Late Night Consoling

The PlayStation 3 may not be a game machine according to SCEI president Ken Kutaragi, but Kenji Hall writing for Business Week worries that it may be difficult for consumers to figure out exactly what it is. After mentioning the PSX, an expensive PS2/media player hybrid that never took off, Hall suggests that Sony's current marketing angle might put off certain consumers. "Another risk is that Sony could undermine software sales by positioning the PS3 as something other than a game machine." Given Sony's history, this could actually work out either way. While the PSX failed at retail, the PSP is selling much more strongly in North America, where it has more UMD films available than games, than it is in its home country of Japan. Sony will likely attempt to take multiple marketing strategies based on individual demographics, strategies that may end up being much more divergent than has been possible for past game machines--er, machines that do things including play video games.

But what's that about a hard drive? Despite Kutaragi and other Sony officials insisting that the PS3 would not feature a hard drive, because "no matter how much we put in, it won't be enough." When recent rumors surfaced regarding possible digital video recording capabilities in PS3, however, the no-HDD stance seemed odd. In the Business Week article, Hall casually refers to the PS3 as including "a huge hard drive to store photos, music, and TV shows," presenting the information as if it is a given fact rather than a frequently debated rumor. Is he mistaken or does he have insider information? My gut tells me we're going to have to wait for Sony's next big PS3 reveal to find out.

Confirming recent rumors that another edition of Lego Star Wars is in the works, LucasArts announced today that Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy will be released this fall. Though original publisher Eidos is not involved, developer Traveller's Tales will again be helming development. The game of course focuses on the original three Star Wars films, referred to as episodes 4-6.

The game will ship on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, DS, PSP, GBA, and PC.

Press release, screenshots

In an interview with Working-Title, Quantic Dream COO Guillaume de Fondaumiere revealed his studio's current plans. Having shipped Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit last year to a strong reception, the company has now secured a publishing deal for its next title, which will be announced at E3 2006. The game is slated for PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, and PC. No details have yet been released. It was also revealed that preliminary work has begun on KARMA, a sequel to the company's 1999 adventure Omikron: The Nomad Soul (PC). That game will not ship until at least 2009, as it is a lower priority than the current project.

In Rare's always entertaining letters page, the studio confirmed that progress is being made on downloadable content for both of its current Xbox 360 titles. In regards to Perfect Dark Zero, a representative said, "We're working on DLC maps now." In addition to the new multiplayer maps, some bug fixes are on the way: "We'll be doing a title update to fix some of the annoying issues players have with the game. More news on when exactly that's going to happen will come later on down the line. Clan functionality was supposed to be available from the MGS side, but it didn't make it in for launch."

On the Kameo front, it looks like the long promised Live-enabled co-op mode is coming in the near future: "Co-op over Live is currently in the last stages of debugging and should be available very soon. And there are firm plans to release more downloadable content soon after - details of which will be made available soon."

In answer to a question regarding whether the downloads will be free or paid, Rare responded, "That decision is not ours to make." While the Perfect Dark Zero bug fixes will certainly be offered for free, as well as most likely the Kameo co-op patch, it seems reasonable to assume that the multiplayer maps will be made available for the standard Live downloadable content price of $5.

Nintendo yesterday announced the three launch color options for DS Lite in Japan on the company's official website. They are Crystal White, Ice Blue, and Enamel Navy. Though it is unlikely these will be the same colors chosen for the North American and European territories--Nintendo usually offers different color choices for its machines based on individual markets--the company has suggested an intent to launch with three colors in North America and Europe. Expect to see Crystal White sold worldwide, given the heavy focus Nintendo has given the iPod-esque shiny white look as featured in the company's Revolution prototypes. Enamel Navy would be another likely choice outside of Japan, given Nintendo's frequent choice of blue-hued hardware. DS Lite launches in Japan on March 2, with release dates elsewhere not yet set.

The site also features a Flash-based 3D animation showing all three of the color options in use.

DS Lite image gallery

Last night, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences presented its Oscars-of-the-games-industry-wannabe Interactive Achievement Awards, hosted by wisecracking mainstream-legitimizing celebrity Jay Mohr. The awards came into some controversy when the nominees were announced, as critical favorites Resident Evil 4 (PS2, GCN) from Capcom and Psychonauts (PS2, Xbox, PC) from Double Fine were nowhere to be found in any of the 30 categories. When questioned, the AIAS revealed that publishers Capcom and Majesco had not signed up and paid the entry fees to the Academy, making their games ineligible. "Resident [Evil 4] got written in, but [Capcom] chose not to play," a representative told GameSpot several weeks ago, while Majesco "couldn't afford to join the Academy" due to its current dismal financial situation. God of War designer David Jaffe was jokingly relieved last night that Resident Evil 4 would not be competing against his title: "Thank God for Capcom [not entering]. We're probably going to pick up some awards tonight." That they did.

Of the publishers that did pay up, Sony garnered the most total nominations with 26, almost entirely due to SCEA Santa Monica's God of War (PS2) and SCEI's Shadow of the Colossus (PS2). The publishers with the highest number of distinct games nominated were Nintendo and Microsoft, each with 8 (though it should be noted that one of Microsoft's titles was Reflexive's Wik and the Fable of Souls, which was already fully developed and self-published before it was released on Microsot's Xbox 360 Live Arcade service).

The awards for Overall Game of the Year and Console Game of the Year went to God of War. Computer Game of the Year went to DICE's Battlefield 2, which picked up all three of its nominations. God of War managed to win 7 of its 12 nominations, which also included Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition and in Sound Design. Shadow of the Colossus picked up 2 of 8: Outstanding Innovation in Art Direction and Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering. One semi-surprise was that Guitar Hero managed to garner 7 nominations, winning a very strong 4: Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack, Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering (tied with Nintendogs), and Outstanding Achievement in Game Design.

Full list of nominees and winners.

The following games reached "gold" status this week, indicating that they have been completed and are ready for manufacture:

- 24: The Game (PS2); SCE Studios Cambridge, 2K Games; out February 28.
- Black; PS2, Xbox; Criterion, EA Games; out February 28.
- MS Saga: A New Dawn (PS2); BEC, Namco Bandai; out February 21.

Kiziko manages to get hands on with an alleged PS3 dev kit. Revelations include; games outputting to 720p (as opposed to the rumored 1080p), does "more stuff simultaneously" than Xbox 360 (graphically speaking), Cell is "weird and difficult to work with" according to a developer, release dates projected by source are summer for Japan, fourth quarter for US, and winter or spring 2007 for Europe.

John Callaham at Gamecloud speaks with Stainless Games' Patrick Buckland regarding the Xbox 360 Live Arcade port of Crystal Quest, originally a classic arcade shooter.

GameSpot has a developer interview on Nippon Ichi's Blade Dancer (PSP).

You may love the Power Glove (you know, because it's so bad), but if you don't happen to have any reservations about taking it apart and fusing it in unholy matrimony with a gyroscopic mouse, you can actually make a crazy Windows spacial pointing device glove.