Between Xbox Live and Halo and some other stuff in between, Microsoft have done a great job at nailing down a hardcore market. Problem is, that hardcore market is a small one. It's nothing compared to the kind of sales Sony managed last gen, and Nintendo are managing this gen. So MS are convinced that, in order to sell more 360s and get more people on Xbox Live, they need to go after a more casual market. And how do they do that? Why, they look for inspiration from the biggest casual market there is: Europe.

The gameplay style in Europe is more casual, more collaborative and social. They're a key part of us getting the next 20 million on the service. We're asking how we become something that's relevant to everyone. I think Europe is the North Star, the sign that says 'here's what it looks like to broaden the service to everyone'.

Inside the New Xbox Live - Part One [Edge]

Once upon a time, when you mentioned Soulcalibur, people thought of swords. Now, they think of jubblies. So no wonder UK men's magazine FRONT returned for another round of Photoshop-cheesecake-models-into-videogames. This time, Page Three girls Danni Wells and Amii Grove bust out the "i"s and the sporting equipment for an in-mag SoulCalibur IV. Look at that picture! It's like they're thus destroying and pillaging Soulcalibur IV. (But can cricket bats defeat lightsabers? Gah....)

Hit the jump for a good old fashioned butt-off.

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Square Enix has released its financial statement, showing that first quarter net sales for the 2009 financial year are down 9 percent compared to Q1 last year. Here's the number comparison: ¥29.77 billion ($US 276 million) for Q1 2009 vs. ¥33.74 billion ($US 313.4 million) for Q1 2008. Profits were up slightly though with a net income of ¥2.88 billion ($US 26.75 million) from last year's ¥2.73 billion ($US 25.25 million).

Draw your own conclusions about that Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 announcement.

Sony's official Japanese site for LittleBigPlanet is displaying, rather proudly, a release date for the hotly-anticipated hackey-sack simulator: October 30. Don't take that as irrefutable fact, since Sony Japan may just be making educated guesses in the absence of a date from SCEE, but it should be OK if you take it as a possible possibility.

LittleBigPlanet Official Site [SCEJ, via VG247]

Just look at this video. Look at it (Oh, and before you ask/complain, no, there's no sound in this vid). It's Advance Wars. But with Transformers. G1 Transformers. With tech specs and back-of-the-toy-box quotes and the spinning transition animation and everything. Only catch is it's a mobile game (from Glu), but if we all close our eyes and wish really hard maybe somebody will realise a DS port would be a really good idea.

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When the 360's new dash is launched, it'll cost you nothing to build an avatar. It'll cost you nothing to customise it, either, so if you throw on the wrong coloured pair of slacks, relax! Just change them over, no questions asked. But what about the future? VentureBeat asked Microsoft's John Schappert whether Microsoft were going to introduce microtransactions for the avatars, and got this response:

That may be in the future. In the near term, we want to launch these with great customisation and a great library of accessories this fall. I think there is a lot more we can do with them. You will see us continue to add experiences that make use of the avatar. Our goal is not to create a sterile environment where you move furniture around. It's about how can we make our gaming experiences better.

Q&A: Microsoft game exec John Schappert talks about Xbox Live, Netflix deal, and Blu-ray [VentureBeat]

Blizzard has loosely dated expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King for sometime between October and December this year. According to Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime:

We have said that it will be coming out this year. I can tell you it's not coming in the July to September quarter.

Awfully kind of him to narrow it down like that. Mike's nice like that, you know.

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Releasing Between October and December [Shacknews]

Sony isn't quite ready to release it's new service Life with PlayStation. It needs a little longer in the oven. But fret not, Life be ready sometime later this month. Writes SCEA's Noam Rimon:

We know many of you are eager to try out the new service for yourself, but you'll have to hold tight. Due to a few procedural matters, the new service will make its way to PlayStation fans in August.

Rest assured, Life with PlayStation will be a service that introduces a new way to interact with your PS3. By bringing information from around the world into your living room, Life with PlayStation will offer a variety of interactive content and channels on a visually stunning worldwide map interface.

So, sit tight and use Google Earth on your computer or something.

