Second Story Gamer

Sony has officially announced the latest PS3 SKU, this time a console with a 160 GB hard drive costing $499, which is reasonable once you see what’s in it.  Originally thought to be a European exclusive, it includes over €70 (about $100) worth of downloadable games on its hard drive.   However, we know now that there will be an American version as well - with perks.  Those American exclusive perks include a bundled Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a voucher to download PAIN from the PSN, and a DualShock 3 controller.

Now for the bad news.  This new 160 GB model has only two USB ports and no flash card readers.  Why is that so bad?  Because that suggests that it will be functionally identical to the 40 GB SKU and that means no backwards compatibility.

Even worse for those who love backwards compatibility is the new rumor that suggests that the Metal Gear 80 GB PS3 SKU is being discontinued.  According to Joystiq, the PS3 is not appearing in the Wal-mart database, which suggests that the store is no longer receiving shipments of the unit.  However, the 160 GB model isn’t expected till November, so MGS4 bundled PS3s should be available till then.

Now you have a choice to make.  Do you buy a PS3 now to get access to the thousands of PS2 games available for dirt cheap?  Or do you wait till November to get a PS3 with a much bigger hard drive and bonuses?  Desicions, decisions…

Sony has flexed its muscles and done what many gamers have been asking for: mandating that the instruments used for Guitar Hero, Rock Band, or Rock Revolution work with both of the other games, at least to the minimum level.   Director of Public Relations for SCEA Michael Shorrock said on the Playstation Blog:

For the past several months, we have been working closely with Neversoft and Activision, Harmonix and Konami to ensure that PlayStation 3 guitars and drum sets will all feature a basic level of gameplay compatibility.

For the most part, this means that the titles with musical peripherals will work with the other’s software. A few specific examples include: Guitar Hero: World Tour’s guitars and drums will work with Rock Band 2 and Konami’s Rock Revolution software.

In addition, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2 will both support the SingStar microphones.

Of course each of these great games have their own specific cool features that may not be compatible with the other controllers, but this is our first big step in bringing a level of compatibility to music games that is sure to benefit PlayStation 3 consumers.

This means that you can finally go to a store and pick up any old guitar that has the words “PS3″ on it and it should work with future music games on the PS3.  Thank god.  I only have enough room for so many plastic instruments in my heart.

However, if you want to go out and buy another guitar for your current version of Rock Band or Guitar Hero, make sure you buy the right version, at least for a while.  Shorrock said, “We’re still working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market, and we hope to have an announcement on that shortly.”  Hopefully that issue will be resolved soon.

So three cheers for Sony.  Hopefully Microsoft and Nintendo will see this and follow suit.

Strangely, one of the most anticipated games of this year is based on a franchise that is getting worse and worse.  Sure, the original trilogy was great but the new trilogy was just bad and don’t get me started on the recently released Clone Wars film.  However, The Force Unleashed looks very good.  So as the films get worse, the games get better?

Anyways, the demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has officially gotten the release date of August 21, this Thursday.  LucasArts has confirmed that this demo will take place in the “TIE Fighter Construction Facility”, which has been shown before.  The mission: a Jedi General named Rahm Kota is attacking and you have to kill him, but it must be in secret, so there can be no witnesses.  Don’t worry, there will be plenty of objects you can force around to kill the peekers.

By the way, this demo has only been confirmed for the PSN so far, but it seems like an Xbox Live version will be released on the same day as well.

[via Brutal Gamer]

For the past few months, people around the blogosphere have been talking about the PSP-3000, the rumored “next version” of the Playstation Portable.  And ever since this FCC filing popped up, people have been wondering how much better games will play and look on this new PSP-3000.  The answer: almost exactly the same as the PSP available right now.

First of all, let me say that this PSP-3000 thing is true.  If the FCC filing didn’t confirm it enough, I even contacted one of my sources who said this was true.  However, the PSP-3000 is not the successor to the PSP in the sense that it isn’t the PSP 2.  Why?  Well, for two reasons.  First of all, that’s what my source claims.  And secondly, Sony has told me that same thing  Indirectly, of course.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, former Sony president Chris Deering said that he expects the Playstation Portable to have sold 70 million units by 2011.  Currently, the number of PSP’s on sold is about 37 million.  So Deering not only expects the PSP to have sold 70 million units, but he obviously expects it to be selling through the year 2011.  And since this PSP-3000 is expected to be released within the next year or so, there’s no way it’s the PSP 2.

So what is this PSP-3000?  My source says that it is just the successor to the PSP-2000, which was a lighter, brighter version of the original PSP, so those two things are to be expected.  He also said that the new handheld may have a flash based storage drive in the PSP-3000, but that is unconfirmed, so don’t hold your breath on that one.

But, sadly, there’s no dual analog sticks on the PSP-3000 because apparently, that would drastically change the way PSP games are played (hint: expect it in the PSP 2) and Sony doesn’t want that big of a jump.

