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Iwata: only 35% of Wiis are online, 20% of DS

Nintendo has never been known for fully embracing online gaming, and the Wii trails a distant third behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 when it comes to playing online — despite being the top selling console. Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata has revealed numbers on online connectivity, saying that 35% of Wii consoles are online and only 20% of Nintendo DS consoles.

Furthermore, Iwata said that those numbers will decline if the company doesn’t “take aggressive action” on the online front — which it of course plans to do. All we can say is; it’s about damn time!

Miami police arrests Modern Warfare 2 pirate

It seems that Activision can’t get enough PR for the release of Modern Warfare 2, as the game is now in the spotlight after 18 year old Christian Del Amo was arrested by Miami Police for trying to sell pirated versions of the game.

This comes after Activision had hired an online investigation firm to look into suspicious posts on Craigslist advertising Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundles for sale. With the age of high-speed internet, where anyone can download the pirated version, why would you even try and sell the pirated version on a burned disc? That kind of “business” seems so 1999.

Cliffy B: Borderlands is the Diablo of FPS

Cliff Beszinski, better known as Cliffy B, showed his love for Borderlands by tweeting “Borderlands, I adore you. You’re Diablo for a generation raised on first person shooters. I want a Claptrap.” He’s quite right, Borderlands might just be the Diablo of FPS games, considering that you’ll be spending a lot of time looting and managing your inventory. For more on the game, read our Borderlands review.

Game Boy inducted into toy Hall of Fame

It’s always an honor when a great athlete gets inducted in a Hall of Fame — earlier this year for instance, Micheal Jordan was inducted into the NBA hall of fame, and now, more importantly to us gamers, Nintendo’s original Game Boy has been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, specifically, the Strong National Museum of Play’s Toy Hall of Fame.

The original 8-bit Game Boy was released in 1989, and its subsequent variations, have sold over 120 million units world wide since then, with the best game being Tetris, selling a whopping 33 million copies.

Congratulations, Nintendo!

Nvidia posts $107m profit in Q3

Despite falling behind in both sales and technology to arch rival AMD, Nvidia managed to turn a solid $107 million profit in Q3, on revenues of $903.2 million, mostly fueled by the mobile and laptop sector. Compared to last year, that’s an increase of 16%, and from the previous year by 18%. The company said that it expects revenues in Q4 to be up 2% from previous year.

The company is set to release their brand new graphics card and technology later this year, called Fermi.

Early copies of Modern Warfare 2 out in Europe

It appears that some European gamers have already received their copy of Modern Warfare 2, a few days ahead of the official launch, as retailers LoveFilm and The Hut have already shipped them, in in hopes that they wouldn’t get delayed in the postal systems.

They haven’t, in fact they’re early. UK retailer HMV (among others, including GAME) said that they won’t send the game out early, meaning those who pre-ordered will get theirs possible a day later than the release. Modern Warfare 2 will be released world wide on November 10.

Activision Blizzard posts $15m profits in Q3

The newly merged mega-publisher Activision Blizzard just posted their Q3 financial results, where they revealed profits of just $15 million on a whopping $703 million in sales, which as any businessman and wall street analyst will tell, isn’t the best profit margin. The revenue increased almost $100 million compared to the same time last year, but that year, the company lost $108 million. Now $15 million doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all. Activision Blizzard still expects sales to top $4 billion this year.

Namco Bandai posts $66m loss in 1H 2009

Publisher/developer Namco Bandai has posted some rather dim results for the first half of 2009.

The company lost $66 million, while it posted a profit of $14 million during the same period last year, so it’s quite a decline, mostly attributed to lack of decent titles during the period. The company still expects sales to reach $94 million this year, fueled by Tekken 6, of which 2.5 million copies have already been shipped.

Unreal 3 Development Kit launches

Epic Games has launched a free edition of their massively popular Unreal Engine 3, called Unreal Development Kit. The kit includes access to the Unreal Engine 3, the Unreal Editor, which comes with a whole suite of development tools, and the ability to distribute games on their own, for free, with no additional software required.

Obviously, it’s only intended for games that are free, similarly to mods, since the “real” Unreal Engine 3 costs upwards of $900,000 for a commercial license.

You can find the Unreal Development Kit at www.udk.com, and where you can already download games build with the new kit.

Sony sued over PS3 firmware update

Owners of PlayStation 3 systems that have been broken by the latest firmware update have filed suit on behalf of everyone who downloaded system update 3.0 or 3.01. Two gamers from Texas and Iowa allege that the latest update caused PS3s consoles to malfunction, with problems including loss of controller use and the malfunction of the Blu-ray drive.

Their main complaint seems to be that Sony is charging a $150 fee to repair the consoles that were broken by the firmware update. The two are now seeking a class-action lawsuit against Sony.

Back in 2006, an owner sued Microsoft for bricking his console with an update and settled out of court.

WiiWare demos coming

Nintendo has revealed that the company plans on offering demos for their downloadable-only Wii games from WiiWare. Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata told investors during a Q&A session that the feature is in development, and will be tested with demos of a few selected titles, before demos are rolled out to cover most of the lineup. Nintendo hopes that the demos will increase sales in the WiiWare store, as it’s currently trailing competitors from Microsoft (Xbox Live) and Sony (PSN).

Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition announced

EA has announced the Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition (you knew it was coming, right?). The fancy edition contains everything you expect, an art book, a making-of DVD and issue 1 of the Mass Effect comic book, all neatly packed in a tin box. The Collector’s Edition will retail for $70 on the Xbox 360 and $60 on the PC.

Apple app store reaches 100,000 apps

Apple has reached a massive milestone with its app store for the iPhone and iPod touch, revealing that the store now features 100,000 applications categorized into 20 categories, and over 125,000 developers have signed up and are actively making apps.

Over 2 billion applications have been downloaded in over 77 countries. Astonishingly, over 19% of those apps are games, meaning there are over 19,000 different games on the platform, which definitely rivals the DS.

Walmart offering $100 gift card with Xbox 360 Arcade

Count this one as one of the really good offers you can get this holiday season: when you purchase a $199 Xbox 360 Arcade at Walmart, they’ll give you a $100 gift card, which you can use on games, accessories, or whatever else Walmart has to offer (which is a lot).

Forking over another $35, alongside the gift card, will get you a hard drive for your Arcade console — still a great deal. But hurry, there’s a limited amount of offers per store.

Warren Spector tried to buy Deus Ex rights

Noted game designer Warren Spector, who created Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War, revealed in an interview with Variety that he tried to buy the rights to the game from the publisher, but was unsuccessful. Specter said,

“There were and still are ‘Deus Ex’ stories I would like to tell. That story is not done for me. For the sci-fi game, I sort of filed the serial numbers off. ‘Deus Ex’ was very much a game of the millennium.”

Yep, a lot of people would argue that Deus Ex was the game of the millennium, especially if you’re into cyberpunk. Spector is also the creator of the Wing Commander and the Thief series and is currently working on Epic Mickey for Disney.