Category: Games

Rock Band Wii? EA says “no” (for now)
A Wii version is nothing more than wishful thinking at the moment.
Despite the release of a PS2 flavor and official comments suggesting otherwise, Electronic Arts has yet to confirm Rock Band for Wii.
“We have not announced any plans for a Wii version at this time,” wrote EA’s Bryce Baer on Wednesday in an email to GamePro.
In April 2007, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos said “absolutely” when asked if there was a possibility of seeing the game on Wii.
“We will, at some time, bring Rock Band to every [important] platform,” he said in the conference call. “I think the Wiimote is something that holds enormous promise.”
Rock Band is currently available for Xbox 360, PS3, and PS2. The music simulator won several game of the year awards in 2007 including “best game that involves getting off the sofa” by the Associated Press.

Nintendo revives the light-gun game
Most gamers who grew up in the 1980s have fond memories of “Duck Hunt,” one of the games that came with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Your controller was a plastic gun, the Zapper, that you used to shoot on-screen ducks; if you missed, your hunting dog would snicker.
Despite the ubiquity of the Zapper and “Duck Hunt,” light-gun games for home consoles never really caught on. For the last decade, Namco Bandai’s “Time Crisis” series has pretty much had the genre to itself, although if you visit an arcade you’re likely to see a broader selection (with bigger weapons).
Nintendo’s Zapper has a spiritual successor in the Wii console’s remote control, which you operate by pointing directly at your TV screen. And Nintendo has acknowledged the connection by introducing a new version of the Zapper ó essentially, a plastic doohickey that turns the Wii’s remote-and-nunchaku combo into a two-handed firearm. It’s not exactly state-of-the-art technology, but it does add something fresh to the first-person shooter.
_”Link’s Crossbow Training” (Nintendo, $19.99 with the Wii Zapper): The game that’s packaged with the Zapper isn’t the deepest title in the Wii library, but it’s a fast-paced challenge that just about anyone can enjoy. You are Link, the hero of Nintendo’s “Legend of Zelda” series, and “Crossbow Training” takes you on a whirlwind tour of sites from 2006’s “Twilight Princess.”
There are three kinds of competition: target shooting, in which you have to fire at (mostly) stationary bull’s-eyes; defender, in which enemies come at you from all sides; and ranger, in which you have to hunt down your foes. Accuracy pays off, because your score is multiplied by the number of consecutive targets you hit ó but other people I played with had just as much fun shooting willy-nilly.
There are a few surprises. For example, if you shoot a glowing green monster you get rapid-fire powers for a brief period. The ranger levels are a little tougher because you have to move with the nunchaku while swiveling your weapon with the Zapper. And the game can get quite competitive when you have four players taking turns on the firing range. Overall, the simplicity of “Crossbow Training” makes it a lively party game. Two-and-a-half stars out of four.
_”Medal of Honor Heroes 2″ (Electronic Arts, $49.99): EA’s long-running World War II series has been eclipsed in recent years by “Call of Duty” and “Brothers in Arms,” but there still may be some life in the old soldier yet. There’s nothing original plot-wise ó hey, welcome back to Omaha Beach! ó but the savvy use of the Wii controller makes “Heroes 2” feel brand new.
An arcade mode, designed specifically for the Zapper, moves you across the terrain automatically and lets you focus on the fun part: shooting Nazis. It has the somewhat cartoonish feel of a classic light-gun game like “House of the Dead,” but it’s fast and accessible for players who have never tried a first-person shooter before.
More serious gamers will go right to the campaign mode. Aside from the usual running, shooting and hiding, you need to use the Wii remote to throw grenades, tune enemy radios or set explosives ó actions that are easier to execute without the Zapper. Still, with its intuitive controls and precise gunplay, “Heroes 2″ is one of the Wii’s best shooters yet. Three stars.
_”Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles” (Capcom, $49.99): Like the arcade version of “Heroes 2,” “Umbrella Chronicles” moves you along a predetermined path; your only job is to shoot the zombies and other monsters that want to eat you. It’s not as satisfying as, say, 2005’s “Resident Evil 4,” but it’s good, brainless fun.
“Chronicles” recreates classic scenarios from previous games in the series, and fans will enjoy the trip down memory lane. But a newcomer can have fun too, particularly when joining forces with a veteran in one of the cooperative levels.
