Archive for October 8th, 2006
More PS3 Billboard, Web Site Sightings
This is billboard number two, following our earlier post showing off the current LA-spotted advertisement, and this one is much more graphic. Reader Pam nabbed this shot, with telephone poles included to show scale (obviously).
In addition to blocking out the sky with PlayStation 3 hype, Sony has also launched the Play Beyond Web site for we English speakers. Using a similar graphical style and theme, the site doesn’t offer anything at all at this point, minus some melty clock imagery. Proceed at your own risk of disappointment.
Anyone else spot more PS3 ads? If so, send ‘em in!
PlayStation 3 Billboards Surface [Kotaku]
Play Beyond Web Site
Games of the Week: God Hand Edition
Good news. God Hand ships this week and apparently Scarface is… pretty good? Who knew? Here’s what’s new and notable for the week.
Scarface: The World Is Yours (PC, PS2, Xbox)
Brian de Palma’s gangster film gets the video game treatment. Popular with the MTV Cribs crowd.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox)
Tiger gets another fat paycheck, we get updated players and courses.
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (PS2)
Every single Kombatant (all 60 of ‘em) battle it out in this last-gen MK send off.
Tales of the Abyss (PS2)
The long running Namco RPG series takes a spin on the PlayStation 2.
God Hand (PS2)
It’s a Clover game and you can punch people in the face!
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (PS2)
The Atlus demonic RPG series takes it back to the 1920’s.
Gun: Showdown (PSP)
Handheld version of the Xbox and PS2 game from Neversoft.
Clubhouse Games (DS)
40-plus card and board games for the DS with WiFi Connection play.
I’ve got my copy of God Hand pre-ordered. What are you kids picking up this week?
Best Buy Xbox 360 Q&A FUBAR
Oh Best Buy “pros”, what misinformation will you dream up next? Here’s the answer to the most recently asked question over at their paid for page on Gamespot.
Q: Can the Xbox 360 core system play x-box games?
A: Yes; most Xbox games are compatible with the Xbox 360 Core System. Over 90% of the games will work so it should not be a problem.
Say again? Ninety percent of Xbox games? Checking the Xbox 360 backward compatability list reveals 266 supported titles out of, according to Wikipedia, 574 original Xbox games (some of those are PAL only releases). That works out to about 46%. Well, that’s close enough, I guess!
Also, about that Core system. According to the Xbox 360 backward compatability FAQ, “Backward compatibility requires the Xbox 360 Hard Drive”. That $100 accessory is obviously missing from said Core system. Oh, the confusion! Hopefully, someone at Gamespot will clear this one up for the Best Buy folk.
Getting the most out of your Xbox 360 [Gamespot]
The Joystiq Weekend: October 7 - 8, 2006
Joystiquery
Picture It: CGI trailers are a warning sign
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: October 1 - 7, 2006
Joystiq Poll: Do you watch cutscenes?
News
Microsoft’s Japan-only Blue Dragon bundle
Wii dog tags, Wii controller gloves, Wii money making schemes
Rumors & Speculation
Blu-ray will beat HD-DVD, says Forrester (again)
Culture
Game concept: Limbo
How modders saved Oblivion
Raid with the big boys
“Dmitri” and the anonymous source
Spies report that the enemy has returned our salvo!
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
PlayStation 3 billboard, modified
Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business
Joystiq reader Smellslikepie sent us his clever adaptation of the PlayStation 3 billboard that you’ve likely seen circulating about the net. W3′ve f3atured his l33t cr3ation above.
Seriously, though: Sony’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Remember the flak that Microsoft caught last holiday for advertising their console even as it faced massive shortages? Sony now enjoys the same unenviable position. In a shortage situation, advertising only drives consumer frustration; no amount of advertising at this stage is going to sell another PS3. To spur sales, Sony needs to crank PlayStation 3s out of its factories.
Sony should save its advertising dollars for when those dollars have a chance of making an actual impact. All this advertising is doing right now is driving customers to barren shelves flanked by competitor products.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Rumor: Wii Launching Early?
Okay, okay. I hear you, no one’s going to do a surprise launch right? Especially Nintendo. What’s the point? We all know what happened with Sega’s surprise Saturn availability announcement. So why the speculation?
Well, reader Jut wrote in to let us know that he (or she) looked up inventory info on both the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. Everything on the PlayStation 3 database entry looks kosher: ships November 17th, street date is November 17th. (Hey, that beast of a package weighs 15 pounds!)
The Nintendo Wii on the other hand, has a very different kind of entry.
According to the General Item Information on the Wii, Best Buy will be receiving their shipment from Nintendo on October 29th. Yet, no street date is listed, despite Nintendo announcing that the console would go on sale November 19th nearly a month ago.
Will Best Buy be sitting on their inventory for 3 weeks? It’s not totally crazy, but maybe a little odd.
Definitely not as odd as Nintendo changing their launch date, but stranger things have happened. If there’s one thing we have learned from the upcoming generation of consoles, it’s that we can’t count on previous generations to set the rules.
Still, this could be nothing more than outdated information or an errant entry, as an earlier than announced launch date sounds suspect at best.
If the console doesn’t launch early, at least we’ll have that much more time to hopefully trick a blue shirted sucker into breaking the street date. Yeah, consider this pure speculation that most likely won’t turn out to be true. But if it does, can I pump my fists in the air and yell “I totally called it!”? Please?
