via Joystiq


DeathSpank, Monkey Island co-creator Ron Gilbert's homage to Diablo, has been fully loaded with laughs and is ready to make its debut on PSN July 13, arriving on Xbox Live Arcade the next day, July 14 (barring any temporal anomalies). We played the game a couple months back and were smitten with its charm, humor, loot and bacon.

What we didn't see back then was DeathSpank's cooperative mode. Since there can only be one DeathSpank (we don't think the world could handle two of him) player two will control his spell-casting sidekick, Sparkles the Wizard. We're sure Sparkles is just fine with his silly name, so long as he gets to tag along with the Hero to the Downtrodden.

DeathSpank will loot your wallet for $14.99 on PSN and 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) via the Xbox Live Marketplace. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Capcom's released a trailer for its just-announced Nintendo 3DS game, Resident Evil Revelations - and it looks frickin' gorgeous.

Despite 73 games being announced for 3DS at E3 last week, Nintendo only released one trailer for Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Pitch black rooms and static environments might have something to do with it, but Resi 3DS - and its character models in particular - looks just as good as the excellent Resident Evil 1 remake on GameCube - and it'll be in 3D.

We probably shouldn't make final judgement from a carefully edited trailer, but... ah bugger it, this is going to be amazing.


Trailer at CVG ...

via Eurogamer


Final Fantasy XIV Online's producer Hiromichi Tanaka has said that there are currently "no plans" to bring Square Enix's next MMO to Xbox 360, although conversations with Microsoft are ongoing.
Although it was originally revealed by Sony during its 2009 press conference, there has been talk of a 360 version of the game since, with Tanaka confirming that Square Enix was in discussions with Microsoft at Gamescom later in the year.

The good news is that the game is still on track for a 2010 release. "Yes, that is the plan," Tanaka said.

Eurogamer had some hands-on time with the game at E3, but it wasn't really the best environment to try out a new MMO. We're expecting beta access soon, so look out for our impressions then. ...

via 1up


We know Little Big Planet 2 will use the Move motion controller when it releases, which sounds perfect for potentially streamlining the level creation process. But speaking to Joystiq, Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans said they'll also release a patch post-launch that'll let players implement Move controls into their levels as well, similar to what was capable with the Sixaxis in the first LBP.

"For us, I think the Direct Control Seat is the obvious answer to how to use Move," Evans said. "So, right now, players can use the Direct Control Seat to decide how the Sixaxis affects your level, and we'd like to do the same thing for the Move. We have something like that internally, but it's not fully built. We're working with another studio to help us prototype out what Move could be, and those levels will be on the disc at launch, to show players what they'll be able to build."

Evans said they'll then release the patch at some point after the game launches to let players create their own Move levels. "The community can choose the mapping, like, I really look forward to, are they going to build cursor-based games, are they going to build gesture-based games? They have the choice eventually, and that's our high bar with Move. We didn't want to set a low bar with it, and tack it on the side. We wanted it to be a fully fledged citizen like the Sixaxis."

Evans didn't say how soon after LBP2's release they plan to issue the patch, but hopefully it won't be too long. LBP2 hits shelves this November. ...

via Eurogamer


The Nintendo 3DS will allow users to copy games to internal memory according to a report in Japanese newspaper Nikkei, translated by Andriasang.

The software install feature will allow 3DS owners to store multiple games on memory rather than having to carry around a lot of cartridges.

Nintendo has come under pressure from third parties to do something about rampant DS piracy.

Yesterday Activision COO Thomas Tippl told GameSpot: "if they also address the piracy issues they have and upgrade the copyright protection system, I think [3DS is] going to be a big success"

Given that a lot of the piracy devices are cartridges that store multiple ROMs on micro-SD cards, perhaps Nintendo has decided that if you can't beat them...


Sounds like a good idea. What do you think? Leave feedback via comments. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Nintendo doesn't need to work on a successor to the Wii right now, company CEO Satoru Iwata has said.

Speaking in an interview with the Beeb, Iwata reiterated that the platform holder won't launch its next console until it's "run out of ideas" for its current hardware, though he admitted that Wii 2 is already in development.
Last week the Nintendo boss told Japanese newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun that Wii 2 will "probably" be 3D. ...

via Joystiq


When we were ripped from the E3 3DS demo units by heartless Nintendo reps, our minds raced to calculate precisely how much we'd be willing to pay to take one home with us. The answer was ... unnerving, to say the least. While we still don't have an official price, we've got a slightly better idea courtesy of a recent VentureBeat interview with Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata.

He says that the handheld will, unsurprisingly, cost more to produce than a DS does today and that it won't be sold below production cost. We don't know the current DS Lite production price, so determining a minimum price from that quote is tricky. But here's a little perspective: The original DS cost $150 at launch, the DS Lite cost $130, a price point it's still doing crazy numbers at four years later. Our gut's saying at least $200 for the 3DS, but we'd be thrilled to be proven wrong ... provided we're overestimating.

Also of interest in the VentureBeat piece: Iwata says that the 3D tech in the system has been prototyped on the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance. Just imagine! There's an alternate reality where the Wii has six dimensions duct-taped together. ...

via 1up




Along with the new Nintendo 3DS system itself, Nintendo has developed new game cards to go along with the system. At the E3 demo booths last week, the game card slots were covered up, according to Kotaku, but we now have a look at both the 3DS' slots and the new 3DS game cards courtesy of esuteru.com.

The cards look mostly the same as the current line of DS cards, but these new ones support a 2GB capacity. And as a result, the slot itself looks mostly identical to those on the current line of DS systems. Nothing particularly exciting, but it's possible the new game cards play some role in Nintendo's increased anti-piracy measures the 3DS is supposed to sport. We can't know for sure, of course, as Nintendo doesn't want to give out any details that might help pirates in trying to circumvent those new anti-piracy measures. ...

via 1up


There wasn't a lot of talk about hardware specifications during Nintendo's media briefing at E3 last week, and while that may have made for a more interesting presentation, it also left us with plenty of unanswered questions about the 3DS.

Japanese tech company Digital Media Professionals cleared up at least one of those mysteries over the weekend by revealing that it will be providing the graphics chip for Nintendo's new handheld. Rumors suggested that nVidia's Tegra processor would sit at the heart of the 3DS, but it turns out DMP's PICA 200 chip will power the glasses-free 3D in Nintendo's device.

Engadget snagged the demonstration video above from DMP's site. They're reporting that the footage was rendered entirely on the PICA 200 -- needless to say, that would be pretty impressive for a handheld.

We've reproduced the full specifications for the PICA 200 below. If you're the sort of person who isn't immediately baffled by the term "gaseous object rendering," then feel free to dissect these stats to your heart's content:

• Frame buffer: Maximum 4095x4095 pixels
• Pixel format: RGBA4444, RGB565, RGBA5551, RGBA8888
• Vertex program (ARB_vertex_program)
• Render to texture
• Mipmap
• Bilinear texture filtering
• Alpha blending
• Full-scene antialiasing (2x2)
• Polygon offset
• 8-bit stencil buffer
• 24-bit depth buffer
• Single/Double/Triple buffer
• Vertex performance: Maximum 15.3M polygons/sec (at 200MHz)
• Pixel performance: Maximum 800M pixels/sec (at 200MHz)
• DMP MAESTRO technology: per-pixel lighting, procedural texture, refraction mapping, subdivision primitive, shadow, gaseous object rendering

...