Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced today that Devil May Cry 4, formerly an exclusive for Sony Corp’s (NYSE: SNE) Playstation 3, will also be appearing on the Xbox 360 and PC. The release across all platforms will be simultaneous. This will likely cannibalize the sales of the PS3 version.

In light of this development, tomorrow’s IPO for Devil May Cry 4 has been adjusted. The IPO price of Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) has been decreased from 150 DKP to 90 DKP (prediction of 1.5 million copies sold globally down to 900,000 copies sold globally). Tomorrow’s IPO will also include Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360) at 100 DKP (predicts 1 million copies sold globally) and Devil May Cry 4 (PC) at 35 DKP (predicts 350,000 copies sold globally).

The simExchange has now added a General Forum and a Help Forum in the Community section. The purpose of the General Forum is to discuss topics unrelated to a particular game or console, such as issues concerning the video game industry as a whole, prediction markets, the workings of the simExchange, etc. The Help Forum is for asking any questions you may have regarding how things on the simExchange work.

Microsoft Corp’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 will debut on the simExchange on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. It will be categorized under the Role-Playing genre. Shares will open for purchase at 150 DKP (forecasts 1.5 million copies sold globally).

Lost Odyssey is a new Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) IP targeted for the Xbox 360. The game is made by Mistwalker Interactive, the studio that made Blue Dragon, a JRPG for the Xbox 360 released in Japan earlier this year. The game will remind players of Final Fantasy games, with a fantasy world featuring high-tech cities but also swords and magic. The player takes the role of Kaim Argonar, a young looking 1,000 year old soldier pit in battle against an army of robots.

Combat is turn-based and similar to Blue Dragon (Xbox 360). You have the option of attacking with your sword or casting offensive and defensive spells. The look of the game is more mature, rather than the cartoony look of Blue Dragon. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is producing the game. Famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu is creating the soundtrack.

Lost Odyssey is scheduled for the end of 2007. The Listing was submitted by sonaive and contributed by Literati.

Chris Abraham, a web strategist, has written a couple posts about the simExchange. The first post discusses the order book, portfolio, and “investment” opportunities on the simExchange. The second post talks more about the “sexy new UI and redesign” of the simExchange and mentions the value to gamers, “video game designers, developers, or promoters.”

A bug where market orders that require more than one fill to completely fill would cause a rapid drop or increase in the price of succeeding fills has been fixed. Please report any unexpected behavior you encounter when placing market orders (orders placed in basic trading mode) to test this new version.

Capcom Co Ltd’s Devil May Cry 4 for the PS3 will debut on the simExchange on Tuesday, March 20, 2007. It will be categorized under the Action genre. Shares will open for purchase at 150 DKP (forecasts 1.5 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

In the fourth installment of the Devil May Cry series, the player takes the role of Nero, a new character, who at times will fight alongside Dante (the player’s usual role in the series). The game features a gothic setting in which you must fight demons using swords and firearms. The game is said to play similarly with previous games but with graphics fitting for next-generation consoles.

Nero can attack using his sword, named “Red Queen,” his double-barrel revolver named “Blue Rose,” and his demonic arm, named “Devil Bringer.” In addition to your usual melee sword fighting and ranged shootouts, Nero’s demonic arm lets you grab enemies from a distance and throw them or pull them in to attack.

The game is said to “feature more weapons, maneuvers, enemies, locations, music, and cutscenes than all the previous releases combined.” Devil May Cry 4 is a PS3 exclusive.

Devil May Cry 4 is scheduled for the Fall of 2007. Listing submitted by Renegade242.

Nintendo Co Ltd’s (ADR: NTDOY) Project H.A.M.M.E.R. for the Wii will debut on the simExchange on Monday, March 19, 2007. It will be categorized under the Action genre. Shares will open for purchase at 55 DKP (forecasts 550,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

The robots are invading America. You take the role of a hammer wielding cyborg tasked to save the world from evil robots.

You move your character using the stick on the nunchuk controller and swing your, you guessed it, hammer, using the Wii-mote. Moving the Wii-mote from side-to-side will swing the hammer horizontally. Swinging the remote in a vertical motion will slam the hammer downwards.

The game’s setting is in war torn cities. The game plays as a beat’em up action game. You can destroy objects in the environment such as cars. Project H.A.M.M.E.R. is a Wii exclusive and a new IP.

The game is scheduled for release this summer. The listing was submitted by Shadar.

NPD’s February sales estimates crowned the Nintendo DS the winner, with 458,000 units sold in the United States. The stock was unchanged as strong sales for Nintendo Co Ltd’s portable were expected and already priced into the stock. The stock, at 6,830.95 DKP, forecasts 68.3 million units will be sold globally.

