As airports turn to new types of technology to use for screening air travelers, videogame technology may play a role.

An article on CNN details a new Homeland Security-backed project, dubbed Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), which measures physiological signs—heart rate, breathing, eye movement, body temperature and fidgeting—in an attempt to decipher whether or not the person being scanned intends to do harm.

The component currently used to monitor fidgeting? A Wii Fit Balance Board modified to show the weight shift of the subject in question. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a concrete correlation between weight shifting and intent to terrorize, as a study is currently underway to determine what level of fidgeting would necessitate a secondary security screen.

Via Kotaku, thanks Mdo7! Image from CNN.

A BusinessWeek list of the Top 40 companies in the world is topped by none other than Japanese videogame maker Nintendo.

The list, commissioned by BusinessWeek from consulting firm A.T. Kearney, started out with the 2,500 largest publicly listed companies in the world, then took only those with a minimum of $10 billion in sales. Further extrapolation thinned the herd to companies with at least 25% of their earnings coming from outside their home region. Finally, companies were rated on sales growth and value creation over the past five years.

Nintendo’s sales have risen 36% annually over the past five years according to BW, which added:

Despite the hard times of the past year, Nintendo's continued emphasis on innovation has helped the company develop must-haves such as the DS handheld game machine and the Wii console, which outsold rival offerings from Sony and Microsoft .

Google took second place, followed by Apple in third.

In a move that has been rumored for awhile, Nintendo announced today that it had dropped the price of the Wii console to $199.99, a savings of $50. The price cut takes effect on Sunday and it marks the first price drop for the console since it was released in November 2006.

Sales for the Wii have been slipping in Japan and the United States, and price cuts on Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 have only fueled the increased competition. Sony released a statement yesterday saying that PS3 sales had risen 300 percent in the United States with a $100 price cut and the release of the slimmed down version of the console last month.

Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's VP of sales and marketing, said in a statement:

"Our research shows there are 50 million Americans thinking about becoming gamers, and this more affordable price point and our vast array of new software mean many of them can now make the leap and find experiences that appeal to them, whatever their tastes or level of gaming experience."

NPD released numbers last week that, among other things, gave a breakdown of console ownership in the United States. Kyle Orland analyzed much of the data available to get a better picture of the console landscape.

Have these price drops affected your decision to buy a new console?

Clearly, Vice-President Joe Biden does not read GamePolitics.

If he did, he would have already known that President & Mrs. Obama got their daughters Malia and Sasha a Holy Grail Wii for Christmas.

From the Los Angeles Times:

One White House official recalls the vice president fretting over what to get Obama for his 48th birthday earlier this month. Biden wanted to go with a Nintendo Wii. Told that Obama's daughters already have one, a disappointed Biden said, "You're kidding." Instead, he went with a golf range-finder to help the president judge distances to the hole.

Via: Kotaku

Nintendo has settled a patent infringement case that could have blocked sales of the Wii in the United States, reports Bloomberg.

As GamePolitics noted last September, Hillcrest Labs not only sued Nintendo, but filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging that the Wii's motion control system infringed upon the Maryland-based company's patents.

Nearly a year (and lots of attorney fees) later, on August 21st, Nintendo and Hillcrest advised the USITC that they had reached an agreement. Financial details were not made public.

Not for the first time, potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (left) has mentioned Nintendo's Wii on Twitter.

Gingrich, who formerly served as Speaker of the House and was the driving force behind the conservative Contract with America in the mid-1990's, Tweeted yesterday about playing Nintendo's system at a family gathering. Twitter user Konabess offered some follow-up advice and Gingrich responded. Here's how the conversation went:

NewtGingrich: Wii bowling in stevens point wisconsin home of point beer and callista's brother and his family; seven year old is proving tough competition

 

konabess: @newtgingrich keep your elbow in and follow through!

 

NewtGingrich: @konabess good advice I will try this Any advice for wii golf

As GamePolitics reported in March, Gingrich gushed about the Wii his wife Callista received as a birthday present. In February Gingrich dangled the chance to win a Wii as a means of enticing supporters to sign up for the launch of a media campaign.

