Late Night Consoling

The curiosity of the internet was piqued when The Movie Reporter claimed that Peter Jackson, recently announced as the executive producer for the Halo film adaptation, has contacted Guillermo del Toro as a possible director for the project. The Movie Reporter's post, filed by Chupacabra, claims that the information was somehow leaked at a New York press junket for Peter Jackson's soon to be released King Kong remake. Del Toro is best known for his directorial roles on Hellboy and Blade II, and is currently working on a sequel to Hellboy. Halo's script was written by Alex Garland, who wrote the screenplay to 28 Days Later and the novel on which The Beach was based, but fans have been waiting some time for news of a director.

Microsoft has officially launched its Xbox 360 console in European territories, and as expected, the machine is in high demand. Its European allocation was revealed to be about 300,000 units, and Microsoft execs across the pond have been saying pretty much the same thing as North American suits: more stock is on the way. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, tegional director Neil Thompson said, "I'll still be saying tomorrow what I've been saying for most of the day really, which is that every week we're going to be shipping units in. We're doing all we can to get as many planes and ships through as fast as we can - so that's my guarantee to people, that that's the effort we're putting into it."

The UK version of eBay shows that auction prices are wacky over there too.

It was recently revealed that former HAL Laboratories designer Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby, Smash Bros., and Meteos, is heading up development on the Revolution version of Super Smash Bros. Now, it appears that his involvement is only the beginning. Nintendo is opening a new studio for the purposes of developing the game, of which Sakurai will be in charge. Considering Sakurai founded his own development studio, Sora, in 2003, this is assumedly a temporary situation lasting until the release of the game.

The foundation of the studio's staff will be made up of a "particular company" just finishing up a major title. Nintendo also bought new offices in Tokyo rather than house the studio in the main Kyoto headquarters like most of the company's in-house groups. Sakurai expects at least 50 or so developers to eventually be handling the game. This news confirms that HAL Laboratories, which developed the prior Smash Bros. games, will not be working on the game directly, though all of HAL's development materials and tools from Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN) will be available to Sakurai's team, and some series veterans from HAL have joined the new team.

Development seems to have started only in May, when Nintendo president Satoru Iwata invited Sakurai to design the upcoming game. Given Nintendo's traditional reluctance to rush development, this suggests that even with so many resources poured into the game, it may not hit the Revolution's launch day as previously expected.

So far, Nintendo's method of information dispersal regarding the company's upcoming Revolution console has essentially been a rather aggravating carrot-on-a-stick type of thing. As soon as gamers think we know what's going on with the company or its console, some high-level executive pops up to say there are more secrets--but we can't know what they are. Well, here we go again. Kotaku reports from the Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference in Kyoto, Japan that during Nintendo design head Shigeru Miyamoto's address, he alluded to additional surprising functionality in the Revolution. After outlining some possibilities with the remote-like freehand controller and its "nunchaku" analog stick add-on, he went on to say, "There's another secret. But I'm not going to go into that here. That'll be for a later date." And after a picture of Mario apparently flashed on the screen behind him, he got off the stage and that was it. Wacky guesses may commence now.

Despite Microsoft's much-trumpeted simultaneous worldwide launch for its Xbox 360 console, Australian gamers won't actually be getting the machine until March 2, 2006. In what seems to be an attempt to keep hype in that region high and encourage preorders, Microsoft has launched the Xbox 360 VIP Premiere Club, open to residents of Australia and New Zealand. To become a member, purchase an Xbox 360 VIP Premiere Pack from a local retailer when it goes on sale December 8 (though some gamers have reported already getting their hands on them). The pack sells for AUD$149.95 and includes Rare's Perfect Dark Zero, a wireless controller, a faceplate, a DVD of preview and interview content, and a membership card needed to access the club website. Once obtaining the pack and card, gamers can...look wistfully at it for three months.

Nintendo's Nate Bihldorff speaks about his job as a localization writer and the process behind doing the English script for Alphadream's Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (DS).

Game Informer speaks with Criterion's creative director Alex Ward about Black (PS2, Xbox).