The new Los Angeles studio of Japanese publisher Square Enix will start by focusing its efforts on downloadable games, according to Square Enix US president John Yamamoto.

"We started the in-house development team a couple of months ago and we're starting with downloadable content because the team is still small," Yamamoto told GamesIndustry. "All formats--Xbox Live, WiiWare, PlayStation Network--are all viable formats for us," he added.

The Los Angeles development team is very small, with "a skeleton crew of only three members." The publisher reportedly wants to boost that team up to 30 inside the next year.

Square Enix's newest studio will also be charged with researching middleware following the commercial and critical success of The Last Remnant... Read more

That blue hedgehog is at it again in this trailer for Sega's Sonic Unleashed (360, PS3, PS2, Wii). This time it's the locations that are given special attention, as the speedy wonder runs through a huge variety of climates and geographical features as if the Travel Channel were viewed in fast-motion.

Despite Sonic's curious delay in Japan, Unleashed is still on track for release this holiday season in North America.

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Following Sonic Unleashed trailer tradition, an additional trailer for the PS2 and Wii version of the game can be seen below... Read more

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental non-profit group, has studied the energy consumption patterns of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, and released a report showing each system's impact on the environment.

The study, noticed by Slashdot, found that American console players consume 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, on par with the entire consumption of the city of San Diego, California.

The Wii is far and away the most frugal of the three current-generation consoles by consuming an average of only 16 watts while active. The next best, the Xbox 360, leaps up 119 watts on average, and the PlayStation 3 steps up further to an average 150 watts.

The NRDC argues that the use of power-saving features in consoles could cut up to 11 billion of that 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, saving $1 billion on electric bills and cutting CO2 emissions by 7 million tons--as much as all the cars in San Jose, California.

The group pointed out that the 360 and PS3's power-saving auto-shutdown features are turned off by default. Shacknews readers are encouraged to visit the NRDC's guides for enabling power-saving features to save a few bucks.

Electronic Arts has shut down its super-secret Blueprint division, going by an unconfirmed Variety report that cites an anonymous ex-employees.

Blueprint was started in mid-2007 by 11-year EA veteran Neil Young, who then left the company in 2008. With its dozen or so employees, the division was reportedly tasked with fighting high development costs by coordinating various small teams.

"Using distributed people and leveraging technology in a significant way would allow us to break the high-priced model of game development where everybody is on-site, hired as a full-time regular employee," the source told Variety.

One of Blueprint's projects was apparently a sequel to EA Los Angeles' and Steven Spielberg's physics-based action-puzzler Boom Blox (Wii). It was also tasked with several other EA efforts, including Spielberg's mysterious LMNO action game.

The report indicates that all Blueprint games will live on at different studios, adding that it was "never officially killed" but "simply doesn't exist" as it has no employees.

Armature, founded by veterans from Metroid Prime developer Retro, was apparently one the developers on board with Blueprint, though its project is not publicly known.

Commercialism and art clashed to form the Pop Art movement of the 1950s. They've also produced a pair of trailers for Red Eye's Mushroom Men series. One TV spot and one art trailer combine forces to sell Rise of the Fungi (Wii) and The Spore Wars (DS).

Gamecock is publishing both games, which will land on their respective systems on December 2.

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For the art-centric trailer, check below... Read more

Valve has announced that the PC version of Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War is now available on the Steam digital distribution service.

The World War II shooter, which is selling like hotcakes, can now be purchased online and downloaded through Steam for the price of $49.95, the same as buying the disc-based game from a brick-and-mortar retailer.

World at War released last week for a whole bevy of platforms. Treyarch handled the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wiieditions, while the PS2 version came from Rebellion and n-Space handled the Nintendo DS port.

Nintendo, whose online presence is subdued compared to those of rivals Sony and Microsoft, will unveil community software for the Wii in the future.

"Nintendo has always had a vision on community," said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime to Forbes' Chris Morris for his weekly column.

"The issue is that we define community differently than our competitors. ... Our consumers do want a sense of community, and we're going to deliver that--but in a way that is unique to Nintendo," he added.

Fils-Aime offered no further details on the community features, including a release date, but Morris projected that more will be known at E3 2009.

The executive also commented on the state of the Wii, which ... Read more

Treyarch's wartime shooter Call of Duty: World at War has more than doubled the week-one UK sales of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4, GamesIndustry reports.

World at War arrived at retailers last week, hitting two more platforms--PS2 and Wii--than Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which was released on PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS. The PS2 edition of CoD:WaW was developed by Rebellion, while n-Space handled the DS editions of both CoD4 and CoD:WaW.

