The first MMORPG for the Wii will be hitting store shelves on a very important month for Nintendo. Dragon Quest X will be releasing in August, the very same month New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be released for the Nintendo 3DS.

Much like any other MMO, there is a paid subscription service that differs depending on how much you’re willing to spend. For now, right after purchasing the game you’ll be granted 30-days trial, after that, you must pay to continue your online journey.

Dragon Quest X will be out on August 2. A Wii U version is also in the works.

Nintendo failed to meet hardware and software sales estimates, despite a number of revisions. The Nintendo 3DS sold 13.51 million units, Wii sold 9.84 million units and the DS series sold 5.1 million units. The previous estimates were 14 million 3DSs, 10 million Wiis and 5.5 million units DSs.

Software sales for the year were 36 million for the 3DS, 102.37 million for the Wii, and 60.82 million units for the DS series.

“While [Nintendo] did post a loss for the recently completed fiscal year, the continuing momentum of the Nintendo 3DS and the global introduction of the highly-anticipated Wii U home console will drive the company back into profitability in the current year,” the company said in a statement.

Nintendo expects to jump back into the green-zone with an estimate net profit of $245 million for the upcoming year. It cited New Super Mario Bros. 2, Animal Crossing, and a new Brain Age series titles as potential sellers.

The publisher also said the 3DS will no longer be sold below cost from August 2012 onwards.

Any guesses as to what this could be? Speculate in the comments section below!

The game is called Men in Black: Alien Crisis and is being developed for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. All of the versions of the game will be compatible with the Top Shot Elite peripheral. The PS3 version will also be compatible with the PS Move sharp shooter, and the Wii version with the Wii Zapper.

Alien Crisis doesn’t seem to borrow it’s story from the movie, and rather has its own thing going on. Here’s what the press release say:
“In Men In Black: Alien Crisis, players take on the role as Peter Delacoeur, a MIB Agent in training, assigned to unearth enemy aliens who are planning to destroy planet Earth. With hidden surveillance and stealthy guards on the prowl, players must ambush confidential alien intelligence and stop all alien attacks. Men In Black: Alien Crisis brings exciting, realistic MIB Agent movements as players shoot, and dodge their way through action-packed levels to escape fierce alien assaults.”

The game will feature will two-player split-screen support and 4-player “hot-seat”competitive action “for awesome friends and family involvement.”

Activision has roped in Starlight Runner to help develop the story and script of the game. They were put in-charge by Sony to help “provide a single voice to the Men in Black universe with the upcoming film and related properties.”

Men in Black: Alien Crisis will release along with the movie on May 25.

While Epic Mickey 2 is a continuation of the Wii original, this version will now be expanded to include the Xbox360 and PS3, along with souped-up graphics for each console. I hit the start button and gawk at the introduction cinematic – it’s a colorful and Disney-approved hit number, complete with singing. Yes, singing cinematics – this is a Disney game after all. After the great introduction I find myself in Yen Sid’s workshop, the ‘tutorial’ level of the game which shows me the basic controls and allows me to experiment with such magnificent feats such as double-jumping. I’m then re-united with the magical paintbrush from the first game, which can shoot out streams of paint or thinner to dynamically change the game’s environments.

A hop through a portal and I’m in another demo level, but I’m paired up with the adorable Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald makes more of a statement in this game rather than being a mindless companion. In fact, Disney thought it best to give the little guy a remote control so he can harness the power of electricity in the game. Surely no harm can come from giving a slightly deranged rabbit that kind of power?

The duo works well, as crazy as it may sound. Mickey and Oswald work as a team whether controlled by players or the AI. The advantage of having two players controlling the two is that you’re able to toss the other player to higher areas to reveal hidden bonuses, something which you can’t do when you’re playing with the AI. Combining Mickey’s paint brush abilities with Oswald’s maniacal love for kilowatts provides some worthwhile entertainment, not to mention some nifty abilities.