The aiming isn’t accurate enough, especially when you need to hit a small spot on a very large beast. And some of the boss fights seem unfair, with difficulty levels that are way out of whack with the rest of the game. Having a helper definitely makes the ordeal more manageable ó and enjoyable. Two-and-a-half stars.

Best of 2007: Five New Games You Must Play
Yes, we loved Mario Galaxy, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but weíve compiled this list of the year’s best with one rule in mind: all-new titles only. So, letís take look at the new stories and characters that rocked our year.
—Bioshock (360, PC)
This got some of the year’s best reviews, and the praise is all deserved. In this heady adventure set in an underwater city gone wrong, the only way to survive is to alter your genetic code. There are consequences to this, but hey, you do get powers, like lightning bolts and swarms of bees.
— Uncharted: Drakeís Fortune (PS3)
Games arenít usually the place to find unforgettable characters, but we love Nathan Drake. Voiced by Nolan North, Drakeís a charming, sarcastic mix of Indiana Jones and Mal from Serenity. The gameplay is a mixture of Tomb Raider meets Gears of War, but that doesn’t do it justice. Drake can jump, brawl and use a whole bunch of guns as he makes his way through a jungle rain forest and a lost city of gold. And did we mention this is also the prettiest game on the PS3?
—Rock Band (360, PS3, PS2)
Take what’s cool about Guitar Heroóthe guitar controlleróand multiply by four: microphone, drums, guitar and bass. But just trying to get your pals to agree on a band name will make you realize why so many bands break up: too many egos!
—Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure (Wii)
This Wii title uses intuitive control in a crazy all-new tale of pirates…and bunnies. Youíre a little pirate out to solve puzzles in a quest to find a legendary treasure. Basically, this is a point-and-click PC game, but the puzzles are ingenious and the logic of those mind benders requires the player to think outside the box, which is just what the game designers did when they came up with this.
—Mass Effect (360)
The first great science fiction event of the 21st century is hereóand why shouldnít it be a videogame? Mass Effect features a fantastic character creator, hundreds of aliens and other folks to interact with and a vast universe to explore. The only downside is that when it’s over, youíll have nothing to do but play it again as a new character and relive all those unforgettable moments. Hmmm…come to think of it, there is no downside.

Wii is most-wanted widget in wintertime
NEW YORK – Each holiday season, a couple hard-to-find toys send parents hunting from store to store. And, each season, they’re soon forgotten: Has your Elmo gotten any tickles lately?
But this year, it looks like the gift everybody is looking for is the same as last year: the Nintendo Wii.
A year after its launch, the small video game console sells out almost immediately when it reaches stores, even after Nintendo Co. has ramped up production several times.
“Right now, if you work at it, it’s not too hard,” said John Lawrence, of Fort Worth, Texas, who bought a Wii a few weeks ago for his 9-year-old grandson. It took him some online sleuthing to find one at a local GameStop.
“People have not gotten into the Christmas shopping mode. Once people get into that mindset, this is going to be an impossibility as it was last year,” Lawrence said.
With the Wii, Nintendo set out make a console that would entice people who were not hardcore gamers, and it has succeeded. Janet Presti stood an hour in line at the Nintendo World Store in New York on Tuesday last week to get a Wii for her three children, but it wasn’t just for them.
“I played it at my sister’s house and I loved it,” she said. Her household already has three game consoles: an Microsoft Xbox 360, a Sony PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo GameCube.
The Wii responds to the user moving the wand-like wireless controller, while other consoles are controlled by a confusing array of buttons and joysticks. It also comes with an array of casual, nonviolent games that appeal to adults.
Sony and Microsoft have cut the prices of their consoles this fall, but continuing demand for the Wii has meant Nintendo hasn’t had to.
Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs at Nintendo of America, said the console was “priced right from the beginning.” A look at eBay shows that Kaplan may be wrong: New Wii systems are selling about $100 above the $250 store price.
Some of the demand for Wiis results from trouble in the toy industry, as well as the gadget’s cross-generational appeal.
“No one is buying toys right now because of the recalls,” said Gerrick Johnson, a toy industry analyst at BMO Capital Markets.
First, toys were recalled because of lead paint and dangerous magnets. Then, Aqua Dots ó colored beads that were making their way to must-have status ó were pulled because they were coated with a chemical that turned into the date-rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate if swallowed.
“It’s really unfortunate for the toy industry, because the lead issue was starting to subside, was getting off the front page … and then along comes this, which is totally outrageous,” Johnson said.
“Whoever thought that there’d be a day when parents say ‘Don’t play with your dangerous toys, go play with your video games’?” he asked.
