A mother is complaining that a game she bought her son to improve his vocabulary is instead teaching him inappropriate language. Tonya Carrington, 36, gave her son the Nintendo version of Scrabble and was horrified to discover that the virtual opponents in the game were laying down words containing crude slang and abuse. Mrs Carrington tried out the program for herself on her sons DS console and was shocked when her "opponent" laid down the word "t*ts." The next word the computer offered was "f*ckers," which it defined as "a slang word for chavs." "Ethan is doing really well with English at school, so I decided to get this to help boost his vocabulary — but obviously not like that," she said. It's tragic that her son was exposed to that kind of mind-warping language, which I'm sure as a nine-year-old boy he has never heard on the playground.

Edge Magazine is running an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto about some of the company's recent projects, such as Wii Music and Wii Fit. Miyamoto talks about his ambitions for the titles, as well as the difficulty in continuing to entertain players by surprising them. He refers to Wii Music as "music software" rather than a game, and says the primary intent was to bring music to families and assist in music education. The conversation then turns to where Nintendo can go in the future; Miyamoto discusses integrating new technologies into popular game franchises, and the dilemma Nintendo will face when designing its next console — do they stick with updated versions of their innovative controllers, do they return to a more standard build, or do they bring a completely different input device to the table?

SnT2k writes "Adobe recently released the beta version of Alchemy which compiles C/C++ code into AS3 bytecode (which runs on AVM2) that can run on the Flash or Flex platform and boasts increased performance for computationally-intensive tasks (but still slower than native C/C++). It was demonstrated last year during the Chicago MAX 2007 to run Quake. A few months later it has been demonstrated to run a Python interpreter and Nintendo Emulator. One interesting tidbit is that the thing is built upon the open source LLVM Compiler Infrastructure."

penguin_dance writes "The AP is reporting that National Geographic is getting into video games. National Geographic Games, a subset of the parent company, will 'work with game publishers to turn its material into games for PCs, consoles and handheld devices.' The first title is out for the PC and iPhone. It's a hidden-objects game called Herod's Lost Tomb, and is built around their program on King Herod and an article in the magazine. They also plan to publish and distribute games for the console market, including PS3 and Wii, and the handheld market as well. 'The games will be drawn from a broad range of content and themes across National Geographic's properties.' National Geographic: Africa will be out next month, from Sony. Other upcoming titles include Rain Forests and Greencity. Also available this month will be National Geographic: Panda for the Nintendo DS."

With modern console technology making it easy to develop and distribute small games, more and more companies are taking advantage of gamers' nostalgia to re-release decades-old hits, and to create entirely new titles in older styles. Gamasutra takes a look at what the retro game fad has become, and where it can go from here. What old games or series do you think would translate well onto today's consoles? "Many gamers who bought Mega Man 9 did so because of the game's inherent nostalgia, or because they never had a chance to enjoy the older games on the Nintendo Entertainment System when they were younger. Mega Man 9 is very much a product of its context. Its gameplay is fantastic, but it too is a product of the time period in which it reigned supreme. It suggests the question: can neo-retro games stand the test of time? Will games that mimic or lampoon the 8-bit era remain relevant and interesting to the masses long after its original audience has disappeared?"

The Nintendo DSi was released in Japan on Saturday, and the initial production run of 200,000 units has already sold out. 1Up has done some comparisons to the DS, and they have a video feature tour of the new hardware (which, predictably, has already been hacked). The image editing software is reported to be rather bare-bones, and the browsing is slow, but both features could likely be used with games in interesting ways. Nintendo will be launching a series of WarioWare games to demonstrate the DSi's capabilities. The DSi will likely reach North America next summer.

eldavojohn writes "Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that 'What I've been saying to our development teams recently is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing. And while, personally, I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was able to do some things that were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative. This is something I've been talking to both of those teams about ... hopefully [the next Mario and Zelda] will feel newer and fresher than their most recent versions.' MTV Multiplayer also commented on Portal's mechanics and gameplay, to which Miyamoto responded, 'I think Portal was an amazing game, too.' GameSetWatch has a related article criticizing Nintendo for relying on the Wii's input devices to develop game franchises rather than improving actual gameplay."

As we approach the holiday season, Nintendo has already said that they don't expect to keep up with demand for the Wii console. In an interview with the LA Times, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime said they're ramping up production by 33% already, with further increases planned. They're hoping to avoid the scarcity of Wii's that occurred last year, which cost them a great deal of money in potential sales. "We're now producing 2.4 million units a month worldwide. Last year, we made 1.6 million a month. So we've made a 33% increase. One of our competitors projects they will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that's three months of production. We're producing an unprecedented level of hardware to try to meet demand."

ElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."

The New York Times is running a story about Johnny Chung Lee, a hardware hacker made famous for his projects which modified the Nintendo Wiimote to do things like positional head tracking and multi-touch display control. The article focuses on the suggestion that Lee's use of YouTube to demonstrate his innovations has done a better job of communicating his ideas than more traditional methods could. Quoting: "He might have published a paper that only a few dozen specialists would have read. A talk at a conference would have brought a slightly larger audience. In either case, it would have taken months for his ideas to reach others. Small wonder, then, that he maintains that posting to YouTube has been an essential part of his success as an inventor. 'Sharing an idea the right way is just as important as doing the work itself,' he says. 'If you create something but nobody knows, it's as if it never happened.'"

