected to launch soon). No word yet on how much the DS version will cost.

Opera Software has confirmed in a press release that the Nintendo DS Browser, powered by Opera, will be released to the North American market on June 4, 2007. The browser has already been released in Japan (July 2006) and Europe (October 2006), where it retails for 3,800 Yen and 39.99 Euros, respectively. Nintendo of America, who will be publishing the software in North America, has yet to announce pricing details.

Having done a fair share of web surfing and email reading on the PSP, I can’t imagine doing the same on the DS and not having a splitting headache in a couple minutes due to excessive squinting . Of course this does bump up the DS’s functionality and make it an even more appealing, less expensive and more rugged PDA than the PSP. Once the DS MP3 player hits the US, it’s on, PSP. It’s on.

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This was sent to us by a reader, after downloading what he swears was an old Zelda cartoon from BitTorrent, his ISP was contacted by the ESA with the following letter. In short, be careful what you download and stop downloading illegal games unless you want to lose your internet service and possibly deal with other legal issues. Now that the Virtual Console is out, Nintendo can and will take a hard stance against even older ROM’s if they wish. We highly suggest just getting the Wii system and playing your favorite games legitimately and supporting those that put in the work to bring them to us. We at The Wii Experience do not condone downloading illegal software and the following letter is an example of what your ISP may receive if you do such activities.

Here’s the letter in full:

Attention: Intellectual Property Enforcement
Telephone: ###-###-####
E-mail: esa@copyright-compliance.com continue reading…

Interlink Electronics, maker of “human interface” devices including navigation rings (think iPod), micro joysticks, mice and remotes, has filed a lawsuit against Nintendo concerning the WiiMote design. Filed on December 4, 2006, Interlink’s Complaint for Patent Infringement asks for a preliminary and permanent injunction, a trial, and of course, damages (times three!) for losses incurred due to Nintendo selling the WiiMote. The basis for their lawsuit is Interlink’s patent (#6,850,221) filed September 1997 and issued to Interlink February 2005.

Originally intended to be used for PCs, the patent describes their device as:

“[A] portable, trigger operated pointing device for use with an electronically responsive system, the pointing device comprising: a housing for location at least partly between a first finger and a thumb of a user’s hand.”

The diagram here (above) was one of several included in the Patent filing. If you ask me, it looks a heck of a lot more like Roku’s remote, though that doesn’t have any motion sensitivity.

Read [Kotaku] Site [Interlink]

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