The console has been a tremendous boost for Nintendo, which lost out to Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. in the last generation of game consoles. In the quarter ended Sept. 30, it more than doubled its sales to $6.1 billion from a year earlier, just before the launch of the Wii. It sold 5.5 million Wiis in the U.S. since it went on sale on last Nov. 17.
The stock market now values Nintendo at $75 billion, compared to $48 billion for Sony, which has six times the revenue.
Nintendo has increased the pace of production, but acknowledges that it won’t be able to satisfy holiday-season demand.
“It’s brand new technology, so you can’t build it on just any line,” said Nintendo’s Kaplan.
In an interview last week, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer said the Wii shortages were “a little fortuitous,” and indicated that the PlayStation 3 was poised to benefit from the situation. U.S. sales of the console doubled to 100,000 per week soon after an Oct. 18 price cut, he said.
The issue of demand outstripping supply has dogged Nintendo with the DS handheld game as well, which launched in 2004.
“We’ve been struggling since launch to keep inventory ó we finally have enough of that,” said Kaplan.

Sony slashes Playstation price in Canada
Sony has slashed the price of its current PlayStation 3 by $100 in Canada and introduced a high-capacity model in an effort to spur sales of the struggling video game console.
Starting Monday, the current 60-gigabyte model will cost $549, down from $649. In the United States, the same model will be priced at $499 US, reduced from $599.
The Japanese electronics maker also said it is introducing a new version of the PlayStation 3 with a bigger hard drive for storing downloaded content such as video games and high-definition movies. The new PS3 increases the system’s storage capacity to 80 GB from 60 GB and includes a retail copy of the online racing title MotorStorm, a company spokesman said. It will be priced at $659 in Canada, and $599 US in the United States.
The larger capacity machine won’t be available in the United States and Canada until August.
It plays into the company’s upcoming strategy of eventually offering downloaded high-definition movies, video games, movie trailers and demos, Sony spokesman David Karraker said.
Karraker said further details on high-definition movies for download would be released at a later date.
The announcement comes two days before the E3 Media & Business Summit in Santa Monica, Calif., where dozens of industry heavyweights including Sony rivals Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co. are expected to show off their latest games and related products.
Nintendo’s Wii outpacing PS3
Sony has said it sold 3.6 million PS3s in the fiscal year ending March 31 and expects to sell another 11 million in the current fiscal year. Microsoft said in its most recent quarterly earnings report filed in April that it had shipped 11 million Xbox 360s.
Nintendo, meanwhile, claims it has sold nearly six million Wiis worldwide as of March 31 and more than 40 million Nintendo DS handhelds. The company has predicted it will sell another 14 million Wiis and 22 million additional DS systems by the end of the current fiscal year.
The Wii and PS3 were released within days of each other late last year. Microsoft had a head start in the current generation of consoles, having launched its Xbox 360 in 2005. Last week, the software company announced an extension of the warranty because of the high number of systems suffering from hardware failure, also called the “red ring of death.”
In April, Microsoft began selling a version of its Xbox 360 with a 120-GB hard drive and a souped up high-definition video connection. Called Xbox 360 Elite, the black-coloured system sells for $479.99.
Xbox gamers who already own the $399.99 20-GB model can buy a snap-on 120-GB hard drive for $179.99.
Karraker said Sony would use the E3 show to focus on two areas: ways to increase the number of consumers who own PS3s and other products such as the PlayStation Portable handheld system and expanding the system’s library of available games.
He said Sony would be releasing 100 new video games during the current fiscal year, including 15 titles that are exclusive to the PS3 such as the hack-and-slash action title Heavenly Sword.

Can Wii prolong winning streak?
SEATTLE ó As it raced past rivals to become the hottest new video-game console, some analysts predicted that Nintendo Co.’s Wii was little more than a fad.
Try telling that to Geoff Allen, who hasn’t grown sick of playing the Wii after almost five months. He, his wife and his father all are hooked on “Wii Sports.”
“Within minutes, I can have fun,” said Allen, a 36-year-old technology entrepreneur from Potomac Falls, Va. “I don’t have to spend hours crawling through dungeons and learning all the complex button combos to become proficient. I love the Wii. It makes me happy.”
U.S. consumers have snapped up 2.5 million Wii consoles since they hit the market in November. It’s a sharp turnaround since the last round of the console wars, when its GameCube got wiped out by Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox.
