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GameDaily BIZ has discovered that the developer of the next Guitar Hero entry will be Neversoft, and not Harmonix. With Harmonix being acquired by MTV, and Activision’s acquisition of the Guitar Hero franchise and publishers Red Octane, gamers might have suspected that changes were in the works. Now, confirmation comes from Neversoft’s website, which is now seeking positions for both the Tony Hawk and the Guitar Hero franchises. Neversoft generally has developed strong titles, but the development of a Guitar Hero sequel will be a fairly large departure for the company; gamers might have reason to worry about the future of the franchise.
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| GameDaily Biz
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Wii Disc Dump Utility Released
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Mods/Hacks, Nintendo, Wii,
A report a Wii Newz indicates that an experimental rip tool has been released for the Nintendo Wii. The tool is pretty limited at this point; according to Wii Newz, the tool requires one of three specific LG DVD-ROM drive models and takes approximately 50 hours to rip a single disc. While not really practical, one should never underestimate the ability of the Internet to find people with massive amounts of free time. Still, the tool is an interesting step towards getting Wii backups onto the Internet, and of course, some kind of hack on the Wii will be required to play these backups.
Read More | Wii Scene Newz
New Classic PS1 Titles To Hit Playstation Store
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3, PSP, Retro,
Sony has announced plans to drop a bunch of new content into the Playstation Store, according to Gamasutra. The company is making two classic PS1 games available for PSP transfer: Wipeout and Jet Moto, a couple of the more popular titles for the original Playstation. The titles will feature the standard $5.99 price point for all Playstation releases to date. In addition, owners of Genji: Days of the Blade will be able to grab a free alternate armor pack. Sony is also planning on releasing a multi-player upgrade for their downloadable launch title Blast Factor. The upgrade will not be free; gamers will have to pay $2.99 to get access to the new content, giving perhaps some insight into how Sony plans to handle add-on content in the future.
Read More | Gamasutra
EA Announces “The Sims Stories” Designed for PC Laptop
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Electronic Arts, PC, Portable/Mobile, Release Dates, Simulation,
EA has announced yet another game in the cash-cow Sims universe… this time it’s a set of standalone “Stories” built around characters in the Sims universe. Unlike previous Sims games, which seemed designed to suck every moment of your real life away so that you could give it to your virtual character, The Sims Stories are self-contained (i.e., they don’t require any previous games or expansion packs) and designed for short, casual play on PC laptops with modest specs. The first in a series, The Sims: Life Stories will be a comedy/romance which you play from the perspective of two different generically-named Sims, “Riley” and “Vince”. The initial story will be followed by The Sims: Pet Stories and The Sims: Castaway Stories.
Maybe it’s just that I never really got into the Sims universe, but this sounds like it has “flop” written all over it. How is EA going to convince gamers to spend their money on generic adventure games about everyday characters? It’s a lot like trying to convince somebody to play Sam and Max, but without any artistic style or wacky characters. I suppose you could make the argument that Sims Stories is to reality TV as Sam and Max is to cartoons (and boy is that there reality TV popular these days), but somehow I don’t see this working in the gaming sphere.
Regardless of its success, these games look like they were rather cheap for EA to produce, and will probably net them a bit of a profit. The game was only announced today, but will be debuting in stores on February 7, 2007, a scant 3 weeks away.
Click the jump for EA’s full press release…
Click to continue reading EA Announces “The Sims Stories” Designed for PC Laptop
Read More | EA.com
Xbox Live Video Marketplace to Make About $100 Million
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,
If estimates from Emerging Media Dynamics are correct, Microsoft could end up with a nice chunk of change in its pocket thanks to the recently unveiled Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The firm estimates that by 2011, Microsoft could make as much as $726 million via downloadable movie and video content, with about $92 million of that being made this year.
