Personally, I’ve never understood the appeal of virtual “people-tracking” services like Facebook, but LinkedIn has proved to be a valuable source of information in the past.
As noted by PS3Center, an unknown developer currently has four PlayStation 3 games in the hopper due to Michelle Franklin’s LinkedIn page. As you can see, it says she’s a Senior Game Designer for a “confidential employer” – and has been since the Summer of 2008 – and she’s currently working on no less than four PS3 titles, two of which are still unnamed. The unnamed games are a “ninja RPG for Japan” and “one Zombie Survival Horror Action Adventure.” The implication in the first game is that it’ll be exclusive to Japan (but we still want to know about this “ninja RPG”) and the second could be just about anything. It could be a full-on title like Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead, or it could be a downloadable game of some sort. The other two projects are Key of Solomon and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both of which are clearly based on classic novels from medieval times; the former from the 17th century and the latter from the 14th. Both are primed for the video game universe simply due to their fantastical natures; I remember reading Sir Gawain back in college, and a game should be intriguing.
Anyway, above all else, we have to find out who this “confidential employer” is if we wish to pin down more details. My guess is that all of these are downloadable titles for the PSN but you never know…
New IPs are rarely big system sellers; despite the critical acclaim and relative gamer popularity, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune didn’t really cause PlayStation 3 sales to surge.
However, we are now in a very different situation: the PS3 is down to $299, Blu-Ray has solidified its position as the accepted high-def video format, and the software library is a good deal larger. On top of which, people are now aware of the name “Uncharted,” and advertising and promotion has been fairly heavy. In response to this, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes this is the game Sony has been waiting for; he said as much during a recent Bonus Round interview over at GameTrailers:
“I think it’s the game Sony always wanted and I think it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a ‘Game of the Year’ kind of game come out of Sony. So I think it matters and it’s got hardcore appeal…it’s a game changer for them, its coming out in a nice little window in October and it’s coming out right on the heels of the price cut. I think it keeps them ahead of Microsoft for a bit.”
While some of you may be quick to point out Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as last year’s definite Game of the Year, we think Pachter was referring to first-party titles. Anyway, we have to agree with his assessment and provided Sony can continue to push the marketing campaign forward throughout the holiday season, Uncharted 2 could indeed have a significant impact on PS3 sales. Pachter believes it’s capable of pushing “a couple of hundred thousand incremental boxes,” and we’re fairly certain that Sony would be happy with that result.
New IPs are rarely big system sellers; despite the critical acclaim and relative gamer popularity, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune didn’t really cause PlayStation 3 sales to surge.
However, we are now in a very different situation: the PS3 is down to $299, Blu-Ray has solidified its position as the accepted high-def video format, and the software library is a good deal larger. On top of which, people are now aware of the name “Uncharted,” and advertising and promotion has been fairly heavy. In response to this, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes this is the game Sony has been waiting for; he said as much during a recent Bonus Round interview over at GameTrailers:
“I think it’s the game Sony always wanted and I think it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a ‘Game of the Year’ kind of game come out of Sony. So I think it matters and it’s got hardcore appeal…it’s a game changer for them, its coming out in a nice little window in October and it’s coming out right on the heels of the price cut. I think it keeps them ahead of Microsoft for a bit.”
While some of you may be quick to point out Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as last year’s definite Game of the Year, we think Pachter was referring to first-party titles. Anyway, we have to agree with his assessment and provided Sony can continue to push the marketing campaign forward throughout the holiday season, Uncharted 2 could indeed have a significant impact on PS3 sales. Pachter believes it’s capable of pushing “a couple of hundred thousand incremental boxes,” and we’re fairly certain that Sony would be happy with that result.
There’s no doubt that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be a gigantic seller, but the game is suddenly facing its first real bout with controversy.
