Nintendo unveils the new portable video game console, the DSi, equipped with a 3.25-inch LCD display and 300,000-pixel digital camera

The console, called the Nintendo DSi, can be used to take photos, download games and play music.

The DSi will go on sale in Japan on Nov 1, and will be available to European gamers in spring 2009.

“We want to change the DS from something that’s in every household to something that’s for every person,” said Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata.

He said that the new console could be the very first toy camera for a child, as well as tool for social communication and networking.

The DSi has two 0.3-megapixel cameras, and a slightly larger screen than its predecessor, along with a thinner form factor.

It will feature a memory card slot, so that gamers can play music saved on a SD card through the device. However, Nintendo has removed the GameBoy Advance cartridge slot on the DSi that made previous versions of the DS backwards-compatible with GameBoy games.

Mr Iwata said that gamers would be able to change the speed at which sound or music is played, meaning, for example, that they could slow down a foreign language lesson, or speed up and distort songs.

Nintendo said it had sold more than 77.5 million DS consoles worldwide since the device first went on sale in 2004.

In 2006, Nintendo revamped the DS, introducing a touchscreen version, the DS Lite. The Japanese games company has been credited with bringing a new audience to the world of gaming.

Women and young girls love the puzzle and brain-training games available on the DS, as well as its ease of use, while the Nintendo Wii, which uses wireless motion-sensitive controllers, has proved a big hit with families.

Although the DS continues to sell strongly in the UK, sales have been declining in Japan, with Sony’s handheld games console, the PSP, outpacing sales of the DS in Japan for the last five months. The DSi will cost YEN18,900 (£100) when it goes on sale.

Nintendo’s decision to release an updated version of the DS is seen in part as a response to the threat posed by Apple, whose iPhone and iPod touch music players feature motion-sensing technology and can also be used to play computer games on the go.

• Platform: SNES
• Wii Points: 900
• In Real Money: GBP 6.30 / EUR 9 (approx)

It’s been a while since Nintendo graced the VC with a genuinely anticipated title, and with the arrival of Super Mario RPG we can at last cross another beloved classic off the list. It’s been worth the wait - and is even worth gritting your teeth and putting up with the needlessly inflated price-tag.

Famously developed by Square, under direct supervision from Miyamoto, the game is every bit as impressive as you’d expect given the creative muscle at work behind the scenes. It may sound slightly obvious, but it really is a Mario game and it really is an RPG. Neither element suffers for the cross-genre mash-up, and the result is a game that positively oozes charm and depth.

The story finds a new threat unleashed on Mario’s world - the enormous sword-shaped Smithy. As you progress through the saga you collect the inevitable band of companions, some (Princess Toadstool, Bowser) drawn from classic Mario mythology, others (Mallow, Geno) created for this adventure. The roster obviously isn’t huge - and fans may pine for Luigi or Yoshi to join the party - but don’t be fooled into thinking this mean’s the game is a dumbed down version of Square’s “real” role-playing epics.

Pretty much every aspect you′d expect from a mid-’90s Final Fantasy title is included, albeit disguised in Mario clothing. Flower Points are the currency for special attacks, for instance, while mushrooms replace potions for restoring health. Combat follows the traditional turn-based template, but with a small twist - attacks can be increased in power by hitting or spamming buttons at the right time or even twizzling the d-pad. If the concept sounds familiar, it’s because Square used it again for Final Fantasy VIII - though this version is fast and arcadey, and nothing like the elongated Guardian Force animations that would come later.

They also shrewdly borrowed ideas from their other titles, most notably Chrono Trigger’s refreshing absence of random battles. Moving around the game world feels more like an isometric Mario platformer, and enemies are clearly visible. Contact triggers the fight, at which point things switch to the familiar Square battle screen.

The game puts up a tough fight as well. Pity the complacent soul who thinks the cute exterior means a toothless challenge. The early stages are simple enough, with Level Ups easy to come by, but if you wander into the first real boss encounter without taking things seriously and stocking up on health and revival items, even the best RPG player can struggle.

There’s really not much more to say - it’s up there with Zelda as one of Nintendo’s crowning achievements, and is the closest the VC has had to an essential download in a good long while. Here’s hoping that this means Chrono Trigger isn’t far away…

During the 1990s, video game megastars Mario and Sonic, the mascots of the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis respectively, duked it out for supremacy of our wallets.

