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]

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.

Bungie may be good at making Halo games, but they are also fairly good at teasing the living hell out of their fans.  The latest example is a video which displays the voice of Luke Smith magically coming out of a blue Spartan.  Amazingly, the video is entirely in-game footage.

The video was made as Bungie’s response to the Edge Innovation Award (which Halo 3 has won two years running now), and it displays this blue spartan running around various parts of the multiplayer map “Rat’s Nest” being a really jerk by telling us that Bungie is hard at work at some project.  While he wouldn’t say what the project was, there was plenty of hints that it was another Halo game (the biggest being that the video is run in Halo 3 itself).  At one point he even says, “Even though in Halo 3 you finished the fight, it doesn’t necessarily mean the rides over.”  Isn’t that confirmation enough?

However, the video could just be teasing a map editor (go to the very end) or maybe AI enemies in multiplayer.  What do you think?

Have you ever wondered what fabled game designer Shigeru Miyamoto does on the weekends?  This may seem like only of interest to Miyamoto stalkers who are looking for a good place to ambush him, but it turns out that the answer to this question may be more important to the gaming industry than you may think.

It is well known that Miyamoto bases many of his games off personal experiences or interests in his life.  For example, Miyamoto created Pikmin because he was very interested in gardening at the time and he took up music lessons recently and out popped Wii Music.

Well, you must realize how useful it would be to other developers if they knew what Miyamoto was doing at the time.  For instance if a game developer knew that Miyamoto had recently become interested in tree climbing, he would quickly start making a tree climbing game that could beat Nintendo to the punch.

Nintendo has seen this potential risk and is now banning Miyamoto from talking about his hobbies, according to The Times Online.  This may seem a bit excessive, but who knows how much money could be stolen from Nintendo if another developer knew that Miyamoto had recently become obsessed with ladybugs.

Miyamoto stalkers, your job just got harder for you, but look at the bright side.  If you do manage to catch Miyamoto in the act, some game developer may pay a hefty price for your information.

Epic’s boss Mike Capps has always been a very outspoken fellow.  Take this for example, in a recent interview with MundoRare, Capps had a lot to say about Gears of War for the PC.  He said that the fact that the PC version of the game received lower scores than the Xbox 360 version was “bullshit” because it was a “much better game”.  Here’s his full quote:

“I think it’s bullshit because what we did was take a great game, Gears of War 1 for Xbox 360, made it run at higher resolutions and added three new hours of really good gameplay and it got lower reviews.  I think that’s bullshit, and I don’t understand it.  I can’t figure out what it is.

Like, ‘It’s an old game.’  Well, yeah, but it’s new on that platform, so I was really surprised to see lower reviews for what I think a much better game.  It had new multiplayer modes, new levels, three hours of gameplay you never saw on 360 that the 360 guys are still upset we haven’t given them, right?  So to get lower reviews for more game that’s good? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

While his claim seems to make sense, he’s forgetting that the PC port of Gears of War was originally plagued with bugs and multiplayer matchmaking problems, which obviously lowered its review score.

Also, the same game was released on the Xbox 360 months prior to the PC release.  Sure the PC version added three hours of new content, but obviously the reviewers didn’t believe that those three hours jumped out enough to warrant a much higher score.  Also the fact that it was the same game probably highlighted many of the faults of the PC port in many reviewers eyes.

So while it might be “bullshit” Mike, it’s reasonable bullshit.

[via VG247]

From the beginning of time, Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers have been dueling about who’s console is the more graphically powerful.  In these skirmishes, terms like CPU, GPU, and RAM have been thrown around, but now those folks on the PS3 side of the fray have another weapon in their arsenal: disc format.

You may think that disc size has absolutely nothing to do with graphical quality of games.  It all has to do with the raw power of the console’s CPU, RAM, etc., you might say; the discs are just used to store the data that is pushed through the processors.  Yes, but no.  Let me explain.

The Xbox 360 version of the upcoming first person shooter Rage will be shipping on two DVDs.  The PS3 version, however, will fit on one Blu-ray disc.  Developer id Software’s John Carmack says that the PS3 version of the game will look much better.  Why?  Because of the limitations of the DVD.  Apparently, the company will be using a “different type of compression” on the Xbox 360 version of the title to keep the game on two discs, so they don’t have to pay high royalty costs for a third disc.  This “compression” will make Rage on the Xbox 360 graphically inferior to Rage on the PS3

Up until now, there has been very few disadvantages to buying a game that comes on multiple discs.  Sure you have to get your lazy self up to swap discs every so often, but the core game looked exactly the same.  Now that id Software is setting a precedent of graphically crippling the 360 version of a multi-platform game to fit it on a certain amount of discs, will other companies follow suit?  Will 360 gamers be forced to look at blurry counterparts of beautiful PS3 games because Microsoft didn’t install a more future-proof drive into their console?

