Nintendo raised its profit predictions for the year by a not-insignificant 26 percent, prompting the console maker's stock to surge on the Osaka Securities Exchange.

According to the Nintendo Co., Ltd. report, net income is set to climb 59 percent up to 410 billion yen ($3.8 billion) for the fiscal year ending in March 2009.

Nintendo credits strong sales of the Wii and DS systems for the increase. Nintendo's new estimate for DS sales pegs the system at over 30.5 million worldwide, a healthy increase over the previously estimated 28. The Wii is set to sell 26.5 million units instead of 25 million.

Also credited were strong software sales for both systems and exchange rates more favorable to Japanese companies. The announcement contradicts recent analyst predictions that DS sales were due to fall off, sparking rumors of a new DS.

The company's announcement comes less than a day after rival Sony CEO Howard Stringer confessed that Nintendo's business plan for the Wii "may be superior."

As previously rumored, Activision today confirmed that it will debut an accelerometer motion sensor for the Nintendo DS alongside a new Tony Hawk game this fall.

Due out in November, Tony Hawk's Motion brings twisting, tilting and turning skateboarding controls to the DS. The game, developed by Creat Studios, also marks the first time that a Tony Hawk entry has featured snowboarding.

In addition to Tony Hawk and the motion sensor, the $39.99 bundle will pack a second motion-controlled game, Creat's action-oriented puzzler Hue Pixel Painter.

Nintendo today denied reports that it is working on a new version of its Nintendo DS handheld.

The rumors, reported by several sites, indicated that a new Nintendo DS will be announced in early 2009. The purported update is said to boast larger screens, as well as a second touchscreen.

Nintendo labeled the talk "rumor and speculation." The company has not revised the Nintendo DS since the debut of the DS Lite in early 2006.

Following widespread sentiment that Nintendo is neglecting its fans with a lackluster lineup of hardcore games, the company is now saying that those traditional titles are coming--just not anytime soon.

"We have never neglected our core gamers," said Nintendo in the October edition of Edge magazine according to Eurogamer. "We still have developers working on popular core gaming franchises but we need longer to complete these games, approximately two to three years."

"These games are not ready to launch in early 2009 but are being worked on by all development teams," added the company.

After teasing a major hardcore announcement at E3, Nintendo's brief mention of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS) and a new Pikmin title did little to satisfy fans.

Nintendo has been running damage control ever since, with president Satoru Iwata going so far as to apologize for the disappointing showing.

Echoing remarks made by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, Nintendo of America marketing VP Cammie Dunaway expressed disappointment over the company's oft-criticized showing at this year's E3 Media & Business Summit.

"We were disappointed with our performance at E3," Dunaway told VGChartz. "There were titles like [Wario Land: Shake It!] which we think will be really fun titles that we should have showcased."

Nintendo's E3 conference centered on a short list of titles which appeared to focus more on the casual market than core gamers, including Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort, and Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Perhaps the most exciting announcement to come out of the conference—the revelation of a Pikmin sequel—had to be pried out of celebrated developer Shigeru Miyamoto at a developer roundtable.

"We were excited that Mr. Miyamoto made the commitment that Pikmin is coming," Dunaway added. "It would have been nice if we could have said that on stage. But, we think it was a good recognition for us that we care for our core fans, and not just the new people who are now discovering Nintendo."

Nintendo has announced the latest batch of games hitting the Wii's downloadable gaming platform, with Capcom's classic platformer Mega Man finally arriving on the Virtual Console.

Meanwhile, the update also includes a new original WiiWare title, as well as another Virtual Console offering. As per Nintendo's usual release schedule, the games are available as of 12 PM EST, 9 AM PST today.

WiiWare

• Midnight Pool (Gameloft) / 800 Wii Points ($8)

Virtual Console

• Mega Man (Capcom, NES) / 500 Wii Points ($5)
• Neo Turf Masters (SNK, Neo-Geo) / 900 Wii Points ($9)

Read on for more details as provided by Nintendo... Read more

Xbox 360 maker Microsoft has denied that third party games--titles not produced by the console manufacturer--on the Nintendo Wii sell better than those on the Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, contradicting a Nintendo statement from last week.

Citing data from sales tracking firm the NPD Group, Microsoft said that the Xbox 360's lifetime third party sales amounted to roughly 68M units, followed by the Wii at about 33.4M, and the PlayStation 3 at just under 20M. Third party titles appearing on the Xbox 360 sold 217,252 units on average, compared to an average of 132,517 on the Wii.

"No matter how you slice it, the Wii third party game story is not a pretty one," Microsoft interactive entertainment PR manager David Dennis told GamesIndustry.

