I love you guys :)… When I posted about the mighty XBox 360 vs Playstation 3 battle in THIS POST I wouldn’t ever think it would generate more than 100 comments.

rice, m-man, Velocity, max and the others are generating a really interesting discussion on the argument. And it just required a little moderation to prevent flames (and some spam from a guy called Michael always posting about how good his mom was…).

Keep going on :)

(from IGN)

December 20, 2005 - If you`ve been keeping up with the Japanese game scene over the past few months, you might have heard of a new game company called AQ Interactive. This publisher released one of Japan’s Xbox 360 launch titles, Tetris: the Grand Master Ace and went on to announce a few additional titles for platforms that include the Xbox 360 and PSP. But it wasn’t until today that we learned the true nature of the beast.

AQ held a press conference today in Tokyo to formally introduce itself. The company, whose name stands for Artistic Quality, opened its doors on 10/1 as a publisher for three group development studios, Artoon, Cavia and Feel Plus. Together, these companies are known for such properties as Blinx and Drakengard. Artoon is currently working with Mistwalker on Blue Dragon for the Xbox 360 while Feel Plus is doing the same for Lost Odyssey. All together, between the three studios, the publisher claims to have 350 staffers creating games.
While the three studios will continue to work with different publishers, a number of projects will come under the AQ publishing brand. In addition to the previously announced Onimyou Nikki for the PSP, the company is working on an original RPG for the portable. DS will be getting an adventure game and an edutainment title. PS2 will be getting a game based off a girl-oriented comic license.

Revolution is included in the list, making AQ one of the first 3rd parties to commit support for Nintendo’s new platform. The company is working on an original action title and a game based off a major comic license. Additional details were not provided at the press conference.

More details are known on the company’s plans for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Xbox 360, in addition to a previously announced mahjong game, will get a new Cavia-developed title called Bullet Witch. Set in 2013, the game tells the story of a desperate fight between man, who is on the verge of extinction, and demons. You play as a witch named Alicia. Although the game clearly features some fantasy elements, it actually takes place in a realistic world setting.

Bullet Witch is an action adventure with story sequences intermixed with gun fights and magic. The game promises to make full use of the Xbox 360`s visual capabilities for its enemies, including giant dragon-like demons. Development is currently at 40% with a Japanese release planned for Spring of 2006.

The next title announced by AQ is Vampire`s Rain, which is being developed at Artoon for the Xbox 360 but will also be released on the PS3. Artoon CEO Naoto Oshima, one of the creative forces in the creation of the Sonic The Hedgehog series, is working directly on this title and promises a game that makes vampires scary once again.

Vampire`s Rain takes place in a city in suburban Los Angeles, where vampires have been determined to reside. Players take control of a special operative called John Lloyd and, having entered the city, must wipe out the vampires. The game will make heavy use of rain. A trailer shown at the press conference displayed realistic lighting and water effects.

Artoon is working network features into this title. The game will feature some sort of gameplay system where players need to figure out who’s a vampire and what they would do if they themselves were a vampire. Online gameplay will involve competitive play of some form.

Vampire Rain is set for Japanese release next Winter. The game is far enough in development that Artoon was able to demonstrate a real time version at the press conference.

AQ also has a third Xbox 360 title in the works, Cry On. This one is a joint project between Mistwalker and Cavia. It turns out that Mistwalker founder Hironobu Sakaguchi is actually a share holder in AQ Interactive, and he appeared in person to announce the game.

The theme of Cry On is tears. Sakaguchi, in a classic Sakaguchi moment, pointed out to attendees that tears come not just from sadness, but from happiness and being moved as well. Players will take control of main character Sally in this action adventure, working through scenarios that promise an emotional response.

Cry On takes place in a world where people live amongst giant sand creatures. We mistakenly reported earlier that Sally fights these giants. In fact, she’s actually in the company of one of them, a creature named Bogle, and fights alongside it. Although normally tiny, Bogle can transform into a giant beast to fight. He’ll do so when Sally is in danger. The game promises to give players the perspective not just of Sally, but of Bogle as well.

Sakaguchi himself is serving as producer and scenario writer on the title, and he promises a title that offers lots of freedom to players and also makes them think. Long-time musical partner Nobuo Uematsu is handling composition and says we can probably expect a vocal song to be included with the title. The game’s scenario is currently fifty percent complete, suggesting an early title, and one without a set release date at this point. AQ is putting some big funding behind this one, with a budget reportedly at 10 million dollars.

Finally, AQ made vague reference to a second PS3 title. The company is working on a major 3D game of some form, but that’s all the information that was provided.

My Review:

This * Cry On * game seems pretty exciting :) original, at least. What about vampires? Well… I’m sick of vampires. Please, stop it. We’ve playied TOO MANY VAMPIRES, game developers should evolve themselves.