As GamesIndustry and UK sales-tracking firm GfK Chart-Track did not provide a specific per-console breakdown of World at War's sales figures, the effect those additional platforms had on its retail performance is not yet known.

After Infinity Ward created the first two Call of Duty entries, Treyarch was brought on to co-develop the series as part of publisher Activision's "leapfrog strategy" for annual releases. Treyarch handled Call of Duty 3 while IW prepped CoD4, with the series creator presently working on Call of Duty 6 for a 2009 release.

This week sees the release of Castlevania Judgment (Wii), and to commemorate the series' transition from action-adventure to straight-up fighting, developer Konami has issued an epic trailer packed to the brim with cinematics and in-game footage.

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"Technical or licensing restrictions" will prevent Wii owners from receiving all of the Guitar Hero World Tour downloadable content that PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players can access, publisher Activision Blizzard has revealed.

As the Wii's online Shop Channel lacks the ability to bundle multiple downloads into one purchase--the store only allows songs to be sold individually--some downloadadable content, such as last week's Jimi Hendrix Track Pack, will not be available on Wii.

"Certain artists prefer to keep the integrity of the track pack rather than releasing singles," Activision Blizzard told MTV Multiplayer, referencing the Hendrix pack.

It looks like Guitar Hero World Tour won't be the only multi-instrument music game getting new songs from The Killers as downloadable content next Tuesday.

Harmonix's rival series Rock Band will also receive three downloadable Killers tunes on November 25, publisher and studio owner MTV Games confirmed with Wired.

The Killers Rock Band Track Pack
• "Mr. Brightside"
• "Smile Like You Mean It"
• "Spaceman"

Per usual, those tracks will hit Xbox Live Marketplace on Tuesday, November 25, followed by a PlayStation Store release the following Thursday, November 27.

MTV did not disclose a price, but the tracks are expected to sport the usual pricing: 440 Microsoft Points ($5.50) for the entire pack, 160 Microsoft Points ($2) for individual tunes--the same pricing Activsion employs with Guitar Hero World Tour DLC.

As an update to the top five sellers as of August 2008, Gamasutra has done some math and come out with the five best-selling games across all of 2008, on all platforms, using numbers supplied by market research firm NPD.

While the holiday shopping season and its mass of game sales still looms, the top five as of October hint at what may become the best of all of 2008.

The top five of 2008 so far, as estimated by Gamasutra, are:

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, Wii) - 3.5 million (estimated)
2. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 3.4 million
3. Grand Theft Auto 4 (Rockstar Games, 360) - 3.2 million (estimated)
4. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 3.0 million
5. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 2.8 million

Sales figures for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Grand Theft Auto 4 are estimated because sales figures have not been made publicly available by NPD or by the games' publishers. However, Gamasutra promises that "the maximum possible error in each figure should not affect the rankings."

Unlike last time, top-seller lists for each individual console have not been made available. However, the composite top five are endemic of the Wii's complete dominance in the sales charts, as the little waggling wonder sold more than twice the units of the second-place home console, the Xbox 360.

It's a good week for simple games on Nintendo's Shop Channel digital distribution service, as Space Invaders joins the party being thrown by the latest entry in Telltale's Strong Bad episodic series.

And just to make sure things stay simple, the Channel has thrown in bean-bag tossing for good measure.

WiiWare
• Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 (Telltale) / 1000 Wii Points ($10)
• Target Toss Pro: Bags (Incredible Technologies) / 700 Wii Points ($7)

Virtual Console

• Space Invaders: The Original Game (Taito) / 800 Wii Points ($8)
• Forgotten Worlds (Capcom) / 800 Wii Points ($8)

All of the games above will be available at 12 PM EST / 9 AM PST for download. For the full details courtesy Nintendo, check below... Read more

Well folks, this is it. The big one, the final push for the holiday season. After this week, the shopping season kicks into high gear so publishers are rushing everything to stores before Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday.

Go ahead and hit up the full list, or if you're looking for a particular system, skip right to the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP sections. Should you want to check out any past release lists, scope out our handy archive.

Left 4 Dead will be at North American retailers (and unlocked via Steam) come Tuesday, November 18. Mortal Kombat, Guitar Hero Decades, and Shaun White will be on store shelves Sunday morning, and The Last Remnant heads home on Thursday.

Barring any unforeseen delays, almost everything else should be at stores by Wednesday, November 19.

... Read more

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has again answered negatively to questions suggesting that Nintendo might bring out a successor to the Wii more quickly than the average console life cycle.

