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From CVG

The recently-released expansion to World of Warcraft, "The Burning Crusade," has earned the title of the fastest-selling video game of all time. In just the first day of sales, almost 2.4 million copies of the game were snatched off of the shelves, not even given a chance to cool down off the retailers' hands.

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The title was released in both North America and Europe, which may have helped the sales but in no way lessens the incredible victory Blizzard has gotten from this. Approaching 2.4 million copies in 24 hours means they were selling, on average, nearly 100,000 copies an hour in the two continents, which is an unbelievable pace. World of Warcraft already had the reputation of being addicting the point of stealing friends and family away, and I can only imagine how many people who may have grown stagnant in the realm of Azeroth will re-enter the world now that they have lots of new content to enjoy.

This will be my shortest newspost ever, but I didn't want any punk wannabe newsposters beating me to the info this time.

Square-Enix recently revealed that Balthier (also known as Balflear), the loveable air pirate from Final Fantasy XII, will have a storyline role in the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. It is unconfirmed if he will be playable or not, but he will have a storyline role.

In the same announcement, Square-Enix revealed one of the new job classes for the remake: Dark Knight. Let the moveset speculation run wild.

Source: RPGFan

After endless months of hubbub surrounding the various next-gen (this-gen?) console launches, complete with fanboys of all flavors proclaiming their console the winner and predicting at least one complete loser, the numbers are finally in. Which console really did the best in its launch period--and which did the worst?

With similar year-end launch windows for each of the three consoles, it seems fair to compare their sales from launch until year-end. In 2005, the X-Box 360 sold 607,000 consoles. By the end of 2006, Sony had sold 687,300 PlayStation 3s for a narrow launch-window victory. But, wait! In the slightly smaller 2006 window Nintendo gave the Wii launch, it sold 1.1 million consoles, vastly outstripping either of its competitors.

Of course, no one likes to be declared the loser in any kind of race, and Sony and Microsoft have been swift to point out a few caveats before taking these numbers at face value. While the Wii was in short supply throughout the holiday season, Nintendo managed to overcome the supply hurdles that kept Microsoft and Sony in the dust. With an infinite supply of each of the three consoles, it's hard to say which brand would have come out the winner. Also, Microsoft's 360 was the top console seller of this holiday season, claiming a 51% market share in North America.

So what do these numbers really mean? I'm inclined to agree with the analysts. It's too close to call. There aren't any clear losers as of yet, and I think it's going to take at least another year to see if Sony ever solves its production problems or if the Wii fans knocked unconscious by wayward Wiimmotes ever recover from their comatose states. So, shut up, fanboys. Or at least start basing your predictions on the market a year from now.

Source: GameSpot

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan

Barely a month after launch, two of Wii's promised features will see the light of day. Internet-connected users turned on their Wii today to receive a message from Nintendo informing them that the weather channel was just a short system update away. Furthermore, the Wii web browser will debut on Friday.

The weather channel allows the users to select a city from which to receive a daily forecast, including temperature and wind speed. This might sound pretty boring, but the neat part comes when you can zoom out to view the entire globe, spin it around, and check the weather in all kinds of bizarre places. For the record, it's a measly 1 degree Fahrenheit in Antartica today, but at least it's not snowing.

Friday's content may be a bit more interesting as Nintendo release's the beta version of the Opera browser. Initially, users will be able to download this update for free; it will remain free until June of next year.

Finally, the last promised Wii channel, the News Channel, will arrive at the end of this coming January.

Source: GameSpot

Never one to take the market's resounding no at face value, Sony is making another stab at selling PSP owners portable movies. Sometime next year, a video download service similar to Apple's iTunes will allow PSP owners to download movies specifically for use with their PSP.

Few details have been released, but it is known that movies must be first downloaded to the user's computer, then transferred to a memory stick to play on the PSP. There is no word of which, if any, studios will be participants (presumably, Sony has at least someone lined up), but Hollywood can rest assured that this move will not exacerbate copyright infringement. Sony, always hard at work to implement draconian and even damaging copy protecting measures, will ensure that only one copy of the movie can exist per paid download.

Since PSP owners can already transfer DVDs they own to their computer and from their to their PSP, I don't see how this is much different from the failed UMD strategy. This time, users won't even have a convenient case with a pretty picture in which to store their purchase, and with DVDs frequently available for very low prices, I can't imagine an incentive to buy a virtual copy that can only be watched on my PSP instead of the real thing that I can watch anywhere.

Source: GameSpot