Late Night Consoling
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Contents Under Pressure is Under Fire
[ps2]Groups such as Keep America Beautiful and the National Council to Prevent Delinquency have begun warning elected officials and law enforcement at the city level that the release of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure might lead to "increased property crime by juveniles" upon the game's September release. The groups are lobbying the ESRB to assign the game "the most restrictive rating possible" (by which they assumedly mean Adults Only) and have also requested that publisher Atari have its advertising curtailed. They claim that Atari is violating "the ARC principle that 'all advertisements should be created with a sense of responsibility toward the public.'"
In response, Atari issued a statement in defense of the upcoming game. The company claims that "Marc Ecko�s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure provides fun, innovative, and challenging game-play", noting that "the focus of the game is on expression through art; the hero is typically equipped with only paint, and never guns." Ecko himself has also posted "A Letter" on his public blog, defending the art form of graffiti though not specifically referencing the game.
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Japanese PlayStation.com to Restrict "Over 18"
[ps2]Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has announced that its online shopping site at PlayStation.com will begin requiring proof of age when customers wish to purchase a game rated "Over 18". This comes after the Japanese games industry collectively agreed to cooperate with retailers in keeping certain games out of the hands of minors. Grand Theft Auto III in particular has raised controversy in the country (independent of the Hot Coffee scandal), and at least one prefecture has already deemed the game a "harmful publication", which restricts it from being sold to minors at all. Other prefectures are considering similar moves.
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Metal Gear To Go Online
[ps2]Konami has revealed some noteworthy details regarding Metal Gear Solid 3: Substinence (PS2), due out this November. For one thing, Substinance will be the first game in the acclaimed series to contain online modes: the expected deathmatch and team deathmatch as well as modes entitled Sneaking Mission, Capture Mission, and Rescue Mission. Sneaking Mission casts one player as Snake attempting to steal an object from his opponents; Capture Mission puts an object at stake between two teams. Rescue Mission has one team trying to deliver an object to a specified place while the other team attempts to destroy it. Apparently, Kojima is a fan of objects.
The single player portion of the game consists of Snake Eater as well as some additional features--including the first two Metal Gear games. Spake Kojima regarding MGS online play: "Finally it is possible to battle with players from around the world online at Metal Gear Solid from the comfort of your own home." Finally, indeed.
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GBA Micro Price Announced; Another Cube Bundle
[gba]After revealing the Game Boy Micro's September 19 North American release date, Nintendo has now officially set the price to $99.99. The device will also come packaged with three faceplates/screen protectors depending on the base color of the device. The silver Micro will come with a plain black faceplate, an "Ammonite" black faceplate with blue swirls, and a "ladybug" faceplate. The black Micro comes with a plain silver faceplate, a flame-adorned faceplate, and a camouflaged faceplate for undercover reconaissance gaming.
Nintendo also announced their latest GameCube bundle. Having just launched the Smash Bros. bundle in North America, the company is also planning to bundle Mario Smash Football (Super Mario Strikers in the U.S.) with the console in Europe, starting on the game's release date of November 18.
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PlayStation 2 Freedom Weekender
[ps2]Sony's UK theme park event, the PlayStation 2 Freedom Weekender, has been detailed. The event will take place at Thorpe Park and Alton Towers and will host video game such as God of War, Tekken 5, and SingStar, as well as other entertainment such as sumo wrestling, breakdancing, and live music. Tickets for the shows at each park are sold separately. Sony's official Freedom Weekender website has more.
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Ubisoft and the Revolution
[nintendo]Though Nintendo has kept noticeably quiet in terms of third-party developer announcements for their upcoming Revolution, publisher Ubisoft has pledged to support Nintendo's next console. However, despite having a few titles lined up for the launch of Xbox 360, the company has still not announced any specific Revolution titles.
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Misc. Q&As/Features
GamaSutra asks, "How did you get your start in the video game industry?" and many professionals answer.
1UP gives us 20 Reasons Why Xbox 360 Will Fail in Japan (Or Not).
Misc. Media/Previews
PS2
GameSpy looks at Konami's BeatMania. They also check out Tecmo's Trapt. 1UP checks out Metal Gear Solid 3: Substinance.
Portable
GameSpy previews Konami's Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS).
Multi
GameSpot goes to Konami and covers A Whole Ton of Games (Seriously, A Lot). Likewise, IGN looks at Many, Many Games (Yep). 1UP takes a brief look at Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PS2, PSP, PC). GameSpy previews Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (PS2, Xbox. 1UP looks at Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles 3: Mutant Nightmare (PS2, Xbox, GCN, DS).
Console Game Of The Evening [Submit Yours!]
Columns for the Sega Game Gear "A clever little puzzler, which did a fair job of muscling in on Tetris territory." (submitted by el_bandito)
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railchu
replySo how about those Xbox 360 prices huh
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The price is a little bit of a surprise but I still want the HDD version. It's just quite a dissapointment that they choose now to introduce a model without the HDD. Maybe down the road yea, but the cheapskates will still hold off even on the 299 console if that's what they are worried about. Only the hardcore people and rich kids will be getting them right away anyways, most people wait for the price to go down.
