Not much by way of choices this week on the US Wii Shop Channel. From the WiiWare service we get Magnetica Twist, and from the Virtual Console we get Fatal Fury 2. Details in the full article.

Xbox Live Arcade hits like Bejeweled 2 and Zuma are injecting their addictive juices into retail shelves this November 15. PopCap Games just announced PopCap Arcade Volume 1 for the Xbox 360. This bundle will retail for US$ 29.95 and will include the following: Bejeweled 2, Astropop, Feeding Frenzy, and Zuma.

The casual game developer has also announced the same bundle (minus Feeding Frenzy and Zuma) for the PS2 and will be releasing it simultaneously with the 360 version under the name of PopCap Hits Volume 1 for US$ 19.95. Glenn Drover from Popcap had this to say about the release of the retail bundles:

We're very excited to be bringing some of our top million-selling casual games to consoles via retail shelves, and eager to see how consumers respond. We've had tremendous success at retail with the PC versions of many of our games, and these new collections for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 are priced even more aggressively, so they should be a hit with holiday shoppers.

Considering that the game pack is being released as a "Volume 1", you can probably expect future volumes to appear - Volume 2, Volume 3, and onwards. PopCap sure has enough games in its library to come out with a couple of more volumes. Meanwhile, those who haven't gotten the games on XBLA better get ready for some sleepless night once these bundles hit shelves next month.

Microsoft has recently announced some new stuff coming to Xbox Live, starting with a discount binge and two new games. The first matter deals with a weekend Labor Day special, which will slash prices in half for select games. Here's a shortlist of some games falling under the promo, including their prices:

• Small Arms (Gastronaut; 400 MS Points)
• Zuma Deluxe (PopCap; 400 MS Points)
• Gauntlet (Atari; 200 MS Points)
• Dig Dug (Namco; 200 MS Points)
  

The Labor Day special is expected this Saturday (September 1), 5:00 p.m., and will last until Monday (September 3), 4:59 p.m. Come next Wednesday (September 5), Xbox Live will be updated with two classic titles: Fatal Fury Special, and Cyberball 2072.

SNK's Fatal Fury Special updates on Fatal Fury 2's character roster, adding three characters from the original Fatal Fury game. The game also enables bosses as playable characters. The second game, Cyberball 2072, is an update to the Atari's original Cyberball title. Aside from the now-familiar exploding robots and footballs, this version introduces a new game modes, bug fixes, and additional plays. Fatal Fury Special will come in at 400 MS Points, Cyberball 2072's price tag still to be announced

Can't get enough of Chuzzle? Worry not. Blackberry owners and fans of the exploding fuzzy little dudes will now have the chance to play Chuzzle on their Smartphones. The game is now available for download and purchase on BPlay's website. Users can download it from their phones for US$ 7.99.

Users will be able to select it from the site's Top 10 list. PopCap Games, the developers the developers behind the casual games such as Zuma, is also proud to announce that Bookworm is still available for download and has been a consistent player in their top 10 downloads for the Blackberry.

Chuzzle has won "Casual Game of the Year" from Billboard's DEMX last 2005 when it was first released for the web and PC. For those unfamiliar with the game, it's kind of like Bejeweled where you have to connect three of the same colored jewels together to clear the screen and make room for more. Only instead of jewels, Chuzzle has Chuzzles, cute little furballs who "explode with happiness" when they come into contact with two more of the same color.

To download exploding happiness on your Blackberry now, visit the Read link after the jump.

A study, commissioned by PopCap Games, showed that women love a good game of Cake Mania, and they aren't shy about it. After media content providers were determined to deliver advertisements catering to the young male bracket on consoles, the study by Information Solutions Group (ISG) reveals that casual gamers are "predominantly female."

Looking for numbers? Try 76% casual gamers that are female against 24% male casual gamers. And even over at Yahoo! Games and Electronic Arts casual gaming bet Pogo, more casual gamers are female.

The non-gamer bracket that included your girlfriend and your grandmother is now blessed with a gamers' edge on Zuma, thanks to the simplistic, yet entertaining casual game. With Miyamoto's previous speech on catering the Nintendo Wii to women, it's now clear that introducing games to the female bracket shows just how big of a market the game industry can tap into.

The games women play may not be "hardcore," but it's a start for toning hand-eye coordination technique and basic game mechanics. Females are entering the mainstream gaming scene, and not as promo girls on the side (mind you).

Even if the hardcore gamers are predominantly male, it's no indication that it should stay that way. There are already girl gamers around in the professional gaming scene, and it won't be a surprise if that increased this year, too.

One such study back in 2006 highlighted that 42% of adult console gamers were female, and the rest were male. In a broader scale, PC and console games were played by more males than females: 62% against 38%. So in essence, the gaming demographics is becoming more evenly distributed as time rolls on.

And with the success of the Nintendo Wii and MMO games, this year could spell the game industry's renewed focus on delivering games to gamers, and not games to males only.

Joel Durnham of extremetech.com informs that in a panel discussion at the Game Developer's Conference 2007, the idea of PC game viability was discussed by a quintet of industry folks that include: Xbox Live Arcade's David Edery, Electronic Arts' Richard Hilleman, Firaxis' Soren Johnson, Epic Games' Michael Capps, and Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avallone.

As well as the usual PC gaming competing with console gaming debate that's been ongoing for years now, the effect of piracy on the PC gaming market was discussed. Capps in particular notes that PC Gaming is really falling apart and even though it "killed" them to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, Epic had to do it.

The reason for going multiplatform, of course, is piracy. Big AAA titles usually get stolen and, as Capps says, the market that would buy a US$ 600 video card also knows how BitTorrent works.

