Monthly Archives: September 2009

One of the big draws of the XBOX 360 is its Netflix compatibility. Often touted as the blu-ray beater, Netflix’s integration is a trump card for Microsoft. Alas, Netflix are limiting themselves as a company if they are only available on one box. They know that.

Speaking with Reuters, Netflix talked about their ambition to be in all video game consoles, “Eventually we want to be on all the games consoles, all the blu-ray players, all the internet TVs. So we are working in parallel with all those efforts. Currently our Xbox deal is exclusive and we haven’t characterized it more than that,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated.

We’ll have to wait until that exclusivity breaks before we can get Netflix on our Playstation 3, but it’s not looking like that day is too far away right now.

Sony on Thursday unveiled a motion controller for the PlayStation 3 that will debut in spring 2010.

The yet unnamed device will work with the PlayStation Eye camera, which tracks a user’s face, voice, and body motion. The motion controller will be equipped with two motion sensors, three axes gyroscope, and three axes accelerometer that can detect the controller’s angle and movement in someone’s hand.

A sphere on top of the controller will track its position and give visual feedback by changing colors. It will also include a rumble feature. It includes a lithium-ion rechargeable internal battery.

Pricing has not yet been released.

This is great news, as anyone who is familiar with the first two installments will tell you.

It’s difficult to call them “under-appreciated,” simply because they released on an aging console over a year after they became available in Japan, which is why we were worried the third entry (the first on the PlayStation 3) would never see the light of day in either North America or Europe. But our concerns were laid to rest today, as 1Up confirmed that Yakuza 3 was indeed in the localization process and would break Japanese borders at some point in the future. This is according to “sources close to the project” and falls just shy of being an official announcement, but we’ll take it. And hey, we’ve got the Tokyo Game Show in just a few days here, where we know Sega plans to announce Yakuza 4…perfect time to announce the third game for other major territories outside Japan, huh? Interestingly, Sega may not publish Yakuza 3 when it goes worldwide and the Examiner.com theorizes that it may be Ignition Entertainment. Well, we really don’t care who distributes the title here; we just wanna play it!

It’s time to strap on your stockings, blast some cool tunes, gather up a lot of stuff and then roll things up. That’s right, Namco Bandai’s PS3 exclusive, Katamari Forever is now available at local retailers.

According to the press release…

The sequel to the immensely popular Katamari series, Katamari Forever tasks players to roll up as many everyday objects as possible within a time limit set by the Prince’s father, the King of All Cosmos. As more objects are rolled up, your katamari becomes bigger, allowing you to pick up even larger items.

The game isn’t just about taking on a universe of things that must be rolled up and put away…there are also new multiplayer modes available so that Katamari and any one of his cousins can join forces and, you know, roll things up.

Katamari Forever isn’t just taking old concepts and tossing them on the PS3 though. People buy the PlayStation 3 for its HD goodness and Bandai has taken advantage of that with a whole new art-style that gives the game a strikingly unique look complete in 1080p HD.

The game is currently available, exclusively on the PS3 for $49.99. If you’re part of the hip social networking generation you can check out the Katamari Forever Twitter for up-to-the-minute news or visit the Official Website if you’re still part of the group of people who prefers to maintain a balance on information overload.

Though Sony has definitively stated that PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility is “not coming back” to the PlayStation 3, an internal document that recently appeared on publisher Sega’s FTP claims that Sony is preparing a “PS2 emulator for PS3.”

“SCEA wants to sell all PS2 titles on PSN,” reads the document, which provides notes on an August 5th meeting between Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sega.

Elsewhere in the document, it’s said that Sony is considering “a special Japanese Import section (pricing $9.99 to $39.99 for full game)” for the online marketplace.

Sega also made note of its intent to sell downloadable Dreamcast games, with talk of possible “exclusivity” for certain titles suggesting that some of the re-releases will appear on other platforms, such as Xbox Live.

The relevant portions of the document, which briefly popped up on Objectif-Sega and was subsequently noticed by NeoGAF, can be found below.

Should you be interested in the full thing, look no further than this link.

PS2 emulator for PS3 (confidential)

• SCEA wants to sell all PS2 titles on PSN (GTA Vice City/Sonic/etc)
• For co Marketing money show PS3 controller on TV ads – similar to EA Madden Spots, NCAA, etc…

DC Digital Titles

• If we provide a list of DC titles SCEA will let us know which ones they’re interested in having exclusively.
• If we give them a long period of exclusivity they’ll give us more marketing support.

Yakuza

• Could put Japanese games directly on PSN for download in a special Japanese Import section (pricing $9.99 to $39.99 for full game).
• Might need to localize menus at least with subtitles.
• SCEA interested in helping on MKTG side if they can have period of exclusivity.

