When talking about games statistics, numbers always come in first place, because customer satisfaction is something a bit more difficult to assess. Just think about a MMORPG game - while veteran players of the genre may go crazy about a title and appreciate a lot of things hidden to the novice's eye, a beginner may simply label it as "boring" and move on(that was the case with me and World of Warcraft, hahahaha!). Anyway, this is not about MMORPG statistics, since we already talked a bit earlier this week about WoW's latest milestone reached; today is all about European games statistics. To be more accurate, we're going to see how well is doing Nintendo(and the other consoles) in Europe.

Just don't ask why I usually put forward Nintendo - I already told you one day that I have some extremely pleasant memories related to it, and that's all. Now, let's focus on the European games statistics - the Wii was Europe's top seller, with over 10.4 million units in the region during 2008, followed by Sony's PlayStation 3 and, finally, Microsoft's Xbox 360.<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right-> Back in April, the Wii hit a peak with almost 180,000 units sold, while its rivals only managed to sale around 90,000 units each.

However, Nintendo's financial results (beware! Japanese page ;)) suggest that Microsoft's recent Xbox 360 price cuts pushed the console forward a lot, since last month, the PS3 has been overrun by Microsoft's console.

Finally, it seems Nintendo ruled the European handheld market too, with around 225,000 Nintendo DS sold in July, compared to the PSP's peak of only about 50,000 units.

That's it for today, but if you want to help us have our own games statistics, please be kind and share with us that big secret - how many consoles do you own, and which one do you like most?

Arkane Studios is one of those indie developers who found protection and support from a big one of the gaming industry, and now found themselves kicked out. This wasn't something made on purpose, but simply because of the current economic climate. If you recall it well, a few days ago we were talking about THQ's emergency plan, but they weren't the only one dropping personnel and projects - EA also did this, and Arkane Studios is one of their victims.

Fortunately, there's life after the fall, or at least that's what CEO and creative director Raphael Colantonio thinks - "We're moving on. We do have some reserves, some cash that allows us to wait for a while, to find deals and reassign staff. But the right deals - that's really important, to keep the vision of what our objective is as a company, and what our identity is.<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->

The context right now - the climate, everybody is looking at making sure they'll be profitable, or at least get through the crisis, and we're just one of them. We want to make sure things go fine with us."

Currently, Arkane Studios employs 45 people, and if the name sounds new to you, maybe Dark Messiah of Might & Magic or Arx Fatalis will ring a bell. The bright side of being pushed aside by EA is that more time for other projects is now available, according to the same source - "The positive side is that we have the capacity to work on other projects now. To some degree, although it sounds like a bit of a paradox, all these publishers cutting things right now - I think it will eventually benefit the independent developers," but I only have one question here - what about the marketing power of EA?

After all, that's the best part of working with a big company - you're a small studio, you work for someone big, and you get a lot of media exposure, but once you're out from that relashionship, things can get really rough. Well, this time, it remains to be seen, but I can only wish the best to the French team from Arkane.

Before talking about Nintendo DSi piracy and hardware modding, let's see what can be done with the "old" Nintendo DS Lite, shall we? So, you get a new Nintendo DS Lite - or a used one, it only matters that the hardware and software are in their original "state of mind" or not. By using various software and hardware tricks, you can overclock your DS, turn it into a PDA, or even use it as a Wi-Fi scanner! Obviously, it doesn't stop here, but I will stop here, because we have to talk about Nintendo DSi piracy, remember?

Just as a reminder, let me tell you that the Nintendo DSi is currently available in Japan only, the rest of the world having to wait until mid-2009, probably, if we won't get a bad luck overflow and the new handheld from Nintendo will be delayed even more. What remains to be seen is how good Japanese hardware modders can be, since the story goes like this...

According to Nintendo, the DSi doesn't allow the use of the R4 or the M3, the most popular mod chips used with the DS Lite.<-125x125 Button - right-> Obviously, opening up your handheld and messing with it will void your warranty, but I am sure this won't stop some people at least to try and make the DSi even better. The problem is that, if you succeed in creating a mod chip that works, you may have to face legal action from Nintendo. Another obvious thing is that can only happen if you also sell that chip on the open market.

Regarding the SD slot and the potential of this data transfer method for pirates, Nintendo was quiet as mouse. If they manage to come up with something to fight this threat, then Nintendo DSi piracy rate could be extremely low, but if they don't...you can figure it out for yourselves!