To: Crecente
From: Ashcraft
RE: Mom Makes Me Proud

Congrats to your mom! That's so awesome.

I went to go buy a cell phone this afternoon, but actually backed out. As you remember, right before TGS, my cell phone accidently ended up in the washing machine. So at TGS, I had a rental phone. Heh. Since then, I've been living off pay phones. Finding a pay phone is really hard in Japan! There is usually one per city block. And tracking them down has become a sad, solitary endeavor — which actually has become more and more interesting. Like, as soon as I arrive somewhere, I scout for a pay phone. So, here I am earlier today, standing in the Docomo shop, ready to pick out my new cell phone. And you know what? I left. Didn't get a cell phone. If someone wants to reach me, send me an email or whatever. If I need to call anyone, I'll use a landline. People don't *really* need cell phones, do they?

What you missed last night
Wiis aren't being used
Why is SCEA quiet?
NiGHTS release date
Another Elite sell out
Best cake story

Chances are you're somewhat intrigued by Capcom's new Bionic Commando. So you'll also be interested in these bits of concept art, as well as a couple of screenshots. That there's the new arm in all its glory. Glad they kept it subtle.

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Contest time! Again! This time we are giving a copy of first-person-shooter Dementium: The Ward for the DS. No, strike that. This time, you have a chance to win a copy of Dementium: The Ward. How? Since Halloween is fast approaching, we're doing a cosplay contest. Not just any cosplay contest! That's boring. We're doing a bandage cosplay contest. Meaning? If you have toilet paper, you can enter. If you have band-aids, you can enter. Just cover yourself in bandage, and you are good to go. YES, IT'S THAT SIMPLE. The deadline for the contest is October 23rd. Send your entries to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom. And remember, you aren't just playing for a DS game. Oh, no. You are playing for INTERNET FAME. Tally ho!
Dementium [Official Site]

The PS3 innards? Fantastic. The outer shell? Hrm. As a straight up piece of hardware, the PS3 is impressive. That glossy dust-collecting Victorian waffle iron-shaped shell isn't. Though! Sony was trying to do something different than you typical game console. Just listen to Sony designer Teiyu Goto explain it:

For PLAYSTATION®3, we employed a curvilinear and glossy surface. This shape and material is rarely used for conventional electronic appliances. It is different from VCRs, DVD players (whose widths are usually 430 mm), or gaming systems. It represents a completely new concept.

There is a reason, you know, that shape and that material aren't used in conventional appliances.
Design Concept [PS3 Center via Next-Gen]

Sony have announced a British release date for the PlayStation Eye camera. Expect it on November 7 for £25. For that money you get both the camera and the EyeCreate video editing software. Good times.

Keep 'em coming! This is Kotakuite Peanutismint's effort. Well, he and his housemates. They carved it, they stuffed it full of newspaper and they set that damn mushroom on fire. Not sure why they didn't just use a candle like everyone else, but they're Welsh, maybe that's how they roll there.

Sure, a lot of this is hit or miss. And yeah, these kids' parents should really dress them properly. But! I did laugh more than once. Out loud, even.

Real SSBB [Go Nintendo via Wii Fanboy]

This is how it goes. First we get a rumour. In this case, from Indian site GameGuru. Then we get a response from a developer/publisher. In this case Rare. It'll either crush the rumour or, more often than not, substantiate it by waffling on. In this case, it's the latter. Rare's Lee Schuneman:

There's always rumours going around about different games we may or may not be doing but we'd prefer not to comment on rumours at this stage.

No, I'd imagine you'd like to comment on them a little later, when the new Banjo Kazooie is about done you're ready to unveil the thing. We get it!
Rare: no comment on Perfect Dark 2 speculation [GI.biz]

You're looking at one sad Blue Dragon Happy Meal. Know: Happy Meals in Japan aren't called "Happy Meal," but "Happy Sets." And more often than not, they come in paper bags, not Happy Meal boxes. Besides a card from the Konami-branded Blue Dragon card game (yes, Konami), the meal included some random toy that has nothing to do with Blue Dragon whatsoever. The interesting part? There's a small flier included with the card. This flier mentions the Blue Dragon anime and the comic book, but says NOTHING of the Xbox 360 game. It's like the Xbox 360 doesn't exist or something in Japan! Oh. Wait.

