Lots of big news for this week's recap, so you'd better stay comfy. There's a hell lot of games coming to the Wii and DS in 2009, and we have news on the biggest that the two platforms are gonna get - whether they're the Pokemon remakes, Monster Hunter 3, and a bunch of retro WiiWare games, we've got ya covered. With a lot of games coming, it probably explains why the DS sold a million last April, so the new DS owners will have a lot to play and choose from. Quit wasting your time reading this babble, 'cause you're gonna read them again in the full article. Or not.

Let's head over to the gaming Mecca and see what our fellow gamers in Japan have been getting busy with. According to this latest report from Famitsu publisher, Enterbrain, the Pocket Monsters show some strength as Pokemon Fushigi no Dungeon: Sora no Tankentai tops the sales chart in the week of March 30th to April 26th. More in the full article.

Japanese TV show Pokemon Sunday dropped a rumor-sparking bomb when they announced that they'll be announcing an exclusive world announcement on May 10th during the show's Pokemon Game Arena segment. Yet another announcement announcing an announcement. At any rate, what sparked the rumor was the conspicuous use and colors of their big confetti balls - colors that stand for two of the best Pokemon versions made.

Whos' Number 1 for Famitsu for 2008? All was revealed at the Famitsu Awards, and the Monster Hunters still proved to be the favorite as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G takes the top spot as Game of the Year.

Brain food! While you're busy trying to avoid getting crunched by hordes of Majini, Capcom's busy crunching Resident Evil 5 sales figures by the hundreds of thousands: well, one and a half million, to be exact. Yes, the NPD software sales figures for the month of March have already been released, and in that report, we find RE5 on the Xbox 360 and  PS3 bringing home the bacon (and the meat, and the brains, and the guts...). See the full article for the breakdown on software sales.

The Xbox 360 version of Resident Evil 5 was still at the top of the heap last month in software sales. The game sold 938,000 units, almost 20% higher than the expected sales numbers. With the hardware and software sales now announced, Sony and Nintendo have also sent out their own statements about the March 2009 sales report. Both companies echoed the optimism Microsoft exhibited in their own statement.

No need to fuss over modchip requirements. GameCube Backup Launcher's fine without it and it just got a version update. This one adds support for Freeloader and Action Replay, and as some improvements on speed performance among other things.

Download: GameCube Backup Launcher v0.2

At this rate, if all these bills being proposed get written into actual law, video game box art would be obsolete. In their place, it's just one big white label on the cover: warning warning danger warning! Following last week's proposal of having a huge list of warnings on game boxes (sodomy, rape, bestiality, incest, murder, etc.), a new bill now wants a warning label linking photosensitivity epilepsy and video games.

Outlining the future of the Spore franchise, Maxis has now revealed that new titles will be heading out. Four new installments are confirmed. If all DNA replication goes well, they may be out by this year. Other than that, there's also the possibility of eventually seeing Spore hit the PS3 and 360 - and the good thing is, if ever they do, they're definitely veering away from the "oh just port it from the PC version" scenario.

Typical of a major Final Fantasy release, Dissidia is sitting pretty on top of the Japan software charts in its first month of release. The game sold 660,000 copies by the end of December, far outstripping even Nintendo's Animal Crossing: City Folk.