What really boggels my mind is why the fuck they can't include a hard drive with the 299 console, and afford to throw in extra cables, remote, headset and whatever else into the 399 version PLUS a hard drive!
For fucks sake charge 30 bucks more or whatever the manufacturing cost is and give everyone a HDD.
/rant -
I'll bite. I think it's pretty shitty. For essentially 2 reasons. 1) I wanted an Xbox 360, but 299 for a ghetto version that doesn't have wireless controllers nor anything to save on is pretty shitty. 2) All the promises Microsoft made and hey to use it you gotta give us 100 bucks more seems moronic and shitty. This being the HD era, but for 300 bucks I can't get that. Wireless controllers as a feature, but for 300 bucks I can't get that. It's moronic because they're splitting their user base. What developer will want to create a ton of software in HD (which they're all saying is more expensive - which drives up the costs of the games) if a good portion of the user base won't use it. Until recently I couldn't get PC games on DVD, a technology that has been around and highly popular for at least 5 years - but Microsoft thinks they're going to have great third party support for something that most people won't use. I don't think so.
I'm no Sony fan, but I'm sure their system won't split people like that even if it is 400 bucks. This is a huge problem for Microsoft, IMHO because they just lost whatever edge they think they had for being the first to release. People will wait for Sony and at this point, knowing that Nintendo is going to be inherently cheaper I think people might actually wait for them too.
My 2cents. I still want an Xbox 360 and I'll probably get one at some point, but not in 2005. I'll wait for a price drop or for me to become suddenly wealthy.-
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the $300 model only comes with composite cables (interlaced, standard def) so you will need to drop another $40+ to actually see a high definition signal out of the machine. Couple this with a $40 memory card and wowie, if you want to enter the "HD Era" you must spend about $400 + $60 per game.
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yeah, i understand all of that. im not arguing price, so that doesnt have anything to do with the line i quoted from his post. again:
What developer will want to create a ton of software in HD ... if a good portion of the user base won't use it
lets assume all xbox 360s ship with HD cables -- what percentage of the user base would be using them? i'd be willing to bet they're still in the minority.-
That's beside the point. If you're going to market your system as the start of an HD-era, your product, out of the box in whatever fashion, should fucking offer it. Not force people to buy 40 bucks more worth of crap to use it. That splits the user base and the history of video games has proven this time and time again that's a very bad thing to do because most developers don't get behind it and the feature goes unsupported.
So it's a valid question. If you're a developer and you find out that a feature you're being forced to implement isn't being used (mainly because the base product doesn't offer it) by the majority of the consumers, why the hell would you spend all that money to do it. It's a higher cost to the developer and it's a higher cost to the consumer when the market for HD stuff is clearly not there yet and most likely won't be for the next few years.-
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from a marketing standpoint, why include the cables in the "barebones" model. i'd be willing to bet that most people with HD TVs will end up buying the $400 model just because it makes more sense to do so from a monetary standpoint.
That way, when HDTVs come down in price in a few years, people who have the "barebones" model can just go out and purchase the cables and suddenly all of their older games look even better.
I honestly see your point about including the cables with every system, but it really doesnt make sense from Microsoft's standpoint because thats just extra $$ to be had when people upgrade their tvs.
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There seems to be conflicting information on the Xbox.com site.
On this page, it says the Xbox 360 Core system comes with HD cables:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/xbox360console.htm
But on this page, it says standard AV cables:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/xbox360choice.htm
I suspect the former is an error, but still... argh.
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Ah well, actually I'm not too randy on the buying the delux 360 for $400. Though I'm kind of delighted to see they at least include HD AV cables. Those tend to be overpriced. But...I'll wait six months and get one. Looks like it's the PS3 for me first round.
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Hay Remo, spake isn't a word anymore. Perhaps if we try to use it lots for the next year or so, it might make it's big comeback, and re-enter the english language. So spake I!
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ooo, nice job Slim. Posting in the reply field. Get some sleep before you post next time, ass-cock.
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The announced prices seem fairly reasonable to me. The 209 quid for the basic one seems a bit cheeky though. 200 quid is still more money than $300, so they could have given the UK a bit of a break there... same with the Euro-Dollar direct conversion.
The thing I am remembering though, is that PS1, Saturn, PS2 and Xbox all launched at 300 quid or more (I think the Xbox and Saturn launched at 400 quid in the UK, only to see a swift reduction as everyone thought the piss was well and truely being taken.)
Based on Ken Kutaragi's comments, I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 launches at 400 quid.
Have the Japanese prices been announced yet? I'm hoping for something more comparable to the US price before I even think about getting a... hang on... *thinks* I can't think of a SINGLE game I give a shit about that is coming to the XBOX 360. Unless Shenmue 3 is announced for it I don't care.
