Megaton News

Ubisoft today announced Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon for Wii. This isn’t a traditional Ghost Recon game of course Ubisoft would never do that for Wii, it’s an on rails Ghost Recon game. The good news is it supports co-op, and being in third person is at least a small change-up for the oversaturated Wii rail shooter genre, and from the video here it does seem like they’re going for a proper arcadey feel rather than a perhaps to methodically paced take like some of the still fun Resident Evil rail shooters went with.

In jarring contrast to the awful Gun Loco trailer, IGN has also released the Epic Mickey opening cinematic. It shows how the wasteland came to be, and how Mickey ends up there. This Wii exclusive is definitely looking to scratch that Mickey nostalgia itch as they show time passing with scenes from Mickey’s classic films/shorts.

Disney showed off a bit more of Epic Mickey at Comic-Con. 1up did a terrible job at capturing it off screen so that you only see the top half of the opening sequence, and G4 got SOME of the footage in direct feed quality, but don’t watch their video for too long or it will cycle to a clip of Morgan Webb telling Adam Sessler how much she hates anything cartoony, because it’s not cool enough for a grisled grrrl-gamer vet/maxim ho like her.

Oh What A Knight level is stunning.

Update: YT saves the day:

NPD for June changes things up a little bit with the Xbox 360 just barely taking the number 2 spot thanks to stock clearing sales on the old model 360′s and the release of the 360 short. Red Dead and Galaxy 2 continue to hold the first 3 software slots, while Toy Story 3 for DS and Lego Harry Potter Wii make a strong showing for licensed titles. Being beaten in the portable space by Toy Story 3 must be painful for Hideo Kojima whose Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker failed to chart on that unlovable loser the PSP. Alpha Protocol, Singularity, and Transformers should also commit seppuku for their horrible sales this month.

Nintendo DS 510,700
Xbox 360 451,700
Wii 422,500
PlayStation 3 304,800
PSP 121,000

Top 10 Games Sales

Red Dead Redemption 360 (Take 2) - 582,900
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Wii (Nintendo) - 548,400
Red Dead Redemption PS3 (Take 2) - 380,300
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo) - 200,900
Just Dance Wii (Ubisoft) – 174,800
Wii Fit Plus With Balance Board Wii (Nintendo)
Toy Story3 NDS (Disney Interactive Studios
UFC 2010: Undisputed 360 (THQ)
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 Wii (Warner Bros. Interactive)
UFC 2010: Undisputed PS3 (THQ)

Updating with the rest of the top 20:

11. Pokemon SoulSilver DS
12. Transformers War For Cybertron 360
13. New Super Mario Bros. DS
14. Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 360
15. FIFA World Cup 360
16. FIFA World Cup PS3
17. Mario Kart Wii
18. Pokemon HeartGold DS
19. Toy Story 3 Wii
20. Wii Sports Resort

Also some numbers for specific games were released.
Transformers 360 did 132,000, and Wii Sports Resort in the 20 position sold less than 100,000 which should give you an idea of how bad some of this month’s other releases did. Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker failed to even crack the top 20 selling only 52,000 copies. Even worse numbers for Green Day Rock Band which sold only 83,000 copies between ALL 3 of the console releases. Skate 3 only sold 253,000 copies in it’s first 2 months down forty percent from Skate 2, and Tiger Woods 11 dropped 68 percent from last year’s release, due entirely to Tiger’s unquenchable love of white meat being made public this year.

According to the twitter account of an IGN employee some bombs of the month are in this order:
Naughty Bear > Singularity > Sin and Punishment
Perhaps if Singularity, or Sin and Punishment had had any promotion whatsoever they might have had at least a remote chance of beating out Naughty Bear!

With the recent release of updated Famistu Japanese LTD sales numbers we can see the New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the best selling home console game since the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Now it’s still quite a ways away from topping the NES 6.81 million selling classic, but it does have the honor of beating the much beloved Super Mario Bros 3 for second best selling console game ever in Japan.

Thanks to donny2112 on GAF:

Best selling console games since 1996 according to Famitsu:

1. New Super Mario Bros. Wii – 3,894,356
2. Dragon Quest VII (PS1) - 3,893,293
3. Wii Sports – 3,634,806
4. Wii Fit – 3,560,889
5. Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) - 3,555,469

Best selling console games before 1996:

1. Super Mario Bros. (Famicom) – 6.81m
2. Super Mario Bros. 3 (Famicom) – 3.84m
3. Super Mario Kart (Super Famicom) – 3.82m
4. Dragon Quest III (Famicom) – 3.77m
5. Super Mario World (Super Famicom) – 3.55m

Ready At Dawn developers of the PSP God Of War games, Daxter, and the deeply flawed port job Okami Wii have announced today that they’ve let go of 13 employees. This routine of mass firings when a project is finished isn’t stopping anytime soon.

According to a 4Gamers interview with members of the Nier staff, Cavia as we knew it no longer exists. The developer of offbeat original games like Nier, and Drakengard, and outsourced projects such as the Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, and Darkside Chronicles games has been dissolved by parent AQ Interactive. It seems all is not lost, as parent company AQ Interactive will take on Cavia’s staff members. What will become of them in the future is unclear as until now AQ Interactive has not been a developer of games directly, but a holding company, parent to XSeed, Artoon, and until now Cavia.

We join with the fans of Cavia’s unique games in hopes that their staff members will continue to produce games filled with incest, and transgenered heroines in the future under the AQ Interactive name.

Nintendo/Mistwalker have released a new trailer for their upcoming RPG The Last Story. It looks quite beautiful aside from some rather stiff walk animations on the player characters.

Surprising absolutely nobody, it appears the formerly Wii exclusive arcade basketball title NBA Jam will be making it’s way to the HD platforms 360 & Playstation 3. Discovered, as these things often are, via a ratings board the German USK has rated NBA Jam for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 release. It’s not known at this time whether or not this will be a disc release or a downloadable title, though it would seem somewhat insane to undercut full price disc release sales on one platform by releasing the same game as a lower price download on two other platforms.

Ivy The Kiwi Wii Boxart

Ys Seven PSP Boxart