Life with PlayStation update [PlayStation.Life]

If you're up late and fancy killing off an hour or two of your not-so-precious time, you could do worse than giving Hikkikomori Quest a spin. A freeware RPG, it tells the tale of a Hikkikomori who, having had his birthday ruined on 4chan, decides to set out to prove the world wrong by performing brave deeds. Like...leaving the house and buying a hot dog. It's an adorable piss-take, and best of all, features some artwork by Paul Robertson, he of Pirate Baby fame. You can download/get more info at the links below, but please, don't all go at once, you'll break things.

Freeware Game Pick: Hikkikomori Quest [IndieGames]
Hikkikomori Quest RPG [Welcome to the Dream of Future]

While Square Enix is best know for hair-gel covered RPGs, the company, god bless 'em, is doing its best to expand out. It has a very casual DS line — Why, late last year the company released a wine DS "game" and even created a special bundle with actual wine.

The company announced today that it was launching the "Pure Dreams" brand in Japan. "Pure Dreams" will focus on character branded games and the brand's first two titles are a good indication of things to come: Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends and Pingu Waku Waku Carnival, both for the Nintendo DS. The games will be out this fall in Japan.

Now if we could only get Snoopy, Pingu, Mickey Mouse and Sephiroth in the same game. Make it happen, Square!

スクエニ、新ブランド「Pure Dreams」を発表 [Game Watch]

Saints Row, for all its problems, still did OK business for THQ on the 360. And it was supposed to come out for the PS3 as well, but hey, it never did. Why not? Yes, you guessed it. Problems with the Cell. Producer Dan Sutton:

In Saints Row 1 we got about half way through the process and then we realised that we just couldn't get our heads around Cell. It's just really complicated and I'm sure you noticed other games like Stranglehold push their dates up.

A sad, if familiar tale. But that begs the question: what about Saints Row 2? Don't lose any sleep over it, PS3 owners. Sutton goes on to say that thanks to increased assistance from Sony with some of the trickier aspects of the Cell, Saints Row 2 is coming along just nicely.

Saints Row dev couldn't get its head around Cell [CVG]

Those Halo wheels are still turning. And from what a Gamasutra job announcement seems to hit at, Peter Jackson's Halo game is moving forward. The Microsoft Game Studios job listing is for "Creative Director - building a new Halo universe" and says this under responsibilities:

Direct the tone and timber of the project with an eye towards compelling character development, visionary narrative progression, and addictive gameplay
Partner with key Hollywood talent to collaboratively craft a masterful game experience
Bridge the gap between storytelling and the interactive experience while delivering on the Halo soul.
Collaborate with game play designers, story writers, game writers, and said external luminary to deliver on a unique game in the Halo universe...

So that might be Peter Jackson — unless Microsoft has roped in other "key Hollywood talent" and not told anyone. Microsoft's been pretty bad about not telling us what's going on with the new Halo games.

Job Listing [Gamasutra via 1Up]

So Flagship (and Hellgate) are sunk, and Mythos has been canned along with them, right? Not necessarily! According to some job postings over on Gamasutra and DICE.com, Korean publisher T3 is opening a development studio in San Francisco, and will continue work on both titles. Seems random, but T3 own a controlling stake in HanbitSoft, Hellgate's Korean publisher, and the company at the centre of a tussle over ownership of the game as Flagship was going down. A tussle they seem to be well on the way to winning. The news probably won't matter to Hellgate players since, outside of Korea, there really aren't any left, but it's good news for Mythos fans.

Report: T3 To Continue Hellgate, Mythos Development In SF Office [Gamasutra]

"She just happens to be. She's a fat princess. It happens".

"She can have cake, but not Carl's Jr. Back away from the fastfood princess".

Thanks DavidXSee for the tip!

So far this generation, Microsoft's first-party lineup has done a pretty good job! Gears of War, Project Gotham Racing 3, Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4, Forza 2, Ninja Gaiden 2...all big sellers, all great games. Thing is, aside from Gears, those are all sequels! And Microsoft's two biggest games in 2008 are more sequels, one for Gears, one for Fable. Perhaps sensing an impending onset of acute sequelitis, Microsoft's Shane Kim wants you to know that new stuff is on the way:

We're just at a point in the cycle where you're seeing more sequels. I can tell you we have other new properties that are unannounced that we feel very good and are very confident about. We will continue to have new IPs alongside the franchises in our portfolio, no question.

In 2007 we'd have made a joke about their "new" men-with-guns game, but we're now looking forward to a "new" family quiz game instead!