I don’t think so.  I still believe that games that require multiple DVDs will remain the exception this generation.  Most games will still be able to fit on one dual layered DVD.  Why?  Read this and you’ll find out.  However, we probably won’t know for sure until this generation is over.  In the meantime, let’s go back to watching those fanboys verbally abuse each other, this time with new evidence to back up their claim.

Crackdown was probably the “biggest” sleeper hit of 2007 but most people attribute that to the fact that a Halo 3 beta key was packed into every copy of the game.  What they don’t realize is that the game could have stood on its own just as easily.  The addicting RPG elements (agility orbs!), the interesting cartoony art style, and the brilliant online co-op were what made this game great.  Not some beta packed into the disc.

However, Realtime Worlds, developers of Crackdown, are not currently working on a sequel, as they are busy working on APB, which has been nicknamed a “Crackdown MMO”.  So does that mean all talks of a real sequal are done?  Not exactly.

Speaking with VG247, Realtime Worlds studio boss Colin MacDonald suggested that after APB is completed, Realtime Worlds may decide to make a sequel to the open world, futuristic cop shooter.  He said, “I don’t think the door’s closed. Obviously, right now we’re tied up with APB and everything else, but hopefully in the future we’ll have the resource and something can be worked out with Microsoft.”

He also said, “It was a horrible, horrible decision that we still dwell on,” about the choice to not directly move on to a sequel for Crackdown.  So why did they move away from Crackdown?  His explanation was: “We’ve got to stay in business. And the numbers just didn’t add up. We’re not in the business of doing things because we’d like to, if we can’t guarantee that it makes sense for the company. That doesn’t work.”

So it was all about dollars and cents.  Wait, doesn’t Microsoft have plenty of dollars and cents?  Hey Microsoft, could you send a few of those to Realtime Worlds because I’d really like to see a Crackdown 2 sometime soon.

[via VG247]

Call of Duty 4 is a fantastic shooter, both single player and multiplayer.  In fact, it is so fantastic that it knocked Halo 3 off the Xbox Live top played games list just a few months from release, a feat that wasn’t expected to be achieved for at least a year after launch.  So it’s know wonder that gamers like it.  What is surprising is the fact that Bungie employees enjoy the game that outshone their own superstar.  Heretics!

Speaking in an interview with Game Industry, Bungie Lead AI Programmer Damian Isla, a fan of Call of Duty 4, said:

We have a lot to learn from their success too, they did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to.

I think it’s a great game and single player obviously is fantastic… they did a hell of a job with their set pieces, of scripting certain moments that they were really sure the player was going to actually see and experience first hand. The way that they use those moments to craft the player experience…Halo has a lot to learn from.

Later in the interview he stated that Halo has plenty of in-game sequences that many gamers unfortunately miss, probably because they are too busy throwing a plasma grenade at a brute to notice.  He said that because Halo is a “simulation” style game, which adds plenty of replayability, scripted sequences are much harder to implement.

But even without that excuse making for Halo, this is very, very high praise coming from Bungie.  It’s always good to hear developers implementing other developers’ good ideas and hopefully improving the game that they are working on.

At a Microsoft game exhibition in Taipei, where it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII would also be available for the Xbox 360 in Taiwan, there was also a very interesting Xbox 360 spotted.  This 360, found inside a kiosk, is decked out in a Dark Knight theme.  Freaking awesome.

On Microsoft’s Download Center there seems to be glaring confirmation that Halo 3 will be ported to the PC.  On the Game section of the Download Center, there is a banner advertising free trials for three games.  One of those games is Halo 3.  Halo 3 hasn’t been announced for the PC yet.  See the problem here?  Here’s the banner:

The link in the banner just leads to a list of games that are available for Games for Windows at this time.  Obviously, Halo 3 is absent from that list.

So was it a disgruntled employee or just an honest mistake that caused this big slip-up?  Whatever it was, I bet this banner doesn’t stay up on the site long, so I pulled a screenshot of the page.  Check it out, after the break.

iPhone gaming is gaining more and more steam these days, today coming from id Software co-founder John Carmack, lead programmer of Doom and regarded highly when it comes to 3D graphics programming.  At QuakeCon 2008 he said that the iPhone is “more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined”.  That’s a very impressive fact.  Even more impressive: he says that the iPhone is on par with the Dreamcast, and almost as powerful as the original Xbox and the Playstation 2.

We all knew that the iPhone was far more powerful than the DS, but most analysts have said that it’s close to the PSP in terms of power.  There was never before a report that the iPhone is this much more powerful than the PSP, reaching almost PS2 levels.  And if it was coming from anyone other than John Carmack, who is a pioneer in 3D graphics, I’m sure it would be disregarded completely.

Carmack also revealed that id Software is currently working on two iPhone games.  One of these games will be a “conventional mobile game”, while the other will try to stretch the iPhone’s graphical capabilities.