Archive for February 7th, 2007
Shops On HMV PS3 Bundle: Boo-Hiss
Retail hatorade. Bricks-and-mortar chain HMV is offering a big pricey bundle that includes a 60GB PLAYSTATION 3, a 4GB PSP and two PSP games for £674.99 (US $1,327). The deal pretty much guaranteed shoppers a PS3 on launch day if they forked over the cash. A mass HMV email was sent out to 5,000 “lucky few” with purchase details. So what do other British sellers think? Choices UK negs the idea and won’t be following in HMV’s bundled footsteps. The reason being that the outlets says it “won’t hold… customers to ransom.” Virgin Megastore’s Stephen Lynn chimes in, saying:
HMV’s deal is up to them at the end of the day, but it’s not the sort of thing we’d offer our customers because we’re trying to keep things simple on PS3. We wouldn’t want to risk confusing our customers over any product — let alone one of this expense.
Eh… People aren’t really going to buy this silly HMV bundle, are they?
Retailers Hate PS3 Bundle [MCVUK via QJ.NET]
360 Thief Done In By Stupidity, MS Tech Support
On January 23, a thief stole an Xbox 360 and some games from a home in Wellington, New Zealand. Which was very naughty. In his haste, though, he forgot to also grab the power supply [insert "couldn't carry both" jokes here], leaving his newly-acquired 360 largely useless. So what did he do? He did what all idiot criminals would do and contacted Microsoft technical support, asking if he could please have a new power cord. And gave his real name and contact details.
Two weeks later, the police knock on his door and arrest him. Remember, readers, bad things happen to stupid people.
Microsoft privacy defence delays police [Stuff]
[Thanks Janson!]
Gallery: Various Marios, All Not Mario
From porn star Ron Jeremy to The Simpsons Futurama and from real art to fan art, Mario has been re-imagined over and over again. Here’s a gallery of different Marios. You might’ve seen most of them before, but it’s nice to have them all in one place for easy perusal.
Marios Galore [Media Post]
Manhunt 2 Has Rockstar On The Front Foot
After the various tabloid mishaps surrounding the original, you’d have figured Rockstar’s legal team would be fully armed and operational for the announcement of the sequel. And…they are. As if they could sense the coming storm, they’ve gone straight onto the offensive:
We are aware that in direct contradication to all available evidence, certain individuals continue to link the original Manhunt title to the Warren Leblanc [the boy found guilty of murdering Stefan Pakeerah] case in 2004. The transcript of the court case makes it quite clear what really happened. At sentencing the Judge, defence, prosecution and Leicester police all emphasised that Manhunt played no part in the case.
We respect those who have different opinions about the horror genre and video games as a whole, but we hope they will also consider the opinions of gamers. The stories in modern video games are as diverse as the stories in books, film and television.
Rockstar submits every game to the appropriate bodies for rating and classification and in the case of Manhunt 2 it is clearly a game aimed at an adult audience and we anticipate that it will receive an 18+ rating.
That’s an 18+ in the UK, mind you. What that means for those of us in nations without 18+ ratings is not yet clear, but if you live in Germany or Australia, you might want to start considering importing…
Rockstar defends Manhunt 2 [MCVUK]
Kotaku Magu: FF12 Revenant Wings Images
The recent issue of Nintendo Dream has a buncha images for the upcoming Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings for the DS. There’s no release date announced yet, but here’s what we know: It’s a pared down sequel to Final Fantasy XII. The game will feature a much more straightforward combat system for the DS’s casual crowd and a ton more summons than any other FF. And the game’s graphics are sprite based.
Pandemic Welcome New EA Overlords
Pandemic have been quick to embrace their new Mercenaries publishers EA, saying that while “Lucas was a great partner for us on Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction…EA will be a great partner on Mercenaries 2: World in Flames”.
