Super Late Night Consoling

Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has made numerous comments indicating that he would like to work on further Gears of War games, and that sequels were likely if the game is a retail success. That condition has surely been fulfilled (see below), and comments made this week by Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business corporate VP of global marketing Jeff Bell seem to all but confirm that multiple Gears sequels are planned. Speaking to GameDaily BIZ about Gears of War's recent hotly-debated advertising campaign juxtaposing game footage against Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," Bell stated, "The goal of this ad is to establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy." While Microsoft has obviously not made an official company statements on the matter, at least two more Gears of War titles are looking like sure bets.

Recently, some PlayStation 3 owners determined that despite PS3 supporting all current major video signals--including 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p--the system does not include an internal resolution upscaler. Because most PS3 games output in 720p, this means that users with HDTVs that accept only a 1080i signal will have their games downscaled to 480p, commonly called Enhanced Definition. In contrast, Microsoft's Xbox 360 will upscale content to 1080i. Blu-ray Disc films can output in 720p on the PS3.

Today, Sony acknowledged the issue, though noted that it is the fault of the individual television sets rather than the PS3 hardware. Affected sets tend to be older models, at least within the context of HDTV's lifetime to date. Some internet users have responded to these statements by pointing out that Sony itself has released HDTVs that would suffer from this problem.

According to GameDaily BIZ, Sony plans to release a software update that will add the appropriate scaling feature, though this claim was not included in the statement printed by the site. At time of writing, Sony had not yet responded to Shacknews' requests for confirmation.

PSP gained access to version 3.0 of its system software, Sony announced today. This latest update adds connectivity functions between Sony's portable console and it's new PlayStation 3. Owners of the wi-fi-equipped 60GB PS3 can now use Remote Play to stream music, videos, and pictures, via wi-fi from a PS3 to a PSP. Remote Play can also be used to access and operate PS3's cross media bar menu. Presumably, these functions could also be performed with a 20GB model and a wi-fi adapter, but that setup was not explicitly mentioned. Currently, they are only available on a local area network, but eventually Remote Play will allow PSP to connect to a PS3 over the internet by connecting to a wireless hotspot.

PSP's long awaited PlayStation game functionality has also been added, allowing users to play select PS1 games purchased from Sony's PlayStation Store and transferred to the PSP. Specific titles were not named, but the first round of games is expected in the "coming weeks." In the past, Sony has promised that games would be available within calendar 2006. Games will range from 140MB to 550MB in size, and will be priced from $5.99 to $10.99. To access the games, they must first be downloaded to a PS3 then loaded onto a PSP with a Memory Stick via USB cable.

Despite listing no North American release list, Sony's Japanese site does contain the first round of games to be released in Japan. Some of the listed titles are likely to be part of North America's starting lineup. It consists of the following nine games:

- Capcom's Resident Evil: Director's Cut
- Konami's Konami Antiques: MSX Collection Vol.1
- Konami's Konami Antiques: MSX Collection Vol.2
- Konami's Bishi Bashi Special
- G-Craft's Arc the Lad
- Exact's Jumping Flash!
- Clap Hanz's Hot Shots Golf 2
- CyberConnect2's Silent Bomber
- Namco's Tekken 2

At time of writing, Sony's official system update page still shows version 2.82, though the system can be updated through its own network update feature.

This week, retailer GameStop revealed in a quarterly earnings statement the attach rate data for the recently launched PlayStation 3 and Wii, showing that, among GameStop and EB Games customers, PS3 buyers purchased on average 1.5 games per console while Wii buyers purchased on average 3 games per console. GameStop described the latter figure as "surprisingly good." Sony noted today that PS3's best best selling launch games were Insomniac's Resistance: Fall of Man and EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 07; GameStop stated that the top selling games among its customers were Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Ubisoft Paris' Red Steel. The low attach rate figure for PS3 is undoubtedly due to the high proportio of systems purchased solely for resale purposes, and is expected to grow once the consoles find permanent homes.

This week, Microsoft's Peter Moore mentioned the NPD-sourced attach rate for Microsoft's current system, speaking at BMO Capital Markets' Interactive Entertainment Conference. With a year (to the day) of a growing games library, the system has accrued a health attach rate of 5.2 games per system.

When Wii's Virtual Console went live this weekend, it started with a dozen games for download from several classic systems, but none from Hudson and NEC's TurboGrafx-16. Fortunately, it didn't take long for that to be remedied, and Bomberman '93 and Bonk's Adventure are now both available for the standard TurboGrafx-16 price point of 600 Wii Points ($6).

Each game can be controlled with a Wii remote held sideways, a Wii classic controller, or a GameCube controller. Bomberman '93 supports up to five players on the same console, though as the system is limited to four simultaneous Wii controllers, at least one of those five players must be using a GameCube controller.

Nintendo has announced its intention to deliver additional Virtual Console games on a weekly basis.

Bethesda's Xbox 360 version of the Knights of the Nine downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has now been released on Xbox Live Marketplace. It is available for 800 Microsoft Points ($10) and includes new quests, characters, and dungeons. Despite both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the content being originally announced for a November 21 release, Bethesda's download site currently shows the PC version coming December 4, when it will be available for $9.99.

Following yesterday's news that Epic's Gears of War (X360) is the current most played game over Xbox Live, Microsoft sent out a press release with the same information, as well as an announcement that the game has sold over one million units since it was released on November 12.

Earlier this month, extra hats were made available for Viva Pinata (X360) players in the Viva Pinata Accessory Pack 1. Viva Pinata Accessory Pack 2 is now available, and those of who hankering for another hat fix are in luck--this one ups the ante with three hats for the same price of 90 Microsoft Points ($1.125). That's 50% more hat per Point. Included are the Mr. Pants Hat, paying a tip of the hat to Rare's infrequently discussed GBA puzzler It's Mr. Pants; the Von Ghoul hat, with some hat-tipping to Rare's Grabbed by the Ghoulies (Xbox); and the Soupswill Chef hat, another Ghoulies hat-tip. Hats fit most Pinatas.

Idle Thumbs' Marek Bronstring has an interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi, designer of Rez (PS2, DC) and Space Channel 5 (PS2, DC) as well as creative head of Q Entertainment, the studio behind Lumines (PSP), Meteos (NDS), Gunpey (NDS, PSP), and Ninety-Nine Nights (X360).