It's been a while between these cross-continental charts, so for Germans, Spaniards and European sales charts fans alike, we're sorry. Hopefully this makes up for our tardiness. A look at the charts shows Europe (or at least these three bits of it) have already finished the fight and are moving on. To things like Settlers of Catan, which beat Halo 3 in Germany. Or FIFA 08, which beat everything everywhere, charting three times in Germany and four times in Spain. Four. Even the PC version. As for Britain...well, I told you they were all about football and driving games.

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Posters are boring! If you are going to capture savvy Tokyo shoppers' wallets, you must capture their imagination. What better way than to do that through crazy in-store displays. Later this week, Beautiful Katamari will go on sale in Japan. To whip Akihabara shoppers up into a frenzy, Sofmap has a display case with a katamari made from figurines. Besides the ubitiquitus iDOLM@STER toys, there are figurines of girls wearing sailor uniforms and swimsuits. The sign on the display reads something like:

That's mine...!! A katamari of evil corruption!!

AKA a big ball of nerd heroin! Close up after the jump.

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EA Sports is a successful brand. Like it, loathe it, it don't matter, their games make so much money each year your thoughts are utterly inconsequential. Thing is, FIFA aside they're a little too...American. Madden, NBA, NCAA, NASCAR...these are great for Americans, and some people outside America, but on this here planet there are 300 million Americans. But over 5 billion people who aren't. They're who EA need to be targeting, says Peter Moore. Presumably because by not targeting them they're missing out on a lot of money:

My biggest concern is that it's a phenomenally powerful brand in North America, but it is very North America-centric. It's red, white and blue. It's "in the game" [utters in deep, American-accented baritone]. It's an American voice. It is for better or worse seen as a United States brand that exports its products to Europe or to Asia or to South America.

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Have a hard time picking out what to wear? Own a PSP? Got the PSP Camera? Proficient in Japanese? You're in luck! Everyone else, you're screwed! Upcoming PSP title MyStylist has users photograph their entire wardrobe and then organizes and sorts them in a virtual closet by things like type of clothes, brand, season, colour and even price. MyStylist can then make recommendations on what to wear based on that data. There's even a Calendar function that keeps track of who you met, the occassion, the weather and what you wore. Because wearing the same thing twice in a month is like sooooo embarrassing.
MyStylish [Famitsu]

I've got no idea exactly what this is. And I won't check the comments section to hear you tell me (Orange Box isn't out yet here, you see). But I do know Portal's Companion Cube is already a big hit with the kids, so much so people tell me Valve will be releasing a plushie. Adorable. In the meantime, though, you can honour your favourite gaming character for this week by printing off this papercraft and either gluing or (if supervised) stapling it together. Portal-obsessed parents of small children may even wish to print off multiple copies, and arrange them in some form of dangly mobile.
Six Sides To Every Love Story [Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shotgun]

Gaming makes players into fat, anti-social, cold-blooded killers. Right? Right?! Nope! The BBC has a nice piece called "In Defense of Computer Games," which aims to clue in John Q. Public about what gaming actually means. Think of it as antidote for questionable dummies like wacky Florida "lawyer." From the BBC piece:

It's a common misconception that gaming is a solitary activity, as today an increasing number of titles are for gamers to get together and play in turn. In this respect, it's no different to golf — a game which can be a source of marital friction but is rarely accused of incitement to murder... Games like Halo are part of such a large sub-culture that people who don't play them are likely to be seen as oddballs and excluded from many conversations — in much the same way as people who aren't interested in football or who don't have a television.

