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In case any of you were wondering what was and wasn't true yesterday, Gamespot has a rundown on some of the stories that made the rounds on 2005's April 1st. From the article: "One of the day's more devious pranks--also spread by the now obviously complicit Slashdot--plays on the fears of many gamers. In particular, it outlines the nightmare scenario of those who shelled out $99.99 for the Final Fantasy XI/PS2 hard drive bundle. Namely, if its subscriber base dwindles, Sony might discontinue support for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game." Heh.

Gamespot has word that the planned pre-E3 showing of the Playstation 3 console, to be held in Japan, has been canceled. From the article: "Sony told Reuters that it decided to cancel the PS3 meeting because it 'would pressure game publishers' if held in March, but it left the door open for another pre-E3 event. The company also emphasized that the cancellation is not a sign that the PlayStation 3 development is falling behind, and it still intends to unveil the machine at E3 at the latest."

Ayaress writes "As reported on Gamestop, Sony will now warranty PSP units suffering from dead pixels. Sony still insists that dead pixels are a common problem in all LCD displays, saying "A very small number of dark pixels or continuously lit pixels is normal for LCD screens, and is not a sign of a malfunction," and asks that PSP owners use theirs for at least a week or two, to see if it still bothers them. User who encounter, "persistent and aggravating dead pixels," are instructed to contact Sony customer support, and will be allowed to mail in their PSP to recieve a unit with a new screen."

Sony's handheld console has launched with great fanfare, and already there are plenty of places to get opinions and reviews. Shacknews has a nice hands on with the player itself, Gamespy has reviews of the launch titles, and Gamespot has coverage of just about everything on its PSP Launch Center page. From the Shacknews hands-on: "Technically speaking, the PSP is a far superior machine to the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS. It's a powerhouse device, capable of displaying modern graphics, playing robust sound, and can even replace a portable DVD player. However, many of its launch titles are just watered-down versions of PS2 games and Sony has no experience in portable gaming. Nintendo has been doing it right for a decade and half, why should we think the PSP can just waltz onto the scene and take over? Can it even be done?"

With the looming launch of Sony's handheld console, X-Play has a series of articles comparing and contrasting the new and shiny portable gaming consoles. The articles are broken into three parts, The PSP vs. the DS, The DS vs. the PSP, and The Final Verdict. From the final article: "Are two screens better than one? Are graphics all that matter? In this third and final edition of my Sony PSP vs. Nintendo DS editorial, I'll compare each handheld bit-by-bit and determine which of the two is worth your hard-earned cash."

Gamespot has a thoughtful and interesting piece up entitled Everything is Possible, where they interview several game designers with a strong storytelling background. The interviewees include Chris Avellone (Planescape: Torment), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear), Ken Levine (System Shock 2), Tim Schafer (Grim Fandango), and Ragnar Tørnquist (The Longest Journey). These gaming luminaries discuss the finer points of creating a plot in an interactive universe, and it makes for a fantastic read. From the article: "Ken Levine: I'll never forget the first story I wrote in gaming. It was for a (eventually canceled) Star Trek: Voyager game. I wrote the opening cutscene, which included this gem: THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON JANEWAY...WE SEE A LOOK OF TERROR IN HER EYES AS IT REFLECTS THE INCOMING MISSILE The lead programmer pretty much laughed in my face. First of all, our characters were low-resolution bitmaps, with one fixed expression on their face. Their eyes were maybe 4x4 pixels each. The camera zooming in on that wouldn't have shown a performance; they would have shown a scattered mess of random pixels."

Gamespot has coverage of the appearance on an official Korean Xbox site of a "Halo 2 X-Pack". The possible expansion is another possible way for Bungie and Microsoft to get the heavily foreshadowed ending to fans of the series. From the article: "Such a Halo 2 expansion could be a twofold boon for Microsoft, adding another incentive for gamers to join its online service and squeezing further dollars from the nearly 7 million gamers who already have Halo 2."

