Game-to-film adaptations usually don't prove to be as popular as the video games they were based on, so what goes wrong when trying to put games into the silver screen? Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Super Mario Bros. franchise, shares his thoughts on what went wrong, using the film adaptation of his Super Mario Bros. as an example. Check out the full article for more details!

Enterbrain, the publishers of popular Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, has revealed the best selling games in Japan this year and guess what format they play on? That's right: DS. DS has sold the most consoles in the first half of the fiscal year, which runs from March 27 to September 24. Mario was one of the original adventure platformers and is a big seller just about everywhere, and during the first half of the fiscal year, New Super Mario Bros. for the DS managed to sell 3.09 million units!

The Japanese weren't satisfied with just one DS title, though. The popular Brain Age sequel, Motto Nou wo Kitaeru took second place, with 1.53 million copies sold in the given period. DS titles didn't take up the whole list though, with a PS2 game, Winning Eleven 10, selling 1.04 million units.

Then it goes straight back to DS titles, with the original Brain Age at number four selling 900,000 units, followed by Animal Crossing DS (870,000), Tetris DS (840,000), Final Fantasy III(730,000), the English language training program Eigo Zuke (670,000), the digital cookbook Shaberu DS Rori Navi (500,000), and Tamagotchi Puchi Puchi Omisecchi(500,000 units).

With three DS titles nominated for Game Of the Year in the Golden Joystick awards as well, it appears that 2006 is shaping up to be the year of the DS. But the release of PS3 and Wii in November should shake things up a little before Christmas. I wonder if New Super Mario Bros can hold onto the number one spot during this period? What do you think? Ssound off your comments!

The results are in...almost. The finalists for the Golden Joystick Game Of The Year, which has been around since 1982 and which has become one of the most prestigious gaming awards, have been announced. This year, the voting record has been broken, with over 400,000 gamers voting for the game of their choice since September. Now you get the chance to vote for the game of the year in the final stage of the Golden Joystick awards - which title will you crown best game of 2006? Here are the choices:

• Animal Crossing: Wild World
• Call of Duty 2
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Special Edition
• Half-Life 2
• Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend
• Mario Kart DS
• New Super Mario Bros.
• Pro Evolution Soccer 5
• Resident Evil 4

All voting can be done through the Golden Joystick's website and the awards ceremony will take place at the Park Lane Hilton, London in the Grand Ballroom on Friday, October 27. Get your votes in now!

Have you ever heard of the Kenya song and accompanying flash animation? It goes, "Where can you see lions/ Only in Kenya!/Come to Kenya, we got lions!/ Forget Norway!" Well, Norway got pissed, so they got something of their own: Nintendo DS Bundle Packs.

Where can you buy DS Packs?
Only in Norway!
Come to Norway, we got DS Packs!
Forget Kenya!

Moving on... (how much more deranged can QJ get, right? We might as well continue.) The Bundle Pack includes a Black DS Lite, New Super Mario Bros., and NES Classic Super Mario Bros. Oh! And a box! There might be more to the bundle, such as lions and tigers from Kenya, but we don't know anyone who knows Norwegian, and no one's made a program to translate Norwegian into English, so if you do happen to know something we're missing from the bundle, tell us.

The bundle is currently priced at 1,595 Norwegian Kroners (around $245). If you live there, now would be a good time to get one. It's only too bad they didn't add Pocket Monsters into the bundle, because then Norwegians could get their heads out of that Kenya song by killing virtual lions and tigers.

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Update:

According to a tip from Christoffer "Dofty from Norway" Knutsen (paraphrased from his translation, of course), the site says that it's been 20 years since the introduction of the NES to Norway, which explains the Super Mario fixation of the bundle. The site also says that buying the items individually would cost around 2000 Kroners (around $305-310). There are limited stocks available so you can get ahead of the rush by preordering it from the site, and the official release will be sometime in the next two weeks. Thanks Dofty!

