The cover of a magazine is very important -- after all, it's what has to convince you to buy the issue. Thus, there's a continual battle each month over what to feature on the cover -- which game will be the most exciting, which game is going to be the biggest, what particular image or announcement may draw the most attention. It's a bit of a gamble sometimes, which is why the covers of the more popular magazines these days are usually just variants on two dudes with guns over and over again. Anything else might not interest the mythical teenage boy who only plays games to shoot people that everyone seems to be marketing towards, or worse yet, you might end up with covers like these.

Can you recall a day when Rise of the Robots seemed hype-worthy? It's back there, somewhere. Sure it was a terrible game, but let's remember, it was rendered with computers! That may make it one of the greatest artistic achievements of mankind.

Speaking of being blinded with new technology. Up until the last few system releases which have kinda harshed my buzz, I loved launch time. Launch games provided you with your first glimpses of what the next generation had in store, and it was always exciting to see what new frontiers awaited you. It was this excitement that could be blamed for a temporary hysteria in America around 1995, when everyone suddenly believed Battle Arena Toshinden was a great game. I admit, it affected me too. But it was so pretty.

Elsewhere on the cover, we see a bad movie, a Star Fox sequel that never came out, and a poster for bloody Pitfall. So this kind of fails all around.

I bought some of these older Nintendo Powers off Ebay, so I have no idea what kind of storage conditions lead to this white crap all over the place.

The cover itself is not bad, but choosing this particular image for a publication like NP wasn't such a smart idea. They would later name this cover as having generated the highest number of complaints they ever received, which should illustrate why Nintendo was always so keen on removing violent and occult content from games in those days.

Seems kind of simple, doesn't it? That's because it's not the cover. It's a full page ad glued over the cover, a (hopefully failed) experiment Ziff Davis ran for a few issues on some of their magazines. This one wasn't even placed very well, as you can see the crooked magazine underneath, with something pedestrian and uninteresting like Zelda on the front.

We could get philisophical here and start questioning exactly what makes a cover. Journalistic integrity dictates that a magazine never sell placement in its pages, or a favorable preview or review -- EGM editor Dan Hsu even wrote an angry editorial about a magazine that was selling its cover to the highest bidder. EGM, of course, would never do such a thing -- they'll just sell the thing on the front of the magazine that has their name on it and, I suppose you could say, covers the rest of the magazine. But selling a cover, that's just immoral.

This is the video game equivolent of the automotive magazine cliche of a woman in a bikini front and center with a car somewhere in the distance. Although even those people had the common courtesy to not bury their poor innocent car in sand. :(

I can't begin to imagine why this magazine only lasted for ten issues.

I prefer NP's old commissioned photos and artwork over their current look, which just uses production art like any other magazine. Some of those old photos weren't entirely polished (though I'd say that was part of their charm), and this is an example. In case it isn't perfectly clear to you in the scan..

Who needs a model to play dead when you can just get a store mannequin that is dead. ..Probably. Link's Bon Jovi hair really completes the scene.

Ah, GameFan. Despite giving it multipage coverage every month for half a year and huge review scores, Final Fantasy VII never graced a cover of the magazine. But Quest 64 did. Maybe you have to cut them some slack; the N64 was so starved for RPGs that people really had to start grasping at straws. Just in case the question they pose left you hanging: No, no it wasn't better than Zelda.

The pig in this image reminds me a little too much of Handre de Jager's disturbing re-envisionings of classic games.

Posted by Will at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This late night edition of the news is brought to you by my Internet connection being down for the entire afternoon.

Gamasutra has an interesting pair of podcasts (part 1, part 2) about translation and localization of Japanese games. It's in a roundtable format featuring Atlus' Bill Alexander, Nintendo's Nate Bihldorff, Media Sunshine's Heather Chandler, Gaijinworks' Victor Ireland, Capcom's Ben Judd, Mastiff's Bill Swartz, Namco Bandai's Hiroshi Tanaka, and Nintendo's Bill Trinen.

