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NPDs: PS3, 360 Sales Grow as Wii Declines

Published on: 9th September, 2010

The NPD Group has released its videogame industry sales data for the month of August, 2010, showing continued growth in Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware sales as the Wii continues to decline. As it was in July, the Xbox 360 was the top-selling console for the month, pushing 356,700 units. The PlayStation 3 meanwhile sold 226,000, and for the thirteenth consecutive month, showed growth compared to its sales one year ago.

Valve Talks About Their PS3, Xbox 360 Failures

Published on: 9th September, 2010

Valve isn’t a company that gamers would generally associate with failure, but in an interview with PC Gamer , the subject of their biggest mistakes was raised and it resulted in some fascinating answers — particularly when it comes to Valve’s past on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. “PS3, so far. The way we’ve dealt with those customers so far, and the product that they have, and the lack of updates on the 360 for [ Team Fortress 2 ] is also a total failure,” said project manager Erik Johnson, reflecting on Valve’s mistakes. “Those are the ones that sting the worst because it got all the way through to customers. It’s like a bug. If you fix a bug before it ever ships, it’s pretty cheap. If you ship it and then fix it, it’s really expensive. Those ones are really bad.” Things are going better on the PS3, though, as Valve boss Gabe Newell says they’re pleased with their newly repaired relationship with Sony. “That’s why we’re really happy with the current situation with the PS3…We’re solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this,” Newell said.

Kinect’s Object Scanning Feature Coming Post-Launch

Published on: 9th September, 2010

There’s been a lot of will-it -or- won’t-it lately when it comes to what features Kinect will have at launch, but another ability we can add to the “wait a little while” list is the object-scanning shown off when Kinect (then known as Project Natal) was first revealed at E3 2009. As you can see in the debut video below, Microsoft originally showed how Kinect could scan a real-world object if held in front of it, and then digitize it as an in-game object you can interact with (in the example shown in the video, a kid digitizes his skateboard to use it in-game). But speaking to Eurogamer , Kinect lead Kudo Tsunoda said it’s a feature that’ll be coming later on. “Being able to digitize real-world objects and take them into the virtual world — we saw a little bit of that at E3 last year, but it’s not stuff that we have in any of the launch games right now, and I think we’re going to see a lot more games start using that as well as we go forward,” Tsunoda said. It’s unclear whether that means developers simply didn’t want to use the feature in any launch games, or whether they couldn’t as Microsoft just hasn’t worked out all the kinks in it yet. Either way, the end result is the same — you won’t be digitizing your stuff with Kinect until some time in the future.

Second Madden Title Update Brings Madden Moments Live

Published on: 8th September, 2010

The second title update for Madden NFL 11 has been released on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. PS3 gamers will be prompted to download the update next time they start the game, as will 360 owners, though 360 owners will have to manually download the patch’s biggest addition — Madden Moments Live — from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Madden Moments Live is a new, free game mode that drops you into specific situations and asks you to recreate moments that will take place throughout the upcoming NFL season. For the time being, there are a number of moments to currently play through from last year’s New Orleans Saints team. Two to four moments will be added each week throughout the season. In return for Madden coins, you’ll be able to buy future moments either individually, or you’ll be able to buy the entire season’s worth at once. Other additions in the title update include altered pre-play functionality that will let you alter hot routes, make line shifts, and so on with the same buttons used in Madden NFL 10 . Either by selecting it from the Play Now menu or during October (the in-game month) in franchise mode, a Breast Cancer Awareness Month mode will alter the game’s theme to help support the cause. Additionally, you can now scout opponents in Online Franchise games, your opponent’s lineup can now be seen in Ultimate Team mode, and various balancing issues have been fixed.

Microsoft Suspends Gamer from Fort Gay, Apologizes

Published on: 8th September, 2010

Microsoft is wiping some egg from its face today, after mistakenly suspending a player account from Xbox Live for stating he lived in “Fort Gay.” The Associated Press reports that Josh Moore, a 26-year-old from the small town of Fort Gay, West Virginia, was suspended last week. Moore had to convince Xbox Live enforcement that it was a real location — a problem which could have been solved by simply Googling it. Stephen Toulouse, chief enforcement manager for Xbox Live, apologized for the agent’s mistake and said that training has been updated. To err is human, but this latest issue stands in stark contrast to Microsoft’s recent policy update . The new Xbox Live policy allows racial and sexual identifiers in profiles, after the company was criticized for taking action against gay and lesbian players. The policy was and still is intended to prevent harassment. Apparently the word “gay” is still a red flag, and the agent may have thought Moore was mocking homosexuals. Hopefully the new training involves using an atlas before banning gamers. [Image courtesy of Google Maps.]

