Meanwhile, perhaps the biggest release of the month, Resident Evil Revelations, made its debut at No. 6. Bear in mind that Capcom’s portable survival-horror offering released on Friday – so better give it a week, and here’s a least hoping it scares away Ubisoft’s Just Dance 3, which rounded up at No. 4.

Modern Warfare 3’s seat remained intact in the first three spots, however replacing Bethesda’s masterpiece, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with the latter dropping to No.3.

Full chart list below.

1 – FIFA 12
2 – Modern Warfare 3
3 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
4 – Just Dance 3
5 – Battlefield 3
6 – Resident Evil: Revelations
7 – Zumba Fitness
8 – Saints Row: The Third
9 – Assassin’s Creed; Revelations

Speaking to investors in the company’s third quarter financial briefing, in order to prove his point, Iwata used the declining sales of home consoles in December 2011 as an example, with the company’s current platform the Wii peaking at about 95 million of sales worldwide.

“I think that the market is now waiting for a new proposal for home consoles,” Iwata said.

“Along with effects from our trade marketing activities in December which mainly focused on the Nintendo 3DS, we were not able to sell the Wii as well as we usually do,” he added, referring to the US market. “However, not just the Wii, but the overall performance of home consoles in December was lower than the previous year.

“Usually, the Wii enjoys high sales in December, but last year, even though The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was highly acclaimed, we were not able to expand it sufficiently to our target audience, and although the Wii was the platform which sold the most software in December, we were not able to propose new Nintendo titles to our broad audience.

“In Europe,” Iwata continued, “it resulted that out of the home consoles, the Wii sold the most in December; however, we can see that the beginning of the year-end sales was slower and the peak was lower compared to that of the previous year.”

Nintendo’s first ever HD console, the Wii U, is expected to launch later this year. As for Sony and Microsoft, both giants have yet to discuss plans for the next wave of consoles, although strong rumors have been hinting lately that the software giant is likely to showcase its Xbox 360 successor at E3 2012.

Popular game characters Braid and the Limbo-guy certainly don’t think so. At least as much to diss Mario for not being the platformer pioneer it used to be by selling out to become a “mainstream” title with more spin-offs than chickens, and sales out-doing even Halo.

Well, Mario is about to burst their bubble.

Originally from here.

Skyward Sword starts out with the series’ usual introduction to the world and its characters. You start your adventure in Skyloft, a floating city in the sky that has been created by the Goddess to save the people of land long ago .While most of the starting hours feel familiar to other entries, there are several points in which Skyward Sword diverts from how The Legend of Zelda usually starts. For starters, Link and Zelda this time around know each other from the start and develop a relationship that seems a lot more powerful than previous titles have showcased. In addition, Zelda is also not a princess but her importance is significant and is revealed as the story progresses. After a few opening hours Zelda disappears due to a series of events and Link must then embark on a journey to find her and stop whatever evil that is lurking out there from bringing corruption on to the world.

The major gameplay change in Skyward Sword is the control scheme. Traditional controls are out of the picture as they are replaced with full use of motion control using the Wii’s Motion Plus controller. While skeptical at first because of previous experiences with really badly implemented motion controls, the accuracy of the motion controls in the game blew me away. You use your Nunchuk extension both for moving Link around as well as acting as a shield in battle while the Motion Plus controller acts as your sword. The controls can be hard to get used to at first, but gives a lot more control to Link than any Zelda game yet. Each monster/enemy in the game suddenly becomes a mini-puzzle as you need to figure out their patterns and find their weak points. The addition of motion controls really enhanced the gameplay as a whole as it opened up a ton more depth and detail to how you approach enemies in the game.

Skyward Sword also adds in the ability to upgrade your items and shields by collecting different ingredients and visiting the shop in Skyloft to perform the chosen upgrade. Having upgrades in the game is a great addition to the game as it gives you more control as to how you want to improve Link. Another gameplay change is the addition of a stamina bar as well as a sprint button. The stamina bar is something that you would either like or hate from the start. While it adds a different sort of mechanic to the game, it can be frustrating because of the limitations it puts on you while playing. The Sprint button on the other hand is a god sent as it gets you to where you need a lot faster than before.