• Ubisoft claims crowd AI in Assassin's Creed is actually better on the 360 because of "improved threading."
• HP has acquired Voodoo PC, not long after HP rival Dell bought Voodoo rival Alienware.
• The Dead or Alive movie has been pushed back to December 8.
• The first downloadable content pack for Saints Row is now available.. and it's a bunch of clothes.
• The non-combative MMORPG known as SEED has been cancelled.
• Too Human has been delayed to early to mid 2007.
• Itagaki talks about just how many changes are being made for Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
• A Michigan congressman wants to make it illegal for game companies to fail to disclose content to get a lower rating. In other words, more Hot Coffee crap.
• At least one Gamestop employee doesn't care that his store was selling counterfeit cartridges.
• Feel a little piece of yourself die inside as you peruse these World of Wacraft t-shirts at Hot Topic.
• Racketboy looks at games that defined the Master System.
• Gamers in New York, LA, Chicago and San Francisco can play Gears of War after special pre-release screenings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.
• A Microsoft exec says the recently announced Halo Wars is "for the Germans."
• Even Reggie has a staying up late to beat Zelda story.
• A look back, with mp3 samples, at early 80's attempts to cash in on the arcade craze with video game themed records.

Posted by Will at 10:19 PM | Permalink

You can watch the live demonstration of Assassin's Creed from yesterday's X06 conference right here, and I encourage you to do so. The video they put up on the Live Marketplace shows similar scenes, but with camera angles all over the place and goofy effects laid over top.

• Microsoft has set the price of the Zune at $249.99.
• The demo for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 is now available on Live.
• Blizzard is sending out invites to select players to participate in a closed beta of the WoW expansion Burning Crusade.
• Sega has acquired the rights to make games based on the upcoming films based on the His Dark Materials trilogy of novels. If they do well, maybe someone will make a novel based on the games based on the films based on the novels.
• Bethesda confirms that Oblivion will be a PS3 launch title and is also coming to the PSP.
• Peter Jackson admits one of the reasons he's moving into game design is because he's a little bored of movies.
• Lady Miss Kier from Deee-Lite has lost her lawsuit against Sega claiming that they stole her look for Ulala from Space Channel 5.
• A writer attempts an in-depth art critique of Katamari Damacy, looking at it from Marxist, Structuralist and Jungian perspectives.
• Peter Moore says dual platform ownership of a Wii and a 360 "could be as high as 40%", depending on the territory.
• Gothic 3's release date has been set for November 20.
• First image of the 360 Guitar Hero II controller in the wild, as well as Major Nelson looking goony. Also, there are a few screenshots of the 360 version.
• Speaking of which, Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son is the latest song confirmed as being in Guitar Hero II.
• Epic confirms that Gears of War will have full co-op play for the entire game. To celebrate, here's some new screenshots and video.
• Remember that you can import Phoenix Wright II, which comes out in Japan in October, instead of waiting for a localized version. The Japanese game includes full English support.
• A French news agency drops the bombshell that video games make you fat and promiscuous.
• Undoubtedly, a school full of fat and promiscuous people are responsible for these video game themed homecoming floats.
• A clip from an old episode of Mr. Rogers has him taking a look at Donkey Kong in the arcade.
• Nintendo explains the Wii's Play History feature, which tracks how long you've been playing each game.

Posted by Will at 4:43 PM | Permalink

Amazing new Alan Wake footage can be found in this video, if you skip ahead to 17 minutes into the presentation. Alternately, you can go here, but the site is slow.

• Well I wasn't expecting this: A demo for Sonic the Hedgehog is up now on Xbox Live.
• Capcom denies rumors that RE5 is a 360 exclusive.
• IGN has official box art for Wii titles like Red Steel, Zelda, and Super Monkey Ball.
• Reggie Fils-Aime plans on handing out Wii units personally in New York City on launch day, presumably at the Nintendo World Store.
• A Kansas senator has proposed a bill to require the ESRB to play games "right through" before rating them.
• David Jaffe has canned his ambitious PSP project that was supposed to make you cry.
• EA will be holding a Madden online tournament starting October 5, with the grand prize being $100,000.
• If you want to have the silliest home entertainment system possible, buy a Wii and hook it up to a Wooo.
• Guitar Hero II has been confirmed for the Xbox 360.
• New screenshots of Mega Man Star Force on the DS.
• Details on how the Wii's message board channel will work.

