Like a parenting bird, Atari is regurgitating nutritious PSone games for PS3 and PSP.

This brave strategy began with yesterday's arrival of Centipede on the PlayStation Store. It costs £4.

Still to come: Pong and Missile Command, among other unnamed retro morsels. But we're not sure which is planned for next Wednesday's weekly PlayStation Store update.

Centipede is a shoot-'em-up, and a fast one at that. Blast insects into oblivion before they can eat you, and then face off against the queen centipede herself. Legs to die for.

Missile Command involves zapping waves of aliens with Earth's finest ballistics before the invaders eat mankind or whatever they're planning to do.

And Pong is Pong - Atari reckons this is "the most addictive head-to-head competition you'll ever play".

Remember that these are the PSone adaptations of these classic arcade licenses - not the originals themselves.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...at-pong-on-ps3 ...

Microsoft has insisted Peter Molyneux's rumoured to be cancelled Kinect title Project Milo "was never a product" and "was never announced as a game".

In September Eurogamer brought you the news that the controversial Kinect relationship simulator, revealed at E3 2009, had been cancelled.

We were told the Milo team were to use the Milo tech for a Fable-themed Kinect game.

The news followed months of pubic to-ing and fro-ing between Lionhead boss Molyneux and Microsoft over Project Milo's status as a game that would eventually be released.

"Of course!" Molyneux said in August when asked whether we'll be able to buy it in the shops at some point in the future. "I wouldn't be working on it if I didn't hope that to be true, yes."

Today, however, Microsoft said Project Milo never stood a chance of hitting shop shelves.

"Milo was never announced as a game," Alex Kipman, Microsoft's director of incubation and creator of Kinect, told GamesIndustry.biz.

"Peter Molyneux is probably one of the most amazing people I've had the pleasure of collaborating with. So, there's the world of creating paint colours and paintbrushes - that's me. Then there's the world of creating pictures based on these paint colours and paintbrushes - that's Peter Molyneux, it's a give and take. It's a partnership.

"Peter comes to me and says, you know what Alex, there are these stories I've always wanted to tell, if only I had these paint colours and paintbrushes. And I say to Peter, 'I have a new selection of paints and paintbrushes - what can you paint with it?'

"You see how these things interchange with each other and then collectively we come up with these transformational, revolutionary experiences. Milo was a sandbox. In this world of creating experiences I used voice, gestures, identity together. Milo was the sandbox which allowed us to define how to do these experiences, and what you saw was a transformational experience where you got a level of emotional connection unlike anything you had seen before."

For fans of Project Milo, however, all is not lost. Kipman said the tech behind it can be seen in Kinect launch title Kinectimals.

"Now, where has Milo gone? It was never really a product," he said. "I will tell you that the technology developed in that sandbox, and by the way we continue to develop technologies in that sandbox, has migrated pretty closely to what you see in a game called Kinectimals.

"Kinectimals is about creating an emotional, deep relationship between you and this tiger cub. It uses identity, knows who you are. It actually reacts differently when you walk in front of it, because it's your tiger, than when I walk in front of it, because it doesn't know me. It uses voice, so that you can interact with it and play with it, it uses gestures and essentially moves you to this deep adventure on an island where you're finding the secret of a pirate in much the same way as a traditional adventure type game.

"This is one of what I would say was one of the key innovations, that captured people's minds with Milo - this idea that we could create an emotion engine, an engine that would fuse these human input behaviours and create a relationship with this imaginary character. What I think you see in Kinectimals is precisely that."

With Kinect now out in the US, reviews are starting to pour in. Keza awarded Kinectimals 7/10 for Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...duct-microsoft ...

On the day of Kinect's US launch, Microsoft has confirmed that games that combine motion control with traditional controller input are in the works.

Games that utilise "hybrid" control methods exist, Microsoft told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We'll continue to have controller-only games," said Alex Kipman, the brain behind the development of Kinect.

"We love controller-free games, we love Kinect experiences and we'll continue to grow our set of those as well. What we haven't really talked about, but exist, are hybrid games.

"Games that are using the controller, which we know and love, and pieces, if not all, of the Kinect experiences to again make those experiences more immersive, more fun and more emotionally connected."

Kipman's comments came amid a discussion about the future of traditionally controlled games.

Coming to the conclusion that the controller will not disappear altogether, Kipman predicted "a world which allows all to exist".

"This is where I look at the world, and I know it's easier to look at the world and talk about 'or', but I look at the world and I talk about 'and'. It's about how we take all of these things and fuse all of them together to create unique experiences. This is when I go speak and spend time with creative folk around the industry. I go back and I talk about palette," Kipman said.

"It doesn't always mean using the same colours, the same paintbrushes - the stories you tell are about using the appropriate combinations of all of the colours and brushes to create something meaningful."

In August Rare's Kinect development director Nick Burton suggested some possible Kinect/pad hybrid gameplay mechanics to Eurogamer.

"Camera control without having to consciously control it? At the moment when you play Halo you have to control the camera with a thumb stick. What if you didn't? What if you're shouting grenade? You're not going to find the grenade button. The grenade button's still there, but..."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...0-games-coming ...

Activision says it's throwing everything it has at the Call of Duty franchise, and next year CoD players will see the "largest offering" of digital content ever.

Activision made it clear during today's investors call that, given the success of the Call of Duty games, it's not afraid to invest serious time and money on the franchise.

