The Installer writes with news that Nintendo is seeing a significant financial downturn to match the general slowdown in the rest of the industry. "Sales of the once unstoppable Wii console have tumbled for the first time since its launch three years ago, sending the gaming giant's quarterly profit down 61 percent." Meanwhile, Sony is feeling the pain as well; the company sold 500,000 fewer PS3 consoles than in the previous quarter, and PSP sales saw an even bigger drop. Interestingly, Sony also revealed that the manufacturing cost of the PS3 has now dropped 70% since it was released. The drop in sales has caused the resurgence of rumors about console price cuts.

Ssquared22 writes "'Frankly ... I'm ashamed. I have made myself a Twitter page and officially joined the world of technology. Perhaps Luke may help me update.' With those words on June 28, 2009, what had been just a fictional character in a Nintendo DS game became a fixture on Twitter. Over the coming days and weeks, the TopHatProfessor account would post dozens of riddles and brainteasers of the type found in 2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, soliciting answers from his slowly growing cadre of followers. Along the way, the professor happily answered questions about the upcoming title and shared little slices of life from his day, all without ever breaking character. Many followers were bemused and intrigued by what they assumed was a clever new viral marketing campaign put on by Nintendo ahead of Diabolical Box's August release. In reality, though, the TopHatProfessor account was the work of a lone college student and amateur game journalist, trying to get attention for a game he felt was being sorely neglected by publisher Nintendo and the media at large."

SwiftyNifty writes with an update to Greenpeace's 2007 criticism of game console manufacturers over environmental concerns. Their claim was that some of the chemicals used to make the consoles were toxic, and that the manufacturers' recycling practices were not up to snuff. Two years have passed, and Greenpeace now says that progress is either slow or non-existent. "... Nintendo has little plan to remove PVC and almost no plans to remove [brominated flame retardants]. Slightly further up the scale, Microsoft was again awarded a poor ranking due to the use of toxic waste materials. And Sony, who rank rather well in their mobile phone partnership with Ericsson (scoring 6.5 out of 10 for improved toxic waste and efficient energy usage) didn't perform as well in the console category, failing to eliminate PVC or BFRs from their gaming products."

Kotaku is running an opinion piece discussing why video games are having a harder time being funny as they've shifted away from text-driven adventures and toward graphics-intensive environments. "As technology improved, things began to get more serious. With the rise of 3D technology a strong focus was put on making games look good, delivering a more realistic — and often darker — experience to the player. Cartoonish comedic games became more of a novelty than the norm. Few titles, such as Rare's Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, fully embraced humor." The article also talks about how the trend could soon reverse itself. LucasArts' Dave Grossman said, "As the games get smarter and start paying attention to more things about what the player is actually doing, using that ability not just to create challenges but to create humorous moments will be pretty cool. Eventually I expect to be out of a job over that."

Late last year we discussed news that the Entertainment Merchants Association was pondering a plan to develop technology that requires games and movies to be "activated" when they are sold at retail outlets, primarily to reduce theft and piracy. Now, the EMA claims a study they commissioned has indicated that employing such a system for video games, DVDs, and Blu-ray products would generate an additional $6 billion in revenues each year. Critics of the idea are skeptical about the numbers, pointing out that the majority of game piracy comes from downloading PC games, which this plan won't even affect. There are other problems as well: "In order for benefit denial to work, the EMA would presumably require the three major consoles to have some sort of activation verification function to ensure that games were legally purchased. It will be interesting to see if Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft agree to that. There is also a lucrative market for used video games to consider. After some gamers complete a title, they sell it back to the retailer. How will benefit denial handle that situation?"

A piece at GameSetWatch questions whether modern game companies are taking accessibility a step too far in their rush to attract people who don't typically play video games. This worry was inspired, in part, by the news that Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. Wii would have the capability to play itself in order to let a human player get past a tricky part. Quoting: "Bigger audiences finishing more games is certainly a worthy goal, and Nintendo has shown that accessibility is the servant of engagement. History has rarely — if ever — dared to disprove the wisdom of Miyamoto's foresight. History has also never disproven, however, the principle that any medium and any message degrades the wider an audience it must reach. Art was never served by generalization, nor language by addressing all denominators. Entertainment for the masses ultimately becomes empty. There must exist an absolute point beyond which greater accessibility means less engagement. Making a game so easy it can play itself for you at the push of a button just might be that point."