Posted by Will at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today is the start of Microsoft's X06 event, and we already have a hefty chunk of new information coming out of it. I'm actually watching Microsoft's press conference as I type this, and by the way, they're demoing Assassin's Creed right now and it's beautiful. As I understand it, the whole conference will be up on Live later today.

• Bioshock will be a PC and 360 exclusive.
• Marvel City of Heroes developer Cryptic will be bringing a Marvel-comics themed MMO to the 360 and PC.
• Rare is developing a new Banjo Kazooie. I guess the Killer Instinct rumor proved false, but thank God we've got a new Banjo.
• Rockstar will be offering two 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for GTA4 in a few months after the game's initial release.
• The HD-DVD player will retail for $199 and ship in November in America. For a limited time, it will be bundled with the HD-DVD of King Kong.
• PGR4 is in the works. Duh.
• Splinter Cell 5 will be an exclusive to the 360.
• Half Life 2 will be making an appearance at X06 on the 360.
• The original Doom is up on Xbox Live Arcade today, for 800 points. All four episodes included, along with onlinedeath match and co-op.
• It turns out Microsoft shut down that fanmade Halo RTS because Bungie is making their own, called Halo Wars. There was a trailer during the conference that will undoubtedly hit Live soon. (or you can watch it online right now)
• Peter Jackson has established a new studio called Wingnut Interactive that will be working on a new Halo game.

Posted by Will at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Remember that Microsoft's X06 event starts tomorrow, which may or may not feature new and interesting things worth seeing. There are some wacky rumors going around of varying believability; a new Halo 3 trailer? I wouldn't doubt it. Halo running natively in 1080p? Possible, and wouldn't surprise me, as it would be a great way to show off the system's ability. New Killer Instinct? Now you're just talking crazy talk.

• Sega confirms that Virtua Tennis 3 will not have online play.
• A demo for Lego Star Wars II has hit Live.
• Current rumor suggests Microsoft is trying to get Resident Evil 5 as a 360 exclusive.
• The Madden Curse strikes again: Shaun Alexander is out indefinitely with a foot fracture.
• New trailers for Heroes of Mana and Dawn of Mana.
• Sony's official store lists seven games at $59.99.
• Seeming to sense that Sony may not be the dominator it was last generation, Square announces broader support for multiple platforms. "We can't support [the PS3] too much."
• Virtual fashion has become a thriving business in Second Life.
• More details on Gran Turismo HD and its unfortunate pay-for-content scheme. Car damage is also mentioned.
• Bungie has launched its own podcast. Now you can hear them not telling you anything about Halo 3, instead of just reading it.
• Next Generation looks at the top 20 games at the Tokyo Game Show. An FFT-style strat RPG with a Yasunori Mitsuda soundtrack? Excuse me, I seem to have fainted.
• A Devil May Cry anime is in the works.
• The Wii's Opera browser will be free to use until June 2007.
• Mmm... Candy Mario.
• Blue Dragon, Lost Planet, the new Phoenix Wright and even Elebits win best in show awards at TGS.
• Sony confirms the PS3 will be region free. I wonder if shortchanged Japanese gamers will try to import US units?
• Why can't my town get Zelda graffiti?
• These screenshots from Microsoft's upcoming Flight Simulator X almost make me want to brave the 5,000 pound manual to learn to play it.
• Everyone knows about the Minus World in SMB by this point.. but have you seen the Famicom Disk System version? Hi princess! Hi floating Bowser!
• In an effort to help get DS games out the door faster in Europe (where they have been selling out regularly), some titles will temporarily be sold in cardboard boxes.
• The Wii has made it onto the Toys R Us hot toy list this year. What's odd is that this is the first video game console to ever make the list.

Posted by Will at 5:09 PM | Permalink

The family of three people murdered by a 14 year old boy named Cody Posey in New Mexico (on a ranch owned by Sam Donaldson of all people, just to make the incident more bizarre) have filed suit against Take Two to the tune of $600 million. They claim the killer played GTA "excessively" and that it taught him to kill.

