via Eurogamer


Microsoft is definitely and not maybe sure Oasis songs will be downloadable for Rock Band.

Xbox Live blogger Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb confirmed the news, listing the content now available on the US Marketplace.

It was rumoured Oasis tracks would make an appearance last week, after MS accidentally said so on Xbox.com and then tried to pretend nothing happened.

But now available are Don't Look Back in Anger, Live Forever and Wonderwall for 160 Points (GBP 1.36 / EUR 1.86) a pop. Or you can bundle them all together for 440 Points (GBP 3.74 / EUR 5.12).

Rock Band is still scheduled for release in Europe this quarter, although exactly when is still up in the air like someone on a trampoline. ...

via Computer and Video Games


Microsoft's chief blogger Major Nelson has confirmed that there will be no new releases on Xbox Live Arcade this week, not even a rubbish puzzle game with achievements you'll never play. Damn.

It had been reported that awesome shooter Rez HD and Ubisoft's less exciting Chessmaster Live would take this week's slot, though that's obviously turned out to be a load of rubbish. Maybe next week, eh?

Instead Xbox 360 owners are left to make do with Microsoft's offer of a free copy of Undertow, in compensation for the constant uptime issues with Xbox Live over Christmas. The deal's good until Sunday, so get your skates on.

In case you missed it, the company also rolled out its Xbox Live Arcade Awards yesterday, where gamers are invited to vote for their favourite download games (on Xbox 360, that is) so that Microsoft can crown them with some nice silverware. Get voting! ...

Deniska has posted a new version of his port of Tyrian to the PSP, heres whats new:


This port is based on OpenTyrian project code (http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/), maintained by
mindless2112, syntaxglitch,emacs.hacker, yuriks.br.



GAMEPLAY
--------
Tyrian is an arcade-style vertical scrolling shooter.
The player controls a space ship fitted with different weapons and enhanced energy shields.
Money is earned by destroying enemies and grabbing bonuses, which is then used to purchase
upgrades such as weapons, shields, energy generators, and different ships from interlevel menus.
The game is fast paced and presents a variety of enemies and bosses.

CONTROLS
--------
[ANALOG PAD] MENU NAVIGATION & SHIP'S IN GAME MOVEMENTS
[TRANGLE] SELECT/FIRE
[SQUARE]/[O][X] joystick buttons 2,3,4 (can be reconfigured in setup)
[SELECT] in-game setup menu / back button
[START] in game pause

Please refer to README file for installation instructions and additional information.


Download and Give Feedback here --> http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=80987 ...

Rhythm fans rejoice: Patapon will be storming shores wearing a less-than-$20 price tag.

In a holiday post yesterday on the PlayStation Blog, Sony's Director of Software Marketing Jeff Reese broke the news that Patapon, a 2D rhythm-based game where you lead the Patapon tribe into battle, will ship for $19.99.

"As you can see, Patapon is really different and highly creative, a new kind of PSP experience we don't want anyone to miss," Reese wrote. "It's a game that shouldn't get lost with some other big titles launching on the platform. It deserves your attention because it's very cool."

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/846/846749p1.html ...

The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) today announced that sales for the videogame industry in Australia reached $1.3 billion dollars in 2007. That's a new record for the industry, and an increase of 43.6% on the $925 million sales figure in 2006. It's also much stronger growth than the 7% rise in sales the industry achieved from 2005 to 2006.

The Australian figures come hot on the heels of a bumper year in the United States as well. The U.S. market saw a similar upturn – a 43% increase from the year before, with total sales of US $17.94 billion.

So how many games were sold in 2007? According to independent market research group GfK Australia, Australian gamers purchased 15.4 million games, with more than one third of those titles – close to 6 million – sold in the final quarter of the year. It's also worth bearing in mind that these figures don't take into account games purchased via digital distribution, and with high profile releases such as The Orange Box on Steam, and the ever-growing market for new and classic titles through the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii online services, the true figure is even higher.

"Last year, Australians welcomed the arrival of the PS3 and marked a full year since the release of the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii," Ron Curry, the CEO of the IEAA, commented. "The launch of highly anticipated next generation gaming drove console sales to almost $500 million, nearly double the $270 million sold in 2006. Sales figures also indicate a resurging popularity in handheld consoles with 2.3 million units of software for the Nintendo DS system purchased last year compared to the 840,000 purchased in 2006."

"The gaming industry is no longer a niche market appealing only to traditional gamers," he continued. "With a wide variety of games available, interactive entertainment is attracting people from all ages and all walks of life. It is interesting to note that as more Australians embrace the most advanced gaming innovations and purchase the latest games, the average age of gamers has risen to 28 years old."

We asked each of the platform holders for comment on the figures. Nintendo Australia's PR coordinator Heather Murphy told us that "It's exciting that Australia's gaming industry nearly doubled its sales in 2007. From Nintendo's point of view, we're finding a broad range of people playing our games. We have games for everyone, which is evident from something as addictive as Brain Training and More Brain Training, to the popular Super Mario Galaxy. We've even seen seniors in nursing homes embracing Wii, particularly Wii Sports; and schools using the Nintendo DS as part of the curriculum.