Couldn’t hurt to make nice with the new boss, I guess, but I wonder how happy they’ll be when they’re churning out Mercenaries 2010: World Cup Edition? At least they’ve got a new engine to play with:
We’ve built a new engine from the ground up. Mercenaries 2 is built on a totally new next-gen engine that will allow our bad-ass Mercs to take the action to a level that wasn’t possible on earlier platforms.
Aside from dealing with the scale and detail of next generation games, the engine has a fundamentally different architecture to deliver a much bigger open-world experience.
Which is all well and good, but the problem with Mercenaries wasn’t the size of the map, it was the complete lack of anything to do while on it. Bigger isn’t always better, is it ladies? Well….is…it? You know what, don’t answer that.
EA is ‘best fit’ for Mercenaries 2, says Pandemic [Gamesindustry]
Pocket Power Unearthed
While digging around in his basement looking for…oh, I don’t know, Dennis Judd found something. Something…old. Buried amongst old horse-hair wigs and 17 faded, busted-up copies of Monopoly he found a copy of Pocket Power, a small Nintendo Power booklet/advertisement that was given out to any cinemagoers unfortunate enough to have paid to see The Wizard on the big screen.
While awesome for its antiquity (NES Mouse! And Satellite!), it’s all so…brazen. It also seems kind of pointless, aside from drumming up subscriptions to Nintendo Power - these kids have convinced their parents to pay money take them to see The Wizard - selling NES games to them is preaching to the converted.
Nintendo Power: The Wizard [Dennis Judd]
Clip: PSP Camera Gets Night Vision
When Sony first unveiled its 1.3 megapixel PSP “Chotto Shot” camera, the world wondered why. And still does. The add-on can do things like take pictures and video, but so can any cell phone — At better quality to boot! A modder over at AcidMods created a night vision Chotto Shot. Likewise, the world wonders why. But, we won’t judge. You will. Hit the jump for a slightly creepy clip of it in action.
Chotto Shot Camera For Night [Siliconera]
DICE Keynote Highlights (Ew!) Convergence
The 2007 DICE Summit has officially opened following the kickoff keynote from Yair Landau, President of Sony Digital Pictures and Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The core message of his speech was one of convergence. Save your groaning, as I know we’ve heard that magical marketing buzzword bandied about for over a decade, but Landau spoke not on the unholy marriage of video games and film, resulting in some mutant “Siliwood” cinematic experience, but how the two can compliment eachother.
Following some quick clips of Ghost Rider—a movie Landau mistakenly referred to as Ghostbusters, eliciting chuckles from the crowd and a hasty correction—the topic extended to bringing the visceral experience of movies to games. Citing the popularity of Saving Private Ryan, a movie with raw cinematic appeal, he proposed that games like Medal of Honor, Company of Heroes and Call of Duty were direct extensions of the movie’s influence on a mass market.
He then showed a clip of Sony Picture’s own Casino Royale, culminating in an interesting product development.
After the brutal intensity of the best action moments from the latest 007 flick, Landau showed footage (some of it “target render”) of an multiplayer title in development at Sony Online Entertainment’s Seattle office, codenamed “Vista”. Why Vista? “We had to push it back a year,” he explained. Damn! Ice burn!
The game featured a pair of digital agents, one tall, dark, and tuxedoed, his female counterpart in a slinky cocktail dress sporting plenty of heaving cleavage. After a brief intro showcasing some Q-caliber gadgetry built into the main character’s mount (a BMW look-alike), the two engaged in a massive firefight with all manner of street thugs, characters that looked ripped from Manhunt (or a Misfits show). Securing the aluminum brief case they were after, a dreadlocked, face-painted baddie made a dramatic appearance, seconds before the clip went black. Again, citing Hollywood hits like The Bourne Identity and the Bond franchise, Landau and SOE believe that action-oriented espionage is ready to break out. Hence, the currently untitled game.