But is this just another run of the mill platformer with the occasional puzzle that barely scratches the surface of your imagination? Thankfully, it’s not. The game has a few aces of its own that guarantees a fun experience for any age group. For one thing, the puzzles here aren’t as simple as they make out to be. In one demo level where I had to find and recharge three generators, I had to ask one of the Disney guys to come over and help me out as I just couldn’t seem to find the damn things. In the end I had to ‘paint’ one of the buildings to restore it and then jump onto a newly created platform to drag the generator down. It may sound like a simple puzzle, but the crafty way in which most of the puzzles have been setup will post at least some kind of a challenge to gamers.

The other thing that the game is proudly stating is its use of ‘persistence’ – often at times in the game you will need to make choices, and these choices stick with you for a good part of the game and often change the course of future events. Yes, it’s a mechanic as old as Walt Disney himself, but it’s something that Warren Spector is passionate about. He wants gamers to feel the consequences of their actions – not necessarily in a morbid way, but at least in a way that they feel that what they’re doing in the game has a lasting effect on how things play out in the end.

While the game doesn’t have any online playability (Warren elaborates on this in our interview with him), the local co-op does really shine through the game. You’re often tempted to bring out your competitive streak and zap at your friend of just go the opposite way to frustrate the crap out of them. Of course it’s all part of the Disney magic, which is given a huge boost this time around with the introduction of a full voice cast. Characters sound exactly like they’re supposed to, and the talented Frank Welker provides a stellar voice for Oswald.

If this early tech demo is any reflection of what’s in store, then gamers are certainly in for a great time with Epic Mickey 2. It’s clear that the studio is taking no chances this time around and has paid a lot of attention to community feedback based on the first game. We’ll keep our ears posted for future updates on Epic Mickey 2, but in the meantime stay tuned for our interview with Warren Spector, who dishes a bit more about Epic Mickey 2.

I’m no stranger to Disney games, having recently bashed my way through Disney Universe on my Xbox 360. But Epic Mickey 2 holds something different for gamers, and anyone lucky enough to play the original game will understand the very unique feel that this game has.

First up on stage is Andrea Tartaglia, Vice President, Franchise Marketing of Disney Europe who talks us through some of the 80+ history of Disney and it’s many characters. The company’s iconic character is of course Mickey Mouse, who enjoys attention from both youngsters and adults alike.

Tartaglia then introduced Warren Spector, Vice President and Founder, Junction Point, to the stage. Spector’s contributions to the gaming world have been many over the years, so it was going to be interesting to see what this genius was going to unveil to us. After a brief greeting, he outlined the success of the original Epic Mickey videogame, which debuted exclusively on the Wii console. The game set a record for being the best selling Disney platform game to date, with over 90% of people polled over the US, UK, Germany and France regions stating that they would love to play through a sequel. So Epic Mickey 2 in many ways was a no-brainer decision for the company; the challenge was of course how they were going to make this an even better game to enjoy.

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two focuses on two main characters; Mickey Mouse and his new partner in crime, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, seen in the original Epic Mickey. While I won’t go into the story details in this article, Oswald and Mickey have to join forces once again to defeat an approaching threat. While Mickey retains the power of the magic paintbrush from the first game, Oswald wields a remote control which allows him to harness the power of electricity and pull off some pretty cool tricks in the game. This unlikely partnership is most of what makes Epic Mickey 2 actually tick. From the snippets of gameplay video we were shown there doesn’t seem to be any limit to what the duo can pull off in the game.

