All it needs now is some Magical Sound Shower wafting in over Gordon’s post-apocalyptic AM/FM radio and a palm tree or two and we’d be set. Plus I doubt Alyx would be the type to get all slappy if you crashed. Which is nice. You don’t need the threat of a smack from your lady hanging over you when you’re trying to save humanity.
I’m getting as sick of it as you, so this is the last backwards compatibility post. I promise. So let’s end the whole sorry mess on a high note! For anyone who already owns a 60GB unit, know that Sony haven’t forgotten about you. SCEE’s Nick Sharples has told us that for the millions of consumers who already own a PS3, they’ll continue to work on backwards-compatibility updates: The current PS3 system software and future updates will continue to support backwards compatibility for the current 60GB and 80GB models.
Good news for existing owners! Also, I wonder why he mentioned 80GB. Sharples works for SCEE, which has never seen an 80GB model. Unless he knows something we don’t.
On November 11th, Sony is also releasing the DualShock 3 in Japan. The force feedback controllers will retail for ¥5,500 (US $47) and come in Black (model number CECHZC2J) and Ceramic White (model number CECHZC2J CW). These will not be packaged with the 40GB PS3.
Exactly a year after the PlayStation 3 launched in Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment is launching a 40GB PS3 in The Land of the Rising Sun on November 11th. The console will come in Clear Black (model number CECHH00) and Ceramic White (model number CECHH00 CW). There are some changes in this 40GB model: The memory card slot and the SACD reading function have been nixed — no BC. Furthermore, the USB ports have been reduced from four to two ports. Clear Black and Ceramic White SixAxis controllers will be included with their respected colour consoles. The 40GB console will retail for ¥39,980 ($ US 341). SCE is also lowering the price on the current 20GB and 60GB models by ¥5,000 ($US 43). Starting October 17th, the 20GB will retail for ¥44,980 ($US 384) and the 60GB for ¥54,980 ($US 469).
When people think co-op play, they think online. Sure, you want to game with your buddy, but inviting them over to the house is a real drag! Or because of distance, they may not be able to come over even. But, if you plan on playing online co-op with Kane & Lynch, forget it. The game doesn’t have it and only sports traditional co-op. Explains the game’s direction, Jens Peter Kurup:
It’s quite important in the single player and co-op that we’re portraying characters and we’re also portraying scenarios. It would have been nice to come up with something completely new. There are things with Lynch’s Psycho mode which work out differently in co-op, the healing method and things like that, but it is a more traditional approach. We feel that’s what players want. Co-op is about good times.
We agree! Though, online co-op is all about better times.
It’s a matter of focus, choosing what you want to deliver at what time. We looked at it and decided it was too much of a risk to change our code to be very very good at that, and we’re not going to be very very good at other elements. I’ll miss the online co-op, but not terribly.
Really? Geez, I dunno. Think most people will miss it terribly. Gamers are becoming a spoiled lot, you know.
Kane&Lynch Interview [Eurogamer]
Until yesterday, if you’d said “Tori-Emaki”, I’d have said “yes?”. Wouldn’t have had a clue what it meant. Now I do, and wish I’d known more, and known more sooner. An upcoming PlayStation Store download… thing (it’s not really a game), it basically amounts to a bunch of traditional Japanese landscape paintings scrolling past the screen. And all you do is control a flock of birds using your hands, the movements registered by the PlayStation Eye camera. Sounds pretty boring. But actually looks pretty great.
Tori-Emaki – Awesome PlayStation Eye-based interactive screenserver [TTP & NeoGAF]
Confession: I have a fourth generation colour iPod. The screen is two inches and eye straining at best for even looking at album covers. So, can’t imagine using it or the similar twi inch new iPod Nano as a gaming platform. Says Macworld:
A two-inch colour LCD display isn’t very big, no matter how you slice it (though it’s large enough for Nintendo to make a jeans pocket-sized game system around, its Game Boy Micro). The clarity of the 320-by-240 display is remarkable, and the brightness is also quite good. Still, I can’t quite get past the size. It’s too small to see a lot of detail in the games. I was already a bit put off by Ms. Pac-Man’s tiny dimensions on the larger iPod’s display; here it’s almost to the point of being ridiculous… Because of the overall tiny dimensions of the new iPod Nano, I found my hand cramping up during long gaming sessions — it was just a tad awkward to have the iPod nano perched in my hand with my thumb on the Click Wheel all the time.
Almost? It is ridiculous.
Gaming on Nano [Macworld via Game|Life]
Infogrames aren’t too happy with Atari. Mainly because Atari are six and a half shades of rubbish, and Infogrames own 51% of said rubbish. With Atari in a laughable financial position, their French overlords have stepped in and removed five of Atari’s board of directors, with three Infogrames execs to sit amongst the corpses until new suckers are brought in to further sully the once-famous Atari name.
Infogrames unveils changes to U.S. Atari unit board [Reuters]
Is it sad that Everyday Shooter’s the best PS3 exclusive I’ve ever played? Nope! Because it’s superb, PSN download or not. All those nice colours and music and shooting, all working together, it’s very soothing. It’s also very nearly publicly available, Sony letting us know that it’ll be turning up on the PlayStation Store this Thursday. It’ll set you back $US 10. Which is totally worth it.
Ah. So this is why SCE Australia aren’t cutting the price of the existing 60GB PS3. According to sources from specialist retailers EB Games and GAME, Sony has been anticipating the move to 40GB for quite some time, and decided that rather than leave a bunch of 60GB units on the shelf (which they would then have to price-cut or repackage into a Value Pack, ala Europe) they’d just stop sending 60GB Starter Packs to retail altogether. Explains Sony’s comments yesterday as to why the retail supply had “all but dried up” – it had, because apparently they’d cut off the supply, telling those retailers that while existing orders could be filled, no new orders for the 60GB model have been taken for a little while now.
Guess we won’t be seeing a Value Pack, then, and if other retailers have had their stock cut off like EB and GAME have, if you want a 60GB model with gimped backwards compatibility I’d suggest you get a move on. Because once they’re gone, it’s naught but 40GB.
