Archive for August, 2006:
PS3 Will Last For 10 Years
Sony’s Kaz Hirai spoke to CNet about the PlayStation 3, Blu-ray, and Sony’s plans to win the next-gen battle. He said that the $600 price tag was a “good value” to consumers, since they expect every PlayStation to last 10 years. The PlayStation 2 for instance, will be in production for another four years after the PS3 hits the market.
Hirai confirmed to CNet that Sony would ship 2 million PS3’s at launch; they just haven’t “announced” the production yet.
Read (CNet News.com)
Final Fantasy 3 Is A Best Seller In Japan
In only one week, Final Fantasy 3 for the Nintendo DS has sold over 500,000 copies, making it the best selling game in Japan at the moment. When it was released, eager Japanese gamers waited in line for hours in order to get a copy, as Kotaku reported a week ago.
The news comes from the Japanese Manchi Interactive news site, where developer Square Enix said they expected “only” 350,000 copies sold during the first week.
New BioShock Screenshots
New screenshots of BioShock, the amazingly looking sci-fi action game from Irrational Games. BioShock is scheduled for release sometime in 2007 on the Xbox360. Check some more screens after the jump.
Burnout 5 For Xbox360/PS3 Confirmed
EA has confirmed Burnout 5 will appear on the Xbox360 and PS3 sometime in 2007. Developed by Criterion Games, Burnout 5 will be a bit different from other titles in the series, as Criterion Game’s design director Alex Ward says,
“Burnout 5 is a complete reinvention of the series, built from the ground up for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. To create truly next-generation gameplay, we needed to create a truly next-generation game, from top to bottom.”
The game will feature advanced physics, where most of the environment will be destructible, as well as the cars, of course. Xbox360 has already seen a Burnout game, Burnout Revenge, which was only a minor upgrade from the original Xbox version.
Via Next-gen
Red Steel To Have Freestyle Swordfighting?
Ubisoft’s Wii launch title, Red Steel, might include a freestyle sword system. That’s according to German site Nintendo-LAN, who did an interview with a Red Steel developer. They report that Ubisoft has completely revised the sword control mechanics, so that the Wiimote control are transferred to the game precisely.
There is no proof that this is actually happening, even though it sounds pretty cool. Ubisoft has previously said that they have improved the controls a lot since E3, but remaking the sword control mechanics a few months before launch sounds a bit unrealistic.
Read (If you understand German)
100 Photos From The Penny Arcade Expo
We haven’t covered the Penny Arcade Expo at all here at DigitalBattle. It just didn’t seem interesting for the time being. However, the guys at Destructoid have written about it thoroughly, and gathered 100 photos of the Expo. Check it out here.
BF2142 Hacked Already?
As you may know, there is a Battlefield 2142 beta release available to those lucky users of FilePlanet. Since it’s out in the public, hackers of the original Battlefield 2 have already hacked the beta version, which is reportedly easy, since the game is built using the same engine.
Only a few modifications are needed to install a BF2 hack in the BF2142 beta, apparently EA/DICE haven’t fixed the problems with the engine before starting on Battlefield 2142. But that’s all too familiar with EA and developer DICE.
The screenshot above (full view here) shows a common wall-hack used in BF2. You can clearly see the advantage the hacker gets on this Titan map.
[Thanks, Rasmus]
Update 1: Additional five screenshots of the hack in action can be found here (Thanks, Maz)
No Xbox360 HD-DVD In Asia
Chinese site DigiTimes reports that Microsoft won’t be releasing the Xbox360 HD-DVD add-on in Asia. According to Microsoft Taiwan, there is no market for the HD-DVD player in the Asian region,
This is because the external HD-DVD drive is designed to play back movies pre-recorded on HD-DVD blue-laser discs, and the supply of HD-DVD movies in Asia is not sufficient to support the sale of such hardware, for the time being at least.
The HD-DVD add-on will launch later this year in North America and Europe, rumored to cost around $200.
Jack Thompson’s Mob Protest Against Bully
Last Friday a group of protesters gathered around Take-Two’s office to show they anger against Bully, the yet to be released and still highly controversial game.
The protesters, from the group Peaceaholics, yelled, “This game is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”. Take-Two and developer Rockstar Games previously received complains about GTA: San Andreas, for its violence and the whole Hot Coffee controversy.
This time, the critics claim that Bully will result into more school violence, because the main character is supposed to retaliate against kids and teachers who are bulling him.
Nevertheless, a group called “Peaceaholics” protesting against a videogame. Shouldn’t they be protesting in Washington D.C. anyway? And leave this matter to Jack Thompson, who is already suing Take-Two over Bully?
Update: Check out a video of the protest, and hear a guy saying “violent videogames are worse than terrorists”.
How To Transfer Your Xbox360 HDD Content
Aeropause features a walkthrough on what to do if your Xbox360 goes dead and has to be replaced. How do you transfer your content, downloads, videos, games, on to a new hard drive safely?
Usually people resort to use the “Recover Xbox Live Gamertag” option, but as they report, it might not be the best thing to do.
GC: Media Roundup, Part 3
Last round of screenshots and videos from the Games Convention in Leipzig, plus a few newly released screenshots of various games. The concention was very popular among fans, as we reported earlier today.
New Screenshots:
Elveon, Xbox360 (TeamXbox)
Splinter Cell: Double Agent (TeamXbox)
WoW: The Burning Crusade (3DGamers)
Hot Shots Golf, PS3 (TheMagicbox)
Halo 2 Vista (DigitalBattle)
Red Steel (VoodooExtreme)
Zelda Twilight Princes (DigitalBattle)
Mario Hoops 3on3 (BritishGamingBlog)
New Videos:
Battalion Wars 2, Wii (Videogamesblogger)
UT2007 (DigitalBattle)
Use Your PSP As A Travelguide
Lonely Planet, publishers of countless video and book travel guides, have teamed up with Sony and will be releasing their books in form of interactive guides on the PSP. The guides will be delivered via a download service and stored on the Memory Stick.
The new service, called “Passport to…
2 Million Nintendo WiFi Users
Nintendo has announced that over 2 million players have connected their DS online using the Nintendo WiFi Connection. The most popular games are Mario kart DS and Metroid Prime Hunters. The 2 million number represents unique players that have connected online, player #2.000.000 connected last Thursday for the first time.
Nintendo’s newest DS title, Star Fox Command, will also include full online multiplayer features, where up to four players will be able to play together.
PS3 Hardware Downgraded Again?
I love TheInquirer, they always have the latest insider news surrounding Sony’s PlayStation 3. This time, they report that the graphics chip, the Nvidia RSX, has once again been downgraded, from a 700 MHz memory clock, to a 650 MHz memory clock speed.
Previously the GPU was also downgraded from 550 MHz to 500 MHz. It appears that Nvidia has some problems producing enough quality chips for Sony, so clock speeds must be lowered. None of this is official though, Sony still specifies the RSX at 550 MHz on the official product page.
Nintendo’s September 14 Wii Event
There wasn’t much news from Nintendo at the Leipzig Games Convention, only two new Wii games announced. Price and launch date was never talked about, besides eager journalists, bloggers, and common gamers.
However, Nintendo has announced a Wii media event held in New York on September 14. Reggie Fils-Aime will be there, hopefully announcing Wii pricing and launch date(s). Or announce when they will announce a price and launch date. One of those two has to happen, or we’ll loose our minds soon.