Archive for May 17th, 2008
May 17, 2008
If the film version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian were based on the recently released Nintendo DS game, here is how it would play out: Caspian discovers he’s going to be killed, dies seven times trying to escape from the castle, gets away, fights the same troll for four hours. Then, the Pevensie children run into a momma bear who mauls them to death repeatedly until they learn to use the item system. Half of the audience leaves; the other half has fallen asleep. The end.
Fortunately, Disney’s new DS game isn’t a movie; it’s a very boring role-playing game. It does take an interesting stab at active time battles and commits itself to telling the story of its source material, though it does so without gusto. The gameplay seems pretty cool at first: You will have a blast interrupting attacks and then drawing slashes on the screen that in turn cut your enemies. At least, you will for the first hour. Woe, though, for as brave as your heroes are, they are no match for the army of identical enemies you have to cut through on the way to the game’s conclusion. After dulling their blade on the skull of the hundredth troll, they won’t want to fight anymore, and neither will you.
But who these heroes are may surprise you. You might be familiar with the Pevensie children from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but you’ll also be able to control more than a dozen other characters in your repetitive exploits, including Trufflehunter the badger, Reepicheep the mighty mouse, and, of course, Prince Caspian himself. Prince Caspian fights alongside such a motley crew of forest friends because he’s been forced to flee his castle into the outlying forest. His Uncle, King Miraz, has just had a son, but Caspian is between the babe and the throne, so Miraz orders him slain. Caspian escapes, meets up with a badger and a dwarf, and starts to build an army of fantastical creatures with which to take back his kingdom. He inadvertently summons the Pevensie children, and they are drawn into the struggle as well.
No wonder Miraz wants Prince Caspian to die.
And struggle you will, for though the battle system is interesting, it is far from intuitive and will leave you dead several times over before you learn exactly how it works. At first glance, combat in Prince Caspian looks like a strictly turn-based affair. However, characters (friend or foe) can attack at any time, as long as their stamina bar is full. After each attack, stamina empties, and characters must wait to catch their breath before attacking again. To attack a foe, you simply point at one of your heroes with the stylus, and then point at an enemy. It sounds simple, but there are a couple of niggling issues. For one thing, you have to tap your hero’s upper body; if you tap the leg or even the butt, your effort won’t register. Also, the game won’t select a default hero for you to control, so you can end up wasting your time trying to attack a target with no hero selected.
Once you’ve successfully entered an attack command, you’ll enter a brief minigame corresponding to your character’s signature weapon. If your hero is a bow user, for example, you’ll draw back arrows with the stylus and shoot them at bull’s-eyes; where you hit decides how much damage is done. There are six such minigames (stabbing, shanking, slashing, crushing, shooting, and magic), and though some of them are better than others, they all get pretty boring eventually.
So that’s how your attacks work. When enemies are about to attack, the earth beneath their feet momentarily turns orange. If you attack within this orange window, you’ll cancel their turn, deplete all their stamina, and do the damage of a normal attack. You’ll want to do this as often as you can, though that gets tricky when you’re fighting multiple enemies. On one hand, fights against groups of enemies are harder and more engaging than simply shutting down one bad guy. On the other hand, things get chaotic and confusing when six different units are trying to execute their turns at once. And since all your characters are small and bunched up, it can be a real pain to select the person you want in the midst of such a fracas.
But even against three foes, the battles are easy. Have your mouse, badger, and dwarf attack the same target, and pretty soon it’s three against two. In fact, battles are generally so simple, you may not even get around to checking out your usable items until you run into, say, the toughest mother bear, ever. A note on mother bear: She’s like the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail…but a bear. She can kill most of your party members with one shot, and like most giant predators, she doesn’t need to take much of a break in between killing children. If When Animals Attack were a game, it would be a lot like the mother bear fight. You’ll get to relive this brief, shameful struggle until you remember to touch the inventory button and drag magic mirrors (brief invincibility) onto all your characters.
At the forge you can increase your attack power, provided you have one patch of gauze, a newt fang, and three pieces of chewing gum.
These items are easy to use–just drag and drop–but they’re impossible to figure out from a rational standpoint. The armor item, for instance, weakens your enemies. But how and why? Did you throw it at them? Is it poisonous armor? Or is it full of black widows that bite them when they try to put it on? There are no answers, only questions. And things only get worse when you factor in the forge and its requisite items. The forge is where you go to increase your characters’ attack power. If you have a pinecone, a candy apple, and a ball of silver yarn, the dwarves there will make you hit harder. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, and so you wind up with a bag full of random items, like spider noses and carved wooden frogs. You’ll be like a crazy hobo, stockpiling carved figurines and twine in preparation for your final battle with evil.
