We expect that Peggle and the darker, no-more-dangerous Peggle Nights for PSN will feature match the PC and Xbox Live Arcade versions, with Challenges, Adventure modes and replays intact. What the PS3 version brings to the table is the option to upload replays to YouTube, directly from the game itself. Awesome.

Price for Peggle? $US9.99. Peggle Nights will run you an additional $US4.99, once the fun of the original has been sufficiently drained.

Coming to PSN this Week: Peggle & Peggle Nights [PlayStation.blog]

It’ll hit the 360 in the form of downloadable content, and includes everything you’d find in the PC/Mac version of Peggle Nights. Which means 60 new MP levels, 60 new campaign levels and 60 new challenges, along with more achievements.

It’ll be out sometime this Fall. It’s Peggle. More Peggle. You know what to do.

Peggle XBLA Getting ‘Nights’ Expansion [Shacknews]

Which means, yes, there’s some horrible titles in there. But there are also many games that aren’t horrible. The opposite of horrible. Excellent titles.

Games like Peggle. And Plants vs Zombies. And some other games, many of which have been discounted (some by up to 50%) to celebrate the section’s opening.

[Family Games @ Steam]

The game comes with ten new levels and includes the “sights, sounds and storyline” of World of Warcraft… plus unicorns and rainbows. Levels in the freebie include “Too Soon, Executus” and “The Traitor King” and new challenges include “Phat Lewtz” and “Pwnyxia.”

“PopCap first brought Peggle to Azeroth in April 2009 and got a great reception from World of Warcraft players,” said T. Carl Kwoh, Associate Producer at PopCap Games. “We were jazzed to team up with Blizzard to make a World of Warcraft-themed version of Peggle that’s available to everyone for free.”

When a player quits the game the ending screen includes links to a free demo of the full version of Peggle and a ten day trial for World of Warcraft. Sounds like a pretty neat way to advertise too successful games.

Peggle WOW

See, dropping the game’s price to $US1 was part-experiment, part-protest on the part of developers PopCap. As any iPhone owner will know, the device’s App Store charts are skewed heavily towards cheap, disposable apps; you’ll often see $US1 games clogging them up while better, more expensive games (with lower sales) languish unseen.

Case in point: before the sale, Peggle was sitting at around #60 on the App Store game charts. And after the sale? Peggle was sitting pretty at #1, having sold “nearly as many units in those four days as they had in the 3 weeks after the game’s launch”.

While it makes for a poignant statement on the way the App Store is structured, doesn’t it also make a good argument for pricing the game at $US1 permanently?

‘Peggle’ iPhone’s Meteoric AppStore Boost [MTV]

Like other versions of Peggle it packs in awesome gameplay and comes highly recommended. Buy it!

[iTunes]

Today, it’s on iPhone — complete with 55 levels, 40 grand master challenges and a new “Extreme Precision” wheel for accurate shoots. There’s also a trophy room to track achievements and a mode to face off against friends.

The 10.2MB game is priced at US$4.99.

Peggle released for iPhone by PopCap [iPhone otaku]

Kotaku has learned that Greg Canessa, the man who ran Xbox Live Arcade at launch and has since served as vice president of game platforms at PopCap is joining the team at World of Warcraft and Diablo studio Blizzard.

Blizzard has shown an interest in casual gaming recently, weaving PopCap’s popular Peggle game into WoW earlier this year.

Peggle, like PopCap’s other popular games, was primarily played as a downloadable PC title, lumping it into the casual gaming category with the company’s other hits Zuma and Bejeweled.

But in an interview with me earlier this year, Canessa said that Peggle proved its hit potential with a more hardcore crowd and that PopCap seized upon its success with the Half-Life-oriented version of Peggle offered on Steam.

What Canessa seemed proud of in that context was merging casual game design with hardcore appetites.

And now WoW’s got Peggle. And Blizzard now has Canessa.

Blizzard did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

WoW Insider has first details on the addition of the peg-smashing game, which has already begun raiding its way into World of Warcraft. Peggle for World of Warcraft runs within the Blizzard game itself, letting players go head-to-head to while away boredom, as well as helping to decide who gets dropped loot. (That’s /peggleloot if you’re wondering.)

But the game within a game also mixes up standard Peggle play.

While the WoW version comes with just two “Peggle Masters,” players can earn “talent points” that will affect the way the game is played. Like World of Warcraft, the new version of Peggle features a skill tree, letting players modify their shots with higher points, a chance for “critical hits” and increased fever scores.

It’s like a video game equivalent of an eightball, one administered right through the retina.

WoW Insider has more extensive details on the Peggle add-on, but if you’d prefer to play it instead of read about it, it’s now available for download.

WoW Insider exclusive: PopCap releases Peggle for WoW [WoW Insider]
Peggle Add-on For WoW [PopCap]

PopCap Games’ Peggle comes to Xbox Live Arcade, bringing the super powered pachinko-esque, point and shoot gameplay to Xbox 360s. It’s incredibly addictive, the aim of PopCap’s casual games.

Peggle’s concept is simple: fire metal balls from a cannon, destroying coloured pegs with the help of talking unicorns and skateboarding beavers, ultimately resulting in a screen clearing orgy of points, rainbows, and a feel-good blast of Beethoven. It’s all very rewarding work. The Xbox Live Arcade port of Peggle adds what you’d expect from the transition to the Xbox 360, including online multiplayer, voice chat and Achievements, retaining the core gameplay.

Should you catch the extreme fever of Peggle addiction, even if you’ve already become a graduate of the Peggle Institute?

Loved
It’s Peggle, Faithfully Recreated: Everything that made the original Peggle so enjoyable and addictive is present in the Xbox Live Arcade release: the peg crushing fun, the wacky Peggle masters, the challenges that will test your mettle, the overblown, colorful presentation. The game controls beautifully with the Xbox 360 controller, with two precision aiming options that make lining up shots simple without a mouse. The only downside? Not being able to determine exactly where you’re aiming as one could with a mouse pointer.

Multiplayer: The ability to hop online and challenge others, extending the life of the Peggle experience, is a fantastic addition. Two-player versus modes are similar to the Master Challenge in the original Peggle, with players taking alternate shots at the same field. Four-player is akin to a scoring challenge, with players competing for the highest score on an individual field. A shot clock keeps the game moving, ensuring that multiplayer games are quick and easy. Given the amount of chance involved and the potential imbalance of the ten Peggle Masters, it may make more sense to take Peggle multiplayer more casually than other Xbox 360 titles. But it’s still a blast.

Hated
Not Much New For Peggle Vets: If you’ve played either Peggle (or Peggle Nights), don’t expect to be swimming in new content, new characters and new challenges. Those totally fresh to the Peggle experience likely won’t consider this a fault, but this is very much a port of the two-year-old game of the same name.

The Xbox Live Arcade port of Peggle is fantastic, casual, relaxing fun. It’s also one of the better deals on Xbox Live Marketplace, considering blowing through the Adventure mode alone will probably take a good six hours or so. Unlockable challenges and master duels will likely double that, with solid multiplayer support pushing it into the ultra extreme value zone.

For casual fun on the Xbox 360 it’s nigh impossible to surpass Peggle.

Peggle was developed and published by Popcap Games, released on Xbox Live Arcade on March 11th. Retails for 800 Microsoft Points (US$10/AU$13.20). Played Adventure mode to completion, played multiple challenges and tested online and local multiplayer modes.

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