New release from dafloyd:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
via dafloyd ...

via pspfanboy

Last week we wondered where 1up's infamous awesome secret PSP game announcement was. Well, it looks like another week has passed and still no announcement despite it originally being promised for the season premiere of the show. It isn't quite as bad this week though, since Shane did actually address the issue on this week's 1up Show and promised that the announcement would now be on next week's show. He cited the reason for the big reveal being delayed was due to the company involved not wanting the announcement to occur yet.

Hopefully this time Shane is actually able to follow through on his promise and after this long of a wait, it better be an awesome game indeed! ...

via siliconera

Last week Konami released three more shoot ‘em compilations in Japan. You can pick up Twinbee Portable, Salamander Portable and Parodius Portable (<- favorite!) for around 3000 yen a piece. Even though Gradius Portable didn’t make it I hope (wish?) that Konami gives these three collections a shot in the USA. It’s probably not going to happen, it’s way more likely we’re going to see Dance Dance Revolution: So you think you can dance edition first. Anyway here are some videos of the three games.

Videos via link above ...

via pspfanboy

You've begged for them, and Sony's finally listened. Sony shot us an e-mail just now stating that "first and third party demos will be offered on an ongoing basis" through their official website. As we reported weeks ago, Killzone is now available for download, but Syphon Filter and SOCOM should be available in the coming weeks.

While these games certainly aren't the newest releases for the system, this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, it won't be long until we see downloadable demos of Ratchet & Clank and third party games. ...

via ign

When Diddy Kong Racing ships in early February, it will support a whole slew of multiplayer options, including full-on six player online racing via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Late last week Nintendo hosted a batch of online sessions so gaming editorial could zoom around the courses against other (competing) publications to see how well the game can handle the load. And pre-release, so far so good.

We'll give the nod to Nintendo's NST team for Metroid Prime Hunters still having the most elaborate online experience, but Rare's Diddy Kong Racing team comes a close second. The game has a "smiley face" system that's actually quite helpful: if a friend is online, for example, a smiley face will show up on the "Friend Roster" option of the menu. Clicking on this selection will take you to the list of friends you've entered into your game, where you can see what that friend's status is: offline, online, starting a game, or in a game. This is also where you can check out the statistics of how many times you've won or lost against this individual in the game's races and battles.

If a friend has set up a game, a smiley face will show up on the "Join Friend" option. This is a pseudo lobby system where you can host a match-up; anyone who's in your friends list can join in, but you can't restrict and lock your match-up to specific friends. You can, however, decide to cut off your list to less than the chosen amount as friends come in, which is really handy since many online games will sit and wait until the match-up times out before starting.

For random competition, you can choose two player, four player or six player races from the menu and the game will play "matchmaker" with random folk also seeking out that style of racing. This does require that whole "critical mass" thing of thousands of people owning the game, which won't start for another week...so we couldn't really do much of that whole random match-up thing in our early playtest. But from what we've experienced, it's much like Mario Kart DS: players pick a track and a type of race, and the most selected track and type of race is the one players will compete within.

Once a game's set up in the friend match-up, the host chooses the tracks and the type of race, whether it's in plane, car, or hovercraft. If the host hasn't unlocked the track, mode, or character in single player mode they won't be available in multiplayer...which will definitely encourage players to play through as much of the adventure as they can before jumping online.

Lag and dropped connections hasn't been much of an issue, but again -- we're playing Diddy Kong Racing a week before it ships. Once people start buying the game next week all that can (and will) change. And we're also playing against people we trust...we haven't experienced *******s who love to drop out of a race mid-session because they're losing, so we haven't seen how Rare handles this in-game. We did test out dropping out in the middle of a connection ourselves, and it seems that the game will continue if there's still at least two players connected. Good to know.

Diddy Kong Racing ships next Tuesday. We'll have our full review around that time. ...

via ign

The start of the college basketball season starts in early November, just as gridirons are starting to cool down and bowl futures are becoming clear. It picks up speed through Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, taking over campuses with buzzer beating shots and Cinderella story teams that upset nationally ranked squads on its way to the Big Dance. So why would 2K Sports decide to release their upcoming College Hoops 2K7 for the PS3 in February, at the tail end of the season, instead of in November for the launch of the system?

The answer is simple -- rather than rush a simple port, 2K Sports wanted to polish up the game, tweaking some elements and fixing issues that cropped up in the 360 version. As a result, players that picked up the 360 version will want to check out the PS3 title to check out the differences between the two games. For example, it's a tad bit easier to make layups now in the PS3 version of the game, even with a defender contesting you for the shot. Similarly, attention was paid to cleaning up the awkward animations that occurred during transition play or low post passes. Other features, such as the SIXAXIS controller support for free throw shooting (which made its debut in NBA 2K7) have been integrated into College Hoops 2K7.

