Late Night Consoling

Capcom has announced that, as of September 30th, Xbox Live support for Steel Battalion: Line of Contact's campaign mode will be disabled. The game, which came out in February of last year, is the followup to Capcom's Xbox mech game Steel Battalion, released in late 2004. Steel Battalion gained fast notoriety due to its required custom controller, which cost $150 in addition to the $50 game itself. While Line of Contact's system link and "Free Mission" modes will still be supported, players can only actually progress by playing the campaign over Xbox Live. The online campaign is necessary to access most of the game's mechs and maps.

GameSpot contacted Capcom and was informed that the reason for the move is primarily financial, with not enough subscribers justifying the cost to keep the game alive. The possibility remains of releasing a patch to unlock content that would otherwise need to be accessed by way of the campaign.

Sony's PSP console had an extremely strong launch in the UK last weekend, reportedly moving 185,000 units. That's 100k higher than the Nintendo DS launch number in that region, and it puts the device at the top of the UK's list of console launches. As one would expect given the number of new owners of the machine, PSP software dominated the sales charts as well.

The competition between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP for control of the handheld gaming arena has been a fascinating series of events. The DS has so far outsold the PSP in Japan and North America despite the PSP's launch besting the DS' in the US, so it will interesting to see how the European market ends up.

Microsoft has released a .doc file containing a number of suggestions and instructions intended for developers who are working on Xbox 360 games but who do not yet have development kits. Most of the advice is either broadly applicable to consoles in general or very specific in terms of specific techniques best used on the Xbox 360, but there are some points that are of general interest. For one thing, there's definitive confirmation that Microsoft doesn't want a keyboard and mouse plugging into the 360: "Design for controller input, not for keyboard & mouse input. Console players press simple buttons--they don't move the mouse or tap a keyboard," it says patronizingly. And: "Support a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. Support a minimum frame buffer size of 1280 x 720" and "Plan for voice chat within your game. Architect your network engine with the assumption that you will send voice data as well as game data." As we've come to expect over the last few weeks, the document also makes it clear that developers should bear in mind that a memory card or hard drive will not always be present, so their games should not assume they will be.

The file is freely available on Microsoft's server here.

Eurogamer is reporting on a radio interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, in which Nintendo's legendary designer claims that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess "will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form."

"Our goal was to make the best Zelda game ever. The most rich, satisfying and [melancholic]. ... I worked on it personally, moreso than Wind Waker. I haven't invested as much into any game as I have this one."

As Tokyo Game Show approaches, details are being revealed in terms of publisher support. Sony will preside over the largest event at the booth, prompting speculation that they intend to have better representation of PS3 games on display than was found at E3. The next largest booths belong to Sega, Konami, and Namco/Bandai, respectively. GamesIndustry.biz suggests that Sega might be showing off a next-gen flagship title such as Sonic. Microsoft, which has been constantly pledging its support to the Japanese market, has purchased the fifth-largest booth. Oddly, Square-Enix's showing is much smaller than usual, likely because of Final Fantasy XII's no-show at the event. As usual, Nintendo will not be attending the event in corporate form, though many expect company president Satoru Iwata to reveal details regarding the company's next-gen Revolution console.

Electronic Arts announced the departure of Worldwide Studios president Don Mattrick and executive vice president Bruce McMillan, both of whom are leaving of their own accord. Mattrick became part of EA when his company, Distinctive Software, was bought by EA. Distinctive was known for games such as the 4D sports series and the early Test Drive games. Analysts Michael Pachter and Edward Woo note that EA's game quality (as measured by GameRankings.com) and revenue growth have been dropping in recent years, which might have influenced the execs' decisions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the merger between gaming retail giants GameStop and Electronic Boutique, leaving the companies' shareholders as the last obstacle to clear. It is expected that shareholders will approve the proposal when it is voted upon in October. The joining of the two companies would give the resultant entity a staggering US gaming retail market share of about 20%-30%. Stock prices of both companies rose after the announcement.

David Jenkins at Gamasutra tells you how to get a publishing deal.

Official PlayStation Magazine celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the PlayStation's launch with a retrospective feature.

The always worthwhile Kieron Gillen has reported on a Project Gotham Racing 3 postmortem lecture from Game Developers' Conference Europe.