The best Vampire game ever? Well… if a Half-Vampire is ok for you then try Castlevania: Simphony of the night for PS1. One of the best games ever, IMHO.

Also, Gun Fights and magic are an OLD, OLD, OLDER & OLD solution. Final Fantasy 7 (and the whole serie), Xeno Gears… they already owned it. Enormous demons? They had it, World of Warcraft has it… it’s not enough, damn it. Stop wasting money. Use them for relief, instead of making us more stupid.

Then, a reasonable critic could be… “you’ll have to see the story to tell”. Well, maybe. But they presented their game talking about guns, magic and enormous demons. This sounds OLD :)

Our dear friend, Kaz Hirai, released some news about Playstation 3.

On being late to market with PS3

“Looking at our history, we’ve never been first to market with any of our products. Saturn was there before the original PlayStation, and Dreamcast was out before the PS2. Plus, there have been so many handhelds before the PSP.

“People, especially people up north on the West Coast, seem to put a lot of credence on being out before the other consoles. If you take a look at when our competitors came out in the market, we had upward of 3 [million] to 5 million PS2 units when our competitors came out with a platform. Consumers adopted our platform because [they like our content] and not because we were first to market. And, first to market, from what we can tell, has never been an advantage.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about the entertainment content that you bring to the consumers, to the PlayStation family of products. We’re going to make sure we’re your family and that we’ll take care of you. The last generation isn’t just going away.”

On higher development costs

“Yes, costs are going to be expensive compared to the last generation, but we bring the three-platform strategy to the table because we’re giving publishers the opportunity to be in a healthy environment that allows them to invest in PS3 development.

“If you expand that out to the other platforms, I don’t know that it holds water. If you’re doing development for the Xbox 360, how much are you going to be able to advertise that or get support from the back end with revenue that you may get from current-generation titles. That’s questionable. But if you look at the PlayStation business, we’re providing that one solution that allows for good revenue on the PS2 and PSP that allows people to go spend it on PS3 development.”

On PlayStation’s responsibility within the Sony group

“If you look at Sony’s financial reporting in ‘95, we were bunched together in the “other” category, so it was a small blip on a lot of people’s radar. Now, it’s gotten to be such a big business for everyone that if you don’t plan, strategize, and execute, then the margin of error or the gap you might face is tremendous to the extent that you might have a huge impact. The videogame business has a significant impact on the overall bottom line for Sony, which has an impact on share prices, so I think the business has had to mature.”

On non-gaming functionality within PlayStation hardware

” We’ve talked about these machines, first and foremost, as a great way to play interactive entertainment. With that, we’ve coupled other functionalities-functionalities that not only looked good on paper but also brought something to the consumers. Take DVD playback on the PS2-more than 90 percent of all PS2 users actually play DVDs on their PS2s as well. If you take a look at the number of motion picture titles that sell through on the UMD video side of the business, that’s a feature that consumers have embraced. It’s not just some feature on a sell sheet. Having said all of that, the core is all about compelling interactive entertainment. If you don’t have that, then the other functionality they may have gets diluted as well.”

On online gaming

“Online is going to be like air conditioning in a car. I can’t imagine any car without it. We showed that online in the PS2 generation isn’t going to be the end, but it’s become a more integral part of the experience, and I think we’ve proven that. If you look at the latest metrics, SOCOM 3 has done some staggering numbers.”

On the violence debate

” The mainstream media still looks at the business as something for under 12-year-olds. As we know, nothing could be further from the truth. Just like in books or motion pictures, there’s right entertainment content for different demographics. We’ve gone out of our way in explaining the rating system. We evolved it a lot quicker than other industries. We’ve done a lot of different things. The ESRB and the ESA have been very proactive as well, and I think it’s come a long way.”

sounds boring, doesn’t it?

Another Microsoft jerk came out saying that the must-have Sony Playstation 3 will not be able to compete with their Xbox 360.
Let’s see what I’ve read :)
You tell that to all the people that thought Xbox 360 was going to have super-duper DVD technology, and all the people that are already disappointed in the lack of Xbox 360 units available, while some consumers call the Xbox 360 launch the most horrible and mismanaged launch for a video game console.

Speaking about Sony PlayStation 3, let’s not forget what the die-hard fans of Sony PS3 thought in Japan. You know, Sony-land. Japan consumers made it clear that the Microsoft Xbox 360 isn’t the same type of next-gen console they wanted. Afterall, Sony is promising all the DVD and HD goodies for the PlayStation 3.

I am sure that most of the gamers in Japan just laughed at what they saw, after learning a bit on what the Sony has planned for the PS3.

Microsoft is left with complete embarassment after the Japan launch. Xbox 360 retailers in Japan still have plenty of stock on shelves. Shoppers are just walking by.