The games and others in the "Grand Theft Auto" series depict police killings and other acts of violence. The lawsuit calls various editions of the game "virtual reality murder simulators."

"But for Posey's use of these products ... he would not have killed," the lawsuit claims.

But wait, here's the best part:

The game trained him "how to point and shoot a gun in a fashion making him an extraordinarily effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity," according to the suit.

Sounds like someone's never actually tried to use GTA's aiming system. If the real world operated like that, we'd actually have fewer murders every year.

I don't think I need to mention that toolbag Jack Thompson is at the bottom of this. Jack has a clearcut case here, there's really nothing else that could possibly have served as motive for this child to become a cold blooded murderer in any way--

“My brother was trying to raise a man out of a boy that was admittedly skipping school and smoking dope and being a juvenile delinquent at times… I’m sure at times he probably crossed the line… Not only did he get spankings with a board or a belt… at times, he had to do push-ups because the spankings weren’t working. When I saw him cross the line, instead of getting five swats he may gave given him seven or eight. When we get to the fine line of corporal punishment and abuse, it’s all about opinion.”

Other witnessed testified that Delbert Posey crushed Cody’s fingers with a pair of pliers and held a hay hook to his groin. Cody told the court that on the night before the murders his father tried to make him have sex with his stepmother and burned him with a heated metal rod when he refused.

Oh. Even the kid's defense lawyer doesn't buy the GTA connection, despite Thompson having contacted him repeatedly before the trial began, urging him to use the GTA defense. Game Politics makes a very good point regarding the issue in relation to the boy's abuse:

According to the newspaper report, Thompson was encouraged to pursue a lawsuit against the video game industry by prosecutor Sandra Grisham.

That seems a bit odd on a couple of scores. First, during the trial, Grisham downplayed any mitigation of the crime based on the horrible physical and sexual abuse that Cody Posey suffered at the hands of his father and stepmother. In fact, Grisham’s tough-as-nails approach sparked a fair amount of outrage in certain quarters. If she wouldn’t agree that such egregious child abuse might be a causal factor, why would she think that video games might be? The newspaper does not specify what level of involvement Grisham might have had, nor does Grisham confirm urging a lawsuit in the story. However, the Albuquerque Tribune reports that Cody’s uncle, Verlin Posey asked the prosecutor about filing suit and Grisham contacted Thompson at that point.

Clearly the father's mind had been tainted by playing too much Welding Rod 3: The Armageddon and the boy was just striking a blow for justice against the demons of the video game industry. Honestly, I know there's no such thing as an open and shut case, but the kid killed somebody who crushed his fingers with pliers. If anything, he had been using video games to escape the hell of his real life.

Posted by Will at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A new market research study finds that gamers want rumble in their controllers, with 72% responding that it "enhances the experience by making the game more fun, involving the player more in the action, increasing realism in the game, and even helping the gamer play better."

Of course, this study was sponsored by Immersion, who has had a continuing quest lately to prove that Sony was wrong to ditch them, so it might be a tad biased. Still, the numbers are interesting.

Respondents said, "I like it and I want it in the game" or "I think it's essential to the fun, realism and overall experience" regarding vibration feedback for racing (71 percent), action/adventure (70 percent), first-person shooter (69 percent), fighting (66 percent), and sports (61 percent) games. Additional comments from gamers stressing the importance of rumble were also highlighted, such as, "It is good in games like Madden because it seems so life-like when guys get hit. I also think that without it Madden would be just an ordinary game," and "For PS2, Gran Turismo 4 needs the rumble feature to connect you to the car so you can more adequately feel how the car is handling."

What's more interesting, and what should serve as a reminder as to how small the group of gamers who pay attention to the news are in relation to the whole, is that 74% of those surveyed didn't even know that rumble had been dropped from the PS3. Upon hearing this, 58% were disappointed. 82% believe a third party controller will come out within a year that will provide rumble, apparently unaware that if the game isn't designed to send a rumble signal (which PS3 games wouldn't), a third party controller wouldn't offer what they're expecting. I've never owned one, but I assume in the absence of a real signal, the rumble is based on the game's sound output, like the old Aura Interactor which was basically just a subwoofer strapped to your back.