Gamespot has the news that the European launch of the PSP is to be delayed by several months in order for the company to build up enough units to meet demand. From the article: "Americans need not fret--Sony has promised one million PSPs for its launch in North America."

An event anticipated all week by many of the conference attendees, the Keynote delivered by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was informative and inspiring. He spoke early on Thursday morning to a packed room that broke out into pleased applause several times during the speech's delivery. His talk spoke of the future, Nintendo's vision, and a commitment to reaching out beyond the current crop of game players to folks beyond the hardcore. Read on for a bevy of coverage and my own commentary on the "The Heart of the Gamer". (And some Zelda footage, if you care about that.) Before I discuss my impressions of the talk, there is quite a bit of coverage to spread around. Chris Morris at CNN Money has details from the talk, as does Che Chou on 1up.com, Matt Casamassina on Cube.IGN, Alice on the Wonderland Blog, Ben Zackheim on Joystiq, and Tor Thorsen at Gamespot. Gamespot in particular has something you might be interested in checking out, the second Official Trailer for The Legend of Zelda.

President Iwata began the talk by announcing that he has some conflict within himself in his role as president. He's only a President on his Business Card, he said. In his mind, he's a Game Designer. And in his heart, he's just a gamer. He began programming games on his pocket calculator, with no games, and became attached to Nintendo by being a part of the small Hal design company. Hal, he stated, came from the computer in 2001 a space Odyssey because the name sounded cool. The company created the Kirby and Earthdawn titles, and as time went on he found himself working full time for Nintendo.

He's been making games, then, for almost two decades, and he discussed some of the things that have changed and some of the things that have stayed the same in the business since then. Overall, he saw most of the changes be to size. Bigger budgets, bigger complexity, bigger attention from worldwide media. On the other hand, there are fewer risks, fewer visions, and fewer ways of thinking about players and games.

To respond to this, Nintendo has committed itself to not abandoning the core gamers. Metroid Prime will be out later this year, and the demo shipped with the DS system. Geist is going to be a new and interesting version of a shooter, Zelda appeals to hard-core gamers and regular gamers alike, and Resident Evil 4 is a GC exclusive.

On the other hand, Nintendo is really trying to push out of the current player base and into the market beyond. The DS is their flagship for this effort, and they've currently sold 4 Million units (with the European launch of the system today). Mario Kart DS is an upcoming title for the system, will bridge the gap for both new and old gamers, and is going to utilize wireless play to let up to 8 people play together. Beyond that, though, they really want to give players more than just what they already know they want.

To that end, DS Wifi will be rolling out by the end of the year. The goal of the system is to allow gamers to play together over large distances, simply and seamlessly. Most importantly, the service is going to be completely free of charge. This service will hook people who have never used wifi services before into a new arena of technology, and their new style of games will reach out to people who don't really want to play "games". Nintendogs has already received a lot of press, and is one of these tools to reach out to the non-gamer. If you'd like a look at a portion of the Nintendogs presentation, you can view that here. They didn't reveal anything terribly new, but did show off the microphone capability of the game. The person demoing Nintendogs would whistle, and the dog would come running. By issuing voice commands that he'd pre-selected the virtual critter would perform for him. Even more interesting was the non-game they showed off entitled ElectroPlankton. The music/sound experiment utilizes the microphone as well, and you can see three portions of the game here, here, and here.

The Revolution was only mentioned, but they did give out some new and interesting information. It will be completely backwards compatible with the Gamecube, ensuring that the most popular of the current stable of games will be available into the future. As with the DS, it will also be wifi enabled for mysterious purposes that they didn't really go into. Their chips and technology are completely on track, and more will be revealed at E3.


Overall President Iwata was a very arresting speaker. He had excellent delivery, his message was one of change and a new look at gameplay, and he was promising more of what we already know to be good gaming experiences. As they were two of the largest events at the conference, comparing the Nintendo and Microsoft speeches is a must. In general, the "yay Nintendo" aspect was just as much of a commercial endeavor as existed in the Microsoft keynote. Iwata was taking the opportunity to promote his company's vision of the future, and that naturally trends towards the products and services fo the company he represents.