Partially Via: Kotaku

It was 15 years ago today that the video game industry introduced the ESRB rating system to Congress, reports Wired's This Day in Tech blog.

The move came in the wake of Congressional criticism of game violence, particularly the original Mortal Kombat, which seems laughably tame by today's standards. Wired's Chris Kohler writes:

The [Congressional] hearings were largely a response to the popularity of... Mortal Kombat...

Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln and Sega vice president Bill White took potshots at each other during the hearing. Lincoln said that the Sega CD game Night Trap, another photorealistic, occasionally violent game that the company had rated MA-17, “simply has no place in our society” and testified that “small children” had bought it.

Meanwhile, White’s position was that Sega was more responsible than Nintendo, because his company had [its own] rating system in place...  [Connecticut Sen. Joe] Lieberman would later express his shock that the two executives went after each other with such ferocity.

Lieberman's threat to regulate game content via legislation persuaded the game biz to get its act together. The IDSA (now known as the ESA) was formed and quickly set up the ESRB, which went into operation on September 1st, 1994.

Apparently taking note of recent reports that video game sales are in the midst of a four-month slide, Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien dropped this one on the audience recently:

Experts say the video game industry has been dramatically hurt by the economic downturn. Which explains the popularity of the new Nintendo game, ‘Wii Job Interview.’

Source: Political Irony

A North Carolina fitness blog has called for obesity warning labels to be placed on video game packaging.

In a review of Nintendo's Wii Fit, Winston-Salem Fitness writes:

Overall, I give Nintendo credit for trying to make a game that tries to get people to be more active, which is more than can be said for other video game manufacturers. However, this will not do anything in terms of chipping away at the American obesity problem.

 

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the video game industry needs to follow the route of the tobacco and alcohol manufacturers, and state that excessive use of their product could lead to inactivity and obesity, rather than try to make a half-hearted effort at increasing American activity levels...

By our count, this is the second call this year for warning labels on video games. In January Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) proposed in Congress that games rated T and higher carry warnings linking violent games to aggressive behavior.

Obesity warning labels have previously been advocated in some quarters for consumables such as soda and fast food.

Give the creator of this YouTube vid an A for effort as he stretches to pull in patriotic elements to what amounts to video reviews of a pair of NES titles:

• Xenophobe

• Golgo 13

Reason Online has posted a fascinating look at what it calls The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years.

While TIME's investigations into the occult, dirty words and obesity are among the topics making RO's list, we took note of the November 22, 1999 cover which addressed what some parents and teachers saw as a scourge at the time: Pokemon. Reason Online explains:

This Time cover story breathlessly warns that children are printing counterfeit cards, cheating friends and classmates, and even stabbing one another over Pokemon trading disputes. Time doesn’t dwell too long on any substantive data (there isn't any) that might show what sort of sustained violence and mayhem would make Pokemon an “addiction" (Time's word). Instead, it quickly cuts to what the authors see as the real dark heart of the Pokemon phenomenon: crass capitalism! ...

GP: Ten years on, the frenzy over Pokemon seems so silly...

Still haven't figured out who "borrowed" your copy of Twilight Princess?

Soon your Wii may help you narrow down the list of suspects.

Australia's Herald-Sun reports that the Wii Vitality Sensor announced by Nintendo last week at E3 measures some of the same body responses as the polygraph. In particular, the sensor attaches to a user's finger to measure pulse and skin conductance. The newspaper reports:

Skin conductance response is a measurement of fluctuations in the electrical conductivity of skin -- also known as electrodermal response and galvanic skin response.

These fluctuations in conductivity correlate with changes in emotions, such as experiencing fear, anger and desire. That's why polygraphs - generally called lie detectors - measure skin conductivity changes along with other bodily responses including pulse and blood pressure.

Nintendo hinted at potential Wii lie detecting fun at E3, the Herald-Sun notes:

Games using the Wii Vitality Sensor have not been announced yet, but Nintendo said the Vitality Sensor would "provide information to the users about the body's inner world"...

You can imagine games along "truth or dare" lines being developed for fun at home on a Nintendo Wii fitted with a Wii Vitality Sensor. The Wii could use the sensor to assess whether or not the player was telling the truth.

