Gadgets and Video Games

EA may be hurting , but there are still some bright spots, like when it announced Madden NFL 10 ’s sales figures during its quarterly conference call with investors. The publisher revealed that the company “sold” 3.9 million copies globally, which isn’t entirely accurate, as we’ve learned those are “sell-in” figures — a fancy way of saying “shipped.” EA’s John Schappert stated that Madden had a rough start in August, with sales down 19 percent from the prior year, but that it rallied up eight percent year-over-year in September, thanks to the PS3 price drop . The company claims that Madden 10 has sold five percent more than last year’s iteration on PS3 and Xbox 360 combined, as of the end of September

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Madden 10 has shipped 3.9 million copies

Tecmo just sent out a release date for Again , the latest mystery adventure game from Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory developer Cing. North American gamers will be able to watch digitized actors explore the past and get headaches from dollar bills in March 2010. In addition, the company surprised us with another March 2010 release date for a Cing-developed DS game: Monster Rancher DS . Two DS games in Tecmo’s once-massive monster generating and collecting series came out on DS in Japan in 2007 and 2008 , featuring the ability to unlock monsters by drawing on the screen or talking into the microphone, but nothing was ever said about a North American release until now.

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Tecmo dates Again, dusts off Monster Rancher DS

Okay, Mr. Saboteur . You’re not going to listen to reason, are you? We asked nicely — so very nicely — that you stop blowing up those beautiful, elegant and endangered dirigibles. However, the latest batch of screenshots from your self-titled game have revealed that you haven’t heeded our advice, and continue to detonate airships at the drop of your dusty, brown flat cap

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New Saboteur screens show heartless, blimp-hating hero

If the packed queues didn’t hint that this was coming, NPD stated that NCsoft’s Aion was the top-selling game in the US during September. The MMO overthrew the virtual souls of The Sims 3 — not that it matters to those ever-present dolls of the PC charts, as the franchise occupies two other spots on the “top 20″ with Sims 2 bundles. Champions Online showed up to the party in third place, with World of Warcraft taking three separate spots on the chart. Check out the full list after the break. Continue reading NCsoft’s Aion perches atop the US PC charts for Sept.

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NCsoft’s Aion perches atop the US PC charts for Sept.

We’re not sure how to break this to you, so we’re just going to say it straight up: Super Street Fighter IV is going to have an even tougher (read: cheaper ) Seth than Street Fighter IV . But we’ve got good news alongside that: You won’t be forced to fight him over and over until you unlock that last playable character, as they’ll all be unlocked right from the get go! After Capcom’s Seth Killian spoke with Kotaku earlier today regarding the unbelievably cheap final boss (can you tell we’re bitter?), we shot an email to him to make sure he hadn’t misspoke when he said, “Seth will be even cheaper and more irritating.” Killian clarified his statement for us, saying, “[ SSFVI producer Yoshinori] Ono himself promised that Seth would be even more challenging … ‘cheaper’ and ‘more irritating’ are premature since the AI isn’t finished but he isn’t going to be a pushover.” When we wrote back, terrified that we’d never get to play the game’s entire cast of characters, he reassured us that, “All characters are unlocked to start.” We’ll be getting our hands on SSFIV later this week and hopefully we’ll get to find out just how much more difficult Seth is becoming. Super Street Fighter IV’s final boss being made even tougher to beat originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

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Super Street Fighter IV’s final boss being made even tougher to beat

Though it may not yet include all of September, Kotaku ’s monthly monitoring of the most played Wii titles still provides some interesting insights. For one, it seems that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the best bang for your gaming buck, as users are STILL sinking an average of 71 minutes into the game monthly.

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Super Smash Bros. Brawl still tops Wii usage list

Filed under: RPGs , Meta (about Joystiq) , MMO The World of Warcraft is a strange and savage place: not only is there continually some Orc or Murloc or crazed cult attacking whatever various settlement you choose to spend your time in, but you’ve also got to deal with patch releases, forum trolls and the occasional crazed developer too! That’s why you should be reading WoW.com — we’re your own personal sherpa for the biggest MMO around. Peep our roundup of ten popular posts from the past week after the break. Continue reading The best of WoW.com: September 22-29, 2009 The best of WoW.com: September 22-29, 2009 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

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The best of WoW.com: September 22-29, 2009

Filed under: Mac , PC , Meta (about Joystiq) We had a very busy week for original features on Big Download in the past seven days. Let’s take a look at our output for the past week: Exclusive features Reviews : As the fall season hits, we give our final verdicts to a ton of new PC games, including Batman: Arkham Asylum , Majesty 2 , Resident Evil 5 , Red Faction Guerrilla and Section 8 . Alienware’s new look and features : We go over the four new desktops and the new laptop from Alienware that was announced this week. Mac Monday : Our weekly Mac gaming column looks at two games this time, BOH and Cuba Letra Boot Disk : Our weekly retro game feature has two entries this week as we look at the Planet Moon Studios action game Giants: Citizen Kabuto and the original Red Faction .

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The Best of Big Download: September 21-27

We can’t be gaming all the time, despite our best efforts, and from time to time we’ll actually take advantage of the movie-playing abilities on our gaming systems. JBO features our top picks for XBL, PSN, Netflix’s Watch Instantly and Blu-ray each week. This week marks the start of Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX, where this writer will be embedded for the next week. It’s a celebration of movies in the vein of geek: sci-fi, horror, anime, weird Asian cult movies and more. With that in mind, we’re skewing this week’s Joystiq Box Office towards the weird

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JBO: Joystiq Box Office, September 22 – September 25

We can’t be gaming all the time, despite our best efforts, and from time to time we’ll actually take advantage of the movie-playing abilities on our gaming systems. JBO features our top picks for XBL, PSN, Netflix’s Watch Instantly and Blu-ray each week. Recommendations of the Week: O’Horten (DVD: $28.69 MSRP. Available at Amazon and on Netflix , available Tuesday) This is one of the quirkiest and most charming films since Amelie .

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JBO: Joystiq Box Office, September 14 – September 18