PlayStation 2 Seventh Anniversary 120 Million Consoles Sold

Platform Momentum Continues Heading Into 2008 with the Release of More Than 160 Software Titles and a New, Limited Edition Hardware Model

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today celebrates the seven-year anniversary of its PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system. Since its release in North America on October 26, 2000, more than 120 million hardware units and more than a billion units of PlayStation 2 software have sold worldwide, making it the best-selling gaming platform ever released. While other game systems have vanished from the market, PlayStation 2 continues to exhibit strong momentum, a testament to the design and technology at the core of the product and demonstrating SCEA’s commitment to a 10-year product lifecycle.

“While today’s anniversary celebrates PlayStation 2’s past, we’re very excited for its future,” said Jack Tretton, President and Chief Executive Officer for SCEA. “We look forward to the platform’s continued growth and expect to sell approximately 12 million units worldwide by the end of March, leading us to anticipate that PlayStation 2’s lifecycle will exceed that of the original PlayStation. Never before has an in-home game system experienced this type of worldwide success on such a long-lasting scale.”

Since its inception, PlayStation 2 has had a tremendous impact on the industry, helping to establish the DVD format as well as giving gamers some of the most popular software titles in video game history, spanning all genres. Currently there are nearly 1,500 titles in PlayStation 2’s software library and this number will continue to grow with more than 160 new games expected in North America throughout the holidays and by the end of March 2008 including Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, High School Musical: Sing It, Madden NFL 08, Manhunt 2, NBA ’08, Rock Band, and Buzz™.

SCEA is also bringing a whole new look to PlayStation 2 this holiday with the release of a limited edition Ceramic White PlayStation 2 bundled with SingStar™ Pop and two high-quality USB microphones. The new PlayStation 2 bundle will be available in North America in early November for a suggested retail price of US $149.99/C$149.99 and features the same, ultra-sleek design and functions of the current PlayStation 2 including access to the large catalog of PlayStation 2 and PlayStation software titles as well as DVD and CD playback, digital surround sound, two memory card slots and an integrated Ethernet port for network gaming.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Fact Sheet

“Ninja Gaiden 2” makes its long-awaited debut on Xbox 360 as the blockbuster action-packed sequel to “Ninja Gaiden.”

“Ninja Gaiden 2” features a new and improved game engine, developed from the ground up exclusively for Microsoft and Xbox 360 by Team Ninja and legendary game developer Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of the famed “Dead or Alive” franchise.

In “Ninja Gaiden 2,” gamers must guide Ryu Hayabusa on a mission to avenge his clan and prevent the destruction of the human race. Armed with an assortment of ninja weaponry, players must help Ryu skillfully maneuver through a world fraught with peril and danger. “Ninja Gaiden 2” will feature an all-new gameplay engine, a new auto-health regeneration system, levels, adventures, enemies and thrilling combat with an extensive assortment of ninja weaponry, representing a true evolution of the highly popular franchise.

• Exhilarating ninja action. Assuming the role of a ninja warrior, players will experience an all-new combat system that requires skill and mastery of their full arsenal of weapons, including Obliteration Techniques that allow players to quickly and stylishly finish off an opponent. In addition to the variety of brutal new primary weapons and enhanced versions of previous favorites, “Ninja Gaiden® 2” will feature unique acrobatic combat and attacks used not only by Ryu Hayabusa but also by his formidable enemies.

• Easy to play but hard to master. The new auto-healing system in “Ninja Gaiden® 2,” featuring semi-permanent damage restored at save points, is the natural evolution of the franchise’s distinctive gameplay and introduces a new twist to managing health. With a newly implemented auto-healing functionality and save-point system, as well as an extensive story mode and multiple difficulty levels available from the start of the game, the gameplay of “Ninja Gaiden® 2” will be both accessible to more casual players and challenging to even the most demanding gamers.