MBCook writes "In several recent releases, it seems that Atari published games for the Wii based on ScummVM, which was released under the GPL. Atari contracted Majesco, who contracted a company named Mistic Software with offices in the Ukraine. When the fact that the GPL was being violated was brought to Atari's attention, they were kind at first until it was discovered that Nintendo doesn't allow open source software to be used with the Wii SDK, so updated documentation mentioning the GPL wasn't an available solution. So, what happens to the games? 'There is a period of time in which all current copies have to be sold. Any copies beyond this period or any reprints get fined with quite high fine for each new/remaining copy. The remaining stock has to be destoryed [sic].' Atari and Majesco seem to have been very cooperative about this whole thing, but had their hands tied by the agreement with Nintendo."

Blogger Drew Mackie has posted a lengthy analysis of the etymology of dozens of names from popular video game characters. It examines the real-life and mythological roots of names from Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and many other prominent franchises, complete with citations where appropriate. Quoting: "It's speculated that Street Fighter's Russian wrestler Zangief takes his name from a real-life Russian wrestler, Victor Zangiev. More interesting to me is that the working name for this character was Vodka Gobalsky. This is notable for two reasons — for one, that this name is amazing [and] deserves to enter into the public consciousness and, for another, that it bears a striking resemblance to the name of a Russian boxer in Nintendo's Punch-Out!! series, Vodka Drunkenski. I'm sure this says something about Japanese perception of Russian people. The latter Vodka, by the way, goes by the name Soda Popinski in US translations of the game, presumably because Nintendo of America didn't allow references to booze."

phlack writes "Yahoo Games has an article describing a new mode in Nintendo's upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii that will allow the player to activate a 'demo' mode to get out of a hard situation. Nintendo plans on incorporating this into future games. Is this a good idea (to help relieve frustrations) or just sanctioned cheating?" They actually patented this system as well.

Hugh Pickens writes "Troy Wolverton writes in the Mercury News that in less than a year, the iPhone has become a significant game platform, but its bigger impact could be to help change the way the game industry does business. 'It's got everything you need to be a game changer,' said Neil Young, co-founder and CEO of ngmoco, which develops games solely for the iPhone. With a year under its belt and an installed base of iPhone and iPod Touch owners at around forty million, the iPhone/iPod Touch platform has eclipsed next-gen console penetration numbers and started to catch up to the worldwide penetration of both Sony's (50 million) and Nintendo's (100 million) devices. Wolverton writes that not only is the iPhone one of the first widely successful gaming platforms in which games are completely digitally distributed, but on the iPhone, consumers can find more games updated more often, and at a cheaper cost per game than what they'd find on a typical dedicated game console. While an ordinary top-of-the-line game for Microsoft's Xbox 360 sells for about $60, and one for Nintendo's DS about $30, a top-of-the-line iPhone game typically sells for no more than $10. With traditional games, developers might wait a year or two between major releases; ngmoco is planning on releasing new versions of its games for the iPhone every four to five months. 'You have to think differently,' says Young. 'It's redefining what it means to be a publisher in this world.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells CNBC that he believes the next generation of video game systems isn't as far away as the public has been led to believe. Guillemot noted that public demand for the best machine possible, as well as coming competition from companies such as OnLive could spur Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to roll out new systems sooner than they want. That's not good news for publishers, though, as he says games in the next generation will likely cost $60 million to create."

Eurogamer has a story about how the design of motion-control input devices has evolved over the years, ranging from the Nintendo Power Glove and Sega Activator up to modern devices like the Wii Remote and the upcoming projects by Sony and Microsoft. Now that the technology has caught up with the ideas, EA CEO John Riccitello said he expects motion-control gaming to rapidly expand, eventually occupying half the total games market. He said, "We almost invested to create a platform extension like that for some of the games we're working on. We're very pleased, frankly, that it showed up at Microsoft, because I'd rather them pay for that. They can leverage it better, and we can build software. But I felt the market wanted that technology and I'm glad it's coming."

mmmscience writes "Scientists are investigating the use of Wii Sports as a form of treatment for Parkinson's sufferers. After a four-week study, researchers found that rounds of tennis, bowling, and boxing improved rigidity, movement, fine motor skills, and energy levels as well as decreasing the occurrence of depression. It is thought that combining exercise with video games helps to increase levels of dopamine, a chemical that is deficient in Parkinson's. The therapy is gaining notoriety under the name Wii-hab."