At the same time, though, I felt a lot more hopeful listening to President Iwata than I did listening to Allard. The "HD Future" isn't much to get excited about. A Gamer's card and higher resolution isn't something that really leaps beyond the norm of what we have today. Incremental changes are needed, of course, but keynotes are meant to fire the blood. Iwata did that more effectively through the invoking of something that everyone in the room had in common: "The Heart of a Gamer". Nintendogs and Electroplankton may not be the way to make this industry sell its first 20 million unit title, but like the analogy that Iwata used in speech, they're definitely not of this gaming world. And exploration is something that I think is on far too few peoples minds in the gaming industry today.

Plenty more excellent writeups to share as the Game Developer's Conference comes to an end. Gamespot has The Dark Spirit of Silent Hill, discussing how to craft the spooky survival horrors. Alice has worked her fingers to nubs writing on the Wonderland blog, and offers up Can MMOs Develop Mass Appeal?, and Burn the House Down, a ranting session between Warren Spector and some other surly curmudgeons. From the post: "But I have to say something so I want to say how this business is hopelessly broken. Haha. We're doing pretty much everything wrong. This is at the root of much of what you're gonna hear today. Games cost too much. They take too long to make. The whole concept of word of mouth, remember that? Holy cow it was nice."

DeeFresh writes "An article on Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that Judge R. Gary Klausner dismissed many of the Marvel's claims against NCSoft. From the article: 'Judge Klausner also agreed with the defendants that some of Marvel's allegations and exhibits should be stricken as 'false and sham' because they were not actually created by users of the game but by Marvel itself.'" Commentary also available on Gamespot.com.

Gamespot has a look at Microsoft's upcoming plans for PC gaming. In addition to a definite gaming perspective for the Longhorn OS and a commitment to the XNA studios package, they have word that someday we may be loading PC games much like console games. From the article: "Tray and Play is exactly what it sounds like - dropping a game disc into an optical drive and loading it up immediately, rather than having to install it to a hard drive. True to form, the game itself cut straight to a start-up screen in less than a minute (including the game's own built-in load time)."

Gamespot has the word that designer Warrren Spector has gone ahead and formed his own development shop. The company, Junction Point, is titled after a MMOG that Warren designed but never got off the ground. From the article: "The company has started preliminary development on a "fantasy" title created by Spector, who worked at Dungeons and Dragons creator TSR in the 1980s. Although Spector said the title was rapidly evolving, he did not give any indication about what specific subgenre the game would fall under or what platforms it would be released for."

The Seventh Annual Independent Games Festival doesn't start until tomorrow (indeed, the kiosks at the Moscone Center aren't even set up yet), but if you're interested in the contenders you can play many of them at Gamespot. While not all of the games have demos, the ones that do are definitely worth checking out.

Gamespot has a story detailing comments by Square Enix president Youichi Wada. In the article, they touch on the fact that Square is going to be increasingly looking to online play in their future games. From the article: "Wada predicted that online games will be Square Enix's main source of income in the future. 'I think that over half of our income and profit will be based on network content [including games] by 2008 or 2009.'"

A good week for MMOG gamers, as Star Wars Galaxies Patch 13.0 goes into effect, revamping the Galactic Civil War and making way for the Combat Upgrade. World of Warcraft players, likewise, should be happy to learn about future game developments in upcoming patches. There are a lot of folks in that last category, as Blizzard stated this week that they've sold more than 800,000 copies of WoW, making Warcraft the largest U.S. based MMOG. If you're interested in learning more about MMOG stats, SirBruce's mmogchart.com has recently been updated with new information. Speaking of learning, registration will begin soon for the academically inclined Games+Learning+Society conference to be held in Madison, Wisconsin. If the concept intrigues you there are only 200 passes to go around, so you'd best sign up early. Gamespot's weekly Rumor Control article certainly intrigues, and this week states that Half-Life 2's Alyx is likely to be a playable character in an upcoming expansion to the hit game. A female protagonist would be a nice change of pace. Women in games in general are a good thing, and GameGirlAdvance has a lengthy survey for women gamers and women in the games industry to fill out.