The only thing not in your rucksack of randomness is graphics. When you’re wandering through the forest, viewing things from a top-down perspective, it’s easy to forget you’re not playing a Sega Game Gear game. Your little guy has only two frames of animation, and there’s no style or panache in the whole fantastical kingdom. And the cutscenes? Those tend to be words. The music is just as bad, because it cycles without any grasp of context. In the beginning of the game, when everything is still hunky-dory, the music is heavy, fast, and scary, like the soundtrack to a bear attack. But then when you’re getting chased out of the castle, the music is as calm as a moonlit creek. It just doesn’t make any sense.
And neither does Prince Caspian. All this game has to do is make it fun to play through a story everybody already knows. Instead, the story is in the background, and momma bear is in your face, tearing off your arms. Either that or you’re fighting your 80th troll in a row. To its credit, the preemptive strikes and minigames are kind of neat; they just aren’t four hours neat. And they definitely aren’t 30 dollars neat. Because of its ultra-repetitive combat, lame items, and terrible graphics, you probably shouldn’t get Prince Caspian for anybody you wouldn’t want to see get mauled by a bear.
May 17, 2008
Sony held a media day today and let the assembled US press spend some time with a work-in-progress version of one of Resistance 2’s multiplayer modes. The ensuing battle took place on the same Scotia map that was shown in the UK a few weeks ago, and pitted us against both players onsite and at Insomniac’s Southern California offices. Despite a fussy onsite Internet connection which got things off to a slow start, we had an opportunity to get embroiled in some fast-paced 60-player matches.
The demo level kept the action moving along at a pretty steady clip thanks to in-game objectives that popped up as the matches progressed. The big bread crumb trail in the multiplayer experience is the points you earn for killing enemies and for achieving the aforementioned objectives. Points can be used to unlock various bonuses, such as the mobile energy shield that we got our hands on at one point, which we could activate simply by tapping right on the D pad. The shield is purportedly one of several different power-ups you’ll be able to get, although it was the only one available in the demo that we played. While having a mobile energy shield sounds cool, Insomniac has already made sure it won’t be a crutch–it’s just big enough that an enemy player can slide in alongside you and shoot you in the face, and it’s also only effective against projectiles, so headbutts and grenades are still deadly, for example.
As far as combat goes, Resistance 2 stays true to the core mechanics of the original game, so the control scheme will be familiar to veteran players. You’ll have primary and secondary fire options on weapons as well as a healthy sampling of grenades to throw. When you’re in motion you can try to avoid death by crouching, running and jumping, although you’ll flag yourself on the radar when you’re running and shooting.
Speaking of shooting, the demo we played had four unique weapon load outs to try, which included a sneak peek at some of the new firepower that you’ll have at your disposal. Besides the familiar dynamic duos of the carbine and the shotgun, the auger and the bullseye, the sniper rifle and shotgun, we got to try out the marksman and the minigun. The marksman is a semi-automatic battle rifle with a scope that’s almost as powerful as what you might expect to find on a sniper rifle. The minigun is just that, a power hose of bullets you can spray all over your foes. While it’s slow to get going, the weapon is not to be trifled with. Better still is the minigun’s secondary fire, which ups the fire power and also gives you a shield. The trade off is that you’re unable to move while using it.
The action purred along at a crazy pace thanks to the game’s respawning system, which drops you right back in the game close to whoever killed you–helping to foster the in-game rivalries that Insomniac is hoping will be key to the whole experience. Your rivals in any multiplayer game are called out with a unique color highlight, so you can seek them out and give them the special payback love that can only be delivered by a beatdown.
As far as visuals go, the demo we played made a good first impression but it’s also not totally representative of the final game and clearly featured some placeholder art and animation. The color highlights on your foes are also being tweaked as in the demo they were bright red. Resistance 2’s potential was plain for all to see, though, thanks to the large, detailed environment with a rich color palette. Most importantly, the game burned rubber in the framerate department. While still incomplete, R2’s action is speedy and hectic, which is appreciated. The forest area, with log cabins and tons of foliage, was impressively large and offered plenty of nooks and crannies to maneuver in for maximum killing. Some areas of the map appear to be tailor-made for bottlenecks when teams are rushing to an area, but if players get creative with their energy shields and some teamwork, the tables can be turned.
