Castlevania 3 Arrives On Virtual Console

Castlevania 3 Arrives On Virtual Console

Apparently my wish is Nintendo's command. In last week's update, I politely requested Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse for the American Virtual Console, and voila! It has appeared!

Castlevania 3 has finally arrived on Virtual Console for the standard price of 500 Wii Points ($5). For fans of later Castlevanias, this is an important one -- Dawn of Sorrow, Symphony of the Night and others all make reference to Trevor's adventures. It also marks the debut of vampire dreamboat Alucard, who would go on to star in Symphony of the Night.

For those who are feeling a bit weary of vampires (and with all the Twilight stuff floating around, who can blame them), this week's WiiWare offerings are the card game Jungle Speed for 1000 Wii Points ($10) and quirky platformer Planet Pachinko for 500 Wii Points ($5).

Guitar Hero 3 Surpasses $1 billion

The Guitar Hero franchise is huge. How huge? Huge enough that it could practically be considered an industry unto itself.

Edge is reporting that Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock, which launched in 2007, has become the first single game to surpass $1 billion in sales. The announcement came during a CES keynote by Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith, and follows on from an announcement that the entire franchise had broken the same mark a year ago.

Griffith said that Guitar Hero's monumental success has trickled down to other industries, most especially the struggling music industry. According to Griffith, sales on everything connected to Guitar Hero from music to real guitars have gone up.