• Massive content and engrossing story. The themes of revenge and friendship in “Ninja Gaiden 2” give rise to a series of dramatic events to create a truly compelling story. From Tokyo to New York and to the netherworld, the story will lead players through a lengthy, action-packed story mode as they skillfully maneuver Ryu Hayabusa through a demonized world fraught with peril and danger. In addition to the single-player campaign, players can upload Karma scores to Xbox LIVE leaderboards and participate in an all-new Master Ninja Tournament.

• Realistic graphics in next-generation gaming. Built from the ground up from Team Ninja’s in-house gaming engine for the next-generation Xbox 360 platform, “Ninja Gaiden 2” represents the best in amazing visuals, responsive control and thrilling combat with an extensive assortment of ninja weaponry.

The information contained in this fact sheet relates to a prerelease product that may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or reflect the product when first commercially released. This fact sheet is provided for informational purposes only, and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the fact sheet or the information contained in it.

Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox Live are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Ultimate Board Game Collection

Empire Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of Silverstar Holdings, today announced it has signed an agreement with Valcon Games LLC to publish and distribute in Europe and all PAL territories the Ultimate Board Game Collection, a compendium of classic board and table top games for the PlayStation 2, PSP (PlayStation Portable) and Wii.

Containing 20 of the most recognisable and popular board and table top games played by families around the world (see list below), Ultimate Board Game Collection is already a huge hit in the US, having sold almost half a million copies to date.

"We are excited to work with Empire to bring these classic titles to the European market,” said Glenn Halseth, CEO of Valcon Games. “Given Empire’s direct marketing distribution network across Europe, we’re confident they can reproduce the phenomenal success we've enjoyed in North America."

Parents are often concerned about video games full of violence, but they can rest assured that the Ultimate Board Game Collection is full of good, clean family fun that everyone will enjoy. Each of the games will be fully customisable to suit any player’s tastes with different rule sets, environments, piece types and sound tracks. Also, every game will also have specific goals and award trophies to players who master them.

Ian Higgins, CEO Empire Interactive said, “We’re delighted to bring this collection of classic board and table games to European households. Publishing on a range of formats gives us an opportunity to fulfill the sales potential and family wide appeal of these timeless games and the Wii console provides the perfect demographic for our first launch on this platform.”

Clive Kabatznik, CEO of Silverstar Holdings, added, “Ultimate Board Game Collection is our first Wii release and another milestone in our plan to maximize product potential across all game formats and leverage the power of Empire’s unique European distribution network. This is also a significant move for us into the casual game market and the Ultimate Board Game Collection is a fantastic title to lead this initiative.”

Key Features

24 Classic board game style games, PSP, (20 on PS2).

Enhanced physical gesturing and unique game play via the hand held wireless controller on Wii (12 games).

Customise each game by selecting different rules, environments, piece type and sound tracks.

Play against the CPU or up to 6 other players.

User selectable sound track; chose from 4 different styles.

CPU opponent has multiple difficulty levels.

Includes 100 different Jigsaw pictures.

Each game has a trophy that can be unlocked by completing a specific goal. Can you unlock all twenty trophies?

Suitable for players of all ages.

Games Include:

Chess

Quatro

Checkers

Enigma

Backgammon

Reversi

Snakes & Ladders

Parcheesi

Dice

Dominoes

Go

Chinese Checkers

Word Cubes

Mahjong Solitaire

Anagrams

Concentration

3D Tic-Tac-Toe

Mancala

Jigsaws

Ultimate Board Game Collection will be released Q1 2008.

OG Planet Scares Up Some Halloween Fun

Special Holiday Events Planned for Albatross 18 and Rumble Fighter

OGPlanet, an innovative provider of multiplayer online games, today announced a variety of Halloween-themed in-game events continuing through the end of October.

In Rumble Fighter, OGPlanet's multiplayer online fighting game, players can customize their fighters with fun Halloween items including jack-o'-lantern masks and the intimidating "Slasher Mask." A jack-o'-lantern hunt is also in full swing, and the players who gather the most jack-o'-lanterns by the end of the month will be rewarded with unique prizes.