Overall we’d have to say that we’re pleased by what we played today. There’s a lot of potential there and the pace felt good. There are some minor control quirks that took us a little while to get used to, but R2 will offer the same level of customization for sensitivity that its predecessor did, so we reckon it won’t be much of an issue. We’re anxious to see more of the multiplayer modes and see what kind of flavors Insomniac is going to be serving up to make the game’s multiplayer offering unique. Resistance 2 is slated to ship later this year for the PlayStation 3. Look for much more on the game at this year’s E3 and in the coming months.
-If Its Games
May 17, 2008
LittleBigPlanet continues to amaze us. The game, introduced approximately 15 months ago at the San Francisco Game Developers Conference has come a long way since that debut, and still remains one of the more intriguing games in the Sony PlayStation 3 pipeline. We got to sit down with the developers at Media Molecule today to see where the game stands ahead of its release.
Though LBP is perhaps best known for its multiplayer aspects and creation features (more on those in a bit), we first got a chance to check out a handful of the single player levels that the developers have created for the game. First up was a traditional platforming level, what the developers refer to as a “main” level. These levels are used to forward the storyline of LBP along, as well as unlock new levels to check out. There will also be smaller miniature levels that are often smaller and best thought of as minigames of a sort.
The main level known as Elephant Expedition featured our two Sackboys sprinting along and working together to move though the level. Cooperation is a key to getting from one part of a level to the next–whether you’re pushing and pulling items to create impromptu staircases or activating levers and switches to gain access, you’ll always be looking for ways to help your fellow players out. In fact, those levers and switches are a new aspect of gameplay that we hadn’t seen before and run the gamut from simple levers you can push to activate something to proximity sensors that activated whenver your Sackboy comes near. In the latter case, the level had several towers that you ran across which would elevate or lower whenever you ran past. And, as you might expect, all of these kinds of items are available to you for creating your own mechanics in the game.
The collectible sponge objects that were part of the previous iterations of LBP have changed to bubbles in appearance and this build featured a total counter of the number of bubbles both players had collected during the level, as well as an arrow that pointed to which player had done the most work on the level (i.e. collected the most bubbles). In addition, collectible items such as new stickers, textures, or items for use in the creation part of LBP will be scattered throughout the levels–in order to unlock an elephant sticker for our sticker tool, for example, we had to first reach it in the Elephant Expedition level.
The creativity of the level designers at Media Molecule continues to amaze. One of the mini levels we tried out during our demo was essentially a race from one end of the level to the other. The twist to the race was that the Sackboys were being chased by a lumbering hulk of a contraption on which a Sackboy spawn point hung from a chain. The idea wasn’t just to get across the finish line first, but also avoid being run down by the monster. It was a hectic level, full of lots of near-miss moments as you did your best to keep in front of the mechanical monster while doing your best to scoop up as many bubbles as possible. The dangling spawn point came in handy more than once during our time on the level, giving you an easy chance to jump back into the level and keep the race going.
The element of danger is also relatively new to the LBP game world. While we’ve seen Sackboys taken down by fire in the game before, other types of elements will be in the game including electricity, ice, and noxious gas. The ice effect on objects is particularly fascinating; not only will your Sackboy slide on the slippery surface but, if he stays too long on the ice, he’ll become temporarily encased in a block of ice. To break him out, you’ll have to shake the Sixaxis controller back and forth. And while it will be possible for your Sackboy to die, you will typically be able to re-spawn on a level using the aforementioned respawn points. It sounds like the developers are still deciding whether they will have life counters on the levels in the game but we do know that users will be able to choose the maximum numbers of lives they will allow per level.
You’ll be able to add these elements to any object you create in the game using LBP’s incredibly powerful and easy to use creation system. During the demo, we watched as a developer, with just a few elements out of the object bag and a few clicks of a buttons, was able to create a huge downward slope, then immediately add the ice effect to it, essentially creating a huge icy slide for our Sackboy to slip and slide on.
Though LBP will come with a full slate of single player levels built in, it seems like the real treat will be playing through the levels and checking out the objects that the LBP community will create once they get their collective hands on the game. Certainly the toolset for creation looks to be more extensive than practically any other console game we’ve seen before. In addition to creating shapes and objects from scratch, you’ll be able to add life and motion to them with gears and the aforementioned switches.