But Nintendo isn’t taking its initial success for granted. At an event here last week, it unveiled a series of games, such as “Mario Strikers Charged” and “Big Brain Academy,” aimed at keeping a wide range of players interested, not just teenage boys and traditional video-game enthusiasts. The Osaka, Japan-based company also is relying on girls, women and older players to continue its growth.
Some analysts think the novelty may wear off and, when it does, consumers will stop buying new games for the Wii. The difference between the Wii’s graphics and those of its rivals, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, also may become more noticeable as developers create new games that take advantage of the more powerful consoles’ processing power.
“Its appeal is primarily to casual gamers, and there’s a serious question about how long casual gamers will stay engaged with the platform,” said Van Baker, a consumer technologies analyst with Gartner Inc., which is headquartered in Stamford, Conn. “It wouldn’t be surprising to see them lose interest after a relatively short amount of time.”
So far, demand is outstripping supply. Stores are selling out of the Wii within hours of getting them. Sales of the Wii are so hot, the Japanese company is widely expected to increase its annual sales forecast of 14 million units for its current fiscal year.
It helps that the Wii is $249, compared to the PS3 at $599 and the Xbox 360, priced from $299 to $479, depending on the features. Last month, U.S. consumers bought 360,000 Wii systems, versus 174,000 Xbox 360s and 82,000 PlayStation 3s, according to NPD Group.
Reginald Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer for Nintendo’s North American division, said at the press event last week that Nintendo in April had taken the No. 1 spot for sales of consoles, games and hand-held game devices, with its DS portable player. The last company to accomplish that feat, he said, was Nintendo itself ó in the 1980s. “We have become a viral and cultural phenomenon,” Fils-Aime said.
To bring in more casual gamers who don’t have the time or patience to learn their way around a 16-button controller like the PS3, Nintendo developed a novel remote that uses a motion sensor to let players use their arm movements to control the action on the screen. For example, to swing a club in “Super Swing Golf,” players swing the controller.
That’s what hooked Allen and his family. When he showed the games to his 63-year-old father, Allen had to pull him away from the TV screen. “He was so into it, he forgot he was playing a video game,” Allen said.
The controller, Allen explained, makes games such as the Wii version of tennis much more intuitive to play.
“If I want a cross court shot, I start low and rotate my forearm, and I get a nice cross-court spinning shot, just like real tennis,” he said. “I don’t have to learn anything new.”
That ease, combined with realistic physics, has led the Wii to pop up in some unexpected places. The Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Canada, uses the Wii to help physical therapy patients improve movement and balance. Norwegian Cruise Line, which caters to seniors, has purchased the system for all of its ships.
The Wii’s popularity has made it an attractive system for game publishers, whose ability to crank out fresh games for the device is vital to keeping consumers interested. It also generally costs less to create games for Wii than for the Sony and Microsoft systems, especially since it shares technology with its predecessor, the GameCube.
Wii games can cost anywhere from $1 million to $7 million and take less than a year to make, whereas a typical PS3 and Xbox 360 game can cost more than $20 million and take more than a year to produce because of the complexity and high-level graphics involved in those consoles.
“The console with the greatest momentum now is the Wii,” said Brian Farrell, chief executive of THQ Inc., the Calabasas-based game publisher. “The controller is highly innovative. The price point is attractive. The demographics are broad. And the cost to develop games on the system is relatively low. There’s a lot to like about the Wii.”
Developers also like the Wii because it frees them to focus less on making games look visually beautiful and more on just making them fun to play.
“Coding for the PS3 and the 360 is a daunting challenge,” said Kevin Ray, chief technology officer for Majesco Entertainment Co., a game publisher in Edison, N.J., that found the Wii business model so attractive that last year it decided to make games exclusively for that console. “With the Wii, we can afford to get creative and develop something really fun and bizarre.”
Nintendo’s in-house games studio plans to release its own stable of titles later this year, such as “Metroid Prime 3: Corruption” and “Super Mario Galaxy.”
While this coming holiday season is shaping up to be a blockbuster one for Nintendo, some analysts question whether the Wii has enough steam to last longer. The sophisticated hardware for PS3 and Xbox 360 is expected to keep those consoles relevant for another decade.
“The Wii in a couple of years is going to look like old technology with low resolution, slow performance,” Baker said. “People may not be accepting of that.”
But 31% of Wii owners surveyed in March by Frank N. Magid Associates, a media consulting firm, said they expected to play the Wii more often a year from now, compared to 21% of Xbox 360 owners.