As always, though, take this with a grain of salt.  Even if it is a tiny, tiny grain.

Guess what?  It’s the 15th of the month again and you know what that means: NPD numbers!  Well let’s take a look, starting with the console sales.

Hardware:

1. Nintendo DS - 608,400
2. Wii - 555,000
3. PlayStation 3 - 224,900
4. PSP - 221,700
5. Xbox 360 - 204,800
6. PlayStation 2 - 155,500

Compare that to June’s scorecard and you get a surprising result.  Every console sold fewer units in July than they did in June, the biggest being the PS3 which saw a drop of 180,100 units, about 45% less than June.  That being said, it still sold a very respectable amount, beating the Xbox 360 by over 20,000 consoles.  However, both of them were still clobbered by the monthly juggernauts: the Wii and DS.  It’ll be interesting to see whether the 360 will bounce up in the August numbers due to the “price cut”.

Software:

1. NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360) - 397,600
2. Wii Fit (Wii) - 369,600
3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) - 309,700
4. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) - 284,000
5. NCAA Football 09 (PS3) - 242,500
6. Soulcalibur IV (Xbox 360) - 218,900
7. Mario Kart w/ wheel (Wii) - 174,500
8. Rock Band Special Ed. Bundle (Wii) - 165,800
9. Soulcalibur IV (PS3) - 155,800
10. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360) - 147,600

So on top of slow hardware numbers, July gave us some fairly low, but not horrible software figures.  Edging out Wii Fit was the Xbox 360 version of NCAA Football 2009 and Wii Play continues to stay on the chart, moving up to position four.  Expect Soulcalibur IV to be on the August’s chart as well, because it was released on July 29.

Well there you have it folks, another month gone.  And this month is very out of the ordinary because instead of the unprecedented growths we’ve had the past few months, the gaming industry slowed down.  While that may have something to do with the fact that July was a four week month while June was a five week one, but it may be correlated to the slowing down economy.

A new report has been released by Game Developer Research that polls game developers and asks them what platform they are developing their games for.  And said report has given us some startling results.

To all of you who are constantly proclaiming that PC games are slowing dieing, this should come as a shock to you.  Of those developers polled (mostly from North America and Europe), 70% stated that they are currently developing a game for the PC or Mac platform.  Yes, seventy freakin’ percent.  That’s substantially higher than the amount of developers polled who stated they are working on console games, just 43%, and handheld games, just 16%.

Out of those developers working on consoles, 73% are developing for the Xbox 360 compared to just 58% for the PS3, 42% for the Wii, and a surprisingly high 15% for the seemingly immortal PS2.  What about the handhelds?  Well, the DS is dominating that front with over 75% compared to the PSP’s 45%.

It’s important to remember that these numbers will directly correspond to the amount of games on the platform.  Game Developer Research says, “This implies that the greatest amount of Western console developers by sheer numbers are creating games for Microsoft’s console - but due to team size differences, this doesn’t necessarily imply that more games will appear on the Xbox 360 than other consoles.”  So even though there are many more developers working on the PC, the DS may release more software titles because it requires fewer people to work on each game.

However, I think that the Xbox 360 and PS3 numbers are indicative of the number of games that will come to each platform in coming years.  Many developers have stated that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are of similar difficulty to program for, so the team sizes for games on both platforms are probably similarly sized.

Also in the report is detailed data about programming language and such.  You want to read it?  Well be prepared to spend $2,495 and head on over to this website.

Nielson surveyed Grand Theft Auto IV owners and found some interesting results.  First of all, they found that 17 % of GTA IV owners are between the ages of seven and sixteen.  I’m sorry to say it, but this isn’t a completely shocking number; just look at how many high pitched voices play GTA IV multiplayer.  And I’m sure the underage attach rate for other M-rated games (think Halo 3) is even higher.

What is interesting, however, is the amount of underage kids surveyed that managed to buy the game themselves.  61% of these minors were able to walk into a store and purchase this game, according to this survey.  Personally, I believe the actual percentage is much lower than this because rules have gotten much stricter and almost all game stores check ID’s now.  And I’m sorry, but I don’t think a seven year old is going to pass as an adult, no matter how legit his fake ID looks.

The other 39% of minors who managed to get their grubby little hands on this game were given it by someone they know.  Interesting enough, most of these givers were parents as 80% of the underage kids who received this game were given it by their parents.  The other 20% were given GTA IV by other family or friends.  This number seems very accurate, as I’m sure there are plenty of adults out there who believe that the big black M on video game boxes stands for “monkeys” or something.  I agree, these people need to be educated about what they are buying their children.

Also noted in the report was the fact that 25% of Xbox 360 version buyers stated that they chose the Xbox 360 version because of the exclusive DLC.  I guess that $50 million was well spent, Microsoft.  As for the underage owners news, expect that to hit Fox News tonight.