Friday 19 October 2007
Thursday 18 October 2007
Wednesday 17 October 2007
GRAW 2 Co-Op Collection
Five new missions and nine new maps are coming to Xbox Marketplace. First details and full Achievements list.
- A few fairly major shooters shipped in the past few weeks and, frankly, Ubisoft is sick of everyone going ga-ga over Halo 3 and Orange Box. GRAW 2 has been lost in the busy FPS season (and Game of the Year conversation). Ubisoft hopes to change that, by getting gamers to pop GRAW 2 back into their 360s. To do this, Ubisoft is releasing the GRAW 2 Co-Op Collection in late October or early November.The Co-Op Collection offers five brand new campaign missions that continue the story from GRAW 2. There are also nine adversarial maps for online play. Seven of these maps are remakes of GRAW classics, while two are brand-spankin' new. And for those Achievement whores out there, the Co-Op Collection offers nine new Achievements totally 125 Gamerpoints.
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Xbox 360 Gets Exclusive Guitar Hero III Tracks
Guitar Hero is truly a phenomenon. Now they are including Xbox Live freebies on music soundtracks. I thought I’ve seen everything until now. Here’s the full release:
MORE THAN A VIDEOGAME SOUNDTRACK - GUITAR HERO® III: LEGENDS OF ROCK COMPANION PACK BREAKS THROUGH WITH PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED SONGS EXCLUSIVE TO XBOX 360SANTA MONICA, CA - October 16, 2007 - Music and videogames take the next step in the digital revolution with expansion songs included with a game’s soundtrack CD for the first time. Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock Companion Pack (Interscope Records), to be released on October 23, 2007, features not only the key songs on Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock, available October 28, 2007, but also exclusive access to more gameplay with three previously unreleased expansion songs to play with Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock for Xbox 360.
Included in each Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Companion Pack is a unique code users may input at www.interscope.com/guitarherocode to receive a unique Xbox Live code. Users may then input the Xbox Live code into their Xbox 360 console when logged into Xbox Live, to download the expansion songs. Xbox Live codes are expected to be available when Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock launches on October 28.
The three expansion tracks are “Carcinogen Crush” from AFI (from an EP due in December), “Tina” from Flyleaf and a remix of Marilyn Manson’s “Putting Holes In Happiness” by Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The latter two recordings also are heard on the soundtrack CD, along with AFI’s “Miss Murder,” Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing,” Queens Of The Stone Age’s “3’s And 7’s,” Smashing Pumpkins’ “Cherub Rock,” Velvet Revolver’s “Slither,” Living Colour’s “Cult Of Personality,” Rise Against’s “Prayer Of The Refugee,” the Guitar Hero rendition of “Devil Went Down To Georgia” by Steve Ouimette and the game’s intro by Slash, who is also a character in the game.Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will include explosive new content and features including a multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a host of exclusive unlockable content and visually stunning rock venues. Expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. While continuing to retain all the key features from their prior legendary performances, fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a killer set list from many of the most popular rock songs ever recorded.
For the first time ever, Guitar Hero fans will also be able to thrash and burn with new wireless guitar controllers available for each platform, including exclusive Gibson Guitar’s Les Paul model for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii(tm) home video game system from Nintendo, and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. PlayStation®2 gamers will also get to shred on a new exclusive shape, Gibson’s Kramer guitar, popularized by hard rockers and known for its body design, pickups, electronics and construction for furious finger fretting.
MORE THAN A VIDEOGAME SOUNDTRACK - GUITAR HERO® III: LEGENDS OF ROCK COMPANION PACK BREAKS THROUGH WITH PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED SONGS EXCLUSIVE TO XBOX 360SANTA MONICA, CA - October 16, 2007 - Music and videogames take the next step in the digital revolution with expansion songs included with a game’s soundtrack CD for the first time. Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock Companion Pack (Interscope Records), to be released on October 23, 2007, features not only the key songs on Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock, available October 28, 2007, but also exclusive access to more gameplay with three previously unreleased expansion songs to play with Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock for Xbox 360.
Included in each Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Companion Pack is a unique code users may input at www.interscope.com/guitarherocode to receive a unique Xbox Live code. Users may then input the Xbox Live code into their Xbox 360 console when logged into Xbox Live, to download the expansion songs. Xbox Live codes are expected to be available when Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock launches on October 28.
