Late Night Consoling

Japanese magazines have the first bits of information on one of Mistwalker's two Xbox 360 titles. It's called Blue Dragon and there are three characters that'll play a central role: Jiro (a smarty-pants), Shu (adventurous spiky-haired kid), and Kruck (a mature girl). The game follows Shu and his blue dragon, which is oddly enough, his shadow! There still is a lot to be learned, but Akira Toriyama's influence is instantly noticed. "I've made many RPGs in my past, but I'm planning to make Blue Dragon the most satisfying in terms of volume," commented Sakaguchi. "It will have many adventures and tricks that can only be featured in video games. Please look forward to it."

Namco and Bandai will officially become one on Septemer 29, 2005 and become the second largest videogame and toy business behind Sega Sammy. Their new holding company will be called Namco Bandai Holdings. Bandai will hold a 53% stake with Namco holding the remaining 47%.

Sony announced today six titles that it plans to bring stateside, most notably Game Republic's Genji: Dawn of the Samurai and the spiritual successor to ICO, Shadow of the Colossus. Both were given release dates of Fall 2005. Three Neopets titles and The Con, a 3D fighter for the PSP, were also confirmed.

GamesAreFun has the latest information on Advance Wars DS, straight from the latest issue of Nintendo Power, and some cool new features are set to be included. For instance, players can now use Tag Battles where they take control of two Commanding Officers (CO), even able to use their special powers at the same time. The new campaign will contain 25 missions and feature the Black Hole enemy group. However, most intriguing, is a new mode that takes the game from turn-based to real-time. Move your units with the d-pad and attack with the stylus. There are others goodies, so check out the link.

Rumors had been circulating that Scarface: The World is Yours was now in development as a next-gen title. Speaking to GameSpot, VU Games confirmed that the game will be delayed until 2006 and will eventually release on the Xbox 360, but they did not specifically say it was canceled for either the PS2, Xbox, or PC.

20th Century Fox is planning to hop onto the PSP bandwagon and offer some films for release on the handheld. Video Business Online said, "retailers understand that film titles Dodgeball, Napoleon Dynamite, I, Robot, Super Troopers, and Predator are among the likely UMD output this year." In other news, both ABC and AtomFilms plan to release content formatted for the PSP. ABC is looking to port their tech program Ahead of the Curve whereas AtomFilms will offer three films for download: Football, In God We Trust, and Rockfish.