The piece goes on to cite a university professor who says gamers have more friends than non-gamers and mention evidence that games improve eye-hand coordination. Maybe it's something in the air, but I get the feeling gaming's days as the scapegoat for society's ills are numbered. More of this level headed reporting please!
In Defense of Computer Games [BBC]

It's not only Akihabara where the Xbox 360 Elite is selling out, but also Osaka's Den-Den Town. The console went on sale October 11th for ¥45,524 (US $388). By October 12th, the Elite had sold out in Akihabara; however, it wasn't until the 14th that the console sold out in Den-Den Town. There were only something like 5,000 of these consoles at launch. Even in a territory where Xbox is hardly popular, that number certainly does not look like enough.
Nipponbashi Sell Out [Ota Road Blog]

This is easy. Buy a PSP. Or take your existing PSP, either or. Make sure you're running the latest firmware update. Get yourself to the nearest T-Mobile hotspot. Flick your little WLAN button to "on". Jump online via "Use Wireless HotSpot". And that's it. You've now got six months of free T-Mobile hotspot use. Easy. Harder part is finding somebody to then play against, and neither myself nor T-Mobile can help you with that one.
Complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi service for your PSP® system [PlayStation.Blog]

Looks like the guys in the US have managed to fix whatever problems were causing our feed to malfunction. So far we've had to combine manual and automated labour to bring content across, but we're hoping to revert completely to auto soon.

Thanks to the folks at our HQ in Sydney for their hard work!

The visual design, I'm definitely coming around to. The little tanks are still cute, they're just not as reliant on primary colours. I can live with that. But that music? Ill-advised! We're hoping it's just for the trailer, and is the work of some over-zealous marketing type at NoA, and not the work of Intelligent Systems.

Another Sweet Releases, this time for Sierra's upcoming catalogue. Nothing massive for October (World in Conflict was pretty much the brand's showing for this period), but November and December should be packed with FEAR and Timeshift goodness.

FYI, all prices and dates are Australian.

Hit the jump for the list!

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Should World in Conflict be the Battlefield 2 of the RTS scene? I guess that's up to you to decide. If you just want to show your mates how cool your nuke launches are - from ten different angles - then Massive's just-released broadcast tool sounds like it'll be right up your ICBM tube.

The tool allows you to play the role of virtual MC, manipulating cameras to grab the best shots of the action. It'll be a boon for the competitive scene, no doubt, but now you can try it at home - free.

It's designed for Direct3D 10, but if you're still running D3D 9, there's a command switch you can run to get it working fine in Windows XP. More info and the download at Internode Games Network.

World In Conflict Broadcast Tool Has Arrived, Comrade [Internode Games Network]

As we posted earlier, Capcom is giving NES title Bionic Commando a next-gen update called, you guessed it, Bionic Commando. Clever! Here producer Ben Judd talks about the game's development and tries to ease fears that his team is going to totally muck up this remake. And regarding the incessant brown, Judd tells Kotaku that it won't only have a muddled colour palette, but also blue, gray, green, etc.

NiGHTS now has a Western release date. Well, a pair of 'em. What, PAL land, you thought you'd get some kind of simultaneous worldwide release? Whatever. The game's due in the US on December 18, but Europe won't see it until sometime in January 2008. December 18? After every other good Christmas game has already hit the shelf? Good luck with that, Sega.
'NiGHTS 2' Dated [G4, via Go Nintendo]

Where the 40GB PS3 at, North America? Europe, Japan and Australia either have it or are getting it soon, so you just know you're going to follow. And by all accounts you'll be following on November 2. So where's SCEA's announcement? Nowhere, that's where.

See, the PAL territories were ready for this. Europe had already worked out a bundle deal to clear 60GB stocks, while Australia went one step further and cut off retail supply of the superceded model altogether. The US, on the other hand, has a problem. According to Michael "Once Was A Teenage Prophet" Pachter, there's still a ton of PS3s on the shelf. Which means SCEA are in a pickle! Either they hold off on introducing the 40GB model until they've sold more 60GB models, or they do what Europe did and bundle the 60 with a game and controller to get rid of the things.

Which are they going to do? I don't know. I don't have the gift like Pachter does. Lord knows if I did, I wouldn't blow it guessing about videogames, I'd be straight down the track to make me some cash money.