Mario premiered with Super Mario World, and Sonic with Sonic the Hedgehog.

The two video game characters generated their own merchandise and several TV shows, one of which was voiced by Family Matters′ Steve Urkel himself, Jaleel White. Children from everywhere craved and bought Sonic and Mario related merchandise.

In 2002, the same year the Gamecube was released, the Dreamcast was discontinued, thus ending Sonic the Hedgehog’s independent success.

Mario and Sonic went in completely different directions and their original rivalry died down when Nintendo eventually pulled ahead of Sega. Mario went on to best-selling games on the Nintendo 64, Gamecube and Wii, while Sonic’s fortunes would carry on unsuccessfully to the Sega Saturn and eventually die at the hands of the Sega Dreamcast.

Mario is doing quite well for himself - he made the Wii close to impossible to find in retail stores, produced many more successes such as Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, that stay at or near the top of retail sales. An entire new generation has embraced him, just as he saved video gaming in 1984 with the release of Super Mario Bros.

Not just restricted to one console now, Sonic has shown up in places unimaginable to the classic fans - on the Gamecube and Wii. Not to mention, he created a cult following of people who wear costumes of himself during anime conventions, better known to us as “furries.”

Many of the classic fans have said that Sonic has gone nowhere but downhill. A series of releases on the PlayStation 2, Gamecube and XBox have been criticized by gaming publications. What has especially doomed Sonic was his seventh-generation debut, Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) on the Play Station 3.

Mario and Sonic, once bitter rivals, have seen a reconciliation in recent years with the Wii’s release of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, where characters from both franchises duke it out in Olympic events. This is largely at the cost of Sonic, because Mario has been sitting pretty at the top for two and a half decades.

The most important question is what they are today: Mario may be the eternal icon of videogames, but Sonic was once part of our childhood as well, and should not be forgotten, despite our blue hedgehog’s recent struggles.

A report has appeared over in Japan with Jiji Press that mentions how Yoichi Wada-san, President of Square Enix has been discussing the release of the next in the Dragon Quest series, which many presume means Dragon Quest IX: Protectors of the Starry Sky for the Nintendo DS, considering it has only recently been confirmed as definitely being a fiscal year 2008 release and the game is set to be shown off at this year’s Tokyo Games Show over in Japan early next month.

Dragon Quest IX could well be coming to Japan in early 2009 on DS.

According to Wada-san, the new Dragon Quest will launch in early 2009, which will likely mean Japanese otaku’s Otoshidama (the New Year money children receive since Christmas is not a big holiday over in the Land of the Rising Sun) will probably go towards this new release. There is still a seed of doubt about whether or not this is indeed Dragon QUest IX, though, as there is still the remake of Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie to come on DS, the first time the old SNES game has ever been remade. Those who like to speculate reckon that the remake of the sixth game could well use the DQIX engine and be released later in 2009 to ensure there is enough of a gap between releases.

More than 20 different Harvest Moon games have been made and you have to wonder, will these games ever evolve? Well, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility looks to take the evolutionary step that some fans have been waiting for since the original on the SNES. Wii-mote controlled farming, more choices for getting married, and more interaction with the townsfolk are just a few of the things present in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility.

The game starts with players taking a boat to the main island, in which the story takes place. It’s during this time that players choose their gender, and then begin a tutorial by spending a few days at an inn. Afterward, it’s on to the farming! Like any previous Harvest Moon game players will milk the cows, shave the sheep and plant crops. The major change with the general farming comes in the form of using the Wii-mote. So now, instead of just pressing buttons, players can actually re-enact the movements of hoeing, raking, fishing, cutting down trees or destroying rocks. There’s an alternative to this…I think it’s called real-life farming. Some of you might actually be interested in trying it out. Really.

As mentioned, many of the livestock care-taking features have been upgraded. But there’s also new animals to adopt, some of which include boars, pandas, penguins, turtles, cats, weasels, rabbits, squirrels, baby bears, dogs and monkeys. Players will have to be friendly to the wild animals in order to adopt them, including bringing them their favorite treats. It’s a little like Tamagotchi, except without the deformed evolution, or uncontrollable bowel- movements.

Another popular returning feature is the marriage candidates. Both male and female characters receive eight potential mates, each. Some of these candidates require special attention to acquire their affection, and hence, players will have to try to win over a selective mate by carrying out various side-quests (viz., Think GTA without the “hot coffee”). The neat part about the open-ended aspects of the game is that after getting married and having a kid, players can choose to start over as their child with their acquired items and money.

