Saturday, May 31, 2008

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Sony’s New PS3…Gardening Game

3:30PM Luke Plunkett | Sony announced yesterday the impending release of Shiki-Tei, a new downloadable title for the the PlayStation 3. Basic gist? You get a garden. You grow plants in the garden. Animals hang out in your garden. You can take pictures of your garden. Sort of like Viva Pinata, sans the Pinatas. And that’s about it. Won’t pull the Unreal Tournament III crowd away from their murderous pastime, but it should prove a nice, relaxing option for the more sedate users amongst the PS3’s userbase. At least in Japan, since that’s the only place it’s being released at the moment. It’s due on June 26 for ¥1600, which is around $US 15. More »
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What’s The Longest You’ve Gone Without Gaming?

3:00PM Brian Ashcraft | You know it, you love it, Tell Us Dammit. No, rather TELL US DAMMIT. Yep! Time to learn about each other. How it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn’t some marketing survey or whatever. It’s an emotional investment in you. Yes, we’re interesting in knowing you, Kotaku reader person. You probably know fucktons about us — more than you even want to, we’re sure. But, hey, we’d like to know about you. That way you won’t be some faceless blob — and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban your arse. Or not, because really we’re incapable of human emotion. Sadness. Question What is the longest you have gone without gaming? More »
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Oh La La, Soul Calibur IV’s Destructible Clothes

2:00PM Brian Ashcraft | The most recent Soul Calibur IV trailer seems to indicate that besides Star Wars characters and enormous boobs, the game also has destructible body armour. Meaning? That it appears throttling opponents hard enough causes armour to fly off. Wonder if it will be possible to knock Vader’s helmet off or if this is just going to your typical disrobe-female-fighters kinda thing. Honestly, we’re pulling for naked Yoda. Pic and video after the jump. More »
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A Week In Comments

1:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Does Brain Age Actually Work? No, Apparently. Comment by Kuraudo Nominated by geekgrrl This is why there’s no class division in high school between the intelligent and the sporty. The Cake Goes to Portal’s Commentary Comment by BolognaFire Nominated by sethmad Imagine: BABIES – Commentary “A big issue we had with starting off development was deciding who our target audience would be.”
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EA’s Florin Gets New Role

10:40AM Leigh Alexander | Electronic Arts vice president and general manger of international publishing Gerhard Florin will no longer hold that role, the company revealed through an SEC filing today. Instead, EA says Florin will work on “various of the Company’s global strategic and transformative initiatives.” The move appears to shift his focus from day-to-day publishing operations to longer-term strategies around North America and European markets. More »
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Analyst: Wii To Lead Hardware, PS3 To Lead Software By 2012

9:20AM Leigh Alexander | The Wii is set to break console sales records in 2008, says analyst group DFC Intelligence – but the PlayStation 3 will beat the Wii’s software sales by 2012. Worldwide console sales can pass the $US 180 million benchmark by 2011 even in an economic slowdown, said the analyst group, since high gas prices encourage people to entertain themselves at home. While the report sees Wii as the likely overall install base leader, it is critical of Microsoft, stating that “for the 80 percent-plus of game consumers that do not play FPS games, the Xbox 360 is not the system of choice.” The sales performance of the PlayStation 3 has been less than stellar, but Sony has survived. The Xbox 360 was unable to take advantage of Sony’s struggles to build the type of large lead needed to maintain a long-term advantage. The PS3 survived the onslaught of AAA Xbox 360 titles that hit the market from late 2006 through 2007. Halo 3 had great sales, but it did very little to enhance the Xbox 360’s overall position in the marketplace. Full report and more stats than you can shake a Wii remote at: More »
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Thinning The Herd: Good Idea, Bad Idea?

8:20AM Leigh Alexander | Will Microsoft’s recently-announced efforts to improve Xbox Live Arcade quality levels by culling underperforming titles bolster the service, or ultimately harm it? Objectively, one of Live’s biggest obstacles is the sheer density of its offering and wildly variant quality levels – it’s hard to tell what there even is to play, let alone if what you’re checking out will be a worthy experience, despite the numerous demos. With that in mind, a standard methodology for trimming the fat might help the cream rise to the top, right?
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EndWar Launches Private Beta

8:01AM Brian Crecente | Ubisoft’s voice-command real-time strategy game EndWay is getting a private beta this summer. A site set up for those invited into the beta says that it will take place for three weeks in June and July and only be in English. The three gig download will feature three maps for 1v1 and 2v2 matches, but no offline play. I hope they launch a public beta as well. As with most new ideas, the concept of voice-command mixing with real-time strategy isn’t easy to wrap your head around without trying it first hand. As I mentioned in my preview of the game earlier this year, it seems to work quite well and despite the reduced unit types, I think there’s enough depth in the game to keep things interesting. EndWar [Via Joystiq] More »
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