“We don’t see it fading,” said Mike Vorhaus, a managing director with the Sherman Oaks firm. He credits the success to families who play together, as well as singles who get together for Wii parties.
That’s what Nintendo is banking on. While the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are played primarily by young men, the Wii is played on average by more people in each household. That means Nintendo has a good shot at selling more games per console than its rivals, said George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing.
“Before, it was the teenage boy playing by himself,” Harrison said. “Now, the whole family is playing.”

Coming soon: Mr. Bean the game
That bumbling, loveable Mr. Bean is getting his own video game. Blast! Entertainment has confirmed that Tiger Aspect Productions will be developing the game for them.
The PlayStation 2 title will be a 3D adventure with Mr. Bean on the hunt for his missing Teddy. The title will focus on problem solving tasks.
Played by legendary comedian Rowan Atkinson, the child-like character has had a live action and television series as well as a feature movie entitled ëBeaní in North America. A new Mr. Bean movie, ëMr. Bean’s Holidayí, will be released in North America this August.

Sony Cuts Price of PS3 in Japan
Company cuts the price by 20% in response to complaints about high cost.
Sony Corp., the world’s biggest maker of video game players, cut the price in Japan of its PlayStation 3 by about 20%, responding to complaints that it cost twice as much as rival consoles.
The game player will retail for $430 when it goes on sale in Japan on Nov. 11, Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said Friday at the Tokyo Game Show. The company previously said it would sell models for $540.
“They had to cut it because rivals have lower prices, and they may lower the price again if sales don’t go well,” said Yoku Ihara, head of equity research at Retela Crea Securities Co. in Tokyo. Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer is relying on the PlayStation 3 to revive a company that has lost half its market value in the last six years. The price cut leaves the console, which comes equipped with a high-definition Blu-ray DVD player and a fast processor called the Cell, as the most expensive game box on the market.
“If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy,” Kutaragi said in an interview with Japanese game magazine Famitsu in May. “The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were both 10,000 yen more than their competitors at launch, yet they both sold to shortages.”
Microsoft this month said it would start selling a cheaper version of its Xbox 360 in Japan for 29,800 yen Nov. 2, while Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo is offering its Wii console for 25,000 yen.
The surprise price cut comes after Sony on Sept. 6 said it would delay the European release of its PlayStation 3 by four months until March and cut its 2006 global shipment target by half to 2 million.
The PlayStation 3 will make its debut in Japan on Nov. 11 and in the U.S. on Nov. 17. Nintendo’s Wii console will go on sale Nov. 19 in the U.S. and Dec. 2 in Japan.

“Star Trek” Unveils New Captain’s Log
Now they’re really boldly going where no one has gone before.
In news that will make Trekkers’ hearts atwitter, all five Star Trek captains–William Shatner’s Kirk, Patrick Stewart’s Picard, Avery Brooks’ Sisko, Kate Mulgrew’s Janeway and Scott Bakula’s Archer–are beaming aboard Star Trek: Legacy, a new videogame marking the 40th anniversary of the legendary sci-fi franchise.
The game, due out this fall from Bethesda Softworks, will be the first time the five stars from the five TV series will team up for a Star Trek project.
Shatner, who will reprise his career-defining role of Captain James. T. Kirk on the original Star Trek voyage from 1966 to 1969, tells Reuters that he hopes his participation in the game might spark renewed interest in Star Trek. The franchise had been labeled “in decay” by Activision, which previously held the game license, and saw its most recent incarnation, Star Trek: Enterprise, fizzle out with lackluster ratings and uninspired plots. Some fans and industry watchers believed the end was near.
“It’s been around a long time, it’s a staple of American life and I think we need something new and different,” Shatner told the wire service, noting that he just couldn’t resist returning to the part that made him a legend. “I couldn’t imagine someone else playing Captain Kirk, even in a videogame, so I kind of got a little territorial.”
Joining him in the virtual Starfleet will be Stewart, returning as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first Star Trek spinoff, which had a successful syndication run from 1987 to 1994.
Also coming back is Brooks, who played Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko on the syndicated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from 1993 to 1999; Mulgrew who essayed Captain Kathryn Janeway on UPN’s Star Trek: Voyager from 1995 to 2001; and, rounding out the captain’s log, is Bakula who portrayed Captain Jonathan Archer in UPN’s Enterprise, which aired from 2001 to 2005.