Meanwhile, there is a shortage in North America and Europe, causing Xbox 360 pre-order consumers to become angry, and perhaps, regretful that they even placed any money for this console. Still waiting, since mid-November, still no Xbox 360.

Amazon really messed up this launch even further by taking November pre-orders, then launching some “early-bird” special to allow new consumers to buy the Xbox 360 right away. Again, putting the Xbox 360 pre-order consumers back on the bottom of the stack.

Microsoft does promise new shipments before Christmas, but not that many. Here we go again, another “2 or 4″ Xbox 360 consoles for eachr Wal-Mart!

How long can this go on before the game market shifts to Sony PlayStation 3? If Microsoft really wants us to believe that the Xbox 360 is this giant-muscle console that will dominate Sony PlayStation 3, they are wishing. I mean, it’s another marketing hype thing.

I am sure when Sony or Nintendo Revolution launches their game consoles, it won’t be the total disaster we’ve seen with Microsoft. The largest software company in the world has an excuse for everything — on why there are shortages, and why their console is the best.

And now comes the dreadful noise from a Microsoft top boss trying to convince people that the Sony PS3 cannot compete with the Microsoft Xbox 360. Geeze, not so fast there, Microsoft. Get your own problems fixed before making such accusations.

This was an article from GameShout.

I don’t see the point in publishing Microsoft’s babblings, but I guess someone likes to read it :). The “next generation console war” is the business before the business.

A lot of rumors about Microsoft employees and, again, almost nothing about games.

Blah.

I’ve got them! :)

Thanks to PS3 Updates (and Kotaku) I’m giving out some cooooooOoOol screenshot of our favourite Third Person shooter. Unreal tournament 2007 screenshots for everyone :)

just Click the UT 2007 screenshots’ thumbnail to enlarge it.

Well… I’m not sure they come from the PS3 version, but it shouldn’t be so far, in any case…

The Canadian Digital Extremes is actually (apparently) working on a new, exciting title:

* Dark Sector *

Being developed for next-gen consoles (and pc as well), it’s going to be a third-person shoot-em-up. We can hope for a worldwide release in Q3 2007, but the game has already become extremely popular among gaming forums and various medias as one of the *must have* titles for the new gaming devices, including our lovely PS3.

“Our focus at D3Publisher continues to be acquiring good, mass-market appeal licensed properties, and the acquisition of IP from selected developers designed for next generation machines,” said Yoji Takenaka, exec. vice president and COO for D3PA. “The opportunity to work with the world renowned design team that James Schmalz has assembled at Digital Extremes is just too good to pass up. They have an outstanding reputation for gorgeous graphics, polished gameplay and high quality production values. We are very proud to be working with them on Dark Sector.”
And then…

“We are very fortunate based on our previous successes to be in a position of being selective with our business partners,” commented James Schmalz, Digital Extremes founder. “D3Publisher impressed us with their commitment to publishing high quality next-generation games that exceed gamers’ expectations, which we certainly expect to do with Dark Sector. We consider this game to be the culmination of the experience we have garnered over the years in creating cutting-edge entertainment and we are pleased to be working with them to bring Dark Sector to gamers around the world.”

As I explained before, Dark Sector is a third-person shooter where players assume the role of the super-hero Hayden Tenno, a weird guy able to morph himself into many combat forms. A fictional Soviet-bloc country in the near future is the scenario, and the game features both single and multi-player action, where players challenge other players on unforgettable duels, with their powerful biological weapons.
I never liked third person shooters (maybe as I’m really week at playing them :) but If a game excites me I play it regardless of its genre. So, I’ll wait for Dark Sector as everyone else.

Some info about Digital Extremes? Here it is:

Digital Extremes ranks as one of the world’s top independent development studios in the interactive entertainment industry. The Canadian based developer is best known for its co-creation of Epic Games’ Unreal, the multi-million unit selling franchise which includes the award-winning PC series Unreal and Unreal Tournament as well as Xbox hit Unreal Championship. Digital Extremes is currently in production on its next-generation title, Dark Sector using its proprietary next-gen technology, the Sector Engine.

Cloud Strife, THE man.

I’m writing this post as I’m particularry excited about the eventuality of a Final Fantasy 7 PS3 remake, expecially after I took another look at the “Technical Demo” by GameSpot.

Just in case you didn’t know, Final Fantasy 7 is not only the best chapter in the series, but (IMHO) one of the best videogames EVER. Its story is a romance. An exciting experience. A great adventure.

Now, if you never playied FF7, please buy a PS1 and play it. Even if you don’t like RPGs. THEN, come back here to discuss about games :)

I used Cloud, Red XII and Barrett (and, eventually, Vincent Valentine) - what a party :)…

And I am not alone :)… they organized a petition for a final fantasy 7 ps3 remake !!!

Almost 6000 signatures, leave yours as well.