Grasshopper founder Suda51 has told MCV that he first planned for Rising Star's No More Heroes to be an Xbox 360 title.

"Originally, I'd wanted to make this game for Xbox 360, actually. [Marvelous Interactive boss] Wada-san had information about the new Wii and how the new controller would work before it came out, so that's why he thought I should produce the game on that format."

"At the time, I didn't really understand why, but after seeing and understanding how it works, I think it was a good choice and the controller works really well with the game."
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[Spoiler warning: Under no circumstances read on if you haven't played right to the end of No More Heroes yet. Doing so will make you cry. We can virtually guarrantee it.] Okay, so you've fought your way right through to the end of the game. You've marvelled at the crazy invention and lunatic imagination on show. You've been thrilled by the katana-swinging, bad guy-exploding action. You've grooved to the soundtrack, you've run that bike over more people than you can remember, and you've loved ... » Read More

Gamasutra reports this week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending January 21st, highlight both to-be-released and already released games in a unique demand-specific chart.

Burnout Paradise hangs on to the top spot for the second week in a row. Capcom's Devil May Cry 4, slated to release February 5th, made the top five twice last week --the Xbox 360 SKU in second position, and the PS3 SKU in fourth -- but this week, the Xbox 360 SKU steps back a spot to third, while the PS3 SKU fails to chart in the top 5.

What follows is a breakdown of the top titles requested by GameFly subscribers across each of the major platforms:

Xbox 360

1. Burnout Paradise (Electronic Arts)
2. Turok (Touchstone)
3. Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
4. The Club (Sega)
5. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Ubisoft)

Nintendo Wii

1. No More Heroes (Ubisoft)
2. Endless Ocean (Nintendo)
3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo)
4. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo)
5. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega)

PlayStation 3

1. Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
2. Burnout Paradise (Electronic Arts)
3. Turok (Touchstone)
4. Unreal Tournament III (Midway)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Sony)
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NeoGAF reported that the rumored No More Heroes shirts do exist, but it just may be hard to import them from Japan. Check out the selection at the game developer Grasshopper Manufacture's product page via the link below.
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"It was revealed that Japan will be getting the soundtrack for Ubisoft and Grasshopper Manufacture's Wii exclusive No More Heroes this January 23, 2008. The full package of 3 CDs will have all of the music from the game including some vocal variants of the songs. Head on over to the full article to find out more."

-- by Enrico S. on Jan 23, 2008

Notes: QJ.NET has a link to the original announcement. The announcement is in Japanese, but it lists the music tracks in English.
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Gameindustry reports the developers behind some of Japan's biggest franchises will be delivering sessions at next month's Game Developers Conference, boosting the line-up for the February event.

Two of the team behind Square Enix's epic Final Fantasy franchise will be at the event, with general manager for technical research Taku Murata discussing the company's work on a new game engine for FF XIII, while art director Isamu Kamikokuryo will discuss the art style of the series in an interview with Bungie's Steve Theodore.

Ray Nakazato will be delivering a session on Lost Odyssey, the Xbox 360 exclusive RPG co-created by Mistwalker and Microsoft Game Studios' FeelPlus team, to address what did and didn't work on the original project.

The latest addition to the audio track is a session from Masafumi Takada, who will be delivering a retrospective of his work from Killer 7, God Hand, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and No More Heroes.
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Gamasutra reports that this week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending January 21st, highlight both to-be-released and already released games.

Burnout Paradise speeds into the top spot after spending last week at number three, displacing three-week leader Kingdom Under Fire: Circle Of Doom, which tumbles all the way down to tenth place.

Capcom's Devil May Cry 4, slated to release February 5th, makes the top five twice -- the Xbox 360 SKU in second position, and the PS3 SKU in fourth. In between them, holding the third spot, is the Xbox 360 SKU of Turok, while No More Heroes enters the charts in fifth.

Overall:

1) Burnout Paradise (360)
2) Devil May Cry 4 (360)
3) Turok (360)
4) Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
5) No More Heroes (Wii)

Xbox 360

1. Burnout Paradise (Electronic Arts)
2. Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
3. Turok (Touchstone)
4. Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft)
5. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)

Nintendo Wii

1. No More Heroes (Ubisoft)
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo)
3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega)
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo)
5. Endless Ocean (Nintendo)

PlayStation 3

1. Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
2. Burnout Paradise (Electronic Arts)
3. Turok (Touchstone)
4. Unreal Tournament III (Midway)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Sony)
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Kombo Reports: "We previously reported that Suda had expressed displeasure with sales of third-party titles on Wii in Japan. However, the official GrassHopper website has posted an official statement from Suda stating that his previous comments were misinterpreted. In reality, Suda wanted say that No More Heroes will instead attract a different type of gamer in Japan, opposed to the typical non-gamer audience.

"This is Suda51, director of "NO MORE HEROES". Currently on promotional tour through 5 European countries. Having visited in United Kingdom, France, and Italy, currently in Milan for the weekend.

I am concerned to learn my comments in one interview regarding the success of Nintendo 3rd party titles have been misinterpreted.

My point was that "NO MORE HEROES", unlike a lot of Nintendo Wii titles currently available is the kind of product which will attract a different kind of consumer to the hardware, ie. gamers who are looking for a different genre to the products which have been successful on this platform thus far.

CEO Goichi Suda"
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Kotaku writes:

"We finally start getting some good titles this week with No More Heroes, Advance Wars 2 and Pirates of the Burning Sea and Burnout Paradise My wallet is going to start emptying itself again. I can just feel it coming. What are you going to be picking up this week?"
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Game giant promises at least 65 new Wii games and 80 new DS games in the first half of the year.

"Our momentum is not limited to one system or one game," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's marketing replacement for Perrin Kaplan. "We're going broad and bold in 2008, with something for every member of the family."