These features join up with an already strong lineup of modes for College Hoops 2K7. Team Unity is the largest adjustment made this year, which tracks the up and down nature of the game itself. Just about every facet of the game has an impact on the Team Unity meter, such as ball distribution on the court, shot selection, and substitutions. Depending on just how well you happen to be managing the influence of these factors on your team, your Unity will rise or fall. When it's low, you'll see your players miss a lot more shots and make bad passes. When it's high, you'll notice your team play tighter defense and sink just about every shot they make. Just as the Team's Unity rises and falls, so will player's confidence meters, so if your team is starting to slump, you may need to call a timeout and get their heads back into the game.

Other features are definitely making their way into the PS3 version of the game. Players can design their own taunts, jeers and rallying cries with the Chant Creator. While it'll still outlaw you from outright telling an opponent that they suck, players that are creative with their spelling and word choice can express how horrible the other team is. You'll also have access to an expanded Legacy mode, which includes the new HoopCast simulator which lets you send in plays and manage the game from the sidelines. There's even a new weekly highlight show, College Hoops Tonight, which is hosted by Greg Gumbel and Clark Kellogg, which recaps the events that occur across the NCAA.

We'll have more on College Hoops 2K7 soon, but for now, check out the latest videos of the game in action. ...

via ign

First there was the PlayStation Portable, and with it came PlayStation Spot, a retail download service offering game demo downloads for PSP owners.

Next came the PlayStation 3, and with it came PlayStation TV, a retail kiosk designed to let Japanese audiences sample the PS3's games and multimedia capabilities.

If you were one of the three people in America wondering if Sony would ever combine these two promotions into one, wonder no more! Starting 1/30, Sony has started making PlayStation TV terminals function as PlayStation Spot terminals. This means demo and item downloads for your PSP from the same place where you can sample upcoming PS3 games. That's, like, totally radical and cool!

Currently, Sony has 70 PlayStation TV locations set up for PlayStation Spot functionality. The company plans on eventually expanding to the full 1,035 network of PS3 kiosks. ...

via ign

First there was the PlayStation Portable, and with it came PlayStation Spot, a retail download service offering game demo downloads for PSP owners.

Next came the PlayStation 3, and with it came PlayStation TV, a retail kiosk designed to let Japanese audiences sample the PS3's games and multimedia capabilities.

If you were one of the three people in America wondering if Sony would ever combine these two promotions into one, wonder no more! Starting 1/30, Sony has started making PlayStation TV terminals function as PlayStation Spot terminals. This means demo and item downloads for your PSP from the same place where you can sample upcoming PS3 games. That's, like, totally radical and cool!

Currently, Sony has 70 PlayStation TV locations set up for PlayStation Spot functionality. The company plans on eventually expanding to the full 1,035 network of PS3 kiosks. ...

via ign

Everyone and their DS-playing mom knew this already, but Sony has at last admitted to not making its worldwide shipment targets for the PlayStation 3 in 2006. As part of its third quarter financial report covering 10/2006 to 12/2006, the company announced today that worldwide shipments in 2006 for the new hardware capped off at 1.84 million units, short of the promised 2 million.

North America got most of those units, at 1.03 million. Japan got 810,000 units, with numbers climbing up past a million in the first few weeks of January.

The company is still aiming for 6 million units shipped by the end of March. By then, the PS3 will have launched in Europe.

Other Sony gaming hardware saw declines compared to the same period in the previous year. The PS2 shipped 4.11 million units, down by 23% from last year's 5.36 million units. The PSP shipped 1.76 million units, down by 72% from last year's 6.22 million units.

In software, PS3 saw shipments of 5.2 million units for the year. PSP saw an increase of 24% over the previous year, hitting 21.2 million game titles. PS2 dropped 16% from the previous year, with 78 million games shipped.

All the lowered shipments along with the PS3 launch caused some dark figures for Sony's games division. While sales for the quarter rose 5.6% from the same period last year to 442.8 trillion yen, operating profits dropped sharply from a gain of 67.8 trillion yen last year to a loss of 122.0 trillion yen this year.

The company expects to stop taking losses on PS3 hardware in the next term, Sony CFO (chief financial officer) Nobuyuki Oneda announced at the financial briefing. One means of doing this will be through smaller chip sizes. The company has already started manufacturing CELL chips using a 65 nanometer process, Japan's IT Media reports.

Even with a turn in fortunes on Sony's hardware losses, don't expect a price drop any time soon. Oneda said that Sony is not consdering a price drop right now, although something could be possible in 2 or 3 years.

In response to that massive drop in PSP shipments for the quarter, Oneda said that Sony will not be giving on the platform, repeating past promises that a number of ideas are under consideration. ...