Archive for December 5th, 2006
Like That, Another PS3 Firmware Update Hits
So I turned on my PLAYSTATION 3 for a quick game of Resistance multi-player, only to be greeted with a notice that a system update was required. And *snap* the console’s firmware has been updated to 1.30. That was quick! The update apparently irons out old TVs with 1080i—more info as it becomes known. Word is that we should expect lots of these updates. Perhaps, monthly even. Think of it as after-service for your PLAYSTATION 3.
Kiddie porn trumps video games
Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 2, Business
British Home Secretary John Reid addressed European Union members this week in Brussels regarding violent video games. He acknowledged that violent games are an issue in the gamut of problems that affect youth, tempering his statement by saying, “But I am also concerned about what more we can do to tackle the most extreme and harmful end of the spectrum. In particular I am concerned about child pornography.” Reid said most games do not feature objectionable material and went on to propose numerous ways for the EU to fight child pornography.
Reid’s statements come following issues in the U.K. and Europe over the survival-horror game Rule of Rose, which features very sinister little girls and is considered by some to be “erotic.” The game currently has no publisher in the U.K. Coincidentally, if London audiences want to get their creepy child fix on, 17 year-old Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame will perform Equus in London early next year, which has “a lengthy nude scene during which Strang (Radcliffe) blinds six horses with a spike.” So, naked Harry Potter live on-stage stabbing out horses eyes is fine, but fully clothed little girls terrorizing a woman with live rats tied to sticks is too much — interesting.
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A Helpful Guide To HDTV Shopping For Gamers
Are you looking to make the HD jump this holiday? If you’re expecting an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 under the tree in a few weeks, you’d better make sure you have something awe-inspiring on which to play it. This is the kind of present you buy yourself.
Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi has a good little primer up on his blog that might help you out if you don’t know your HDMI from your DLP from your 1080i. The best part about this particular TV guide, is that it’s targeted at the most important aspect of your television: how well it displays your games.
Dean covers many of the pitfalls you’ll want to avoid when making your investment and writes frankly about what hot technology you might or might not benefit from.
I’m going to go give my Sharp Aquos LCD HDTV a goodnight kiss now.
Buying An HDTV: What Do Gamers Need To Know?
Aging creatives: Adapt or die
Filed under: Culture, Business
Not all game designers are like the youthful Cliffy B. or David Jaffe, some are quite chronologically enhanced. One such aging creative, J.D. Alley, has written a piece about facing his own extinction. The 62 year-old discusses how he’s survived in the gaming industry. Although there is a lot of explanation, bending and weaving throughout the piece, it’s actually an interesting story of how to survive in the long term, like this gem quote, “We operate in a tough, demanding and competitive business that rewards success modestly and almost inevitably punishes failure with extinction. There are not many second chances in our business and those studios that have survived a gross miscalculation more than once can be counted on one hand.”
J.D. Alley lays it all out there and in the end makes it sounds like the older you get, the more cutting edge you’ve got to be. Those young whippersnappers are always ready to take over, but having the wisdom and influence that comes with age, coupled with the recognition that one must always be riding the wave of innovation is how to make it in the long term.
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Nintendo Sends Wii Safety E-mail To The Masses
Nintendo cares about your safety. They also care about you not beaning your little sister in the head with your Wii-mote and grinding through the impending lawsuit. That’s why the company is going to great lengths to cover its ass as illustrated by today’s mass e-mail, instructing mouthbreathers everywhere on how to keep their Wii controllers from rocketing at people and expensive electronics.
I think Ashcraft has it right: Nintendo needs to start shipping replacement brains to the Wii owning populace. It’s the only solution!
Actually, I’m going to take this opportunity to call out the product development chumps at Nerf for not already having a Wii-mote accident preventing Nerf product on store shelves already. Missed opportunity, people!
Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Writing original content about gaming
Filed under: Culture, Business
Faith Naked, “The Girl Gamer,” has written up her tips on how struggling video game bloggers can come up with original content, which will then be passed around the intertubes like a plague. It’s a pretty nice little compact list with each reasonable subhead hiding a paragraph that could get you in some serious trouble. We can agree with almost every single subhead, except for the last one and we’re sure Faith was joking about that one too — we really hope she was.