The movement of all the objects in the game rely on real physics. One of the objects we saw in the game was a monster of sorts with a retractable jaw that moved up and down automatically. By attaching the lines connected from a switch to each side of the jaw, we could control the movement of the jaws by turning the switch on or off. But, if we connected both lines to one side of elevating jaws and then threw the switch, the entire object would topple over as it became unbalanced. Media Molecule looks to be making things as easy to work with as possible here–in addition to simple buildling tools, they recently added an undo/redo feature that will wind back through time through your last procedures, letting you start over from scratch or at any particular point in the creation process.
But the creation doesn’t stop there. If you like your monster with the switchable jaws, you’ll be able to save the entire object as a “plan”, essentially a template you can use later. You can even choose to copyright that plan, so that other people with whom you share your levels and objects won’t be able to break down or build upon. In addition, we got a brief glimpse at how to use the PS3 Eye Toy accessory in the game to create stickers. You can take a screenshot at any point, then choose a number of different shapes to wrap around it and then place it anywhere in the world you wish, including your home base, which serves as the game’s front end. When playing with friends online, your friends will be able to check out your customized HQ before you move on into the gameplay proper.
Though our expectations are already high for LittleBigPlanet, the game seems to be keeping up with, and often surpassing, those expectations each time we see it. We’re greatly looking forward to seeing more of the game in action, as well as spending some extended time with it to let our creative juices flow. Hopefully the wait won’t be too long and you can be sure we’ll be keeping you updated with the latest news on the game in the coming months.
-If Its Games
May 17, 2008
Sonic Unleashed is Sega’s latest stab at getting Sonic the Hedgehog up to speed on the current generation of platforms. The company’s mascot has seen some rough roads over the years with a broad array of titles that haven’t really worked to his strengths. At Sega’s recent press event we were given a look at Sonic Unleashed, which is an attempt to go back to the hedgehog’s speedy platforming roots. The demo of the 360 game showed off two levels and gave us a good idea of where the game is going.
Sonic Team is again handling the development on the title, but the Unleashed team is being led by Yoshihisa Hashimoto, a veteran member of Sonic Team who was on Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. The remainder of his group is pulled from various areas of Sonic Team and have all worked on different entries in the series over the years, ensuring a respectable amount of collective hedgehog experience. The game’s story finds Sonic racing around collecting chaos emeralds to repair the shattered Earth, which the nefarious Dr. Eggman has sliced up with a new evil device. While this game appears to be thankfully free of a human love interest, Sonic will still mingle with people.
The two levels we saw were both set in Europe, the first being in Greece–the isle of Mykonos, to be exact. The levels were essentially long playgrounds for Sonic to run through with various side paths to zip along. We saw the standard running, rail riding, and enemy bopping, courtesy of Sonic’s homing attack. New to the mix were button prompts during certain action sequences and more acrobatic moments, and a new ring energy meter. The ring energy is a new mechanic that is set to encourage players to haul tail and collect rings as quickly as possible. The faster you collect rings the faster it charges. Once the meter is full you can trigger a powerful speed boost. It looks as though the boost and button prompt actions will tie in to gaining access to different routes through levels. The action also included the use of water spouts to bounce along in certain routes as well. Our demoer also noted that Sonic will gain abilities much in the same way he did in the adventure games, but didn’t offer much in the way of details as to how.
The visuals in the game are running on Sega’s proprietary “hedgehog” engine, which has been developed specifically for Sonic titles with emphasis on speed. What we saw was a promising start with some stretches of impressive speed and camera shifts from third-person to more traditional 2D perspectives. The environments were tightly designed with a mix of enclosed spaces and more open ones with alternate paths. There were also a fair number of breakable items and the like on the paths that would shatter dramatically when Sonic turned on the speed. The incomplete game obviously had some issues with its frame rate, which fluctuated, and some of the camera angles, but those were to be expected given its early status.
Based on what we saw we’re cautiously optimistic about Sonic Unleashed. Our hunger for a really good update of Sonic remains unsated, and it sounds as though the team understands that 2006’s franchise reboot didn’t do anyone any favors. We like the sense of speed the team is going for and the emphasis on just plowing through levels while bopping enemies and doing crazy leaps. We’re intrigued by the difference in gameplay between day and night, so we’re curious to see how that works out. Most importantly, we like the talk about Sonic only being the main character you play as. Some Tails or Knuckles action might be nice, at the most, but we’re hoping the game stays focused on our blue hedgehog for the most part and doesn’t boast a soccer team’s worth of extra playable characters. Sonic Unleashed is set to ship later this year for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. The game will differ between the two groups of consoles with the PS3 and X360 offering crisper visuals and slightly different content, while the PS2 and Wii games will purportedly each boast their own unique touches.
