Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata says the Wii and Nintendo DS still have room to grow their audience. He predicts that DS's total installed base in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. could reach reach an "ultimate potential" of 152.2 million units, driven by strong European sales and the system's "gaming population expansion." Speaking with investors at the company's third quarter financial briefing, Iwata addressed concerns that Nintendo's console sales might have peaked and could ...

Activision's DJ Hero, a widely-rumored music game supported by a turntable peripheral, is set to release this year, says CEO Bobby Kotick. Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Kotick responded to CNBC reporters' questions about innovation in the games business by touting the upcoming product. "We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you can actually play competitively, spin discs and mix on," ...

GameCareerGuide, Gamasutra's sister site for aspiring game developers, recently asked readers to invent a game concept for the Wii Balance Board. The three most interesting and commercially viable submissions are posted alongside commentary from game designer and lead judge of the challenges Manveer Heir. (Image this page by Max Michaud-Shields.) The posts are part of a weekly series of Game Design Challenges, which allow aspiring game developers to flex their creative and problem-solving muscles in ...

Nintendo revealed that 26 of its first-party titles released for Nintendo DS and Wii exceeded at least one million copies sold worldwide in the company's current fiscal year ending March 2008, and announced its upcoming slate for the two consoles. Pet simulation game Nintendogs, which has been released with five different versions for DS since first debuting in 2005, has so far sold 21.67 million copies globally. Brain Age and Brain Age 2 moved 16.82 ...

Far Cry 2 was one of the most ambitious AAA titles of 2008's holiday season -- but what did it actually accomplish? Gamasutra reflects with Ubisoft Montreal narrative designer Patrick Redding. While Far Cry 2 doesn't retain the science fiction elements of the original, Redding mentions that the development team did toy with "surreal or impressionistic" elements, tampering with player perception with hallucinatory moments and other experiments. Some of those ideas remained in the final ...

The Board chairman and director of struggling publisher Midway has resigned. Peter C. Brown stepped down citing personal reasons, and CEO Matt Booty now adds Board chairman to his title. Booty officially became CEO of Midway in October 2008, though he held the role on an interim basis since March. He's been with the company since 1991, when he joined as an engineer and programmer, gradually gaining in responsibility to take the role of VP ...

RuneScape developer Jagex announced the promotion of Mark Gerhard, formerly the company's chief technical officer, to CEO, effective February 2nd. Gerhard replaces Geoff Iddison, who was previously CEO of PayPal's European operations and was brought into Jagex as CEO in October 2007 with the intention of "[accelerating] international growth." He resigned from the company last month for undisclosed reasons. "I have enjoyed working for Jagex immensely," says Geoff Iddison. "The business remains at the cutting ...

[In this in-depth Gamasutra opinion piece, writer Tom Cross examines Left 4 Dead's in-game dialogue and Mass Effect's elevator converations, and how the former especially leads the way in a new brand of natural pseudo-storytelling.] To play a video game is often to be party to a strange chorus of grunts, yelps, and insults. Characters in games are designed to react to their environments with as much "realism" and responsiveness as possible. From the unfortunate ...

EA plans to publish three separate new Need for Speed games in 2009, each tailored to specific formats and featuring a radical change of focus from previous titles. In previews with a number of consumer websites, including GameSpot and Eurogamer, EA revealed new title Need for Speed: Shift for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and PSP. Intended to be a much more serious racing simulation than previous games, the title is being developed by ...

Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide. This week's charts, with data taken from January 29th, 2009, find Wii Fit topping the Wii charts in North America, as Call of Duty: World at War leads sales on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Data for "Saling The World" comes courtesy of the ...