CNet is running a story inspired by comments from Ubisoft's Ben Mattes about how the Wii affects game development. When asked why there was no Wii version of Prince of Persia, Mattes said, "The reality is that from a technical standpoint, the Wii cannot do what we wanted the game to do. The AI of Elika was highly advanced and required a lot of processing power; the world size and dynamic loading, the draw distance, the number of polygons in the characters... If we had done a Wii version, it would have been toned down, probably linear; it wouldn't have been an open-world game, and so it would have been a very different experience." The article goes on to look at a number of Wii games that are stripped-down versions of their Xbox 360 or PS3 counterparts. Of course, part of the Wii's drawing power is that it's much simpler than the other systems, and has brought casual gaming to millions more people than it would have otherwise. The question remains, as Kotaku points out, whether the Wii's audience will persist after the other systems match its casual-gaming capabilities.

The Guardian's games blog reports on comments by Nintendo discussing why it's not worried about competition from Microsoft and Sony after their recent motion-control announcements at E3. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime said, "The only thing I'll say is a rhetorical question. Is it fun? If it's fun, then I tip my hat and say, 'Well done.' But what's happening sounds to me a lot like, 'Who's got the prettiest picture. Who's got high-definition. Who has the best processing power?' It sounds like technology, when the consumer wants to be entertained. Our focus is how do we take active play and make it entertainment. And that's what we're going to continue to focus on."

Despite all the announcements for popular, big-budget game franchises at this year's E3, one of the most talked-about titles is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS called Scribblenauts. In a hands-on preview, Joystiq described it thus: "The premise of the game is simple — you play as Maxwell, who must solve various puzzles to obtain Starites spread across 220 different levels. To execute the aforementioned solving, you write words to create objects in the world that your cartoonish hero can interact with. It's a simple concept that's bolstered by one astounding accomplishment from developer 5th Cell: Anything you can think of is in this game. (Yes, that. Yes, that too.)" They even presented it with a test of 10 words they wouldn't expect it to know or be able to represent, including lutefisk, stanchion, air, and internet, and the game passed with flying colors. The game will also allow players to edit and share levels. A trailer is available on the Scribblenauts website, and actual gameplay footage is posted at Nintendorks.

Now that the industry is winding down after another E3, it's time to reflect on the relative success of the show. Paul Govan reflects with a GeekDad view of the "winners" of this years show. The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event, has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX? Highlights of the show included Microsoft's new controller-less interface, a sexier PSP, and a myriad of releases from Nintendo.

With the recent E3 demonstrations of new motion-based control for consoles — Microsoft's Natal, Sony's Motion Controller, and Ubisoft's camera-based system for the Wii — analysts now expect the current console generation to last longer than normal. Microsoft exec Shane Kim said he expects the Xbox 360 to last until around 2015, in part due to Natal and new services available through Xbox Live. Signal Hill's Todd Greenwald thinks this cycle may not need to end at all: "Microsoft and Sony have invested so much in their current hardware line, as have third party publishers, that we don't think any party is seriously interested in throwing away these investments and starting over from scratch. For all of these reasons, we think this cycle will last longer than those in the past, and don't see new hardware coming until 2011 at the earliest, and 2012 to 2013 more likely (if at all — if new services like OnLive take off, or if Xbox Live and PlayStation Network become more and more robust, there may not be a need for another console cycle).'"

Aeonite writes "Featuring a subtitle that is almost longer than the preface, Vintage Games: An Inside Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time offers a retrospective look at those games which authors Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton feel were, in their words, 'paradigm shifters; the games that made a difference.' As the preface points out, these are not necessarily best-selling games, innovative games, or novel games, but rather titles that, 'in their own special way changed videogames forever.'" Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.

ANkleStrong writes "Sony Corp unveiled on Tuesday a smaller, lighter PlayStation handheld game device called the PSP Go, in a race to catch rival Nintendo in an intensely competitive mobile games arena." E3 attendees were able to take the new Sony handheld for a test drive, and more pictures and videos are now available. It's set to be released on October 1st, and will retail for $249. A new Resident Evil game is being designed specifically for the updated hardware, and Metal Gear Peace Walker is coming as well.