Late Night Consoling

According to Gamerscore Blog, run by Microsoft PR employees, the June Xbox 360 backwards compatibility patch to which Peter Moore recently referred is now live. It adds 21 games to the existing list of approximately 200. Included in this patch are:

- 4x4 EVO 2
- Amped 2
- Bad Boys 2
- Big Mutha Truckers
- DOOM 3
- Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
- Fatal Frame
- FlatOut
- Grabbed by the Ghoulies
- Intellivision Lives
- LEGO Star Wars
- Minority Report
- MLB SlugFest 20-04
- The Punisher
- RalliSport Challenge
- Silent Hill 4: The Room
- Spawn Armageddon
- Spider-Man
- Star Wars Battlefront
- State of Emergency
- Zapper

GameDaily BIZ published an E3 interview today with Shane Kim, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios. As is par for the course with game publisher executives these days, Kim commented on Sony's pricing and strategy with PS3, Nintendo's controller for Wii, and more. He also stated the importance of strong first party development for the success of Xbox 360.

"They've been making a lot of promises for a long time," said Kim regarding Sony's PS3 plans, "so I'm sure they were under a lot of pressure from customers and retailers and from third parties who wanted them to finally disclose what their plans really were, and as you can see a lot of those plans are very different from what they've been promising." On Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, he said, "[Microsoft's HD-DVD plans are] very different from what Sony's doing with Blu-ray, which is basically saying, 'Pay us extra because we want to put a Blu-ray drive in every single PlayStation 3.' I understand why Blu-ray's good for Sony; I just don't understand why it's good for gamers."

When asked about securing properties not previously released on the Xbox platform, Kim responded that most publishers will need to support Xbox 360. "We've taken away one of the major exclusives that drove Sony's PlayStation 2's success, and I think from a third-party perspective you have to support Xbox 360 because we are the leader in this generation." Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV will be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously. "And with the rising cost of development," Kim added, "not supporting Xbox 360 is just too extreme." This leaves Microsoft with the role of providing strong exclusive titles for the system, as the industry moves more and more towards multiplatform development.

On Sony's decision to remove rumble and add motion sensing to its PS3 controller, Kim commented, "I think it's terrible for the industry, personally. ...[Rumble is] utilized in almost every game. To add motion-sensing technology seems like an attempt to copy what Nintendo is doing with the Wii controller." He does not appear to be too confident in either company's motion sensing technology, given Microsoft's history with similar hardware. "We had that motion technology inside a Freestyle Pro controller about 8 years ago and we found that as a general purpose controller it wasn't that great," he said.

In an ongoing interview with Japanese outlet Impress Watch, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi revealed that PlayStation 3's Cell will be switching to a more efficient manufacturing process at some point in 2007. The chip will switch from its current 90nm process to a 65nm process. The change should soften the per-unit financial hit taken as a result of the system's high manufacturing costs.

This April, Chartered Semiconductor announced a similar plan to produce Xbox 360 CPUs with a 65nm process next year.

Ignition Entertainment today announced that it will be publishing Awesome Studios' Mercury Meltdown for PSP. The game is a followup to the PSP near-launch title Archer Maclean's Mercury, from the same developer. According to Ignition, Meltdown "features a fresh, vibrant graphical style with a zany cartoon quality." It also adds "state-of-the-art blob physics including normal mercury, solid, cold and hot forms," and features 160 levels along with minigames. The game looks to have some sort of downloadable content through the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe site. The press release is also sure to note "super-fast load times" as a feature.

Awesome Studios' Mercury Meltdown is set to ship August 22. - Screenshots.

For months, DS owners have been anticipating a reprint of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (NDS), which publisher Capcom initially distributed in fairly limited numbers. In March, limited quantities were reprinted, but as of tomorrow, a new reprint should make the game more available from online retailers. It is unclear if it will also be widely stocked in brick and mortar stores.

Eidos has announced the ship date for the PSP version of Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider: Legend (PSP, also PS2, Xbox, GCN, X360, DS, GBA, PC). The game will be available in North America on June 21. Tomb Raider; Legend for PSP is a port of the PS2 version of the game, featuring various local wireless multiplayer modes.