Just a quick note - we are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to a bad Windows XP SP2 installation (that's what I get for wanting to use Windows Media Connect with the 360 I guess.) Hopefully all the problems will be sorted out this evening at which time updates will resume as usual.
Thank you for your continued readership and patience during this short interruption.
Gamasutra is reporting that Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade have partnered with HotHead Games to create an episodic adventure game based on their wildly popular web comic.
The first game in the Penny Arcade Adventures series will be "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" and will be made available for Windows, Mac OS X and the Linux operating systems.
For more information, check out the Gamasutra article here and the HotHead Games press release here.
IGN is reporting that in a recent talk with Blizzard's chief operating officer Paul Sams, IGN was informed that Blizzard currently has four unannounced games in development and that the company will be making a "major product announcement" sometime in 2007.
"StarCraft is my absolutely favorite game of all time, as you probably already know, there is no doubt that we will continue the StarCraft and Diablo franchise, and trust me, I will be the happiest person in the world when we announce StarCraft 2." - Paul Sams, chief operating officer, Blizzard Inc.
"While Sams wasn't ready to spill the beans just yet, he did say Blizzard "will have a major product announcement in 2007," and that Blizzard was currently working on at least three other unannounced titles at the moment." - IGN.com
Speculation has instantly started as to what these four titles could be, with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 sitting at the top of the list. Sams wouldn't give any further information on the titles, beyond confirming that none of them are the indefinitely delayed Starcraft Ghost.
Here's to hoping Diablo 3 is going to be one of those titles - I need me some click-click. Check out the IGN article in it's entirety by clicking here.
Gamespot is reporting that SNK Playmore will be brining their 2d fighter Fatal Fury Special to the Xbox 360 via the Live Arcade.
I'm quite sure the sales numbers for Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting greatly contributed to SNK's decision, but I have to wonder if the Fatal Fury series is going to have the same kind of nostalgic fan support that Street Fighter II had. For more on SNK's announcement, check out the Gamespot article here.
Nintendo has announced that they will be bringing the Black (Onyx) and Pink (Coral Pink) versions of the DS-Lite to the United States on September 13th.
"The only thing more fun than new Nintendo DS Lite hardware colors is trying to keep up with the breakneck sales of the software to play on the popular little portable! On Sept. 13, two new colors - Onyx and Coral Pink - join Polar White, which is enjoying its own incredible sales peak and getting noticed everywhere." -Nintendo press release
Nintendo also took the opportunity to announce that New Super Mario Bros. has now sold over 1 million copies in the United States alone. I guess the two new DS-Lite colors are Nintendo's way of saying thanks for the support.
Check out the full test of the Nintendo press release here - I don't know about you, but I know I'll be lusting after an onyx DS-Lite come September 13th. Sooo shiny.
GameIndustry.biz is reporting that Blizzard plans on releasing a new World of Warcraft expansion every 12 months following the release of The Burning Crusade, the first expansion to the massively popular game.
"Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set - so every 12 months." - Paul Sams, chief operating officer, Blizzard
The article we're quoting covers only a small part of the interview, which according to GameIndustry.biz will be made available in it's entirety tomorrow - including some tantalizing comments about console ports of the game.
For now, check out the shortened interview at this link and be sure to keep an eye on GameIndustry.biz tomorrow for all the juicy details.
In an interview with 1UP's Luke Smith, Capcom's Jun Takeuchi, one of the producers of Lost Planet, stated that the game may not remain an Xbox 360 exclusive;
"We will try to keep it as a 360 exclusive, But, from the company's point of view, when you think about the business, in the future it's something [port the game to PS3] we might have to do." - Jun Takeuchi as reported by 1UP.com
Now I don't know if Capcom is actually planning on making a Playstation 3 version of the game or if they think that due to the buzz the title is generating that they can force Microsoft to pay for the exclusive rights, but if I were Microsoft, so long as the price isn't insanely high, I'd pay Capcom to ensure the title stayed a 360 exclusive.
Check out the full 1UP.com article here and let us know how you would handle this situation if you were Microsoft? Would you pay the money to keep the game an exclusive or would you call Capcom's bluff?
SuicideGirls (NSFW) is reporting that Insomniac has stated that their Playstation 3 title, Resistance: Fall of Man, will take up a whopping 22 gigabytes of disc space, making next generation media a must for the game.
"The game currently takes up 22 Gigabytes of memory on a Blu-Ray disc, the new disc format supported by the PS3 that is one-half of a VHS-vs.-Betamax format war erupting between tech companies throughout the year. While the music and vocals in "Resistance" take up only about 1 Gigabyte of disc space, graphics, level data and programming code occupy most of the remaining 21." -SuicideGirls
Now I certainly could see games getting significantly larger, but 22 gig? That just sounds like either a misquote or an exaggeration. While I'm not saying it's impossible, I do say that it certainly leaves me wondering if the game is specifically being made to exceed DVD-9 capacity so Sony can have something to justify the need for Blu-Ray media and have something to stick in Microsoft's craw to boot.
Check out the SuicideGirls article here for more information on this story. (please keep in mind that the site may not be safe for work)
In a surprising move, Microsoft released a second demo onto the Xbox Live Marketplace today. An Xbox 360 demo of Eidos Interactive's Just Cause is also now available for download. The demo weighs in at 632.71mb.
Eidos has also released a PC version of the demo which can be found at your favorite download portal or directly from Eidos' servers
I have to admit that I barely know anything about this title other than the fact that it's a first person shooter. I'll give the 360 demo a whirl, and give some more details if the demo managed to leave a good impression on me.
As we reported yesterday, a second demo of Atari's Test Drive Unlimited is now available in the Xbox Live Marketplace. The demo weighs in at 738.23mb, roughly twice the size of the demo released at E3. Hopefully that additional space was used to remove teh suck from the demo, because the last one was pretty rancid.
You can check out the Test Drive Unlimited official website at this link for more information about the game.