Albatross 18, OGPlanet's golf role-playing game, is also getting into the swing of Halloween with a colorful Hallow's Eve Clubset and a special golf ball called the Phantom Phoenix. Players can also purchase limited-edition Halloween costumes for their Albatross18 characters.

"Halloween has always been our favorite holiday because it allows our production teams to really get creative with festive in-game items and events," said Jack Liu, Chief Creative Officer of OGPlanet. "More than anything, we enjoy celebrating Halloween with our community with these specially catered seasonal offerings."

Huddle Up, Football Fans: NaturalMotion Releases New Screenshots From Backbreaker

NaturalMotion today released new Backbreaker screenshots featuring the line of scrimmage, close-ups and unique camera angles of the quarterback making a pass. Premiering on next-generation consoles in 2008, Backbreaker incorporates NaturalMotion's motion synthesis engine, euphoria.

About NaturalMotion

NaturalMotion Ltd. is the first company to create 3D character animation software based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a technology that utilizes adaptive behaviors and artificial intelligence to simulate the human-nervous system. Based on Oxford University research, NaturalMotion's euphoria synthesizes 3D character animation in real time on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, thus creating unique game moments and previously unachievable interactivity. It will debut in 2008 in Rockstar's hotly awaited Grand Theft Auto IV and LucasArts' ground-breaking Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. In addition to licensing its technology, NaturalMotion is developing Backbreaker, an American football title for release in 2008.

For further information please visit NaturalMotion's website www.naturalmotion.com.

RISING STAR GAMES TO PUBLISH NO MORE HEROES

Rising Star Games is pleased to announce that it will publish No More Heroes, the highly anticipated action game by Tokyo-based acclaimed game designer, Goichi Suda, (Suda 51). The project has been developed by Suda 51’s development studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. and Rising Star Games’ parent company, Marvelous Entertainment. No More Heroes is set to arrive in Europe in February 2008 exclusively for Nintendo Wii.

No More Heroes tells the story of Travis Touchdown, an animé fan who lives in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, California. After an unexpected turn of events, Travis finds himself being approached by the head hunter of an assassins’ organisation. Travis is challenged to prove himself worthy by defeating ten other bloodthirsty killers – all with deep stories of their own – to make his way to the top of the assassins’ league.

“Rising Star Games is very excited to be bringing this latest project from Suda 51 to the European market,” commented Martin Defries, Managing Director, Rising Star Games. “He is without doubt a legendary creative powerhouse within the gaming industry. No More Heroes is shaping up to be a widely anticipated Q1 title for both the trade and consumers alike. It’s a massively engaging and immersive gaming experience for the Wii. This is exactly the right product to broaden the format’s appeal to a wider, more serious gaming audience."

No More Heroes realises the dream of Wii players everywhere as they can wield the Wii Remote to swing the beam katana and perform spectacular wrestling moves. Suda 51’s creation features avant-garde graphics which will thrust players into a stylised world filled with edgier gameplay. Taking its lead from the silver screen, the storyline is riddled with laugh-out-loud violence, black humour and irony-filled dialogue. No More Heroes is a multi-sense video game experience: dark, engaging and pure entertainment!

“With No More Heroes, we wanted to create a game that allows players to be able to jump right in and play,” said Suda 51, president of Grasshopper Manufacture. “The Wii allows us to create an open world where movement and gameplay feel very natural.”

About Rising Star Games:

Rising Star Games Limited is a video games publisher for Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Wii plus PlayStation 2 in the PAL territory. The firm will be publishing its first Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles during 2008. A joint venture between Japanese publisher/developer Marvelous Interactive and long standing Nintendo Nordic distributor Bergsala AB, the company introduces new games alongside enhanced and updated versions of some of interactive entertainment’s most successful franchises.
www.risingstargames.com

Students Create Slinky Bomb, Win $25,000 in Computer Game Contest

Three Pomona College students created a new computer game that “secretly” teaches physics concepts to middle school students and captured the $25,000 first prize in the national Hidden Agenda computer game design contest.