-If Its Games
May 17, 2008
At Sony’s EU PlayStation Day in London early last week, the publisher dropped a handful of heartening details, as well as a few downers for PlayStation 3 owners. Namely, the publisher said that two of its most anticipated exclusive titles, Guerrilla’s Killzone 2 and Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet, had been bumped from their projected ship dates–in Europe, at least–to February 2009 and October 2008, respectively.
With Sony throwing a stateside Gamers’ Day event in Southern California today, the publisher confirmed that Guerrilla’s long-awaited first-person shooter and Media Molecule’s sandbox playground have indeed been furloughed to launch in proximity to their European counterparts.
In addition to confirming the delays, Sony also laid out its lineup for the rest of 2008 and into early 2009. Of primary note, the publisher said Insomniac Games’ Resistance 2 will arrive on the PS3 this fall. The publisher stressed the game’s large-scale 60-player online multiplayer component, as well as the MyResistance.net community portal.
PS3 gamers looking for a little less mayhem will also be interested to know Buzz! Quiz TV, featuring more than 5,000 questions in five categories, will also land on Sony’s flagship console this fall. A slimmed-down PSP version of the game, Buzz! Master Quiz, will be available in the same time frame, and include 3,000 questions spanning a variety of topics.
In addition to its retail offerings, Sony also gave PS3 owners a heads-up on what will arrive on the PlayStation Network this summer. Before summer’s end, the publisher expects Sony Liverpool’s Wipeout HD, 8bit Games’ Elefunk, Q-Games’ PixelJunk Eden, and Sony Japan’s episodic series Siren: Blood Curse.
A full lineup of upcoming titles published by Sony is listed below.
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2–PSP–June 3
Secret Agent Clank–PSP–June 17
Wipeout HD–PSN–Summer 2008
Elefunk–PSN–Summer 2008
PixelJunk Eden–PSN–Summer 2008
Siren: Blood Curse–PSN–Summer 2008
SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Confrontation–PS3–September 16
LittleBigPlanet–PS3–October 2008
NBA 09–PS3, PSP, PS2–Fall 2008
BUZZ! Quiz TV–PS3–Fall 2008
BUZZ! Master Quiz–PSP–Fall 2008
MotorStorm Pacific Rift–PS3–Fall 2008
Resistance 2–PS3–Fall 2008
Killzone 2–PS3–February 2009
May 17, 2008
Fans of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets usually don’t have much to be happy about this time of year. Each May, the Stanley Cup Playoffs are in full swing, but since entering the league in 2000, the team has yet to reach the postseason.
Rick Nash was drafted by Columbus first overall in 2002.
2K Sports is giving true Blue fans something to cheer, given that the publisher announced that Columbus captain and three-time All-Star Rick Nash will adorn the cover of NHL 2K9. The 23-year-old left-winger is an avowed gamer, and has been consulting with the game’s developers to make “the most fun hockey experience available.”
When it comes to critical reception, 2K Sports’ series of hockey games typically runs neck-and-neck with Electronic Arts’ own pucks franchise, but the series stumbled last year compared to its counterpart. To address that shortcoming, 2K Sports developer Visual Concepts is building NHL 2K9 from the ground up, and promising “to bring the fun and excitement back to hockey video games.”
NHL 2K9 is set for a fall release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2.
May 17, 2008
Questions concerning the future of the Electronic Entertainment Expo have swirled since show organizers the Entertainment Software Association decided to dramatically downscale the gaming industry’s premier event in 2006. While the ESA has continued to trudge on with E3 amid debate over the show’s relevance, this month saw a potentially debilitating blow struck to the organization when soon-to-be-merged publishers Activision and Vivendi said they would not be renewing their membership with the representative body nor attending its annual event.
Now, another leading gamemaker has decided to part ways with the ESA. If Its Games has confirmed with LucasArts that the all-things-Star Wars publisher will not be renewing its membership with the ESA, though the publisher still plans to attend this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit at the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 15-17.
“We can confirm that LucasArts is no longer a member of the ESA,” said LucasArts public relations director Margaret Grohne. “As a company we are still committed to bringing consumers the best interactive experience possible and support the ESA’s mission in the industry. LucasArts will be participating in E3.”
The ESA was quick to issue a statement both acknowledging LucasArts’ departure and painting a bright portrait of the organization’s future.
