GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Major Nelson has published the list of the most played games on XBox Live during the past year. On the top of the list, is Halo 3, followed by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto IV.

Gears of War 2 is only fourth on the list, maybe due to the fact it only arrived by the end of last year, but there are also the few multiplayer problems it encountered at the beginning, and the fact that it’s not truly managing to reach the numbers that the first chapter of the series managed to obtain.

The full list can be found here.

Capcom surely has nothing to be worried about, but Jun Takeuchi, Resident Evil 5 ’s producer, seems to have their own reasons to be worried. In an interview to Famitsu, Takeuchi has declared himself worried about Western developers and on the turns that the videogaming world is taking.

“I’m worried about the movements of Western developers. Japan is now their target - it’s the last big marketplace. The truth is that Western studios are making great games, and they’re going to continue to do so next year too”, he says. “”It’s not good if Japanese developers are making games that can’t be enjoyed by Japanese people”.

Takeuchi fears that the “westernalization” of the videogaming world will eventually annihilate the “Japanese Style” that has been loved by many fans for a long time.

Reuters has published important numbers concering the Call of Duty franchise, that has sold more than 35 million copies in all its versions, in the several countries in which it is distributed. GTA IV has reached the 11 million copies, while Gears of War 2 has sold 3 million copies on its first commercial month.

In the war amongst the “rhythm” games, the Guitar Hero series remains untouched with its 23 million copies sold for all its versions. For Nintendo, Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold more than 4 million copies in the US, according to the updated data from November.

For Sony, of course, LittleBigPlanet has interesting numbers as well: it already features more than 100.000 levels created by users that have generated more than 20 million matches.

Playstation Home, recently labeled by Wired as “completely useless”, could remain forever in its beta phase. The words come from Jack Buser, the man responsible for the project itself.

On a podcast for Kotaku, Buser has in fact declared that there are good probabilities that Home will never be promoted to a “final” stage, and many people are looking at this move as a sort of surrender that would determine the early failure of the project.

To listen to the full Buser interview, click here.

Sega is preparing to offer some of their classics on XBox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The titles should be well-known, such as Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star II, Comix Zone and Sonic The Hedgehog 3.

Some of the Sega old games are already present in the Virtual Console listing for Wii, but it seems the company has decided to enlarge their target. Prices and dates should be available in the next few days, so stay tuned.

According to what was reported by IGN, it seems that the announced DSi success is a fact now, perhaps even bigger than was expected.

The number of units sold in Japan has reached the one million mark, according to some data released by Enterbrain. These numbers were updated on December 21st, and considering that the portable console was launched on November 1st in Japan, it’s quite a remarkable result for a simple revision of the current DS model.

The DSi has no launch date for North America and Europe yet, except for a very vague “2009″.

After the announcement of Metal Gear Solid Touch through the Famitsu pages, which was later officialized also on Konami’s Japanese site, there are now new details and images about the new version of Metal Gear that will be available on iPhone and iPod Touch.

Metal Gear Solid Touch will be based on the Metal Gear Solid 4 universe, taking characters and scenarios from the famous title, released this year for PlayStation 3. The game levels that will be available upon the game’s launch are 8, and further stages will be released through updates.

As it’s possible to be seen from the images in the end of the post, the gameplay will feature a third-person shooter view. Also, with the points obtained during the game, it’ll be possible to unlock several prizes that feature images and wallpapers about the Metal Gear series.

Metal Gear Solid Touch should be launched on Spring 2009, on Apple’s App Store. Below are the first images for the game. Enjoy!

According to what was reported by Telegraph, the “Social” platform for the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Home, has already been hacked.

The developers apparently have detected a security loophole that allows users to upload or cancel files to the Home servers, allowing hackers to place virus or plan a Denial-of-service attack.

It doesn’t end here, though: it would be possible to download files from the server, like other users’ avatars, change texts, songs and even view personalized videos through the in-game screen. Sony hasn’t said anything about eventual actions to be taken, although they have announced a “connection patch” that should arrive in the next few days.

The highly-awaited download service for the new Nintendo DSi will be launching on December, 24th in Japan.

The DSi Ware will offer users the possibility of downloading new titles and softwares that use the new functions on the DSi console. The prices will range from 20 to 800 DSi Points and amongst the first launch titles, users will find the new WarioWare and the portable version of Dr. Mario.

The teaser image referring to a new Metal Gear title that was first rumored to be for the Nintendo DSi has been confirmed to be for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The first site to reveal the teaser was Wii@everyday, with images scanned from the Japanese magazine Famitsu, in which a large Metal Gear Touch article can be found. In fact, Konami has officialized, a few hours ago, the arrival of Metal Gear on the Apple devices.