Late Night Consoling
As we creep into January, one fact has inevitably started to come up in conversation: we're merely four months from E3. Although nothing is 100% certain at this point, buzz has started to indicate that this year's show is going to be seriously BIG. The last couple of years have had their exciting moments, but this year's could easily blow them away within the first 24 hours. So what's on tap? We already know we're definitely going to see the world premiere of Sony's PSP handheld system and Nintendo's mystery console, but what's looking more and more likely is a second showing (following the expected GDC premiere in March) of the Xbox2, and even a possible PlayStation3 announcement or second showing. Yowza. As usual, I'll be there providing my unique brand of sleepless coverage, and hopefully I'll be able to get up close and personal with more big-name people this year (incidentally, if anyone knows anyone at Tecmo, contact me...I desperately want to interview Tomonobu Itagaki).
| Square Hits PlayOnline Milestone This is actually more of a PC story than an LNC one, but since it's Square related (and the North American Final Fantasy XI launch is coming up soon) I might as well mention it here...Square Enix USA announced today that their PlayOnline service has passed the 500,000 registered users mark worldwide. Of course, as any MMORPG player will tell you, the number of registered users doesn't mean nearly as much as the number of active users, but hey, it's something. According to EBGames, the FFXI will PS2 HDD will ship on 3/23. |
| Japanese Developers on PSP Computer and Video Games has posted a summary of an article that ran in the Japanese magazine Famitsu regarding the current status of PSP development among Japanese developers. There's not much in the way of new information here, but they do say that Koei is working on three titles (although we already knew that), Sega will announce their first titles at "an upcoming industry show", Namco is working on two or three launch titles, while Capcom and Konami plan at least one launch title each. As for Square Enix, they're said to be "considering whether or not to publish on the PSP", although I have heard pretty solid rumors that suggest otherwise. |
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| PS2 Launches in China It's not quite the overwhelmingly huge launch we were originally expecting, but nonetheless, Sony has launched the PS2 in China. The system is now available in two cities (Shanghai and Guangzhou) with a single launch title available, although since that title is ICO, you can't accuse Sony of emphasizing quantity over quality (as far as I'm concerned, that's a better launch lineup than the Japanese or North American ones combined). |
| Vague Xbox Hints In an interview with Reuters, Microsoft's Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach provided some vague hints at the future of the Xbox (and not a whole lot else). Among the noncommittal facts you'll find in the interview is no general timeframe for the Halo 2 launch ("We're going to ship it when it's ready...That might be the first half of 2004, it might not."), and this tidbit about their plans for the Xbox 2 launch, "Really, the imperative is to not give anyone a head start." |
| CES Handheld Roundtable 1UP has posted a report from a roundtable discussion at CES that featured representatives from Sony, Nokia, Intel and Tapwave, in which the topic at hand was the future of handheld gaming. With no one from Nintendo present, this was obviously not a well-rounded discussion, but the subject of new methods for game distribution was discussed, along with the newly approaching world of handheld 3D gaming. |
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| Ubisoft Responds to Rainbow Six Porn Link Yesterday's column at CNN/Money that pointed out a URL from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 that went to a page with links to porn sites prompted a rather entertaining response from Ubisoft. As if pulling a line from their own anti-terrorism game, they responded, "Ubisoft has a clear policy that under any circumstances it will not pay blackmail money to anyone." |
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| The Suffering Q&A Computer and Video Games has conducted a Q&A with Matt Vella, the associate producer on the upcoming survival horror title The Suffering. In other sufferable news, Team Xbox has a new preview of the game online. |
| More Next-Gen Speculation Much like last night's column over at IGN, GameSpy has posted their own article summarizing the current rumors about the next-generation of console systems. Just like that article last night, there's really nothing new here, but if you want to know what's currently known and/or speculated, it's worth a read. |
| Misc. Media/Previews | |
| GameInformer and Planet GameCube have new previews of Baten Kaitos, while IGN has new media from the game. Also at Planet GameCube is a new look at Donkey Konga. |
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| The Magic Box has new shots from Dragon Quest V, Firefighter F.D. 18 and Killzone, |
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| IGN has posted a new preview of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (PS2, Xbox) as well as some new media from 007: Everything or Nothing (GC, PS2, Xbox). |
