Nintendo Wii owners will buy a Sony PlayStation 3 in 2008

Sony's key growth may come not only from its PS2 installed base upgrading to PS3, but also from millions of Wii owners looking for a second console, according to iSuppli, which called 2008 a "turning year" for PS3.

Research firm iSuppli, who forecast earlier this month that Sony's PlayStation 3 would eek out a victory in the console war by 2011, has told Reuters that 2008 will be a "turning year" for the PS3. "Sony is offering a better forthcoming software pipeline with blockbuster titles like Gran Turismo 5, which will boost PS3 sales this year," said iSuppli analyst Pamela Tufegdzic.

Importantly, Tufegdzic is looking at Nintendo's Wii audience as a driver of PS3 sales. She believes Sony will drop the price on its console enticing Wii owners to finally get a second, more powerful system. "We anticipate Sony will have another price slash on the PS3 this year, and come Christmas, consumers who originally bought the Wii will likely purchase the PS3," Tufegdzic said. "The battle over consoles ultimately boils down to price."

Another strong point for the PS3 of course will be its Blu-ray victory over HD DVD. As more consumers upgrade to HDTV and HD movies, there's a good chance they could look to the PS3 as their first Blu-ray player. "People may buy the PS3 not only for their gaming needs, but for video as well, which gives the PS3 a unique competitive edge over the Wii and Xbox 360 well into the longer term," Tufegdzic noted.

With the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4 launching on June 12, along with a new hardware bundle including the game and a DualShock 3 controller, the PS3 could have a strong summer. Konami Digital Entertainment CEO Kazumi Kitaue likened the release of MGS4 to a Hollywood summer blockbuster, and you can bet that Sony has high hopes that Solid Snake will do for PS3 what Master Chief and Halo have done for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Source: Game Daily

Donkey Kong Jet Race - not worth the wait on Nintendo Wii

Donkey Kong Jet Race
Wii
Classification: G
Price: $99.95(Australia) £29.99 (UK) $39.90 (US)
Rating: 2 out of 5

Poor old Donkey Kong - once again he's had people making a monkey of him. Strapped to a couple of rocket barrels and jettisoned towards a finish line, he's got little to do in Jet Race other than gobble bananas and drift out of the way of precariously placed obstacles. As far as racing games go, this is nothing to go ape over.

Jet Race has a string of simian stars from a bunch of other Donkey Kong offshoot games. The cheeky monkeys Diddy, Candy, Kranky, Funky and Dixie don't exactly make for a stellar line-up but they do exhibit a certain goofy charm that younger gamers will enjoy.

Much like the brilliant Mario Kart, scooping up bananas gives you a momentary burst of speed, while popping balloons rewards your character with power boosts that help you in the race. Whirlwinds can sap your opponents' bananas, a Backward Barrel can be dropped behind you to knock someone out, a Tasty Melon can make you invincible and the Pineapple Launcher attacks the character in front of you with a spiky fruit to the back of the head.

To provide some kind of obligatory Wii motion control activity, players must vigorously shake both the remote and Nunchuk controllers up and down - as if slapping an invisible bongo drum - to accelerate. Once you hit top speed, it's a case of waggling your left or right hand to indicate the direction in which you want your character to turn.

This clumsy control method is imprecise and too slow for responding to sudden make-or-break manoeuvres. As the races get faster and the circuits begin to overflow with objects that can bring your character to a devastating halt, shaking your hands to weave through danger becomes needlessly frustrating.

ENDGAME The control method is a mess, so wait for a more conventional racing game to come along if you want to take your Wii for a wild ride.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Game Crazy Hosts Knock Down, Drag Out, Video Game Fun, with Super Smash Bros. Brawl Launch Parties

Game Crazy, a leading video game retailer, is giving fans the ultimate opportunity to punch, kick and smash their way to game-related prizes at launch parties for the eagerly awaited third installment of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series.

Beginning at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 8th, Game Crazy stores across the country are staying open late for fans who want to be among the first to get their hands on the highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii system. The new game goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, March 9th.

To celebrate the launch of the new game, Game Crazy is encouraging fans of all ages to come dressed as their favorite video game character. Many stores will be hosting Super Smash Melee and Wii Sports tournaments for prizes while fans wait for the new game to officially go on sale. Game Crazy is also holding a text-to-win contest in which customers can win a $250 gift card.

“We’ve had a lot of pre-orders for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and from what we’ve seen of the game already we know it’s going to be one of the most innovative and entertaining titles to come out in a long time,” said Dave Hulegaard, game enthusiast and buyer for Game Crazy. “This game features an incredible number of hall of fame characters. Finally Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pikachu and many others can duke it out for the ultimate bragging rights. It’s also infinitely customizable so you can replay the game over and over and never have exactly the same experience.”

Hulegaard believes fans will be most excited about a sprawling adventure mode in the game called “The Subspace Emissary.” “It’s a full game in itself,” he said. “Players jump and brawl their way through enemy-packed side-scrolling levels, meeting up with other characters, watching incredible cinematics and taking on massive bosses. What makes this mode even cooler is that Super Smash Bros. Brawl has Wi-Fi capability so up to four players can brawl against each other remotely.”