In a GameDaily report last week, Nintendo said the Wii's third party titles were selling "better than our competitors," and provided a chart highlighting the Wii's software performance. Compiled with data from sales-tracking firm NPD, the... Read more

"I don't give a fuck what they call it, I'm calling it the revolution."

The real uprising started the day the Revolution died.

It was April 27, 2006, and gamers were primed for Nintendo's next-gen box, codenamed Revolution. In the all-important console war, the company had ended the previous generation in last place with its GameCube. Thoroughly beaten by Sony's juggernaut PlayStation 2, and even edged out by newcomer Microsoft with its Xbox, Nintendo was sucking wind--or just plain sucking, depending on who you asked.

Despite a healthy business, both publishers and consumers were losing interest in Nintendo's approach. Though the Revolution and its motion controller seemed a radical move, it was also seen as a possible gimmick, a last-ditch effort that wouldn't play with real gamers. One got the sense that the company's next big play in the home console game might be its last.

And then, like an oblivious plumber bending over in a bow, Nintendo let loose a gaseous mushroom cloud of megaton proportions.

"Introducing the Wii," they said.

"The what?"

A collective state of denial quickly washed over the internet. Disapproval of the name was almost universal. Noses turned, some fans vowed to simply ignore the name in favor of the old inspirational codeword.

"I can almost hear the sound of Xbox 360 and PS3 sales rising," said... Read more

Celebrated game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's original plans for the Nintendo's motion-oriented Wii will be entirely realized with the fall release of Wii Music, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed.

"Wii Music completes what Miyamoto wrote in his proposal when he came up with the idea for the Wii," Iwata told the Wall Street Journal. "He was saying that he needs to think up more ideas now."

Miyamoto's design scheme was presented at this year's Game Developer's Conference by Nintendo director Takao Sawano, who unveiled a conceptual diagram created by the designer as part of his proposal for the Wii console. The diagram showed numerous references to Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Play.

Wii Music was also a part of this early design phase, and was one of the first titles demonstrated on the system, debuting at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show... Read more

A follow-up to the Nintendo DS may be introduced as early as later this year, oft-quoted Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes.

"We think that the timing of a new product introduction will depend upon the sales profile for the DS, and believe that lower than expected DS hardware sales could trigger an earlier launch for the new device," Pachter told investors, as reported by Edge.

The analyst further noted that the system's weakening sales in Japan might prompt the introduction of a DS successor in the territory before the end of the 2008. "We think that Nintendo has a new handheld device ready for launch in [Japan] before the end of the calendar year," he said.

While Nintendo's most recent quarterly financial report saw the DS selling 6.94 million units for a lifetime worldwide sales total of 77.54 million, the figures also marked a decline of hardware sales during the period, down around 40,000... Read more

A recently uncovered patent for holographic storage technology was co-signed by Nintendo, indicating that the console manufacturer is investigating new methods of data storage for future projects.

The patent, filed jointly by Inphase Technologies and Nintendo, concerns "miniature flexure based scanners for angle multiplexing." The document was filed in March 2007, and was issued in February 2008.

Inphase Technologies is a Bell Labs spin-off venture, with the stated goal of "becoming the first company to bring holographic data storage technology to market."

Holographic data storage is achieved by "recording multiple images in the same area utilizing light at different angles," according to Wikipedia.

Like many, I was utterly bewildered by Nintendo's E3 2008 press conference. The missing "core" game announcement was disappointing, but not quite as unsettling as the unshakable notion that I was ultimately wrong about Nintendo's intentions towards gamers who've stuck with it since the beginning.

And as I walked out, I had the concentrated sense that as a longtime Nintendo fan, I was being forgotten, or at best, misunderstood.

With an hour to burn at its E3 conference, Nintendo offered up Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, Animal Crossing: City Folk and just a few others, plus a swift mention of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS to get those pesky 18-24 year-old males out of the way. See? We've got something for everyone.

What's troubling isn't that the title for hardcore gamers never materialized--it's that Nintendo thought it had... Read more

On the strength of Wii sales, Nintendo's first quarter profit increased 34% compared to a year ago, the company announced today.

The April - June period was good for a $996 million profit on revenues of $3.9 billion. Nintendo shifted 5.2 million Wii units, along with 3.42 million copies of Wii Fit and 6.42 million copies of Mario Kart Wii during the quarter.

Taking these figures into account, total worldwide Wii sales are now at 29.6 million.

Sony recently announced it sold 1.56 million PlayStation 3 consoles during the same period, while Microsoft shipped 1.3 million Xbox 360s.