Some of the biggest nightmares for gamers are losing saved games and having to play at the starting level all over again. A certain Mike Cruz aka "EGMCruz" shares his woes on such experiences when his 3-year old nephew managed to erase his saved game on New Super Mario Bros.on his DS Lite. Then there's the flashback of his sister having erased his game on the last level of the original Legend of Zelda. Tsk!Tsk!

We know how it feels, tragic indeed. After spending so much time just to reach a certain level, but after some klutz "accidentally" erased your saved game, you have to repeat it all over again.

Lessons learned? Don't let your beloved consoles or handhelds be borrowed by others, I guess.

In the latest Japanese sales charts that Media Create has compiled which are dated from August 28 to September 3, the Nintendo DS Lite has come out at the top, thanks to the release of its black version in Japan. It has sold a whopping eight times more than its close competitor, the Sony PSP. This is a huge thing since the number of units sold last week have almost doubled.

The number of PS2 units sold include both the "original" and the "slim" types, while the numbers in parenthesis are the total number of units that have been sold since the release of that particular title or console.

Hardware

• Nintendo DS Lite - 228,939 (4,196,826)
• PlayStation Portable - 27,499 (3,939,299)
• PlayStation 2 - 22,703 (19,684,767)
• Game Boy Advance SP - 2,751 (5,884,378)
• Game Boy Micro - 1,791 (535,040)
• Xbox 360 - 1,250 (140,493)
• GameCube - 855 (4,157,561)
• Nintendo DS - 320 (6,577,480)
• Game Boy Advance - 22 (8,822,676)
• Xbox - 0 (475,522)

DS Total - 10,774,306
GBA Total - 15,242,094

Moving on to the games themselves, the sales for Final Fantasy III have dropped, not because people didn't want it anymore (it DID completely sell out on its release day, afterall), but because at the moment, the limelight is shining on a non-Nintendo game, Phantasy Star. Ninty fans can still breathe easy, though, since the top ten is till dominated by Nintendo games.

Software

• PS2 - Phantasy Star Universe - Sega - 120,202 (NEW)
• NDS - New Super Mario Bros. - Nintendo - 72,763 (2,974,027)
• NDS - Brain Age 2 - Nintendo - 46,662 (3,119,857)
• NDS - Final Fantasy III - Square Enix - 45,949 (549,001)
• NDS - Freshly Picked Tingle's Rose Colored Rupee Land - Nintendo - 45,496 (NEW)
• NDS - Cooking Navi - Nintendo - 35,689 (419,733)
• NDS - Mario Hoops 3 on 3 - Square Enix - 34,001 (267,763)
• NDS - Animal Crossing: Wild World - Nintendo - 32,605 (3,181,735)
• GBA - Rythm Tengoku - Nintendo - 28,361 (123,432)
• NDS - Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 2 - Namco Bandai - 27,540 (458,474)

The numbers for last month are finally in and it looks like we now know what happened in August! August is typically one of the slowest times of the year for the gaming industry. It's also one of the most predictable when it comes to the software charts for the United States. What do I mean by that? August, at least in the USA, is the month of Madden. Just look at the number it pulled off!

1. PS2 Madden NFL 07 - 885,000
2. 360 Madden NFL 07 - 477,000
3. XBX Madden NFL 07 - 253,000
4. PS2 Madden NFL 07: Hall of Fame Edition - 127,000
5. 360 Madden NFL 07: Hall of Fame Edition - 92,000
6. PSP Madden NFL 07 - 58,000
7. GCN Madden NFL 07 - 50,000
8. NDS Madden NFL 07 - 7,000
9. GBA Madden NFL 07 - 3,000

Yep, around 1,952,000 copies of the game were sold in the USA alone. The last 50,000 of the 2 million figure reported earlier likely came from sales in Canada where Madden isn't as popular. As you can see, we Canadians aren't the only ones who don't have too much of a taste for Madden. Nintendo fans don't seem to particularly care for the series either. Oh well, let's move on to hardware.