The goal of the contest, now in its fifth year, is to inspire college students to build entertaining games that teach middle school subjects. Final judging was based on 70 percent entertainment and 30 percent educational value.

This year two Pomona entries made the final five. The winning entry, Slinky Bomb, was built by Alexander Haro, Class of ’08; Tim Brown, ’07; and Kurt Ude, ’09. The game teaches physics through a series of ball-in-the-cup puzzles that demonstrate properties such as motion, acceleration, energy and angular momentum. Among the creators’ motivations, according to Haro, were both the prize money and the fact that Pomona teams had finished in the finals three times but never won.

The team estimates that development took about 400 hours with most of that packed into a three-week period. Brown notes that, “The last night of work was pretty crazy. We decided to add in voice-overs at roughly midnight and had them in by 6 a.m., while adding the hints features and sounds. We were hyped up on caffeine and throwing tennis balls against different surfaces to record sound effects while trying to add as many cool features to the game as we could before submitting. It was hectic, but fun!”

“The three of us had already been up for basically three days straight,” explained Haro. “Yet, somehow, we managed to have one of our most productive nights then. During that time we were able to implement the hint interface, record the voice overlays, and fix a lot of long-standing bugs.”

More than two dozen teams entered the contest, and the five finalists were invited to Austin, TX for the final judging, which included testing by middle school students.“The first day was awesome, said Brown. “Hearing and seeing the kids' excitement with the game was incredibly rewarding but it was also great to see the teachers really enjoying it. It was nice to see that our game was actually fun to play and appreciated by teachers, learning experts, and professional game developers at the same time.”

For Haro, “The memory that sticks out most was when we first arrived to the contest playing area. All of the kids were playing the games on the computers and most of them were playing Slinky Bomb…. A boy stood up and asked us, ‘How did you make Slinky Bomb so awesome?’ The fact we had built a game was an accomplishment, the fact that the kids enjoyed it so much took that sense of accomplishment to a whole other level.”

The contest judges were: NCsoft, a game development company; a team of instructional designers from the University of Texas and Enspire Learning; Marc Prensky, a digital game-based learning consultant; and the teachers and students from the Camp Wired program in Austin, TX, which teaches middle school students how to create video games.

The second Pomona College team making the Hidden Agenda finals consisted of Charles Zhou ‘08 and Edward (Ed) Burns ’08, who created CheMeteor in which players create chemical-based missiles to defend the planet.

The Hidden Agenda contest is sponsored by the Liemandt Foundation, a nonprofit family foundation dedicated to furthering education through technology. Among their goals is the hope that winners will go on to devote their talents to developing educational games when they graduate.

Slinky Bomb has already been installed on over 4500 computers, which have been given to underprivileged middle school kids in urban areas through a partnership between the Liemandt Foundation and the nonprofit Computers for Youth.

The Top 4: Worst video games

TURKEYS: Remember some of these? They were a waste of time.

1. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (Atari 2600): Rush-released for the holidays to capitalize on the success of Steven Spielberg's magical movie, this jaw-dropping stinker isn't just the worst game ever; it defines what a bad game truly is.

The slow, choppy gameplay consists mostly of a green, pixilated E.T. climbing out of pits, dodging an awkwardly programmed detective, and ... getting out of more pits. E.T. himself would trade in stashes of Reese's Pieces to ensure no curious gamer touches this monstrosity.

2. "Survival Arts" (Arcade): When "Mortal Kombat" revolutionized fighting games, piles of imitators followed, but none as bad as this.

From the cheap, garish costumes and overly dramatic death cries to the horrible controls and character actors, "Survival Arts" will make one burst into fits of laughter with its ineptitude. Did I mention the old guy with a limitless supply of weapons and the boss who looks like Richard Simmons?

