There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo may dominate the global market for video games, but they don't rule in every corner of the world.
The extremely high cost of new video game consoles and games in Brazil has led to unusual market conditions in that emerging country – and a potential market for video game hardware makers. Due to high import taxes, new consoles like the PlayStation 3 regularly fetch in excess of $1,000 USD in Brazil.
However, an intrepid Brazilian company called Tectoy hopes to capture a portion of the young, casual gaming market in Brazil with the launch of their Zeebo home console.
This innovative piece of hardware presents the first credible challenge to the popularity of the other big three manufacturers, and lights the way toward other potential opportunities in markets south of the equator.
Under the hood, the Zeebo is no slouch, especially considering that i... More »
Courtesy of marketwire via YouTube, below is a video and related Press Release as the ESRB announces rating summaries, a new source of information for parents about video game content.
Press Release: ESRB Announces New Video Game Rating Summaries
New Resource Provides Parents With More Detailed Information on Game Content Just in Time for the Holiday Shopping Season
The ESRB announces rating summaries, a new source of information for parents about video game content.
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - November 12, 2008) - The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns age and content ratings for computer and video games, today announced the availability of "rating summaries," a new, supplementary source of information about game content that parents can use when considering which games to purchase for their children this holiday season and beyond.
The infamous Xbox 360 "red ring of death" (indicating a failed unit) has caused Microsoft - and its customers - untold pain in the three years since the console's launch in 2005, and cost it $1.15bn (£738m) last year.
Microsoft has never said publicly why the console was plagued with faults: it seems that poor production quality was at the heart of the failures - an all-round problem with no single cause except impatience on the company's part as it tried to become the leader in videogame consoles.
It was an ambitious attack. Microsoft's engineers started working on the Xbox 360 at least a year after Sony's engineers began work on the PlayStation 3, yet wound up shipping a year earlier. With the first Xbox, the company lost $3.7bn (£2.3bn) over four years, mostly because costs of the box - particularly its hard drive - were too high.
Bill Gates didn't really care about the losses; that was simply the ante for getting into an exciting ne... More »
While speaking with Variety, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser gave some disappointing news about the downloadable content that Xbox 360 user’s were promised to come out by the end of the year.
While its still on track to be released for Microsoft exclusively, he’s just not sure if we’ll see it by the end of the year.
“Me: On another topic, I have to ask you about the “GTA IV” downloadable content you’re doing. Do you still expect that to come out this year?”
“DH: I’m not sure. It’s going well. But we don’t know a date. We hope to be announcing that in the next few weeks. We’re still figuring out a few things. We’re more focused on quality than dates, always have been. But the development is going really good. It’s shaping up to be something we’re very proud of. That was our goal.”
Game installs on the PlayStation 3 have become a huge problem. We’ve seen hard drives fill to capacity already and there looks to be no end in sight.
I was pleasantly surprised when Resistance 2 nixed that huge 5GB install that most games these days require.
This isn’t to say there’s no install. The game drops roughly 350MB of data onto your hard drive, which takes about 90 seconds. Not bad at all considering games like NBA 09: The Inside use over 2.5GB of precious hard drive space.
I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Kudos, Insomniac! Good job stepping in and putting a stop (or at least a pause) the problematic game installs that are plaguing the PS3. Keep up the good work!
Has there ever been a better video game series than the Zelda video game series? Maybe the Super Mario, Castlevania, Metroid and Mega Man series, but after those, Zelda has no competition.
The single factor that contributes towards a great gaming series is the amount of great games in the series. The same cannot be said for the Double Dragon series, for example, where it fell drastically in quality after Double Dragon 2.
In the Zelda series though, the games seemed to get better with each subsequent addition. This is rare for a video game series, and the Zelda series has been able to accomplish this with flying colors. Controversy will be heard in the sequencing of this list, but that only goes to show how strong each game in the series was.
5. Link’s Awakening
Who thought that Link’s Awakening would be as good as it was on the Gameboy? This game packed in as much information and detailed story line as any of the Zeldas f... More »
Recently it was reported that if you were banned from the EA Forums you were also going to be banned from playing their games online.
Today EA Apoc has confirmed this initial statement was inaccurate and a mistake, to quote:
Hey everyone,
If you didn't notice, your C&C Community Manager, me, had a bit of a run-in with the video game blogging media today in reference to a direct quote I made on our forums here a few days ago in regards to how we handle bans and suspensions on the forums and in-game.
You all know how we are greatly trying to protect and serve you from those who wish to disrupt our C&C community by breaking ToS on our forums or in-game, and I know everyone appreciates when we take action on those that are the worst.
That said, the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blo... More »
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