Legacy, available on PC and Xbox 360, will give fans the chance to command their own starship from 60 different vessels from each of the Star Trek eras as they do battle with Klingons, Romulans and the Borg. There will be both single-player campaigns and an online multiplayer mode.
The actors–or their pixelated alter egos–won’t actually appear in the real-time strategy game; instead, their voices will offer advice and plot development.
“If it’s a good game, keeping true to the characters the best they can, and having an interesting story that branches, I think a game can bring a freshness to the franchise like Star Trek,” said Shatner, who last lent his voice to a videogame in 1997’s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
The thesp, whose Comedy Central Roast airs Sunday at 10 p.m., knows a thing or two about breathing new life into Gene Roddenberry’s baby, having written nine Star Trek novels detailing the continuing journeys of Kirk and friends as they seek out new life and new civilizations, etc. His latest tale, Captain’s Glory, finds the iconic character squaring off with Picard as the Federation faces a new enemy called the Totality.
Meanwhile, Bethesda is prepping Star Trek: Tactical Assault for the PSP and the Nintendo DS, also due out this fall. Bethesda also plans to release a first-person shoot-’em-up arcade version called Star Trek: Encounters for the PlayStation 2 next month.
Also coming this fall is four-disc Stat Trek: The Animated Series set on DVD, containing the 1970s Saturday morning revival of the series that featured the voices of the original cast. Paramount has set a Nov. 21 release date for the collection.
The studio, which has also produced and distributed all 10 Trek movies from 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture to 2002’s bomb Star Trek: Nemesis, has signed a $22.5 million deal with Lost creator J.J. Abrams to pilot the 11th installment for release sometime in 2008.
Abrams told TV Guide in an interview last week that he and screenwriting partners Robert Orci and Alex Kurtxmann are already deep into development on the new Star Trek, which will take the series back to its roots with a prequel focusing on the early days of Kirk and Spock.
“We have an incredible beginning of a really dramatic story, and it very much honors the canon of Star Trek. On the other hand, it won’t be like anything you’ve seen before,” the Mission: Impossible 3 helmer told the magazine. “I think we have an incredible story, but we’ve sort of promised each other we wouldn’t talk about the specifics yet. But I can say that we’re actively working on it, we’re in the middle of breaking the story, and it’s coming along great.”
Star Trek officially hits the big 4-0 next month. The original series debuted Sept. 8, 1966 on NBC.

PlayStation 3: Home for Christmas
LOS ANGELES ó Sony said Monday that it will roll out the PlayStation 3, the long-awaited successor to the world’s most popular video-game system, in time for the holidays.
In a presentation in advance of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony announced it will ship the powerful new system to North America on Nov. 17.
The price will be $499 for a system with a detachable 20GB hard drive, and $599 for one with a 60GB hard drive. Sony plans to have 4 million available by year’s end worldwide. “PlayStation 3 is the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken,” says Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment.
The PS3 will play PS2 games, as well as titles from the original PlayStation, CDs, DVDs and new high-definition movie discs. The PS3 also will connect to Sony’s handheld PlayStation Portable (PSP) and will include a wireless, motion-sensing controller.
The wireless controller was demonstrated with a launch game called Warhawk, an aerial combat game with futuristic planes zipping through clouds and over water. Other games include Tekken 6, Stranglehold (a game by film director John Woo), Ridge Racer 7, Final Fantasy XIII, Virtua Fighter 5 and Call of Duty 3.
One racing game shown used the PSP as an “interactive wing mirror.”
“You can position this next to your TV screen and see what’s coming up behind you,” said Sony’s Phil Harrison.
An online game network also will allow voice and text messaging. “The goal is to create a virtual society or community,” says Hirai.
PlayStation 3 was originally due in stores in spring, but development delays forced Sony to push back the introduction. The delay gives a yearlong head start to Microsoft’s $300-and-up Xbox 360, which was introduced in November and is still in short supply. Microsoft has sold 3.2 million units worldwide, 1.8 million in the USA.
Nintendo’s Wii (pronounced “we”) system, which is expected to be less expensive than either the 360 or the PS3, and which comes with an innovative controller, is to be unveiled at a news conference today.
Complicating this next generation of consoles is an underlying battle over high-definition video-disc formats. PS3 games will be on the new Blu-ray Disc format, and the system will play Blu-ray high-definition movies. Microsoft plans to market an add-on drive that will play movies in the competing HD DVD format championed by Toshiba with supporting studios Warner, Universal and Paramount.