via Gizmodo US


If you have been waiting patiently to try out the Skyfire browser for Windows Mobile, now is your chance. The developers have opened up the 0.8 beta to anyone with a Windows Mobile or Nokia N or E Series (3rd edition) phone in the US. Hit the following link to sign up. ...

via IGN


In mid November Activision will release Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, the follow-up to the successful Nintendo DS Guitar Hero game developed by Vicarious Visions. The sequel focuses on a trip through the decades of music, featuring song sets from 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s. Here's what you'll be strumming to:

• Alien Ant Farm - "Smooth Criminal"
• The All-American Rejects - "Dirty Little Secret"
• Blind Melon - "No Rain"
• Blondie - "One Way Or Another"
• Bon Jovi - "You Give Love A Bad Name"
• Boston - "Rock and Roll Band"
• The Darkness - "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"
• Edgar Winter Group - "Free Ride"
• Fall Out Boy - "The Take Over, The Breaks Over"
• Foo Fighters - "The Pretender"
• Free - "All Right Now"
• Jimmy Eat World - "The Middle"
• Joe Satriani - "Satch Boogie"
• Journey - "Any Way You Want It"
• Lenny Kravitz - "Are You Gonna Go My Way"
• Linkin Park - "One Step Closer"
• Los Lobos - "La Bamba"
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Sweet Home Alabama (live)"
• Paramore - "Crushcrushcrush"
• Queen - "We Are The Champions"
• R.E.M. - "The One I Love"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Can't Stop"
• Sammy Hagar - "I Can't Drive 55"
• Seether - "Remedy"
• Smashing Pumpkins - "Tarantula"
• Stone Temple Pilots - "Down"
• Veruca Salt - "Volcano Girls"
• Weezer - "Buddy Holly"

Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades hits shelves November 16. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Sony's PlayStation business has been booming over the last couple of months, although the rest of the company isn't doing as well as the platform holder would like.

PS3 sales hit 2.43 million during the second quarter of Sony's business year (July to September). That's up 85% on the 1.31 million sold during the same period last year.

PSP sales rose sharply too, up 23% from 2.58 million to 3.18 million.

Sales of the ageing PS2 declined, down 25% to 2.5 million, but that figure still topped PS3's total.

While we're rolling out the stats, the company also sold over 21 million PS3 games during the second quarter, 11.8 million PSP titles, and 23.1 million PS2 games.

So the PS2 is in decline, but it's still outperforming its successor in terms of hardware and software sales, a whole eight years after it was first released. That's pretty good going in our books.

While the PlayStation business performed well, things were less rosy across Sony's wider business during the three months in question.

The company's overall quarterly profit fell by 72% to $214 million and, according to Edge-Online, its share price fell to a 16-year low ahead of the release of the financial results. Ouch. ...

via IGN


Atlus is the latest company to stretch out a major game announcement into a full week of teasing.

It all begins in this week's Famitsu, which houses an ad for an all new DS game, Devil Survivor. The two page ad shows a view of Tokyo's skyline, only the sky is red and appears to be forming a whirlpool. The text on the ad promises details on November 7, also in Famitsu.

The full name for the new game is actually Megami Ibunroku Devil Survivor. The Japanese words before "Devil Survivor" also precede the Japanese version of that PlayStation classic, Revelations: Persona. The connection between the two games is unknown.

Expect full details some time next week! ...

via Eurogamer


Kingdom Under Fire developer Blueside has announced Princess and Knight for the DS.

It's an action RPG with stylus-based controls, apparently, and boasts hand-drawn 2D graphics with 3D effects.

You can see what it looks like in our Princess and Knight DS screenshot gallery.

Blueside's promising customisable characters, weapons and abilities, and fast-paced combos in battle, as you take control of a brave knight who discovers he has special powers, and subsequently teams up with Mooki, a princess guardian.

As the slightly amazing press release declares, "It just takes a pen to shake the world!"

There's no word on a release date yet, but we'll let you know. ...

via Kotaku


Sony Computer Entertainment UK director Ray Maguire gives fans of Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3 and Tomb Raider: Underworld hope for the future of "exclusive" downloadable content on the PlayStation 3 platform. Each has promised DLC only for Microsoft's Xbox 360, but Maguire tells VideoGamer that "One thing to remember, nothing is ever exclusive."