He also showed some clips of Sony Pictures Classics “Riding Giants”, a movie that helped spawn the upcoming penguin surfing animated venture “Surf’s Up.” Talking animals? Normally, I’d say “No thanks!” but it got a laugh out of me. He then showed a clip of Ubisoft’s game adaptation that goes by the same name, which actually looked pretty damn good. More Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater than Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, the penguin surfing action did give off a very visceral feel. Riding (inexplicably placed) railslides, crashing through obstacles, hitting massive wave jumps—it all felt very close to the intense clips he’d shown in film form.
While convergence may be the wrong (tired) term, the extension of a film’s strength did bring up an interesting design challenge for the gathered creators. Landau wrapped up by challenging developers to take advantage of share rendering and animation tools to extend the experience of powerful, primal cinema to create equally powerful games.
Then, he told everyone to go drink lots of booze. Don’t mind if I do, Yair.
A Concise History Of Bethesda
Covering their early days (Madden) right through to Oblivion, the Escapist have a great feature up detailing the complete history of Bethesda, which deals not only with their games but also the various ups (loads of cash money) and downs (wrangles with ZeniMax) they’ve faced as a company.
I like Elder Scrolls, but found the early-days stuff developing games like Gridiron a lot more interesting, since I had no idea they were the pioneers of what became Madden.
Electronic Arts was so impressed with Gridiron that they hired us to develop the first John Madden Football. I like to think a piece of Gridiron still lives in JMF even today.
They then speak briefly about the upcoming Fallout 3, and what it means to be entrusted with such a difficult IP. Despite the series’ passionate fanbase, Bethesda sound like they know what they’re doing; Todd Howard fancies he knows what Fallout is all about:
I think the first Fallout’s tone is brilliant, but then they start to drift in the sequel and subsequent games. When it comes to humor, I’m very anti ‘jokes’ in games. Most designers try too hard to tell a joke, and it just doesn’t work. I think good humor for Fallout is dry, almost satirical. Like getting your leg blown off, blood starts spraying all over the place and you get the little [PIPBoy] interface image giving you the thumbs up - I find that funny. Horrible situations juxtaposed against cartoon mascots. But that’s just me.
No, Todd, it’s not just you. A little bit of history is always good for you, so Bethesda fans, this is well worth your time.
Bethesda: The Right Direction [The Escapist]
Today’s アイドルマスタ-iest video: The Idolmaster
Filed under: RPGs, Simulations, Rhythm
Today’s video featuring in-game footage from The Idolmaster is completely wacky and strange … even somewhat bizarre. That is, unless you speak Japanese or have a universal translator handy. We’ve talked about this game for the Xbox 360 before, and this footage seems to confirm just how strange this thing really is.
In fact, if you’re anything like us, you might feel a bit brainwashed after seeing this video. It’s enough to put you into a trance, while your brain says WTF over and over. Hopefully someone can translate this for us before we decide to worship these strange Japanese girls and form a cult.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Today in Joystiq: February 7, 2007
Joystiquery
Metareview - Diddy Kong Racing DS
Today’s overkilliest video: Nerf Druid
News
Taking part in the Great Games Experiment
Jade Empire: Special Edition goes gold
News flash: Microsoft still publishing Alan Wake
Fan-translation of Kojima’s Policenauts nears completion
Nintendo patent reveals cell phone gaming plans
Kingdom Hearts series ships 10 million
IGN: PS3 Oblivion loads quicker, looks nicer than 360
Real-life Halo suit up for sale on eBay
Half-Life 2: Episode Two boxes dropping this Fall
GTA: Vice City Stories available for PlayStation 2 in March
Manhunt 2 Wii box art more interesting than teaser
300 marching for glory on PSP
Not so fast, Sega: EA has a 1080p game too
Yahoo still hoping fanboys will jump into its Wii portal
EA pulls plug on unproductive Japanese studio
HMV’s PS3 bundle draws criticism from UK retailers
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune images leak, Naughty Dog’s latest exposed
Sega Sammy profits slide 23 percent
Rumors & Speculation
Xbox 360 has weakest exclusives says GamePro
Culture
Wii Power Gloves? Nope.
The 10 commandments of a console launch
Wii bowling “power throws”: Whither the perfect 890?