ElementC writes "Sometime yesterday Nintendo uploaded the latest Wii system update. This update quietly patches a few bugs that allowed the installation of both homebrew and warez apps. Currently installed apps such as the Homebrew Channel and the video DVD library, DVDX, are reportedly not affected. Those not installing this update are blocked out of the Wii Shop channel and in the future may be blocked out of certain games. Team Twiizers cracked the last update within about eight hours. They're already on the case. Readers familiar with the architecture of the Wii will find the list of currently discovered changes interesting."

aliquis writes with news that software made for the recently announced Nintendo DSi will be region-locked. Nintendo's reasoning is that the DSi "embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region." It's also been discovered that accounts with the DSi's online store won't be linked with the Wii store, so points for one won't work with the other. Nintendo has stated that they don't intend for digital distribution to replace retail sales. We discussed the DSi's announcement last week.

Lucas123 writes "After gamers complained for the better part of a year, Nintendo finally came out with a solution to the Wii's lack of storage capacity — a 2GB SD card from which users can execute games, adding to the console's measly 512MB of onboard storage. The card is expected out in the Spring. With the ability to download, the card should allow users to store up to 60 games." This news came out of the same press conference that announced the Nintendo DSi we discussed earlier today. They made a number of other announcements as well, including Gamecube remakes for the Wii, updated to make use of the Wiimote, Club Nintendo coming to North America this year, and the Wii Speak Channel, an online voice chat utility.

justme8800 writes "The DSi has a bigger screen, an SD card expansion, a 0.3 megapixel camera, is thinner (no GBA slot), and has improved audio. To be released in Japan on November 1st, everywhere else sometime in 2009."

Eurogamer reports on some good news for fans of the Final Fantasy series: a new game is in development for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems. "It's said to be titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. ... the game will apparently be playable on both machines at once, thanks to the spiffing new Pollux engine. So, while whoever is the best negotiator/fighter/Wii owner is playing on the big screen, another lucky adventurer can wade in on the DS, presumably following around and summoning Ifrit on their elder siblings. This harks back to the series' origins on DS, with the first CC game enjoying the relative splendour of Gamecube/GBA link-up play."

Croakyvoice writes "Finally, months after the official announcement, 3,000 lucky people can now pre-order Pandora, possibly the world's fastest handheld console. It boasts a processor capable of up to 900 MHZ, PowerVR 3D graphics, a large 800x480 LCD touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, dual SD card slots, TV out, dual analogue and digital controls, a clamshell DS Lite-style shape, and a 43-button mini keyboard. The console already boasts an amazing amount of ready-for-release software such as Ubuntu and many full-speed emulators for systems such as Snes, Amiga, Megadrive, and many more that are not publicly announced yet. The console is as powerful as the original Xbox and on a par with the Nintendo Wii. Those interested should visit OpenPandora.Org. For the full history of Pandora from inception until the present, check out the Pandora Homebrew Site."

1Up noticed an interesting post up at WhatTheyPlay which put together some public information with more from private sources suggesting that the next version of the Wii console is planned for 2011. Quoting: "Unlike previous console transitions from Nintendo, the new system will be presented as a true successor to the Wii, and is being dubbed by those that have seen the presentation as 'Wii HD.' There is no indication if this will be its eventual name, but the nature of the transition has been characterized as similar to 'the shift from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance,' where familiar, key elements were left intact while the core hardware was made more powerful. It is expected by all those that we have spoken to on the subject that the new device will retain the Wii name in part."

BobB-nw writes "Watch out Apple, here comes Nintendo. Nintendo plans to launch a new version of its popular DS portable gaming device with a camera and music player function, according to a report in the Sunday edition of The Nikkei Business Daily. The new version will have better wireless capability for connecting to the Internet and will cost under $189, the report said. It will be offered first in Japan, it said. The DS first went on sale in 2004, and a second version, called the DS Lite, debuted two years later in 2006. Both have sold extremely well, with worldwide sales of the DS products at 77.5 million units as of the end of June this year."

CVG reports that Nintendo has announced a wireless router, the purpose of which is to "streamline the process of getting your console online." It will be released later this month in Japan. No word was given regarding when the rest of the world will see it. Pictures of the router are available at Famitsu, though the text is in Japanese. 1Up also points out statements from Nintendo execs discussing the limited storage for the Wii. They say there will be a "better solution" than a hard drive.

SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer are running a comprehensive feature on the history of Nintendo that runs through all 119 years of their existence, from humble card maker to gaming powerhouse. It is documented in chronological order and includes a stack of trivia about the company that will be thoroughly enjoyed by all Nintendo fans. As an interesting side note, it links to a sister article that explores how Mario can improve your sex life."