Late Night Consoling

Responding to inquiries regarding specific planned PlayStation 3 shipment numbers following yesterday's reductions and European delay, Sony Computer Entertainment America has sent over a more detailed breakdown. Initially, the company is aiming to ship 400,000 PS3 units to North America for the system's November 17 launch. In Japan, the company aims to ship 100,000 units for the November 11 launch, followed by approximately 100,000 per week for the remainder of the year. By the end of this December, Sony plans to have shipped between 1.2 million units each to North America and Japan. When PS3 launches in Europe on an unspecified date in March 2007, Sony plans to have 1 million units available, with a total of 1.5 million available there by the end of the month. In total, the company is looking to have 6 million systems shipped worldwide by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007.

For its part, Nintendo also sent over a brief reiteration of its planned shipment numbers for Wii. "Wii is on track to ship in Q4," said a Nintendo representative. "Nintendo plans to ship 6 million systems to retailers around the world between its launch in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007." The company has still not announced a release date for the machine, though many suspect that information will be revealed during a series of press events next week.

Castlevania has seen a great deal of critical and commercial success in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, its first Nintendo DS outing. Recent entries on home consoles, however, haven't been quite so hot in either department. However, speaking in an interview on Nintendo Europe's official site, series producer Koji Igarashi suggested that the series might be showing up on the upcoming Wii console (registration required). Though most of the interview was dedicated to the upcoming Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (NDS), IGA, by which he is commonly referred, briefly spoke on the possibility of a return to home consoles. "We still can't think about anything other than this DS version because we are so busy but of course we would like to think of something interesting and pleasant for Wii," he said. "I have some ideas for Castlevania for Wii." This runs contrary to statements made by IGA earlier this year, when he indicated that he in fact was lacking ideas for a Wii version of Castlevania. IGA gave no indication as to whether the game would feature 2D or 3D gameplay.

Koei today announced that it will be publishing a followup to last year's Dynasty Warriors for PSP. Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 will be developed for PSP by series developers Omega Force. The game will feature up to four player multiplayer via local wireless, and players will also be able to wirelessly trade the game's 300 unlockable officers. All 48 Dynasty Warriors are available, and the single-player mode contains over 50 stages across 31 maps. Vol. 2 also includes Musou Mode and Free Mode, as well as a mode allowing players to browse through the game's characters and stages. - Screenshots.

Omega Force's Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 is set to ship for PSP in North America this fall.

IGN Wii has posted a Wii rumor based on presumably reliable information delivered to developers. Apparently, the system's remote-shaped controller will able to store personalized game optiosn and preferences using 4KB of memory contained on the controller itself--presumably, this would be things such as sensitivity settings. Players would therefore be able to take their controller over to friends' houses and have their settings already locked in. The report gets a little unclear when it explains that only one game's settings can be stored in the controller at any given time, and loading a game's settings into memory would overwrite the settings that were already there. My assumption of how the system works is that each game would have its settings permanently stored on the console's internal flash memory, and when a player inserts a game, the controller would load the specific profile that corresponds to that controller. The IGN story seems a little short on specific details, but considering it was obtained secondhand, it's not likely Nintendo will clarify things before any official announcements are made.

IGN also reports that, along with the controller memory specs, developers also have documentation on the controller's internal speaker, whose use has previously only been showcased in Nintendo-developed titles.

Tracking firm NPD Funworld has released its video game industry sales data for the month of August and, despite only having been on sale for the last week of the month, EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 07 dominated the charts. Madden NFL 07 on PlayStation 2 took the #1 slot, and the franchise covered half of the top ten across the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 platforms, including Hall of Fame special editions for PS2 and Xbox 360. The PS2 version of EA Tiburon's NCAA Football 07 also grabbed the #7 spot. Of the non-football titles, Capcom's Dead Rising (X360) won out at #3, followed by Square Enix's shooter spinoff Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (PS2) at #5, and Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. (NDS) managing to keep in the top ten at #6. Finally, the PS2 version of Rockstar Leeds' Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories came in at #9.

On the hardware side, the Nintendo DS had another month on top, moving 278,000 units. The perennial PlayStation 2 followed with 262,000 units, with Xbox 360 coming in at 204,000. Another consistent seller, Game Boy Advance, moved 156,000, with Sony's PSP grabbing 146,000 sales. GameCube managed 41,000 units, and Xbox had 9,000.

A playable demo of the Xbox 360 version of EA Canada's NHL 07 has been released on Xbox Live Marketplace. The 541MB free download allows players to go head to head versus the opposing goalie using the game's new "Skill Stick" control method.

Electronic Arts also announced that the Aragorn's Journey map content pack released last month for EA LA's Xbox 360 version of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II has received a price drop. The three maps are now available for 350 Microsoft Points (~$4.38), half of their initial value.