The survey starts to get weird when it further delves into this apparent slavish dedication to vibration. 59% of people would choose to have rumble, with or without motion sensing, for the PS3 if given the choice, and 44% said the same even for the Wii. Only 6% of respondents chose motion sensing over rumble on the Wii, which doesn't make any damned sense and makes me wonder if they knew what the Wii was. Further, 5% said they wouldn't buy a PS3 because of the lack of rumble, while another 32% said they were "somewhat less likely."

It's hard for me to imagine the lack of rumble having any noticable effect on PS3 sales, especially since, when the news first broke, no one could come up with more than one or two isolated examples of where they really remembered rumble having an influence on their game experience at all. But maybe the the less hardcore crowd is really, really enamored of things that shake.

Posted by Will at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hideo Kojima says that the upcoming PSP Metal Gear games and MGS4 are related in story, to the point that if you changed one, you'd have to change the other. Oh, and Henry Gregson-Williams will be back for the MGS4 soundtrack.

• The mythical Uwe Boll fights are over, and naturally, they're all over YouTube. If you ever wanted to see Lowtax get punched repeated in the head, today's your lucky day.
• Just in case you were holding out hope, Sony has confirmed there will be no price cut for the PS3 in the US.
• A demo for first person shooter F.E.A.R. is now available on Live.
• Nintendo claims it will have one million Wiis in stores at launch.
• Epic assures gamers that they are testing Gears of War on SDTVs to avoid the issues that came up with King Kong and Dead Rising.
• More PS3 game box shots.
• Square's Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts II in Japan will include a PS2 remake of Chain of Memories.
• Rockstar has announced LA Noire, an "interactive detective story" set in the 1940s.
• Sega denies that Genesis games have been confirmed as downloadable for the PS3, only that they're "looking into it."
• Wal-Mart doesn't seem to be getting Wii demo units in stores in time for Q4. Rumor says it's for fear of child safety, Wal-Mart employees say it's just a timing issue.
• A Finnish website claims Virtua Tennis 3 will not be online.
• Get a DDR tattoo to show everyone how HARD you are.
• Ken Kutaragi seems to be repeating things he said six years ago.
• Not a new revelation by any stretch, but this is the first I've seen all the metal songs Doom copied for its soundtrack lined up with samples for easy comparison.
• A value investor gives an in depth analysis of Nintendo's financial history.
• Video: Hands on demonstration of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam on the Wii.
• Sonic and the Secret Rings' producer says the game spans 70 single player missions, but will only take about ten hours to complete.
• Retro Gaming adds the first half of its list of the Holy Grails of Game Collecting.

Posted by Will at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a game for you to play: Go around various video game websites today and take a shot every time you see some sort of wordplay revolving around the title Just Cause. Why? Just 'cause. KNOCK IT BACK

• Just Cause (PC, Xbox, 360, PS2) - An action game with certain shades of GTA and 250,000 virtual acres of land in which to run around and shoot things. $49.99 on the 360, all other versions $39.99 at EB Games.
• NBA 2K7 (360, PS2, Xbox) - It's a basketball game. $59.99 for the 360, other versions $29.99 at EB Games.
• NBA Live 07 (360, PC, Xbox, PS2, PSP) - It's a basketball game. $59.99 for the 360, all other versions $39.99 at EB Games.
• NBA 07 (PS2, PSP) - It's an epic tale of love and loss set during the tumultuous final days of the French and Indian War. $39.99 for the PSP and PS2 at Desmond's House of Waffles.
• Mario Vs. Donkey Kong 2 (DS) - A sequel to the GBA puzzle game that features the triumphant return of Pauline, forgotten Nintendo kidnap bait. $34.99 at EB Games.
• Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2) - A prequel to Enix's original Valkyrie Profile on the PSX (which was recently ported to the PSP). $49.99 at EB Games.
• Caesar IV (PC) - The ancient city building sim is back, and this time it's in 3D. $39.99 at EB Games.

Naruto, lower tier PC games, and two different ricer games are all in store at the full release list.

Posted by Will at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every day it's the same thing. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of letters sent in to me (which is weird, because I don't even have an e-mail address posted), all begging, pleading, demanding one thing: I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MAKING OF SHAQ FU!!!

