Whether it's labelled the PSP 4000 or the PSP 2, there's been a lot of rumour recently about an imminent successor to Sony's handheld console. There's also been a lot of talk about how Sony might react to the competition on offer from the phenomenal success of Apple's iPhone and iPod touch.

Unsurprisingly the console manufacturer has been comparatively mute in both cases, denying the existence of a PSP sequel and any threat from Apple. However, having spoken to an insider source – who's not Dave Perry, but is a developer working on the new hardware – we can reveal that the new handheld will arrive before Christmas and will be far more similar to the iPhone than the current device.

Like Apple's newcomer, the PSP 2 will be a compact device with a large touchscreen. However, where Sony's machine has the edge is when the touchscreen is slid open as it reveals familiar buttons, D-pads and – praise the Lord of Handhelds – dual analogue controls.

This new format should allow for both existing hardcore console titles as well as simpler touchscreen games along the lines of those currently available in the App Store. And like the App Store, (and in the absence of UMD), the games will all be available for digital download via the PlayStation Store.

Although this hasn't been confirmed, our speculation is that Sony's initial plans for a small upgrade to a PSP 4000 model have since been accelerated by the success of the iPhone and arrival of Nintendo DSi.

As yet those are all the details we have, but we understand the full specs and pricing will be unveiled at E3 in June.

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/P...ws.asp?c=12612 ...

Even the best of game developers can leave a big dirty glitch buried within its products that can turn a gameplay experience on its head (sometimes literally). Gameplayer has trawled through the web to locate video footage of some of the more amazing and hilarious examples of glitches in games. It acts as an interesting insight into the bugs that some games — especially today — ship with. What interesting bugs have you encountered?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl.../04/06/0344206 ...

Many gaming websites are reporting that Hugo and Nebula award winning sci-fi author Greg Bear will be writing a 100,000-year prequel trilogy to the Halo series, focusing on the Forerunners and presumably the construction of the Larry Niven knock-offs. Will he be able to balance the needs of his hard sci-fi fanbase with the Halo fans' need for a soft introduction to 'chapter books?' Despite my sarcasm, as someone who considers both of them guilty pleasures, I am actually really looking forward to seeing how he handles this.

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/ar.../04/07/0434231 ...

Making sense of Nintendo before the success of the Wii.

With the wildly successful Nintendo DS and Wii hitting record sales month after month, Nintendo looks like a million bucks. All of Nintendo's well calculated strategies and inventive risks look like--and may very well be--genius.

Going against the grain of more sophisticated machines such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, in 2006 Nintendo launched the Wii, a console less powerful than the original Xbox, accompanied by an un-tried game controller that smacked of trickery, and a name that sounded so close to urine that it made everyone over 10 years of age giggle.

But it wasn't always that way.

For the last two generations, Nintendo's primary consoles landed second and third in the three-way leg races for console supremacy. The Nintendo 64 and the GameCube each had their moments in the sun--with Mario and Zelda blockbusters and several other big guns in regular intervals--but on the whole, those systems were not the kind of successes Nintendo or its fans were used to--or expected. Nintendo 64 and GameCube made money for Nintendo, but weren't as friendly or as attractive to third-party publishers. Nintendo's storage media proved less easy to use and stored less than competitors' media. And Nintendo, though it was trying, didn't have the means of distinguishing itself enough from its competitors.

1995: The Looming Next Generation Console War

I landed my first job in the game industry with Next Generation magazine in 1994. That was the year of the first big console wars, and the first time I heard about "Ultra 64," which later became Nintendo 64. With Sega having gained significant ground on the Super Nintendo in the 16-bit era due to the Genesis, this new "32-bit era" proved to be a much bigger, more competitive leg race. Nintendo's Herculean and nearly single-handed rebuilding of the game industry from ashes was now being challenged by a small selection of interesting potentials and an even bigger crop of potential vaporware carpetbaggers. Among the crop of consoles were the Atari Jaguar, SNK's Neo-Geo, the first Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and the Sega 32X, the CDI, and the 3DO.

If you wanted to simplify gamers and industry thinkers into two camps at the time on the subject of Nintendo, there were loyalists and detractors. The loyalists had been reared on and were delighted by Nintendo games during their youths, and they couldn't see how Nintendo could or would lose to anybody; taking second place wasn't part in the discussion. As it turns out, almost anyone who has played a Mario or Zelda game becomes a loyalist at some level.

But Sega was on the rise. Sonic was more popular than Mickey Mouse. And Sony's machine also had something powerful and exciting about it that wasn’t quite clear yet to anybody in 1995.

Nintendo was late entering in this new race. The Super NES was still chugging along just fine, and Nintendo had fought many battles to become the industry leader. In the US in 1993 the Atari Jaguar and 3DO launched (with weak results), while the Saturn and PlayStation would arrive by winter 1995. Nintendo's system also was originally slated for fall 2005. It was then pushed back to April 1996. And eventually it was pushed back again to be launched on September 29, 1996 in the US. I sat next to Editor-in-Chief Neil West at Next Generation in the Burlingame offices and remember regularly hearing him challenge various news publications and editors on the phone. With great confidence he always said, "Wait for Nintendo." Whether they liked it or not, everyone had to wait for the 800 pound gorilla to arrive, however slow it might be.

The Shoshinkai Exhibition: Brilliance or Bust?

That February 1996 issue of Next Generation, reporting all of the details from Nintendo's Shoshinkai exhibition and with Mario on the cover, was one of the best-selling issues of the magazine during its short life-span. The cover headline read: "Nintendo's Ultra 64, Mario's Brave New 3D World." which ran in maroon and white; and along with it was a strange, strange cover image.

