Reuters - Microsoft Corp does not expect sales of its Xbox 360 game console to suffer if Toshiba Corp (6502.T) discontinues HD DVD technology, Microsoft said in a statement on Monday.
A physician and a child psychologist in Boston are concerned that the Wii controls are training younger players for violence. Dr. Michael Rich of Children’s Hospital believes that kids are \”learning the muscle memory necessary to do those acts, to stab someone, to chop someone, to shoot someone.\” Another doctor, Dr. Susan Linn who is part of a watchdog group, believes parents don\’t realize games are violent because they don\’t play the games and even if they did they would have to get good at the game to get to the really violent parts. It was also revealed today that some parents are letting their children eat dinner with knives and forks which has been training them to stab and cut. :p
Modder Ryan Curly modded the Wii remote and Nunchuk into a controller that can be used with just one hand. He was inspired to design the controller by his friend who lost the majority of his left arm in order to allow him to play Wii easier. You can see all the details on the mod at Ryan\’s page rmculy.
The official website for Knights in the Nightmare is now online. You can check out some screens of the game below. The release date is still TBA for Japan, its unclear whether it will be released elsewhere.
Capcom\’s Lost Planet joins Everybody\’s Golf and Devil May Cry 4 in requiring a 5GB installation on the PS3 which can take up to twenty minutes. This is turning into something of a requirement for all Capcom\’s PS3 titles, so be sure to have something to do while the game installs!
Responding to a few posts on the official Ubi boards concerning the delayed release of Haze, a member of the Ubisoft team decided to chip in and calm things down. He didn\’t want to give too much information away as he loves his job too much, but promised that the extra bit of a time has made a big difference for the better in Haze.
A fresh report is circulating online major news outlets such as Reuters that Sony is on the brink of victory in the high definition format war as a source at Toshiba has said that the company is planning to give up on HD DVD this week!
One website is reporting that sales of the PS3 on Amazon rose 60 percent last weekend, based on the improving support for the Blu-ray format and declining support for HD DVD. While it is still a little early to draw such conclusions, inevitably the \’resolution\’ of the format war should bring great news for the PS3 and it\’s integrated Blu-ray player.
Gaming publication 1UP has posted up ten of its most wanted PSP titles for this year (2008). So here we go with the run-down of titles - 10) Beaterator, 9) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, 
Echochrome, 7) Final Fantasy: Dissida, 6) God of War: Chains of Olympus, 5) Lego Indiana Jones, 4) N+, 3) Patapon, 2) Secret Agent Clank and 1) Wipeout Pulse.
A developer working on Frontlines: Fuel of War has said on the Kaos Studios boards that \”Frontlines will in fact have some servers set to 50 players on the xbox. We have been testing for some time now and its on heck of an experience.\” This will apparently beat that 40 players that Resistance supports. The developer also said they actually hit 73 during testing but they are taking baby steps as this is a pretty big leap. The game is due for release in the US on February 25, 2008.
The latest issue of Gamepro magazine says that “Microsoft will buy Epic Games for $1 billion this summer.” MS paid Epic millions of dollars to develop \’Gears of War\’ in November of 2006 for the Xbox 360 platform. The two companies will be exhibiting at the GDC side-by-side this week and there are rumors that Epic may announce a Gears sequel at the show. If MS acquired Epic it would gain the rights to the Unreal Unreal game engine which is used to make games for many platforms including the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
We have received a tip from a trusted source (who wishes not to be named) in the UK games industry that Microsoft distributors have been told by MS to try and dump stock of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD attachment into the trade channels at the low price of
Become a gold-thirsty ninja battling homicidal robots with “N+” as it lands on Xbox LIVE Arcade this Wednesday 20th February at 09.00.
The official Xbox marketing blog \’Gamerscore\’ has posted up a statement in response to negative reports about HD DVD having an impact on the Xbox 360\’s position in the marketplace. They re-enforce that they believe its games that sells consoles and Xbox 360 has the largest next-gen games library.
MS are set to unveil some mystery info regarding the XNA after John Schappert\’s keynote speech tomorrow at GDC. The XNA display is currently behind curtains and bathed in purple lights with a sign saying \”Coming Soon! Wednesday February 20 11:30AM.\”