"What Ron Curry said is spot on," Murphy continued, "the gaming industry is no longer a niche market; the market has broadened. Nintendo has such a wide variety of games available to cater for everyone - games for the family, core gamers, young females, even seniors."

Adrian Christie, the Communications Manager of Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, believes that the boom is a good thing for everyone, telling us: "As a member of the IEAA we're extremely pleased with the collective success of the interactive entertainment category in 2007. Everyone (all manufacturers and publishers) can claim a 'win' or 'best of' in one category or another. This means the industry is strong and healthy, a great platform to build strong game titles and innovative technology applications. Bring on '08."

Last but not least, Jeremy Hinton, the Xbox Product Manager, commented that: "In 2007 the interactive entertainment industry went from strength-to-strength with Australian consumers delivering a record-breaking year for the whole industry. The Xbox 360 platform remains at the heart of that success, generating more revenue across the board than both our next-gen competitors. It's this kind of momentum – spurred on by major releases such as GTA IV, Rock Band and Halo Wars – that will ensure another great year of gaming ahead for all of us in 2008."

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/846/846714p1.html ...

via Computer and Video Games


A new PS3 custom theme maker from an unofficial developer has bettered the official theme-making software because it allows you to change the sounds effects for your theme.

Official themes made downloadable from the PSN Store, like the Heavenly Sword theme, feature different icon sounds, which showed that such a change is possible. Yet Sony's official custom theme maker doesn't allow you to change sounds at all.

You can download the new theme maker for free from its official site, then you can proceed in recording fart noises for your new PS3 'beans theme'.

P.S - if you DO actually make a 'beans theme' with fart noises, send it to us (via Mike Jackson). That would be funny. ...

Sony Corp., the world's largest video-game console maker, sold a record number of PlayStation 3 machines in Europe during the holiday shopping season after lowering prices to compete against Nintendo Co.'s Wii.

Sony, which began selling PlayStation 3s in Europe in March, shipped about 1.2 million consoles in the region during the five- week period ended Dec. 31, Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony's game division, said in a Bloomberg Television interview aired today. That's in line with U.S. shipments during the period, he said.

Price cuts and the introduction of a cheaper model helped Sony approach its goal of selling 11 million PlayStation 3s in the year ending March. Still, analysts at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. and Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd. predict the Tokyo-based company will miss the target after being outsold by the Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Sony, which generated 12 percent of revenue from the game unit during the three months ended Sept. 30, has posted seven straight quarters of losses at the division.

Higher sales, coupled with lower production costs, will reduce the company's operating losses related to PlayStation 3s by 90 percent to $158 million in the fiscal second half ending March 31, according to Dec. 27 estimates by Nikko Citigroup.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...fer=technology ...

There's a rumor that began circulating on the CheapAssGamer forum stating that the PlayStation 3 would be seeing a price-drop soon. Certain other members chimed in with their own "knowledge" and vouched for the rumor. The alleged details are a price-drop for the 40GB PlayStation 3 down to $299, which will occur on January 28th.

Now before you get all excited, do note that the chances of this being real are extremely thin. Seeing as how Sony only recently dropped the price of the PlayStation 3, I wouldn't expect them to do so again.

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/2468.html ...

It has endured a horrible introduction to the world, but PlayStation 3 has survived. Now it's set to prosper. Next-Gen's editor-in-chief Colin Campbell explains...

* The decision to go with Blu-ray was good because Blu-ray is going to emerge as the winning platform in the war against HD-DVD. It was good because millions of people will be upgrading to hi-def over the next five years. It was good because a significant percentage of them will make PS3 a central part of that upgrade process.

* Up until this point, Xbox 360 has represented the best value. No longer. PS3 is $50 more expensive than Xbox 360 but you get a bigger hard drive, you get a Blu-ray drive and you get to play online for free. It is becoming extremely difficult to argue the case that Xbox 360 is better value than PS3.

* For many people, it looks like a tres-moderne piece of under-the-telly technology. And, what‘s more, it carries the Sony logo and the PlayStation logo. For those of us entrenched in the biz, both these brands carry baggage. But for them out there - the Year 3 Console Adopters, the people who bought a DVD player after the Millennium - these are brands to trust. They speak of sophistication and quality.

* Will PlayStation Home make a difference? When I saw it a year ago, I was convinced that this piece of software would play a major role in the console wars. I still believe it has a touch of genius, the common touch, to take virtual living out of the machismo ghettoes of Xbox Live or the vacant loonyness of Second Life. If it works, it's an amazing thing.

This hardware cycle has confounded most of what we thought we knew about the console games market. We used to believe that there would always be an ultra-dominant console and a distant second-place. We used to believe that third place was no-where. It was once a central belief that games consoles ought not try and be something else; that convergent devices were anathema.
Those things don't seem to hold any longer. All three console manufacturers are in a strong position to take a win from this generation; simultaneously.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...=8734&Itemid=2 ...