"We remain focused on continuing to bring the Call of Duty franchise to new consumers around the world. In 2011, we expect to enter the year with strong momentum from continued sales of Black Ops and the rest of the CoD catalogue," said Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg

"We've added significant resources to the brand and next year we'll offer Call of Duty community our largest line-up of exciting new digital content ever," he added.

Although he doesn't specify the types of digital content to come, Black Ops players are bound to see plenty of multiplayer content updates in the coming months.

More zombie maps, anyone?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Activision has confirmed during an investors call today that new games in the Hero, Spider-man, X-Men and Transformers franchises will be released in 2011.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg announced: "In addition to Call of Duty in 2011 we will have new release from our other proven franchises including the Hero brand, Spider-Man, X-Men and Transformers, which will be supported by what is expected to be another major blockbuster movie from Michael Bay."

He later added: "Today, we're also announcing that we're in deep development on an exciting new kid's property that will feature innovative technology and has the potential to open up a whole new product segment for us. We look forward to revealing more that in the next call."

More info on that after Christmas, we expect.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Wasting no time, Harmonix has already made three new songs available for download for its launch-day Kinect title, Dance Central.

Ne-Yo fans get 'Because of you', Lady Sovereign's 'I got you Dancing' is there, along with Sean Paul's 'Temperature'.

You can grab those off the Xbox Live Marketplace for 240 MS Points each, which we think is a little on the steep side, but they'll sell by the truckload anyway.

So ff you've already mastered the 'Dougie' and the 'skanky leg', or whatever, there's some new beats to get on already.

Kinect launched in US today and hits UK on November 10.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

SCEA's senior VP of marketing Peter Dille has said he hopes Nintendo does "a good job" with the 3DS because it could increase consumer interest in 3D content - which Sony is pushing heavily with PS3 and 3D Bravia TVs.

"Our perspective is they are doing something different and that's what Nintendo does," said Dille. "They've got their own view, Sony has their own view. Our hope is they do it well because we're big advocates of 3D. We need consumers to have good 3D experiences.

"I actually haven't seen much of their technology. I know people are excited about it. I've heard a little bit that if you move your head a certain way you might lose the image," he added.

"I just hope they do a great job, building a great 3D platform so people are interested in other 3D platforms. Because, collectively, we need to make sure a consumer has a good experience with 3D however they're experiencing it so they have an interest in more 3D."

With Sony having said it thinks 3D is best on a big screen, and no mention of 3D in the many PSP2 rumours, it would seem unlikely Sony will include a 3D screen with its next handheld.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

via Eurogamer


Gran Turismo 5 has been plagued by delays, and whether the game will launch this year still remains to be seen. But that hasn't stopped creator Kazunori Yamauchi revealing that work on the next instalment, Gran Turismo 6, has already begun.
Yes, and it was even earlier in August when he last let slip details about Gran Turismo 6.

But 2000 days! That's five-and-a-half years. Not to mention the probable Concept and Gran Turismo 6 Prologue releases we'd have to endure first.

What about Gran Turismo 5, anyway? Kazunori Yamauchi offered a flimsy "I think so" on the likelihood of playing it before Christmas. An announcement should arrive "sometime soon".

Gran Turismo 5 has been a long time coming. Once upon a time, Kazunori Yamauchi promoted a summer 2008 Japan launch, and shortly before we got there Sony America told the world GT5 was "about a year away". Sony Europe said the racing game would be out for Christmas 2009.

Fast-forward to 2009. In June, Yamauchi said Gran Turismo 5 was "at a point [where] we can release it any time we want", and a few months later he confirmed a March 2010 release date for Japan. A European launch, he added, European launch would likely be in the same timeframe. Yamauchi added to the smiles by saying, in October 2009, that Gran Turismo 5 was "basically complete".

For a while, everything was on track: a GT5 Time Trial demo came out in December 2009 and had been downloaded 1 million times by January 2010. But celebrations were short-lived, as Sony soon announced that Gran Turismo 5 had been delayed in Japan - and only Japan, Europe was reassured (presumably because Europe never had a date). A few weeks later, Europe was given an autumn 2010 release date for GT5.

That date became "November" in June 2010, and then "3rd November" in August. Cue plenty of babble about 3D stereoscopic vision and we arrive in October 2010 and the most recent Gran Turismo 5 delay.

Right now, all Sony will say about a new date is that the game is coming out "before Christmas".

Earlier this week, industry sources told Eurogamer there was "not much hope" for Gran Turismo 5 in 2010. Yamauchi popped up a day later claiming discs were being stamped "as we speak". December, remember, is typically a barren month for releases past the first week.

Mind you, it strikes us as strange that Yamauchi would be so talkative if his game had been pushed back to 2011.

And why has Gran Turismo 5 taken so long? Because of Motor Toon Grand Prix on PSone, that's why. Autoweek heard how Yamauchi and his team had been crunching hard trying to "adjust it so it would be perfect". Sony thought the game was fit for release, though, and twisted Yamauchi's arm. It's a decision he's regretted for his entire career.
...

A reader sent Kotaku this promo sleeve for the PlayStation 3 Bluetooth headset earlier this week, which now appears to be sporting a slimmer, sleeker design than the original model.

Not only has the ear clasp been made thinner, but the front buttons and indicators have been cleaned up too. The material also clearly states that this is an official Sony product, not a third-party offering.

The feature set on the back of the box has no new features compared to the existing version, so it appears to be a simple aesthetic upgrade for a device that was looking a little, well, clunky as we push on towards 2011.

As the box says, it'll be priced at $50, which is the same as the existing model. No word on a release date.

Below is a comparison between the new headset, on the left, and the old, on the right.


Source: Kotaku ...