Nintendo will be giving an hour-long presentation at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany on August 23, entitled "Wii Prove Our Promise." Seems a likely candidate for launch details, but who knows. Nintendo's official magazine in France also says they will be showing off five new Wii titles at the event.

• Three new Guitar Hero II tracks have been announced: Stone Temple Pilots' "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart, Anthrax's "Madhouse" and Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil". Video is available of each. I love STP, and I hate to say it but their cover isn't very good.
• The 20 gayest video game characters.
• UK police chiefs are condemning the upcoming Reservoir Dogs game for scenes involving torture of police officers.
• A PDF of the second issue of Nintendo Power is available in case you need some hot tips for Bionic Commando. Also be sure to note the cover, which was named as NP's biggest complaint generator in their 50th issue celebration.
• Microsoft claims to have "surprises" in store for the launch of the PS3 and Wii. Possibly pricing related surprises.
• Scarface: The World Is Yours is not coming to the Xbox 360. A completely different Scarface game is coming to the PSP, however.
• Hideo Kojima is designing Snake's Smash Bros. Brawl stage.
• Character designer Tomoharu Saito, whose work can be seen in the Culdcept series, among others, died July 29 due to a tumor in his lungs.
• Supposed final specs on the Wii have been uncovered, but they could be made up for all we know.
• Irrational Games' Ken Levine says EA "didn't give a sh-t" about System Shock 3.
• An example of the trouble playing games for people with colorblindness.
• Free Radical flat out says there won't be a Wii version of Haze because the machine can't handle it.
• A San Francisco Chronicle article looks at how Sony -- as a whole, not just in gaming -- is trying to turn itself around and reconnect with customers. I venture that the PS3 isn't really helping in that regard.

Posted by Bill at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

EGM's Dan Hsu mentioned during the EGM Live podcast that Sony will be introducing "entitlements" for the PS3, which will act exactly like Xbox 360 achievements, except with a stupider name. Clearly, Microsoft will not even stop short of time travel in order to copy Sony.

The problem is that the name "entitlements" doesn't make any sense. If I'm entitled to something, I shouldn't have to do anything to earn it. If they were going by the correct definition, I should be able to turn on my PS3 and all the points I could ever have would automatically be there, because I'm owed them. It's likely Sony was in such a rush to find a word that ended in -ments so they could match the 360 achievements that they didn't stop to think about what the word actually meant. Of course, even then, you'd have to ask why they couldn't have simply gone with "accomplishments."

Posted by Bill at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After the big announcement yesterday that E3 was undergoing major changes (or not coming back at all), a day of argument over whether Next Generation had been overzealous in calling the event "cancelled" began. Surprisingly, Next Gen even shot back over this, saying:

Some gullible journalists, evidently blinded by a desire to do-down a rival scoop, have taken this as evidence that E3 is alive and well and merely being 'downsized'. But this euphemism doesn't change the facts. The decision by big manufacturers and publishers to walk away has left ESA in damage-control mode. As we reported yesterday, E3, in its present form, is dead.

Ouch. All the same, everyone was waiting for the Entertainment Software Association to finally step in and speak officially on what was happening to the much loved, much loathed yearly trade show. And now, they have.

"It is no longer necessary or efficient to have a single industry 'mega-show,'" said ESA president Doug Lowenstein in a statement. "By refocusing on a highly-targeted event, we think we can do a better job serving our members and the industry as a whole, and our members are energized about creating this new E3."

Prefacing its statements with the caveat "as currently envisioned," the ESA said E3 2007 will still be held in Los Angeles, but won't have the "large trade show environment" of previous years. The city has previously estimated that the show brings in about $20 million in direct spending by the 60,000-plus attendees and exhibitors.

According to the article, Sony, Microsoft, EA and THQ were among the publishers pushing hardest for a change in format. It should be no surprise those also happen to be some of the biggest spenders at the event. The ESA says they're currently working on exactly how the show's new form will take shape, but as mentioned yesterday, most signs point to a smaller, more intimate event involving a few hundred people versus thousands. This most likely means, among other things, no more getting a pass to attend just because you work the counter at Gamestop or run a two-bit blog (gasp!).

So while Next Gen may have used some sensational writing in their story, I don't think they were wrong. E3, as it's pictured in every gamer's mind, is dead. It won't be an amusement park of noise and lights and giant screens and booth babes and companies trying to outdo each other anymore. An event called E3 will carry on, but it won't be the same animal at all. Of course, it's possible -- nay, likely -- that companies will still try to outdo each other, just on a smaller scale, which will escalate each year until in 2015, we're back where we started. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Interestingly, one of the parties least happy about this is the city of Los Angeles, which took in a huge amount of money each year thanks to the expo.

