Kojima says that upcoming PSP title will take a different form to previous outings
Acclaimed games developer Hideo Kojima has started the ball rolling on the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker hype machine by claiming that the upcoming PSP title will be every bit the rival of its home console counterparts – despite some fundamental design differences.
“Peace Walker a Metal Gear Solid 5-class game,” he said in a Q&A posted on ShackNews. “I am supervising, designing, producing, directing, and editing this title together with the MGS4 team.”
Kojima went on to explain that whilst Peace Walker will maintain the production values of its predecessors, its form will be somewhat different to previous MGS titles.
“The game will be stealth-action based – I can't reveal too many details yet, but we are implementing features that can only be realized on the PSP platform that I believe everyone can look forward to,” he outlined.


“The game will be a little different from the Metal Gear that players have come to know. However, the story can be replayed numerous times and the game is full of challenges to complete, so I feel that this title will really satisfy players with its long-lasting playtime.

“You can customise Snake according to your preferences and determine what kind of soldier you will use prior to embarking on your mission.
"For example there's heavy gear configurations that make a lot of noise, but that allow you to equip numerous weapons. Or, there are other configurations that won't allow you to carry many weapons, but will allow you to be light on your feet.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/35094/Peac...S5-class-title ...

via Eurogamer


Guerrilla Games will launch the Napalm & Cordite add-on for Killzone 2 this Thursday on the PlayStation Store.

Word comes direct from Killzone HQ, complete with fleshed-out descriptions of the new maps and weapons on offer.

Those, remember, are the VC1 Flamethrower and Boltgun 4400 from the main campaign, plus multiplayer areas Suljeva Cliffside and Arctower Landing.

There's still no word on price, however, although previous Killzone 2 DLC has cost GBP 4.79 / EUR 5.99 a pop. ...

Xseed had two post E3 reveals: one for Wii and one for DS. The Wii announcement turned out to be Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces. The DS one is RIZ-ZOAWD, originally handled in Japan by D3 Publisher. Xseed officially announced they partnered with D3 Publisher to acquire the North American publishing rights.

Since the game is based on the Wizard of Oz story, it isn’t surprising that Xseed have chosen the title “The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road” for the localized release. Dorothy’s movement in The Wizard of Oz is controlled with a virtual trackball and the turn-based battles take place from a first-person perspective. Read our impressions of the Japanese release to hear more about how this works.

Warner Brothers is involved in the North American release, but it’s unclear what impact they will have on the game. They might just be licensing out The Wizard of Oz name.

The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is scheduled for a fall release. Amazon and Gamefly list get more specific with September 29 and 30 dates, respectively.

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/07/20...ow-brick-road/ ...

Remember the Shin Megami Tensei slot machine? One report from the event says something about Persona 5.

The news comes from pachinko publication 7rush, which claims Persona 5 will be announced for the PlayStation 3 soon in the midst of a MegaTen boom. (Thanks for the tip Pesmerga00!!) Persona 4 was also revealed in an unusual way with Bloomberg mentioning the game in a financial report.

However, other media like Dengeki Online were at the event and didn’t report anything about Persona 5.

Right or wrong, Persona 5 is inevitable. MegaTen is growing worldwide and the Persona is leading the way.

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/07/20...ona-5-for-ps3/ ...

Natsume squeaked Harvest Moon: Magical Melody out on the Gamecube near the end of its life span. By the time Rising Star Games prepared to bring it to Europe the Wii was in full swing.

Even though the Wii is backwards compatible, Marvelous developed a Wii-make of Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, which has only been released in PAL regions… so far. Gamestop says they are exclusively selling the game in North America too. (Thanks for the tip Hayden!!)

Marvelous added motion control to the game, but took out the female protagonist. The Wii version is over a year old so the development team had plenty of time to put that feature back in if the Magical Melody Wii-make if it gets a North American release. Natsume announced a flock of Harvest Moon games at E3, but Magical Melody wasn’t on it. This release calendar says otherwise, however.

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/07/20...ing-stateside/ ...

Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 is coming in August featuring three multiplayer maps (Battery, Revolution and Breach), co-developed with partner Certain Affinity and one new Zombie map (Der Riese).

Activision released no further details (or screens) for the pack but expect them some soon. Here's the full release:

Reinforcements are scheduled to arrive for one of the most-played online multiplayer games, as Activision Publishing, Inc and developer Treyarch, confirmed plans today to deliver Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 in August. Map Pack 3 will feature three multiplayer maps ("Battery," "Revolution," and "Breach"), co-developed with partner Certain Affinity, and one new Zombie map ("Der Riese"), for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION3 computer entertainment system. Visit www.CoDWaW.com for more details.

Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 follows the enormous success of its first two predecessors, which to date have sold more than four million copies on both Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network (combined) for a Call of Duty game that has sold more than 11 million units to date across all platforms, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and Gfk.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=219824 ...

Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 is coming in August featuring three multiplayer maps (Battery, Revolution and Breach), co-developed with partner Certain Affinity and one new Zombie map (Der Riese).

Activision released no further details (or screens) for the pack but expect them some soon. Here's the full release:

Reinforcements are scheduled to arrive for one of the most-played online multiplayer games, as Activision Publishing, Inc and developer Treyarch, confirmed plans today to deliver Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 in August. Map Pack 3 will feature three multiplayer maps ("Battery," "Revolution," and "Breach"), co-developed with partner Certain Affinity, and one new Zombie map ("Der Riese"), for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION3 computer entertainment system. Visit www.CoDWaW.com for more details.

Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 3 follows the enormous success of its first two predecessors, which to date have sold more than four million copies on both Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network (combined) for a Call of Duty game that has sold more than 11 million units to date across all platforms, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and Gfk.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=219824 ...

Following its modest chart entrance at number ten two weeks ago, sales of EA's Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince have picked up enough to take the game to the number one position in this week's UK sales chart.

Bolstered by the wizard's cinema success, the game has enjoyed a five per cent rise in sales - enough to snatch the top spot from last week's number one, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, according to the latest Gfk Chart Track figures.

Also enjoying chart rises this week are Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which rose from number three to number two, despite a four per cent dip in sales, and Wii Fit, which moved back up two chart places.

But neither publisher of those titles (Activision Blizzard and Nintendo respectively) can match EA's current chart streak which - including its Harry Potter number one - sees the publisher with five games in the top ten this week. For six of the past seven weeks, an EA title has been at the top of the chart.

Elsewhere, Ubisoft's Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood dropped one place to number six, with a sales decline of 27 per cent, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare continued to outsell newer game World At War, perhaps helped by a lower price point.

Nintendo title Rhythm Paradise saw the biggest sales increase aided by a TV advert starring Beyoncé - up 96 per cent to take it to chart position number 21.

01 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
02 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
03 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10
04 Wii Fit
05 Fight Night Round 4
06 Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
07 The Sims 3
08 Virtua Tennis 2009
09 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
10 EA Sports Active

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-formats-chart ...

MTV is to launch a Rock Band Network that will enable any artist, signed or unsigned, to have their music featured in the game.

Artists and labels will be able to submit their tracks for programming to a Harmonix-trained freelance developer. The song will then be released to Microsoft's Creator's Club to be reviewed by its online industry community before being made available as downloadable content. The price of this content will be determined by its creator (from 50 cents to USD 3), who then receives 30 per cent of the resulting sales. Because of its reliance on the Creator's Club the new network will launch solely on Xbox 360, but MTV expects to subsequently make popular tracks available on PlayStation 3 and Wii.

"We've figured out how to make it so anybody who owns and controls masters and publishing can put music into [Rock Band] at their own pace," said MTV Games senior VP of electronic games and music Paul DeGooyer. "We're talking about a set of serious professional tools to allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny with respect to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store."

The system will mean artists and labels not having to deal with Harmonix directly, instead preparing their own tracks for play in the game.

"It's very exciting news to us," Tony Kiewel, Sub Pop Records head of A&R told Billboard. "It's important to participate in every possible revenue stream available. Whatever gets your music heard helps your overall awareness and ability to sell records and downloads."

Currently in closed beta, MTV plans to go into open beta in late August in the US and open it via an online store, separate from the current Rock Band store, before the year's end. The two stores could be merged at a later date if the new program proves successful, says the publisher.

It will be moving slowly to begin with due the anticipated volume of submissions, however. MTV expects delays towards the start of the process until a pool of developers and reviewers has been established.

Once up-and-running however, the publisher is hoping interactive tracks could lure in consumers that wouldn't otherwise buy music, creating a whole new revenue stream for music artists.

"Recorded music on its own no longer leads the charge for artists," commented DeGooyer. "It's now this aggregated value proposition of recorded music, touring, merch, branding, web presence and now videogames

"I can envision a song coming into the Rock Band Network first, getting traction, picking up customers through online play and then being picked up by MTV's programming and showing up there. We've shown we can sell millions of songs in the Rock Band store. So it really does tie into a larger picture."

Microsoft's Creators Club currently reviews around 30-50 games per month, but since MTV and Microsoft expects the number of Rock Band submissions to significantly increase this number, a separate custom club will be created specifically for Harmonix and hosted separately, complete with a custom set of review procedures.

To date, Harmonix has made over 700 additional songs available to play in Rock Band, achieving more than 50 million downloads.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...heir-own-music ...