Late Night Consoling

According to sources close to GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo will focus on the handheld side of things at E3 and will barely talk much about their next-gen console codenamed Revolution. The DS online service, now being provided by GameSpy, and a new iteration of the GBA hardware will take center stage at the big media briefing on Tuesday. This is not the next-gen GBA, it'll be something similar to the GBASP, possibly including the new media player functions and wireless connectivity. As for Revolution, GI.biz suspects that no hardware or specs will be revealed and a video of next-gen footage will be all gamers get. IGN, however, says we may even see the system, learn its official name, and get a few tech specs. The controller, however, will still be kept a secret.

Could Nintendo launch their next console not long after Microsoft's? That's what Mark Voll, interim CEO of Monolithic System Technology, believes. His company is supplying memory technology for Nintendo's Revolution and in the transcript of an earnings call, he stated: "We are excited to be a participating member of the Nintendo team once again, as Nintendo will roll out and success game console to the GameCube in mid-2006." A possible summer launch? We'll probably have to wait a while to know for sure as Nintendo may not reveal much about Revolution at this year's E3.

Ubisoft made it known today that they will be sending Sam Fisher on a top secret mission to the Nintendo DS. Instead of being a simplified sidescroller like the GBA game, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory DS will be pretty much a port of the console versions. Coop will be included with five different missions. The single player will receive an entirely unique mission for the DS. Touch control comes into play when managing the inventory and switching between vision modes. All of the gadgets found in the console version makes their way onto the DS. Expect it this June.

Tom Clancy's latest game will be hitting store shelves this September, Ubisoft announced today. The game is currently in polish mode and developers will be hosting a chat this Thursday (check link for info). If you were wondering, the PC version is slated for early 2006.

Square Enix announced today that it has made fifteen soundtracks from the Final Fantasy series available for purchase over Apple's iTunes. The soundtracks are for Final Fantasy I, II, and IV through XI, Music from Dear Friends, and two Black Mage Albums. Prices range from $5.99 for the NES games to $24.99 for the more recent FFs.

Midway announced a trio of titles that it plans to release on the PSP. Portable versions of NBA Ballers, Mortal Kombat: Deception, and Midway Arcade Treasures were named. MK and MAT will release in the winter with Ballers coming out early next year. Midway Arcade Treasures will feature multiplayer support for 16 games, including Mortal Kombats 1-3, Rampage, Gauntlet, and Paper Boy.

20th Century Fox revealed the list movies they'll be bringing to the UMD format for release on the PSP. In July we'll see Super Troopers, Napoleon Dynamite, I, Robot, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Predator.

The Tokyo development team for Microsoft Game Studios released downloadable content over Xbox Live for their value-priced title Phantom Dust. The update adds 36 new skills and tweaks existing ones for better balancing.

GameSpot posts the latest entry for the Batman Begins designer diary.