Gamespot has the word that Nintendo will be allowing Japanese gamers a full taste of the DS' wireless capabilities. DS owners will be able to download content at kiosks in selected stores across Japan. From the article: "[Downlaoded] demos will remain on the DS units 'until power is turned off.' The one exception is some additional music for Jam with the Band. 'After turning off power, the [Jam with the Band] data remains,'"

Swedish company Funcom has signed a deal with Massive, Inc to stream advertising into public areas of Rubi-Ka, the online world within Anarchy Online. Gamespot has the story. The ads are likely a direct result of the recent subscription free business model that the company has adopted for new players. From the article: "As consumers spends less time watching television and more time playing games (as indicated by numerous studies, including one from Nielsen), the game industry is turning its attention to understanding the potential to drive additional revenue from in-game advertising." Are all massive games going to be moving in this direction, or the direction that Guild Wars will take?

Voodoo Extreme has the story that talented development house Troika Games has closed its doors as a result of lack of funding for future projects. Rumours of their closure have circled for the last week or so, but today's announcement makes the closure official. Troika is best known for its table-top RPG adaptations, such as The Temple of Elemental Evil and games based on Vampire: The Masquerade. From the announcement: "We want to thank all of our fans for their support these past seven years, it has really meant a lot to us that there were people out there who enjoyed our games enough to create fan-sites and follow our progress as a company. But we especially want to thank all of our employees - we had the pleasure of working with the some of the most dedicated, hard working, creative people in the industry, and we really appreciate all that they did for Troika."

Gamespot has the story about a heads up arcade version of Gamecube favorite Mario Kart. The arcade version will apparently have several tweaks from its console brother to allow for the changes in setting. From the article: "The Mario Kart series features an item system so that players can catch up by using them when they're trailing behind, but with the new rubber-band system that Namco implemented [in Mario Kart Arcade GP], the races become a really close-pitched match..."

Final Fantasy XII will be delayed in appearing on the PS2, and will miss the intially expected release date of Spring 2005. Gamespot has the story and the news that, on the upside, starting in April Square/Enix will be releasing a new game every month for several months. From the article: "Square Enix also plans to boost its worldwide sales. Currently, about 30 percent of Square Enix's game sales take place outside of Japan. Wada told Bloomberg that he hopes to increase that number to more than 50 percent."

Varg Vikernes writes "FOXNews reports on a lawsuit that claims the video game 'Grand Theft Auto' led a teenager to shoot two police officers and a dispatcher to death in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game. 'What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin... to kill three men,' attorney Jack Thompson told The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the suit's filing. Thompson is also filing suit against Wal-Mart, Gamestop, Take-Two and Sony." Gamespot has coverage of this story as well. Thompson has made something of a career out of lawsuits of this nature.

Voodoo Extreme has the word that EA and Ubisoft are in talks regarding a possible takover price for the French company. From the article: " The talks are still preliminary and running parallel with other approaches that family-run Ubisoft is making to broker solutions that might shake off a bid from EA but they could be the beginning of an eventual agreement between the two, the paper said, citing people familiar with the situation." Gamespot states that EA denies the topic of takeover is on the block during the talks. No word on what such a development would have on Ubisoft's relationship with the Canadian government.

GotSanity asks: "I have a little brother who is now 18 and still can not read or do basic math. At an early age he was diagnosed with a level 10 mental handicap. I am curious as to what technology is available to help teach him to read. The major problems with most educational software I have found is that they both cater to younger minds (even though he has a learning disability he still is involved with everyday teenager activities like video games and music) and are often far to expensive for a working class family. I originally got him a copy of Typing of the Dead, and through it he has been learning to read and spell better. What novel education ideas can the Slashdot community suggest?"