"We believe the role of a new console, a new system, is to bring great new entertainment ideas to life. We launched those systems when we had great ideas that would benefit either from a touch screen or from a Wii remote," explained Fils-Aime to Reuters as noticed by CVG.

"We will consider the launch of new consoles when we have got great new entertaining ideas that can only be done with a new console," the executive elaborated. "As we sit here today the Wii console has a long run ahead of it," he added.

To say the Wii "has a long run ahead" is a vast understatement. The remote-waggling miracle box is still dominating hardware sales and Nintendo's own Wii software is flying off retail shelves as well, with Nintendo taking three of October's top 10 console games in North American sales charts.

For Nintendo hardware collectors itching to give the House of Mario their cash, Reggie did have some comforting news: "At some point we will launch the DSi here in the Americas." The updated version of the DS handheld is expected after April 2009.

Adding to October's top ten console games as measured by market research firm The NPD Group, the rankings for numbers 11 to 20 have emerged, showing strong performance for 360 versions of multiplatform games and a few high-profile disappointments.

The next best ten games, courtesy of Gamasutra, are as follows:

11. Guitar Hero World Tour (Neversoft, Xbox 360)
12. Guitar Hero World Tour (Vicarious Visions, Wii)
13. Kirby Super Star Ultra (Nintendo, DS)
14. Fallout 3 (Bethesda, PS3)
15. Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores, PS3)
16. Rock Band 2 (Harmonix, PS3)
17. NBA 2K9 (Visual Concepts, PS3)
18. Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox 360)
19. FIFA Soccer 09 (EA Canada, 360)
20. Guitar Hero World Tour (Neversoft, PS3)

Notably, Guitar Hero World Tour failed to crack the top 10... Read more

Electronic Arts has come out with another trailer for its Black Box studio's Need for Speed Undercover, the latest in the police-evading racing series. This time we're shown the game's introductory sequence with a clever transition into actual gameplay.

Having already received its gone gold announcement, Undercover releases next week for every platform under the sun, including PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP.

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It's a particularly loud week for downloadable Rock Band tracks as punk rockers The Dead Kennedys and Mission of Burma join the metallic ladies of Lacuna Coil and In This Moment for a trio of three-packs.

Courtesy developer Harmonix, this week's full list is as follows.

Dead Kennedys 3 Pack - 440 Microsoft Points ($5.50)
• "California Uber Alles" - 160 Points ($2)
• "Holiday In Cambodia" - 160 Points ($2)
• "Police Truck" - 160 Points ($2)
Mission Of Burma 3 Pack - 440 Microsoft Points ($5.50)
• "Mica" - 160 Points ($2)
• "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" - 160 Points ($2)
• "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" - 160 Points ($2)
Century Media Girls of Metal 3 Pack - 440 Microsoft Points ($5.50)
• In This Moment - "Forever" - 160 Points ($2)
• Lacuna Coil - "Closer" - 160 Points ($2)
• Lacuna Coil - "Swamped" - 160 Points ($2)
Individual Tracks
• Crooked X - "Gone" - 80 Points ($1)

All tracks are masters, and as always the songs will hit Xbox Live Marketplace next Tuesday, November 18, while they arrive on the PlayStation Store on Thursday, November 20.

Guitar Hero: World Tour will get a The Killers track pack November 25, publisher Activision announced today.

Containing "Human" and "Losing Touch" from the band's new album Day & Age, and "Mr. Brightside" from their debut album Hot Fuss, the DLC will sell for 440 Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Marketplace and $5.49 in the PlayStation Store.

Each song will also be available individually for 160 Microsoft Points (Xbox 360), $1.99 (PS3) or 200 Wii Points (Wii).

Sales-tracking research group NPD has released its analysis of US console hardware and software sales for October 2008, revealing Lionhead's open-world action-RPG Fable II (360) as the month's best-selling game.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft's Far Cry 2 did not make the list despite showing a strong debut on the PC, while EA's Dead Space barely squeaked onto the list in the 10th position.

The top ten U.S. console games in October, according to NPD, were:

1. Fable II (Lionhead, Xbox 360) - 790,000 units
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 487,000 units
3. Fallout 3 (Bethesda, Xbox 360) - 375,000 units
4. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 290,000 units
5. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 282,000 units
6. Saints Row 2 (Volition, Xbox 360) - 270,000 units
7. SOCOM Confrontation (Slant Six, PS3) - 231,000 units
8. LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule, PS3) - 215,000 units
9. NBA 2K9 (Visual Concepts, Xbox 360) - 202,000 units
10. Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores, Xbox 360) - 193,000 units