We’re not posting the trailer here for a variety of reasons, but in the latest promotional video for the game in question, we clearly see massive battles being fought on American soil. More specifically, Washington DC, where both the Washington Monument and the White House get reduced to rubble, which is bound to turn some heads. Of course, it’s not a civil war; opposing forces are attacking, but perhaps in light of the past decade of terrorist fear, it might go over badly in the eyes of certain people. Veterans may grimace at the imagery as well, so don’t be surprised to see some vocal complaints and even boycotting on the part of offended citizens. Up until now, we didn’t know that some of the gameplay would take place in the US, but we do remember Infinity Ward saying they hadn’t shown everything yet in regards to available media. Well, maybe it would’ve been a good idea to keep a firmer lid on this until the game launches, even though the controversy may have been inevitable either way.
If you never had the opportunity, you might want to find Doom III if you’re a die-hard FPS fan. It was a fun, atmospheric, freaky experience that was well worth the price of admission.
Those who have played it are likely looking forward to the next installment, and although we haven’t heard much in the way of details, it seems id Software has been working on it for the past year. According to European gaming site GameGuru, we learn Doom 4 has been in development since August of 2008, as evidenced by Lead Programmer Michael Dickheiser’s work experience. You can see it there at the bottom of the listing; it’s where he says he has been involved in the creation and production of the fourth Doom installment, which he wants to call the “best FPS game ever made.” Of course, designers are always making these bold statements – and there’s always a tendency to exaggerate on a resume, right? – but it’s good to know they’re diligently working away on the game. If they’re this far along, we expect to see some information before the year is out, and it’ll be interesting to see how id Software has kept up-to-date, what with the likes of Killzone 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 making their marks in 2009.
In the world of marketing and advertising, you need a recognizable and attractive name that sticks out in a crowd. …and “PlayStation Motion Control” doesn’t cut it.
The competition doesn’t have a finalized title, either, but Microsoft’s new motion sensing technology is widely known as “Project Natal,” and it seems clear – at least from a promotional standpoint – that Sony needs to pick a name for their nifty new tech. Well, perhaps it’s “Sphere.” As noted by Joystiq, the name has popped up here and there in the past few weeks; Sega producer Yasuhito Baba and his translator labeled the controller as “Sphere” during a TGS interview. Furthermore, when asked if Gran Turismo 5 would support the “Sphere” peripheral, Polyphony’s Kazunori Yamauchi responded as if he knew what they were referring to. For the time being, Sony representatives are remaining quiet on the matter, but perhaps they wish to unveil the name at a certain event. Something like this will need a title that is both easy to recognize and easy to remember, and maybe “Sphere” fits the bill…but if you don’t agree, what ideas might you have?
There are many possibilities here, and we have to remember that “Sphere” could only be a code name for the technology, like Natal. Who knows what we might be calling it by the time it launches in the spring?
In the world of marketing and advertising, you need a recognizable and attractive name that sticks out in a crowd. …and “PlayStation Motion Control” doesn’t cut it.
The competition doesn’t have a finalized title, either, but Microsoft’s new motion sensing technology is widely known as “Project Natal,” and it seems clear – at least from a promotional standpoint – that Sony needs to pick a name for their nifty new tech. Well, perhaps it’s “Sphere.” As noted by Joystiq, the name has popped up here and there in the past few weeks; Sega producer Yasuhito Baba and his translator labeled the controller as “Sphere” during a TGS interview. Furthermore, when asked if Gran Turismo 5 would support the “Sphere” peripheral, Polyphony’s Kazunori Yamauchi responded as if he knew what they were referring to. For the time being, Sony representatives are remaining quiet on the matter, but perhaps they wish to unveil the name at a certain event. Something like this will need a title that is both easy to recognize and easy to remember, and maybe “Sphere” fits the bill…but if you don’t agree, what ideas might you have?
There are many possibilities here, and we have to remember that “Sphere” could only be a code name for the technology, like Natal. Who knows what we might be calling it by the time it launches in the spring?
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!