Continue reading Writing original content about gaming
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Gears of War Helps Bump Live Traffic 80%
Gears of War early November release helped mark one of the bigger spikes in Xbox Live traffic, one comparable to the release of the Xbox mega-hit Halo 2. According to Sandvine Incorporated, a network traffic monitoring company, Xbox Live saw an 80% increase in users following some major releases, including Gears.
While the million-selling Gears of War was presumably mostly responsible for the increased numbers, other big releases that shipped alongside Gears included Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, and Viva Pinata. The previous week saw games like FIFA, F.E.A.R. and Need for Speed Carbon, some of which may have helped carry Epic Games lame duck shooter. Kidding, obviously.
Oh wait. Looks like Contra was released on Live Arcade that week, too. Sorry, Cliffy B, you can’t take credit for this one. Bow down to Lance and Bill, heroes of Xbox Live traffic.
Sandvine Identifies Surge in Xbox Live and iTunes Traffic
Artists: Win PS3/Wii and help fight breast cancer
Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii
Are you an artist? Want to help fight breast cancer? If you said yes to all of these then you can try your hand at creating a piece of art and be one of eight winners of a PS3 or a Wii. theOtaku is holding a contest to coincide with AnimeFF being held in Las Vegas Jan. 13 - 14. AnimeFF is a “fully funded non-profit anime convention,” which means 100% of ticket proceeds will go to breast cancer research. The contest brings attention to the convention, driving ticket sales to support a good cause.
The actual contest involves submitting a piece of art to theOtaku.com with the tag “awareness” and the art must have “something” related to breast cancer awareness. All art must be original, so no using a licensed anime babe with her breast sandwiched in a mammogram machine. All entries must be in by Dec. 20. Top two people get a PS3 and the other six get a Wii. And before anyone gets smart, they say they already have the prizes, so availability will not be an issue.
So go make art, maybe win a system and support a good cause.
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Gallery: MotorStorm (Again? Again!)
It should be no secret that I love Sony and Evolution Studios’ MotorStorm. I’ve gushed about the dirty racing game in previous updates, much to the dissatisfaction of the Sony-hating crowd on Kotaku. Sorry, kids, but this game is good. And it’s freaking gorgeous. And, yes, it looks better with every new batch of screens.
Check out the gallery of huge 1280 x 720 images to see if you think I need my eyes checked.
Superman Returns fails to soar, EA unscathed
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation 2, Portable, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure
QA testers neglected to tell EA Tiburon that Superman Returns: The Videogame just isn’t any fun. Or, maybe they did, and EA just assumed the brand would sell itself, regardless of game quality. Wrong.
According to Bank of America research analyst Michael Savner, “sales of Superman Returns have been disappointing.” But even a ‘Super-dud’ failed to crush EA’s spirits. That’s because Madden and FIFA are expected to gross $242 million in sales for the quarter. Hence, company share prices are up.
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Bob Ross Painting Game In Danger?!
According to Gamespot’s latest Rumor Control based on a Play-Nintendo report, the mysterious Bob Ross painting game planned for release on the Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC, may have hit a snag on the road to store shelves. Until recently under development at AGFRAG Entertainment Group, it appears that Bob Ross Inc. may have pulled either the plug or moved development duties to another resource.
A statement from the AGFRAG official site reads:
I’m sorry that we have disappointed so many people on a certain project. Please realize we did what we felt was best, with the cards that were dealt to us and the situation we were in. We have learned from the experience and we won’t make the same mistakes twice. The companies we dealt with were professional in every way and we enjoyed working with them while we did and appreciated the opportunities they presented to us.
AGFRAG’s Joseph Hatcher told Gamespot “We are not saying it is canceled in anyway”, so afro and landscape fans can keep the torch burning.
This was a project I was looking forward to, so if this change in hands is for the right reasons, maybe this will ultimately be positive news. I could definitely use a Bob Ross Joy of Painting chill-out game (or non-game) and hope that development continues.
Wii, DS, PC Bob Ross game dries up?