Hardware Sales for August 2006
The Xbox is selling less and less every month now. Pretty soon, will it be gone completely? Is it only a matter of time before the same happens to the GameCube? Although people are still thinking the GCN might stand a chance of catching up to the Xbox. Who knows, maybe a couple of years down the road we'll hear an announcement saying that the GameCube did outsell the Xbox? By then we'll be well into the next generation so it won't matter much. PlayStation 2 is as strong as ever. Xbox 360 isn't doing as well as the Xbox had done by this point in time, but it's doing much better than the Xbox and GameCube had done in August 2002 (their first summer).

1. Nintendo DS - 278,000
2. PlayStation 2 - 262,000
3. Xbox 360 - 204,000
4. Game Boy Advance - 156,000
5. PlayStation Portable - 146,000
6. GameCube - 41,000
7. Xbox - 9,000

Top 10 Game Titles for August 2006
Now let's look at the game titles. There were 24 titles that sold over 50,000 copies last month. If you want to see the top 10, click on the Full Article link below!

We don't know whether it's the witty dialogues or the transition of the story between the real and unreal, but there's no doubt that Thug Headquarters's Saints Row is hitting the jackpot. We also know that all of these elements in this GTA-like thug game have melded to bring Saints Row to the top of the UK All Formats chart for the past five weeks. Despite this success, however, Saints Row earned a 6/10 rating with EDGE, much to the disappointment of a lot of fans.

The rest of the top ten slots were occupied by GTA: Liberty City Stories, New Super Mario Bros., Pro Evolution Soccer, Sims 2, Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training, Reservoir Dogs, and Animal Crossing.

There's also lots of people wondering if other games such as Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run, Enchanted Arms, Test Drive Unlimited, and especially Dead Rising will soon be taking over and throw Saints Row off of its pedestal.

And now, we bring to you the latest chart of the hottest games in the US for this week. From the looks of it, though, it seems that the Land of the Brave has caught the football fever with half the spots in the chart being occupied by Madden games for different consoles. Another thing to note will be the fact that the two DS games in the US charts have also been contenders in last week's UK top ten.

But enough of the chit-chat, and on to the countdown!

• Madden NFL 07 (ps2">PS2)
• Madden NFL 07 (Xbox 360)
• Madden NFL 07: Hall of Fame Edition (PS2)
• Dead Rising(Xbox 360)
• Tomb Raider: Legend (Xbox 360)
• Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes A Day (Nintendo DS)
• Madden NFL 07: Hall of Fame Edition (Xbox 360)
• New Super Mario Brothers (Nintendo DS)
• Madden NFL 07 (PSP)

Pre-orders of Madden NFL 07 scores four touchdowns as they lead the pack of current best sellers in four out of seven platforms, while remaining in the top ten at numbers 2 and 8 in two others. Ranking first among games for PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, and Xbox, Madden edges out over tight competitors like Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus of Square Enix (PS2), Tekken: Dark Resurrection of Namco Bandai (PSP), Dead Rising by Capcom (Xbox 360), and Sid Meier's Pirates! by 2K (Xbox).

Nintendo superstars, however, are unstoppable with the Super Smash Bros. Melee dominating GameCube, while Madden has to content itself with only the number 2 spot. The New Super Mario Bros. continues its streak at number one in the DS chart with Brain Age, also from Nintendo, at number 2.

Two World of Warcraft titles meanwhile, invade the top two positions in MMORPG: World of Warcraft by Vivendi sits at number 1, while World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade exp. pack (pre-order), also by Vivendi, settles at number 2. Madden inches its way up slowly at number 8, while Nancy Drew: Danger by Design of Her Interactive loses grip of the top spot from last week to number four this week.

The top three games this week for PSP are: 1)  Madden NFL 07 (pre-order) - EA; 2) Tekken: Dark Resurrection - Namco Bandai; and 3) GTA: Liberty City Stories - Rockstar. For Xbox 360: 1) Madden NFL 07 (pre-order) - EA; 2) Dead Rising - Capcom, and 3) Madden NFL 07 Hall of Fame Ed. - EA.  In DS: 1) New Super Mario Bros. - Nintendo; 2) Brain Age - Nintendo, and 3) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney  (re-stock pre-order) - Capcom.