Nintendo fans in the UK will get a nice double whammy from Nintendo's media wing right about now. It has just been announced that the Official Nintendo Magazine's website has gone live with a lot of juicy features to enjoy. That's not all, though. Its paper counterpart is releasing the latest issue loaded with amazing goodies including a six-page special on upcoming Wii title Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Go to the full version for more details.

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) shot up to first place in the UK charts for the week of November 17, bumping off former top placer Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, PS3, PC). The Simpsons Game remains at third place.

Another notable entry into the charts is Super Mario Galaxy which came in at fifth place. Check out the rest of the top 20 in the full article.

Future, the company that publishes the "Official" line of gaming magazines has reported significant growth in readership from its web and print portfo;ios in the past months thanks in large part to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo wings.

Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine is now officially the fastest-growing game publication in the United Kingdom, circulating 65,673 copies during the past year, clinching a total annual growth of 54 percent.

The Official Nintendo Magazine also did well as a result of the immense and still growing popularity of the DS handheld and the Wii console. The rise in readership was tallied at 35 percent which translated in 47,925 total copies sold.

Future reported declines in the circulation of the Official PlayStation Magazine but explained that this is due to the seasonal lull in game industry activity. It also said that recovery was promising after Blu-ray demo discs were included with each issue after June.

Slow activity was also observed in the multiplatform publications under Future along with its PC-gaming interests. However, it said that its websites GamesRadar and CVG attract 3.25 and 1.56 million users a month respectively.

Around a week ago, we reported that "Nintendo Power" may be facing some form of reorganization or restructuring. It was said that Nintendo of America was sending out layoff feelers to company employees. It was also speculated that the magazine may be shut down. There was another side to the rumor though: "Nintendo Power" may be handed out to another publisher. That side seems to be gaining some ground at the Nintendo Media Summit.

Wired's Chris Kohler saw it fit to report on that rumor. He notes that it's now the hot topic at the said event. The rumor goes that Nintendo is looking to license the rights of the official print magazine to an outside U.S. publisher. This is similar to how the European official Nintendo magazine - it's an independently-run publication produced by Future.

Details are sparse for now, but the current sentiment is basically amusement/puzzlement over the fact that the official US PlayStation magazine works under this model, and Sony decided to end it, whereas Nintendo is looking to jump into something similar to it. Nintendo has yet to give an official comment on the matter. We'll update you as soon as more information is made available.

What does is take for a guy to create a farming sim and turn it into a popular and successful videogame? When Official Nintendo Magazine talked to Harvest Moon series creator Yasuhiro Wada, we were hoping for some answers to our question and we got them, but we also got something more: details about the Wii version of Harvest Moon and the franchise's future.

According to Wada, the Wii version of Harvest Moon will fully utilize the Wiimote for all of the activities in the game. Also, rumors that the game will feature a lot of animals like penguins and monkeys are apparently true. For the old-school fans, the original Harvest Moon games could also be making the jump to the Wii's Virtual Console in the future.

"I'm thinking about it," said Wada "I'd like to do it, but if we decide to do so, I want to be directly involved with bringing them over myself. At the moment because I'm busy with the Wii version I don't have the resources to do this, but I'm thinking about it for the future."

Wada also shed some light on Rune Factory, a "branched out version of [the] Harvest Moon story." Wada is currently working on the more mainstream Wii version of Harvest Moon, while Rune Factory is being handled by another creator. "I allowed this creator to [add an element of fighting] because it's a new element of gameplay," said Wada. "But the mainstream versions of Harvest Moon will never have fighting in them!"

You can check out the full interview as well as Wada's thoughts on why a farming sim could appeal so well to a lot of people by clicking on the "via" link below.

Gamers are now preferring other media for gaming information, it would seem, as the latest figures have revealed that uni-platform gaming magazines are in continuing decline.

ABC has revealed that many Future and Imagine titles has fallen once again. While the sales figures for the Official PlayStation Magazine 3 were not provided, OPSM2's monthly circulation is down by 24 percent from the August 2006 figures, hitting 76,351.

