Mario Kart? An incredibly obvious choice, perhaps, but for one important reason: it's good. Very good. It's easily the best racer on the DS and one of the greatest titles in the handheld's library, if the review scores are any indication. But beyond the numbers and critical analysis rests the simple fact that Mario Kart DS is fun, fast, and very much worthy of your attention, especially if you're looking for motor madness just as enjoyable now as it was when the game raced onto shelves back in late 2005.
Sure, there's this newfangled Wii version making the rounds, but for all of its technological advances, Mario Kart Wii is lacking in one vital area -- you can't take it on the toilet. If that realization is all it takes to convince you to dust that tiny cartridge off and put it back in action, you're in the right place. Grab a few bananas and peel out* to the second page as this week's edition of Gaming to Go revisits a portable classic.
Tick tock of the clock ringing in your ears? Tell your timepiece to shove it! We live busy lives, but remember this: there's always time to game. Check back with Gaming to Go every week for the latest and greatest titles you should spend your precious few minutes with.
Update 2:The staff has left the Game Night chat. Plenty of folks are still in there, gaming as you read this. So head on into the chat already!
With the return of our weekly sessions last week, we decided a reminder was needed. So, we whipped up the above video, which shows Dave enjoying some Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, along with some Mario Kart Wii. If you look closely, you can even see Chris ram Dave underneath a car. How cruel!
Hijinks like the above, and more, are commonplace at Game Night. So, for the full details on what Game Night is all about, head past the break.
The most recent Japanese charts showed us that musical instruments have more legs than horses, as Band Brothers DX jumped up into the first place spot. Meanwhie, Nanashi no Game made its debut in the top ten, but only sold a total of 30,000 copies.
Hardware sales were also interesting, as the DS stubbornly held onto the second spot:
PSP: 56,439 (2,442)
Nintendo DS: 47,455 (1,429)
Wii: 44,525 (3,955)
PlayStation 3: 14,359 (3,614)
PlayStation 2: 11,768 ( 4,095)
Xbox 360: 4,776 (328)
With the Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G craze finally starting to quiet a bit, we don't think it will be too long before the PSP dips closer to DS sales (as long as Nintendo's handheld can maintain its own momentum). Enough about the future, though -- it's all about the now. So, go on and see how software fared last week in Japan by clicking past the break.
This month's 20th anniversary issue of Nintendo Power seemed to leave everyone's head spinning with its exclusive Wii news, Mega Man 9 and Castlevania Judgment, so much so, that hardly anyone noticed the magazine's other big item: a new Nester comic!
A lot has happened since we last saw him over a decade ago -- apparently, he now has a Wii, a wife, and ... a son?! Bring your memories of the smart aleck character past the post break for Nester's return!
The DS found itself back in cozy old third place in this week's chart, as the hype from Metal Gear Solid 4 died down a bit in Japan:
PSP: 59,531 (5,325)
Wii: 41,037 (4,527)
NDS: 36,599 (2,602)
PS3: 20,336 (54,975)
PS2: 6,346 (951)
Xbox 360: 2,555 (392)
Meanwhile, Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team's steady climb back into the top ten makes us wonder if supply just wasn't meeting demand a few weeks earlier, when the game fell out of the top thirty.
Yet overall, the DS had a relatively boring week in terms of software, with no exciting new releases to congratulate or poke fun at (unless you consider the budget-priced re-release of Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary "exciting" and "new").
If you want to see what Japanese gamers were buying last week, though, just click on past the break.
Hey, guess what? You can buy Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Amazon today (and today only) for $25.99!
What a minute -- why are we posting about a Brawl deal on DS Fanboy, of all places? Because, friends, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Amazon is offering up nine Nintendo deals today, which (if our guesses are correct) includes five DS games.
Since all of the said games are published by Nintendo you might own most of them already, but if not, they're games that are definitely worth getting for cheap. So, all you stingy folks that are able to order from Amazon.com should check past the break to see what Gold Box sales are in store for you today.
Update: The staff have left the Game Night chat. You're more than welcome to pop in and say "Hello." Just tell them we sent you!
Heya folks, it's that time of the week again. Last week, yours truly got to enjoy quite a bit of Mario Kart Wii, as evidenced by the above video. Why aren't you joining us each week? There's lots of fun to be had, gaming it up with your peers and us, the staff. Seriously, don't you have any online-compatible games?
We don't just play Wii games, either! Tetris DS and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin are in constant rotation, as well as Phantom Hourglass and Mario Kart DS, just to name a few. So, charge up that handheld and show up at the site around 7pm ET tonight. You'll see this post at the top of the page (if not, keep refreshing until you do). Hope to see you there tonight!
Just as we were starting to get comfortable with the DS coming in third consistently on the Japanese hardware charts, Metal Gear Solid 4 came out and helped push our favorite handheld down to fourth. Fourth! Meaning, it only did better than the PS2 and 360. Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!
DS hardware did get a little boost, though, despite the fact that not much new software made its way into the charts:
Playstation 3: 75,311 (64,455)
PSP: 64,675 (2,659)
Wii: 45,564 (925)
Nintendo DS: 39,201 (4,181)
PlayStation 2: 7,297 (1,018)
Xbox 360: 2,163 (117)
There were some surprises this week, as Let's Make a Pro BaseballTeam! found itself back in the top thirty (so did Pokémon Diamond). But, you can just see all the hot software action for yourself after the break.