Microsoft Reveals 250GB Xbox 360 Bundled with Kinect

Published on: 8th September, 2010

In addition to the already-revealed 4GB Kinect bundle, Microsoft just announced a 250GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle for the holidays. The package is set to include a 250GB console, the Kinect motion-control device, and a copy of Kinect Adventures . It’ll set you back $399.99 when it releases on November 4. Purchased individually, Kinect and the 250GB Xbox 360 would cost $149.99 and $299.99, respectively. Just like the 4GB bundle, that’s a savings of about $50 should you choose to go with the pack-in deal.

NBA Jam’s Eastern Conference Rosters Revealed

Published on: 8th September, 2010

The new NBA Jam is less than a month away and, before now, we still didn’t have any idea of who would actually be in the game. The obvious choices — Kobe, LeBron, Dwyane Wade, and so on — are undoubtedly going to make the rosters for their respective teams, but what about the teams without such standout stars? ESPN has revealed the full rosters for the 15 Eastern Conference teams, with the Western Conference set to be revealed next Tuedsay, September 14. A total of nine teams from the league have four current players as opposed to three due to fan voting being too close to make a cut. Each team (with the exception of the New York Knicks) has no more than two legends, with those players who were in the original arcade NBA Jam being favored over others. Due to contractural issues, certain legends you’d expect to be in the game, like Reggie Miller — and much more notably, NBA 2K11 cover man Michael Jordan — aren’t in the game. Besides those issues, as a result of having to lock down the roster before certain moves were made, some players are on the wrong team. For instance, Al Harrington is still on the Knicks and Courtney Lee is still on the New Jersey Nets. According to ESPN, that will only be fixable on the PS3 and Xbox 360 version of NBA Jam, which is included with NBA Elite 11 .

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero Sells 300K in First Week

Published on: 8th September, 2010

Dead Rising: Case Zero was nothing if not an experiment in cheap, pre-release DLC. The prologue gave a taste of Dead Rising 2 without repeating content from the full game, and it was priced to move. GamerBytes reports that it paid off in a big way, to the tune of over 300,000 sold in the first week. The report speculates that Capcom could have made over a million in revenue from the downloadable title in its first seven days. Though Case Zero gives a sampling of Dead Rising 2, it smartly differentiated itself by consisting of entirely separate content, including story beats not found in the main game. Capcom also priced it at a mere $5, which is unheard of for most Xbox Live Arcade games, especially after Microsoft’s yearly Summer of Arcade promotion laid down $15 as the new standard. A $5 price point made the investment small enough for consumers to bite on, and a generally positive reception means most gamers probably weren’t disappointed. EA is attempting a similar tactic with Dead Space Ignition , the downloadable prequel to Dead Space 2 . But we don’t know the price of Ignition, and the gameplay is significantly different from the game proper. With the success of Case Zero, Capcom may have unintentionally set the pre-game DLC price and quality standard in the minds of gamers.

Final Fantasy XIII Had "Real" DLC, But Now It Doesn’t

Published on: 8th September, 2010

Like we mentioned earlier , Final Fantasy XIII’s Xbox 360 port has just been officially announced in Japan. (It’s one of several news bits leaking out of a conference Microsoft is holding over there at the moment, an event where they’re also announcing the Kinect’s price and release date in Japan.) The news is sad indeed for PS3 fanboys over there, but even the rest of have something to be a little distraught about: The dev team was apparently planning extensive downloadable content for FFXIII, but it all got cut. “We were planning to make some DLC, but that plan wound up not happening,” director Motomu Toriyama told Famitsu magazine in this week’s issue. “I’m sorry!” (Toriyama was answering a query about how he said before FFXIII’s Japanese release that PS3 owners should “hold on to their saves from the end of the game” for a surprise down the line.)

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 Coming

Published on: 8th September, 2010

Koei has taken the first wraps off Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 in this week’s spate of Japanese game magazines. The new title, which doesn’t have a firm release date yet, is being developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and will feature online gameplay on both consoles. Like with the previous games in the series, DW: Gundam is a one-versus-ten-million action game that features giant robots from the Gundam anime shows, as opposed to the usual ancient Chinese generals seen in the main Dynasty Warriors series. Besides the new online play, the biggest new feature in DW:G3 is the visuals — Koei producer Hisashi Koinuma and his team are going for a cel-shaded graphic look this time around. “We deliberately tried to change up the visual style this time,” Koinuma told Famitsu magazine in an interview. [Co-producer Yoshitaka] Goto suggested that cel anime-style graphics would be the way to go this time, and that’s something nobody’s ever attempted in a Gundam game up to now, so it piqued my interest.”

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