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Not ending price debates, but merely modifying them, Nintendo confirmed today that the price for the Wii upon release will not be any higher than $250 US. In addition, Nintendo also predicts that they will ship more than 6 million units worldwide. Wii's price comes as a big relief to gamers looking to buy a next-generation system without emptying their entire savings account to do so - especially with the recent pricing news of Sony's PS3.

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For me, this only solidifies the decision I had already made to buy a Wii over any other system. A release price of at most $250 is a huge advantage for the system over the PS3 and even the XBox360, though a price drop is expected for the latter upon the release of the Wii.

Source: Pocket Lint

The Charismatic, Energetic, Takes-No-Prisoners Executive Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, has become the new President of Nintendo of America. The current president will become the chairman of the board. Reggie will maintain his work as the overseers of the Sales and Marketing department as well as "lead the day-to-day operations of Nintendo of America." Mentioning the name "Reggie" to a hardcore Nintendo fan will generally elicit a big smile - this move will surely draw the fanbase closer to Nintendo as well as draw attention to the company as the Wii's release date draws nearer.

Source: Games Are Fun

While very little is thus far known about Square-Enix's upcoming Final Fantasy romp (the thirteenth one, that is), Japan's Famitsu magazine earlier this week revealed a few previously masked details apparent in the screenshots featured within the article: Next to the protagonist's Hit Point meter below the screen, an ATB (Active Time Battle) Cost stat can be seen. This would not only indicate the return of the Active Time Battle system (and possibly an accompanying ATB gauge), but more importantly suggests a required "price" in points for every move each player executes. Another new feature, visible in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, is a gauge in the shape of a circle. Famitsu speculates that a number inside the circle must, through some unconfirmed means, be met and, along with varying accomplished conditions, will allow characters in battle to enter an "Overclock" status - perhaps Final Fantasy XIII's version of previous games' hyper-powered attacks attained in similar fashions. This alleged Overclock status forces all but the active character into a sort of slow-motion state, but at the same time can reportedly be quite precarious business to carry out.

Lastly, the article has informed that the words next to the ATB Cost stat read "Lighting" (although it's unclear whether or not this is a misspelling of "Lightning" by the writer) and has been judged to be the protagonist's first name. Additionally, the weapons used by the female protagonist - a gun and a sword - are in reality two weapons in one; as dictated by the predicament or the enemies involved, this changable weapon can be toggled from one to the other.

As to be expected, the subject of a Japanese release date for Final Fantasy XIII has not yet been openly negotiated.

Source: RPGFan

Today, we have a small update in the fanfiction side of things for your reading pleasure so long as you don't read the ones by Del.

The first fic to be placed into the Final Fantasy 1 section, from Del S, and hopefully not going to be too lonely for very long.

Second and third up, in the Final Fantasy 6 section are two more from Del, Mog Soldiers, a slightly nutty and violent dark comedy with... weremoogles?! Also, an updated version of one of his eariler fics, Unavanged Dead. That particular fic won the 2004 fanfic competition, and this updated version expands the story.

In Final Fantasy Tactics is an offering from Kilakandra DiMenia, an in-game fiction from the point of view of Ramza as he battles not only the enemy, but his own inner thoughts.

Finally, in the Final Fantasy 7 is another from Del, this time, an alternate chain of events detailing a completely different kind of attack on Sector 7 from the one that occurred in-game.

Please enjoy these, and feel free to comment upon them here.

After dropping the new-name bombshell, Nintendo must have realized that they had to come up with something good for E3 or risk being laughed out of the console market. (At least they seemed to realize that no one liked the new name.) But if you're looking for anything as concrete as, oh, a launch date, maybe, or a price, quit reading now. They don't have their act together that much.

What they did have was largely an amalgum of concept videos designed to show off the new--not next--generation of gaming. Mostly, they demonstrated how their new controller can function as a gun, a sword, a fishing rod, a tennis racket...and possibly a back scratcher, if they make it a little longer.

The real gem of the presentation was evidence that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will actually be released someday. In fact, it's planned in two versions, for both the GameCube and the new system. There has been little detail about what the differences will be, but they will have to be substantial if the new controller is to play a significant roll. Weapons and items are mapped to the D pad, and fighting is done by swinging the remote and the nunchaku attachment. Also, you'll get to hear sound effects from your hand thanks to the built-in speaker.

Source: GameSpot

In case you can't tell from the tone of the above, I'm feeling a wee bit (pun intended) disillusioned with the console formerly known as the Revolution. It seems like Nintendo is giving up producing things that gamers actually want and just trying to figure out something new. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I haven't heard much lately to suggest that Nintendo is in any way interested in making their supporters happy.

Personally, waving my arms around while playing a video game sounds like a pain in the butt.

At their recent presentation at E3, Sony dropped several PS3-related bombs, including several key pieces of info about the PS3.

The PS3's new controller is indeed a Dualshock 3. It looks extremely similar to the Dualshock 2, but now features a USB port and a built-in motion senseor with "six degrees of freedom". Here's a picture

The Sony PS3 will be available in two models - a standard version with 20 GB of hard drive space, and a deluxe version with 60 GB of hard drive space. The lighter version will cost $499 and the deluxe will cost $599. This is not a terribly surprising price, considering the PS3's specs and production cost, but it is also significantly more expensive than the prices of its competitors.

So yes, if you do the math, it is quite probable that you can buy both a Wii and an XBox 360 for the price of a single PS3 - I say "probable" because we aren't positive of the Wii's price yet, but we'll probably find that out at Nintendo's presentation tomorrow afternoon. Start saving up, people.

Source: Gamespot

EDIT: I edited in the controller bit. Here's the pic again: Dualshock 3