3. "Superman 64" (Nintendo 64): People love Superman because he represents absolute good and can do no wrong -- except when he flies on your home console. This N64 turkey defaces the good name of Superman in every way, forcing the Man of Steel to fly through hoops as a mission.


The gameplay is extremely buggy, with unresponsive controls and limited superpowers. You may find yourself giving up when Lex Luthor challenges, "Solve my maze." Difficult, as there is no maze.

4. "Gods and Generals" (PC): A tie-in for a hated Civil War movie that can't get basic game programming right.

The low artificial intelligence has soldiers shooting randomly and running through fire until they die; the landscaping has more polygons than a geometry book; there are hardly any game physics; and nearly every troop looks exactly the same. Had the Civil War itself been like this game, it'd probably be known as the Clone Wars long before George Lucas made movies -- if either side even won.

NFL Challenge to play for $100,000 in prizes

Players hit a different kind of gridiron yesterday for a chance to compete in an international tournament.

Football fans put their skills to the test in the EA Sports Madden NFL Challenge, which saw video game players going head-to-head yesterday.

"The tournament allows you to know how good you are and gives a scale to build on," said Madden fan Mike Iwankow, 25.

Iwankow came in second in last year's Madden regional tournament in Winnipeg and was eager to compete again this year.

"To be the best in a city is quite an accomplishment," said Anthony Francisco, manager of the St. James Best Buy store, where the competition was held.

The latest version of the Madden game features more realistic action, with certain National Football League players having stronger skills than others, said Iwankow.

"It's almost bang-on," he said.

About 40 players had signed up yesterday morning to participate in the Winnipeg tournament, playing the Madden NFL 08 game on Xbox 360 systems.

"They treat it like a real game. They're as fanatical about it as fans at Bombers' games," said James Deighton, one of the tourney's organizers.

PLAYS RELIGIOUSLY

One of the competitors, Clint Armstrong, 31, said the event brought more excitement to the gameplay and he looked forward to competing again next year.

"He plays the game religiously," said Armstrong's sister, Katrina Paquin, who came out to cheer him on.

Other Madden enthusiasts said they enjoy the popular video game series because of their fondness for the NFL.

"I'm a huge football fan and it's the closest you can get (in a video game)," said Nigel Russell, 18, adding he's been playing the game for about five years.

The top three players in Winnipeg walk off with televisions as prizes while the overall winner gets a paid trip to Toronto to compete in the national championship. The winner of that event will be sent to Los Angeles in December for the international final, worth about $100,000 in prizes, said Deighton.

UK government video games review

In her first interview as head of a government review of video games' effect on children, TV psychologist Tanya Byron tells David Smith that being a mother will help in her new role.

She told The Observer why she believes portable games devices should be part of daily schooling, suggests a likely link between violent games and violent behaviour in certain cases, and stresses the need for parents and children to balance virtual world risks as they would real world dangers such as crossing a road or talking to strangers.

Pilot schemes in schools, which have seen hand-held devices such as the Nintendo DS used by pupils to practise mental arithmetic, will be applauded. Asked if she thinks these should become part of the daily curriculum, Byron says: 'Yes I do. These are the technologies that children are using and will continue to use more and more as they grow into the next workforce, the next thinking generation.

While their educational merits are seldom noted, video games tend to become news only when gory or violent content is blamed for copycat behaviour in the real world. Is there a causal link? Byron is no fan of censorship but admits it's 'the big question'. 'I think the fact that currently there exists no concrete evidence of harm does not mean evidence of no harm.

Byron's consultation with the games and internet industries will include a mission to America and a meeting with YouTube, the video sharing site, to discuss its policy for taking down inappropriate content. She has also thrown open the process to children themselves, with blogs on MySpace and Bebo .

'Balance' is possibly Byron's favourite word, and the government can expect a nuanced report sensitive to both sides of an argument. That doesn't mean it will be bland. As visitors to her MySpace page now know, her star sign is Aries, also known as the ram.

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