Manga Coming to Wii in Japan

According to The New York Times, digital comics are coming to the Wii. Four of Japan’s largest manga publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan have formed together with a local software house to bring the first digital comics to the Wii.

Initially the manga will hit the Wii, but in consideration is expanding the service to the Nintendo DS. It will also offer other publishers to join in once launched.

Pricing and launch dates have not been announced.

Wii: Manga Coming to Japanese Wii { Kotaku }

Digital Comics Coming to the Wii in Japan { New York Times }

Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures

The man and dog deuo are getting their own adventure game brought to you by Telltale Games. Just announced, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, an adventure series quite like Sam & Max.

“We’re certainly going for the clay look with this,” Telltale Games CEO Dan Connors told The Associated Press. “Clay presents a challenge if you really get into the detail of it. For example, adding fingerprints in a medium where there aren’t any is one of the discussions of how far we should go with the game’s detail.”

“Wallace & Gromit Get The TellTale Treatment”  {Kotaku}

Grand Theft Auto on the Wii?

That’s right, the notorious Grand Theft Auto may be coming to the Wii. Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Aime states

“You know, a ‘GTA’ on the Wii is all based on what Rockstsar and Take Two want to do. And again, from our standpoint, if they build a bottoms-up game that takes advantage of what we do well, I’d love to see it on the platform.”

As announced at E3 2008, GTA Chinatown Wars will be coming to the Nintendo DS. Are we excited yet?! With Nintendo’s usual market directed towards casual gamers and family, will bringing GTA to Nintendo open up new possibilities for the company to expand on game genres, or will they lose fans from kid friendly homes that rely on Nintendo’s decently clean image to suffice their underage offspring’s desire for video games?

What do you think?

Electronic Arts Signs With United Talent Agency

The game publisher Electronic Arts is teaming up with United Talent Agency to create big budget movies. UTA is helping EA to

“develop a comprehensive strategy for moving its intellectual property into the realm of large-budget motion pictures and television series.”

Mentioned in UTA’s press release was Army Of Two, Need For Speed, and anticipated titles Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge. However, no comment on which EA’s works are going into motion picture developments.

“We view EA as an emerging entertainment force, not just because they are a great untapped IP rights holder, but because at their core they care most about how viewers respond to their stories and creative vision,” said UTA partner Richard Klubeck in making the announcement. “We’re excited to work alongside the EA team as they make this important expansion of their intellectual property strategy.”

However, The Sims is in script development at 20^th Century Fox with producer John Davis and a MySims animated television series in development at Film Roman. EA is also in production with Starz/Film Roman on an animated DVD feature version of its new title Dead Space to launch with the game.