The three expansion tracks are “Carcinogen Crush” from AFI (from an EP due in December), “Tina” from Flyleaf and a remix of Marilyn Manson’s “Putting Holes In Happiness” by Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The latter two recordings also are heard on the soundtrack CD, along with AFI’s “Miss Murder,” Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing,” Queens Of The Stone Age’s “3’s And 7’s,” Smashing Pumpkins’ “Cherub Rock,” Velvet Revolver’s “Slither,” Living Colour’s “Cult Of Personality,” Rise Against’s “Prayer Of The Refugee,” the Guitar Hero rendition of “Devil Went Down To Georgia” by Steve Ouimette and the game’s intro by Slash, who is also a character in the game.Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will include explosive new content and features including a multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a host of exclusive unlockable content and visually stunning rock venues. Expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. While continuing to retain all the key features from their prior legendary performances, fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a killer set list from many of the most popular rock songs ever recorded.
For the first time ever, Guitar Hero fans will also be able to thrash and burn with new wireless guitar controllers available for each platform, including exclusive Gibson Guitar’s Les Paul model for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii(tm) home video game system from Nintendo, and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. PlayStation®2 gamers will also get to shred on a new exclusive shape, Gibson’s Kramer guitar, popularized by hard rockers and known for its body design, pickups, electronics and construction for furious finger fretting.
Tekken 6 On Xbox 360 Is Highly Probable
Tekken 6 will be hitting the Playstation 3 in 2008. Tekken has always been a Playstation only series since day one. Even the first Tekken was developed on the PS1 arcade board. Namco followed suit with every game in the series including 6, which is being developed on PS3 arcade hardware. Another series that was Playstation only was the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat 6 is now a 360 exclusive. Does Namco have reason to bring Tekken 6 to the 360? Read on for the facts.
We’ve already seen proof that it’s easy to port any game over to the 360. AM2 did just that with Virtua Fighter 5 which is graphically identical to it’s PS3 cousin. So porting Tekken 6 over wouldn’t be a difficult task. It’s all a matter of whether or not putting Tekken 6 on the 360 makes sense financially.
Halo 3 sales opened the eyes of a lot of game publishers. You can’t deny that they want a piece of the Halo pie. The 360 attach rate is higher in Japan than it is for the PS3. It’s 3.6 games per system on the 360 versus 1.7 games per system on the PS3. With an attach rate so high it’s almost a no brainer to greenlight games on the 360. It’s why Ridge Racer, Beautiful Katamari and Ace Combat 6 are already on the 360.
The next thing it comes down to is whether or not 3D fighting games are still good sellers. Well we know they sell in the US, but in Japan it’s quite different. To everyone’s surprise, Virtua Fighter 5 moved only 82,000 copies total in Japan. That’s pretty sad considering Virtua Fighter 2 broke 1 million+ and the acclaimed worst game in the series, Virtua Fighter 3TB moved 365,000 copies. Attach rate is a big deciding factor. It’s probably what made Sega put Virtua Fighter 5 on the 360 in the first place.
Japanese publishers are highly interested in the western market these days. In order to sell their IP’s to a worldwide market, they must be more open to system diversity. You cannot ignore a combined 360/PS3 userbase of 18 million. The possibility of Tekken 6 coming out on the 360 is very high given the current state of gaming. We won’t know for sure until next year so for now, enjoy Katamari and AC6.
We’ve already seen proof that it’s easy to port any game over to the 360. AM2 did just that with Virtua Fighter 5 which is graphically identical to it’s PS3 cousin. So porting Tekken 6 over wouldn’t be a difficult task. It’s all a matter of whether or not putting Tekken 6 on the 360 makes sense financially.
Halo 3 sales opened the eyes of a lot of game publishers. You can’t deny that they want a piece of the Halo pie. The 360 attach rate is higher in Japan than it is for the PS3. It’s 3.6 games per system on the 360 versus 1.7 games per system on the PS3. With an attach rate so high it’s almost a no brainer to greenlight games on the 360. It’s why Ridge Racer, Beautiful Katamari and Ace Combat 6 are already on the 360.
