via Games Industry


NanaOn-Sha's Masaya Matsuura has said that developers in Japan are beginning to question the longevity of the DS format and its appeal to a gaming audience.

The respected Japanese developer observed that the younger consumer is very conservative when it comes to new software, and that titles aimed at a more mature market are not having the impact they did when the format first launched in the region.

"Some people have said already that the DS software's bubble has burst," commented Matsuura to Gamasutra.

"We have to keep increasing the chance to make more unique titles, but for us it's getting much more difficult because the game market - especially in Japan - is still very conservative.

"Many people know that the DS has very unique titles, like Brain Training, or something like that, but it's not for younger-aged market. It's kind of older people, like me."

With multiple developers and publishers jumping on the bandwagon to create 'training' style games, Matsuura said that sales of such titles have inevitably tanked.

"[One company I know has] some kind of learning type of game. The first one sold over 200,000, but the second one is 8,000. So these kind of things are going to happen," he said. ...

via Games Industry


NanaOn-Sha's Masaya Matsuura has said that developers in Japan are beginning to question the longevity of the DS format and its appeal to a gaming audience.

The respected Japanese developer observed that the younger consumer is very conservative when it comes to new software, and that titles aimed at a more mature market are not having the impact they did when the format first launched in the region.

"Some people have said already that the DS software's bubble has burst," commented Matsuura to Gamasutra.

"We have to keep increasing the chance to make more unique titles, but for us it's getting much more difficult because the game market - especially in Japan - is still very conservative.

"Many people know that the DS has very unique titles, like Brain Training, or something like that, but it's not for younger-aged market. It's kind of older people, like me."

With multiple developers and publishers jumping on the bandwagon to create 'training' style games, Matsuura said that sales of such titles have inevitably tanked.

"[One company I know has] some kind of learning type of game. The first one sold over 200,000, but the second one is 8,000. So these kind of things are going to happen," he said. ...

via Games Industry


Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has told GamesIndustry.biz that there are currently no plans to introduce a 120GB PlayStation 3 in the region.

Rumours are circulating that Sony America is due to launch a new model PlayStation 3 in the US, as stocks of the 80GB model begin to disappear from shelves.

Gaming blog Ars Technica has reported that a 120GB sku is due shortly – complete with DualShock 3 controller and retailing for the same price as the 80GB Spider-Man 3 bundle – although Sony has made no comment to confirm this.

However, if any 120GB unit is to be launched in North America, there's no such roll-out on the cards for Europe.

"We do not currently have any plans to release a 120GB PlayStation 3 in the UK," said a spokesperson for SCEE.

Sony has hinted in the past that it could release PS3 units with larger hard-drives if consumers demanded it, to take advantage of the increasing supply of digitally delivered content via services such as the PlayStation Network.

Sony has constantly chopped and changed prices and hardware configurations in all three of its key territories, most recently discontinuing the 20GB and 60GB skus in Japan. ...

via Computer and Video Games


ELSPA investigators have discovered consoles stashed full of cash in the home of an industrious illegal chipper - not, in this case, someone unlawfully happy.

The bloke in question, a resident of Tower Hamlets, had secreted an impressive £12,210 inside a hollowed-out Xbox 1 and PS2s.

Unsurprisingly the fat-boy Xbox - probably now the only one in existence used for something other than a toe-stubbing doorstop - won the cash-stash hands down, with £5,925 apparently where the hard drive would normally be.

Just as well he didn't stick it in an Xbox 360. It would have probably caught fire.

As well as illegally chipping Xboxs and PS2s, the man was selling PSP games on SD memory card. Naughty.



Photographs here ...

via Engadget


Gartner, the fat lady of research firms, is singing HD DVD's swan song this morning. Hiroyuki Shimizu, Principal Research Analyst in Japan, says in Gartner's Semiconductor DQ Monday Report that, "Gartner believes that Toshiba's price-cutting may prolong HD DVD's life a little, but the limited line-up of film titles will inflict fatal damage on the format." He goes on to call the recent price cuts "useless resistance" in avoiding the inevitable. What's that, you coyly ask?