More Hot Metroid Fan Art
I’ll look for any excuse to post quality fan art, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this link sent in by a couple of beloved tipsters. At first I thought it would be that Samus Aran piece by James “torokun” Chung, but no, it’s something new altogether. From the artist, who obviously labored intensely over this digital painting:
I’m taking a visual design course this semester and for my personal project I decided to do three gruelling digital paintings of Samus Aran– as homage to the greatest video game character ever created. I spent over 50 hours toiling away at this (mostly trying to get the damn background to look interesting), but I’m still not satisfied with how it turned out. I may go back later and refine it a bit more, but after working on this almost every day for the past month I can’t work on it anymore; I’m just too tired.
This is classy shit! Check out the full, uncropped piece at deviantArt. FYI, the artist’s other pieces lean toward NSWF. Just sayin’.
One Girl in All the World by =transfuse [deviantArt]
This Day in Gaming, October 8th
2000: Instead of presenting at TGS, Sega announces new marketing plans for the year. Among them is the nationwide Access to Dream Touch & Try Club. “Yeah dad, I played with Sonic in the Touch and Try club.” “Sonic touched you?? Where?” “No dad! He didn’t touch me, but he did mention how he likes chasing young Tails.”
2002: Eidos releases Timesplitters 2 for PS2 in the US. It’s considered a great multiplayer FPS. I wonder how many more shared-screen FPS games we will see with the rise of online console play.
2002: Cinemaware/Metro3D release Defender of the Crown for GBA in the US. It’s a Risk-esque strategy game that remakes an old Commadore 64 title. Any titles you would like to see remade? I’d love a new version of Dark Castle.
Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you’d like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com
PlayStation 3 Billboards Surface
One of our eagle eyed Kotaku readers spotted one of the first PlayStation 3 billboards standing proudly erect in the great city of Los Angeles, not far from junk food institution Pink’s Hot Dogs. While he didn’t have kind words for it, I actually kind of like it. It’s not as striking as the Play Beyond imagery that Sony had installed at the L.A. County Convention Center during E3, but it’s not an eyesore either. At least they aren’t using that garish Spider-Man typeface for everything.
What do you guys think? Hot or not? Does Sony really even need to start advertising this thing yet?
Thanks to Christian for sending this in. Nice shootin, buddy.
Joystiq Poll: Do you watch cutscenes? [update 1]
Filed under: Polls
Loads of time, cash and effort go into developing cutscenes in games, but do gamers watch them? Do you see them as integral to the game, or annoyances that slow down the experience?
Technical mumbo jumbo: this is not a scientific or rigorous poll and is only intended to capture the general consensus of Joystiq readers. Results will be posted approximately one week after the poll is opened for votes. Sure, you probably could hack this poll if you worked at it, but it’s more fun for everyone if poll results accurately reflect the opinions of all readers, so please refrain from tampering with poll results.
[Update: fixed poll width]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Rumor: New Xbox 360 Bundles Coming
A Gizmodo reader tipped us off to more bundles coming to the Great White North due to hit the great state of Canada this November. According to our retail insider, these bundles are:
- Core Package bundled with Project Gotham Racing 3 and Kameo: Elements of Power
- Premium Package bundled with Amped 3 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
No prices were given, nor were any solid release dates, but our tipster did let us know that we should expect more black Xbox 360 info very soon. Our northern neighbors may want to hold off on any rash Xbox 360 purchasing for a couple weeks until Microsoft or your local retailer provides more information.
Those of you in the continental United States? Ask grandma to snag you one when she crosses the border for her cheap prescription medication.
Counter-Strike Pricing Changes Enter Beta This Week
Valve has announced that their upcoming Counter-Strike worldwide dynamic pricing system will start testing soon, but when we can expect this to hit the masses is still an unknown. From the Valve weekly update:
Starting on Wednesday of next week we’ll be starting a beta of the new Counter-Strike weapons market that we first announced here. The beta will give us some real-world data to start the market going, along with making sure that any issues get fixed before we roll this out to the entire community. Information on how to join the beta should show up on most of the major Counter-Strike news sites.
I squeezed in a little CS:S time this morning before work and eagerly anticipate seeing how this will affect gameplay (probably not too much). We’ll follow up when more beta sign up details become available.
More Counter-Strike Changes Coming [Kotaku]
Blu-ray will beat HD-DVD, says Forrester (again)
Filed under: Mac, PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Peripherals, Business
Last year around this time Forrester Research predicted that Blu-ray would triumph over HD-DVD. They reiterated that opinion (paid access only) on Thursday, noting that Blu-ray will win because it’s got:
- Greater manufacturing support
- More movie titles
- A great distribution vector (PlayStation 3)
- Greater storage capacity (making it more useful in the long run)
Still, Forrester’s calling BRD’s ultimate triumph a pyrrhic victory because the war between BRD and HD-DVD “will significantly slow down adoption of standalone players.” Furthermore Forrester’s analysts believe that “neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray will flourish until consumers think they see a winner.”
Forrester doesn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room: If it takes too long for a “clear winner” to emerge, alternate delivery formats (such as digital distribution) may leapfrog both Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
Those with skin in the game (we don’t envy you) may also want to check out Forrester’s framework for predicting format success. The good news is that both camps have some levers they can use to affect the outcome of the format war. The bad news is that both camps have some levers they can use to affect the outcome of the format war.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