With all those videos being downloaded, Microsoft had better come out with a larger add-on harddrive soon. Something tells me that all that media isn’t going to fit on the piddly 20 GB drives that current 360 owners are using.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today announced that PS3 shipments in Japan have reached 1 million consoles, according to a Reuters report. Sony’s initial targets were to have 2 million consoles shipped by the end of the year; with today’s announcement, it looks like while Sony made its shipment targets in the US, the company missed its goals in Japan by two weeks. The announcement comes after Japanese analyst Nomura Securities indicated that Sony might miss its worldwide shipping targets by as much as 25% due to lackluster sales. Actual PS3 demand is somewhat hard to gauge, and gamers will probably have to wait for January NPD sales numbers to know the truth. Certainly the initial demand surge has slowed and finding a console has become much easier. Gamestop is trying to drive sales through a $100 PS2 trade-in offer, but still offers expensive bundles online for pre-order only.
Read More | Reuters
Nintendo DS Sells 1.7 Million In Europe
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Nintendo of America celebrated the success of the Wii and the DS in North America, now Nintendo of Europe is doing the same in their territory. Sales monitoring company Chart Track has released their sales numbers for the month of December, and in the UK Nintendo sold nearly 200,000 Wii consoles and 500,000 DS handhelds.
In Europe, Nintendo moved more than 700,000 Wii consoles and an amazing 1.7 million DS handhelds. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess nearly matched the attach rate in the US, selling 500,000 copies to 70% of Wii purchasers during December. With huge sales in Europe, Nintendo has basically stormed across the globe this holiday season.
Read More | Nintendo Europe
PS2 Backups Booting On PS3
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3,
Some enterprising gamer has figured out how to boot PS2 backups on the Playstation 3, assuming that one is willing to dismantle the PS3 and cut a hole in the top cover. Basically, the swap trick is an implementation of an existing hack used on the older Playstation 2 machines. The mod is interesting mainly because it shows off how deep the hardware compatibility for PS2 games goes, but if one really wanted to play back up Playstation 2 software, it probably makes a little more sense to pick up a cheap slimline PS2 and a Swap Magic disc rather than voiding the warrantee and risking the health of a $500 to $600 game console.
Read More | PS2 Scene
WarioWare Smooth Moves: Yep, It’s Pretty Darn Fun
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Nintendo, Reviews, Wii,
Those major, corporate-sponsored gaming news sites out there have posted their reviews of the highly-anticipated WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Wii. The overall impression? Heckuva fun… with some reservations. IGN.com notes the similarity (in release date at least) to the WarioWare: Touched game for the DS. Both games are meant to introduce gamers to a new way of controlling a system, and in that respect, IGN gives Smooth Moves the upper hand - overall they found the design of the game to be much tighter, with a better-thought-out game progression and a much wider variety of tasks. 1up.com posted similar impressions, noting that controller issues may pop up for the novice gamer especially in those challenges where the Wiimote has to be pointed at the screen and be able to “see” the IR bar. Finally, Gamespot.com gives Smooth Moves the superb score of 9.1, giving the game lots of nostalgia points for its incorporation of minigames that resemble Nintendo classics, from the NES through Gamecube. Regardless of the scores though (8.2, 8.0, and 9.0, respectively), all the sites agree that WarioWare has a severely high fun quotient, and is likely to become one of the best games for introducing folks to the control possibilities of the Wii.
We’ll be getting our hands on this game shortly, picking up our pre-order first thing tomorrow when it ships. We’ll have our own impressions posted soon after - personally, I can’t wait to watch my non-gaming friends try out this one.
Read More 
| IGN
Read More | 1Up
Read More | Gamespot
Ghostbusters Game In The Works? Maybe…
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Mods/Hacks, Rumors, Trailers, Xbox 360,
Whether it be a mod of Gears of War, a dedicated fan, or a pitch for a game that never came to be, these videos on YouTube have us wanting more… and remind me that I should go back and watch the original Ghostbusters again. Chances are we’ll never see this game on a console, but we can dream, can’t we?
The videos on YouTube feature some Gears-style 3rd-person gameplay, some very nicely lit driving movies and what look like tests of the Bill Murray character model. Be sure to click the jump for the rest of the videos!
Click to continue reading Ghostbusters Game In The Works? Maybe…
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