According to Japan's Nikkei BP, Sony has reconsidered the production numbers of its handheld, the PSP. Last year Sony manufactured just under 1 million PSP units, and another 2 million during the first few months of 2005. Furthermore, they had told the suppliers of components for the portable system in early 2005 that they planned on making another 18 million within the next year. However, in the past week, Sony had dropped that number by 6 million units in a meeting with their suppliers - a drastic drop, especially when compared with the 20 million DS units that Nintendo plans to manufacture. Whether this move was because of sales numbers or another factor entirely is unknown at this point, but dropping the manufacturing number by such a severe amount is rather shocking in any case.

We at GAF wonder what this means for the European market. The PSP launch was delayed due to hardware shortages. If the handheld isn't selling as high as expected, perhaps the Europeans will have a hefty amount of launch units available.

We've got the biggest news this month kiddies: according to the British gaming magazine NGC, Capcom is working on a remake of the original Resident Evil for the DS. The only details we have right now are that the game will use the same camera perspective as Resident Evil 4 and the touchscreen will be used for attacks.

Because this news is breaking, new details will most likely emerge soon. Check back here for the latest.

i might have used em,

Puissance Nintendo had the chance to interview Jim Merrick, Nintendo's Head of European Marketing, at the recent Games Convention in Germany. The interview (which is rather good, I might add) explains a lot about how the DS's Wi-Fi Connection Service, which launches later this year, will work.

Here's the link.
http://portables.p-nintendo.com/articles/I-89-2.html

For those who just want to read the important parts, I've summarized them below.

WCS = Wi-Fi Connection Service

-As Nintendo has stated before, you won't have to pay to play their 1st party DS games online.
-Nintendo's WCS will be free for 3rd party publishers to use. They have the option of charging if they desire. They will own their own network-infrastructure. Use of the matchmaking service will be free.
-Everyone will have a kind of buddy list. You'll be able to add people you know in the "real world," of course, as well as people you only know online.
-There are a few parameters you can set to fine-tune who you play against online. You could choose to only play against people you know (on your friends list), or you could choose to only play with people in a certain area (European players only, for instance), or you could choose to only play against players of a certain skill level. Basically, Nintendo wants you to be able to choose however you want to compete online.
-Each DS user is uniquely identified in the system. Adding people to your buddy list will be kind of like giving someone your cell phone number. Everyone will get a unique "password" of sorts each time they want to send someone a friend invite.
-You can have a separate name or "tag" for each game you play online. Also, you'll be able to pick names that people have used already (if you want to use "Bob," you can, even if someone else used it already). This works because each DS will have a unique userID (which you will never see).
-You'll be able to connect your account to nintendo.com (or nintendo-europe.com). Your stats, friends, etc. can be viewed online.
-The Wi-Fi Connection Service will be launching worldwide (a specific date still hasn't been mentioned; though we know it has to be before Mario Kart DS comes out in November).
-Nintendo took way too long to release Animal Crossing (GameCube) in Europe. Even though Animal Crossing DS will be released in Japan and North America before Europe; the release delay won't be as huge as the original's.
-Mario Kart DS will be the first game to use WFC, probably followed by Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and then Animal Crossing DS. There are a number of other games that you will use WFC that haven't been announced yet.

Good stuff, no? Some details are a bit hard to understand (the interview wasn't originally in English); I suggest clicking on the link above and reading the full interview for more.