Hands On With the PlayStation Vita

This year’s EuroGamer Expo will be remembered for years to come as the expo with the most AAA content.  Of the 70 games on show around 90% of them were day one buys.  Even with all this triple A content on offer, there was something showcased that outshone them all and that was Sony’s newest handheld, the PlayStation Vita.  Wanderson75.net was lucky enough to get hands on the Vita and put it through its paces. Here’s what we thought. Read On »

Crimson Alliance DLC Slashing its Way to XBLA this October!

Certain Affinity is releasing a new DLC pack for their Summer of Arcade’s finale dungeon-crawler, Crimson Alliance, on October 12th! 
 
According to Max Hoberman, President of Certain Affinity, “From the start we wanted to keep the adventure going by giving players new places to explore with their friends. When we finished the game back in May we had a few months to wait before the Summer of Arcade was over. So we devoted ourselves to building the kind of maps that we wanted to play: fiendishly difficult ones that are perfect for co-op.”

 
Read On »

Square Enix – Halo: Reach Action Figures Now In The UK

To all of my good friends in the UK, you can now get your Squenix Halo:Reach action figures without having to buy them in the States and have them shipped over.

For those of you who don’t know, these action figures are larger, and far more detailed than the McFarlane Toys figures.  They are fully articulated and come with interchangeable hands.  Series I was released with Jun, Noble Six, and Emile, with Series II containing Kat, Jorge, and Carter to be released some time in 2011.

Gamingzap.com has acquired a small quantity of these collectibles ahead of the currently unannounced UK release date.  Who knows how many or how few they have available, so you may want to get ordering right away!

Console News For Monday, December 20

Only a week left until Christmas.  Have you gotten your shopping done? Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation Coming To A DS Near You Dragon Quest fans rejoice!  The 1995 continuation of the Dragon Quest series is finally coming to the States on the Nintendo DS handheld console.  Originally released on the Super Famicom (Japanese Version of the SNES), DQVI was never brought over to the US for commercial release.  No release date yet however,… Read On »

VGChartz Sales Data On Kinect Sparks Remarks From Greenburg

Yesterday, VGChartz released initial sales data for Kinect for the Xbox 360, stating that the device had sold almost 480,000 devices between its launch on November 4 to the week ending November 6.  For two days worth of sales, it’s not a figure to laugh at.  Especially considering that it took the Playstation Move four weeks to reach a similar number.

But Mr. Aaron Greenburg, Chief of Staff for Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, is indeed, laughing.  Per his post on Twitter, “LOL’ing at sales reports from VGChartz, why do people release info as official when there is no source or science behind the #s?”

VGChartz has come under fire before for the accuracy of the data that it reports.  Many times, their data will be corrected when groups such as NPD release their own tracking data.  However, with NPD no longer reporting their data to the public, VGChartz is the only source left for many bloggers, myself included, to gather semi-accurate sales data.

Brett Walton left a comment in the Kinect article stating, “I’m a little disappointed that a senior figure like Mr Greenberg decides to comment in such an immature way rather than maybe offer the actual figure for example.

As ever, it is entirely possible that our figures aren’t perfect (they are only estimates from samples afterall), but they shouldn’t be that far out.”

So is this another example of VGChartz guesstimates being way out of what the actual numbers are?  Or could Mr. Greenburg be clutching on to the real sales data because the true numbers aren’t as impressive?

Stay tuned.

~W75

Console News For Monday, November 8

Microsoft Bundles Alan Wake – Forza 3 In Holiday Bundle

For those of you who don’t want to be Kinect’d, Microsoft is releasing this year’s holiday bundle with core gamering goodness.  The new bundle will come with a copy of Forza Motorsport 3 and a token to download Remedy’s hit thriller, Alan Wake.  This bundle will launch at the $299 price point leaving gamers to decide, get Kinect?  Or go with a couple of core games?

