Round Up: PGR Goes Mobile, Top Ten Games Over Xbox Live, NEC Making Wii Chips

Today's round-up includes Project Gotham Racing going mobile, the top ten games being played over Xbox Live, and NEC Electronics developing chips for Nintendo's recently renamed Wii console, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, Serious Games Source news, product news and Gamasutra job postings. - Glu Mobile has announced a new deal with Microsoft to bring the popular console racing franchise Project Gotham Racing to mobile phones. The game will be available to consumers on major wireless carriers around the world in early 2007, and will be playable on a variety of mobile platforms, including Microsoft Windows Mobile. “The PGR franchise revolutionized the racing genre by rewarding gamers for driving with speed, style and daring,” said Greg Ballard, chief executive officer, Glu Mobile. “Glu will create the definitive mobile racing experience by delivering this same exciting challenge optimized for the mobile platform.” - Microsoft has announced, via the weblog of staffer Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, the top ten games being played over Xbox Live. Surprisingly, Halo 2 still retains its death grip on the top spot, followed by Oblivion and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. The fourth spot finds Activision's Call of Duty 2, while the original Xbox version of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat clinches the number five position. Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI adventures in at the number six position, followed by Project Gotham Racing 3 and Fight Night Round 3. The Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 2: Modern Combatholds up in the number nine position, and the list is rounded out with Tecmo's Dead or Alive 4 in the final tenth spot. - Ever since Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's keynote at the Game Developers Conference in March, it has been known that the company was working with NEC to bring titles developed for the company's TurboGrafx-16 system to the Wii as part of that console's Virtual Console. However, Reuters has reported that NEC Electronics CEO Toshio Nakashima confirmed during the company's earnings conference call last week that it is also working with Nintendo to produce large-scale integration chips (LSIs) for the upcoming Wii platform. In order to produce the chips, Nakashima indicated that NEC is planning to ramp up production at the 300-millimeter line at its Yamagata factory, with upgrades expected to be completed by September. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include the latest offering from Dave "Shmorky" Kelly's Multicart Project, a very interesting post on why Nintendo's Super Princess Peach box art got a makeover in its transition to audiences outside Japan, and a look at Yarudora Series Vol. 3: Sampaguita, which was released to Japanese PlayStation audiences in 1998 but was never localized. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on serious games shown at Duke University, and animators looking the potential of serious games, plus Gamasutra product news regarding Vue 3D Competition put on by e-on software, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Activision / Z-Axis, Blizzard, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, Factor 5, High Moon Studios, LucasArts, Mad Doc Software, NHTV University of professional education, and Slipgate Ironworks.