The popular Nintendo DS game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney will finally be making its debut on the Apple iPhone next week for $4.99.

Source

Originally posted here, on our gaming sister site GameAlmighty.com.

Being an invested spectator during the handling of the Nintendo DSi XL / 3DS affair over the past couple weeks has been one of the most fascinating, and confounding, situations I have seen in the nearly 20 years I have been watching the industry.

Now it’s not the first time there has been a bad hardware launch, this isn’t our first exposure to an information leak, and we’ve certainly seen more demonstrations of bad Public Relations decisions. The SEGA Dreamcast, PSP Go pictures, and caged nude dancers are three of the first examples that come quickly to my mind, while readers will no doubt be able to come up with even better ones of their own.

But this perfect storm is quite unique. Days before the launch of another very optional $100+ incremental hardware upgrade, Nintendo hastily shoots out a short, detail-light press release announcing their next big handheld which will be 3D-capable!?!

What was the response?

I had been expecting to write an article myself on the NDSi XL once I had made my purchase, but here is an excerpt from an email I wrote to one of the Staff here, Mike Siciliano:

I ended up waiting on my purchase of the NDSi XL. It is just a lot of money and frankly I am pissed at the constant baby steps of hardware improvements and releases Nintendo makes and insulted they would have the gall (sp?) to announce another major piece of hardware (an entire new platform!) just days before the XL release at retail. I almost feel like writing an article about that. Will it play NDS games? If so, and it’s not to far off, I am not going to play their game this time and I’ll just be frustrated, increasingly angry, and try to wait it out. In this economy gamers and parents of gamers don’t have money to throw around but many of them do have an almost religious loyalty to Nintendo that could very easily be taken advantage of.  Sometimes I wonder if they are just doing what they do, or doing what they think they can do?

I try to remain as objective as possible professionally, but in this personal email my frustration isn’t very well hidden as I start thinking more and more about Nintendo operating as a company trying to make their money selling hardware. I called my local GameSpot and it seems 12 other pre-orders had been canceled and the initial numbers of pre-orders were already lower than they expected. This, of course, is not scientific, but it shouldn’t be ignored if you believe that the buying audience was already restricted to very loyal Nintendo-philes. (Oh, were you supposing large print-dependent senior citizens had always been waiting, wallet-in-hand, for a larger screen before joining Nintendo’s “Touch Generation”?)

So why did they do this? Who decides to upstage themselves and distract from the slow bleed-out of hardware upgrades already in progress? Whoever it was seems to have placed a much higher value on being “first”, rather than trying to contain the possible financial repercussions or message control.

Read More

Arriving out of nowhere and surprising everyone, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has suddenly appeared as a game app for the Apple iPhone. Chinatown Wars received excellent reviews on the DS but had a hell of a time selling copies. End result: Chinatown Wars was one of the best-reviewed games for the DS and failed miserably on the platform. Some cited piracy, but I continue to insist that DS platform was not the correct machine for the franchise. With the Apple iPhone, Chinatown Wars should find the riches it deserved in the first place.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is currently available for $9.99.

5-Star reviews are already rolling in.

I personally don’t think Lego Rock Band is a good direction for the brand, but hey, what do I know? It just seems unnecessary, something that could have easily been done with DLC, but I suppose I’m just not much of a money-grubber. Anyways, for those of you who buy into this kind of thing, you’ll be pleased to know that the full track-listing for Lego Rock Band is finally known. On the upside, all Lego Rock Band can be imported into the original Rock Band 1 & 2 for 800 MS points.

Rock Band Products:

Lego Rock Band (Xbox 360)

Lego Rock Band (Wii)

Lego Rock Band (PS3)

The Beatles: Rock Band – Software Only (Xbox 360)

Lego Rock Band includes the following songs:

All American Rejects — “Swing, Swing”
The Automatic — “Monster”
Blink-182 — “Aliens Exist”
Blur — “Song 2″
Bon Jovi — “You Give Love a Bad Name”
Boys like Girls — “Thunder”
Bryan Adams — “Summer of 69″
Carl Douglas — “Kung Fu Fighting”
The Coral — “Dreaming of You”
Counting Crows — “Accidentally in Love”
David Bowie — “Let’s Dance”
Elton John — “Crocodile Rock”
Europe — “The Final Countdown”
Everlife — “Real Wild Child”
Foo Fighters — “Breakout”
Good Charlotte — “Girls & Boys”
The Hives — “Tick Tick Boom!”
Iggy Pop — “The Passenger”
Incubus — “Dig”
Jackson 5 — “I Want You Back”
Jimi Hendrix — “Fire”
Kaiser Chiefs — “Ruby”
Katrina & The Waves — “Walking on Sunshine”
The Kooks — “Naïve”
KoRn — “Word Up!”
KT Tunstall — “Suddenly I See”
Lostprophets — “Rooftops”
P!NK — “So What”
The Police — “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
The Primitives — “Crash”
Queen — “We Are The Champions”
Queen — “We Will Rock You”
Rascal Flatts — “Life is a Highway”
Ray Parker Jr. — “Ghostbusters”
Razorlight — “Stumble and Fall”
Spin Doctors — “Two Princes”
Spinal Tap — “Short & Sweet”
Steve Harly — “Make Me Smile”
Sum 41 — “In Too Deep”
Supergrass — “Grace”
Tom Petty — “Free Fallin”
T-Rex — “Ride a White Swan”
Vampire Weekend — “A-Punk”
We the Kings — “Check Yes Juliet”
The Zutons — “Valerie”

DS:

All American Rejects — “Swing, Swing”
The Automatic — “Monster”
Blur — “Song 2″
Carl Douglas — “Kung Fu Fighting”
Counting Crows — “Accidentally in Love”
David Bowie — “Let’s Dance”
Europe — “The Final Countdown”
Good Charlotte — “Girls & Boys”
Iggy Pop — “The Passenger”
Jackson 5 — “I Want You Back”
Kaiser Chiefs — “Ruby”
Katrina & the Waves — “Walking on Sunshine”
KT Tunstall — “Suddenly I See”
P!NK — “So What”
The Primitives — “Crash”
Queen — “We Are The Champions”
Queen — “We Will Rock You”
Rascal Flatts — “Life is a Highway”
Ray Parker Jr. — “Ghostbusters”
Spin Doctors — “Two Princes”
Sum 41 — “In Too Deep”
Supergrass — “Grace”
Tom Petty — “Free Fallin’”
Vampire Weekend — “A-Punk”
We the Kings — “Check Yes Juliet”