Compared to the same period a year ago, sales of the Nintendo DS dipped by forty thousand units. It still sold 6.94 million units, and worldwide sales of the handheld are now at 77.54 million. For the entire fiscal year, which runs until March 2009, Nintendo expects to earn $3 billion on revenues of $16.8 billion.

Nintendo and 54 developers and publishers have filed suit in the Tokyo District Court to block the marketing, sales and importation of DS flash cart devices, which allow users to easily load pirated DS software onto flash media for play in Nintendo's handheld.

The devices—such as the R4 Revolution for DS and CycloDS Evolution, among others—are similar in form to standard Nintendo DS cartridges, while featuring a small slot for MicroSD cards which can be loaded with pirated DS games, homebrew software, utilities and other data.

In a statement reproduced by Kotaku, Nintendo said that the devices are "causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook."

The company added that the devices cause harm to the growth of the game industry as a whole, and that steps must be taken regarding the legality of flash cartridges. Other companies participating in the suit include Capcom, Square Enix, SNK, and Sega.

Though the suit carries legal weight only in Japan, it seems likely that Nintendo may eventually pursue a similar action in North America—such devices have... Read more

Following the debut of the Wii MotionPlus peripheral at last week's E3 2008 exhibition, several third party Wii developers told GameInformer that they were not given prior notice of the peripheral's development before its official unveiling.

According to the report, the developers questioned added that they were not briefed of the implementation of the Wii MotionPlus—which promises to bring one-to-one motion control to the Wii Remote—and were doubtful that they would be able to support the device in games currently under development.

Announced at Nintendo's E3 press conference, the Wii MotionPlus peripheral is currently slated as compatible with only a single game, Wii Sports Resort... Read more

Nintendo's request for a retrial in a recent patent infringement case by Anascape has been denied by U.S. District Judge Ron Clark.

In the initial ruling, Nintendo was found to have violated Anascape patents relating to analog sticks in its GameCube, WaveBird, and Wii Classic controllers, and was ordered to pay $21 million.

However, Nintendo is still appealing the overall ruling to the Federal Circuit court.

Anascape has since filed for a motion to stop retail sales of the above Nintendo controllers, with the order expected to go through today. If approved, that ban will be suspended while Nintendo appeals the case.

According to Bloomberg, Anascape claims Nintendo's controllers have "clogged the channel" that would allow it to begin selling controllers. Both Sony and Microsoft were named in the initial lawsuit, and both settled out-of-court for undisclosed sums in May.

Responding to criticism that the Nintendo's E3 showings lacked a major first-party Wii title aimed at the hardcore gamer, president Satoru Iwata has apologized to those who felt betrayed.

"We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about Super Mario or Legend of Zelda," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told Forbes.

During Nintendo's recent E3 press conference, the company appeared to focus on casual-oriented titles, such as Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Sports Resort, and quickly glossed over major hardcore announcements, such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS and word that the teams for Mario and Zelda were working on new, unspecified titles.

"If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it's a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means," he continued. "The so-called big titles need a long, long development period...we really didn't think this year's E3 media briefing was the time to... Read more

Nintendo is currently at work on a new entry in its gardening-inspired real-time strategy franchise Pikmin.

"We're making Pikmin," acclaimed designer Shigeru Miyamoto revealed at a roundtable discussion today, following a question about the franchises' future.

No platform or release date for the next Pikmin effort was specified, though the game's RTS and troop-tossing elements seem a perfect for the Wii.

Thus far, two Pikmin entries have been released, both for the Nintendo GameCube.

Nintendo today announced the development of Wii Music, demonstrating the title at the company's E3 2008 press conference. The game is scheduled for release this coming holiday.

Wii Music allows multiple users to play in bands simultaneously. Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated an in-game saxophone, holding the Wii Remote up as one would play such an instrument.

The company added that more than fifty instruments are planned for the title, including pianos, violins, electric guitars, marimbas. No additional peripherals beyond the Wii Remote are required for the game. Wii Music also appears to support... Read more

Nintendo has revealed Wii Sports Resort, a follow-up to the Wii's packed-in launch title.

The game will include the previously announced Wii MotionPlus accessory, which improves the precision and accuracy of the Wii Remote.

Nintendo's Cammie Dunaway demonstrated the game and accessory on stage at the company's E3 2008 press conference, where a number of the game's activities were shown off. Wii Sports Resort includes such activities as the fencing game Sword Play, the jet skiing game Power Cruising and a frisbee toss game known as Disc Dog.

The Wii MotionPlus accessory drastically improves the accuracy of the Wii Remote, and appears to bring 1:1 motion to the hardware rather than relying on the Wii Remote's infrared pointer.

Both the game and the Wii MotionPlus attachment are due for release in the spring of 2009.