Newsdump

Dancing with Link

Do you ever read press releases? We read them every day. They range from bland to moronic to hilarious nonsense - and here's a prime example of that last one. "Call your friends, cancel your plans and set your cell phone on vibrate. The first TV commercial for Nintendo's amazing new Wii video game system is set to air Tuesday night."

Are they serious?

At any rate, yes - the commercial will be on tonight. During Dancing with the Stars. The good news? It'll also be on YouTube and Nintendo.com after it hits the airwaves. Still, the image of Nintendo fanboys camped out in front of the television, watching Slater from Saved by the Bell twirl around the screen, is so pathetically humorous that we're sorry we have to share that information.

PS3? Not so much

More good news from Sony:Next Generation reportsthat an analyst is predicting a mere 150,000 to 200,000 units for the US launch instead of the 400,000 promised. This comes on the back ofnewsthat the GameStop chain won't be receiving enough consoles to fill its preorders. Now, analysts are more or less people paid a lot of money to make educated guesses, and they're wrong a lot of the time. But they're often right, too, and if so, this spells even more trouble for the PS3. Man, are we tired of trouble with the PS3. Especially now that we've got our hands on a final retail unit - we really like it. So get with the making-and-selling, Sony, and stop screwing around, k?

Selling out, sorta

Well, we've already reported that the PS3 sold 88,400 units in Japan over the course of its launch weekend (Saturday November 11 and Sunday November 12) according to top Japanese game mag Famitsu.On its website, Famitsu has now revealed that the top three games for the system over the same period wereRidge Racer 7(30,300 units sold),Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire(30,000) andResistance: Fall of Man(15,700). That's 76,000 total pieces of software - so any way you slice it, with other games selling even less, a number of PS3s were sold without a single game in the bag alongside them. That's not so groovy, since many of those PS3s probably made their way to auction sites. Then again, those buyers will just be grabbing software down the road... oh, it's such a mess. In the age of eBay, console launches are no fun.

Study up

Sony has already publishedthe manualsfor the PlayStation 3 system on itswebsite. This user's guide is actually meant to be accessed from within the PS3, but there's no reason you can't check it out on your PC, too. Learn all about the advanced features of the Cross Media Bar. If that sounds appealing. It sure doesn't, to us... we like to learn by doing.

New screens

Yoshi's Island DS (DS)
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (PC)
Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 (PS2,Xbox)
Final Fantasy III (DS)
Dave Mirra BMX Challenge (PSP)
Super Sing Golf (Wii)
Alien Shooter: Vengeance (PC)
Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles (PS2)
SingStar Rocks (PS2)
EA Replay (PSP)
Need for Speed Carbon (Wii)
Blazing Angels (PS3)

New videos

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (PC)
Blazing Angels (PS3)
Final Fantasy III (DS)

November 14, 2006