Official Xbox 360 sales, however, were boosted coming up from 42,680 to just over 56,000. A very good news for publisher Future, since it has closed Official Xbox publication recently.

Without the OPSM3 figures, monthly sales of the official titles went down to 175,368, compared to 218,863 six months ago.

In the lead in the unofficial mag titles is Imagine-published Play, with sales of 29,000 despite a 37.5 percent drop in readership compared to last year. Future's PSW figures went down from nearly 34,500 to just over 26,000 copies. Other Imagine titles went down with the following statistics: Powerstation with 15,171 copies from 22, 288 last year, 360 with 11,369 copies from 13,098.

Future published PC gaming titles went down with the following numbers: PC Zone from just over 30,000 to 27,000 while PC Gamer lost 1675 readers, hitting just over 43,600. The decline for PC titles appears to be slow but steady.

The bright spot for these gaming magazine publishers were seen in the stable sales position of multi-platform magazines. Future's Games Master sales hovers around the 54,000 mark while Imagine's Games TM sales stays at 20,000. Future's Edge sales also rose up to four percent from 33,597 to 35,145.

Recently, Nintendo has been grabbing a lot readers' attention, it would seem, after a 17 percent rise in the sales of Official Nintendo Magazine, with readers buying 43,000 copies a month.

James Ashton of Future Publishing complained that the falling magazine sales are to be blamed on the rapid transition to next-generation consoles and the rise in the amount of video game coverage in the mainstream media. Guess we'll be seeing more of you guys checking out this site!

Over at the UK Official Nintendo Magazine website, we found that the magazine is already advertising its next issue, and their bait for this month's subscriptions? Exclusive details on MySims, the "animefied" version of the popular Sims series of games.

Though they've obviously saved the really juicy bits of info for the print version of the magazine, their site does give some details which are no less interesting. For one thing, it mentions that the game begins with the player in a "a sparsely decorated house in a rundown town."

It is then up to you, wonderful person that you are, to literally make the town a better place to live in not just for its current occupants, but also to attract outsiders who may want to settle down. (Hmm... sounds like a cross between Viva Pinata and Sim City, doesn't it?)

Also, while there have been complaints that MySims (or Sims Wii, or Boku to Sim no Machi) won't be using the Wii-owner's Mii, it apparently compensates for this by letting players go crazy with character customization. Individual facial features can be edited and tweaked, as well as skin, clothing style and even tattoos. Besides being able to customize people, the game will also allow players to customize objects, furniture, and houses, all thanks to a block-building mechanic that lets one "build things like chairs and tables from scratch instead of just ordering them from a catalogue." (Now it sounds like Animal Crossing.)

Another interesting feature is that the game will not restrict the player to his or her own house. Instead, the Sim is free to wander the town and develop interactions and relationships with other townsfolk. According to the magazine, "By using the relationships menu you can keep tabs on who likes you, who thinks you could do with a wash, and who wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire."

Then there's the "Essence" feature which... the magazine isn't so sure about either. All we got is that it "lets you extract the essence of objects you acquire. Then you can use this Essence to decorate your many created objects." (Inspiration? Artsy-fartsyness?)

Lastly, the magazine also notes that you can grow flowers in your garden by planting seeds (here comes the Harvest Moon factor... minus the cows and chickens...), and that the Wii version will feature 80 characters, while the DS port will have 30. Oh, and they also have this tiny, tiny image up there which may or may not be the boxart for this game.

So, um... anyone here subscribes to ONM UK?

Early in July, Ubisoft announced that it's bringing the real-time strategy game The Settlersto the Nintendo DS. Too bad though, the game will only be released in Europe, Middle East, and Asia. That being said, several scans of the games started popping out from various sources, one of which is the German Nintendo magazine called N-Zone. Jarosh over at the Neo-GAF forums has posted some DS scans for your viewing pleasure. You might have to brush up on you German skills to appreciate these scans.

The new incarnation of the classic RTS game challenges players to manage a colony through Roman and World campaigns. Though The Settlers is known as a slow-paced game, the free mode gameplay option allows players to go against the computer for quick matches. It's slated for a Q4 2006 release.