GP: Turning truth detection into a parlor game? I'm not sure whether that's a positive commentary on the capabilities of the new Wii peripheral or a slam on the reliability of the polygraph.

A few months back there was a minor uproar surrounding "Islam is the light," a phrase which some people thought they heard uttered by both a talking baby doll and a children's DS game.

In a video posted late last week on YouTube, a man claims that a character in Nintendo's recently-released Wii title Punch-Out!! shouts "Allah Akbar," an Arabic phrase which translates to "God is great."

RevolutionOfCG, who describes himself as a conservative pundit in his YouTube profile, posted the clip of fighter Bald Bull and equates the character's supposed utterance of the phrase with terrorism:

Allah Akbar or God Is Great. For those of you that don't understand the implications of this. Let me put it to you this way. Virtually Every Muslim Terrorist has said this before they blew themselves up or in the case of 9-11, before they slammed into buildings...

Hailing from Istanbul Turkey, if we are to understand the implications of culture, Bald Bull is more than likely a Muslim...

 

Not even 8 years after 9-11 and are we going to accept this phrase in a video game Rated E for Everyone. What do the families of these heinous crimes think of this? Someone out there has to be appalled, I'm certain of that.

The narration of the video includes 9/11 footage of the second plane striking the World Trade Center. As to the phrase Allah Akbar, its Wikipedia page lists a variety of uses other than by terrorists:

This phrase is recited by Muslims in numerous different situations. For example, when they are happy or wish to express approval, when they want to praise a speaker, during battles, and even times of extreme stress or euphoria. It is also used by bombers or suicide bombers before they detonate.

The phrase is said during each stage of both obligatory prayers, which are supposed to be performed five times a day, and supererogatory prayers, which are performed at will...

That's, of course, assuming that Bald Bull actually says Allah Akbar, which is unconfirmed at this point.

Via: VC Review

GameSpot Australia reports that government censors have banned Sexy Poker, a WiiWare title for Nintendo's popular console.

The game is apparently a strip poker affair in which A.I.-controled female opponents shed clothing when the player wins a hand. In refusing the game a rating, Australia's Classification Board said in a statement:

In the Board’s view Sexy Poker offers depictions of nudity as an incentive or reward to interactive game play. In the Board’s view, the general rule in the Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games prohibiting depictions of nudity as an incentive or reward, applies to the game play described above, as the player is shown increasingly detailed amounts of nudity following successful game-play

In the view of the Board, the impact of the game exceeds strong as except in material restricted to adults, nudity and sexual activity must not be related to incentives or rewards. As such the game cannot be accommodated in a MA15+ classification.

The MA15+ classification is currently Australia's highest, although many Down Under believe an 18+ rating is necessary to accomodate the increase in mature content in games.

Joystiq reported last month that Sexy Poker was originally developed as a mobile phone title but is being readied as downloadable WiiWare. It is unclear which regions will be able to access the game, although GoNintendo reports that the game will be released in the European market.

THANKS TO: Longtime GP reader Ryan...

A leading copyright enforcement official in Japan has likened individuals who pirate Nintendo DS games to terrorists.

tech.radar reports that Yutaka Kubota (left), who heads Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software, made the comment to Famitsu magazine:

This is an issue that affects our national interests and, personally, I see it as a form of information terrorism that is crushing Japan's industry.

tech.radar also notes that Kubota's organization has close ties to Nintendo. The DS manufacturer claims that 120 million bootleg copies of DS games were downloaded through the end of 2007. Such activity is not illegal in Japan, but pending legislation would make such downloading a crime.

Used game sales are an understandably sore point with publishers but to claim that the purchase of second hand titles are not in the best interest of the consumer is absurd and borderline insulting.

That’s why it’s refreshing to see such a measured response from Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata during a recent financial briefing Q&A:

If [used game sales] were illegal acts like piracies, we could criticize them. But, however hard we may express our concern about the secondhand market, as long as they are not illegal, it does not do us any good. With video games, because people do not see much deterioration in the quality when they purchase as secondhand, it may give publishers a hard time if the used product market grows.

