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Britain, Your PS3s Will Stream TV As Of September 10 (Everyone Else, Little Later)
Posted by Luke Plunkett at 11:00 PM on July 18, 2008
Europe's PlayTV service for the PS3 is looking very nice. We already knew SCEE were looking at a release window of around September, but yesterday Sony's David Reeves started handing out actual dates and actual info. The UK will be the first country to get PlayTV, with it due to start up on September 10, with a staggered roll-out across Europe in the weeks after. As a bonus treat, he also confirmed that you'll be able to record TV onto your HDD at the same time you're playing a game, with the necessary code having been quietly slipped into the 2.41 update. Oh, and before anyone not up to speed on PlayTV asks, no, there are no plans to bring it to the US.
PlayTV dated, will record TV while gaming [Eurogamer]
You can't smoosh multiple companies together (don't forget Sierra!) and expect everyone to keep their jobs. Not going to happen. There's always areas - whether it be the mailroom, the tea room or the boardroom - where you'll only need one person where previously there were two or three. And it's no different with the Activision/Blizzard merger, with ActiBlizz CFO Thomas Tippl telling MCV "with every merger, there is overlap and redundancy, and so the same will be true here. Of course we're going to go to our customers with one face. We don't need two sales forces". Those facing the axe shouldn't get too down on themselves. Tippl promises they'll be treated "respectfully", then reminds them that at the rate this industry is growing, they may well find themselves needed, and back on the payroll, in no time.
RPS' Jim Rossignol, having picked up the scent of one of the internet's more far-fetched rumours, has done a little digging and come up with a few possible (stress: POSSIBLE) clues, all pointing towards the possible possiblity that Microsoft are working on a Halo MMO. And not a loot-dropping MMO, an FPS MMO. Before you go getting your speculative knickers in a twist, whether such a project ever comes to light or not is irrelevant, nor is it the point. It's simply interesting taking a look at Microsoft's first, fumbling steps in examining the genre again, one left poisoned and barren since the failure of Planetside.
High Voltage's Conduit is already looking like it'll be one of, if not the, best-looking Wii game around. And it's a standard FPS to boot! No party games, no plastic add-ons, nothing but shooting in the first-person. Seems an awfully "core" game to be releasing exclusively on the Wii, so why'd they bother? Creative director Matt Corso 
In June, 
Imagine you're a publisher, and there's a problem with the copy protection on the Direct2Drive version of your game. You don't have time to/can't be bothered chasing up the unprotected executable for the title (which you should have in easy reach), so you just browse to your favourite crack search engine, whack in the game's title, and download the appropriate hack.
There is no cure for PSP fever in Japan, what with all those massive marquee releases happening overseas. Like... um God of War: Chains of Olympus maybe? Is this just Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G after shocks or are folks just falling in love all over again with the Sony handheld? Regardless of the reason, the PSP comes out on top on this week's 
One of the best PS3 games we've laid our hands on over the past 12 months has been the PSN version of classic PlayStation racer WipEout. It was playable all the way back at TGS, and has been playable at various events since, and yet at E3 this year, it was nowhere. No mention of it, no mention of a release date. So what gives? Looks as if while most of the game simply sings, some of it doesn't, with the game plagued by a "really, really tricky technical problem" that nobody at Sony has been able to fix. As a result, they're hoping the game will be out by Christmas, but just can't guarantee it. Bummer.
As listed on 
Everything old is new again, as PlayStation 2 release Persona 4 rockets to the top of the Japanese sales charts, with the Wii remake of Resident Evil 0 seeing a rather unimpressive, but still top ten debut. Probably a good call on Capcom USA's part not to release the title stateside. RE4 Wii Edition this is not.
If grinding reputation with obscure factions wasn't enough to keep you busy, then 500 or so achievements should do it. Blizzard's 
At the E3 Nintendo Developer Roundtable that followed day two of the gaming expo, Shigeru Miyamoto and Katsuya Eguchi — the latter is the producer on Wii Sports Resort, Animal Crossing City Folk and Wii Music — spent additional time with the press showing off upcoming Wii wares. The two also fielded a barrage of questions from the crowd.
Congratulations, Microsoft. For the first time in the Xbox group's history, it's reported a profitable year (previous back-slapping have been confined to profitable quarters), with earnings released today showing the Entertainment & Devices Division (which, granted, also includes stuff like Games for Windows and the Zune) made around $US 426 million during the 07-08 financial year, mostly as a result of increased 360 console and software sales. That sure beats last year's results, which thanks to the RROD warranty extension saw the E&DD division go $US 1.9 billion in the red. Also included in Microsoft's report was the fact the company have now sold 20 million 360 consoles, which should provide a nice, clean figure for the company's post-NPD numbers spin.
Smell that? That's the lingering E3 stink. Now that the show is officially over as of 4:30 today, it's time for the potpourri to replace the order of foot powder and fart. Yep, the California Gift Show kicks off tomorrow, and you know what? Size-wise, it's way way bigger than E3, occupying Kentia Hall at the Convention Centre. That's because tea cups and garden gnomes are way more interesting than them video games. You know it.