Earning cash and rewards will still play a big part in gaining wealth in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. Aside from making money on the farm, players can partake in a number of contests and festivities. These will work as mini-games to keep players on their toes, in-between trying to attain a spouse and running the farm. On the bonus end of things there’s also unlockable mini-games that support up to four-players, ranging from horse racing to stone skipping. I guess when the developer tosses in something like that you can’t complain too much.

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is due out on September 30th, exclusively for the Wii. You can check back in with Blend Games for more info and news regarding the latest games. Also, be sure to drop by the Blend Games Forum for the latest discussions on hot gaming topics.

Now, I know the issue is debatable, especially when the SNES had so many boss games— Super Mario World, Actraiser, and (okay, I’ll admit it), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time— but there’s just something about Link to the Past and CT that elevates them beyond being just great SNES games. They’re in a category all on their own and easily qualify as occupants for best game ever territory.

But let’s count the many ways I love thee, shall we? Link to the Past was a revolutionary milestone at the time that took the concept of light and dark and made it into a feature long before Samus would start meddling with all that nonsense in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Traveling back and forth through the light and dark realms, Link would find his precious Hyrule in a different state of turmoil whenever he would leap into the Dark World. My favorite moment of the game actually occurs early on when you first fall into the alternate universe and you come out a pink bunny, signifying that Link is good wherever he is, even in a world that’s supposed to bring out the worst in you.

What I really love about the game, though, is the fact that it’s so damn fun to play. Link has gone through some really interesting dungeons in the past (The water dungeon in particular if you’ve ever played The Ocarina of Time), but none were nearly as fun and, more importantly, as consistently fun, as they were in ALTTP. Every single one is short and easy to figure out if you just try out all your available options, which is something that wasn’t always true in some of the later games in the series (Again, I’m looking at you, water dungeon).

It was the kind of milestone of a game that makes you pay attention to Nintendo, more so than even Super Mario World. World was grand in its scope but wasn′t a masterpiece that made you feel like turning it off was like turning off a part of fun you could never attain again unless you turned it back on. I even want to play Link to the Past right now. Screw this editorial! Bah!

But then, there’s Chrono Trigger, a game that poses so many moral questions that it has about ten or twelve different endings just to answer them all. CT is like no other game you’ve ever played, even making its superb sequel, Chrono Cross look weak in comparison. I actually remember the first time I played CT and remember how blown away I was by the music. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many others, CT has the best music of any video game ever. Every song by Yasunori Mitsuda and legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu is perfect, utterly perfect, and they match the heroic adventure that even with 16-bits still looks spellbinding, even today.

And the characters can’t be beat. Frog, Lucca, Magus(!), and the others each complete heart-breaking personal quests in the midst of the amazing main storyline. Seriously, no RPG has ever matched the splendor of CT, and no RPG probably ever will. We fanboys are hard to impress with new things, and no new thing has ever come close to being as good as CT, that’s just how good it is.

So, which one is better? Well, as surprising as this may be, I’m going to have to go with Link to the Past. While the Chrono storyline is comparable to none and has way more replay value, Link to the Past, just has more heart, more gumption to it. From its achievement music to the way the combat system just works on so many levels, Link to the Past is the greatest SNES game in history, and I’m sticking by it. Chrono Trigger fans, who wants some?

Nintendo has enjoyed nearly two decades of portable gaming success with the Game Boy line of devices, more recently printing money by way of the touchscreen-equipped Nintendo DS and DS Lite.

Sony has been able to achieve a good level of success with the PSP and PSP Slim. While devices like the Sega Game Gear and Neo Geo Pocket have come and gone, their full-sized home counterparts have also come and gone.

For all intents and purposes, the Microsoft Xbox 360 is still doing very well in the marketplace. People are still more than happy to enjoy games like Halo 3 and Rock Band on the Xbox 360, so it’s clear that Microsoft has a formidable game-playing following. Why is it, then, that Microsoft has yet to grace us with any sort of portable gaming ambitions? Where is the Xbox Portable?

We’ve Heard It All Before

As I’m sure you know, this is far from the first time that we’ve heard rumors about an Xbox 360 Portable. As the reports go, the development team that originally worked on creating the Xbox 360 split in two. One group worked on add-ons like the HD-DVD player, whereas the other group focused their attentions on the Xbox 360 Portable.