GameSpot has also learned that senior ESA staff met with officials from to the City of Los Angeles this morning to discuss the impact of having a scaled-down event will have on the metropolis. Attorney Daniel Offner of Offner and Anderson, PC, a law firm that represents numerous E3 exhibitors past and present, thinks the city might take legal action. "I'd be surprised if the city took this lying down," Offner told GameSpot. "I'm sure the city will take a close look at their rights and try and protect them."

I have no idea what kind of legal action they would take. "It's illegal to stop spending your money here"?

Update: Weighing in on yet another factor I hadn't considered, an industry source speaking to Game Politics questions how this will affect the ESA itself. After all, the organization made a fair bit of bank each year off E3, and with the ESA involved in regular court battles, how will they continue to pay their legal fees?

Posted by Bill at 3:27 PM | Permalink

A whopping nine different PC games (or expansions, or collections) are coming out this week, and even one Mac title. Maybe it's just my bias speaking, but none of them are worth noting. On the console side, we have a game based on Barnyard and a damned Veggie Tales game. Clearly summer isn't done yet.

There are only two notable titles coming out this week: One is the physics driving (and driver tossing) sequel FlatOut 2 for the Xbox, PS2 and PC. The other is Super Monkey Ball Adventure for the Gamecube, PS2 and PSP, which seems to be getting some pretty tepid reviews thusfar.

Perhaps more anticipated than both of these is a title actually not hitting retail shelves at all. After months of waiting, Street FIghter II' Hyper Fighting finally hits the Xbox Live Marketplace this Wednesday for the price of $10. I'm still annoyed they couldn't be bothered to at least bump it up to Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers for the extra characters, but maybe that's just me.

If you think I'm just a jerk who doesn't respect smaller titles, feel free to go here and check out this week's full release list.

Posted by Bill at 12:42 PM | Permalink

Next Generation is reporting a bombshell of a news story: The massive yearly industry event E3 "in its present form" has been cancelled for the next year and for the forseeable future. According to Next Gen, several of the major exhibitors have jointly decided the cost of putting on the show each year is no longer worth the result, which is basically just media exposure. I suppose when you can deliver your message via the Internet to everyone you could ever want to touch, there's less of a point to one big event. And indeed, publishers are said to have decided their multi-million dollar expo budgets would be better spent on shows of their own or other promotions. Without the big guns, it's felt there's little reason in continuing the show.

ESA president Doug Lowenstein will likely announce the news some time within the next 48 hours, possibly on Monday. It's possible that the ESA will seek to limit the damage by organizing some form of lesser event in May, but it's clear that the days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone.

It seems a little.. extreme to me to dump the whole program rather than just cut back the skyrocketing expenditures. Gamespot is reporting a slightly less sensational story about E3 "downsizing", replacing the current carnival of consumerism with a smaller, more professional affair:

Sources said that rather than fill the 540,000 square feet of the cavernous LACC, the show will take place at a location that would support exhibitors in meeting room space only, with companies showing their wares to a select group of attendees numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands.

The two reports seem disparate at first, but they do report mostly the same facts. The larger publishers will most likely leave or at least reduce their presence, and the event as a whole will become smaller and more focused. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in terms of what each individual company will do in terms of promotions now. Will the Tokyo Game Show take on new importance? Will Nintendo start holding a SpaceWorld every year? Will Microsoft move more of their big announcements to their yearly X0 show?

In any event, let's all pour one out for our long lost E3. We had some good times, and some retardedly outlandish and garish times. Personally, I hope the pre-E3 press briefings still remain in whatever new form the show takes. It was a pain having to wait for two months before the event with no news because everyone was "saving up" for E3, but the following sudden overload of announcements, new games, and first looks was worth it.

Posted by Bill at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I admit, I don't talk about much in the way of PC games here, mainly because I don't play very many. But for anyone out there who does follow the PC world, here's a Saturday Scan just for you. This is a feature from the August 2000 issue of Next Generation, entitled the 20 Games That Will Save the PC. Seems like every other year people have to come up with reasons why the PC isn't going to die.

Oddly enough, the eventual fates of many of these games did a better job of representing the problems in the PC market than they did to "save" anything.

