Did you hear that PS3 rhythm game fans? No more being forced to buy a certain publisher’s instrument controller just to be able to play their respective digital band simulator!
Yeah sure, it might sound like something that should have been done all along, but sadly the last generation of the rhythm game war had a ton of ups and downs in the compatability department that were never really sorted out. This go around however, things are going to be a little different (and a lot more consumer friendly). Via a post on the Playstation Blog, SCEA’s Director of 3rd Party Relations, Michael Shorrock assured gamers that their guitar and drum peripheral troubles will be ancient history come this October.
For the past several months, we have been working closely with Neversoft and Activision, Harmonix and Konami to ensure that PlayStation 3 guitars and drum sets will all feature a basic level of gameplay compatibility.
For the most part, this means that the titles with musical peripherals will work with the other’s software. A few specific examples include: Guitar Hero: World Tour’s guitars and drums will work with Rock Band 2 and Konami’s Rock Revolution software.
There you have it. PS3 owners can now utter a huge sigh of relief and rest assured that their one set of instruments will work with all three of these rockin’ titles.
There is no word on whether the Xbox 360 versions of the instruments will work across the board as well, but our guess is that they will. Check back for an update very soon.
The long rumored PSP 3000 has barely even been hinted at by Sony as of yet, but a recent FCC listing for the device confirms nearly beyond a doubt that it is in development. As you can see in the above image, no details involving the handheld’s new features have surfaced, so we will still have to wait for Sony’s announcement before we learn anything solid about it. What does that leave us with? A codename and a sketch, that’s about it.
Hopefully Sony will squeal about this one sometime soon, because these slow, slow developments always drive me nuts.
Coming off of big hardware sales across the board in June, last month’s numbers are looking a little Skimpy. While Nintendo met expectations by remaining on top of the sales chart, Sony surprised analysts by shipping about 20,000 more current-gen units than Microsoft. On the software side, NCAA Football ‘09 for the Xbox 360 managed to crawl to the top of the heap, while Wii Fit had to settle for second place.
Here is the hardware chart for this month:
Home Consoles
Wii – 555,000
PS3 – 224,900
Xbox 360 – 204,800
PS2 – 155,500
Handheld Consoles
DS – 608,000
PSP – 221,700
Check out the software numbers after the jump.
1. NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360) – 397,600 2. Wii Fit (Wii) – 369,600 3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) – 309,700 4. Wii Play (Wii) – 284,000 5. NCAA Football 09 (PS3) – 242,500 6. Soulcalibur IV (Xbox 360) – 218,900 7. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 174,500 8. Rock Band Special Edition (Wii) – 165,800 9. Soulcalibur IV (PS3) – 155,800 10. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360) – 147,600
When we reported earlier that Dead Rising Wii had been announced by Famitsu, it had not yet been officially revealed by Capcom. The official announcement came through a press release sent out by Capcom today, which provided us with a few new details, some screens, a ‘Winter ‘08′ release window, and a new title: Dead Rising: Chop ‘Til You Drop.
Chop ‘Til You Drop will run on the same engine as Resident Evil 4 Wii, while still keeping the games open world environment in tact. The Wii’s motion controls will be on full display in this version of Dead Rising, as players will be able to aim guns, swing and throw other weapons, and shake off zombies by performing the appropriate actions with the controller. As far as Zombies are concerned, capcom is still flaunting “Hoards of enemies on screen at once resulting in non-stop, pulse-pounding action”, but from the looks of things, the number of undead foes that will be attempting to make a snack out of your brain has been significantly cut down from that of the original. To be fair, we can’t expect the Wii to throw hundreds of Zombies on screen at once like the 360 did, but that was all part of what made the game different from other Zombie shooters. Can this game retain its Dead Rising identity when ported to the Wii?
Check out the full Press Release and some screens after the jump.
When Portal: Still Alive was teased during Microsoft’s E3 press briefing last week, fans of Valve’s 2007 GOTY were understandably hungry for more details. Luckily, Doug Lombardi sat down with GameSetWatch recently to clear a few things up about the upcoming title.
First of all, Still Alive will not be a sequel to the first game. According to Lombardi, the newly announced game will simply be a re-release of Portal with some extra content thrown in (think GOTY edition). The extra content will come in the form of new maps and puzzles taken from the Portal: The Flash Game map pack, which is currently available for download to PC players free of charge. There will not be any extra storyline or GlaDOS content thrown in with these maps, so don’t expect any more of the unique Portal style comedic charm and sarcasm that we have all come to know and love.
No pricing information has been revealed as of yet, but I’m guessing that this version of the game will retail for around $20 in the U.S.
Here’s a one of those lower key annoucnements that always get overshadowed by the huge reveals at E3 (I’m looking at you FF XIII for 360). Fans of Capcom’s Zombie panic simulator Dead Rising will be interested to know that a modified version of the game will be hitting the Nintendo Wii sometime in the future. Yeah, were talking about some heavy wii-ification here folks.