Rare Ltd’s Diddy Kong Racing (DS) came in third place among software titles, with an estimated 262,031 copies sold. The game was expected to bust down doors as the original had sold 4.88 million copies. The game debuted on the simExchange at 275 DKP, forecasting 2.5 million copies would be sold globally. The stock started strong out of the gate, but began to decline on January 29 and tumbled when the critic reviewed the game as mediocre.

The stock was only down slightly yesterday, shedding 1.35% to 226.73 DKP, a forecast of 2.27 million copies sold globally. It appears Diddy Kong Racing’s #3 debut was inline with the lowered forecast.

Nintendo Co Ltd’s Yoshi’s Island DS was the strongest gainer yesterday, rising 9.83% to 141.49 DKP, forecasting 1.41 million copies sold globally. The game was the #9 portable game, with an estimated 46,752 copies sold in February. Some estimates point to a total of 1.35 million copies sold globally. The continued strong performance in Yoshi’s Island DS surprised many traders as the market price of the stock had only forecast 1.28 million copies would be sold globally.

However, Nintendo was not all wins in February. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 saw its shares plunge yesterday, falling 11.53% to 29.61 DKP, forecasting 296,100 copies sold globally. The game had sold an estimated “abysmal” 13,500 copies for a total of 37,000 copies in North America. This was one game that traders had bet as a “sleeper hit” from strong buzz and word-of-mouth around the web. However, the stock dropped as fast as it went up.

Even with a diminished outlook following disappointing January sales, forecasts still remained above 350,000 copies. However, chibitofu warned that “even as a word of mouth game it suffers from not ever having the ardent zealot fanboyism that came with Phoenix Wright and the like.” The stock is currently trading at 29.14 DKP, down a modest 1.59% for the day.

Even “ardent zealot fanboyism” could not save Capcom’s Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All (DS), as it plummeted 10.14% yesterday and continued to drop another 8.75% today. Estimates indicate the game only sold 19,250 copies in February, totaling 54,750 copies sold in North America. This game is a DS remake of the Japanese lawyer game Gyakuten Saiban 2 (GBA) that was only released in Japan. Many traders had forecast blockbuster sales, believing the word of mouth and buzz for the first game would translate into strong sales for the sequel. The game’s current stock price of 42.23 DKP now forecasts 422,300 copies sold globally.

Both Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All had been acclaimed for their refreshingly different game play that many gamers had predicted would become a welcomed trend in gaming. Unfortunately, this trend has not become apparent as of yet.

Forecasts for Microsoft Corp’s Fuzion Frenzy 2 (Xbox 360) fell 16.25% yesterday and tumbled another 16.06% today on very disappointing sales numbers. With only an estimated 31,250 copies sold in February, the game’s stock, priced at 43.27 DKP (forecasts 432,700 copies sold globally), represented a very high 13.84 Price-to-First-Month-Sales (P/FMS) ratio. Traders sold the stock down to 36.24 DKP last night. Selling continued today, with Fuzion Frenzy 2 dropping to 30.42 DKP (forecasts 304,200 copies sold globally).

Some players had believed the game would be one of the few Xbox 360 games ideal for the younger audience. Doomkin said: “I'd say half the customers I deal with who own Xbox360s also have small children, and like Viva Pinata, will purchase this game to give the kids something to play between rounds of GoW.” Fuzion Frenzy 2 did follow in the footsteps of Viva Pinata (Xbox 360); unfortunately, the direction was down.

Viva Pinata (Xbox 360) is trading down 8.90% today to a current forecast of 482,000 copies sold globally. The game had sold 19,000 copies in February according to estimations, putting the November release title at an estimated 199,000 copies sold in North America.

Viva Pinata had seen a steep correction in December when November sales figures were well below initial expectations. Buzz for the game had built up with critically praised reviews. The title became an ideal choice for an Xbox 360 family game. Isimanica said: “I think the fact that since people are having to put so much money down for a system that in some cases people looking for a more "family" friendly game are going to pick it up. Just because they want to include the rest of the family into the investment of the game system.”

It appears the family oriented strategy is not working for Xbox 360 titles.

You can now search using keywords that are three characters in length. Previously, keywords had to be at least four characters or else the search would ignore the keyword. As a result, searches like “God of War” would have resulted in no results. The search will no longer include platforms, so that searching “Wii Play” will not bring up all games on the Wii. You can continue browsing games by platform by using the side bar on the left.

Eligibility for an article to appear on the Most Valued New Articles list has been shortened to articles submitted within the past 5 days, down from 7 days. This means articles submitted more than 5 days ago will automatically be removed from the Most Valued New Articles pages so that the list updates more frequently.

Problems in how the Your Submissions pages update after editing an article, image, or video has now been fixed.