“It all depends on the fans and sales but it’s a little early for now to assume anything.” That's what producer Joshua Olsen said about the possibility of making a sequel to the Sega Wiixclusive FPS, The Conduit. They are, however, very interested in the idea, so if you loved the first one, this ought to be news for you.

If you happen to live in LA, live near there, or just happen to be there on June 4th, then you might be interested in this contest from Capcom Unity. They're inviting an unspecified amount of lucky folks to an E3 Unity party on the said day, where you get to enjoy all good things Capcom first-hand. Hit the link to find out how.

It's official. Ziff Davis has sold 1UP to UGO Entertainment and has closed EGM. This was confirmed by no less than an official press release from both camps earlier today. The axe has fallen, and it's fallen hard. GameVideos.com and others take the hit as well. Full details right after the jump.

Clamoring for more guitar legends in Guitar Hero? Well, Ted "Motor City Madman" Nugent has just confirmed during a podcast interview that he will be involved in a future installment of the Guitar Hero franchise.

The eighth iteration of the Nintendo Voice Chat has just been released. The show discussed quite a number of games such as Electronic Arts' Boom Blox and Sega's Iron Man for the DS (also available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC, and Playstation Portable) as well as a few of the storage issues on the Wii. To find out more, check out the full article.

Download: Nintendo Voice Chat Ep.8

Except for his appearance on the Wii's Virtual Console, Pit of Kid Icarus spent a very long vacation time away from the video game spotlight until his sudden and welcome appearance on Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But will he be a solo act again any time soon? According to a recent IGN podcast, the answer is "absolutely." More info in the full article.

After Frank Provo's decision to leave the GameSpot ship comes another quite saddening news: Alex Navarro, the GameSpot reviewer famous for his podcasts, also decided to hand in his resignation from the gaming site. Details in the full article.

In an interesting podcast, analysts Van Baker and Billy Pidgeon gave a different spin on the Wii shortage issue this holiday season: that there's a big possibility that Nintendo is playing up the shortage to keep their Wiis flying off the shelves. It's a surprising theory, but for these two analysts, it does make a lot of sense.

Those who are closely following the console sales trends know that Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime said that Nintendo wouldn't be able to keep up with the console demand this holiday season, that people will experience a sad Wii shortage on that time of the year when sales matter the most. Of course, if some people found out that a certain supply is about to run out, they will buy one for themselves out of instinct should they harbor any interest in that item.

Technology industry analyst Baker did say that a little push by hyping up the shortage issue really doesn't hurt, since people are "likely to go out and spend their money now".

It's going to be a risky venture, however. "In the console business, there's very low tolerance for hardware issues, for failure. So it's got to work," said Pidgeon, a program manager for IDC.

You've got to hand it to those indie developers, they always have something up their sleeve to give us more bang for our buck with the gadgets that we have. A free application called Dot.Tunes does that and more.

It basically extends the serviceability of your iTunes library so that you can stream it on the net and play it right off your PC. What the application actually does is turn your iTunes library into an SQL database and sends it from your PC to the web using an Ajax front-end and multi-layered security system.

While the basic service of the application is free, plug-ins to stream your iTunes through your Wii's, PS3's or PSP's browser are also available at US$ 10 a pop. Also, there's another plug-in available that gives you a custom interface for your iPhone which extends the amount of music you can fit in it for US$ 20.

DotTunes, an Australian-based company, encourages people to open up their iTunes library to friends through the use of their products. They had this to say regarding the matter:

Why pay to podcast or for internet radio streams, when you can publish your own radio shows, TV programs or music mixes directly to your loyal fans? Dot.Tunes is not some lightweight iTunes utility. It's a fully developed web server application that supports mp3, AAC, aiff, .wav, mpeg, mp4, and .mov files, allowing you to share your iTunes library contents with your friends in other cities, your classmates across the dorm or the coworkers scattered throughout the building.

Top on the Wii opinion track is Advanced Media Network's speculation that third party developers and publishers have been purposely creating poor game ports for the Nintendo's new-gen console. According to them, it appears that third parties ship poorly developed games because those publishers and developers are still under the mindframe that the Wii could never become a system worth their time.

 

Activision's Spider-Man 3 for the Wii was particularly trampled on by Casey, the opinionated AMN podcaster. The title is backed by a license from a blockbuster movie, yet did not even deliver a game up to par with the system's capabilities. In fact, because some reviews over the Internet just blew off the game adaptation of the movie, it appears that the title didn't deliver on any system at all.

There are so many games that fit this profile, but Spider-Man 3 was claimed as the "flagship" of them all, because of its pre-launch reputation and its eventual post-launch review nosedive. In contrast, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have been providing enough time and support for their own Wii games, and it reflects in some of their titles, such as The Godfather: Blackhand Edition and Madden 2007.

And to top it off, when a third party game goes really bad, developers either point the blame on Nintendo for making a shabby system or point toward the gamers and franchise fans, saying that they didn't support the title well enough. What they do neglect to mention, however, is that they only put lower priority level development teams on Wii titles, eventually hindering the game from coming out as polished as a high priority game.

You can listen to the Podcast through the "Read" link below. If you've got something else to add, you can mention it through the comments below.