While the original Epic Mickey was only available on the Wii, Spector revealed that Epic Mickey 2 would be available on the Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3. He also announced that at a later stage there would be a 3DS game available, which would be based in the same world as Epic Mickey 2, as well as plans to potentially bring a PC and Mac version to light. Apart from the multi-platform availability, Epic Mickey 2 aims to bring some considerable improvements to the game based on feedback gathered from the first game. The first point that Spector made was about the camera in Epic Mickey, and how they had a dedicated team working on the camera for Epic Mickey 2. He said that the camera controls and angles have been improved so much, that you will almost never have to touch the manual camera controls. The other dramatic change in Epic Mickey 2 is that all characters will now have spoken dialogue, which really breathes new life into the game. The game will feature the real Disney voice talent, so that any Disney character you encounter in the game will sound just like they’re supposed to. The other bonus is that the game will have localized content in some regions (including Arabic), so that the text and dialogue will both be translated. The game will also be the first to showcase songs in some of the cutscenes (which you can skip through), because it’s nearly impossible to name a Disney film that doesn’t have a song in it.

Apart from obvious graphical improvements, Epic Mickey 2 will present players with different choices to make in the game, with the results of those choices carrying through to the rest of the game. This is something Spector felt had to be present in Epic Mickey 2, so that players weren’t just running around trying to solve puzzles or defeat enemies – they had to have a reason for doing every single thing. The game also introduces some gorgeous new levels including the Wizard’s workshop from Fantasia, which acts as a sort of tutorial level in the game. New enemies and characters have also been added to the mix, so there’s a suitable level of challenge in Epic Mickey 2. Probably the biggest bonus in this game is the inclusion of 2-player local co-op gameplay. What makes this so great is there are different scenarios that come about when you have two players playing together as apposed to one player and an AI character (not to mention how competitive it can get with a second player).

Spector wrapped up his presentation with a brief background on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Originally dreamt up by Walt Disney back in 1927, Oswald made a brief television debut before Disney lost the rights to the character and no further Oswald clips were made. The company did manage to win the rights to the Oswald character back in 2008, for production on the Epic Mickey videogame. Spector then surprised us by screening one of Oswald’s ‘lost’ cartoons – a quaint masterpiece I might add. While we weren’t allowed to film it, the silent cartoon did send a few audible giggles through the room.

With the presentation wrapped up, we headed out for our interviews and gameplay time with Epic Mickey 2. A quick 3-level demo was setup across Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 stations, with the Xbox and PS3 units really doing wonders for the game in terms of graphics and presentation.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for our hands-on preview of Epic Mickey 2, as well as our interview with the man himself, Warren Spector.

Thankfully, the publisher has opened up and has supplied new info to Nintendo Power that has run a multi-page feature article in its latest issue.

The article details the use of the WiiU tablet controller, which it says will act as some form of link to Assassin’s Creed’s ‘Animus’ system. The controller’s touchscreen will double as an on-screen map, a navigation tool, a database entry reader, and even as an alternate view for Eagle Vision. It will also present the weapon selection menu during combat, allowing players to change weapons with a simple touch on the screen.

Nintengen has the original article scans, so head over there if you want to have a look.

Mickey and Oswald. "What's up?"

Interestingly, the game is being described as a “musical”. As the plot advance, characters will break out into a song in order to, ahem, “express themselves”. Players will hear tunes and instrumentation that will change based on their personal choices, allowing each player to “conduct” their own unique soundtrack.

“As a life-long Disney fan, working with Mickey Mouse in the original ‘Disney Epic Mickey’ was a truly humbling experience,” said Warren Spector, creative director and vice president, Junction Point. “Millions of fans fell in love with Mickey as a video game hero and I know they’ll experience similar emotions when they get to interact with and actually play as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in ‘Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.’”

The game also features a co-op mode dubbed “PlayStyle Matters”, where players will “dynamically tackle different challenges in order to explore all possibilities and storylines, but with consequences for their chosen actions.”

“In the first ‘Disney Epic Mickey title,’ fans embraced Mickey as a true video game hero and welcomed Oswald back into the Disney family with open arms,” said John Pleasants, co-president, Disney Interactive Media Group. “Now, as the vision for the “Disney Epic Mickey’ franchise advances, fans and gamers across all platforms will experience completely new ways to embrace the immeasurable vault of Disney characters and attractions.”

Epic Mickey 2 is being developed once again by Junction Point and will release for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. No release date yet. Except art work and screencaps sometime tomorrow.