DCIberia the awesome Spanish and one of the best Dreamcast scene sites in the world has posted news of a Magazine they have released, my Spanish is a tad rusty but for any Dreamcast fan its worth checking out, head on over to DCIberia at this address --> http://www.dciberia.net/tiki-view_articles.php ...

Source - Eurogamer

Sony Computer Entertainment America has confirmed that a new PSP instalment in the Syphon Filter series is currently in the works.

In a recent interview with IGN, John Garvin - creative director on Syphon Filter: The Dark Mirror - revealed that the game will feature an "all-new storyline" that has "nothing to do with the Syphon Filter virus."

Our old friends Gabe Logan and Lian Xing will return, however. Logan now runs his own underground agency that specialises in "precision strikes" - missions that are too sensitive or dangerous for conventional intelligence agents to take on. "Imagine if the CIA had a SWAT team - on steroids," said Garvin.

The game begins with Gabe and Lian embarking on what should be a straightforward mission to take down a bunch of terrorists known as Red Section, who have launched an attack on an Alaskan oil refinery.

But it turns out that there's much more to the mission than was first thought, astonishingly, and Gabe ends up travelling all around the globe as he tries to unravel the mystery. Along the way he will hook up with UN peacekeepers, face off with the Kaliningrad mafia, get caught up in an attempted revolution and be forced to confront a woman from his past.

Naturally there will be lots of new guns and gadgets to play with - such as the Rapid Traversal Line, which Gabe can use to hoist himself up to high places and swing around on when he's under attack. New weapons will include the MB-150, which features an electronic scope that connects with Gabe's goggles and fires three types of projectile - including 6mm sniper rounds and time-delayed darts.

As you play through the single-player story mode, you'll be able to unlock each level in mission mode - and then play through them all again to improve your Agency Ratings. You'll be judged on the number of stealth versus environmental kills you pull off and so on, and each time you earn a new rating you'll get new weapons and skills.

We're promised lots of unlockable content, including concept art, movies and audio tracks, and a few bonus missions - which are said to tie up loose ends from Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain.

The game will feature multiplayer online and Ad Hoc modes, and you'll be able to choose from Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Rogue Agent battles and the like. Or you can try out the new Object Mode, which sees two teams battling to complete a specific objective. Online rankings, unlockable content, friends lists and clans will all be present and correct.

Syphon Filter: The Dark Mirror is due out in the spring. ...

News from CVG

Well, Christmas is almost on us and we here at CVG are already in full-on festive mode. There's a fancy tree a couple of metres away and some of us have already thought about mince pies at least once this morning, so as you can tell, we're really getting into the celebratory spirit.
Another company which might be feeling the tingling thrill of celebration (aside from Baby Jesus, although he's probably already moaning about the fact he only gets one set of presents because his birthday's actually on Christmas day) is Nintendo, which has just released a whole bunch of figures demonstrating the total penetration of its gaming goodness since Nintentime began.

Top of the present pile it seems is the Nintendo DS which has so far sold a whopping 8.83 million units worldwide since its launch last November. By our entirely dubious calculations, given that there are 6,446,131,400 people on the planet, that means 1 in every 730 people has one.
Meanwhile, the GBA range - including the GBA, SP and Micro - has a total penetration of 70.04 million units, roughly equating to 1 in 92 people. And yes, this is entirely going on the assumption that nobody owns more than one.

If you're feeling compare and contrasting, we've also worked out that 1 in 64.5 people own a PS2, having shipped (as opposed to sold, but it's Christmas so we're feeling generous, if probably wholly inaccurate) 10 million units. PSP has shipped 10 million units, meaning 1 in 645 lucky punters have the shiny beast in their pockets. Fascinating stuff, we're sure you'll agree. Oh, and in the interests of fairness, the original Xbox, as of January this year, flogged 19.9 million consoles - so that's a great lump under the telly for every 1 in 324 people.

So, to round up this wholly pointless delve into theoreticality, we've done a quick festive splurge and discovered that last Christmas, 1 in 19 people built a snowman, 1 in 0.025 revellers ate a mince pie and 1 in 95,000 Christmas puddings were the cause of horrible granny-igniting incidents around the dinner table on Christmas day. We might have made this last lot up but, hey, as Slade once famously sang, "It's Chriiiiiiiiiiiiisssstmas!". ...

Bigwigs in the games industry have queued up to heap praise on the Nintendo Revolution, with a release issued by Nintendo of America showing many major players are more than open-minded regarding NCL's planned break from the norm.

In a well-timed move, aimed at fending off escalating claims that the Revolution will be underpowered in the next-generation of games machines, Nintendo official publication Nintendo Power released a batch of quotes from gaming luminaries heaping praise on the console and of course, its controller.

John Schapper
Senior VP/Group Studio General Manager, Electronic Arts Canada
"As a longtime Nintendo fan, I applaud the spirit of innovation and creativity of the Revolution controller. Being wireless and designed similarly to a TV controller, it's an innovative, ergonomic winner right out of the box. The beauty of the controller is that possibilities for new game ideas are limitless... You can build an entire game concept around the controller's features or find ways to intregrate them into existing franchises. Right now at EA, we're exploring both of these paths. Our developers are inspired and excited by the new controller's features."