According to Shimizu, "Gartner expects that, by the end of 2008, Blu-ray will be the winning format in the consumer market, and the war will be over." With 5 of the 7 major studios now backing Blu-ray exclusively, Gartner's certainty on the subject doesn't appear to be much of a stretch. ...

via Computer and Video Games


It been confirmed that the controversial Grab Bag Achievement in the new Turok game, which would reward players for killing members of their own team in an online multiplayer game, will be removed via a patch on the day of the game's release.

Josh Holmes, VP of Propaganda Games, told CVG last year that his team was considering readying a patch to remove the Grab Bag achievement should it prove to be ruining the game for players. After the noise we made about it, Propaganda evidently decided to go ahead with the fix.

Wired, who quotes CVG as calling the Grab Bag achievement the "worst multiplayer achievement in the history of games," reports that the patch will be made available online on February 5, and will change the Achievement (or the "accomplishment" in the PS3 version) so that you only need to kill an enemy, a creature and yourself.

Rumble functionality and 1080i support will also be included in the patch for the PS3 version. ...

via Eurogamer


Xbox Live Arcade will be athumping and achin-stroking this Wednesday as Xbox Live fans tuck into Rez HD and Chessmaster Live from 9am GMT. That's 30th January, in case you're dozing.

As usual, both games will be flanked by trial versions, both come with 12 unlockable Achievements for a total of 200 Gamerpoints, and helpfully for this particular sentence both will set you back 800 Microsoft Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60).

Rez HD is the one we know more about, not least because it's a sharpened-up port of a Dreamcast and PS2 rail shooter that many of us rather liked.

As you will know from our giddy first impressions of the Xbox Live Arcade redux, the original jaggedy version is included alongside a new high-definition version which looks so sharp you could stick an 'e' on the end of its name and use it to tell Napoleonic War stories about a self-made man.

As for Chessmaster Live, we're interested in seeing whether it succeeds where Wii Chess failed in letting us compile our own Eurogamer Chess Team, although since we wrote about its Nintendo competition we have rejigged the line-up in our dream chess team so that Rupert is king all hail Rupert and despair.

Look out for reviews of both in the near future. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Americans who found the hot coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas "offensive and upset" can claim up to $35 [about £17.60] in compensation from Rockstar, People Magazine reports.

The exact amount you can claim depends upon how much documentation you have to prove your outrage.

Rockstar is referring to receipts or proof of purchase by the way, so you can throw away all those psychiatrist's reports linking your mentally deranged mind to seeing the simulated sex mod.

For our American readers and/or the intrigued:

• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas First Edition Disc: Replacement Disc
• Detailed Store Receipt: Cash payment up to $35.00
• General Credit Card Statement or Check: Cash payment up to $17.50
• Disc/Purchase Details: Cash payment up to $10.00
• No Disc/Purchase Details: Cash payment up to $5.00

Further details can be found at gtasettlement.com if you feel you were traumatised by the ordeal.

As a nice epilogue, the lawyers involved have received one million dollars for defending American citizens from the tyranny of Rockstar's unused code.

That sort of money makes us think that writing about games for a living wasn't perhaps the best career choice, after all. Spotted by Gaming Steve. ...

via Computer and Video Games


The world of dodgy console peripherals has struck again with another laughable invention, this time to add rumble to your bog-standard SixAxis controller.

If buying the £300 console left your wallet too empty to import a DualShock 3 controller, peripheral company PEGA wants to help with its $17 [£8.55] contraption pictured below.

It's called the Vibrating Bag, for some unknown reason, and features a vibrating unit that straps to your SixAxis, with a transmitter that is attached to your PS3.

Only, the transmitter has a massive '80s-style aerial antenna on it, ruining the neo look of your PS3, and by the looks of it, the shaking unit responds to sounds in the game (like a sort of small vibrating speaker), not the game's proper rumble signals.

But don't let that put you off because it also has a built-in FM radio tuner - cutting edge stuff. And according to the packaging it was "specially designed for PS3 game chip" so it must be good.

Why did we ever spend £40 on a DualShock 3 when we could have just got this?


A couple of images of the gadget here ...