In other news, Microsoft is late to the party AGAIN. (I know it’s a lame analogy. At least I didn’t say “LAN party.”)
The HD DVD player for the XBox 360 is “officially” $50. Not recommended unless you have the shelf-space to buy one of every “limited edition”, made in China toy and keep it in the original packaging…
Good rumors from the Destination Playstation conference. Per some sources at the retailer show, alongside the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue launch on April 15th will be a redesign of the Playstation Store.
The new Playstation Store is rumored to look a lot like the SingStore (that’s it in the picture) and have an improved navigation system. I’m still not sure it will measure up to XBox Live where I’m spending at least 10x more than I am in the Playstation Store. Then again, at least the rumored launch date isn’t April 1st.
[via Kotaku]
Ray Kurzweil, the famed futurist and author of a tall stack of smart books, just predicted that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence by 2029. Who knows what game systems will be out then, but it would be awesome to have AI challenging even elite gamers to a tough fight.
In-game AI has a bad reputation and I haven’t heard high expectations about game AI since before Quake 2 launched. Then again, we’re sure not evolving that fast and I’m sure that once game developers go beyond state machines and minimax this could happen. Play the online 20 Questions game for just a taste of a neural network that’s an example of one new technique that’s starting to be used.
With all the new genetic algorithms and neural networks out now I think it’s definitely possible that AI will hand most of us our tails in about 20 years. Hit us up in the comments if you think so too.
Besides … getting beat by a machine might not be that bad either. At least they won’t gloat over it (yet).
[via Engadget]
Blu-Ray wins. Toshiba officially announced they will discontinue production of new HD DVD hardware.
The killing blow was probably Warner’s well-timed (or poorly-timed, depending on which side of the battle you were cheering for) pre-CES announcement that it was dropping publication of the HD DVD format. A big studio switching formats like that likely motivated the quick one-two of Blockbuster and Netflix officially supporting only Blu-Ray. After all the bad news Toshiba’s concession quickly followed the final Friday announcement by Wal-Mart that they would follow suit.
I’m actually shocked that Toshiba dropped out of the race so gracefully. Their losses may be into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the move should save consumers a bundle as higher sales should lead Blu-Ray drive and disc prices to fall.
Speaking of falling prices, new and used XBox HD DVD drives accompanied by stacks of games are already littering eBay. Prices are only half what they were last week - and they’ll probably be half that after the holiday on Tuesday.
If you’re now in the market for a Blu-Ray player, the PS3 is future-proofed with support for version 2.0 of the Blu-Ray format. Oh, And, it plays games too.
Grab the Rock Band Special Edition bundle for $20 less than normal at Target this week. The Sunday sale flyer list both the PS3 and XBox 360 versions for just $149.
On sort-of-sale are the the 40GB PS3, which comes with a $40 Target gift card, and a stack of popular PS3 and XBox 360 shooters, which each come with a $10 Target gift card. Hop on over to CheapAssGamer for the full list and copies of Target’s Sunday flyer.
Three more Rock Band song downloads available this week. One song each from Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, and Garbage. All are about $2 and available for XBox 360 on Tuesday or PS3 on Thursday.
All three songs are included in the hidden list found by laconic this week that everyone thinks is Harmonix’s future-song-list. The full list, minus released songs, is posted after the jump.
Click for 30-sec song previews.
The limited edition version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 gives you … hold on this is *so exciting* … pro tip videos, frag dolls, and a keychain (WTF?). If you can’t contain yourself either the box will be on store shelves March 18th for an extra $10. As if $60 wasn’t enough already, now we’re going to get some videos that will be on YouTube before lunchtime on the 18th and a freaking keychain for $69.99.
Someone send us a pic of their keychain. I’d love to know if the thing is even made from a semi-real’ish poker chip.
Game developers at top studios are rumored to work 100 hour weeks leading up to launch. All that work is starting to show. Their fantasies about what to do if they ever leave work keep showing up in games. This God of War clip for the PSP is the latest and least hidden example. I wonder if God of War will see the same negative attention and get pulled from store shelves like GTA: San Andreas or Mass Effect.
Disclaimer on the video: Not safe for work. Nothing graphic and no sexual acts depicted, just an implied menage a trois and digital nipples.
Between January 31st and today Super Smash Bros Brawl has sold 1.08 million copies in Japan. That’s the fastest-selling Wii game ever in Japan. Over 5 weeks faster than Wii Fit, sold separately from the console there, made it to the platinum sales mark.
We can hardly wait until March 9th, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else can either. Despite console shortages meaning less gamers to be shopping, I’ll bet when the game drops here it won’t take nearly 11 days for sales to hit the million mark.
[via Reuters]
Three new downloadable songs for Rock Band this week. This week is old school punk week, with all three bands contributing to the earliest sound of punk. All are the real things too, no covers this week.
If you’re a punk fan there’s also a 3-pack of all three songs available - for a big 50ยข savings.
The Australian copies of Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for Wii were missing support for 32-player battles as noted on the box, the game’s site, advertisements, etc. Now EA has finally admitted their mistake and removed any mention of multiplayer from their website. Via IGN, they’ve also announced refunds to anyone who purchased the game an expected it to have multiplayer support:
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for Wii does not support online functionality in Australia. We made an error in the documentation and marketing materials. We are very sorry to have caused confusion for our customers. We will provide a refund to anyone in Australia who wishes to return the game to EA because of the lack of online functionality.
No note on how to get the refund from EA, but we’re pretty sure that “refund” means you’re getting money back (some day). We’ll keep watching for info on how to get the refund and post here when it’s available.
Netflix has made their choice too. They’re officially choosing a high-definition format and dropping HD DVD in favor of Blu-Ray.
This won’t be the last nail in HD DVD’s coffin, but it’s a major one. It also means you should cancel your order for that XBox 360 HD DVD add-on. Microsoft has already admitted that they “could still develop a Blu-ray Disc drive for the Xbox 360.” Get with it already Microsoft, you’re falling even farther behind PS3 in the tech race.
Anyone reading this actually buy an HD DVD add-on for the XBox 360? It’s hard to be sympathetic to money bags, but tell about it in the comments and we’ll try.
Update: It looks like Best Buy has followed the Netflix lead today. They’ll be pushing Blu-Ray players in stores, though they’ll continue to sell HD DVD discs.
Activision made major bank in 2007. They published both Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4, the worldwide number one and two games in sales. Expect more of the same in 2008, with Activision being more than happy to stick to successful game franchises. Here’s the 2008 major releases we know about so far:
Plan for another fat, happy year if you own Activision stock, or their parent Vivendi Games (if owning stocks if your thing). If you’re a gamer, are you going to be happy with Guitar Hero IV, Call of Duty 5, and more of the same? Let us know in the comments.
[via Variety Blogs]
