I love Zero Punctuation's rants. I really do. But hating on Phantom Hourglass seems like hating on puppies to a certain extent. He makes good points, but I feel like this game practically came with fair warning stamped on the box about the gripes he had... you decide:

It just doesn't stop! Nintendo's tiny money-printer, the DS, just saw the 50-millionth addition to its family get sold, which helped to push the stock to an all-time high after a very favorable rating from Goldman Sachs. No surprises there - they're doing well.

In other Nintendo/Wii-related news, as it turns out female gamers are alive and well and glued to their Nintendo consoles. After all the Xbox Live I've been playing, I was starting to think they didn't exist anymore, but I guess I haven't been playing enough Wi-Fi Mario Kart DS. Here's the rest of the good bits in snippets:

- An amazing Samus Wii-mod from that amazing modder-guy
- Okami is coming to the Wii!
- In the ain't-it-cool/they'll-get-sued-for-sure department, a Wiimote for your cell phone!?
- Wii party Evites now available...
- Wii're number one! Wii're number one...
- Samba de Amigo coming to Wii?
- Gears of War, robust 3D engines never coming to Wii :(

Also, hit the jump for the longer trailer to NiGHTS, and listen for the sound of my heart dropping throughout the bullshit cheese.

July was a clutch month for all three major companies, and all their of their respective consoles. I'll spoil the surprise: the Wii and DS are still kicking everyone's ass, though for the first time there was a dip in their Japanese sales numbers, giving the competition a chance to catch up a bit, and possibly implying that a similar trend could happen here (at the normal Japan-to-USA-trend-migration-time of the approximately 27 years it takes us to catch up with their tech markets). While technically this means that the growth rate of the massive, staggering gap between the Wii and the fat unloved PS3 had a chance to diminish somewhat, this means less of a catch-up and more a shrinkage in the ratio of Wii:PS3's sold (from 4:1 to 3:1; whoop-de-doo).

Meanwhile, back home, things got interesting. Despite early predictions that July would be a huge month for the PS3 wherein it would outsell the 1.5 year old Xbox 360, that never quite happened. The RRoD issues for the 360 piss off fanboys, but people are more concerned with playing the library of excellent games than buying a non-RRoD-prone PS3 and playing Blu-ray movies on it for lack of any decent software. Of course, all three companies wasted no time in putting their own positive spin on the numbers, Sony in particular, but in the end it's the same as it has been: Wii kills the next-gen sales (fastest selling console evarrr in the UK!), Xbox 360 is selling well and will continue to gather momentum as the game library increases (Halo 3 anyone?), and the PS3 is too big, too expensive, and too boring for the masses just yet.

Perhaps the rumored price cuts for the PS3 will kick it in the pants...

Like Ouendan on the DS? Want to add your own songs? It's in the works. A new beta version of a program called Custom Ouendan released recently allows you to create your own infuriating stylus-tapping levels to your own songs.

But how to run this homebrew gem? Flash cart selection can be tricky at best, painfully confusing at worst. There's no clear "best" unit, but now there's help. A comprehensive survey of DS homebrew scenesters has led to the creation of the DS Database Best Flash Cart matrix, which sums up the preferences of the folks who know their stuff best, along with pros and cons for each unit. Very helpful if you're shopping.

That's Taiko Drum Master, on the DS y'all:

Daddy can't wait.

The sequel to Elite Beat Agents' Japanese twin, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, is comin' out reeeeeeeeal soon in Japan. Some demo footage to tickle your stylus:

Remember the mad phat Wii modder guy? Sure you do. Well, he's back, and he's tagged a DS Lite with his signature Zelda style, ahead of the DS Zelda release, but who cares?

Bid away, since it's never too early to start shopping for my Birthday!

Now that the DS Lite has hit Korea, they've wasted no time in making some amazing skins available for the handheld. These are really beautiful, and if you're headed to Seoul I'll pay you back...

In other news around Southeast Asia: ever wonder where game company names come from? Well, JC Barnett has all your answers right here. Back to Korea, where despite years of shunning the Japanese-manufactured console market (for obvious reasons), there is a slow movement to embrace console gaming on the peninsula. Accordingly, given how tech-savvy the S. Koreans are, the big three game shops are gearing up for a new kind of war in the S. Korean gaming market.

Finally, despite the fact that it's typically a disturbingly peaceful place, Japan's crime news continues to be punctuated with exceptionally shocking and tragic murders, including this one describing how a man and his mother were murdered by a youth who was trying to obtain money to support his arcade gaming habit. Contrast this to the USA, where we have murders and gun violence galore, but despite the best efforts of many out-of-touch firebrands it's not always possible to link the violence to videogames. This was the case with the tragic Salt Lake shooting rampage, where the teen was found to have owned no console or computer games, and not to have played them much at all. Despite the fact that Jackass Thompson earlier speculated that the shooter played GTA...

Sigh.

Two little nuggets today. First off, I was thrilled to read that the most-anticipated Spore, if it ever emerges from Vaporware status, is coming to the Nintendo DS! And interesting aside on the DS - they're actually being back-imported into Japan to meet the demand, since they're region free and all that. They don't just eat all the fish and buy all their own DS Lites, now they're importing ours too! Man. That's consumerism with a purpose!

Speaking of Spore, there's a great interview with Spore creator Will Wright on the Popular Science site..

Also, the GBATemp review of the Wiinja Wii mod-chip is up on their site, and is very comprehensive. I guess these things are real after all..

Got a DS? Got WiFi? Got friends? Then you've got a ready-to-go VoIP phone!

The DS really has still only yet to tap its hardware potential - WiFi, mic and touch screen should make for some amazing homebrew software eventually, and releases like this are still just scratching the surface. iPhone? Screw that. You've got a touch screen, WiFi and voice-recognizing doodad already! C'mon Nintendo (or h4X0r fellas), unleash this puppy!