Dead Rising: Zombie Sacrifice will be changing quite a few of the things that made the original game, well, the original game. First of all, players can forget all about the photo mode which was a primary focus alongside zombie killing in the Xbox 360 version. The camera angles have also been completely tossed and replaced by a Resident Evil 4 esque perspective, as the old views would likely never work out with the Wii’s unique controls set. The story missions have undergone massive changes as well. The openish main questline has been replaced with a more straightforeward linear approach to the same story, and Otis’ side resque missions have been scrapped altogether. Is this starting to sound like something other than Dead Rising to anyone other than me?
Now that we know what is being altered, lets take a look at the kind of stuff that is being added to the Wii version of the game. As far as we know, there will be new Zombified enemies to blast and a bunch of new weapons with which to blast them. There will also be a short side mission set which will take place before the main quest, and a new control scheme which will take full advantage of the Wii’s motion controls.
As a big time Dead Rising fan, I was honestly hoping for more of a “Dead Rising 2″ kind of announcement. I’m not exactly sure what to think of this one.
Everyone loves blasting zombies! If you love seeing Zombies getting blasted just as much, then this heap of Resident Evil 5 gameplay videos and demos that have come out of E3 should make you happy. Hit the jump for the rest of the vids. Continue reading ‘E3 ‘08: Resident Evil 5 Gameplay Footage Galore’
During Microsoft E3 presser, Cliff Bleszinski stepped on stage to show a nice 6 minute chunk of Gears of War 2’s co-op mode in action. The demonstration, shown above, really flaunted both the titles new weapons and the massive graphical improvements over the first game. All in all, Gears of War is not only looking sharp, but very finished as well. How many more months do we have to wait again?
As online multiplayer is becoming more and more important to gamers, devs are focusing more and more on creating unique online experiences for consoles as well as PC. While MMORPGs are extremely prevalent in the gaming world, large scale multiplayer action games have been largely absent up until now. Enter Massive Action Game, an upcoming PS3 title which will bring the feel of a gigantic battle to your living room by allowing for up to 256 player online multiplayer shott out sessions. Interested yet?
MAG will depend on squad based combat, with 8 player units making up the gigantic teams in play. Each squad will have its own leader, who will be decided by a ranking system based on skill and experience in previous games. The groups will each have their own small scale goals to carry out which will help their team’s completion of the overall objective. Think SOCOM on a HUGE scale.
The above trailer is pretty much all we have right now, but we are all eagerly awaiting more details about this game.
In keeping with the tradition of ending Press Briefings with a bang, Sony announced God of War III with the above reveal trailer in the final minutes of their E3 event yesterday. The teaser doesn’t really show us anything other than pre-rendered Kratos goodness, but just knowing that te game is under development will surely be enough to push GOW fans to the edge of their seats. We will keep you updated as we learn more.
During Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference, John Shappert, Director of Live Software and Services jumped on stage to show off how the Xbox 360’s dashboard will be completely revamped later this year. First and foremost, Shappert showed the completely reinvented user interface which does away with the sliding cross sections that we have come to know and love and replaces them with a sleeker media center-esque scrolling menu. Next we were introduced to Avatars, the uber-customizable mii-like mini characters that will be replacing the gamer picture that currently adorns player’s gamercards. Members will be able to purchase various clothing items and hairstyles for their Avatars, which will be integrated into various Xbox 360 games in the future (much like Nintendo’s miis).
Along with these design changes, the Xbox 360 will also be receiving the Xbox Live Party System, which will allow up to 8 Xbox Live members to interact all together in various different ways. The Party System will allow for things such as a large chat, a simultaneous XBLVM content viewing experience among friends, automatic 8 player gaming experiences in certain games, and many more virtual hang out activities.
In another attempt to bring a richer social aspect to Xbox Live, the New Xbox Live Experience will also include a new ‘Primetime’ channel, which will allow players and parties to take part in online versions of various popular game shows directly from their dashboard. In games such as 1 vs. 100, players will be able to play for real prizes while communicating with everyone involved.
These major changes to the Xbox 360’s UI are aimed at completely reinventing the user experience and taking it to more of a social level. Images will go up as soon as we get our hands on some clear ones.
Microsoft’s long rumored answer to Sony’s SingStar was finally made official today during Mr Softie’s E3 Press Conference. Lips, developed by Elite Beat Agent’s dev iNiS, will be released this holiday season exclusively for the Xbox 360. The title will come packaged with a wireless mic controller which will be sesitive to motion as well as the player’s voice. Light’s in the shaft of the peripheral will flash on and off in an equalizer type effect depending on how the player is singing at the time, and special percussion effects such as tambourine hits can apparently be activated at any time.
The innovative mic controller isn’t the only unique thing that Lips will bring to the table however, as it will be the first rhythm title in history to allow players to import their own music from an iPod or Zune for use in the game. Don Mattrick seems pretty confident that this title will be a big hit this holiday season, and with music games being all the rage recently
During Microsoft’s E3 Press Briefing this morning, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada stepped on stage to discuss some details of the RPGs that his company will be releasing on the Xbox 360 later this year. Among all of the standard Last Remnant and Star Ocean fare however, a surprising announcement was made involving the next installment of the all star Final Fantasy series. In dramatic fashion, Wada revealed that former Playstation exclusive FFXIII will be hitting the Xbox 360 on the same date that the PS3 version is released. A visibly enthusiastic Don Mattrick commented,
“Final Fantasy joins the growing list of former Playstation exclusives that have found a new home on the Xbox 360″
Now all we need is a solid release date for this game.