How to beat Gears of War and save $60
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Sega Sammy profits slide 23 percent
The Sega Sammy group has experienced a 23 percent drop in profits within the first nine months of the financial year, reports Gamesindustry.biz. Net income (stay with us here) went down from $526 million (¥63.49 billion) to $409 million (¥49.38 billion), with sales dropping by 4 percent to $3.35 billion (¥404.29 billion). The current financial state of the company isn’t nearly as interesting as the reason given for a drop in profits — pachinko machines proving less than popular.
Pachinko machines are, of course, a notable aspect of Japanese gaming that Sammy brought along when it romantically joined hands with Sega. Though the company’s net profit forecast remains unchanged for the full year, it’s easy to observe the parallels between Sammy dragging profits down and Sammy dragging Sega down as a developer. The Ono-like arrival of the Pachinko maker is considered by many to be the turning point for what was once a brilliant and innovative developer. Then again, what good are brilliance and innovation when you can’t pay the bills?
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune images leak, Naughty Dog’s latest exposed
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Action, Adventure
Play France went digging into Naughty Dog background modeler Rob Adams’ online resume and turned up some new images from the studio’s upcoming adventure game, now (unofficially) confirmed to carry the uninspired title Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. A trademark and logo for that name turned up earlier this week and were quickly tied to the Naughty Dog project; an E3 trailer for the game alluded to infamous English navigator Sir Francis Drake’s lost treasure. Predictably, Sony has responded with: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation. Nothing has been announced.” Not sure this classifies as rumor and speculation any longer…
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
HMV’s PS3 bundle draws criticism from UK retailers
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Sony PSP, Business
MCV reports that potential PS3 buyers aren’t the only ones to express concern with HMV’s recent decision to create a monstrous PS3-PSP bundle. The UK retailer, which initially guaranteed PS3 pre-orders to customers who also picked up a PSP, a 4GB Memory Stick and 2 PSP games (grand total: £675), has since done away with the launch prioritization — though the bundle remains an option.
When questioned about the deal, competing UK retailers expressed no desire to create similar bundles. Martin Baxter, head of games at Choices UK, stated that, “We won’t be following HMV’s lead on the PSP pre-order bundle, because we won’t hold our customers to ransom.”
Virgin Megastores’ Stephen Lynn was a bit more subtle, explaining their decision to “keep things simple” and and to avoid “confusing our customers over any product - let alone one of this expense.” HMV refused to comment on the matter.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
EA pulls plug on unproductive Japanese studio
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Simulations, Business
EA Japan’s muddling existence has come to an end, according to information received by 1UP. The studio has produced just one title, a port of Theme Park for DS (not yet released), in three years of operation, having failed at attempts to develop projects for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The closure will apparently affect only about 20 employees — many of whom will be relocated to other positions throughout the company — as EA has been scaling back the studio’s size for months. Despite EA Japan’s collapse, studios in other parts of Asia, namely China and Singapore, continue to grow. “I think this closure is also as a result of the Japanese market not being as exciting compared to the possibilities for growth in China and other parts of Asia,” a source told 1UP.
EA has yet to comment on the shutdown.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Yahoo still hoping fanboys will jump into its Wii portal
Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Online, Business
Unfortunately, “Jump in” was already taken. Yahoo’s “Brand Universe” initiative remains slogan-less and intentionally under-promoted, still represented by a single brand portal, Wii, supposedly the first of one hundred.
The Wii portal quietly launched last fall, attracting a reported 1.2 million visitors during the month of November — when Wii-ziness was at an all-time high. The portal continues to haphazardly pull in a variety of Wii-tagged content mostly originating from Yahoo-branded sources like Flickr and MyWeb, as well as from social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Not surprisingly, all of the featured game content links to Yahoo Games.
After a brief visit, we didn’t find much incentive to ever return. Biggest turnoff? No system in place to manage the relevance of the portal’s content. Really, one picture of ‘Fanboy X’ cuddling his Wii is more than enough. Try again, Yahoo.