Part Two of Inside Xbox Live [Edge]

*SPOILER ALERT*
(Well, that is, if you don't think the Resident Evil movies spoiled RE.) Anyway! Remember the end of the third movie, Resident Evil: Extinction? Sure ya, there was an army of Alice clones. Sister site io9 cornered the movie's director Paul W.S. Anderson about the possibility of putting that army of cloned Alices in a future Resident Evil sequel if one ends up actually happening. Here's the exchange:

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Tales of Vesperia is launching in Japan soon. August 7th, actually. And some people seem pretty excited. It's the tenth entry in the Tales series. The Namco Bandai title is an Xbox 360 exclusive, so that just might mean that Microsoft will move more than it's standard 3,000 Xbox 360s a week in Japan. Or not.

As of posting, Amazon Japan is sold out of new HDMI Xbox 360s (but does have Elites). HAPPINET, one of the major Xbox 360 distributors in Japan, are sold out of everything but the Elite. According to game store clerk threads on 2ch, the Xbox 360 will be restocked after Tales of Vesperia is released. What's more, the Tales of Versperia bundle is apparently limited to something like 7,000.

The reason for the shortages?

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Almost a decade and a couple platforms later, Microsoft has announced that, yes, Too Human's gone gold. There's even a demo of Denis Dyack's game up on LIVE to prove it. It's apparently been downloaded more than another action demo on LIVE Marketplace in its first week. That's what Microsoft says! Feel free to download it. Or not. It's your choice.

Hit the jump for the full press release with pre-order info:

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Yeah, The Last Guy is already out on the PSN in Japan, but for us English-speakers, ehhh, not yet. To help give us a taste of the game, however, Sony have released a flash demo. Of sorts. If you visit the game's official site, you can enter any URL on the net and - after a short wait - have it rendered and playable as a level from the The Last Guy. Our first choice was obvious, and also misguided, as our site design creates a level that is...challenging. You might want to start on Google (or even a 404 error) first, build up your people-saving chops.
The Last Guy

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Not only is Nintendo's legal action against R4 cart spiking the sales, it's also spiking the prices. Check out this Akihabara retailer on July 29th when the news was first announced. R4s were going for ¥2,980 (US$US 28). The following day, the price jumped to ¥4,980 at the same retailer. And today? This shop's price hit ¥5,980 ($US 55). Pics of that after jump.

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During the opening address of QuakeCon earlier today, John Carmack wasn't just happy he was wearing his best pair of on-stage shorts. He was also happy with this new Rage trailer, finally answering our months-long pondering as to what Motorstorm would look like if it had less driving, more shooting in a post-apocalyptic desert setting.

When it comes to keeping PC gamers in the loop on their console games, Capcom have long been one of the good guys. And how do PC gamers repay the favour? Same way a lot of PC gamers always do: with mass acts of piracy. When quizzed about the state of Devil May Cry 4's PC sales on Capcom's forums, Christian Svensson replied:

I'm not sure about how Capcom in general feels but It's not doing as well as I would like in the US at retail. It's such a good version and it really deserves better sales. I know it's getting pirated to hell and back (it was up on torrents literally the day it shipped).

Leading Capcom to throw their hands up and complain about the state of piracy in the PC market, right? Nope! Svensson instead goes on in great detail about the company's big plans for future digital distribution on the platform, which is encouraging reading for the kind of people that think playing DMC4 on a PC is a good idea.

Are Capcom pleased with DMC4's PC sales? [Capcom]

Those Rock Band prices for New Zealand? According to Gameplanet, EA NZ "neglected to inform" the retailer that they were unconfirmed. I'm not 100% sure why a publisher would send out pricing info it wasn't sure of, unless someone pointed out how insanely expensive the game and hardware was after the fact.

The end result is the Gameplanet has removed the pricing from its site. But that's okay, because we still have it.

Rock Band price update [Gameplanet, thanks SamStride]

Earlier, Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya didn't exactly have kind words for Ninja Gaiden. They weren't mean per se, they just weren't kind. Kamiya said he's "not interested" in NG so perhaps you could say he is indifferent. In the same issue of EGM, former Team Ninja lead ninja Tomonobu Itagaki has this to say about Kamiya and his game Okami:

My daughter tried playing Okami, and she got sick of it pretty quickly-and I got pretty sick of it, too. And I'm not out to make this an Okami bashing session or anything — I'm just saying that it didn't feel like it had much of a spirit. It's unique, but it's not a powerful fighter plane... So I heard Kamiya said something about the action genre not moving forward in eight years. Can you tell me more about that?