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is rated T for teen audiences. Fans looking for more information about Game Crazy’s launch parties in their area can go to www.gamecrazy.com.

Source: Business Wire

SCI Entertainment announced steep losses and cut 25% of their staff

SCI Entertainment, the owner of the Tomb Raider games, has announced steep losses and a major business revamp.
The computer games maker said losses in the six months to the end of December were £81.4m ($161.6m) compared with a £17.9m loss a year ago.

New chief executive Phil Rogers cancelled 14 projects and announced 260 job losses - 25% of the firm's staff.

He also said the revamp could cost up to £55m and added that it might have to sell shares to cover the cost.

More from the BBC

Weekly Microsoft XBox 360 Rock Band Downloadable Content (Week 10)

Harmonix and MTV Games today announced that the Grateful Dead will be featured in the next batch of downloadable tracks available for Rock Band. Starting the week of March 4, 2008, players will be able grab any or all of the six classic tracks—including Truckin', Casey Jones and I Need A Miracle —from the famous Northern California jam band that featured Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and others.

Additionally, the companies claimed that the game's fans can expect to see more from the group: “Over the next several months, the iconic group will make a total of 18 master recordings from its diverse catalog available as digitally distributed game levels for Rock Band.”

Details are as follows:

Release date:
March 4, 2008 (Xbox Live Marketplace)
March 6, 2008 (PlayStationStore)

Tracks:
Grateful Dead Pack
China Cat Sunflower
Casey Jones 
Sugar Magnolia
Truckin’
Franklin’s Tower 
I Need A Miracle 
(All six tracks utilize the original master recordings)

Price: $9.99 (880 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per pack or
$1.99 (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track

Locations: Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store
** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change **

Source: Team XBox

ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS 1.5 PATCH DOWNLOAD

Feeling lucky? Splash Damage has released a beta patch for Quake Wars today. Here's the poop:

Good news: There's light at the end of the license tunnel! We've at last received the proper license files for both the Competition Mod and the 1.5 game update. With that in mind, we're now prepping them for release and hope to get them out as soon as possible (for real!).

Since we want to make sure that both releases are as solid as can be, we've decided to run public beta phases for them - this will allow us to iron out any remaining stability issues and also make sure that the backend infrastructure is working properly. Both of these are the most difficult things to test for and since we've had a few issues crop up in 1.4 that didn't surface during our testing, we feel that a public beta phase is in the best interest of the game and the players.

Download here

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: 1.65 Million Copies Sold

From Ukraine to the official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. forums, to Google Translate to Dozerking, to me:

The poster translated the article, saying the CEO of GSC, Sergei Grigorovich, reported sales of 950,000 units in CIS, while selling 700,000 units in the rest of the world, almost all at full price. That would total about 1.65 Million copies plus, since the interview.

GSC proves, once again, that PC gaming isn't dead.

Source: IGN Voodoo Extreme

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VE3D Video for Worms: A Space Oddity (Wii) - Trailer

Watch it on ve3d

New shots for the Wii version of Worms have emerged online, pointing to some variations within the traditional gameplay.

Meteor showers seem to replace the air strike option, whilst flying saucers deliver power-ups and crates containing health packs.


The last shot particularly confuses us, as it looks like an alien spaceship is actively firing on the worms. How can that be fair?

Activision say half a billion dollars plus to take on World of Warcraft

Speaking at an investor meeting, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said that he thinks it would take an investment of half a billion to a billion dollars to take on World of Warcraft - and even then, success isn't guaranteed.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it," he said.

Late last year, Activision took a different route, merging with Warcraft owners Vivendi to create Activision Blizzard.

"When we first started looking at it, it appeared to us like a game in an insurmountable product category... EA, Microsoft, Sony and scores of venture capital investments had been put to work unsuccessfully in trying to develop massively multiplayer games as a product opportunity," Kotick said.

"When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed, there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

Kotick also paid tribute to the talent at WOW developers Blizzard. "They have a model that is very well-developed, they have a very keen understanding of their audiences, and they're just scratching the surface of opportunity in a lot of areas... These guys are among the best in the world of game development."

Kotick was speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference on Tuesday this week.

Source: Games Industry

Activision Trademarks the DJ Hero name to add to Guitar Hero line up

Activision has been hitting it big with the Guitar Hero franchise, and we know it's looking to expand what it can do with the series. I don't think anyone is going to be surprised by this next bit of news: on February 8, Activision filed to trademark the name DJ Hero.

The trademark refers to "computer game software and related instruction manual sold together as a unit; interactive video game programs; computer game discs; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; video game controllers; interactive video game comprised of a CD or DVD sold as a unit with a video game controller." It looks like your guitar is going to get a friend.

This isn't a new idea; Beatmania has been around for quite a while. Of course, Guitar Hero is simply a refined version of Guitar Freaks, so this won't be the first time Red Octane and Activision mine an area Konami has had some success in. There is no other information at this time, but it shouldn't be that difficult to adjust the Guitar Hero formula to a DJ set up.

We'll be watching for more information, but it's safe to say that this is the last Hero game we'll be hearing about.

Source: Arstechnica