via Computer and Video Games


If you like your horrors dark and very gory, Siren looks like it'll be the game for you.

While Resident Evil 5 has action-orientated scenes of Chris Redfield exploding buses and spraying machine gun fire into swarms of zombie-beasts (or whatever they are), Siren looks like it simply wants to mess with your head.

"The horror-survival title is set in the Japanese village of Hanuda, where a TV crew from America arrive to research the legend of the Vanished Village where human sacrifice is said to have taken place thirty years ago," explains the official blurb.

Sony is to release parts of the game episodically via PSN, and we've been looking forward to it ever since Sony released this trailer.

It's due out some time this summer.


Screenshots ...

via Computer and Video Games


At a "strategy level" Microsoft wants to be first to the market again with its next-generation Xbox, Entertainment & Device Devision boss Robbie Bach has said.

Speaking during an interview with Venture Beat, Bach said that if you asked him whether being first to market with Xbox 360 was the right decision, he'd say "definitely yes," and the platform holder has a desire to do it again with the next console.

"The last cycle for the original Xbox was a little shorter than typical (at four years). We started way late," he said. "If you take the question of whether it was the right thing to try to be first [with Xbox 360], the answer to that is definitely yes. It has given us a leg up in a number of places that are super important.

"It has given us a leg up with game developers. It has given us a leg up from an economics perspective. It helped us expand Xbox Live quickly. At a strategy level, if you asked if we wanted to be first again, I would say yes."

But the E&DD boss said it was "too early to tell" when quizzed on his expectation for the next console's release plans. "Our view is we will be selling Xbox 360 for a long time," he said.

"People ask me how many people I have working on the next generation. On the one hand, it's everybody. On the other, it's nobody. People are continuously working on new technology.

"We start thinking about the next generation before we shipped the Xbox 360," Bach continued. "It doesn't start with a date. It starts way upstream with silicon development.

"From that comes a series of data points. You start making early technology choices. It's an evolving thing. Stuff doesn't become concrete until you get inside a window of when you have to ship, more than 18 months or so out."

If we see anything before 2010, we'll be very surprised. ...

via Eurogamer


MTV has lined-up "Doolittle" by The Pixies as the third downloadable album for Rock Band.

It'll be out next Tuesday on Xbox Live Marketplace, and a couple of days later on the PlayStation Store - in the US, where the game is actually out on PS3.

Grab it for Xbox 360 and it'll cost 1520 Microsoft Points (GBP 13 / EUR 18). The PS3 version should be a similar price.

Also worth noting that "Wave of Mutilation" is missing from the album as it already appears in Rock Band.

The 14-song (master-recorded) album is as follows:

"Crackity Jones"
"Dead"
"Debaser"
"Gouge Away"
"Here Comes Your Man"
"Hey"
"I Bleed"
"La la Love You"
"Monkey Gone To Heaven"
"Mr Grieves"
"No 13 Baby"
"Silver"
"Tame"
"There Goes My Gun" ...

via Eurogamer


The next instalment in the Guitar Hero series will work with a controller that lets you peform more impressive solos.

That's according to leaks from documents by market research Intellisponse that are flying around the Internet.

Apparently the Guitar Hero World Tour controller will feature a "new touch-sensitive guitar Neck Slide" which "opens up the entire guitar neck for unbound solos", so you can "shred how you want".

As previously announced the game will ship with a microphone and wireless drum kit, complete with cymbals and soft pads for quieter play. The whole shebang will cost USD 179.99, according to Intellisponse. Historical evidence suggests it'll be more expensive in Europe, but perhaps lessons will be learned from the Rock Band row and the mark-up won't be too high.

The tracklist is said to include songs from Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, System of a Down, Ozzy Osbourne, Interpol, Muse and "dozens more".

Guitar Hero World Tour has already been confirmed for launch on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii later this year. For more official details, check out our previous coverage. ...

via Games Industry


EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich, in a note to investors following the release of NPD sales data for May, has stated his belief that Microsoft will cut the price of the Xbox 360 in the US at E3 this year.

"With E3 around the corner, we can expect Microsoft to make some type of announcement regarding a hardware price cut, the introductory of a new hardware SKU with new features, or both," he said.

And he added that if a price cut did happen he would expect Sony to follow suit within a two-month window.

Additionally Divnich expects the PlayStation 3 to continue to outpace the Xbox 360 in terms of sales, as in May, thanks to the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 - a much-anticipated exclusive to the Sony platform.