Steve Pearce
VP of Technology, Activision
"Anyone present at Iwata-san's unveiling of the controller at TGS has imagined what future visions of Nintendo classics will be like. Envisioning Link's spin attack, Mario's triple jump and Samus' gunplay on Revolution is an intriguing exercise. Similarly, the Activision design teams are creatively charged as they determine how the controller can best be used on our titles. How will Spider-Man's Revolution webs be cast, Tony Hawk's deck be flipped and Call of Duty grenades be thrown?"

Rod Cousens
CEO, Codemasters
"The Revolution controller is very intuitive and immersive and should allow the character to become more of an extension of the player... it should also inspire creators to explore innovation and bring back bored consumers to gaming."

Jack Sorenson,
Excecutive VP, Worldwide Studios, THQ
"Think about how many players you know that move controllers upward when pressing the jump button or turn it while steering in a racing game. With Revolution, these movements can be made to affect gameplay. Any genre that's suffered from traditional controller limitations stands to initially benefit the most, particularly ones with too many complex button combinations. Also, mouse-oriented PC genres (RTS, adventure games) could become much more console-friendly with the Revolution controller."

Bill Petro
Senior VP of Product Development, Sega of America
"Role-playing games will be greatly enhanced, due to new control styles. Pointing will make moving in large environments very simple, and twist- and position-senging will allow for dual weapon wielding or gesture-based spell-casting."

Michael Ryder
VP of Worldwide Production, Buena Vista Games
"The Revolution controller is truly innovative and will enable game designers to take advantage of gamers' full range of hand motions. Much as we've seen with the Nintendo DS, the Revolution control interface with lead to gameplay innovations."

Noah Hughes
Director of Design, Crystal Dynamics
"In the landscape of primarily linear evolution, it is refresing to see a product like the Revolution that truly strives to redefine game design. As a game designer, I am always excited to see products...which open the door to so many new possibilities."

Jean-Marcel Nicolai
Senior VP of Worldwide Content, Atari
"Nintendo has created an innovative new controller, fully immersing the gamer with a revolutionary interface. The controller should expand the marketplace by appealing to the mass audience as well as avid gamers. And the development community will have as much fun exploring the power of the Revolution controller as consumers will playing it."

Nicolas Eypert
Creative Director, Ubisoft
"The Revolution controller breaks the 'push button' experience of other platforms, where the player must go through an abstract action--pushing a button--to complete an action. With the Revolution, the action is completely natural and physical. We can propose new types of interactions that are easy and fun, as they rely on a simple gesture. We can translate into video game interactions all the tools you manipulate with your hand: the sculptor's tool, the doctor's scalpel, the fireman's hose...imagine you are a doctor curing patients or an architect who builds his own house! It opens up so many possibilities that we already have too many ideas. All the designers that I've spoken with at Ubisoft are buzzing with amazing ideas."

Bill Gardner
President/CEO Eidos
I can certainly see lots of opportunities for classic-style games like platformers that new and old gamers will really enjoy. We've thought of several titles that we're planning that will fit in well. Any game that has the flow of motion in three dimensions will benefit with Revolution. Flying games will be wild and more fun than ever."

Toshihiro ...

Okay, so we're as surprised to see the sun come up this morning as we are to read a Mario Kart game is underway for Nintendo Revolution. But everything doesn't have to be a surprise, does it? We were very pleased to see the sun come up this morning actually. It meant our evening of lying under the covers in a cold sweat, again sure that the world was about to come to an end was over, the warm rays heating our souls as we sat around fashionable Wakefield brunch outlets mulling the papers over a game of Mario Kart online.

And there folks, is the seamless link to the crux of this news piece – Mario Kart – and specifically its now confirmed existence for Nintendo's Revolution.

In an interview with Nintendo Power, NOA's bellow-level marketing pamphlet, MKDS producer Hideki Konno explains the progress of the series.

“We're doing a lot of experiments right now with the Revolution controller and obviously with the direct pointing device (DPD) and its ability to track movement and distance,” he said. “You know, that's huge, because that's a brand-new thing that we've never seen before in any controller. Trying to envision all the different things we could do with that motion sensor, that DPD, is a little mind-boggling. As you know, Mario Kart has appeared on all of Nintendo's platforms so far, and I think it's done its job on the DS, or at least I hope it will with what's new. So the next logical step, of course, is the Revolution. Really what we hope to do is continue to bring new and creative things to the franchise that appeal not only to our established user base, but also bring new people into the game.”

That'll do for us. Expect to see something of the Mario Kart line up alongside a whole bunch of Nintendo first-party offerings at next year's E3, somewhat terrifyingly, only six months away. ...

Capcom Japan has released some delicious moving footage of Biohazard: Deadly Shadows, the DS remake of the PlayStation's original Resident Evil, complete with new touchy-feely elements afforded by Nintendo twin-screen portable.