There may be more to that Xbox 360 Price Drop story then we first realized. According to a ‘trustworthy Microsoft Insider’ who leaked information to Ars Technica, not only will the 20GB 360 be getting a $50 price cut, but a new 60GB SKU will be hitting store shelves to replace it once its supplies are diminished. The leak says that the afformentioned bundle will be announced by Microsoft at E3 and will be going on sale sometime this month. The (soon to be) $299 20GB version would then be discontinued, effectively making the new price a mere clearance of sorts.
This one seems pretty plausible, but there is still the question of the 60GB SKU’s price point. My prediction is that, if this whole thing does turn out to be true, the 60GB model will launch with a $349 price tag while its lesser equipped sister SKU fades away at $299.
Funcom’s Age of Conan has been at the top of the PC NPD charts since its release last month, and has shipped over 1 million copies to retail outlets in that short time. In short, the game is damn successful. The developers love it, we love it, and the players love it. But how many players there are exactly? According to Sales & Marketing Veep Morten Larssen:
With more than 700,000 accounts created so far we have a fantastic platform to build from
Now before you say ‘But WoW has fourteen gajillion players’ it is important to realize that on the regular MMO scale, 700,000 accounts makes a behemoth of a game. In fact, Funcom believes that AoC is now the 2nd largest western MMO. Its good to see a new MMO seeing this kind of success, but could AoC ever become as huge as WoW?
If you were thinking about snatching up an Xbox 360 console in the next few weeks you might want to hold off for a little while, as we have been seeing more and more evidence pointing to an upcoming price drop each day. First there was a K-Mart ad which displayed the 20GB Xbox 360 bundle priced at $299 clear as day. Next we saw a similar ad from Radio Shack which also seemed legit. And now our latest piece of evidence comes via the folks at Hollywood Reporter, the same people who correctly predicted the last 360 price cut. The site claims that a major retailer has informed them that the price will drop to $299 right before E3 starts on July 15th. Believing this one yet?
If the 20GB console’s price does indeed drop to $299 in the coming weeks, it would be retailing for precisely $100 less than the 60GB Playstation 3 bundle. Sounds like a good deal for Microsoft and the consumer. Lets just hope this one comes to fruition.
In what may be one of the least surprising moves we have ever seen, EA and Harmonix have announced that Rock Band 2 will be hitting consoles not too long from now. While no specific timeframe (other than ‘this year’) has been revealed for PS3 and Wii versions of the game, Xbox 360 owners can look foreword to rocking out first when the game is released for the platform on September 30th.
The game will include all new set and tracklists, and will be able to play all of your downloadable songs from Rock Band 1 as well. In fact, Harmonix says that all current and future Rock Band DLC will be compatible with both titles, and that the weekly flow of new content will not be slowing down at any time in the foreseeable future. As far as peripherals go, players have been promised a set of quieter, more realistic instruments that will be more reliable than the ones that were shipped with the first title in the series.
Can the franchise that redefined the rythm genre strike again when put up against the newly band oriented Guitar Hero series? We will have to wait until E3 to find out if Rock Band 2 has what it takes.
Here it is; our first glimpse at the next installment in the Call of Duty series. Treyarch has promised to take a new, grittier look at WWII with World at War, and although they may not be Infinity Ward, they have been known to pop out a gem or two. Just try to be nice to them, okay?
Information about the game which will take the Call of Duty franchise back into the trenches of World War II has been pretty scarce since we first heard about it. Other than a few co-op, multiplayer, and weapon details, all we know is that the title will be set on the Pacific front of WWII and will be grittier than any other game on the market today (eep!). All of that is about to change however, as COD: World at War’s worldwide reveal trailer will be premiering exclusively on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace tomorrow.
Here’s hoping we get some juicy gameplay footage with this one! You can check out what Microsoft has to say about the game and its trailer after the jump.
Guitar Hero: World Tour is due out this holiday season, but before you decide whether or not to spend a bucketload of cash on another Band game, we are here to show you what Rock Band’s competition has up its sleeve in the hardware department. We have already seen Activsion’s attempt at upstaging Rock Band’s drum kit, but their newest Guitar peripheral has been a mystery up until now. As you can see from the picture above, the GH team is shooting for a much more realistic visual style with their latest Axe, and some of its new features add a certain degree of realism as well.
The most promintent new feature on this guitar controller is the touch sensitive slider located right next to the regular fret buttons on the neck. This sensor will allow players to alter the sounds of sustained notes by sliding their fingers back and forth across five frets, and can also be used to hammer rapid fire notes during difficult portions of songs. There is also a new button located where the bridge would be (on a real guitar) which can be used to activate star power for those times when you don’t feel like flipping the guitar up like a real rockstar. That is how real musicians activate star power, right?
The slider is the seller for me personally, but do these new features do it for you?
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