Late Night Consoling

You may recall seeing some unexplained screenshots in Friday's LNC for a game called Space Giraffe (working title). If you missed those, here they are. Be warned; there's some colorful language. They depict the next game project from gaming industry veteran Jeff Minter, best known for his various music visualization software--including Neon, preinstalled on Xbox 360--as well as the classic Tempest 2000 (JAG, SAT, PC). Minter has released some details on Space Giraffe by way of a comments thread on his online journal. The game is a sequel to Tempest 2000 (and the much lesser known Tempest 3000), and Minter goes into a bit of gameplay detail about the project. No release date has been revealed.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 backwards compatibility team has released a substantial update to the list of Xbox games compatible with Xbox 360. A total of 48 games were added or improved, bringing the total number of supported titles to 267, close to 30% of the total Xbox library. A few notable additions include Criterion's Burnout 3: Takedown, an update for Headfirst's Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Firaxis' Sid Meier's Pirates!, an update for Valve's Half-Life 2, and EA UK's Catwoman. Interestingly, Traveller's Tales as yet unreleased LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, which is also in development for Xbox 360, was included in today's update. (Thanks Major Nelson.)

Following Microsoft's erroneous announcement that both FIFA 07 from Electronic Arts and Winning Eleven Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 from Konami would be exclusive to Xbox 360 among next generation consoles, EA and Konami have clarified the situation in straightforward terms. EA stated that its FIFA 07 will indeed be shipping on Xbox 360 but not on PlayStation 3 or Wii. The game is also heading to all current generation home and portable consoles as well as PC. Konami, on the other hand, issued a statement on its official website stating that the game is headed for a multiplatform release:

It has been falsely reported on some websites that KONAMI will release its "Pro Evolution Soccer 6" exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox 360. These reports are not true. KONAMI is currently proceeding with the production of a multi-platform release of "Pro Evolution Soccer 6" so that as many people as possible can enjoy the game.

Konami did not specifically name any further next-gen platforms. Currently, Winning Eleven Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 (aka Pro Evolution Soccer 6) has been announced for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PSP, and PC.

According to reports tracking back to Spanish gaming site Meristation, which has posted some reliable breaking news over the last year, Ubisoft Montpellier's multiplatform Rayman Raving Rabbids will be a timed exclusive on Wii. The game will allegedly release on other current- and next-gen platforms next May, according to information Meristation claims to have gotten straight from Ubisoft at last week's Games Convention in Leipzig.

This runs contrary to Ubisoft's initial announcement, which pegged the game as being released for all systems this holiday season. However, acclaimed designer and Rayman series creator Michel Ancel, who is heading up the title, recently stated in an interview that Rayman Raving Rabbids underwent a significant overhaul after becoming more familiar with the Wii control scheme. Various comments from Ancel as well as marketing from Ubisoft suggest that the Wii is the game's primary development platform.

Electronic Arts has released a demo of the Xbox 360 version of EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 07, downloadable via Xbox Live. It weighs in at 750MB, and allows players to try out games comprised of minute-long quarters. The demo is available to Xbox Live subscribers registered in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

Nintendo announced today that the number of unique players that have used its Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection online service for Nintendo DS has surpassed 2 million, with the number of game sessions played over 70 million. The service has been active for just over nine months. Currently, seven online-enabled games are available; another, Star Fox Command, will be released this week.

Microsoft's Lary "Major Nelson" Hryb notes that Capcom's Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting has received an autoupdate via Xbox Live, addressing various issues. The main improvements are related to connection and time out issues. Leaderboards will also be reset to erase the progress made by players exploiting the ability to disconnect.