The next thing it comes down to is whether or not 3D fighting games are still good sellers. Well we know they sell in the US, but in Japan it’s quite different. To everyone’s surprise, Virtua Fighter 5 moved only 82,000 copies total in Japan. That’s pretty sad considering Virtua Fighter 2 broke 1 million+ and the acclaimed worst game in the series, Virtua Fighter 3TB moved 365,000 copies. Attach rate is a big deciding factor. It’s probably what made Sega put Virtua Fighter 5 on the 360 in the first place.
Japanese publishers are highly interested in the western market these days. In order to sell their IP’s to a worldwide market, they must be more open to system diversity. You cannot ignore a combined 360/PS3 userbase of 18 million. The possibility of Tekken 6 coming out on the 360 is very high given the current state of gaming. We won’t know for sure until next year so for now, enjoy Katamari and AC6.
Paramount will release 30+ HD DVDs next year
On October 9, the DVD Forum held a DVD Conference in Universal City, Calif. Here, Paramount commented on its HD DVD support so far.With only four exclusive HD DVDs for the rest of 2007, the studio promised to bump things up next year. According to a representative, 30 titles exclusive for HD DVD from Paramount and DreamWorks are already planned for 2008.They went HD DVD only this August.
Will the 360 beat the wii we find out on 18oct!
Vgchartz reports that the Xbox 360 has lead the next-generation consoles in sales for the month of September. They attribute much of the gain to the release of Halo 3. On October 18, 2007 at approximately 6:00 pm EST, NPD will release its data for the USA and Canada videogame markets - barring delay. The figures in the report will cover ‘September' which is a five week period running from September 2 to October 6. The previous month was only four weeks. For the purposes of comparison, data from NPD and Vgchartz has been assembled below. Over the five week September period, Vgchartz reported the following figures. Platform....8-Sep....15-Sep....22-Sep....29-Sep.....6-Oct....Totals DS........109,710...111,962...120,520...143,137...135,581...620,910 Xbox 360...75,690....88,658...103,530...122,834...129,986...520,698 Wii.......116,659....93,455....92,504....98,173....95,800...496,591 PSP........47,409....69,113....77,144....88,586....91,966...374,218 PS2........56,726....54,979....57,015....61,409....60,804...290,933 PS3........51,714....30,158....27,122....29,618....29,781...168,393 GBA........17,729....17,497....19,071....21,269....21,579....97,145
Monday 15 October 2007
Film Execs Blame Halo 3 for Poor Movie Ticket Sales
Movie ticket sales for October are already being recorded as some of the lowest in recent years. And who’s to blame according to the film industry? Why, Master Chief of course. Several film executives and researchers are convinced that many movie-goers stayed home playing the game instead of venturing out to the theater.
“The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you’d see in cinemas,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, a Denver research firm, adding that “this could last for several weeks.”
As their prime example, they cite the newest Ben Stiller comedy, The Heartbreak Kid, which cost $60 million and only collected $14 million on its opening weekend. What they don’t mention though is how that same weekend another film, The Game Plan, starring The Rock, collected $2 million more than Heartbreak Kid, even though it had been out for a week. Mark Weinstock, marketing chief at Screen Gems, who released the newest Resident Evil movie, has noted that mediocre reviews and an R rating could have hurt the movie’s sales just as much as Halo.
Honestly, this whole thing isn’t all that surprising to me. Every weekend, me and my friends look at what’s out in theaters to see if there’s anything that worth paying $8 to see. For the past month, the answer has been a resounding, “No,” and then we usually rent an old movie or, yep, play video games. My point is, if people actually want to go to the theater, but can’t find anything worth seeing, I wouldn’t completely fault a video game for poor ticket sales. Let this be a lesson to you, film execs: don’t give Ben Stiller $60 million to make a movie. Just don’t do it.
“The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you’d see in cinemas,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, a Denver research firm, adding that “this could last for several weeks.”
As their prime example, they cite the newest Ben Stiller comedy, The Heartbreak Kid, which cost $60 million and only collected $14 million on its opening weekend. What they don’t mention though is how that same weekend another film, The Game Plan, starring The Rock, collected $2 million more than Heartbreak Kid, even though it had been out for a week. Mark Weinstock, marketing chief at Screen Gems, who released the newest Resident Evil movie, has noted that mediocre reviews and an R rating could have hurt the movie’s sales just as much as Halo.
