Today's round up includes news of Majesco announcing support for the Wii platform, starting with
Bust-A-Move Revolution, the nominees for the "GameTrailers Best of E3 Awards", and Satoru Iwata's comments regarding the Wii's need for a Star Wars game, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, Serious Games Source news, product news and Gamasutra job postings.
- Majesco has confirmed what is calling "the first of several new titles in development" of Nintendo's Wii console. This first, presumably Taito-developed game,
Bust-A-Move Revolution, is scheduled for release in early 2007. The iconic puzzle game series
Bust-A-Move most recently saw an iteration on Sony's PSP. The news also marks a partial departure from Majesco's previous announcement of a "shift in the product mix from premium console games to value and handheld games", though the Wii title will still likely be a relatively low-budget title for the firm. "We intend to maximize the intuitive nature of the Wii controller to create a revolutionary offering of the highly popular
Bust-A-Move franchise," said Ken Gold, vice president of marketing for Majesco.
- MTV Networks' GameTrailers.com has unveiled the nominees for the "GameTrailers Best of E3 Awards." Selections were made from among the hundreds of products shown at last week's E3 event in Los Angeles. Nominees were narrowed down to five per category totaling 110 nominees across all platforms and genres, including
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,
Super Smash Bros.: Brawl,
Gears of War, and
Spore. Winners of the "GameTrailers Best of E3 Awards" will be announced Friday, May 19 as part of the "GameTrailers Best of E3 '06" video special. With the exception of the "Best Trailer Award," all games were playable at the show to be eligible for nomination. Nominees were chosen by the expert editorial staff at GameTrailers, led by Editor-in-Chief Shane Satterfield, former Editorial Director at G4 and co-creator of X-Play.
- Nintendo president Satoru Iwata
spoke to the Seattle Times regarding a number of topics concerning the Wii, the company's upcoming next-generation platform, including the positive response the console was give by attendees at last week's E3, the mixed reactions from the console's unique name, and how the console and its Wii remote seem like the ideal platform for a Wii
Star Wars-based game, particularly commenting of this concept: “We really want Lucas to think about making a game where this can be used as a light saber. It should be fun.”
Recent reports at E3 have also hinted at the prospect, though an actual LucasArts title implementing the idea has still not been announced.
- The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog
GameSetWatch include the
E3 trailer for Telltale Games' and Steve Purcell's new Sam & Max PC title, Player X bringing the
popular UK racing toy Scalextric to mobile phones, and
Lemmings in development for the PlayStation 2 - with EyeToy support.
- Also updated today:
Serious Games Source news on
a new partnership between Engenuity Technologies and Diamond Visionics for Engenuity's STAGE simulation toolkit, and
early registration now open for the Games for Change 2006 conference, plus Gamasutra product news regarding the
Nintendo Wii including Broadcom products, specifically both Bluetooth and integrated Wi-Fi, Emergent's Metrics Element
being licensed by BioWare, the
Mudbox Sculpting Tool public beta now available, as well as the latest
Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Activision, Treyarch, BreakAway Games, DirecTV, LucasArts, Retro Studios, Sony Online Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games, and Webzen America.