GamesIndustry.biz has the news that the Xbox 2 will be launched sometime in late fall of this year. With EA games already working on Xbox 2 titles and rumors of a name for the console in circulation, it looks like the first of the next-gen consoles will be here soon. From the article: "Many have expressed concern that Microsoft is forcing the next generation of console hardware too early, and that the current generation still has much to achieve. The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit." Additionally, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has Balmer saying that they will "blow by Sony" with their next console.

Ubisoft and the Canadian government are coordinating to create a game development university on the scenic Ubisoft campus, reports Gamespot. Marking continued cooperation between Ubisoft and the Quebecois government, the new 'university' would be in direct competition with EA's similar program set in California. From the article: "Ubisoft Campus students will receive degrees accredited by Québec's Ministry of Education. For undergraduates, each study program will be 45 weeks long, divided into three 15-week terms. The school will also offer master's programs in computer science and software engineering, with added courses in digital imaging and electronics."

Gamespot's weekly rumour control tackles several issues this week, the most intriguing being the possibility that the Starcraft: Ghost title may be coming out on next-gen consoles. From the article: "However, according to Blizzard, the listing is erroneous. 'It is not coming to next-generation consoles,' said a spokesperson. 'It is currently slated for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.'" They also state that the rumoured Xbox 360 name is likely a non-starter. Which is probably a good thing.

Gamespot has the word that Atari has reported a drop in profits for the third quarter. Earnings were down roughly $30 million compared to the same period last year. As a result, they are closing the company's Santa Monica and Beverly, MA studios. From the article: "In an e-mail sent to employees shortly before today's earnings call with analysts, new Atari CEO and president Jim Capparro outlined his plan to 'move Marketing and the coordination of Product Development and Production to New York, where those functions will be in close proximity to our center of operations.'"

CheesyPeteza writes "GameSpot is reporting that the popular game messenger client Xfire is being sued by Yahoo for patent infringement. The patent was originally granted to two Yahoo employees who developed GameProwler for Yahoo Messenger. It describes a system which "allows users to use a game server in connection with a messenger server to permit 'buddies' to know when other 'buddies' are playing games online, and easily join such games." One of these employees then left Yahoo to work for Xfire. Xfire denies infringing on Yahoo's patent, but with the costs estimated at $2 million to defend this cas, will the startup company Xfire be able to stand up to the Yahoo giant?"

Gamespot has the word that Yahoo! has filed a lawsuit against XFire, just two months after Yahoo!'s acquisition of the All-Seeing Eye, a similar game matching program. However, the lawsuit seems to revolve around the Yahoo! developed GameProwler. The program allows instant messaging users to see if buddies are currently playing games. From the article: "As this complaint is just one week old, no 'next steps' are certain. Lawyers familiar with patent law have told GameSpot a case like this could cost up to $2 million to defend and take up to two years to fully adjudicate."

Gamespot has the word that Yahoo! has filed a lawsuit against XFire, just two months after Yahoo!'s acquisition of the All-Seeing Eye, a similar game matching program. However, the lawsuit seems to revolve around the Yahoo! developed GameProwler. The program allows instant messaging users to see if buddies are currently playing games. From the article: "As this complaint is just one week old, no 'next steps' are certain. Lawyers familiar with patent law have told GameSpot a case like this could cost up to $2 million to defend and take up to two years to fully adjudicate."

Take-Two publishing's 2K Games label, unveiled late last month, has acquired yet more hit titles to go alongside the MLB and Civilization franchises, according to Gamespot. Elder Scrolls IV, sequel to the hit Morrowind, and long anticipated Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth will be copublished with Bethesda Softworks.

Gamespot has an overview of Nintendo's strategy for the next few months. DS sales, female users, and penetration of the older market is up, while DS software sales are down owing to bundled software. The Big N is still trying to decide how much information to share about the Revolution at E3. From the article: "We want to receive some level of evaluation, but releasing too much information is also another issue. We don't have the slightest intention of making a machine that follows the same path as conventional game hardware."