The former was able to see their product come to fruition, so what happened to the efforts of the latter team? Yes, we’ve seen concept pictures and mockups by fanboys, but there is nothing official coming out of Redmond that makes mention of a portable Xbox gaming console. You know they can do it. You know that they have the infrastructure and support to create a portable Xbox. But they haven’t and we don’t know why.

Windows Mobile and Zune Hardware

It seems that Microsoft is trying to be all things to all people. On one front, Microsoft is competing against the likes of Sony and Nintendo in the video game arena, pitting the Xbox 360 against the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. On another front, Microsoft has placed its Zune media player in the same market currently dominated by the iPod and iPhone.

In this way, Microsoft could be working to kill two birds with one stone. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to do some serious Zune games, in the same way that the App Store opened an official pipeline for iPhone gaming. Whether it be Tetris or Monkey Ball, you can game on the iPhone. Taking the jailbreak route, there are also NES and SNES emulators.

With a proper firmware (and possibly hardware) update, the Zune could handle some rudimentary games, perhaps getting distributed through Xbox Live Arcade. Simple games shouldn’t have any trouble running on a Zune. Combine Zune music and video playing with Xbox-powered gaming and you’ve got yourself a good alternative to the iPhone… without the phone part. That’s okay. There’s no Nintendo Phone or PSP Phone either.

What Form Factor Would Be Best for Xbox Portable?

At this point, it seems unlikely that we’ll be seeing an Xbox Portable any time soon. Even so, we can go ahead and pursue this pipedream, just for the sake our own imagination and curiosity. What form factor would be the most appropriate for an Xbox Portable?

Some combination of the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP would probably be the best, I think. You can map the standard Xbox controller on the bottom half, and then have a large widescreen display that flips up in a clamshell kind of way. In the center of the controller portion, you could have a touch-sensitive section that adjusts to the current situation, like the Motorola E8. I don’t think a touchscreen is needed, nor is a full QWERTY keyboard. This is a gaming machine, not a messenger.

Not that it matters. I don’t think Microsoft is going to grace us with an Xbox 360 Portable. Prove me wrong, Redmond. Prove me wrong.

The October issue of Stuff magazine has a mega rundown of the Top 100 games ever, and there’ll be a few that will bring back fond memories of Amiga and SNES-playing pleasure. But more likely than not your old console is languishing on a landfill somewhere, so here are our top picks for taking it old-skool.

Oh, and remember that to download and play these games legally you need to own a copy of the original game. Ahem.

1) For Spectrum picks – World of Spectrum. Almost every Spectrum game ever made, and you can play them directly through your browser.

2) For Amiga games – Lemon Amiga. A great resource for Amiga games with links to lots of emulators.

3) For ᩬ fans – Lemon 64. Sister site to Lemon Amiga for C64 gamers.

4) Another C64 site – C64.com has loads of ᩬ games for use with emulators.

5) For all formats – Rom World. A good source for dipping into loads of formats.

6) For Coin-ops – Extra Mame. Emulates stacks of coin-ops from the 70s to the early 90s.

7) For Macs – Mac MAME will do the same for MAc fans.

For top choice – MESS. Works a bit like MAME, but emulates lots of old consoles. You need to download a BIOS file for each system you want to emulate.

9) For NES on iPhone – NES.app. Play your Nintendo faves on your iPhone via a touchscreen version of the old NES joypad.

10) For SNES fans – try Snesclassics.com

the Australian Virtual Console has been updated. This week, Nintendo have concluded the third Hanabi Festival by releasing the SNES game DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure, the NES game Spelunker, and the TurboGrafx titles Chase H.Q. and Ys Book I & II.

Released in 1996, DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure is a sequel to Milon’s Secret Castle and was never released outside Japan. The game starts out by introducing players to the village of Piccolo. One day, a fairy named Aeris arrives to alert the villagers that all sound and music has disappeared from the forest. Before she can tell more however, the demon Amon suddenly appears and kidnaps her. Players must now assume the role of Milon, Aeris’ friend, and restore peace to his homeland. During your quest you have to utilise Milon’s bubble shooter to attack enemies, as well as fight bosses and recover five legendary instruments and stars. DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure will set you back 900 points.