Late Night Consoling

Over the weekend, internet detectives spotted a countdown site hosted on the official Electronic Arts site, which many have taken as a sign that EA plans to unveil its upcoming game based on animated series The Simpsons. The page features a yellow background, text in the font faced used in The Simpsons' promotional material, and a large "XXII" in the same font and color scheme as that used on the "IV" on Rockstar Games' recent countdown page promoting Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360). The timer is set to expire on Wednesday at 12:00pm. The "XXII" most likely refers to the number of total games based on the license.

In November 2005, EA announced that it had acquired the video game rights to The Simpsons, which were previously held by Vivendi Universal. Vivendi released Radical Entertainment's critically and commercially successful The Simpsons: Hit & Run (PS2, Xbox, GCN, PC), following a string of less well received titles.

In the last several hours, the EA site became unreachable, and currently states, "The following error has occurred: Web Page Not Found Error." Somewhat oddly, following a standard error explanation, the page concludes with the phrase "See you tomorrow."

Shacknews has sent further inquiries to EA but has yet to receive a response.

Citing unnamed sources within Sony, Australian technology site Smarthouse is reporting that a new model of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3 could be released within 18 months. According to Smarthouse's alleged source, this new machine would retain the existing PS3's Cell processor (and presumably its RSX GPU) but would add significant media capabilities. New features would allegedly include a packed-in media streaming software suite, as well as possible server functionality.

The product described is reminiscent of the PlayStation 2-based PSX hardware released to the Japanese market in 2003. PSX included a digital video recorder and media transfer capabilities, as well as all standard PS2 functions. Following its release, the device failed to reach significant commercial success and did not see worldwide distribution.

Recently retired SCEI CEO Ken Kutaragi, chief architect of the PlayStation line, has spoken about PlayStation 3 as a console with a long lifespan intended to take multiple forms to keep the machine up to date. This philosophy can already be seen in the existing PS3, which includes the ability to install a new standard hard drive and plug in various standard USB peripherals, such as keyboards, mice, and flash card readers.

Sony has declined to comment on the Smarthouse report.

This week's slate of three Wii Virtual Console releases sees one game each from the libraries of the NES, Super NES, and Turbografx-16.

Tecmo's oddly complex platformer Mighty Bomb Jack (NES, 1 player) is available for 500 Wii Points ($5). Capcom's SNES port of it classic brawler Final Fight (Super NES, 1 player) runs 800 Wii Points ($8). Finally, the TurboGrafx-16 version of Namco's cooperative sidescrolling shoot-em-up Ordyne (TurboGrafx-16, 1-2 players) goes for 600 Wii Points ($6).

As usual, check back tomorrow for the official Shack reviews of all three Virtual Console games.