Pre-teen Arrested For Opening Xmas Game Boy Early
I’d have never in a million years suspected that a 12-year old boy would be placed under arrest in the state of South Carolina for unwrapping a Game Boy (Advance, I assume), one he was due to receive as a gift for Christmas. Florida, maybe, but South Carolina?
Well, it appears to be true. In a police report available at The Smoking Gun, the underage suspect, who has a history of bad behavior—including assaulting a police officer—done acted up and/or bothered his “PlayStation Game Boy” and/or gave his mama some lip.
With infallible Southern logic, the boy’s mother decided to have her Game Boy stealin’ son arrested, hoping that would straighten him out. Brilliant! Sounds like someone has a future so bright, he’s gotta wear shades.
Thanks for the tip, Randy!
Boy Arrested For Opening Xmas Gift Early [The Smoking Gun]
Australian Wii Launch Countdown
As of posting this, it’s only eleven hours until the Wii launches in Australia, heralding the dawn of the Wii’s PAL era.
Eleven. Hours.
We’ll be doing our best to bring you all of the highlights (if any) and lowlights (many expected) of a midnight launch that promises to be the most half-assed you’ve seen this year (apathy is an Australian speciality), so do be sure to check back regularly throughout the evening.
No, serious. Check back. All of you. You know you can’t get enough of pictures of people waiting in lines for hours, no matter how far away they are from you. You get off on it. It’s cool. Nobody’s judging you.
ArchLord moves to free play, Codemasters desperate
Filed under: PC, Online, RPGs, MMO
Codemasters has announced that its ill-received MMORPG ArchLord will no longer be paid-subscription based. It’s free — starting January 4. Codemasters also plans to offer the game’s second major content update, Episode 2: Season of Siege, for free. The giveaways don’t stop there: newcomers will be offered a 3,000-credit bonus for opening an account.
Sure, these moves imply that Codemasters is desperate for players, but we prefer to look at it from a glass-half-full perspective. Fewer players, means we’re in the running to be crowned Archlord! Muhawhawhaw!
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Study: Wii winning the online buzz battle
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii
Ah, buzz, that unquantifiable aura of cool that can make or break a product launch. Wait, did I just say unquantifiable? I’m sorry, it’s apparently highly quantifiable, as proven by a New Media Strategies report that finds online opinions of the Wii to be much more favorable than those of the PS3.
According to a MediaLife interview with New Media Strategies VP Sam Huxley, the Arlington, Va., market research firm “monitored 10,000 online conversations,” and found a surprisingly hostile reaction to Sony’s well-hyped system. Conversations about the PS3 broke 27 percent positive and 38 percent negative, according to the report, while Wii conversations were scored 49 percent positive and only 18 percent negative (the remaining conversations were rated “neutral”).
Huxley cites availability and pricing issues as being responsible for most of the negative reaction to the PS3, and says the system was also hurt by not launching with any familiar franchises. In contrast, Huxley said the Wii received a lot of positive buzz for its new control method and Zelda, though some faulted the system for being hard to get used to. Despite the all the PS3 negativity, though, “the volume of discussion on PS3 is about double of that of Wii,” Huxley said.
The study’s methodology is not discussed in the interview, and there is likely some subjectivity in the evaluation of the online conversations. It should also be noted that internet chatter is not necessarily indicative of opinions for the public at large. Still, it seems that all-important buzz balance might be tilting in Nintendo’s favor at this early phase in the console wars.
Previously: USA Today on favorable Wii buzz, early holiday winners
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PlayStation 4 is forthcoming … so what?
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Business
There is a piece circulating the internet on comments made by Paul Holman, VP of Technology for SCEE, where we claimed that we would not see a PlayStation 4 until at least 2010. Unfortunately, 2010 is never actually quoted by Holman, implying that it might have been a fabricated/sensationalized number created by the article’s author, David Richards, at SmartHouse.
Here’s what we gather from the article: following one analyst predictions that were circulating the internet (notice a trend here?) that predicted Sony’s executive shift would result in them leaving the hardware market, Holman states that, “to say that there will be no PS4 because of a management change is a bit far fetched.” That is the only thing he says about a PlayStation 4, yet the article uses the topic, with an unsubstantiated number, as its headline. The article has been picked up by many press outlets either as “at least 2010″ or just plain “PS4 arriving in 2010.”