“Since its creation in 1994, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has grown and evolved into the pre-eminent voice of the video and computer game industry,” said ESA senior vice president of communications and research Rich Taylor. “The organization has 25 members, including three companies that were welcomed last year. Today, we can confirm that one of our members, LucasArts, has decided not to renew its membership. We value each member of our association, but respect the unique factors that led to LucasArts’ decision. Last year was a record year for an industry which is becoming an increasingly important part of the nation’s social, cultural and economic landscape. We are confident the industry will continue to thrive and ESA will continue to create a beneficial environment for the entire entertainment software industry.”
In the wake of Activision and Vivendi’s departure from the ESA, several other publishers and developers, including NCsoft and Foundation 9 said they would also be skipping out on this year’s event. However, a number of other gamemakers, including Electronic Arts, Bethesda Softworks, Warner Bros. Interactive, Majesco, and D3Publisher, reaffirmed their commitment to the annual trade show. After having initially confirmed its attendance to If Its Games, id Software’s appearance at this year’s show remains in question.
May 17, 2008
Electronic Arts picked up the rights for games based on a variety of Hasbro properties last August, and the publisher has been trickling out its planned uses for the license since earlier this year. In February, Nerf and Littlest Pet Shop were the first projects detailed under the deal, followed last month by news of a game adaptation of Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition.
It might be a tuber…
So far the projects have been one brand per game, but today EA announced Family Game Night, a compilation that spans a number of Hasbro’s most famous games. In development for the Wii and PlayStation 2, the six-pack of games will include Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, Connect Four, Sorry!, and the spin-off Sorry! Sliders. Serving as a virtual host for Game Night will be Hasbro’s most famous tuberous mascot, Mr. Potato Head.
In keeping with the theme, Family Game Night will support multiplayer modes for up to four players (Connect Four and Battleship are limited to two players). Users will also be able to play faithful re-creations of the original games, or remixed versions like Connect Four Power Chips or Boggle Portal Cubes. Other features include a customizable virtual living room in which to play, and party game modes that add minigames to the proceedings.
Hasbro has been running its Family Game Night marketing promotion since 1998 as a way to encourage families to spend time together once a week talking and playing around its board game products. The gaming adaptation of the marketing campaign is planned for this fall.
May 17, 2008
Yesterday’s release of April sales figures for US retailers contained a contradiction of sorts that raised a number of eyebrows. Despite the massive launch success of Grand Theft Auto IV, the Rockstar game didn’t appear to be a “system seller,” as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware sales were actually down significantly from the previous month.
In a brief on the NPD figures today, Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich said the results strengthened an assessment he made last month that Sony and Microsoft’s latest consoles have saturated the possible market at their current price points. At the time, Divnich pointed to stagnant hardware sales of the two systems despite banner debuts for Army of Two and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 as evidence that prices would need to come down on the systems.
Divnich pointed out that April was the first time Xbox 360 sales dipped below an average of 50,000 a week since last July, and that dip was followed the very next month by a price cut for the hardware.
“Of course, it might be a little too soon to speculate that we can expect a price drop in the coming weeks or additional hardware SKUs (an Xbox 360 with Blu-Ray capability) in the coming month,” Divnich said, “but if May’s hardware sales drop below the 50,000 units sold a week threshold, we can definitely expect something in terms of a change in strategy from both Microsoft and Sony.”
May 17, 2008
USATODAY.com - In making Grand Theft Auto IV the top selling game of April, despite its only being in stores five days, consumers opted for the Microsoft Xbox 360 version at a rate of almost two-to-one. The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV sold 1.85 million copies, according to market tracking firm The NPD Group. The Sony PlayStation 3 version sold 1 million copies, taking the month’s No. 3 spot.
May 17, 2008
AP - Sumo wrestlers were the main inspiration behind Wii Fit, Nintendo’s latest attempt at getting you off the couch when you play video games.
May 17, 2008
NewsFactor - Players of Disney video games on the Nintendo DS now have their own avatar-based online community. On Thursday, Disney announced that its DGamer community is now available, along with the Nintendo DS version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
May 17, 2008
Investor’s Business Daily - Nintendo’s “Wii Fit” video game is likely to continue the company’s winning streak as it keeps finding new ways to break the traditional video game mold.
May 17, 2008
Reuters - For years, video games have been blamed for turning kids into idle layabouts who only venture off the couch to fill up on potato chips and soda.
May 17, 2008
AFP - A deadline for Take-Two Interactive Software shareholders to agree to a buyout by video game giant Electronic Arts has passed with neither firm commenting on the takeover bid’s fate.
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