According to Eurogamer, citing GfK Chart Track figures, Nintendo consoles are crushing the competition in the UK. In the last year, the Wii has sold more than both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 combined, selling 2.5 million units (compared to an even million each for the PS3 and 360). The DS is also dominating the PSP 3.3 million to 7 hundred thousand.

As for lifetime sales, the DS and Wii are leading there too, with 7.1 and 3.6 million units sold respectively. The Game Group predicts total Wii sales will climb to 4.9 million by Christmas.

Nintendo isn’t the only company counting it’s money, though. The total install base for all five current generation consoles and handhelds has doubled in the past year. It seems that none of the big three console manufacturers have anything to complain about in terms of sales.

Eurogamer
via Wii Fanboy

YUKE’S Company of America has announced a new WiiWare racing game called BPM Racing. The game will feature a “diverse electronic soundtrack” which will be strongly tied to the gameplay. According to the press release:

Riders will be rewarded for staying in rhythm with increased speeds, handling, and score multipliers, even getting the opportunity to be the DJ by adding their own samples and effects to various soundtracks.

YUKE’S Company’s Ken Koyama states that “BPM Racing will reinvent the relationship between a racing game and its soundtrack.” Strong words from a relatively unknown developer. Let’s wait and see, shall we?

BPM Racing is set for an early 2009 release.

via Press Release

EA has announced plans to release an AC/DC Rock Band track pack disc, featuring 18 live renditions of AC/DC classics. While the songs on the disc, which works as a stand alone game, can be exported to Rock Band 1 and 2 on the PS3 and Xbox 360, the press release makes no mention of that feature in the Wii version. The Wii version hits November 16th for $39.88. (You know, PS360 owners got the entire Red Hot Chili Peppers album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as DLC last week for $20. I guess Moneytalks!)

Check after the break for the full list of songs.

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In case this morning’s WiiWare update didn’t get you up and downloading, here’s a new trailer for Bomberman Blast, which hit the North American arm of the service today. It shows off the large battle maps, eight-player matches, and - most importantly - the new shake controls. Shake the controller and use the Bomb Change, Rocket, and Shield. Simple as that.

Seriously, I haven’t been this excited for a Bomberman game since I played the Super Nintendo games at a friend’s house. I must have been in elementary school or something, because it was a sleepover party. We spent all night playing that game. Afterwards, I sought out the N64 Bomberman games… unfortunately.

According to Eternity’s Child creator Luc Bernard, the WiiWare version of the game is going to need a little bit more time to cook. The game’s publisher, Alten8, is working hard to have the game ready for release by the end of the year.

Bernard has also announced that a sequel, originally developed for the Game Boy Advance, will be completed and ported to WiiWare under the title Eternity’s Child 2: Retro Child. The sequel is a throwback to SNES platformers of yore, and will feature SNES-style graphics. Bernard says he owes this decision to several factors, one of which being the recent success of Mega Man 9’s retro NES-style graphics and sound.

Eternity’s Child 2 is set for a mid-2009 release.

WiiWare World

SURGE is on the move: Disaster: Day of Crisis has launched in Japan. Finally. And now that we’ve got a solid European release date, you can expect we’ll be getting more and more information and media on the English version of the game. That’s on top of the spoilers we’ll get from Japan, of course.

At the moment, I don’t have any of that info for you, but here’s a little bit of media: the PAL box art for the game has officially been revealed. Interestingly, it looks remarkably like the Japanese box art.

via Press Release

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After I was able to spend a few minutes with Sonic Chronicles earlier this summer, I keep telling people that if they’ve played at least a little bit of iNis’ Elite Beat Agents, they’ll have a head start on learning Sonic Chronicles’ battle system. It’s extremely similar in the inclusion of contracting circles and moving beach balls.

Of course, there’s a little more strategy in being able to power up your battle moves before hand and skill in being able to execute combo attacks. Oh, and while perhaps I couldn’t really hear the game over the noise of the crowded convention center, I’m pretty sure the fact that you’re not performing the touch-based combos in rhythm with the background music will make things a little more challenging.

Good news for Rock Band-loving Wii owners. According to USA Today, the Wii version of the game will include the same online functionality as it’s PS360 siblings.

“While unannounced, MTV Games has confirmed that the upcoming Nintendo Wii version of ‘Rock Band 2′ will offer the same online functionality — i.e. song downloads and Internet multiplayer modes — as the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 versions.”

Yes, that includes song downloads. Looks like this will put an end to that expansion disc nonsense.

There are still a few questions left to answer, though. Will Rock Band 2 require a certain amount of storage space to play songs stored on an SD card, like Guitar Hero: World Tour? Will the Wii version allow you to import Rock Band 1 songs like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions? Only time will tell. Or press releases.

USA Today
Via Kotaku

After having tried out Samba de Amigo for the Wii earlier this year, I’ve been taking the final retail version for a spin lately. It’s just as fun (though it’d be nice if I had maraca controllers), and it apparently doubles the soundtrack from previous games. Just cycling through the songs made me feel as if I was in the 90’s again. Yeah Ricky Martin.

Many of the songs are locked, and some even need to be purchased for an extra 500 Wii Points per set of 3 songs. That’s a lot of songs, once you get through everything. You can watch and listen to three of them - spanning about thirty years - in the video above. Ten points if you can actually dance the Macarena while the song is playing… or better yet, get everyone in the room to do it.

I’m almost 100% sure the enemies and overall story in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood are complete originals from the team at BioWare. That said, the main enemies remind me somewhat of the “Dark Legion” cult from the comic series (from Archie Comics). They just so dark with an aura of mystery and power.

And then there are the “easy” enemies. These things look more like robots than any of Eggman’s recent creations. It’s actually pretty refreshing to be fighting so many robots again. Ironically, I don’t think they’re Eggman’s…