We’re not going to say anything regarding their spelling and punctuation, but the 2010 claim (at least 2010, mind you) is not supported by any quotes from Holman. GameSetWatch also tackles this issue, both specifically and generally.
The rest of the article discusses the new-gen PlayStation 3 firmware (we’ve blogged this). What you should take from the article is that a PlayStation 4 will arrive, eventually, but a launch year is not yet being discussed. And read the full article, as the headlines can be misleading or worse, as in this case, unsupported by the article itself.
Last month, Ken Kutaragi told BBC that he wanted a PlayStation 4 “within the next decade.” Maybe we can say, then, that PS4 will be out by 2020? Nah, let’s not be presumptuous.
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Today’s hottest game video: Halo 3 information
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, First Person Shooters, Video
Since the top slots everywhere are totally being hogged by the Halo 3 “Starry Night” commercial from last night, we’ve decided to go with the top rated user-submitted video at GameVideos.com which is — Halo 3 information by TM22 from Shatter Studios. Looks like it’s Haloverload all over again this week. The info in this video is taken from the EGM article, the released screenshots, and some crudely drawn maps, but they’ve put it all together with pans and zooms and whadda ya know, it actually looks fairly cool.
That is, if you can get past the metal soundtrack. Heck, we’d rather watch this with Enya behind it or something because … daymn. That’s just ear-grating. But hey, it’s a tradeoff for the Halo goodness in movie form, so we’ll crank the volume down and enjoy. Check out the video after the jump, and start your jonesing.
Continue reading Today’s hottest game video: Halo 3 information
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Today in Joystiq: December 5, 2006
Joystiquery
It’s so catchy! (Wii delight #003)
Readers pick best webcomic: Zelda get!
So long “next-gen,” and good riddance
Today’s hottest game video: Wiimote on Windows
Virtual Console game suspension (Wii delight #004)
Why not a Virtual Console subscription service?
News
Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for PC, it works
Sony Australia says nice things about Wii
Wii gets nearly double PS3’s attach rate in Japan
Deadwood star replaces Vin Diesel in Hitman movie
Elebits retail gameplay video and impressions
Microsoft reiterates 10M Xbox 360 target
Wii may beat expectations, not cannibalizing DS sales
Copy HD-DVDs using Xbox 360, high-end PC
Don’t expect predictive console results until early 2007
Fighting Fantasy to be resurrected on DS, PSP
Parents trust ESRB, by the numbers
Xbox Live usage jumps 80 percent since Gears of War
Take-Two signs in-game advertising deal
EA porting another geriatric sim to DS
Will Wright, Stephen Colbert, and N’Gai Croal
Kid arrested for stealing his Xmas present from under tree
Sony and Nissan collaborate to keep the GT5 engine turning
Burnout Dominator disappears in a flash
Rumors & Speculation
Major PS3 firmware update in March?
Culture
PS3: The disgraced internet mogul’s choice
A gamer’s guide to buying an HDTV
DIY Xbox 360 controller only slightly bigger than the ‘Duke’
Wii Sports controls: An exaggerated truth
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Wii Sports controls: An exaggerated truth
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii
There are some really funny scenes in the above video by Epileptic Gaming that exaggerate the obvious to prove a notable point: Wii controls on the whole aren’t 1:1, IGN’s overstatements aside. But highlighting such truthful exaggerations totally makes playing Wii Sports less enjoyable in a “I’m not keeping it real” sorta way!!?? Nah. The quest for a perfect score in Bowling continues…
[Thanks, the.swedish.fish]
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Msoft Blogger Still Hates PS3, Loves Wii
Ozymandias, Microsoft’s attack blogger, still isn’t a fan of the Playstation 3. Go figure.
While it’s not surprising Oz doesn’t like the PS3 (and he raises a few points I completely agree with) what is surprising is that he likes the Wii. So much so, in fact, that he recommends it. The real question now, Ozymandias, is which would you recommend more the Xbox 360 or the Wii?
Playstation 3–She Just Aint Done [Ozymandias]