They made the announcement, almost in passing, during Sony’s E3 press conference: the PlayStation 3 exclusive Agent, in development by Rockstar, was on the way.

We didn’t get any additional details at the time and we still don’t have much more besides baseline information: it’s set in the undercover spy world of the 1970s and it has been rumored to feature a similar sandbox style to Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar has remained mostly mute on the project but we do have one additional quote that might intrigue you. They were good enough to answer a few questions, and although the reply was short, it’s definitely promising. In response to the demand for “teasing,” Rockstar said:

“Thank you – it’s not likely we will have any more news this year, but the game is shaping up to be something truly spectacular.”

Well, that’s certainly a tease. Rockstar also says that Red Dead Redemption is en route to becoming a massive action title in 2010. Many have been waiting for this Western-themed shooter for quite some time; if you need a fix in the meantime, give Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood a try. As for Agent, we’d like to think more info will come our way next week at the Tokyo Game Show, but it may be the wrong audience for such a project. But we’ll cross our fingers..

PlayStation 3 owners are about to get a taste of Lost Planet 2 for themselves. Capcom has announced that the demo will be available on the PlayStation Network next week, calling it a chance to “experience a piece of the Tokyo Game Show action from the comfort of their own living rooms.”
As with the Xbox 360 version, the PS3 demo will allow players to cooperate against a “G-Type Akrid,” which is the final enemy of Episode 1. However, Capcom is also throwing in a little something extra to make up for the time that PS3 owners had to wait.

“Beginning September 24, PS3 owners will not only be able to engage in the frantic battle against the enormous G-Type Akrid, the boss Akrid of the Episode 1, but will also get the exclusive experience of two additional missions in an online co-operative extermination of the Akrid of E.D.N. III,” Capcom public relations manager Brian Keltner wrote on the U.S. PlayStation Blog.

Capcom will also be releasing the newest trailer on PSN on the same day, which will show a new environment. Whereas previous trailers showed off city and jungle environs, the new one features the desert and “even bigger Akrids.”

Lost Planet 2 will be arriving on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC in 2010.

The PlayStation 3 firmware 3.0 introduces a number of changes to the system, including some changes and additions to the Xross Media Bar and new dynamic themes. But it also caused some problems for gamers. The most noticeable was a compatibility problem with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. With Uncharted 2 coming soon, fans of the series are dusting off their copies of the original for another play through and found bugs awaiting them.

Earlier this week Sony released the firmware 3.01 patch which fixes that issue and some others. Sony listed no other updates, so this was likely an unplanned patch made to fix the issues that gamers reported.

Finally, Fallout 3 downloadable content packs for the PlayStation 3 will arrive next week, the game’s publisher Bethesda Softworks revealed. PS3 gamers will finally be able to catch up with Xbox 360 owners on the game.

Broken Steel will be available on PlayStation Network starting on September 24. Broken Steel raises the level cap and changes the ending of Fallout 3.

Operation Anchorage and The Pitt will be released on October 1 for PS3.  Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta will be released on October 8.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition will be released on October 13. The GOTY package includes the original game and all five DLC packs and sells for $59.99.

What can you do when you’re given 1.5 Gigabytes of space to put a demo out with?  A ton, if you’re developer Naughty Dog, that is.  We’ve just got more details regarding a demo of one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, Uncharted 2, following the announcement we made earlier.

So when can you get your hands on this mega-demo?

Wanting to give potential buyers a real taste of what the final game is going to be like, Naughty Dog pulled out all the stops for this demo.  Before discussing its contents, we should note that the demo will be available for everyone that has a PlayStation Network account on September 29.

Live in North America and don’t want to wait that long?  Then don’t.  Head out and pre-order the game now from GameStop, and you’ll get the demo on September 15.

Let’s move on to all the juicy contents, shall we?  This demo includes (big deep breath) 4 multiplayer maps, 4 different competitive modes, 2 different co-op modes, the new ‘cinema’ mode, the ability to create and join custom games, access to new ’skins’, and roughly 80% of all boosters that will be in the full game.

Two of the multiplayer maps in the demo are ones that you may have played in the beta, but they’ve added two more called ‘Ice cave’ and ‘Temple’.  Excited yet?  How about a store that allows you to spend any money you gain while playing on-line on skins, boosters, taunts and even weapon upgrades for guns used in co-op.  Now?

There’s sure to be bickering about the fact that no single player demo is being released, but some people think this is a great move.  If you played the first Uncharted and have seen the videos, details and previews for Uncharted 2’s campaign, there should be very little doubt in your mind that the single player experience will turn out solid.

The real question lies in something Naughty Dog has never done with this franchise, multiplayer.  We think it’s a great move on their part to focus on getting this out and showing everyone what’s really going to be offered.

Now, since that’s out of the way, let’s all talk about how much we can’t wait for this game.