Gamespot has the news that the much anticipated driving simulator Gran Turismo 4 releases on February 22nd in the U.S., while European drivers will be able to purchase the game on March 9th. From the article: "Before it finally launched in Japan on December 28, the much-lauded driving game had experienced delays of more than a year. Gran Turismo 4 will feature more than 700 automobiles from more than 80 manufacturers racing across new locales--including the city streets of the Big Apple and Las Vegas. Consistent with the series, drivers will compete in races to acquire various licenses and move up in the ranks. Unfortunately, the game will not include an online mode."

Ubisoft announced this morning that they have come to an agreement with 3 Rings Design to publish Puzzle Pirates in retail stores. This exciting news couldn't come for a better game, winner of the IGF 2004 Technical Excellence and Audience Awards for Online games. From the Puzzle Pirates site: "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is an online game in which you play a Pirate character in an ocean world. Hundreds of your fellow player Pirates swarm these Isles and Sea-lanes. For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game, or mmoarrrrpg." Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is available for Demo on PC/Mac/Linux.

Gamespot has the news that EA's corporate communications vice president Jeff Brown sees the MLB deal as 'stupid money'. From the article: "As far as we're concerned, this looks like stupid money. They are paying an exclusive price for a nonexclusive agreement."

Cymoro writes "In an article Gamespot posted recently Ken Kutaragi, Sony Computer Entertainment president, was quoted in a japanese business magazine about the PSP square button defect as saying "There may be people that complain about its usability, but that's something which users and game software developers will have to adapt to." Apparently, flaws are a feature."

Gamespot and GamesIndustry.biz has the news from yesterday's conference call where EA CEO Larry Probst reported higher earnings for his company in Q3, despite a small yearly decline. He also held forth on the future cost of next-gen games, which in his opinion will likely stay as high as $50 and could perhaps fetch more on retail shelves. Just before this story was to be published, Tim Butler wrote in with the news from 1Up.com that EA was laying off members of its LA studio. From the article: "According to sources close to the company, Electronic Arts is currently in the process of laying off between 50-70 team members from its minty-fresh new EA LA office. The teams affected worked on the poorly-recieved GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and the forthcoming Medal of Honor: Dogs of War FPS titles." Update: 01/27 06:34 GMT by Z : Update to the layoff article: "The first step is to rebalance the team. This has required us to let go 60 people -- from many different teams. There is no focus on any one team or any one class of individuals. It's a studio-wide thing to reset the business fundamentals and get the studio to the next level."

Gamespot has the news that Take-Two Interactive's MLB deal has already had repercussions. Sega has gotten out of the sports business, selling their internal sports studio Visual Concepts to Take-Two for a bargain price. This newest addition in hand, Take-Two has turned around and launched a new game label entitled 2K games. From the article: "2K Games will incorporate Take-Two's internally owned development studios Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software, and Frog City Software, as well as the team at Take-Two Licensing..." This new label will have a subsidiary specifically tuned for sports titles. As expected, it appears the sports game market is now going to fall to only a few companies. Commentary on Greg Costikyan's Blog

Gamespot has the news that Take-Two Interactive's MLB deal has already had repercussions. Sega has gotten out of the sports business, selling their internal sports studio Visual Concepts to Take-Two for a bargain price. This newest addition in hand, Take-Two has turned around and launched a new game label entitled 2K games. From the article: "2K Games will incorporate Take-Two's internally owned development studios Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software, and Frog City Software, as well as the team at Take-Two Licensing..." This new label will have a subsidiary specifically tuned for sports titles. As expected, it appears the sports game market is now going to fall to only a few companies. Commentary on Greg Costikyan's Blog

Gamespot has a piece up about industry analyst reactions to the EA / ESPN deal. They span the gamut from appreciation for a smart business move to a frustration with a company throwing its weight around. From the article: "Has the fat lady finally sung in the sports-game wars? Should all the other publishers pack it in and head for the showers? Opinions are mixed, but this week's news was one of the year's biggest wins--for Electronic Arts. Now, the industry girds for a string of earnings calls where executives at publicly traded companies--EA and others--will surely face a grilling from curious analysts."