He has a point. We've watched exclusivity deals dissolve more than once during this generation (BioShock, Final Fantasy XIII).

Maguire, who's been chatty lately, explains to the less big business strategically inclined, "Things get wrapped up for a period of time for a large amount of money and if it's a strategic decision by competition to do that then we have to live with that."

Sony, Mr. Maguire says, has better things to do with its money.


We're glad that Sony is investing internally, even if it means things like EyePet get greenlighted, but we'd bet some PS3 owners certainly wouldn't mind a well-secured exclusive or two of their own. For the record, we're 99.44% sure this doesn't apply to Metal Gear Solid 4, give or take a few percentage points. Haze, maybe. Definitely maybe. ...

via Eurogamer


SEGA has announced that it will publish High Voltage's Wii first-person shooter, The Conduit, in spring next year.

Built on the developer's Quantum 3 engine, The Conduit throws the player into the no doubt shiny shoes of US Secret Service agent Mr Ford in Washington DC, as he sets off to fight naughty alien invaders.

Ford's kit includes futuristic weaponry and an intelligence-gathering device called the "All-Seeing Eye", but the interesting thing is how much control you're given over the, well, controls. High Voltage plans to let you reconfigure them as you please, and test things like view and turn speed, the aiming dead zone and other tricky elements until you're satisfied. There will be Wii MotionPlus support too, according to SEGA.

Away from the campaign, The Conduit promises at least three multiplayer modes for its 16-player online battles, and should support the Wii Speak peripheral so you can jabber away to one another.

And of course SEGA is very happy with the signing, with marketing director Gary Knight arguing that, "Bringing The Conduit into our library is yet another show of SEGA's belief that the Wii is more than a casual games console." SEGA has previously put out Ghost Squad, House of the Dead 2&3 Return and NIGHTS: Journey of Dreams to back that up, and is currently preparing House of the Dead: OVERKILL. ...

via Kotaku


Twenty years ago today, Sega released in Japan what was to be the most successful console in the history of the company. While the Sega Master System had only really taken off in Europe, the Sega Mega Drive, later renamed the Sega Genesis for its North American release, took the western world by storm. While it may have stayed a distant third behind the Super Famicon and NEC's PC-Engine in Japan, in North America the console fought Nintendo to a standstill, and in Europe it consistently outsold all competition, cementing Sega's place as a top-tier console manufacturer...until they went and screwed it all up.

I didn't get my Sega Genesis until 1994, picking it up at a MediaPlay in Roswell, Georgia, mainly because it was bundled with the excellent game based on Disney's The Lion King. That system is still very much alive to this day, holding a special place in my heart as the first game console I purchased for myself as an "adult", sparking the realization that I could spend a massive percentage of my income on video games and still afford cheap frozen food, a practice I continue to this very day. Thanks a lot, Sega Genesis, and happy birthday! ...

via Eurogamer


Unhappy about having to pay 1200 Microsoft Points - over a tenner - to play Portal: Still Alive on Xbox Live Arcade? Well, probably not. In which case, perhaps you'll be happy to pay that again for this Wednesday's offering, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader: Make the Grade.

Or not. But either way, AYSTA5G is developed by Blitz Arcade and published by THQ, and goes for the aforementioned 1200 MSP (GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40). It's a quiz game based on the grade school (primary) curriculum, with 6,000 questions across 21 subjects.

It's based on the US TV show of the same name, where host Jeff Foxworthy asks a series of questions based on the junior curriculum, with contestants gradually moving towards a USD 1 million prize the more they get right. We've never seen it, but Wikipedia reckons a UK version (Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old?) was or is hosted by Noel Edmonds and/or Dick & Dom.

There's more info on the Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader: Make the Grade page on Xbox.com, and you can buy it from 9am GMT on Wednesday. As with all XBLA releases, there's also a demo and 12 unlockable Achievements in the paid-for version.

Also out on Wednesday is a Marble Blast Ultra multiplayer level. It's free and even adds one new unlockable Achievement. If you haven't played the pretty decent Marble Blast Ultra for a while, you could do worse. ...