The price of next-gen console games was a hot issue last year when the bulk of Xbox 360 launch titles carried a $60 price tag. This week, Activision CEO Robert Kotick confirmed what many gamers already expected or even assumed: the company's PlayStation 3 games will retail for roughly $60.

In a presentation to the Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment Conference yesterday, Kotick indicated that the company is taking a next-gen pricing approach to its next-gen software, thanks in part to its success pricing PlayStation Portable games at $50, and Xbox 360 software like the best-selling Call of Duty 2 at $60.

"We have not seen a lot of consumer resistance at the higher price points and we expect that all of our next-generation products will be launched at $60 price points," Kotick said.

On the surface that would suggest $60 Wii games from the company, but an Activision representative confirmed for GameSpot that Kotick was only referring to PS3 and Xbox 360 games. In fact, the publisher's Activision Value label is already preparing a pair of Wii launch titles: Rapala Tournament Fishing and World Series of Poker.

Since the Xbox 360 launched last year, some publishers have defended the $59.99 standard price for next-gen releases by citing the increased development costs associated with the new platforms. While Kotick did not bring the example up specifically in relation to the company's pricing strategy on games, he did mention that Spider-Man 3 has cost the company more than $35 million to develop on all formats. He did not specify on which consoles the game would appear."

"That is the most expensive product that we've created, and for good reason," Kotick said. "You'll see how much it really takes advantage of the assets and the capabilities of the hardware." ...

With old man winter around the corner, devoted golfers outside of the warmer parts of the United States will be reluctantly retiring their swings for the season. However, they will still be able to get a few virtual rounds in, thanks to Electronic Arts' Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, which hits stores next month for the Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC, and PlayStation Portable.

Xbox 360 owners currently in rain-drenched parts of the country won't have to wait until then, though. GameSpot has learned that the Xbox 360 demo for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 will be available on Xbox Live Marketplace on Thursday, September 14. The exact timing of the demo's release and the details have not yet been revealed.

Tiger 07 doubles the number of playable courses from last year's version, with an even dozen. The game has also ramped up the difficulty, with more of golf's frustrating factors, such as skill, coming into play on each shot. ...

The saying goes, "What goes up must come down." However, in the case of New Super Mario Bros., it goes back up again. The plucky DS game has once again topped the latest console-game sales rankings from Bestbuy.com. During the week of September 5-11, it edged out the previous week's champion, THQ's Saints Row (Xbox 360), which now finds itself parked in fifth place.

New Super Mario Bros. also edged out Madden NFL 07, the latest installment in the top sports franchise of all time. The PlayStation 2 edition of the game was relegated to the number-two slot, just in front of the Xbox 360 version. No other versions of Madden made it into the top 10, although another Electronic Arts sports title, NASCAR 07 (PlayStation 2), raced into sixth place.

Another new entrant on the list was LucasArts' Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy for the PlayStation 2 (ninth). The rest of the top 10, was all about the DS. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day stayed strong in fourth, Mario Kart DS cruised along in seventh, Star Fox Command ruled eighth place, and Tetris DS was tail-end Charlie in 10th.


Best Buy console charts: September 5-11, 2006

1 New Super Mario Bros.
Platform: DS
2 Madden NFL 07
Platform: PS2
3 Madden NFL 07
Platform: X360
4 Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day
Platform: DS
5 Saints Row
Platform: X360
6 NASCAR 07
Platform: PS2
7 Mario Kart DS
Platform: DS
8 Star Fox Command
Platform: DS
9 LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Platform: PS2
10 Tetris DS
Platform: DS

Via Gamespot ...

Since Phantasy Star Universe launched in Japan for the PlayStation 2 and PC last month, the game's online experience has been plagued by unstable connections and problems related to character data. Phantasy Star Universe publisher Sega has addressed the issues on the game's Web site, saying that it is making "drastic improvements" to the game, which was the top-selling title in Japan last week despite its problems. The announcement further says that Sega is working to "bring the debugging period to a close."

The largest change announced was that new game servers are being added. Until now, PSU has been contained within the World 1 servers, but from September 14, a second set of servers, dubbed World 2, will be put online. Worlds 1 and 2 will be totally independent of each other, so players will be required to select a world when logging on. Character data cannot be moved between the worlds, but players will be allowed to keep up to four characters on each world using a single account.

Sega also listed a number of bug fixes that have already been made, such as fixing the overwriting, the rollback, and the locking-up of character data. However, issues with logging in and transporting to the My Room areas have not yet been resolved.

"The bugs that have occurred so far have been caused by the concentration of access traffic, which surpassed our estimates and resulted in overflows on the database server," the publisher explained. "This was causing character data to be overwritten and rolled back, and these issues spread to the My Room servers. We have been working around these problems on the program level, and by adding servers, but everyday access traffic exceeded our maintenance efforts." ...

American fans of the anime Fullmetal Alchemist have had plenty of opportunities to get their game on with the characters of the animated series...provided they had a PlayStation 2 or Game Boy Advance. When news of a Nintendo DS Fullmetal Alchemist game spread, many owners of Nintendo's handheld rejoiced...provided they lived in Japan.

Now, North American DS-owning Fullmetal Alchemist fans can finally join in on the fun, as Destineer today announced that it is releasing Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy in the US. The Minneapolis-based publisher will release the Bandai-developed game this fall.

Dual Sympathy is a side-scrolling action game that sees players take the role Edward Elric as he battles Homunculi and sets out on a quest to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. The six playable characters in the game will have the ability to concoct weapons from various items (hence, the alchemy) and turn them on enemies.

The DS version will also feature voice work from the actors in the television series, unlockable content, and 10 touch-screen-based minigames.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy has not yet been rated or priced.

Via Gamespot ...

New PS2 Horse racing Game release:



More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...2&lsaid=219793 ...

With The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess set to launch alongside Nintendo Wii in the US on November 19th and Japan on December 2nd, you might wonder what's happening to the Cube version.

Well, stop doing that, because Nintendo said in a Q&A session after its New York press conference this afternoon that the GameCube version will be released on December 11th in the USA.

There's no word on what that means for us over here, but we'd imagine that'll be cleared up during tomorrow's press event in London. Stay tuned, etc. ...

When we were deep inside Maestro Jobs' reality distortion field on Tuesday, all these new additions to iTunes 7 seemed like significant improvements over its previous version. But not quite 48 hours later, all is not quiet on the iTunes front. Specifically, users on Apple's web forums and our own tipsters are reporting that some new nanos aren't being recognized in Windows iTunes 7, music being played through iTunes 7 sounds "scratchy" at times, CoverFlip doesn't always entirely download properly, and there are allegations that iTunes 7 has become, slow, bloated, and a resource hog. Some of us here at Engadget who have installed iTunes 7 haven't noticed any bad playback or other slowdowns, but have been dissappointed that very few of the albums on our machines have successfully downloaded album art. Furthermore, The Sydney Morning Herald called iTunes 7 a "lemon" yesterday and went on to report that: "Both Mac and PC users appear to be affected by the glitches being reported, and numerous different threads on the Apple discussion forum have described a range of technical issues." If Apple doesn't do something about this pretty soon, people might start calling it iCan't -- as in: "I can't play my music anymore." ...

As if yesterday's trailer wasn't enough, CVG is ready to serve up some hot new screens of Vice City Stories goodness.

Over a dozen screens to be precise, depicting the sports cars, boats, helicopters and neon lighting that we all know and love from Vice City Eighties madness on the PS2. But enough reading, shift your eyes below and check out the gorgeousness for yourself! Vice City Stories debuts on November 3.

News and Screens at CVG ...