Apparently, Kamiya said the action genre hasn't moved forward since the release of the first Devil May Cry. To which Itagaki replied:

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Following yesterday's rumour on the return of Jet Grind Radio, said to be a Wii-bound release, we were tipped off to the work of Cory "Rey" Lewis who posted concept art from a "proposed" Jet Grind Radio title. While the post featuring the artwork — archived after the jump — was dated from March of 2008, Lewis lists the artwork for characters Beat, Gum, Tab and Professor K as dating back to 2006. He also lists the game's developer, making sense of a recent announcement.

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Jim Brown is mad. The former Browns RB and occasional movie star is suing both EA and Sony for "unspecified damages for trademark infringement, unauthorised use of his likeness, trademark dilution and unfair business practices and competition". Those are big claims! So what's his complaint? That the classic/vintage "All-Browns" team in Madden has a black RB with the number 32. Jim Brown, remembering he was also a black RB for the Browns who wore #32, is upset by this, and wants not only the aforementioned damages, but wants his "likeness" removed from the game as well. Never mind the Madden player is not called Jim Brown, nor does it carry his likeness in any way. Neither EA nor Sony are yet to respond to the lawsuit, presumably because they're too busy wondering how stupid Brown's lawyers really are.
Sony Sued by Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown Over Video Game [Bloomberg]

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The only way to get your hands on id Software's Rage and Doom 4 will be through traditional means, according to a report from Maximum PC. The id co-founder said at today's QuakeCon keynote that it would shy away from digital distribution with its next two id Tech 5-powered titles. An odd move, considering EA is publishing Rage and has its own digital distribution method, not to mention the availability of id's catalogue through its official web store and Steam.

Maximum PC also reports that the Xbox 360 version of Rage may wind up shipping on up to three DVDs — or suffer some serious compression compared to the Blu-ray version — a move that could cost millions in per-disc royalty fees. And think of the paper sleeve costs!

QuakeCon 08: No Digital Distribution for Rage or Doom 4; Rage will be on Multiple DVDs for Xbox 360 [Maximum PC]

PlayStation brand hardware is down. Nintendo hardware is up. While Dragon Quest V didn't give the Nintendo DS much of a kick in the pants last week, more casual hardware buyers have come around this week, putting the DS within spitting distance of the PSP.

The upward trend of Xbox 360 sales continues on this week's Media Create hardware chart, with Microsoft's console up a good 15%. It didn't have much of a software showing this week, outside of Bully: Scholarship Edition, so we have to wonder what's going on over there. Is Japan... jumping in?

PSP - 67,452
Nintendo DS - 56,968
Wii - 41,024
PlayStation 3 - 10,692
PlayStation 2 - 9,291
Xbox 360 - 4,941

Sigh. It turns out EA's exciting announcement was indeed the Spore Creature Creator/newspaper deal we revealed a few days ago. Don't get me wrong, getting the app free ($2 for Mexicans) is a nice deal, but it's small consolation for selling it at the NZ EA Store, while at the same time keeping us in the dark.

From the EA release:

The Spore Creature Creator will be available with the Herald Sun and The Saturday Daily Telegraph on Saturday, August 2, and with The Courier Mail on Saturday, August 30. The game will be free with The Saturday Daily Telegraph in New South Wales, and available for $2 with purchase of the Herald Sun in Victoria and The Courier-Mail in Queensland.

Full document after the jump.

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Tatsuya Suzuki and Jun Fujiki, lead developers on the PSP and PlayStation 3 puzzler echochrome, announced that a 2D version of the game is coming to PlayStation Home at an unspecified date. Instead of tapping into the PS3's 4D capabilities, the Japan Studios team is going in the other direction, presumably adhering to their gameplay credo of "getting people to play with rules and laws".

According to a report from Develop, the two had little else to say about the next version of echochrome (obviously not pictured), focusing on the development of the first, 3D title. Yup, that's all we got. How about those Cubs?