I am legally obligated to step in here to say "lol halo"

While some certainly had a strong following, few of the titles on this list became breakaway hits or otherwise performed in a way you'd expect of a game that would "save the PC." Some of the biggest profile titles ended up becoming despised by a large portion of the community (Black and White, Tribes 2, Escape From Monkey Island). Of course, it's also hard to save the PC when you're never released on the platform:

Soon after this issue, New Legends was dropped for the PC and became an Xbox exclusive title. Ultima Worlds Online: Origin was cancelled in March 2001, at least in part due to fears that the new game would take away players from the original, still going strong Ultima Online.

SimsVille was also cancelled, with many of its features divided up and used in other games. Shadowbane wasn't released until two years after the Q2 2001 date mentioned in this article; in March of 2006, Ubisoft announced that the game was now free to play for all.

As they rightly guess, Warcraft 3 didn't come out until a year and a half after their predicted date, but it's still arguably the most successful title on this list. Team Fortress 2 is, six years later, still in development, and now bears no resemblance to the shots seen here. TF2 is currently planned to ship along with Half Life 2: Episode Two.

Posted by Bill at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

More fuel to the "Wii October launch" fire: A release list from Activision put Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam on the Wii as an October release, with two other Wii titles in November. They later revised the list with all three dates changed to "Upon Wii Launch." Other rumors also say Nintendo may be planning a show or even a cross country tour focusing on the Wii prior to its launch.

• The Ninety-Nine Nights demo is now available on Xbox Live.
• And on the PC side, an English demo of Wild West FPS Call of Juarez is available.
• Sega Sammy's profit fell 93% last quarter due to, of all things, a lack of new models of slot machines.
• Nintendo confirms the DS card and board game collection 42 All Time Classics will have WiFi play.
• THQ has cancelled the Sopranos for the Xbox 360 and will now be a PS2 exclusive. At least that means 360 owners won't be tricked into paying an extra ten bucks for a shoddy PS2 port.
• Xbox launch title Fuzion Frenzy is getting a sequel.
• World of Datecraft purports to be a dating site for World of Warcraft players; unfortunately, so far there are 700 members, and 600 are men. Or rather, at least 600 admit to being men.
• I wish I had caught this: A Nintendo Power letter in 1991 predicted Mario Galaxy and some of the features of the Wii.
• Now Atlus says Trauma Center on the Wii won't be just a port.
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent has been delayed until the end of October.
• Microsoft's Robbie Bach believes MS's gaming division will turn a profit in 2008.
• Nintendo has added five new GBA titles to the Player's Choice series: Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Pokemon Leaf Green & Fire Red, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, and Super Mario World.
• First photo of the Nintendo DS headset.

Posted by Bill at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The word came in a couple days ago that Microsoft Game Studios was set to announce a big new IP at X06, their annual Xbox event, which is set for September 27 and 28 this year. Now Spong is reporting that Bungie is set to reveal a brand new game they're working on, and that the two announcements are more than likely one and the same. Of course, most people are focusing not on what this game might be, but on the fact that Bungie is working on a game after Halo 3 that isn't Halo 4.

Speaking to a Microsoft source close to the management of the entire Xbox 360 project today, we were told that, "As far as things stand, Halo 3 is the last game [in the series] and it's more than just 'a thing to say' which I know came as a surprise to everyone [at Microsoft Game Studios not involved with the decision-making process] when it was announced. A new game from Bungie, not Halo 4, will be announced soon and pre-production has begun. So if you're looking for what to expect at X06, you should be looking at that."

Bungie has been saying for a while that the current run of Halo is a trilogy, and was meant to end with Halo 3. This doesn't stop them from making a new trilogy, of course, and there are rumors of just that (some say a prequel trilogy). And of course, they would be stupid to drop their biggest franchise, and Microsoft certainly wouldn't let them if they wanted to. But it does raise the question of when the next Halo might be. Bungie never seemed to be in much of a rush to get games in the series out the door to begin with, and other projects might further delay them. This is all speculation, naturally, but for some reason I can't expect to see a new Halo (after 3) within the next couple of years, at least.

Source: Spong

Posted by Bill at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reading Seanbaby's rant about EGM's editing of his articles kinda makes me kind of glad I'm doing my writing here instead of a "real" publication.

