Every week we do a quick wrap-up of some news items that may have slipped through the cracks. The wrap-ups will be shorter versions of our articles, lumped together to give you an idea of things you may have missed.

Ontario Wants YOU!

If you are a game developer, that is. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade in Ontario has decided to put over a billion dollars towards the development of gaming and other tech companies. The companies have to provide jobs to residents of the province, and of course have a location within Ontario, and goes towards another big provincial push to entice developers. With Quebec having gathered a lot of international recognition for their tax breaks and funding for video game companies such as Ubisoft Montrèal.

Currently, there are a few notable developers within Ontario, such as Digital Extremes (Unreal Tournament, Dark Sector), Silicon Knights (Too Human), Rockstar Toronto (The Warriors) and more. However, the province still seems to lag behind in their support of the many developers within the province. The new fund will increase tax breaks for companies, as well. The new fund is meant to benefit existing companies and has no money alloted for start-ups, so it’s not likely to begin a storm of new development. It does also cover a variety of other industries, such as health products. It will be interesting to see if any major companies decide to take advantage of this carrot, but don’t expect a huge wave to suddenly overtake the province.

So the rumours are true…New DS Announced

Colour me surprised! Nintendo’s press announcement late last night has brought a new DS to the forefront, just as was rumoured earlier this week. With a lot of skepticism leading up to the conference, the Nintendo DSi has been announced, which is still a lot of the same with a few interesting changes. First off, there will actually be a camera built-in to the system (.3 MP) alongside a new music playback feature from the SD card slot. The screen is wider, system is thinner, and the GBA slot has gone the way of the Dodo.

While we might take a better look at this system as more information is released, it’s a nice little refresh, but not sure it’s a deal sealer for anyone currently carrying around the DS Lite. It sports better brightness controls, with a brighter screen and shorter battery life, and the fact the GBA has been removed may rub some people the wrong way. The camera almost seems a bit of a pointless addition, considering how weak it is, but more news to come as this tech comes out to play. Set to be released next year for North America.

Wii Gets Hardcore

Given the events at E3 this year, many had given up hope that Nintendo would be offering some new software that would appeal to their long-standing fanbase. Another big surprise to come out of the press announcement of last night was the fact that there are a number of old school franchises being revived and brought to the Wii soon. The first is Punch Out!, which was speculated on earlier and is very exciting to hear. With Wii Boxing not necessarily being all it could be, this game affixed with MotionPlus might just be one of the cooler things coming down the pipe for the company. They also announced a sequel to Sin & Punishment, which makes the release of the original onto the Virtual Console seem a bit more sensible. Another Code and Dynasty Warriors were also announced, but those are far less exciting.

Some of the best news we could hear for the Wii, though, is that storage is on its way! And you don’t have to pay for any odd hard drive or USB stick. SD cards will be able to store Wii software directly, addressing the issue of storage that has been continually building steam, especially since the release of WiiWare. Right now it has only been announced for Japan, but expect that more will come at the San Francisco address later today.