Japan’s instant game library includes two TurboGrafx-16 titles this month. If you have PlayStation Plus tied to a Japanese PSN account you’ll get New Adventure Island and Gradius.

Meanwhile, 3DS Virtual Console gets Gradius for the NES.

“What’s the story behind the Konami Code, anyway,” Shigeharu Umezaki asks. “There isn’t one, really,” Kazuhisa Hashimoto answered. “Because I was the one who was going to be using it, I made sure it was easy to remember. “

Konami picked up Scribblenauts and localized it for Japan as Maxwell’s Marvelous Notepad. Japan got the Nintendo DS game this week and players discovered Konami went a step beyond translating.

Cave, finally has a game available for PlayStation 3 owners. DonPachi, the PsOne version of it, is now available on PlayStation Network in Japan.

Konami may have come down with a case of shoot ‘em up fever and have a new Gradius game in the works called Gradius Arc.

This revision modifies the scoring system, enhances the graphics, and adds background music.

Speed up! Gradius ReBirth finally arrives after being released in Japan six months ago and nabbing an ESRB rating in October. Konami’s shooter sticks to the basics ripple lasers, shooting the core, and rock chucking volcanoes. Those landmarks are in Gradius ReBirth along with the replica of the first stage. Gradius ReBirth might not be [...]

Virtual Console releases are getting scarcer every month. Next month Wii owners in Japan can look forward to torturing themselves with Mystery of Atlantis. Sunsoft’s side-scrolling platformer is notoriously difficult even if you know the warp order to get to the last level. Koei Japan will also release the Nobunaga’s Ambition in December which is [...]

You didn’t think Konami would skip releasing Gradius Rebirth in North America did you? Well, if you were pessimistic good news is sitting in the ESRB database. Gradius Rebirth was just rated with a family friendly E for everyone. Shooting the core is A-OK for all ages. Since it’s a WiiWare game we don’t know [...]

Hudson should be bringing us Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou. The TurboDuo import is reported to have a pre-Nintendo press release date of October 6, which is this Monday. However, Ys fell into this trap in August so it might not actually come out on Monday (?). Confusing, huh? We should see Gradius II: Gofer [...]

Konami hasn’t said much about Gradius ReBirth, but it’s one of next week’s three WiiWare titles in Japan. Midnight Bowling (aka Hamaru Bowling) and Strongest Silver Star Reversi are the other two sold for 1,000 Wii Points ($10) and 500 Wii Points ($5) respectively. The sparse description makes it sound like Gradius ReBirth is, in [...]

I almost missed this during the gauntlet of E3 meetings, but Arcade Renaissance caught Konami’s first internally developed WiiWare game. Gradius Rebirth is a new entry in the Gradius series, but it isn’t clear if this is a remake of Gradius or a brand new game. We’ll find out soon since it’s coming out in [...]

Yujin is releasing a sweet set of ships from classic shmups. You can get the Vic Viper 301 from Gradius, the Silver Hawk from Darius Gaiden or my favorite the Arrowhead from R-Type with a force. I italicized can because these are gashapon toys, you won’t know what you get until open them up. However, [...]

Last week Konami released three more shoot ‘em compilations in Japan. You can pick up Twinbee Portable, Salamander Portable and Parodius Portable (< – favorite!) for around 3000 yen a piece. Even though Gradius Portable didn’t make it I hope (wish?) that Konami gives these three collections a shot in the USA. It’s probably not [...]

The rumor about Konami cancelling some of their PS3 line up is false. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu and the tentative Gradius title are still in development. Konami also clarified that their two unnamed projects, an action game and a RPG are scheduled for the Playstation 3. The only thing the rumor update didn’t dispute was [...]