SCEA still silent on 40GB console for North America [GI.biz]

Sure, the Nintendo Wii is selling well in Japan. But are people actually using it or is the console just room decor? President of Famitsu publisher Enterbrain Hirokazu Hamamura not only predicts 30 million DSes sold by 2009, but also shows figures that indicate something like 67 percent of Japanese Wii owners are not using the Wii console recently. Which probably means people bought the Wii and Wii Sports, played it until they got sick of it and have returned to their DSes. Sure, Super Mario Galaxy will have folks playing the crap out of their Wiis again. But until then? Damn, it's been a long, hard dry spell since the console launched.

Unscientific poll time: Who regularly plays their Nintendo Wii?
Enterbrain President [IGN]

OK, Microsoft, we're sorry. We do need an official announcement for the 360 Arcade Pack. With the new SKU hitting shelves over the weekend, it's also been turning up in homes for a round of unboxings. One of these has us perplexed. We'd always been under the impression that the five bundled XBLA games (Feeding Frenzy , Boom Boom Rocket, Luxor 2, Uno & Pac-Man Championship) were just that. Games. Now we're not sure whether they're full games or just demos. Clarifcation would be swell, because if they're just demos, I'm going to end my self-imposed ban on boooooing like an angry chimp.
Xbox 360 Arcade unboxed [Engadget]

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Kotaku Flowers and Burned Bones

My mum emailed me last week to let me know that she's going to receive the Texas Psychological Association's 2007 Outstanding Contribution Award for her work in psychology and public service at the local, state and national level. Pretty cool. She's been a psychologist for, well forever and she spends a huge amount of time devoted to charities, working with the association and trying to help out in El Paso.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the convention because I'll be out of the country. Which sucks. If you think a mum is good at guilt tripping, you should see what sort of guilt magic a mum with a PhD in psychology can do... and don't even get me started about her post-doctoral training in medical hypnosis.

What you missed:
Kinda Cool Kane & Lynch Ad
Resistance II In The Works?
A Little Bit of TNA
Super Mario Galaxy Hands On Impressions
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin Hands On Impressions
Link's Crossbow Training Hands On Impressions
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Hands On Impressions
Master of Illusion Hands On Impressions
Justify Your TNA Impact!
Perfect Dark 2 Rumors Zero In On Internet
Bionic Commando Is Back! Oh Wait...

Want to see what all the fuss on Wii Zapper pack-in Link's Crossbow Training is all about? This video might give you an inclination, if you weren't focusing on a way to turn the brain-thumping music off. The levels shown represent the entirety of what we played at Nintendo's media event last week and should give you a better indication of how this budget title looks and feels.

Anyone out there remember World Heroes, Alpha Denshi's not that great fighting game for the Neo Geo platform? There were only a handful of them, with sequels like World Heroes 2 Jet and World Heroes Perfect hitting arcades throughout the early nineties. Fortunately for those who have fond memories of the 2D fighter, SNK Playmore is releasing a collection of four World Heroes games for the PlayStation 2.

And it might just have the best name ever: World Heroes Gorgeous! The emphasis is mine.

Seriously, does it get any better than "gorgeous"? No, I don't think it does. Please take a few minutes to enjoy the ultimate fighting game name and mourn the loss of "turbo" and "hyper." They were good to us.

Welcome to your hard drive the final chunk of downloadable content Bethesda plans to release for its FPS/RPG The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. What can you expect from this mish-mash of bits and bytes?

Defeat the attacking marauders and become lord of Battlehorn Castle. Located in the Colovian Highlands west of Chorrol, this expansive castle will allow you to live the life of a noble warrior, with private quarters, grand dining hall, wine cellar, barracks, training room and more. And what castle would be complete without a few hidden passages and dark secrets?

It's a 10MB download, so that works out to be, what, five hours of gameplay? If you're a die-hard Oblivion fan, you'd best savour this morsel, unless of course you're prepared to play whatever the modding community comes up with.

Personally, the screenshots look rather boring.

Fighter's Stronghold - DLC6 [Official Site]