I can't stand it any longer. Fine! If that's what you want, then take it, you jackals. But I don't want to see you back here next week asking about Michael Jordan in Chaos in the Windy City.

The following comes from the August 1994 issues of Nintendo Power and Game Players. Shaq is too big for one magazine.

The NP article isn't as embarassing as you might imagine (at least from NP's side; everyone involved with the game should be and probably are very embarassed), it just sounds like your dad trying to explain what fighting games are. "You see son, 'taunting' means daring your opponent to attack! It's integral to gameplay!"

Some of the article's screenshots aren't the same as the final game, meaning these are rare beta screenshots! They're worth twice as much! Compare the character select and, uh, "trash talking" screens above to the final screens below:

I have no idea what was wrong with the dialog that they needed to change it, but it's worth noting that Shaq takes pains to speak as awkwardly as possible in both versions. "Tell me where to find the child!" is something you'd hear in a season of 24 starring Dr. Orpheus.

In the GP article, Shaq is seen getting into his character of "Shaq" by making some sort of farting noise with his mouth. This article provides further insight into the man, the myth, the legend that is Shaq, such as revealing that Shaq Fu is his "street name." His "court name" being Free Throw All-Star. It's also noted that the SNES version has four fewer characters, usually something reserved for Game Boy and Game Gear ports of fighting games. This is the only case I know of off-hand where the SNES version of something actually has less than the Genesis version (minus political omissions like MK's blood), especially for something as silly as chip expenses. It's pretty lousy, but the argument could be made that this actually makes the SNES version better for having less Shaq Fu.

Posted by Will at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This video of Dead or Alive X2's jet ski gameplay is so blatantly Waverace that Nintendo could probably sue if they wanted. Still, it actually makes me interested in the game, since I'm always up for a new Waverace (and who knows if or when they'll make a new one for the Wii). I'd have to get it online, though, because I couldn't work up the nerve to buy a game like that in person. Not without tucking the game into a brown paper bag and clutching it to my chest as I point at the counter clerk and scream "DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!"

• Due to a "higher than usual repair rate," Microsoft will give free repairs to anyone with a broken 360 made prior to January 1, 2006.
• MTV has acquired Guitar Hero developer Harmonix.
• New trailers from TGS for MGS4, Lost Planet, Devil May Cry 4, White Knight Story, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, as well as gameplay footage for Ridge Racer 7, Virtua Fighter 5 and Lair.
• TGS has also given us our first look at real PS3 game boxes.
• World of Mana on the PS2 is set for December 21 in Japan.
• Square is releasing a director's cut of FF7: Advent Children on Blu-ray.
• Has Chopin been removed from the US version of Trusty Bell? He died 150 years ago, I don't think he cares whether he's in a video game.
• Unreal Tournament 2007 will support user created mods on the PS3.
• Bringing It Home part 3 has hit Xbox Live, including a demo of Fuzion Frenzy 2. ...And not much else.
• Sega is bringing Shining Force EXA to America.
• Metal Slug 6 has been added to the upcoming Metal Slug Anthology, while the original Metal Slug heads to Xbox Live Arcade.
• If you need to start saving your pennies, you can calculate exactly how much your Wii purchases will cost you on launch day.
• City of Heroes and Guild Wars publisher NCsoft wants to expand their online games to consoles.
• Remember that weird Afrika game from Sony's E3 reel? People are still trying to figure out what it is.
• Six titles have been confirmed for the Japanese launch of the PS3 so far, with nine more before year's end.
• Attendees didn't seem too impressed with Ken Kutaragi's keynote at TGS.

Posted by Will at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sony had two major announcements today involving changes to the PS3 launch in Japan. First was news that the lower-end, 20 GB model would now include an HDMI port, which had previously only been available in the more expensive model. Speaking of expense, the real news was that the 20 GB model would also be receiving a price cut before the system even shipped, from 62,790 yen to 49,980. In American dollars, that translates as about $535 dropping to $426. The 60 GB model's pricing is still "open", meaning retailers can charge what they see fit, but the price will probably see a similar drop.