Among Capcom's E3 titles was a somewhat mysterious downloadable title called Flock, erroneously pegged early on as a "sheep herding simulator". I got to have the title demoed for me by Proper Games design lead Geoff Gunning, a cheerful Scotsman, and had the mystery cleared up.
In typical Sony fashion, their NPD response is heavy on combined sales, heavy on percentage increases. You don't need to know exact figures, you need to know how much money they're making, and how much more money it is compared to this time last year! And for Sony, that news is all good, with both hardware and software sales strong across the board.
You think Nintendo care that none of you lot were terribly interested in their E3 performance? Seeing as they just overhauled the 360 to become this generation's top-seller, they couldn't give a rat's arse. The June hardware charts were topped yet again by Nintendo's two consoles, while on the software side, six of the top ten games were on Nintendo consoles, with three of them first-party titles.
It's official. E3 2008 has given up the ghost. Time of death was approximately 4:08 PM Pacific Standard Time. I learned of the news when visiting Midway's office to get a hands-on demo with Wheelman and noticed that the This Is Vegas presentation stations were being torn down. So sad.
Oooo, so very close. I sat in on a presentation of Sonic Unleashed at the Sega booth today, and things look pretty much as I feared when I first heard about the game. On one hand you have the daylight gameplay, which features Sonic racing across levels inspired by real-world locations such as Greece and China, alterating between the 3D platforming we know from Sonic Adventure and the 2D perspective from classic Sonic titles.
It's been confirmed by Jimi Hendrix's estate that several of his tracks will be appearing in the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour. Janie Hendrix - who oversees the late guitar god's estate - says that after originally being unable to locate a ton of master tracks (indicating, perhaps, this deal's been in the works for quite some time?), they've now been found, and promptly made available to Neversoft. Three of the songs mentioned are Purple Haze, Foxy Lady & Little Wing. Janie says of the deal "Guitar Hero really was on the ball and and they were biting at the bit to get this out this year, so, we just accommodated them...Jimi was a kid at heart -- he definitely would have played these games". Whether that's true or not is besides the point. Purple Haze, people. Purple. Haze.
Postal III ups the Postal bar. And that's not easy! Sure, the upcoming third-person Postal title features franchise standards like setting people on fire and shooting the crap outta everything. Postal III offers new weapons like the Badger Saw. (Instead of simply carrying around a chainsaw, the Postal Dude packs a large badger, which he uses to shred people to bits.)
Dante is a pansy. Bayonetta could completely kick his arse. Star of her own eponymous game, the fruit of the partnership between Sega and PlatinumGames, Bayonetta takes the over-the-top melee and shooting combat of the Devil May Cry series and cranks things up to completely ridiculous levels with amazing results.
Time for June's hardware numbers. And while we already know the larger implications for the month's sales - namely, that the 
See, not only is this E3 week, it's NPD sales figures week as well. Double your pleasure. Software sales first, and despite the continued appeal of Nintendo stalwarts like Wii Play and Wii Fit, two new games take up the top two spots for June. At #1 is, unsurprisingly, Metal Gear Solid 4, with Guitar Hero: On Tour sadly/somehow managing to come in second.
What determines whether or not a title is a "kids' game" or not? The simplicity of gameplay? Kid-friendly branding, like licenced TV stars or cartoons? Do you associate kids' games with low quality?
As EA confirmed today, the next Knights of the Old Republic is going to be a MMO. From Portfolio.com:
I just ran by the Nyko meeting rooms to find out about their Wii Remote Charging Station. That's the thing that comes with replacement rechargeable batteries and allows you to dock your remotes in a holder to charge them when not playing. Personally I find mine irreplaceable, mostly because I can never remember to buy batteries.
Nintendo just broke word that the Wii has overtaken the Xbox 360 as the best selling current-generation console in the United States, with a 10.9 million strong install base, according to the NPD Group. That means Nintendo sold at least 700,000 Wiis in the country in June. We're waiting on final NPD numbers for all console manufacturers, expected later in the day. As of last month, the previous hardware champ, the Xbox 360, stood strong at 10.2 million units sold.
Nothing matches the sexual intimacy of sheep guts. Lionhead Studios knows this, so for Fable II's casual sex seekers, they're offering a handy prophylactic made from only the finest internal animal organs. In-game condoms are essential, should you want to take a wife and remain free of rugrats. We're stocking up for the game's longer, colder, lonelier nights.
Resident Evil 5. An eagerly awaited game awash in a sea of racial controversy that seems silly when every morning for the past week I woke up, look out the window, and was greeted by a 200 foot tall advertisement for Tropic Thunder featuring Robert Downey Jr. with his face painted black. I think the gaming public has pretty much moved on at this point, which is nice, because I don't want my hands-on impressions of Capcom's E3 demo for the game sullied by conflict.