Enter Capcom's somewhat cumbersome Flash site to have a glimpse at what is shaping up to be yet another corking addition to the DS' library. You'll notice that the game is massively beefed up from the game that once lit a touchpaper to an explosion of protest regarding new, high-realism, high-violence gaming. How times really don't change...

You also get to see how the touch-screen of the DS is roped into Resident Evil, with the puzzle elements of the game promising to be the richest and most intuitive to date. ...

Analysts have warned that the release of the PS3 could backfire on gaming giant Sony Computer Entertainment, bringing the Sony subsidiary to its knees. Merrill Lynch Japan has stated it expects Sony to lose more than $1 billion on hardware manufacturing alone during its next-gen console's first 12 months on sale, a figure that may prove unrecoverable.

Merrill Lynch Japan Securities, quoted in the latest issue of Toyo Keizai, states that it expects core production costs of PlayStation 3 to be around $500, with the machine likely to ship at $399 – equating to a loss of around $1.18 billion in the first year the machine goes on sale. It should be noted that these losses are based purely on manufacturing costs and do not factor in the colossal marketing budget SCE has undoubtedly prepped for it's next home console launch.

Merrill Lynch warns that these losses would normally be absorbed with ease by Sony as it has previously entered markets lacking any serious competition. This time however, it will put a new machine on sale, its most expensive to date, to consumers who, in the West, have shown eager acceptance of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and a worldwide audience showing interest in Nintendo's budget innovation machine. Analysts warn that should Microsoft cut the price of Xbox 360 when Sony launches, the entire project could backfire. Should consumers be tempted with a next-generation console at a budget price, complete with a significant library of high-quality software and the option to augment this with something new, as offered by Nintendo, Sony might find its space under televisions around the world, its own for more than a decade, has been usurped.

Toyo Keizai goes on to publish comment from SCE head Ken Kutaragi, who understandably refutes MLDS' analysis; "Whether consumers think a product is expensive or cheap all depends on the balance between its appeal and price," said Kutaragi, again hinting that the PlayStation 3 may indeed be a pricy piece of kit. "Our idea is for consumers to think to themselves, 'Right, I'll work more hours and buy it.' We want people to feel that they want it, no matter what. When Nintendo was selling its 16-bit machine at around 12,500 yen ($114), we sold the first PlayStation at 39,800 yen ($364). The press was saying that it was expensive, but it was a huge hit. It's the same thing with the PlayStation Portable from last year. The Game Boy Advance is a similar handheld gaming machine, and it costs less than 10 thousand yen ($91). On the other hand, our PSP had cost 25,000 yen ($229). And there were people lined up overnight to buy it, and it sold out on the day of launch. It all depends on whether people want it. Of course, I'm confident that PlayStation 3 is a product that people will definitely want."

As you will have noticed, there are few sizable holes in Kutaragi's assertions. To equate the PlayStation launching against the Super Nintendo, a machine towards the end of its lifecycle and with less than half the power, to the PlayStation 3 entering the market against Xbox 360 is absurd. Again, to compare the PSP's launch against the Game Boy Advance, another machine nearing the end of its lifecycle and, interestingly enough, loosely based on the SNES from almost two decades ago is again, unquestionably ridiculous. ...

Play Asia posted this news:

After a delay of roughly 3 weeks we're happy to receive sufficient stock today, Dec 19, 2005. With all accessories to be in stock as well, customers who selected courier shipping will be happy to receive their orders just in time for Christmas! And with sufficent stock available for future orders, those placed quickly will still be on time, too!

That's not all of the good news. Gamepark Holdings worked hard to improve glitches that have been found in the initial version, thus stability, performance and battery time could be improved dramatically (although battery time is still not close to the original specs, unfortunately).

Here's a list of items arrived today, Dec 19, 2005.

GP2X Game System US$ 179.00
GP2X Carrying Case US$ 16.90
GP2X Wrist String US$ 9.90
GP2X Screen Protector US$ 5.99
GP2X TV Out Cable US$ 9.90
GP2X Power Adaptor US$ 22.90

Get yours today from Play Asia ...

Play Asia posted this news:

After a delay of roughly 3 weeks we're happy to receive sufficient stock today, Dec 19, 2005. With all accessories to be in stock as well, customers who selected courier shipping will be happy to receive their orders just in time for Christmas! And with sufficent stock available for future orders, those placed quickly will still be on time, too!

That's not all of the good news. Gamepark Holdings worked hard to improve glitches that have been found in the initial version, thus stability, performance and battery time could be improved dramatically (although battery time is still not close to the original specs, unfortunately).

Here's a list of items arrived today, Dec 19, 2005.

GP2X Game System US$ 179.00
GP2X Carrying Case US$ 16.90
GP2X Wrist String US$ 9.90
GP2X Screen Protector US$ 5.99
GP2X TV Out Cable US$ 9.90
GP2X Power Adaptor US$ 22.90

Get yours today from Play Asia ...