The future of gaming on the PC so far looks like it is set to be dominated by "casual" games and MMOs. Of course there's nothing casual about most casual games since the average Chuzzle/Zuma addict plays for 24 hours a week. MMOs are notable since they can't be pirated - unless of course you steal the source code and run your own illegal server. However, those things are easier to monitor than burned CDs.

They also covered the fact that user-generated game content could be big for the PC since console manufacturers try to wield more control over their products.

They end the discussion by noting that even though things look grim, AAA titles might never die on the PC, and that trends are ultimately hard to predict.

Oh well, so much for the good old days.

If you happen to be among the millions of people who have been drawn into the addiction which is Zuma (or Bejeweled, or Feeding Frenzy, or Bookworm...), then brush up on those aiming skills. You may be seeing more of those on your Xbox 360.

After having just released Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank over XBLA, the casual games developer PopCap games have expressed that they will be making more releases in the same manner. According to their communications director, Garth Chouteau:

There are of course other titles in the works for XBLA, and based on the success of the four titles we have released to date, in addition to the new one yesterday with Heavy Weapon, I think that it's safe to say that other PopCap titles will make their way to the service.

He also adds that he "expect to see additional XBLA titles from us to show up this year."

So yes, for 2007, you can expect to either have even MORE sleepless nights because you're finishing the last level of Bejeweled, or too much sleep since the other members of your family won't let go of the controller becaus of Zuma...

Playing scrabble bring back a lot of childhood memories for us, and while some of 'em are pretty stupid (Zork is NOT a word, lol), we like to kick back and enjoy the good times this game provided us when we needed a quiet time off from the gaming world...or during the last major power failure.

FUN Technologies just announced that Scrabble cubes is now available for play over at the WorldWinner site since yesterday, which also hosts old faves like Zuma, Bejeweled and Luxor.

This 3-d adaptation of the traditional board game features an ever-changing 3d cube on which players must connect letters to form as many words as possible, with features like “double word score” adapted from the original game. Expect the game to pop up next year at the following sites: GSN.com, AOL Games, MSN Games, Pogo, Real Networks and Virgin Games

A game doesn't just work because it's fun - it has to be fully compatible with the "platform" it's been programmed for. It should also be programmed to exploit the full capabilities of such platform. We're not about to pitch the iPod into the next-gen console wars here, as the iPod, the fifth generation one to be exact, can only play songs, TV shows, movies, podcasts, and games. Yeah, games! But only a handful of 'em including Bejeweled, Tetris, Mahjong, Zuma, Pacman, Texas Hold'em, - in short, games that don't need uber-awesome graphics or complex programming.

So, if you were given the chance to tell Apple what games you'd want to play in the iPod, which ones would you pick? There's one condition, though: it has to be compatible with the click wheel interface. It also has to be a single player game (for the time being).

Michael from AppleGazette thought the following games would be cool for the iPod: Myst, Sim City, Tapper, Vegas Casino, Spy Hunter, Pool, Centipede, Space Invaders, Sudoku, and Star Trek Starship Creator.

We thought Space Invaders, Myst, Sudoku, and Sim City would be excellent for the iPod. Some of these are classics and take advantage of the click wheel. Putting them in the iPod game line-up would far improve their playability and navigability; you won't have to worry about having to play the game using the cellphone's bulky controls.

If these games get included in the line-up of some rather dopy games we see in the iPod today, we'd have to ask Apple for another favor: get them online, too! That won't be stretching too much now, would it?

  

If you look at the lineup of games for the said consoles, most of them are geared for your typical hard-core gamer - tough, challenging games that require you to rack up hours of play before you can duke it out online without looking like a klutzy noob.

Then there's casual games: simple and addictive packages you'll usually be playing in your mobiles, iPods or PDAs. These are the kind of games that PopCap Games is known for.

Known for developing the highly popular Bejeweled 2 and Zuma games, PopCap has already had considerable success in light of the mainstream gaming industry - the release of their games on XBLA, and their recent network collaborations with Valve Software among their recent successes.

These days, they're aiming for wider horizons as CEO David Roberts discusses, in a recent interview by Next Generation's Kris Graft, PopCap's plans in light of the soon-to-be-released PS3 and Wii.

With regards to the upcoming XBLA-ish features he had seen on their future consoles, Roberts commented that while a lot of work had already been done on these two consoles, they were bit behind in comparison to the XBLA. Noting that Microsoft had the time advantage with regards to networking and how it would take a bit more effort for Sony and Nintendo to hold their ground with regards to this.

“The first time I saw XBLA was before they shipped it, and I was truly astounded at how much work they had done to make the kind of ecosystem around it. It seems like it’s simple, but like a lot of things that seem simple, there’s a lot of work that went on to make it that way, " Roberts said.

In connection with this, Roberts also had much to say about their recent collaboration with Valve, specifically how he feels that even hardcore gamers could enjoy the occasional casual game.

“The games are still fun, and just because women over 40 like playing Bejeweled and Zuma doesn’t mean that they are the only people that play Bejeweled and Zuma. You know, we don’t make ‘games for girls.’ A lot of people think that’s what casual games are; that they’re games designed specifically for women over thirty-five." as he said with regards to this.

Roberts plans to venture into PS3 and Wii's gaming selections in the near future with this mindset, believing that their line-up of games would be welcome for both the casual mainstream players, and the more hardcore community.

While some of the more hardcore dudes out there might cry foul over this seeming waste of the said console's other features, we think they just might be on to a niche market that the Sony and Nintendo bigwigs haven't really looked into. Feel free to read the source link to read the full interview.