No home console maker (excluding handhelds) has ever dominated three generations of video games. None. Is there a 10-year or two-term incumbent cycle in the biz? Game Daily doesn't think so offering an opinion piece on why Sony won't lose the next-gen war in terms of market share. From the article: "Despite [recent] setbacks and all the negative press the company has garnered over the last six or so months, when it's all said and done the PlayStation 3 will be No.1 worldwide, although not as dominant as the PS2 has been."

How does Sony today compare to Nintendo of 1995 who were just about to lose an intended three-peat to the PlayStation? Throw in a third player with a solid second console offering and deep pockets, and it could be a whole new ball game. ...

The Wii Kiosks are going up all over Japan, allowing Nintendo faithfuls, a.k.a. the entire population between 2 and 80, to have a go at the Wii before launch. And by "have a go", we mean look but don't touch.

The big screen shows the instructional video over and over, similar to the infinitely repeating instructional video at the Star Trek: The Ride Ride we rode on in Las Vegas—much to the despair of said ride workers.

Screens Via Comments ...

Source: Scans of Swedish gaming magazine LEVEL, partially translated by a poster on Gaming Age Forums.

What we heard: Last week, Bungie mentioned in its weekly update that it had shown off early builds of Halo 3 to a variety of gaming press outlets and that magazine articles on the visit would start hitting mailboxes shortly.

It appears that Swedish mailboxes are plum stuffed with Halo 3 news, as purported scans of the latest issue of LEVEL have hit the Internet with gobs of info about Bungie's highly anticipated first-person shooter. The multiplayer-focused sneak peek dished out details on new weapons, vehicles, and features for the game, some of it expected, some not so much.

First, the bad news for hermitic gamers: According to the magazine article, Halo 3 won't have bots. If Halo 2 is any indicator, there shouldn't be any shortage of human opponents to frag online, but antisocial players or those who tire of powergaming play styles won't be able to fake their multiplayer fix. According to a translation on GAF, LEVEL quotes a Bungie rep as explaining that the developers would rather spend that time working on the weapons, levels, and netcode for the game.

Speaking of weapons, Halo 3 will apparently feature a few new ways to off opponents. The Spartan Laser should help players open up vehicles like so many sardine cans, while the self-explanatory nail grenade should be a real hit at parties. There's also a Brute spiker to play with.

As for new vehicles, the Mongoose ATV that was once intended for Halo 2 will be available. Although it lacks firepower of any kind, the Mongoose seats two and should be good for getting Spartans where they need to be ASAP. And while it isn't quite a vehicle, the "Man Cannon" will launch players across the map unprotected on air streams. Gamers launched by the cannon will be vulnerable to enemy fire, but they'll also be able to fire back.

Bungie's also switching up some of the familiar Halo gameplay, according to the scans. For one thing, the X button will no longer reload. Instead, players will use the left and right bumpers on the Xbox 360 controller to independently reload their primary and secondary weapons. As for what the X button will do, Bungie is keeping that under wraps for now. In another tweak, players' secondary weapons will be visibly slung over their backs at all times, so players will no longer be able to conceal the fact that they're carrying around four-foot plasma swords in their pockets.

Finally, the scan indicates that the limited-edition release of Halo 3 will be called the "Legendary Edition" and will come packed in a replica of the Master Chief's helmet. The four-disc set will include the game, documentaries and developer interviews, Red vs. Blue content along with other Halo tie-ins, and HD cutscenes from the whole Halo trilogy.

The official story: Microsoft isn't talking, but Bungie today put up a news post acknowledging that magazine scans with new Halo 3 content had started hitting the Web and threatening a permanent ban for anyone posting them on the company's forums.

Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus, although we hope the term "Man Cannon" is the result of a translation error. ...

Online Petitions has started a Lik Sang petition, asking that the London High Court ruling in Sony's favour be overturned.

Linky: http://www.petitiononline.com/liksang8/petition.html

Below is the petition statement:


To All DCEmu Members and Visitors Please sign this, let the gaming world show our support. ...

Sony is clearly intent on making the PS3 the all-in-one hub for your home entertainment. A new list of media formats supported by the system right out of the box includes a variety of hard and digital formats, and should satisfy the needs of just about everyone.

The hard media has been known for some time, but here's the full list.


BD-ROM

BD-R

BD-RE

DVD-ROM

DVD-R

DVD-RW

DVD+R

DVD+RW

CD-ROM

CD-R

CD-RW

Super Audio CD

The PS3 will also allow you to access a variety of media file formats from the video, music and photo menus of the Cross Media Bar. We're assuming these files can be stored anywhere, including the hard disk and memory cards.

VIDEO

MPEG-1

MPEG-2 (PS,TS)

H.264/MEPG-4 AVC

MPEG-4 SP

MUSIC

ATRAC (.oma .msa .aa3)

AAC (.3gp .mp4)

MP3 (.mp3)

WAV (.wav)

IMAGES

JPEG

GIF

PNG

TIFF

BMP

We'll be sure and put all these formats to the test once (if?) we get our launch units. ...