• Ritual Entertainment is facing a five to one ratio of pirated vs. legitimate copies of Sin Episodes: Emergence.
• AOL Radio has revived their Final Fantasy station.
• Former head of Working Designs, Victor Ireland, is preparing a new company called Gaijinworks. Maybe this one can release more than one game every five years.
• EA will be bringing pets to the Sims universe via a PC expansion, as well as stand alone console versions.
• Galaga is now available on Xbox Live.
• The question of "can games make you cry?" is old as dirt and more than a little tired, but here's a different approach: How should they make you cry?
• Sony beats estimates with a $279 million profit for the last quarter with no help from its game division, which saw a 29.1% decrease in revenue versus last year.
• Skilled players (some not even 18 years old) are making big money offering their services as "game coaches" online.
• Blizzard and Square have gotten ban happy again on cheaters.
• The Wii version of Trauma Center will be a remake, not a sequel.
• You've been waiting for it, and it's finally here: New screenshots of Strawberry Shortcake: The Sweet Dreams Game.
• I still can't quite tell what the point of this game is, but it's still an impressive application of a camera in a game.

Posted by Bill at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A group of researchers at Iowa State University have conducted a test which they believe proves violent video games desensitize players to real life violence. They had 257 college students play a 20 minute session of certain video games, and afterwards showed them footage of real world violence.

The group tested the participants' heart rate and Galvanic Skin Response (a measure of the conductivity of the skin that varies when a person experiences feelings, such as fear or anxiety) before 20-minute gameplay sessions and while they watched a 10-minute video tape of real-life violence afterward.

The games in question were Carmageddon, Duke Nukem (presumably one of the first-person shooter installments and not the original platformer), Mortal Kombat, and Future Cop on the violent side, and Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, 3D Munch Man, and Tetra Madness as nonviolent titles. The footage shown to participants consisted of courtroom outbursts, police confrontations, shootings, and prison fights. Their research showed that those who played violent games experienced less dramatic reactions to the violent footage than those who played nonviolent games.

They refer to the implications of their research as "frightening", but make an odd attempt at positive spin by saying violent games could be helpful in densitizing soldiers and surgeons to gruesome situations. That'll look good on the box. "Makes you more at ease in war zones!"

My problem with these studies is that they don't seem to eliminate enough factors. There can be a number of reasons for different reactions to various stimuli, ranging from the people chosen to what they were given to do. I know that if I was playing pinball and a fight suddenly broke out in front of me, I'd have a much stronger reaction than if I had been in a tense game and already had my adrenaline pumping anyway. That doesn't mean I was desensitized to the guy getting his face punched in.

Furthermore, even if we accept their findings as is, you still have to draw a connection between having no reaction to video of real life violence and actual violence. Exchanging one violent two dimensional image for another and seeing no change doesn't indicate that the same thing would necessarily happen when the subject was confronted with an actual event in their proximity. I've shot more virtual people than I could ever possibly count, but I still feel a little uneasy when someone's got a gun near me in the real world.

Like I said. Too many variables, too vague a method of reading response. But I'm sure it won't stop politicians from jumping all over this.

Source: Gamespot

Posted by Bill at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Sony recently handed out awards in a yearly ceremony to honor the best selling Playstation games in Japan. Final Fantasy XII was the only title to receive the award for selling two to three million units in fiscal year 2005.

• A demo of Rockstar's Table Tennis is now available on Xbox Live.
• The delay of Windows Vista has cost Microsoft between $200 and $400 million in potential revenue.
• Sony will bring it's SingStar karaoke series, already a big hit in Europe, to the US.
• Gamasutra has an interview with Dave Grossman on the new Sam & Max title, as well as older adventures like Monkey Island.
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass may not be making a 2006 release.
• The tools used to make PSP UMDs have leaked to the Internet.
• To date, Sony has shipped over 100,000 dev kits to 208 companies in 11 countries.
• CVG is causing a small stir by featuring previews for Mercenaries 2 and Assassin's Creed in their Xbox 360 section, even though only PS3 versions have been officially announced.
• Is Doom 3 so bad people would rather play the original Doom inside it?
• A portable Gamecube that's not actually very portable at all.
• The Tech Zone has ten tips to prevent eye strain from all that damned gaming you kids do.
• Red Orchestra will be available for a full game trial via Steam from August 2 to August 7.

Posted by Bill at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sony has not yet officially announed the next titles to be added to the Greatest Hits line of games, but a store display in Circuit CIty seems to have given away the news early. The display shows Jak X: Combat Racing, SOCOM 3, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Shadow of the Colossus and Ratchet Deadlocked as the new additions, meaning soon (the display doesn't have a date on it), you'll be able to get all of those titles for a mere $20. If for some reason you haven't gotten Shadow of the Colossus yet, you damn well have no excuse now.