You could make out a multi-tiered ledge on the left, and behind that was an immense blue, cloud-filled sky. From the ledge leapt a smiling, arms-stretched-wide Mario, overalls, white gloves, and red hat in tow. Was he leaping off the ledge or flying past it? What was he doing? Next Gen art designer Richard Szeto had to create the entire cover from scratch, including the cover model of Mario, because Nintendo had provided nothing but screenshots (of Mario's backside), none of which could be used for the cover.

That issue realistically pointed out that Nintendo was still holding its cards close its chest, avoiding issues about the "Bulky Drive" and giving out worrying signs. Ten playable games had been promised at the show, but only two were actually playable. What was worse? "With only three seconds of videotaped, non-interactive 'game footage' on display, one needn't be cynical to work out why these games weren't available," the cover story stated. Nintendo wasn't ready to show its or its partners' games yet.

The Ultra 64 showed up in glass cases, and Next Gen cited Kirby 64 as only "one half of a game," as it was barely playable. But 18 games were previewed in the issue, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto was interviewed, and George Zachary of Silicon Graphics was quizzed about the game's powerful MIPS 64-bit RISC CPU, the "Reality Co-Processor," and the immense level of secrecy around the chips' development.

"…We had to deliberately cut down the level of communication internally [at Silicon Graphics]. No one knew were ...

Ubisoft is preparing to unveil the hotly anticipated sequel to Assassin's Creed. Our guess is that a full reveal will happen around E3, so you'll have to make do with this teasing website for the time being.

The video doesn't really show, or give away, much at all. But that's what these 'brand-building' teasers are suppossed to do. Well done there then. An Assassin's Creed 2 website has also gone live for the game, but there's nothing on there to get excited about.

If this trailer doesn't quite do anything for you then make sure you read up on that other trailer Ubisoft was reportedly showing the public.

"Venice 15th/16th century, The camera pans onto the city focusing on the hussle and bussle of daily life. think the civilians from Assassins Creed 1 but more interactive with each other. During this scene we see a man passing money to the hands of an attractive girl, (originally i didn't notice this but was told by the rep that it does happen)."

Intrigued? More here. Oh, and if you still don't understand the ending to the original Assassin's Creed game, then be sure to check out Xbox World's excellent explanation. Almost everybody on the internet has looked at it at one point.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=212600 ...

DSi has become the fourth fastest-selling console in UK history.


Opening weekend sales were behind those of PSP, PS3 and Wii, but ahead of all other platforms, according to stat cruncher GfK-ChartTrack.

The portable's sales exceeded those of all other consoles combined over the weekend.

"It's a very impressive opening couple of days considering the lack of launch software," GfK-ChartTrack's Chris Poole told MCV.

"It's difficult to tell if the momentum will continue into the week, as much of the sales would have been pre-ordered. There was also a slight spike in DS software."

This news comes on the back of strongly worded comments from SCEA director of hardware marketing, John Koller, who criticised Nintendo for ignoring "significant gamer demographic groups" by releasing another product supposedly just for kids.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=212603 ...

You’re looking at a screenshot of a Wii game that was in heavier rotation last month than just about anything else on the system. That’s “Call of Duty: World at War” for the Wii, which was played more than six hours per player in March. Think on that and look below for MTV Multiplayer’s newest listing of Wii game usage. We’re tracking more than 50 games as played by a pool of over two million Wii owners. Forget sales for a moment and find out just how much people actually play these games.
WII SOFTWARE USAGE AS OF APRIL 1, 2009
The following statistics are pulled from the Wii’s Nintendo Channel, which allows users to persistently share their play history for any disc or downloadable games played on the Wii. These numbers do not reflect overall usage of these games on the Wii but instead reflect usage of the more than 2.1 million Americans who are sharing info with the channel (up from 2 million last month). We think that’s a pretty healthy sample size!
Games are ranked in order of average play time. The game we’re tracking that has been played the longest by its average user is at the top of this list.
If there are more games you want us to track, let me know!

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/...-usage-update/ ...

Beating Nintendo to the punch, publisher Ubisoft announced today what may turn out to be the first DS game that includes special features only accessible with a DSi.
***
Last month, the president of Nintendo of America told me that the DSi will be host to DS game releases that include special features accessible just for the DS.
We talked about whether the upcoming “Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” would be one such DSi-enhanced piece of software. He would not confirm.
Today, Ubisoft did confirm the existence of its own DSi-enhanced piece of DS software: the June release of “My Healthy Cooking Coach.” Like Nintendo’s own “Personal Trainer: Cooking,” Ubi’s new release is more of an electronic cookbook than it is a game. Unlike Nintendo’s release, this game has treats for the DSi owners.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/...about-cooking/ ...

Manufacturing costs for the Nintendo Wii have dropped by 45 per cent since the system's launch in 2006, according to an analyst at Credit Suisse.

Analyst Koya Tabata made the suggestion in a recent note to clients adding that Nintendo had room to cut the price of the Wii to stimulate sales, reports the Financial Times.

Tabata further argued that low-price versions of the Wii could be released for emerging markets.

The PlayStation 3 outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time in 16 months during March 2009, with Sony's console shifting almost 147,000 units compared to just under 100,000 Wii units.

"It is still the first few months of the year when sales are slow for the industry, so we are not particularly concerned," commented Nintendo.

While sales of recent titles such as Wii Music have lacked lustre, Nintendo explained that it hopes "to line up strong software to support hardware sales in the second half of the year".

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...wn-45-per-cent ...