[Via Gamasutra]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Clip: The Bowser Hates Mario Club
Well it starts kind of slow and the ending is amazingly lame, but there are some truly funny bits hidden within this clip of the Columbia Chowdah Sketch Comedy Group’s Bowser Hates Mario Club routine.
“It goes without saying the bullets should have big angry faces!” I’ve often wondered how that whole manufacturing deal went down. The whole bit falls apart once Mario shows up, but maybe it was planned that way to help recruit new members.
Bowser Hates Mario Club [YouTube - Thanks Paul!]
Metareview - Diddy Kong Racing DS
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Portable, Driving, Online, Metareviews
As so many did, my friends and I bought into the original Diddy Kong Racing, which had been hyped as a superior blend of Super Mario 64 meets Mario Kart 64, from the same developer that had won our allegiance with GoldenEye 007 just months before. Diddy Kong Racing wasn’t fun (despite mostly bloated reviews). Still, we fell into a self-perpetuating trap of lying to ourselves; reassuring each other of the game’s promised greatness. Weeks passed, and Diddy Kong Racing eventually faded away — but not for good.
Rare has remade its N64 “classic” for DS. Despite Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support, Diddy Kong Racing is still lame, further marred by poor DS-specific design choices. Thankfully, critical reception seems to be more on point this time around:
- IGN (71/100) - “[Any] time you’re encouraged to touch the lower screen, you can pretty much assume that it wasn’t in the original game and created specifically for the Nintendo DS “remake”. It’s these new DS-centric elements that point to the fact that this is a first-generation DS game handled by a team that’s not quite familiar with the platform … someone really needs to tell Rare that microphone blowing is so 2005. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun when developers did it in the Nintendo DS’ early years, and it’s still not fun now … unfortunately the development team focused a bit too much on “DS-izing” the product with completely unnecessary and frustrating touch-screen and microphone challenges that disrupt the racing design.”
- GameSpot (67/100) - “Diddy Kong Racing DS isn’t a bad kart-racing game, but its best feature, the racing, is buried underneath so much unnecessary garbage that some people will find it nearly impossible to enjoy. Had Rare stripped the island setting, toned down the tedious collecting, and tweaked some other minor issues, the game would have been better with less. Instead, it chose to add more and more content, and the game suffers for it. Some of the new additions, such as online multiplayer and the various customization features, make the game more enjoyable, but many of them, particularly the touch-screen controls, make it worse.”
- Games Radar (60/100) - “Diddy Kong Racing wants so damn hard to be the next Mario Kart that it hurts our eyes to play it for long periods of time. The racing itself is totally fine (if a little slow), but this simple pleasure is smothered in monotonous collecting and mindless wandering … For those who remember the Nintendo 64 version from 1997, this is mostly the same game. Back then it wanted to be the next Mario Kart 64, but obviously wasn’t. Now, the only thing that’s been done to bump its stature is moderate touch screen silliness.”
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
$1.8 Million Passed Through Station Exchange
Sony Online Entertainment launched the Station Exchange back in 2005 as an officially sanctioned player auction site meant to profit from combat the ever-growing gold and character black-market in EQ2. No one was sure how popular the site would be, seeing as only certain Everquest II servers would be Exchange-enabled. Well nearly two years later SOE has published a white paper detailing the first year of transactions, which reports a whopping $1.8 million in transactions over the period. The paper includes all sorts of statistics, from highest priced items (dark elf characters) to average platinum prices ($7.35 per piece.)
Said John Smedly, SOE president:
“The Station Exchange White Paper results demonstrate beyond a doubt that there is a significant demand for a secure, sanctioned online marketplace where players can enhance their gaming experience by spending real dollars.”
Unfortunately they also demonstrate to the IRS exactly how much tax money they are missing out on from in-game item sales…figures they didn’t really have access to previously. I sure hope those Station Exchange sellers are keeping records as well as SOE is.
EverQuest auction site turns over $1.8m in first year [GamesIndustry.biz]