2D Echochrome on the way for PlayStation Home [Develop]

Logitech Guitar Hero World Tour Premium Instruments Coming
As long as the downstrum doesn't break after the second use, they'll be great.

Hey Chun-Li Movie, What's With All The Guns?!
Yeah, what's with those guns, eh?

Blizzard, World of Warcraft and everything else Orc-related:
Blizzard's Next Game Could Be More Successful Than WoW
Art Apocalypse: Blizzard's Wilson Talks Diablo III Design Decisions
Gigantique Sacks and Lovin' On Squirrels: All About WoW Achievements
Blizzard: Execution Over Innovation
Ghostbuster The Video Game Very Much Alive, Sitting on My Desk
What Activision Can And Can't Change About Blizzard
One WoW Expansion Per Year? Not Necessarily

John Carmack revealed at the opening day of QuakeCon today that "the next Doom", which we'll just call Doom 4 for now, will surpass the already announced Rage, running on id Tech 5, in visual quality.

"The next DOOM game will look like it's built on another engine, as it uses three times the horsepower", Carmack said, according to a 1UP report.

That visual fidelity will come at a price though, as Carmack says that Doom 4 will run at 30 frames per second, compared to Rage's 60 frames per second. The only other details provided by Carmack on Doom 4 was that the game would feature "guns, blood, demons, and gibs". Should've sent a poet...

Quake Con Keynote — Live Blog [1UP]

Blizzard's team doesn't care for the term "killer app", used to describe a program or product — in this case, a certain MMO — that single-handedly shaped the market around its platform. In fact, when we asked about World of Warcraft's unshakable hold on the massively multiplayer biz, game director Jeffrey Kaplan was humble.

"I don't believe that WoW is untouchable", he said. "I completely believe that a game could come out and be more successful than WoW. I'm hoping that we're working on it right now".

Designing and developing any MMO, Kaplan said, simply distills down to a series of choices. "I think a lot of other companies have had great opportunities to do what WoW has done... usually for whatever reason, they miss the mark".

"I actually feel really bad, a lot of times, when new MMOs come out and don't do really well, because I'm not thinking of it from a business perspective. I know what it's like to be a developer on a team that you believe in on a game that you just love, and for some reason, you don't get enough time, or someone makes a bad decision... everybody's making a lot of small choices, and when those go wrong, your game ends up not successful".

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One might think that HAL Laboratory's puffy pink protagonist Kirby has not a care in the world, that his disposition, due to his pinkness, would be beatific. Not so, according to virtually every video game box art appearance Kirby has made for the better part of the past decade. After Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, the spherical mascot went from tickled pink to pissed.

The transformations from pleased as punch to enraged were most noticeable in Kirby's journeys to America, going from happy go lucky to in a lather in games like Kirby Squeak Squad. Kirby Super Star Ultra changes all that, as Kirby's gay old times are back, with nary a furrowed brow to be seen.

If you'd like to fondly remember Kirby's more bitter box art outings, hit the jump.

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Here's your second look at the new Wolfenstein in motion. The QuakeCon trailer is similar to its E3 predecessor, but features new, chilling, German accented voiceover work, more exploding bodies and even more terrifying Nazi experiments with bluish-green lighting. It's also about twice as long, making it twice as awesome.

Wolfenstein QuakeCon Trailer HD [GameTrailers]

When I met Jay Wilson today, Blizzard's lead designer on Diablo III, I opened our conversation with two loaded little words: Art direction.

I didn't need to say any more, of course, because Wilson already knew about the fan-fit I was referring to. "It's a complex issue", he said. "It's been a big issue online, but for the most part, the response we've gotten has been very positive. We've got petitions, a few people on forums [who are] very loud, but it's really more of the 'squeaky wheel' syndrome".

"Certainly, internally there's no doubt. I would tell people who don't like the art style that probably, getting the art style was the hardest thing".

But there's a careful method to all of it, Wilson explained:

Wilson said that what we see now is the third iteration on the Diablo III design. As with many of the decisions the developer makes, much of the art design issue was based in gameplay principles.

"Diablo is a game you play for, hopefully, hundreds of hours, and one of the rewards is a variety of different-looking environments". People looking back on old Diablo, he said, may have a selective memory. "People remember the Act I dungeons... but they kind of conveniently forget the green fields of Act I, and all of Act II... and it's palaces, its bright deserts".

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