Remember that haaauuuuge list of Japan's 500 highest-selling games of 2007? Well, sorry, but you'll have to forget them all. Yep, every last one of 'em. That's because we now have a new list which is also claiming to feature the 500 best-selling games of 2007 in Japan. This one has been compiled by Enterbrain (the original was from rival data-gatherers Media Create), and it's ever so slightly different.
The good news is that, despite the origins of each list being different, the overriding message is still the same, and that message is: DS rules all yaaay. Both lists agree that Wii Sports was top dog, but the top DS games have been jumbled about. Now, for example, it is the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers games that are top of the DS pile, while Mario Party DS drops to second. The changes are subtle, but definitely exist. Hit the break to see the top ten DS games!
We're crying for Namco Bandai's Tears of 99 right now, as the game debuted in the twenty-third spot this week. We guess Japanese gamers just didn't feel like being bummed out, and therefore avoided buying this original title. Sad, indeed.
Two DS games debuted in the top ten this week (Endless Frontier: Super Robot Wars OG Saga and the cutesy spatial puzzler Empty Space Training), but otherwise, DS software had a relatively lackluster performance. Only twelve titles ended up in the top thirty, which is low for Nintendo's handheld. As for hardware, the DS is getting comfortable in third place behind the PSP and Wii:
PSP: 71,986 (7,537)
Wii: 50,851 (1,804)
Nintendo DS: 38,355 (951)
PlayStation 3: 9,169 (98)
PlayStation 2: 7,203 (14)
Xbox 360: 1,959 (12)
Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness is another game that premiered last week, taking twelfth in the charts. If it follows the path of games like Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team! and Glory of Herakles, though, it's likely to drop soon. As for English of the Dead, the game didn't debut in the top fifty, and according to Famitsu it only sold 1,500 copies in its first week.
Click on past the break to see the other software numbers and rankings from 5/29 to 6/1.
After a somewhat stalwart week, DS software recovered nicely and once again dominated the charts. Even though the same amount of games appeared in the top thirty (fifteen in total), they ranked higher on average than they did in the previous week. Good software sales also gave DS hardware a little boost:
PSP: 64,449 (6,087)
Wii: 49,047 (7,475)
Nintendo DS: 37,404 (2,499)
PlayStation 3: 9.071 (1,370)
PlayStation 2: 7,189 (167)
Xbox 360: 1,947 (473)
Four new games debuted in the top thirty, including Sega's Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team!, which nabbed the first place spot from Monster Hunter. The other three games were Glory of Herakles, Scarlet Fragment, and Tea Dogs Room 3. Herakles (or Hercules, if you prefer) is the title that sparks our interest the most, as it's an interesting RPG published by Nintendo. Even so, it's first week sales were (unfortunately) subpar, yet good enough to land it in the top ten.
Check out the sales numbers and rankings for yourself after the break.
The spotlight this week is on Luminous Arc 2: Will, a game that has yet to be confirmed for English language localization. While we're forced to sit and wait jealously, though, forty thousand Japanese gamers ran out and bought the title. Only falling behind the juggernauts Monster Hunter and Mario Kart Wii (and almost squeezing past Nintendo's racer), Image Epoch's SRPG debuted pretty impressively.
In other sales news, the announcement for another Professor Layton game in Japan managed to push the first title in the series back into the top thirty. Aside from that, there weren't any differences in DS software worth mentioning.
In terms of hardware, the numbers for the DS weren't so hot. In fact, we don't remember the sales numbers for Nintendo's handheld ever being this low in Japan. With everyone and their mother already owning a DS in the country, does the system still have room for growth? We won't know for sure until the next big software push, but for now it looks like the dual-screened handheld should get comfy in that third place spot.
PSP: 70,536 (19,348)
Wii: 41,572 (25,736)
Nintendo DS: 34,905 (16,323)
PlayStation 3: 7,701 (353)
PlayStation 2: 7,022 (442)
Xbox 360: 1,474 (176)
The software numbers are located after the break, so go on and take a look. They won't bite!*
*DS Fanboy claims no responsibility for those who get bitten by our sales figures.
We realized today that we don't know Japan as well as we thought we did. With our reasoning, a new Gundam game + the popularity of the DS = cha-ching. While the debuting Emblem of Gundam had decent sales for its first week, though, taking the twelfth spot isn't all that impressive -- especially since there was only one new release cluttering up the top ten.
On the other hand, We're Fossil Diggers, Pokemon Ranger, and the Taiko Drum Master DS sequel continued to shine, giving the DS a nice piece of top ten representation. Batonnage managed to reach the half-million mark, while the other two games neared 100,000 copies sold.
For hardware, DS numbers went up since last week, but the handheld is still convincingly behind the PSP and Wii in recent sales. If you want to see the numbers, though, just click past the break. You can check out the software listings there, too.
For a continent that gave the world tiramisu, Audrey Tautou, and the Renaissance, Europe sure does disappoint us at times. Yep, it's another week of gray, predictable drudgery when it comes to sales of DS software.
All you truly need to know is that More Mario & Dr. Kawashima's Olympics Training sold really, really well, and almost everything we care about didn't. Except for Animal Crossing: Wild World, which popped in to the German top ten, and Mario Kart DS, which secured eighth place in Ireland, and fifth in Germany. So maybe the world isn't all that rubbish, after all. And if you really believe that, we advise you go and rent Eurotrip.
Tick tock of the clock ringing in your ears? Tell your timepiece to shove it! We live busy lives, but remember this: there's always time to game. Check back with Gaming to Go every week for the latest and greatest titles you should spend your precious few minutes with.
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