Source: Major Nelson

Mass Effect 2 For PS3 To Receive Free Extra Content, Missions

PS3 users will finally be receiving Mass Effect 2 on the Sony console with some extra goodies.  It will be including all of the DLC missions that Xbox 360 users had to purchase this last year, as well as a new mission worth about six hours of gameplay and an interactive comic to walk them through the events of the first game, making key decisions that affect the outcome of Mass Effect 2.

It will be interesting to find out if Xbox 360 fans will have access to this extra six hour mission as later downloadable content.  It would probably be a good idea for EA to release it to appease the 2.12 million fans of the Xbox 360 version may feel a bit left out and disgruntled if it isn’t the case.

Source: GameRant

Kinect Technology Could Have Gone To Apple First

Apple Inc., a company whose dedication to innovating arguably stands above any other company could have had Project Natal, now known to the world as Microsoft’s holiday hopeful, Kinect, first.  But why would Apple, king of new technologies miss out on this huge opportunity to bring something unique to their own line of products?

Because, “Apple is a pain in the ass,” according to PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha.

In an interview with Cult of Mac Editor, Leander Kahney, Beracha said that when Apple was introduced to the technology, it was the stack of legal agreements and NDAs that turned Beracha off to the partnership.

Interesting.

Source: Cult Of Mac

Microsoft Giving Away Free Xbox 360s With Purchase Of Win7 Phones In Toronto

As you know, Windows Phone 7 launches today.  And what better way to celebrate this event than getting a free Xbox 360 with your purchase of an HTC 7 Surround or LG Optimus 7?  People shopping at the Toronto Eaton Centre can get just such a deal.  But you better be quick, word is that numbers are limited.

Source: Wirelessly Obsessed

Coming This Week

I’ll be taking Microsoft Kinect For Xbox 360 for a test drive and writing down my thoughts, as well as with the new 360 Dashboard.  Also, my holiday sales predictions after last week’s numbers are posted.  Stay tuned.

~W75

Stores Gearing Up Early For Black Friday With Deals

Online retailers are gearing up early and offering “Black Friday” deals well ahead of the mark this November in an effort to boost sales for the holiday season.  Retailers are starting to push out big ticket items to the net savvy over three weeks early with some deals.  Let’s take a look:

Walmart.com

Walmart’s online store will be offering deals with its Amazing Walmart Electronics Event starting on November 6th this year, with LCD TVs being at the front of some amazing bargains.  One of note is a 55″ Vizio LCD sporting 1080p at 60Hz for $898.  As well as the Sony PS3 Move Bundle for $399 which includes a $50 Walmart Gift Card.

These deals are listed as while supplies last, so get up early on Saturday to score the best deals you can find.

Newegg.com

Newegg is holding a Black November event this year, with deals changing daily including sales on GPS units, computer parts and accessories, George Foreman grills, cell phones, electric shavers and more.

Amazon.com

Amazon is holding a Get Three Games For The Price Of Two sale on over 800 video games on their site.  Many popular and new games are available to be purchased under this sale including Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, and Rock Band 3.

Slickdeals.net is also reporting a deal on Target‘s website to purchase 3 Kinect games for $85 shipped.  Although a recent check has the games out of stock, I’ll be watching this one closely for my own holiday shopping.

With some key retailers ramping up the deals early, you can bet that many others will follow suit.  You may want to tune into slickdeals.net and bfads.net for the latest and greatest in holiday deals.

Supreme Court To Hear Arguments On CA Video Game Ban Law

Today, the United States Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in  Schwarzenegger v. EMA.  This case will determine if the 2005 law passed in California banning the sale of violent video games to minors is constitutional or not.

The law overrides the ESRB ratings by requiring a seperate label be placed on video games deemed inappropriate for minors.  The point of contention in the law is the labelling of “violent video games” in the law makes it possible to label children’s games such as “Super Mario Bros.” as violent and require an 18+ label.  This of course could greatly affect video game sales, as well as the type of content that they could sell to minors.

