Game Developers Conference Summary

Video Games

The Game Developers Conference, or GDC, wrapped up in San Francisco last week. Every year, this conference showcases lots of exciting features and announcements for game developers big and small. This year is no exception, with Nintendo notably making tons of new announcements.

Nintendo says: "Wii Improve"

The Virtual Console will finally be releasing some classic Final Fantasy games for download. As well, new Final Fantasy games will be coming to WiiWare, including My Life as a Darklord, the sequel to My Life as a King, and the sequel to the recent DS game, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Nintendo also announced that classic arcade games, like Mappy, will also be available in the near future.

If you are running out of space in the Wii System Memory, you will be happy to know that the Wii Shop Channel has been updated to include a SD Card Menu where you can upload and run channels straight from a SD Card. No longer will you have to juggle files around in the Wii System Memory, the SD Card Menu makes all that easy and unnecessary for the most part. As well, the update will enable the Wii to work with SDHC cards up to 32 GB, which is enough to keep anybody happy for a long time.

Nintendo DSi - Third Time Lucky

More exciting than Wii improvements is all hub-bub surrounding the latest Dual Screen handheld gaming console, the Nintendo DSi. The system arrives in North America this week and it comes with DSiWare channel that is very similar to the Virtual Console and WiiWare Channels on the Wii. Those lucky enough to get their hands on the new system will already be able to download games like WarioWare: Snapped! and Brain Age Express: Math. Don't worry about paying for downloads just yet, Nintendo will be giving away 1,000 free points if you get a DSi and connect it to the online shop before October!

If you have been hiding under a rock for the last year and haven't heard of the DSi, it is the newest version of the DS, an improvement over the DS Lite. The DSi features bigger screens, two cameras for photos, a SD card slot, DSiWare channel, and more! As well, Nintendo has announced that there will be games coming out that will only work on the DSi and other games that will work on all DS systems, but will have extra features on the DSi.

PlayStation Gets More Home Space

If you are starting to find PlayStation Home a little boring, you'll be excited to know that Sony has announced that three new spaces will be launched every month starting immediately. True to their word, Backstage with Guitar Hero is now available in Home, where you can watch trailers for upcoming Guitar Hero games, access Behind the Scenes videos, a mysterious VIP area, and compete for top spots on the leaderboard.

Games to Look Forward To

Besides all these great hardware announcements, there are were also a lot of announcements at GDC for games to keep an eye out for later on this year, including:

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