The big question for everyone who isn't Japanese is what these means for the rest of us. Sony has made no official announcement as to the change carrying over to any other countries. This may not be a response to complaints that the system is too expensive, but rather a response to Microsoft's recent announcement of a core system bundle in Japan that will include the highly anticipated Blue Dragon for 29800 yen ($260). As such, they'd probably only drop the price elsewhere if Microsoft pulls the same stunt in other countries.

Interestingly, feedback isn't all positive for this move. (Sony just can't catch a break.) One Japanese analyst is quoted as saying:

"It's ridiculous to decide to cut the price before they start selling the PlayStation 3,'' said Yoku Ihara, head of equity research at Retela Crea Securities Co. in Tokyo. ``They may cut the price again if sales don't go well."

And of course, there's also the issue that this puts Sony even deeper in the hole:

Sony's price reduction ``is negative for the short term because the company may not be able to sell enough consoles to cover an instant loss caused by the price cut,'' said Naoki Fujiwara, who oversees $720 million in assets at Shinkin Asset Management Co. in Tokyo.

Update: Sony's Phil Harrison has spoken on why only Japan gets a price cut:

We started by calculating the price for the US and European territories by looking at what consumers considered the 'magic price points'. In these territories, the prices we announced were very well accepted. We then converted that price to yen without giving consideration to 'magic price points.' The feedback was not supportive, so we lowered the price.

Very well accepted? Where was this again?

Posted by Will at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Third place is a term used in sociology to describe a place where people come together to socialize that isn't home or work -- bars, gyms, golf courses, whatever. This lengthy and strongly academic report examines how massively multiplayer RPGs fit in as third places.

• IGN has the very first video of BioShock in action.
• Lots more videos from TGS, including 360 RPGs Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon and Trusty Bell. They're pretty, if nothing else.
• Speaking of which, the news I've been waiting for: Trusty Bell is coming to the US as Eternal Sonata.
• Miyamoto explains the reasoning for right handed Link in Wii's Twilight Princess. It's pretty much the reason we all thought.
• Lego Star Wars II has sold 1.1 million units since its Sept. 12 release.
• Sony responds to the 360's upcoming 1080p ability; Microsoft responds to the response. Up next: Sony pulls on Xbox's hair, Xbox calls Sony a smelly jerk.
• You can listen to yesterday's game as porn bill hearing in Utah, or you can just read a summary.
• A man with a Grand Theft Auto tattoo was arrested in Canada for trying to steal a car. Great job, ace!
• 1up does the math on the GT:HD story from yesterday and notes that a full version of the game, with all the cars and tracks, would cost $975.
• MGS4 will arrive in late 2007 at the earliest.
• The makers of Rag Doll Kung Fu are developing a PS3 title.
• Warner has patented a DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray hybrid disc that could end all our format troubles.
• IGN has an interview about Far Cry on the Wii, along with the first screenshots.
• Rumors suggest that Sony may package Blu-ray movies with some early PS3 games to help nudge adoption along.
• Warren Ellis points out a Phillip K. Dickian happening in Second Life: The girl with error message eyes.
• The New York Times "Tech Talk" podcast apparently isn't all that informed.
• The second day of TGS stuff has hit Xbox Live, though it's just trailers.

Posted by Will at 4:01 PM | Permalink

In the jobs I've had, all I had to be worried about was putting a box in the wrong place. I can't imagine, then, the stress that must come along with accidentally uploading a 2 GB rar file to Ubisoft's public server, filled with assets from current games in production as well as for titles not yet announced. Though I suppose you could say this is just like putting a really important box in the wrong place. The new games are as follows:

Far Cry 2
Prince of Persia 4
Naruto 360
Splinter Cell 5
Star Wars PSP
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles GBA
Lost

Oops! Most of the assets (which is mostly just production art) can be found at the Neo GAF thread where the file was first discovered. Of course, it's always possible that this leak was intentional -- not by Ubi, but perhaps by someone on the inside being a naughty monkey. If that be the case, expect to see his battered and broken body show up in a ditch in Michigan sometime in the next week or so.

Update: British Gaming Blog has copies of two videos that were part of the file, showing the Star Wars PSP game called Lethal Alliance.

Posted by Will at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)