Late Night Consoling

Contrary to prior expectations, it looks like Sony may not in fact be demonstrating its upcoming PlayStation 3 at CES 2006, which begins tomorrow. Sony has yet to display its console in playable form for consumers, which led many to suspect the company would try to steal the show at CES. Sony had previously hinted at a non-E3 event early in 2006 for the full reveal, and if it's not CES then it may end up being a Sony-run affair.

With Nintendo bowing out this year and Microsoft's next-gen console already released, there might not be too many awesomely huge gaming announcements at this CES.

The BBC has a look at the upcoming generation of consoles, getting some quotes from staffers and executives at publishers such as EA and Ubisoft. There's not much new information since the information comes from publishers and not manufacturers, but there are some interesting observations and predictions.

Most notably is Ubisoft head Yves Guillemot's speculation on upcoming release dates. He sees Sony launching PS3 in June or July for Japan, followed by September and November for North America and Europe respectively. This gives an overall four to five month launch window for Sony, significantly shorter than its usual timeframe, which tends to be more on the order of nine months or so. Guillemot may be expecting Sony to try and tighten things up after Microsoft's sort-of-worldwide release within a few weeks, as well as Nintendo's goal of delivering Revolution worldwide within a 14 week window.

Guillemot expects Nintendo to ship in the same time frame for Japan and North America, but suspects Europe may have to wait until early 2007. This part of his prediction comes as a bit odd, given the aforementioned pledge by Nintendo to get the machine out in a timely fashion worldwide. It also contradicts this postcard sent out to various media outlets by Nintendo Europe which proclaims "En 2006 Nintendo Lance La Revolution; In 2006 Nintendo Launches A Revolution." That would be a pretty low blow if the thing was to hit Europe in 2007.

GamersReports noticed a retail release dates that includes a version of Far Cry Instincts for Xbox 360. GR makes the slightly cynical observation that there is no 360 compatibility for the Xbox version of the game, which might be an intentional "oversight" intended to spur sales of the newer iteration, if it in fact is in the works. Similar claims have been made about certain EA games such as Burnout Revenge, which has a confirmed Xbox 360 version in the works.

It was recently confirmed that Gouichi Suda, Capcom/Grasshopper's designer of Killer 7 (PS2, GCN), is working on an RPG for DS entitled Contact. It has now been confirmed via the game's official website that it will feature online capabilities via Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service. Previously, it was known that the game would feature some kind of wireless capability, but gamers have had false expectations for some DS games when publishers failed to specify what exactly they meant by "wi-fi." This time around, it looks like the game will go online, but in what capacity remains unknown.

Contact will ship in Japan next month; a North American release date has not been given.

Reuters reports that Nintendo has reached worldwide sales of 10 million for its portable DS system. The article seems to imply that these are sales to consumers rather than to retailers. Half of those sales are in Japan, which apparently makes the machine the fastest selling console ever in that country, beating out systems such as Game Boy Advance and PlayStation 2. The US has seen almost 4 million of the total sales. The most recent European numbers put the console at above 1 million sales, but that number has not been updated since last June, which suggests the overall numbers are not quite accurate.

GameSpot has some additional stats, noting that the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service has had 550,000 unique users since its debut. This suggests about an 11% overall penetration rate, which is on par with what Microsoft has seen with its Xbox Live service, though it's important to note that Live achieved that percentage even while charging a monthly fee.

Sales numbers for PSP are notoriously difficult to track down, with Sony frequently releasing numbers that don't seem to measure up to NPD numbers. Currently, NPD says Sony has sold 2.5 million units in the US, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says it's sold 2.7 million, and Sony says it's sold about 3 million.

Noted Ubisoft designer Michel Ancel spoke with Eurogamer today, primarily about his work on the recently-released King Kong game adaptation. He gives a lot of interesting responses with a lot more substance than I'm used to from game designer interviews these days. On the prospect of a sequel to the excellent Beyond Good & Evil (PS2, Xbox, GCN), he comments, "I'd love to, and it's always in my mind. One day maybe!" and says he wouldn't mind returning to his creation Rayman either. He also has a really good answer to why the game didn't sell particularly well despite positive reviews and excellent reactions from those who actually played it, and it's an answer that can be applied to many unique or offbeat games these days.

In regards to the question of whether games can be considered art, prompted by recent comments from film critic Roger Ebert, Ancel submits that they can. He suggests that, like other forms, those who are not familiar with the language of games are not well equipped to determine what a good or a bad game is, and points to the vast range of factors a designer must control in order to relate a certain emotional experience to a player.

A writer from 4 color rebellion who lives in Japan weighs in on accusations of racism or xenophobia among Japanese gamers when it comes to the Xbox 360. He points out the very range of American-made producs that are wildly successful in Japan and suggests that the reason the Xbox 360 is selling even slower in Japan than its Xbox predecessor is because there simply aren't games that Japanese gamers want. Let's be honest here, if you've seen the weak six-game lineup the machine launched with in Japan, you shouldn't be surprised that the thing isn't selling very well. Japan is certainly known as a county with a high degree of nationalistic pride, but the article points out that there are countless American firms which have succeeded in Japan by way of changing or refining their products to fit Japanese taste. Microsoft has certainly been attracting plenty of Japanese development content, but the promise of future games isn't enough to sell a console if there aren't plenty of worthwhile games out already. The poor launch is no doubt going to hurt the 360 in Japan, but sales should pick up as the games library broadens.

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