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When asked if Nintendo would consider making games for other mobile platforms such as the iPhone, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata answered unfavorably to the idea.

We think Nintendo is a company whose value is recognized by the way that we combine great software experiences with particular hardware capabilities that only we can offer. Therefore, my feeling is that offering our IP on other devices would have an adverse impact on the overall value of our company and at the same time I think that it’s not something that would add value to Nintendo.

That sounds very similar to Apple’s strategy with Mac OS. That’s an uncannily similar symmetry.

The PlayStation Move will launch on September 19 in North America with 13 titles and expected 32 more to come within Sony’s fiscal year. While 13 is an average number of games for the launch of any new platform, Nintendo’s really out performing Sony with its 3DS launch lineup.

Hit the jump to see the 13 games making PlayStation Move’s launch!
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For Nintendo fans who’ve felt like they’ve been left out in the cold for by the past Nintendo E3 press conferences, this year brings redemption in the form of 73 games. The 3DS’s lineup of games is jam packed with both first party and third party titles. KKid Icarus, Pilot Wings, PAper MArio, Animal Crossing, Star Fox 64, Resident Evil, the Sims, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Ridge Racer and MANY more.

Hit the jump for the full list!

• Kid Icarus^™: Uprising, the long-awaited franchise follow-up to the NES^™ classic.
• Mario Kart^™, which shows off the potential of driving and tossing bananas in 3D.
• nintendogs^™ + cats, a new version of the best-selling nintendogs franchise that lets players interact even more with their virtual puppies – and kittens! Read the rest of this entry »

Just ahead of Microsoft’s Monday morning press conference, USA Today has blown the lid on a few Kinect games and confirmed the name.

•Kinectimals lets you train and play with 20 different virtual cats, including a lion, cheetah and tiger.

•Joyride, a racing game, lets players use their hands to hold an imaginary steering wheel — pull your hands toward you and push back out for an acceleration boost — and their bodies to execute jumps and tricks.

•Kinect Sports has six activities including boxing, bowling, beach volleyball, track and field, soccer and table tennis. To serve a volleyball, you mimic the real motion; in soccer, you can kick the ball or do a header.

•Kinect Adventures includes a river-raft time trial and obstacle course, playable by up to four players. On the raft, playing as a duo, you and a partner must lean one way or another to steer. Jumping helps the raft reach special areas for extra points.

•Dance Central, in development by MTV Games, brings a So You Think You Can Dance experience home.

•Star Wars characters and iconic Disney favorites will be featured in separate new games being developed at Microsoft in conjunction with LucasArts and Disney.

“This is (Microsoft’s) attempt to leapfrog the Wii and broaden the appeal of the Xbox,” says Geoff Keighley of Spike’s GameTrailers. “The questions are, ‘Does the controller-free environment make (the Xbox 360) more accessible?’ and ‘Is it fun?’ “

Kinectimals? That’s Microsoft clearly taking a page from Nintendo’s book. Excited for any of the games above? Star Wars, maybe? Let us know in the comments!

PS You have no idea how badly we were tempted to make a joke about Kinectimals and Michael Vick.

A Video courtesy of Aperture Science.

For those people who own one of them things that has the same name as a common fruit will be happy to know that Steam is available RIGHT NOW, yes that’s right Steam on the Mac is available for immediate download from http://www.steamgames.com.

Never heard of Steam before?, well don’t worry Valve have you covered as it is will be showcasing new titles for the Mac each Wednesday with a barrel load available right now, full listings after the jump (It’s big).

But wait there’s more! Between Now and May 24th and you can buy a copy of Valve’s GOTY winning Portal for FREE! Where you can eat cake until your hearts content. VGTribune staff are very picky on their fruit consumption I’ll let you know. This offer is also good for Windows users too.

“The Mac is a great platform for developers,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “And it’s also great that we now have the ability to connect with Mac gamers via Steam. This is the beginning of a groundswell of games coming out for and fully utilizing the openness and power of the Mac.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The current way to run Steam on Linux- Day of Defeat: Source running via Wine emulator.

With Valve’s Steam gaming platform making it’s way to the Mac today, it’s been made official that Linux will be getting its very own version of Steam. Welcome to the party, Linux. Anyone else happy to see the penguin here? Let us know in the comments!

The iPhone really is the biggest platform currently for mobile developers, although with the way Apple treat developers you would think otherwise.

Apple has lifted the lid on another one of it’s big ideas at it’s OS4 preview, the idea is Game Center. Which is basically a mobile take on Microsoft’s Xbox Live. With those two words we can guess what’s coming. What does this mean for the likes Scoreloop and Plus+, we can only imagine.

Continuing with their denial of all things Flash, Apple have changed their iPhone Developer Program Licence Agreement. It now reads:

“Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).”

This seems to ban Flash to iPhone compilers that many studios currently use to convert their Flash titles to work on the iPhone, however some see it as move to block the Packager to iPhone OS technology coming in Flash Professional CS5. Adobe have responded to claims via Twitter saying:

“We are aware of the new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5.”

Will developers revolt, can they afford to? Who knows but Apple is certainly in for the long run.

[Via Casual Gaming Biz]

UK supermarket giants ASDA and Tesco have entered the huge pre-owned games market selling pre-owned titles in some of their UK stores. It’s understood that Asda is currently trialling the scheme in its Leeds store which is believed to have begun on Monday.

ASDA’s competitor, Tesco, has been running a similar scheme since last year. Both supermarkets are selling second hand titles and allow customers to trade them in.

The pair become the latest in a long-line of non-specialist retailers to enter into the second hand market,  following the likes of HMV and Woolworths in the UK. US retailers Wal-Mart and Toys R Us, as well as  online retailer Amazon, have also done the same at some locations within the US.

Pre-owned sales have always been a corner stone for retailers especially in the recession, with gamers seeking to get more value for money out of there purchase.

[Via MCV]

We still have no clue what titles Microsoft will launch with Natal, but Microsoft have yet again commented on speculation and said that it won’t just be throwing titles at Natal.

Speaking in an interview with Destructoid, Xbox product director Aaron Greenberg said:

“We want the first impression to be a great one, so we are not going to dump products on it just because we can,”

“We are going to be very careful in the way we think about our portfolio .We are going to be very thoughtful about what we bring to market.”

This comes after previous comments that Natal won’t just be for casual gamers but also for the main stream fanbase, as well as a leak of a possible launch date earlier this week from British TV personality Jonathan Ross.

Either way Natal is certainly shaping up to be quite an interesting launch creating a lot of hype anywhere it is mentioned lets just hope it’s launch does not follow other hyped up no-shows.