First-party highlights from the release list include Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Crosswords for DS, with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit headed to Nintendo's fifth-generation console.
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CVG writes:

"Goichi Suda, otherwise known as Killer 7 and No More Heroes director Suda 51, claims that third-party titles for the Wii aren't selling in his home land and that only Nintendo is really profiting from its success.

Speaking about the sales of No More Heroes in Japan, he told us, "Whilst the sales weren't as high as I hoped, other titles for Wii aren't selling so well either. Only Nintendo titles are doing well. This isn't just because of the current situation in Japan, as this is happening outside Japan."
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16th Jan, 2008 Given his involvement in games like Killer7 and No More Heroes, people often assume director SUDA51 to be a very strange man indeed. They expect a dark and twisted Lynchian gore-fiend. They expect an overly-serious, high-brow arty type. They expect an bizarre, unholy, avant garde weird-monger with torrents of quirk pouring out of his ears. What they do not expect is a good-humoured Japanese man happily pottering around a videogame shop picking up a few PS2 games, but that's ... » Read More

No More Heroes is due to go on sale exclusively for the Wii on January 22 in the US, and February 29 in the UK. But the creator of the game, Goichi Suda, isn't exactly resting on his laurels.

Suda told GameSpot that what he really wants to do now is to make a sequel. When asked what games he was working on right now, he laughed, "It's a secret!" Then he confessed, "Actually, I'm really willing to make a sequel version -- and right now I'm asking if it can be made... I think No More Heroes is a great game, there's no other action game like it for the Wii. If it was a band, it would be really energetic, like the Arctic Monkeys."
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EDGE review scores Februari 2008 edition:

Nights: Journey of Dreams (Wii, Sega): 6
Soul Calibur Legends (Wii, Namco Bandai): 2
No More Heroes (Wii, Grasshopper Manufacture): 9
Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii, Sierra Entertainment): 7
Burnout Paradise (PS3/Xbox 360, EA): 9
Soldier of Fortune: Payback (PS3/Xbox 360, Activision): 4
The Club (PS3/Xbox 360, Sega): 7
Pain (PS3 PSN, Sony): 6
Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (PSP, Sony): 6
R-Type Tactics (PSP, Irem): 6
Dragoneer's Aria (PSP, Koei): 4
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Publisher Ubisoft previously had its potential cult-hit action game, No More Heroes, set for a February release, right up against a little fighter called Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Not the best decision, but thankfully the company seems to have reconsidered and fans of offerings like Killer 7 are the benefactors of the decision.

Ubisoft confirmed to IGN Wii this afternoon that No More Heroes has officially been moved up for a January 22 release date -- less than three weeks from now, if you're counting.
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With the news that two different versions of No More Heroes will be published in North America, many European gamers began to wonder how the localized treatment from Rising Star would turn out. Earlier today, that question was answered in the form of Rising Star's Managing Director, Martin Defries.

Courtesy of Play.tm:

"There are two versions of No More Heroes that are going to be published in the West," revealed MD Martin Defries. "Ours, which will be drawn down from our parent company, Marvelous Interactive, which is directly from the Japanese iteration of the game, and there will be a version in the US that is a full-on gore, beheadings, dismemberment¿and it seems some confusion has come to the fore in the past few days as to which version Rising Star Games will publish.

"Why the decision has been made is a difficult one for me to comment on - that's a Ubisoft decision for the North American market. We've always drawn down our games from Japan, we tailor them in language, in text and audio, and nothing else."

So while both North America and Europe will see the release of the Japanese version, the violently enhanced version will remain in the West.
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Following this week's news that the European version of Grasshopper's highly anticipated No More Heroes will be censored, as per the Japanese version of the title, the game's developers have issued a statement claiming that it was their decision ¿ and not publisher Rising Star Games ¿ to release the toned-down version of the title in this territory.
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11th Dec, 2007 If videogames are the new rock ‘n roll, then No More Heroes is the Sex Pistols. Gory or not, Suda 51s latest is more than just crazy, violent and visually striking (although it is all of those things). More than anything else, No More Heroes is punk, in a way that we cant remember a game ever having been before. There really is no other word to describe it. The sense of anarchic, dont-give-a-f*ck hedonism runs through every aspect of the game like a stream of Sid Vicious ... » Read More

Face it: Japanese Wii owners buy Wii Sports, Wii Fit and maybe Super Mario Galaxy. That's about it, really! So, when a third party company releases something that, well, isn't any of those three, what happens? Not much. That's No More Heroes executive producer and Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada and No More Heroes and Killer 7 creator Goichi Suda hoping to give out toilet paper and hoping to sign copies of NMH. Thing is, after twenty minutes of Suda and Wada standing in front of Akihabara's Sofmap, nobody bought the game. Keep in mind, that not only two well-known game creators were giving out toilet paper, but there was also a woman in a mini-skirt. Talk about a tough crowd!
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An impressive first day sales for Xbox 360's Exclusive title Lost Odyssey.

Else where No More Heroes did not sell to expectations with only 10k sold and Uncharted in with 7k.

Tales of Innocence (DS) : about 75k (About 50% of shipments)

Everbody's Golf Portable 2 (PSP) : about 40k

Lost Odyssey (360) : about 40k (About 50% of shipments)

PowerPro-kun Pocket 10 (DS) : about 20k

Yuusya no Kuse ni Namaiki da (PSP) : about 15k

Gintama: Gintama Quest (DS) : about 15k

No More Heroes (Wii) : about 10k

SILENT HILL ZERO (PSP) : about 10k

Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena (360) : about 10k

Uncharted (PS3) : about 7k

Yakuza 2 (cheap edition) (PS2) : about 7k
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