Meanwhile he notes that Nintendo seems to be doing a better job of meeting demand for the Wii console in the US, with the decline in gray market prices from a 40 per cent mark-up to 10 per cent - although supply for Wii Fit continues to be a problem, with gray market prices for that title averaging around a 62 per cent mark-up. ...

via Games Industry


Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has debuted at number one on the UK charts according to data released by Chart-Track.

MGS4 supplants multi-platform title Lego Indiana Jones - last week's number one title - despite being released only on PlayStation 3. It has become the second fastest-selling PS3 game in the UK behind GTA IV and ahead of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.

MGS4 has also beat MGS3 by 24,000 units but fell 14,000 units short of beating launch week sales of MGS2.

Wii Fit, which dropped off the charts shortly after launch due to supply constraints, has returned to take the tenth position. Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution, a new release for Xbox 360 and PS3, debuts at number nine.

The week's other new release - Don King Presents: Prizefighter - debuted at number twenty-five on the chart.

The Top Ten best-selling titles in the UK for the week ending June 14 were:

1 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
2 Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
3 Grand Theft Auto IV
4 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
5 Dr Kawashima's Brain Training
6 Race Driver: GRID
7 Wii Play
8 Sports Island
9 Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution
10 Wii Fit ...

via Computer and Video Games


Newly-promoted Microsoft bods Shane Kim and Phil Spencer have shared their daring predictions for Xbox 360 in 2008, going as far as stating that it could top last year's spectacular Halo 3-BioShock-Call of Duty triple hit.

"I think the platform is just as strong, if not stronger [than last year]" said Shane Kim, now corporate VP of strategy and business development, told CVG's suit and tie-wearing cousin Next-Gen.biz.

"That's hard to say, because we had incredible titles last year with BioShock, Halo 3, Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4. ... Especially when you look at Halo 3, which was a phenomenal industry event, it's easy to look back and go 'you can't possibly be as strong.'

"But if you look at the initial success of Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360," Kim continued, "that's been super, and we have exclusive [DLC] content coming too. Gears of War 2 is going to be huge, Fable 2 is going to be huge.

"So I don't know. I believe that we're going to have just as big of a year in terms of content on Xbox 360. Maybe we don't have a particular exclusive that's as big as Halo 3, but I do think that Gears 2 and Fable 2 will be really big hits."

But of course like the man says, after the mammoth entertainment launch that was Halo 3, many of us will scoff at the thought of MS rolling in and topping that in 2008. When asked how the chances were of MGS ever creating a franchise as big as (or bigger than) Halo, Kim replied:

"Really good. And I'll tell you why. We've got the talent, we've got people who are always on the lookout for new ideas and talent, and most importantly we have the commitment and the will to create those hits. Those are not easy tasks. There would've been lots of people in the past that would've not stuck with various projects that have turned out to be very successful for us.

"In no way would I say that Halo, or what we know of Halo today, is the peak of what's possible. Far from it. It's another benchmark, another milestone to exceed in the future." ...

via Computer and Video Games


Microsoft's Zune can learn from the "cautionary tales" of the PSP, Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Devision boss Robbie Bach has said.

Speaking in an interview with Venture Beat, Bach said that while the PSP was "reasonably successful" as a games portable, he thinks that music and video were an after though for the platform.


Learning form the PSP, says Bach, Microsoft has decided to focus on music with its Zune music player, which means that we shouldn't expect a singing and dancing Zune games service any time soon.


That said, according to Bach the Zune is a greater platform for games than the iPod, which recently unveiled plans for an iPhone games store.

...

via Computer and Video Games


The launch of the brilliant MGS4 is "only the beginning" of a rush of triple-A PS3-exclusives, says Sony's seemingly pleased VP of product marketing, Scott Steiner.

With some of the console's big titles like Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, GTA IV and Singstar now out the door, Steiner paints a positive picture for PS3 owners for the rest of the year.

"This is only the beginning of an ongoing software avalanche for PS3 that includes titles such as LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM: Confrontation, MotorStorm Pacific Rift and Resistance 2 that only PS3 owners will be able to exclusively enjoy," said Steiner.

He also hopes MGS4 will encourage some of the millions of hibernating PS2 fans to come out the woodwork and grab a PS3.

Let's just hope they can keep the attractive hardware bundles in stock. ...