Japanese gamers who are still on the fence about a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 purchase got some good news today, as Capcom is bringing Devil May Cry 4 to electronic dartboards. Specifically, Epoch's PC-Darts platform, which hooks up to Windows boxes via a USB connection. How will it play? Just like regular darts, I suppose, but there will be fantastic Devil May Cry 4 wallpapers and sound effects to enhance the experience. At only 31,290 yen (about $290 USD) I don't know how any Capcom fan could pass this one up.

Capcom Releases DMC4 Downloads For PC-Darts [Game Watch]

Electronic Arts announced its quarterly earnings today, officially delaying Mercenaries 2: World In Flames to fiscal year 2009. The game was rumored to have been pushed back from its February release date to August based on retailer listings, with EA officially now providing an April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009 shipping window for the Pandemic Studios shooter. EA execs did not clarify a more specific date in today's quarterly earnings conference call.

The company provided the same window of release for Battlefield: Bad Company, a Digital Illusions co-op shooter originally slated for a 2007 release. We'll, of course, let you know when we hear more solid release dates for these two shoot-fests.

Hey, is that Mario Kart Wii final box art? Maybe! It seems to have all of its facts straight, now that the Mario Kart Wii title has dropped its "tentative" moniker and that the ESRB has given it an "E" rating. The logo is certainly different than the one shown in Nintendo's own press room, but we're willing to let that slide in our evaluation of box art authenticity. Then again, it's box art, so who ultimately cares at this point if it's legit? Kidding, of course, as box art is serious business.

We're certainly down with the rumored look and feel, but that packaging to accomodate a Wii Wheel that we don't really want or need seems a bit excessive.

Fake or True? [Nintenerds]

I just found out that Kotaku has been nominated for a 2008 Bloggie for best topical weblog. Previous winners include BookSlut, PostSecret and The Leaky Cauldron. Not only has a gaming site never been nominated in this category, I believe this is the first time that a gaming site has been nominated for any Bloggie. Kinda cool

If you're interested in voting for us hit up the site by tonight, when voting closes. I probably should have mentioned this before. And yes, we're up against cute cats.

Bloggies

In its sixth week on Japanese store shelves, Wii Fit retains the honor of being the number one selling title in the nation one more time. New releases starting to creep out, yet nothing can knock the Wii balance board off its feet, despite respectable attempts from a few newcomers. With Super Smash Bros. Brawl now on sale in its homeland, we expect next week to tell a different story.

The best selling games for the week of January 21 to 27 in Japan, courtesy of Media Create, are below.

01. Wii Fit (Wii) - 89,000 / 1,283,000
02. World Soccer Winning Eleven: Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 (PSP) - 77,000 / NEW
03. Lucky * Star (PS2) - 72,000 / NEW
04. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 50,000 / 140,000
05. Wii Sports (Wii) - 26,000 / 2,714,000
06. Mario Party DS (DS) - 22,000 / 1,581,000
07. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP) - 21,000 / 1,555,000
08. Dorabase: Doraemon Chou Yakyuu Gaiden (DS) - 20,000 / 138,000
09. Yggdra Union (PSP) - 17,000 / NEW
10. Professor Layton and the Devil's Box (DS) - 15,000 / 746,000

Remember that new boxing game from EA that we just told you about earlier today? 1UP already got their hands on this pretty picture (mega version after the jump). The game is called Facebreaker, and after just one screen and a press release, I'm seriously interested. As Fahey mentioned earlier, EA games have gotten so simulation oriented that it can take the fun away from the more casual sports fan. But a full onslaught of perfectly simulated cartoon combat sounds like just my cup of tea plastic bottle of a rough and tough inhumanly-colored thirst quencher.

FaceBreaker (Xbox 360) [1UP via Maxconsole]

The full 2007 Game Critics: Game of the Year Award winners have hit the Game Critics website, naming BioShock the game of the year.

Here's the complete break down, via the Game Critics Geoff Keighley and Rob Smith:

Top 10 Games of 2007:
1. BioShock
2. The Orange Box
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
4. Rock Band
5. Super Mario Galaxy
6. Halo 3
7. Mass Effect
8. God of War II
9. Assassin's Creed
10. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

...we're hopeful. Microsoft hasn't said "no" yet, but then they haven't said "yes" either. We need them to say "yes," and we need them to do it soon.

GamePro tested all the latest wireless controllers to discover which had the best battery life, the Xbox 360 pad, the Wiimote or the SIXAXIS. After playing a variety of titles, they found that the Xbox 360 controller's battery life of 56 hours and 56 minutes bested the 36 hours and 43 minutes of the Wiimote and the 18 hours and 41 minutes of the SIXAXIS.

If the numbers appear tough to swallow, that's only because they are. Not to insult GamePro's testing methods, but our readers should know that one attempt at a control skewed these results in a major way.

Good news! There will be more Portal. Bad news! We have no clue what that means or when it will happen. Valve spokesperson Doug Lombardi recently told Eurogamer:

There'll be more Portal, for sure. But the details of that, to be honest, we're still working out.

"More Portal for sure" - Valve [eurogamer][picture]

John Hillier is the manager of the UK-based The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association's Intellectual Property Crime unit. And he just made one hell of a claim about the American piracy market for the Nintendo DS.

In America it's thought 90 percent of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games because of R4s...takings from Nintendo DS games in the US are lower than any other console...

Chips are down for Super Mario [TheSundayPost via CVG]

NCsoft has just launched their new value-added services for MMO Lineage II, featuring name changes, server changes (coming soon), and the one we've all been waiting for - sex changes. For just $9.99 US you can trade in your outtie genitalia for an innie, or vice versa. Knowing how wishy-washy MMO players can be about their gender, the service allows you to change up to once a week, unless you are one of the winged Kamael, in which case you're already pretty close to gender neutral anyway. Launching alongside the discount nip and tuck is the name change service, which allows you to bury your bad reputation under another title for $29.99 as long as you remove yourself from any guilds and create a level 1 character with the desired name in order to reserve it. Once the server transfer service launches in a few weeks you will be able to start a completely new life as the woman or man you've always had lurking inside of you. Joy!

Lineage II Account Services Page [NCsoft]

How did Microsoft pull it off? They were a boring, monolithic software company helmed by Bill Gates, the world's biggest geek. They made Windows. They made spreadsheet software and word processing programs.

They were a boring part of our lives we were forced to accept as a boring part of our technological infrastructure, only a few pixels away from concrete or plumbing. Then, of all things, Microsoft turned its hat backwards and tried to sit at the cool table. They released the Xbox.

And they lost $4 billion.

But all was not a wash. While some would say Xbox (original) lost money, others realized that Microsoft really just invested the funds. And from this investment, they'd gained a non-Winblows identity in the marketplace, along with a powerful icon that was nearly as synonymous to the Xbox console as Mario was to Nintendo or Sonic to Sega: Master Chief.

Halo Wars" is being developed from the bottom up for the Xbox 360 and its control scheme to ensure that we deliver a groundbreaking console RTS experience. Given that, we have no plans to develop "Halo Wars" for Windows Vista at this time.