Via Gamesradar:

It's not like PSP's widescreen hasn't got enough room for a bit of fluffy fun among the shooters and racing games - and so, if we didn't lose you at 'fluffy', click the movies tab above to see a bite-sized demonstration of Bliss Island.

Created by PomPom, the developer responsible for PC and Xbox Live Arcade's frantic shooter Mutant Storm, it's quite a change of atmosphere - asking you to use momentum-based physics to roll, bop and bounce various spherical creatures through a series of minigames.

Bliss Island started out as a free PC juggle-puzzler but the PSP version is stacked with extra features and gameplay tweaks to make things a little more challenging, just like the recent Every Extend Extra did.

Bliss Island will be released for PSP before the end of the year.

Movie Here ...

When the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sex-minigame scandal hit the mainstream media last year, legal action swiftly followed. A series of class actions suits were filed against Take-Two Interactive, owner of GTA publisher Rockstar Games. One plaintiff was Florence Cohen, who claimed she suffered emotional damage after learning of the minigames in San Andreas, which she had bought for her grandson.

Along with many others, Cohen's complaint sought class-action status for all purchasers of San Andreas. Over the course of the past year, many of the San Andreas suits have been combined in a federal court in New York City. There, lawyers for Take-Two have argued that some suits be dismissed on the grounds that they could only be filed in the states where the plaintiffs actually resided, not federally.

Yesterday, according to the Reuters news service, a judge ruled against Take-Two, saying that she would consider granting all plaintiffs class-action status. "If class certification is granted, the court will have the benefit of a well-defined class and a more fully developed treatment of potential choice of law questions," U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram was quoted as saying. ...

Although the Wii won't be on sale for weeks, Nintendo is already enjoying robust financial numbers. Today in Tokyo, the company reported a 54.4 billion yen (around $459.5 million) profit for the first half of its fiscal year, which ended on September 30.

The figure is a 48 percent increase from the 36.63 billion yen (approximately $309.2 million) the company reported during the same period the prior year. The Kyoto-based game giant rang up 298.82 billion yen (approx. $2.52 billion) in overall six-month sales, a massive 69 percent increase from the 176.36 billion yen (around 1.49 billion) it took in from April-September 2005.

To anyone following the game industry, the reason for Nintendo's success will be unsurprising. The company announced it has sold more than 10 million units of its DS handheld this year, a trend which accelerated after the sleeker DS Lite was released this spring. So far, the company has sold 26.82 million units of the DS and DS Lite since the platform debuted in late 2004.

Brisk sales of DS hardware translated to brisk sales of DS software. New Super Mario Bros. has sold 6.76 million units worldwide since it went on sale in May. Another popular game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, sold 4.59 million units during the April-September period--bringing its lifetime sales total to 8.51 million units. The game hit Japan in May 2005, arrived on US store shelves in mid-April 2006, and came to Europe in June 2006.

Despite its surging sales, Nintendo's full-year outlook remains the same since it revised the figure upwards three weeks ago. The Mario factory now predicts its net profit for its entire business year, which ends on March 31, 2007, will be 100 billion yen (about $850 million), a 20.5 percent increase from its previous estimate of 83 billion yen (about $705 million). ...

Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell has said that the company is doing "better than we hoped" after the company's Entertainment and Devices division posted a 70 per cent rise in revenues.

During the three months ending September 30, Microsoft's overall revenues rose by 11 per cent to hit USD 10.81 billion (EUR 8.53 billion). Operating income was also up by 11 per cent at USD 4.47 billion (EUR 3.53 billion), and net quarterly income stood at USD 3.48 billion (EUR 2.75 billion) - the equivalent to USD 0.35 (EUR 0.28) per share.

Revenues for the E&D division were up from USD 606 million (EUR 478 million) a year previously to USD 1.03 billion (EUR 813 million), which Microsoft attributed to a high demand for Xbox 360 consoles, software and peripherals plus the Xbox Live service.

A total of six million Xbox 360 units have now been sold - 3.6 million in North America, 1.7 million in Europe and around 700,000 in the rest of the world. Record cumulative attach rates for software and peripherals have been achieved in the US, and there are now more than 4 million users of Xbox Live.

However, the E&D division still made an operating loss of USD 96 million (EUR 75.8 million) - down from USD 173 million (EUR 137 million) during the same period last year, when the Xbox 360 had yet to go on sale.

Commenting on the recent reduction in manufacturing costs for the 360 during a conference call, Liddell said, "We are seeing lower cost per console... we're doing slightly better than we hoped for." He added that Microsoft expects the console to be "cost neutral over the console's life".

Microsoft forecasts that 10 million Xbox 360 units will have been sold by the end of 2006, by which time console owners will have a catalogue of 160 games to choose from.

"We believe that the functionality of the Xbox 360 console, games portfolio, and online offerings are well-positioned relative to forthcoming competitive consoles," the company said in a statement.

"We also believe launching in advance of competing consoles will provide a strategic advantage for the long-term success of Xbox 360." ...