Honestly, this whole thing isn’t all that surprising to me. Every weekend, me and my friends look at what’s out in theaters to see if there’s anything that worth paying $8 to see. For the past month, the answer has been a resounding, “No,” and then we usually rent an old movie or, yep, play video games. My point is, if people actually want to go to the theater, but can’t find anything worth seeing, I wouldn’t completely fault a video game for poor ticket sales. Let this be a lesson to you, film execs: don’t give Ben Stiller $60 million to make a movie. Just don’t do it.
Perfect Dark 2 - Xbox 360’s Next Humungous Killer App
Microsoft’s in a bit of tangy soup at the moment, with so many mergers, acquisitions and transfers taking place, it seems the industry seems to be poised on a much more global front, majority of developers being engulfed in bigger organizations which push for a multi platform development.
This year has been an absolute blast form Microsoft, its stellar line up of games has satiated almost every gamer’s fantasy, with regular intervals of AAA titles. Microsoft “may” end up very well being Sony of 2007, funny analogy but quite true, but where does this juggernaut do when the New Year dawns upon.
My sources tell me “Rare” will be back and ready to take the reigns from the Chief himself. The game is probably coming along considerably well and is a step up in the genre of first person shooters, cutting down on all the other festive string of words, Joanna dark is back in the “sequel” to the smash hit N64 game Perfect Dark.
Although most parts of the story are under wraps, I managed to get hold of a couple of hints to the game. Joanna’s character has got significant changes, she is darker than usual to give the player a feeling of a twisted edge and the entire game has tints of grey surrounding all the characters.
The world is now based on a morality system, choices are going to have a huge impact on the gameplay, giving players a variety branches in the storyline itself. (This was somewhat there in the previous games as well, but in those played out in terms of levels of difficulty).
The engine that is being used allows full interactivity with the environment, and there are probably going to be no cutscenes in the entire game, everything is going to be from the player’s perspective.
Half-life is the only game so far that can pull off such a trick and allow a pure sense of seamlessness in the entire game. The AI responds to emotions of fear and aggression of the player and its teammates.
An official announcement is due sometime during the latter part of next year. Gamasutra had a little chat with a couple of its key members and this is what they had to say about their next project:
“Hopefully our next game will be out…We’ll be able to talk about something next year, we hope Hopefully you’ll see something from us before next Christmas.”
At this point of time this is still a “big rumor” floating around so wait for the official announcement guys. It’s definitely going to be big as Halo with Microsoft pumping it all up, and will probably test Rare’s true potential with the next generation of games.
Elite sells through in japan
Are things beginning to turn around for Microsoft? Maybe, just maybe: Last Friday, the Xbox 360 Elite went on sale in Japan. By the end of the day, the black HDMI console with a 120GB HD sold out at several major Akihabara retailers. AsoBitCity, Gamers, Messe Sanoh and Sofmap sold through all their Elites on launch day. When the Xbox 360 originally went on sale in Japan, it bombed. No, it worse than bombed. The 360 launch was a miserable failure, and Microsoft has been playing catch-up ever since. These Elite sell outs do come as a surprise.
Sunday 14 October 2007
Xbox 360 & PS3 Have Assassin's Creed Problems
Xbox 360 & PS3 Have Assassin's Creed Problems
by Matt Gibbs
The creative director of Assassin's Creed has told Pro-G that they are struggling to make the game as good on the Playstation 3 as it is on the Xbox 360 due to memory problems. However the 360 version is not without its own issues either - they are also struggling to fit everything on to the Xbox 360 DVD format as opposed to the Blu-ray of the PS3.
"Both have their own challenges. Right now we have a big challenge on the 360 to make it fit on a DVD, to put five languages, to put all the data on eight gigs. On the Blu-ray side we're really good, but then the memory is quite different. How we handle memory is really different between the two machines and we're struggling right now on the PS3. But we have people who are really dedicated and we're having help from Microsoft on one side and Sony on the other side to have the same quality on both systems. It really depends on the week basically as to who's best."
However Ubisoft have assured everyone that there will be "the same quality on both systems" as they have gotten people in from both the Sony and Microsoft camps to sort out the issues.
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