Unsurprisingly, PC games were pirated the most. The list of top pirated games is:

1. Crysis 2 (3,920,000 downloads)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000 downloads)
3. Battlefield 3 (3,510,000 downloads)
4. FIFA 12 (3,390,000 downloads)
5. Portal 2 (3,240,000 downloads)

For the Wii platform, the list is:

1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000 downloads)
2. Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000 downloads)
3. Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000 downloads)
4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000 downloads)
5. FIFA 12 (860,000 downloads)

And on the Xbox 360m, the list is:

1. Gears of War 3 (890,000)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000)
3. Battlefield 3 (760,000)
4. Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000)
5. Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000)

So there you have it. This gives you an idea of just how widespread game piracy is. But this is far from being a definite list, as there are other ways of piracy that are much difficult to track. And if you are wondering about PS3’s exclusion, it could be because the piracy figures are insignificant enough to ignore, but more likely, it could be because PS3 downloads are harder to track since illegal games are downloaded directly to the system.

Source: TorrentFreak via The Escapist.

The sequel sees Batman and Robin join the Lego realm among other superheroes from the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern in a mission to bid Gotham City’s safety and fight off iconic villains Lex Luthor and the Joker.

According to publisher Warner Bros, a host of new gadgets and suits will be available, including Batman’s Power Suit and Robin’s Hazard Cannon. New special abilities such as super-breath, flight and heat vision will be present as well.

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is pegged for release in summer 2012 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, DS, 3DS and PS Vita.

There might be some errors (I really doubt Nintendo is bigger than Sony and Yahoo), but it’s a pretty interesting read. Did you know Nintendo was born as a playing card-making company? That Nintendo means “Leave luck to heaven” in Japanese? That Mario is more recognizable that Micky? Or that Mario has a 27′ vertical jump? No? Well, now you do:

Epic Mickey 2 is supposedly scheduled for release late 2012. According to the newsletter, the platformer features two-player split-screen coop – player no.2 will hop into the boots of Disney classic character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, giving him the “power to fly like a helicopter and use electricity to fight or friend enemies and solve challenges”.

You can check out the entire newsletter below.

“Disney Epic Mickey 2 is the latest game in the critically acclaimed Disney Epic Mickey videogame series. In this all-new action-platforming game available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, Mickey embarks on an epic journey and is pulled back into a world filled with Disney’s forgotten characters. Players can choose to play single-player as Mickey or for the first time players can also choose two-player split screen mode. In the two-player mode one person can play as Mickey wielding magic paint and paint thinner to dynamically change the world and the second player can play as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit – Walt Disney’s first cartoon star – with the power to fly like a helicopter and use electricity to fight or friend enemies and solve challenges. Team-up and choose your path to save this forgotten world because the choices you make will alter the story and change the end of the game!”

On PC, Crytek’s sci-fi shooter Crysis 2 racked up the prize of most-illegitimately downloaded game of 2011, registering nearly four million downloads. At number two, followed closely is another first-person shooter that is unsurprisingly Activision’s 2011 Call of Duty blockbuster – Modern Warfare 3. Another big EA shooter, Battlefield 3, made it to the third place.

Nintendo Wii’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the most downloaded game on consoles (1.28 million), even though it wasn’t released in that year. Xbox 360-exclusive Gears of War 3 led its way on top of the platform’s list with 890K downloads, followed by Modern Warfare 3 with 830K. As for PlayStation 3, there was no list because the Sony console apparently had “considerably less downloads”. Entire list can be seen below.

PC Game Downloads
1. Crysis 2 (3,920,000)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000)
3. Battlefield 3 (3,510,000)
4. FIFA 12 (3,390,000)
5. Portal 2 (3,240,000)

Wii Game Downloads
1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000)
2. Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000)
3. Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000)
4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000)
5. FIFA 12 (860,000)

Xbox 360 Game
1. Gears of War 3 (890,000)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000)
3. Battlefield 3 (760,000)
4. Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000)
5. Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000)

As published in the latest issue of Japanese weekly publication Shonen Jump, Dragon Quest X’s story kicks in the small village of Etene, focusing on the narration of a scenario of two siblings who lost their parents when they were young. They live in the small village separated from their surroundings.

Players control one of the siblings, and during the game’s character creation process, you select the gender of both siblings – there’s no restriction on the probabilities and thus both can be either male/female, or mixed.

You start your quest as a human, and at some point in the storyline, you transform into one of the five non-human tribes. No details on the transformation cause were disclosed.

Much like previous Dragon Quest iterations, the mag notes that some of the main residents of Etene Village were designed by celebrated character designer Akira Toriyama. For the full scoop, head over to Andriasang.