Month: May 2006

No live webcasts of the Microsoft conference unfortunately. As such, I won’t regurgitate what other sites are already covering. Suffice it to say, Microsoft thinks Xbox LIVE is the bees knees. It’s going to be integrated into Windows Vista and cell phones of all things. I really wish they would feature their actual games a little more prominently, but oh well. The HD-DVD drive was shown. Looks small and sleek, but no price mentioned. The camera was shown, of course. And they capped it off with a trailer for Halo 3. If you’d care to check out that trailer yourself, head over to Bungie.net. I will be waiting to get home and download it in creamy HD goodness—along with the thousand other trailers I downloaded yesterday.

And that’s all I have to say about that. If you own a 360, you don’t need me to tell you about E3 happenings. Just go download them yourself.

Until I saw a few pics from the Halo 3 trailer, I had forgotten the games ability to make my hair stand on end. I can’t tell you how many times I watched the first Halo 2 teaser trailer. I won’t even read the description of the new trailer for fear of spoilers.

Oh, this has been a good day.

—check out Joystiq’s coverage of the conference here.

Well, I managed to find a webcast of the E3 Nintendo conference that wasn’t banned by the evil office webfilter. All in all it was pretty short, but packed with delicious info, like so much nougat. So much so that to contain it in a single post is maddening, but I shall try.

Continue reading “Nintendo E3 Conference”

Cruising around the ‘net waiting for the Nintendo keynote to start I came across this on Evil Avatar. Basically what is says is that the “cheap” PS3 will not support HDMI. HDMI is needed for HDCP copyright protection. Copyright protection is needed to play Blu-ray movies. You see where I’m going with this? Without HDMI, the low end PS3 may not be able to play Blu-ray movies at all. I can’t imagine Sony shooting themselves in their collective feet so blatantly, so let’s chalk this one up to speculation for now. If it’s true, all I can say is wow.

UPDATE—contibutor SuicideNinja (no relation) has a better explanation. Apparently, if the copyright protection is imposed, it would limit the resolution on non-HDMI connections. Check out the comments for the full story.

Word comes down from the only main desk that 8-bit Ninja has reached the 1,000 hit mark. That’s right 1,000 unique (special and creative) users have visited this establishment since it’s rebirth in April—add my visits to the site and we’re probably closer to 2,000. Thanks for making it happen. Some disappointing news though: my visitor to comment ratio is severely lacking. Including the two spam bots, it’s about 1 in 100 visitors. Ouch. But I don’t care. Your silent approval is all I need. I’ll be keeping track of the goings on at E3, so keep checking for more info.

Okay, obviously I haven’t been covering this thing live, being the non-paid, recreational blogger that I am. I’ll leave that to Joystiq. The stuff you care about is this:

• US $499 for the 20GB model
• US $599 for the 60GB
• Controller looks just like the Dual Shock, but with motion sensing abilities (not sure if it has actual position detection a la Wii)
• US Launch date of November 17th

So, PS3 is playing catch-up with Nintendo and coming in a full $200 dollars more expensive than the cheapest version of the 360. Meanwhile, Microsoft is left in the dust with no motion sensing control. Some actual demos were shown, many being promised as playable at the show. Cool.

Microsoft and Nintendo keynotes tomorrow. I am giddy.

Check out the Joystiq link above for more details.

—if anybody wants to change my “non-paid blogger” status, contact me immediately :)

Wow. Lots of crazy SEGA news today. Next-Gen is reporting that Yuji Naka—creator of Sonic the Hedgehog—has left SEGA. Naka wll be forming his own company—labeled Prope, meaning “‘beside’ or ‘near’ future”—that will wil officially open for business on June 1st. As noted by other sites, this makes it clear that Naka has had little to do with the development of Sonic Next-Gen. Although, considering the quality of recent Sonic titles, that may not be a bad thing. I wonder if this also means the dissolution of Sonic Team. What of the ever talked-about Nights Into Dreams sequel? Will Naka have license to any SEGA characters? Who’s making the new Monkey Ball then?

SEGA is apparently donating 10 percent of Prope’s startup capital, so there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood. I can’t tell if SEGA is falling apart or just going through changes that should have happened years ago.

Update: Thanks for the link Joystiq. And welcome to Joystiq readers.

Update the second: Okay, apparently this entry has been linked to Totalfark.com. I don’t have access to that site, as it is subscription based. Anybody care to clue me in? Send me a screen capture maybe? Leave me a comment if you got here via Total Fark, I’d appreciate it. You can also hit me up via the Contact page. Thanks, Sense.

SEGA has announcced that Virtua Fighter 5 will be coming to PS3 only when it ships next spring. While this isn’t exactly surprising, it is disappointing. It also serves as further proof that SEGA dislikes money—or at least American money. Why you wouldn’t port a fighting game to a console that is flooded with action titles is beyond me. Hell, the only fighting game competetition on the 360 is DOA and the next iteration of Mortal Kombat. You’d think that Virtua Fighter would clean up on the 360. But, like I said in my recent, hastily written rant, most of SEGA’s decisions confuse me these days. Most people don’t appreciate Virtua Fighter, but I stand by my belief that it’s the best technical fighter available. Oh, well. AM2 already stated VF5 won’t be online anyway.

—from Gamespot via Evil Avatar

Well, it’s nearly here. E3 starts in a mere two days. Keynotes will soon flood the internet. Announcements will be made. Awards will be handed out. The hype for upcoming games will begin. Some will rise to the occasion upon delivery, others will be miserable piles of excrement. This is the time of year when journalists look at games in development. These games will have promise. Reporters will look at them and say that the controls need work, but that the developers have plenty of time to work that out. We all know that never happens though. When the game comes out the controls will still suck. Sigh… So, what am I looking forward to? Let’s find out:

• Halo 3
• Too Human
• Any and all things Wii related
• Super Smash Bros. Wii
• Zelda (Gamecube and DS)
• Phantasy Star Universe
• Some Japanese RPGs for 360
• Nintendo sending me a free DS Lite (Please!)

There’s probably a few more things I could put up there, but that’s the big list. You may notice my lack of excitement for the PS3. Well, I’ve learned not to get too excited about Sony when it comes to trade shows, at least not when they’re talking about upcoming hardware. I’m sure there will be some real-time offerings this year, but I’ll wait and see. For me, this year is all about the Wii. It’s the only thing that’s really exciting. There are some potentially great games coming to 360, but the Wii really has a chance to bring something entirely new to the table. We all sit with bated breath to see what Nintendo is going to do.

 Ah…who am I kidding. I just want my new Smash Bros.

—oops. Fixed a spelling mistake.

I mentioned in my last post that I lament the direction SEGA has taken of late. Understand that I love SEGA, probably more than a healthy person should. Let me share my story with you.

Continue reading “Where’s My SEGA?”

In the seemingly never ending string of press releases, SEGA announces The Club for next gen systems. The Club is a collaboration between SEGA and Bizarre Creations. The release describes an underground culture where criminals are paid to stage gun battles. Spectators place bets on the outcome of these battles. Sounds kind of like Fight Club with a gangsta twist. I wonder, will players be able to wager Microsoft Points? Console gambling with real value? Doubtful, but interesting. So far SEGA has posted no media for the game.

On a side note, I’m not really sure I like the direction that SEGA is taking these days. It seems like they’re just trying to play catch up with EA. I have trust in Bizarre, but SEGA’s direction makes me nervous. However, that is a topic for another much longer post.