On the other hand, this is one of the changes in the social circumstance, and it is our job as publishers to think of how to cope with the changes. When you ask me how we will cope with this issue specifically, our answer is that Nintendo must continuously craft ideas so that our consumers will feel like owning the purchased products or think about how to motivate the customers to purchase new products instead of used ones.

On a related note, according to Gamasutra, Gamestop reports that while console and new software sales are down 2.8%, sales of used software are up a whopping 31.9%.

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent and gaming snob Andrew Eisen only purchases factory sealed titles...

The U.K.'s Channel 4 News reports that a panel of European Union judges have reduced a price-fixing fine levied against Nintendo in 2002:

The Japanese game maker and seven of its distributors were given fines totalling just over £150 million by the Commission for breaching EU fair competition rules by trying to keep prices artificially high in some countries during the 1990s.

The vast proportion of the total was against the parent company - one of the biggest fines meted out by the EU's powerful fair competition authority to reflect what the Commission said was Nintendo's role as "the driving force behind the illicit behaviour".

But Nintendo appealed to the EU's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, where judges ruled that the Commission should have taken account of Nintendo's level of co-operation in the price-rigging inquiry.

Nintendo's fine was reduced from £134 million to £107 million.

Via: Edge Online 

Sales of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars have been a major disappointment, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

Citing data released yesterday by NPD group, SAI reports that only 88,704 units of the critically-acclaimed DS game were purchased in March. Published estimates by video game industry analysts had suggested that GTA: Chinatown Wars would sell in the 200,000 - 450,000 range:

So how did Take-Two flub a sure thing? Chinatown Wars was built for the wrong console. The title -- whose gameplay centers around drug dealing, cold-blooded murder, and sex -- is only available on the Nintendo DS, who's primary audience is children. Parents refused to let their kids play, and the adult DS audience just isn't that big...

 

Chinatown Wars may yet find life down the road, but all in all a rare misstep from Take-Two. And the winner here might actually be Sony (SNE): The Chinatown Wars disaster will likely scare other publishers away from making new adult-themed games for the Nintendo DS. Some may redirect efforts towards Sony's PSP, which targets a somewhat older crowd.

Reacting to the poor numbers put up by GTA:CW, Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz reduced earnings estimates for Publisher Take-Two Interactive:

What Happened? Take-Two exported their most valuable IP onto the most widely distributed gaming platform, and created the most highly-rated title in the history of that platform...

 

The disappointing first month sales reinforce our view that achieving meaningful success on Nintendo platforms remains a very difficult proposition for third party publishers.

Registration has opened for the fifth annual Games For Health Conference.

This year's event will be held in Boston on June 11-12.

Nintendo's best-selling Wii console looks to be a hot topic. Of 31 GFH sessions listed so far, 20% are specific to either the Wii or to the Wii-dominated topic of exergaming. These sessions include:

• Using Wii Games to Help Parkinson's Patients
• Capturing Wiimote & Acceleromter Data for Active Gaming Evaluation
• Senior Wii : A Study of Seniors and Wii Exercise
• A Study of Wii Fit Effectiveness
• Criticisms of Exergaming
• Discussion & Best Practices for Implementation for Health Application of Exergames

Spending extra money is good for consumers. Especially if they spend it on Nintendo products...

That seems to be the message from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, who offered these rather amazing comments to Venture Beat's Dean Takahashi:

VB: Used games are coming up as a big issue again. Why?

RFA: ... We don’t believe used games are in the best interest of the consumer. We have products that consumers want to hold onto... We believe used games aren’t in the consumer’s best interest. [GP: What kind of answer is that? Commendably, Dean calls him on it...]

VB: Because?

RFA: Describe another form of entertainment that has a vibrant used goods market. Used books have never taken off. You don’t see businesses selling used music CDs or used DVDs. Why? The consumer likes having a brand-new experience and reliving it over and over again. If you create the right type of experience, that also happens in video games. [GP: Does Reggie get out of the rarified air of the executive suite much? Used books, movies and CDs are widely available.]

VB: Could this be rectified if the retailers share some of that used game revenue with the publishers?

RFA: That could make it more palatable. But we just think it’s a bad idea... [GP: Here's the big reveal as to where Reggie is coming from. Used games are a bad idea, but not AS bad if Nintendo gets a slice of the action. Please...]