To: Crecente From: Luke
So! Lots of stuff happening on a Sunday night. Which is very unusual. Friday nights, you sometimes get news, as companies try and sneak bad press out after everyone’s gone home, but Sunday nights? That’s new. What’s surprised me most about the whole thing however wasn’t the timing, but the sheer volume of stuff that came out of it. Can’t remember anything off the top of my head that compares. Sure, some of it sounds a bit patchy, and some of it sounds like complete baloney, but on the whole, a lot of the stuff checks out. I really feel for the guys at market research company Intellisponse – ie the source of the leaks – about now. I’ve a feeling this will be a Monday morning they will not enjoy.
For all the Microsoft/Activision news that leaked overight: Please, consult this handy round-up.
Here’s everything else you missed: Valkyria Chronicles Statue: Alicia This Might Just Be The PlayStation Phone Afrika: Sixaxis Camera Controls, You Can’t Drive Resistance 2 Gameplay Vids
Valkyria Chronicles looks gorgeous. Couldn’t care less how well it plays. So even if it ends up being a complete disaster, it’ll still have its fans, who dig it for the canvas-painting graphical style and snappy re-imagining of WWII Europe. Fans who will, for example, buy over-priced merchandise. Over-priced merchandise like this 20cm statue, of the game’s heroine Alicia, which goes on sale later this year for ¥7140 ($AU 68.96).
[via Famitsu]
Sorry. The “PlayStation Phone”. Because it’s a lot more phone than it is “PlayStation”. Letdown. Pictured above is the Sony Ericsson F305 phone, first in their new “F” series of devices, due for release later this year. The Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog – source for this info and the pics – believe the “F” stands for “fun”, because the phone not only features motion-controlled gaming, but also boasts the familiar “O” and “X” buttons, as well as a PlayStation control pad icon, suggesting that gaming is going to be made a primary feature of the line. If this is as PlayStation phone as Sony are willing to go (and it probably is), it’s a smart move – actually branding the thing a PlayStation Phone, and going all-out on the gaming side of things, may not have been the smartest thing to do to the brand.
Sony Ericsson F305 is for fun and games [USEB, via Gizmodo AU]
Afrika details? Real ones, that actually tell you something about how the game’s going to play? Wonderful. Taiwanese site GNN had a chance to play the game at a recent Sony press event, and are able to tell us all about it. Seems Afrika’s driven by missions, sent to your camp via email, which require you to snap certain shots of scenes/animals (though it seems, thankfully, with no time limit). To get out into the wilderness for said shots, you have to use a jeep, though sadly you won’t be driving it, as that’s taken care of by your “AI/tour guide”.
And now, the last of the leaked MS/Acti news items for the day. Included in Intellisponse’s marketing/survey data was some information on Microsoft’s User Generated Games program, which is what they were calling the service we know better as “Community Games On LIVE“. The material says that it’s a “new destination” for Xbox Live customers, offering “hundreds” of inexpensive games. Buying one “looks and feels just like buying anything else from Xbox Live”, but most importantly, will be “most likely less expensive” than the “typical Xbox Live game”. Hrm. If Microsoft wrote/approved that, it’s a peculiar choice of words. For user-generated content on shoestring budgets (if a budget at all), shouldn’t they be “definitely less expensive”?
Looks like Yug from Australian Gamer is holding a gathering of sorts for the folks heading to this year’s inaugural GenCon Oz. According to the invite, it’s technically the third such event that Yug’s held, but I’m sure he doesn’t have anything against pen and paper or tabletop gamers.
If you happen to be in the area of Fortitude Valley on 5 July, you might want to think of dropping by.
Yes, more Intellisponse leakage! Another game mentioned that we (or at least I) hadn’t yet heard of was a new version of You Don’t Know Jack. For the Wii. Not much more to add than that, other than this is a very good idea, and it’s baffling why it’s taken this long in the console’s lifespan for someone to come up with it. No word on a release date or developer/publisher (going off the other leaks, though, we’ll presume it’s Activision), but they do mention a $AU 42.58 price-point.
I say “probably” because, yes, this is from the same marketing leak we’ve been having so much fun with today. One of the games mentioned in the leak (which, FYI, was courtesy of Intellisponse) is called “Racing Equity”, a “next-gen” racing game that’s *groan* “focused around a rebellious counter culture scene”. Details beyond that are a little vague, but the game seems to be built upon the notion that “spontaenously and without warning, people turn up en masse and transform city centres into impromptu tracks. Roads get blocked off and the race takes place”. Seeing as today’s leaks are coming almost solely from Microsoft and Activision, you’ve got to wonder whether this is something Bizarre are working on.
