Nintendo has dropped the word about their Q1 and Q2 2009 release schedule, confirming some exciting releases coming up for both the Nintendo DS and Wii. What’s coming up? New Pikmin and a new Wii Sports, which seem to be using the new MotionPlus attachment!

Nintendo Wii

• New Play Control! Pikmin (Feb. 6 Europe, March US)
• New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis (March 3 Europe, March US)
• Punch Out!! (First half 2009, Europe and US)
• Wii Sports Resort (2009 Europe, first half 2009 US)
• Sin & Punishment 2 (2009, Europe and US)
• Another Code R and Endless Ocean 2 (2009 Europe)
• New Play Control! Pikmin 2 (First half 2009, Europe)

Nintendo DS

• Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir (Feb 2 Europe)
• Walk with me! Do you know your walking routine? (Feb 20 Europe, 2009 US as Personal Trainer: Walk with Me!)
• Pokemon Platinum (2009 Europe, March 22 US)
• Rhythm Paradise / Heaven (2009, Europe and US)
• Mario and Luigi RPG 3 (2009, Europe and US)
• Kirby Super Star Ultra (2009 Europe)
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Feb 16 US)

Wow, if this doesn’t spell out who the champion of this gens console war is, I don’t know what will. Wii Sports, the title Nintendo bundles with every Wii console, has become the top selling game of all time with over 40 million sold, an indication of the amazing sales figures Nintendo is seeing of it’s casual-leaning console. A bit of a cop-out, we know, and certainly not worthy of toppling Mario from his #1 spot, but a great milestone for Nintendo nonetheless!

Well that wasn’t very exciting now was it? As we wrote about over a year ago, Vienna, Austria-based Bplus was working on Plaettchen, one of the first Wiiware titles for the Nintendo Wii’s virtual console. Well, seems a few weeks ago the game was released, to little press or fanfare whatsoever.

PLÄTTCHEN – twist ’n’ paint is a puzzle shooter with more than 100 hours and over 300 levels of gameplay for up to 8 players and available for around 1400 points via the Nintendo Wii virtual console shop.

Though only a moderate success for the Wii, having sold in the area of 350,000 copies worldwide, No More Heroes has grown to become a cult classic for the Nintendo Wii, giving Westerner’s a look at how talented Japanese developers view the mature action market over here, dominated by GTA.

Over the weekend, Yahoo via it’s Playback video blog series took a quick look at the ongoing console wars, declaring that the PS3 is struggling against the monstrous power of Nintendo and the resurgence in love for the Xbox 360.

Taking a quick peek over to VG Chartz we’re seeing that while Microsoft has had some momentum in Japan, which was no doubt a surprising turn of events in Sony’s backyard, the Xbox 360 is by no means leaps and bounds ahead of the PS3. The real question is, can Microsoft keep the pressure up with exciting releases and rumored price drops, thereby widening the sell-through gap? Also, what to do about Blu-Ray? Sure it’s a great format, but still not perfect and certainly not excepted among the mainstream. The driving force of monopolizing the next-gen DVD market doesn’t seem to be injecting Sony with a console sales push (and will it ever be referred to as the “Blu-Ray Market” among the mainstream?). So what’s Sony to do? Price drop? We certainly hope so, but can Sony really afford to bleed anymore with the PS3?

Regardless, neither of them can compete with Nintendo’s Wii, the comeback kid who everyone discounted at the beginning as being too gimmicky or under-powered. Seems the move to cater to the casual gamers, in effect carving out your own niche in the console market, was quite a brilliant move.

With everyone going mental over Ubisoft these days, I thought it would only be right to post up the Raving Rabbids 2 teaser trailer which Jeux France recently broke all over town. All CG, there is no gameplay footage anywhere to be found in this video, but naturally we’ll be seeing much much more over the coming weeks from these wacky bunnies.

Video and press release after the jump..

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System3 CEO Mark Cale recently sat down with PALGN to talk a little about their upcoming DS, Wii and PSP titles Leaderboard, California Games and Ferrari Challenge. Essentially remakes of retro Commodore 64 titles, System3 is enhancing the visuals and game play of these classic titles and bringing them to everyones favorite handheld, the Nintendo DS (and not everyones favorite, the Sony PSP). Some of the enhancements to California Games, one of my most favorite games EVAR, is the addition of online multiplayer! A long-desired feature of the arcade elite of yesterday. The DS version will have four player multiplayer, with up to 8 players being able to shred head to head on the PSP

PALGN: You touched on California Games, which was such a massive hit back in the day, can you tell us a little bit about how the modern day remake is going to be handled?

Mark Cale: We’re re-skinning the game, bringing it up to date having the original available to play, which is the total 64 version, not emulated but totally redone from scratch, but using the exact 64 animations and positions as well as generally re-skinning, bringing it totally up to date with the look, the feel and the sound and then to merge we’ve got the original character in the new re-skinned background, that withstands the test of time. California Games however withstands the test of time in terms of being a sports title and a great, fun title to play against your friends. Unfortunately, the one disadvantage it has is that it that it only ever had six events. So, how do we get over that? Well, the simple answer for us is that, what you do is you have your six events, which if you recall were the surfing, the BMX, the Frisbee, the Keepy Uppy, half pipe and rollerblading. Once you compete in these events, if you get a gold medal in one of the events, it unlocks Summer Games 1 and 2, and you are then chosen the represent your country, and then you represent your country playing Summer Games 1 and 2, so what it does is that it actually unlocks a whole sort of a game series, instead of giving you just six events, you’ve now got twenty two events.

Read more: Mark Cale talks California Games

In an exclusive interview with games.net, Miyamoto-san reveals some of his worries going into the US Wii launch, which ended up turning out to be a huge huge success, considering most can’t even find a Wii on the shelf, months after the launch of the console worldwide. In the interview, Miyamoto takes us on a stroll through his past, discussing how he started at Nintendo, his worries over the US Wii launch and some interesting tidbits of hype/information about the future of the Wii.

One of the many interesting quotes from the man himself

There are other enhancements to the Wii interface and developments being planned that are going to really make games for hardcore players a lot more fun and interesting.

Read more: Miyamoto discusses the Wii launch and his past

It seems Microsoft just isn’t feeling the Wii60 love anymore now that Sony has won a few minor PR battles in the UK. In a recent report by Daily Tech, Microsoft’s Xbox platform and Live product manager, John Rodman, implied that Wii customers are kids saying:

We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing. We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else.

Ouch!

Read more: MS: Silly gamers, Wii is for kids

Shuttle has always been a special company. Always affordable to computer enthusiasts on the VAR level, Shuttle is known for staying current with stylish industrial design on top of affordable budget PC hardware. But sometimes borrowing from other influences a tad obviously. Which seems to be the case (at least to me) for their latest media center PC, the XPC X200MC, which measures in at just a miniature 5.5 cm tall and (surprisingly) thin, about 3 DVD cases, I’d say. It features an Intel GMA950 on-board graphics chip with DVI and VGA out, multi-channel digital audio out, room for an Intel Core Duo mobile processor, room for up to 2GB of RAM and an integrated TV tuner card with remote for all your digital video or home entertainment needs. Oh, it also looks a little bit like a Wii. There, I said it.

Larger shot after the jump..

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