Late Night Consoling

Nintendo held a press conference yesterday morning (last night to us Westerns) in Tokyo, at which the company made several announcements pertaining to its popular DS handheld. The item of greatest interest is the announcement that Norwegian web technology firm Opera is developing a web browser for DS. Opera's browsers are popular for portable applications because of their adaptive technology which makes web pages more suitable to small screen sizes, though the company notes that browser itself will be based on the same core as its PC browser. However, the browser will not support Java, Flash, or PDF. It will include handwriting recognition software and a touch keyboard, such as those used in several existing DS games. The software will be sold as a cartridge, and goes on sale in June for a price approximately equal to US$30. Despite the currently announced agreement pertaining to Nintendo's Japanese operations, Opera also released an English-language press release.

For a general idea of how the browser display content not intended for portable devices, check this screenshot.

Nintendo also announced a wireless digital TV tuner for DS that will take advantage of Japan's upcoming 1seg digital television broadcast system. The 1seg system will launch April 1, but the tuner has no release date set.

In regards to whether the browser or tuner would be available in non-Japanese territories, Nintendo of America supplied to Shacknews the following statement: "At this time Nintendo has not announced any information about the availability of these products in the Western Hemisphere." The chances of the tuner making it over are basically nil given its reliance on a Japanese digital broadcast standard, but don't be surprised to see Opera's browser make it to our shores.

Other points of note regarding the DS announced at the conference:
- New Super Mario Bros. will be released in Japan this May.
- The next DS iteration of Konami's World Soccer Winning Eleven will feature online play through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (small screenshots)
- Nintendo announced a cooking game for DS that is, contrary to what one might expect, an actual interactive cookbook rather than a cooking simulator. It will support user voice commands and recipes will be searchable by ingredient. This one seems like a long shot for a non-Japanese release.
- A Japanese calligraphy trainer is in the works for DS. Scratch another one up for the Probably Staying in Japan list.
- A Japanese Kanji dictionary, also featuring Japanese to English and English to Japanese dictionaries, was announced. It has Kanji handwriting recognition support. I'd say this is likely to leave Japan eventually.
- Footage of DS titles Children of Mana from Square Enix and Xenosaga I+II from Namco and Monolith was also shown. No major announcements about the games were made, but they are both expected to make it to non-Japanese territories.

Building on the recent rumors that Sony is working on an Xbox Live-like service to compete with Microsoft's lauded online initiative in the console world, Next Generation has received word from "well-placed industry sources" that Sony's rumored PlayStation 3 and PSP service is called PlayStation HUB. According to Next Generation's sources, HUB will offer PS3 owners features such as voice chat, game demos, and smaller full games. It will reportedly also offer a broad range of other media such as music and movies. This would presumably be integrated with Sony's Connect service. HUB is claimed to be largely developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

GameSpot followed up on the story, and got the following reaction from a PS3 developer who claims to be in the know regarding HUB: "They [Sony management] don't understand it. They don't understand why it's important. They don't get what developers need to make it good. They're trying to adapt due to tons of inside pressure (there are, of course, many incredibly brilliant people in Sony who have been screaming about this stuff for about a decade), but essentially Microsoft is on the cutting edge of this stuff and Sony is like your grandmother who just got her first AOL account."

Next Generation hazards a guess at a nearly simultaneous North American and Japanese release this September, based entirely on a game release list which does not actually specify launch territories. This is the part of the report that is hardest to swallow. Sony has never in the past released hardware in two major territories in anywhere near the one-week timeframe Next-Gen suggests. Furthermore, Microsoft representatives have recently become more open about admitting that the Xbox 360's somewhat worldwide simultaneous launch is probably not something the company would attempt again in the near future. It is safe to assume that, while Microsoft's machine faced huge demand in North America and Europe, Sony's PS3 will face equally high demand in its home territory of Japan. Launching the console in the same month in two of the PS3's most major territories, especially so soon before the crucial holiday season, seems like an overly risky move for a company currently heavily dependent on its PlayStation division.

Developer Zipper Interactive, which was recently purchased by Sony, has updated its job listings page on its official website. It includes numerous mentions to "a large-scale multiplayer game on a next generation console." Considering Zipper's first party status (and longstanding Sony support beforehand) as well as its exclusive dedication to its popular SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs franchise since the first game shipped in 2002, it seems reasonable to assume that the game in question is a SOCOM title for PS3. SOCOM was a prime driver of gamer participation in the PS2's online capabilities, so it's likely Sony will look towards the franchise to do similar things for PS3.

The slow trickle of confirmed Revolution news continues as what appears to be the first known launch title for the system was revealed today. Publisher Tecmo and Korean developer NTREEV Soft announced a Revolution version of the PC golf game PangYa (the announcement page includes screenshots from the existing PC version). There is also an English-language version of the game called Albatross18: Realms of Pangya. Unlike the PC version, the game will apparently allow multiple people to play at once on the same console. Online support was also implied. Finally, the game will make full use of the Revolution controller, which fits the idea of a golf game. It should be noted that PangYa is not a Nintendo product other than being in development for a Nintendo console, and does not constitute "Nintendo's first revealed Revolution game" or anything of that nature. No details were given regarding a release of the game in territories such as North America or Europe.

Thanks to Shacker -mu- for the translation!

The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification ratings board has refused classification to The Collective's Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (PS2, Xbox). By refusing to rate the title, the organization has effectively banned it from store shelves. "Both the National Classification Code and the Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games state that a computer game will be refused classification if it includes or contains detailed instruction or promotion of matters of crime," stated OFLC convener Maureen Shelley, referring to the game's focus around graffiti culture. The board decided in a 3 to 2 vote that the game indeed "promotes crime." The vote was in fact locked 2 to 2 for several meetings, making it necessary for Shelley to decide the matter by casting her own vote.

The OFLC made news during last year's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas debacle when the organization retroactively revoked classification to the game it had previously rated MA 15+, meaning it is suitable to players 15 years of age and older. Grand Theft Auto III was refused classification upon release. - Press release.

Philadelphia's Channel 6 Action News lived up to its name yesterday, uncovering the seedy side of the DS. Pedophiles/killers/rapists can in fact use the Pictochat feature of DS to harrass unsuspecting children without showing their faces. Fortunately, the machine's designers also saw fit to include a power button as well as the ability to leave Pictochat rooms at any time.

In other news, video games are evil.

Shacknews has an interview with senior producer Dan Blackstone on DICE's Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (X360, also PS2, Xbox).

Shacker -mu- has translated two interesting interviews with Ico (PS2) and Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) creator Fumito Ueda. The first includes responses from producer Kenji Kaido; the second is the more insightful of the two and goes into Ueda's thoughts on game design. Ueda also reveals that his team is "definitely not" considering a sequel to Shadow of the Colossus, preferring to work on original projects.