As a parent, I agree with the restriction of sales of violent video games to minors.  However, I believe that the ESRB has created a robust system of ratings designed to catch the attention of parents and make it easy to decide whether or not a game is appropriate for their child.  I also believe that the ESRB’s retail partners overall are doing a good job of enforcing these ratings by refusing to sell Mature rated games to minors.

However, laws passed by the government are usually intentionally vague and are open to broad interpretation, usually doing more harm than good.  And instead of creating an arbitrary system to label games as the government sees fit to label as Mature or 18+, I think that any state government would be better off to partner with the ESRB in enforcing its already established ratings system as they already have 15 years of experience behind them.

~W75

Kinect Sold Out On Amazon/Best Buy – Resellers Taking Advantage

As reported earlier this week, Amazon and Best Buy appear to still be sold out on Kinect sensor pre-orders.  As a matter of fact, checking on Amazon’s list of sellers under “See My Buying Options” reveals that their third party resellers have now upped the price over $200 for their Kinect pre-orders.

Another check on eBay reveals that sellers are doing the same there.  Charging anywhere from $159.99 to $300 for a pre-order there.

Savvy Shoppers should know that if you instead go to sites such as Newegg, or Walmart with their $199, two game bundle, or Gamestop instead of these other third party resellers.

While I would like to believe that it’s the innovation in the new product and its easy to use interface, I’m much more inclined to believe that these sell-outs are largely happening due to the Oprah and Ellen effect.

Console News For Wednesday, October 27th

Sony To Introduce Its Own Console Phone?

As reported by Engadget, it looks like Sony is looking to steal some of Microsoft’s thunder in the phone market with their own Playstation phone.  While still considered a rumour, I can’t but wonder if this is the reason why Sony has so drastically marked down the price of the PSP Go.

Microsoft has been working very dilligently to bring the XBox Live experience to the mobile platform with the introduction of Windows Mobile 7, and further extend the Live experience with their upcoming revamp of Games For Windows Live to unify gamers across all devices.  An entry by Sony with a Playstation phone could very well take a bite out of Microsoft’s efforts in re-entering the mobile market.

Of course, if Sony is to do this, then the real winner would be Apple Inc.  As a split of users determined not to buy an iPhone between Microsoft and Sony would only bolster their position as the number one mobile phone maker in the market.

Source: Engadget

NATS and Xbox Live

@majornelson‘s (Xbox Live’s Major Nelson) Twitter feed this morning links us to a Microsoft Xbox Engineering blog talking about NATs (Network Address Translation) and how strict and moderate NAT’ing can affect your Xbox gaming experience.  It’s full of plenty of extremely useful information of how Xbox devices under networks of certain NAT configurations will react to Xbox devices under other NAT configurations.

Of course it was written by an Engineer, so if you find the details to be a bit cumbersome, they included a very easy to follow diagram for the regular non-geek.

Source: Twitter, XBox Live Engineering Blog

 Game Pack 11 For Game Room Released

Microsoft has released Game Pack 11, the add-on for Xbox’s own classic video game emulator just a couple of weeks after the closing of Krome Studios.  The Microsoft dev team responsible for Game Room and the “regularly scheduled releases”.

I haven’t downloaded the pack to see what games are on it as of yet, but one fellow blogger seems to be quite taken with a Konami game that found its way into the release.

Source: Xbox Live, The Examiner

Sims 3 On Xbox 360 And Playstation?

EA has announced that the popular Sims franchise is now available for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.  So now you can date, get a job, be a criminal and set your virtual you on fire from the comfort of your couch!

Interestingly enough, there’s been a lot of news about problems with Microsoft’s Xbox Live guidelines and MMOs in the press lately.  With that said, you have to wonder if any of the guidelines were bent or broken to allow the Sims 3 to come to the Xbox?  Or is it a case of the subscription requirements in the other MMO games that are the real sticking point?

Only time will tell.

Source: Electronic Arts; MCVUK