The Greatest Hits line is comprised of games that have sold over 400,000 units, so it's a pleasant surprise to see that Shadow sold well enough to make the list.

Source: Siliconera

Posted by Bill at 12:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Sony has revealed their first set of Greatest Hits titles for the PSP: Ape Escape: On the Loose, Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, Twisted Metal: Head On and Wipeout Pure. Can't put Lumines on there, of course; gotta keep that full price because it's one of the only things pushing PSPs out the door. Or maybe it was left off the list because it doesn't have a colon in the title.

• Six months after release, a demo for DOA4 has appeared on Xbox Live Marketplace. 1up has a short interview with Tomonobu Itagaki about it.
• Rockstar has released the box art for Vice City Stories on the PSP, as well as the price: a full $50.
• Nvidia says ATI has "thrown in the towel" with its acquisition by AMD; Nvidia's CEO also praises the PS3 and calls the inclusion of Blu-ray a "master stroke."
• Author Ernest Adams examines the various approaches to interactive storytelling in games.
• 1up has an in-depth article about Yoshitaka Amano, complete with video interviews and tours of his studio.
• IGN is trying to interpret a line from a press release as indicating that Gears of War may ship in September. I think they're stretching.
• GameFAQs is doing top tens now? Is this new? The top ten games that non-gamers love and most memorable cheats.
• Gamespot has a look at the free games that will come with WIndows Vista.
• If you don't feel like an old fogey yet: New copies of the Monopoly board game will use a mock Visa card replacing the classic candy colored funny money.
• Ten new screenshots of Tony Hawk's Project 8.
• Game Informer anonymously polls developers on their feelings about the next generation of systems.
• Three men have been convicted in the murder of six people, one of the victims being a woman who had taken one of the men's belongings. One of those belongings was an Xbox. Guess what makes the headline.
• Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi admits he came up with the trance vibrator idea -- but didn't have any "sexual meaning" in mind.

Posted by Bill at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The fourth quarter of 2006 will herald a new era for Nintendo with the launch of its remarkable new Wii™ home video game system. But that's not what this news item is about! How could that be, you ask? Perhaps the secret to the launch information for Wii is somehow encoded in the text of this news item. You might want to pore over it for a few hours before staying up all night to debate phraseology and comma placement with your friends online. Or maybe it's all just a scam to get you to read the other games we have launching this fall. One of the two.

This block of text at the top of a press release from Nintendo announcing the launch dates of some DS titles has sent some gamers into a frenzy, earnestly believing Nintendo has hidden the Wii launch date somewhere in the release. Gaming Target thinks they've found the answer.

The fourth quarter begins on October 1. Now look at the list. At least one game is released every Monday in the fourth quarter except for the following dates: October 2, November 20 and November 27.

November 27 is after Black Friday, so it's out. November 20 is after the launch of the PS3, so that's out too. That leaves us with October 2.

The Wii will launch on October 2, you read it here first.

That reasoning sounds rough. For one, who says Nintendo wouldn't release the system and a DS title on the same day? And of course, all of this is based on the idea that the press release is serious, which I don't buy anyway. It sounds more like a bored writer having fun with a group of anxious nerds whom he knows he can send into a frothing hysteria of theorizing with a simple, vague red herring. I guess people have to keep themselves entertained somehow until the Wii launches.

Posted by Bill at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The keynote speakers for this year's TGS have been announced, and what has stuck out to many is the fact that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata isn't on the list. Iwata spoke at the last two Tokyo Game Shows, last year using his speech to introduce the Wii remote. It's especially odd since Nintendo has repeatedly stated they would reveal the launch date and price of the Wii by September, and many assumed TGS would be the most likely candidate for the announcement. Iwata's lack of a keynote doesn't guarantee that Nintendo won't have a presence at the show at all, but for information that big you'd think they'd have a speech lined up.

This does leave the possibility that Nintendo may decided to hold another of its company-specific SpaceWorld events this year. The last SpaceWorld was in 2001, in preparation for the launch of the Gamecube. Also, SpaceWorlds are usually held in August, which would fit into Nintendo's statement of revealing the information "by September", not in September. But August is closing in fast, and Nintendo hasn't made any official announcement of a SpaceWorld so far. Then again, we know by now how Nintendo likes to cut things close.

Source: Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Posted by Bill at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)