To finish up the season of "Best of the Year" pieces we have IGN's Best of 2004, where they take a look at the games across several different categories. At the same time Gamespot is offering a Most Anticipated of 2005 feature, games that their editorial staff are looking forward to for the coming year. From the article: "Though the release slate may lack some of the sizzling franchises that were refreshed just months ago, it's quite clear that there's no lack of promising or exciting games on the horizon."

Gamespot is reporting that EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st, with the game being in stores on the 3rd. Gamespot also has an interview with the producer discussing new gameplay options, and the first official trailer. From the interview: "We expect the college experience for a single sim to last about double the length of the teen life span. But a single sim won't necessarily be able to experience all that college has to offer, so we anticipate that players will bring multiple sims to college and play them in very different ways."

Gamespot is reporting that EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st, with the game being in stores on the 3rd. Gamespot also has an interview with the producer discussing new gameplay options, and the first official trailer. From the interview: "We expect the college experience for a single sim to last about double the length of the teen life span. But a single sim won't necessarily be able to experience all that college has to offer, so we anticipate that players will bring multiple sims to college and play them in very different ways."

Gamespot has the word that Resident Evil 4 has (finally) lurched and shambled onto the console market. From the article: Set after the events of previous RE installments, Resident Evil 4 follows series protagonist Leon S. Kennedy on an all-new adventure outside Raccoon City, the setting of the most of the previous games. This time around, the US government operative has been sent to a small European village in search of the president's missing daughter. However, since this is a Resident Evil game, he instead finds zombies--lots of zombies." Nothing like an outbreak of the undead to put on your tourist brochure. Reviews available via Gamespot and Gamespy.

Gamespot has the word that Resident Evil 4 has (finally) lurched and shambled onto the console market. From the article: Set after the events of previous RE installments, Resident Evil 4 follows series protagonist Leon S. Kennedy on an all-new adventure outside Raccoon City, the setting of the most of the previous games. This time around, the US government operative has been sent to a small European village in search of the president's missing daughter. However, since this is a Resident Evil game, he instead finds zombies--lots of zombies." Nothing like an outbreak of the undead to put on your tourist brochure. Reviews available via Gamespot and Gamespy.

After the news earlier this week that Mario would be shooting hoops in NBA Street, I decided that Nintendo had reached the end of its tie-in rope with Mario. I was wrong. The newest Dance Dance Revolution title for the Gamecube will be called Dance Dance Revolution with Mario. From the article: "As the title suggests, Dance Dance Revolution with Mario is a new installment in Konami's DDR dancing game series, featuring characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. Details on the game haven't been disclosed yet, but from the released images, DDR with Mario seems to play similarly to DDR, with familiar backdrops featured in the 3D installments of the Super Mario series." Ow.

After the news earlier this week that Mario would be shooting hoops in NBA Street, I decided that Nintendo had reached the end of its tie-in rope with Mario. I was wrong. The newest Dance Dance Revolution title for the Gamecube will be called Dance Dance Revolution with Mario. From the article: "As the title suggests, Dance Dance Revolution with Mario is a new installment in Konami's DDR dancing game series, featuring characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. Details on the game haven't been disclosed yet, but from the released images, DDR with Mario seems to play similarly to DDR, with familiar backdrops featured in the 3D installments of the Super Mario series." Ow.

The Japanese launch of Gran Turismo 4 has been a roaring success, with Gamespot reporting that the game sold one million copies in two days. From the article: "The game's shipment beats the Gran Turismo series' record of 1 million copies in three days, set by Gran Turismo 3 from April 28 to 30, 2001. Overall, the franchise has sold 36 million cumulative copies worldwide since the title was released in 1997." They also have a piece discussing their impressions while testing the japanese version of the game.

The Japanese launch of Gran Turismo 4 has been a roaring success, with Gamespot reporting that the game sold one million copies in two days. From the article: "The game's shipment beats the Gran Turismo series' record of 1 million copies in three days, set by Gran Turismo 3 from April 28 to 30, 2001. Overall, the franchise has sold 36 million cumulative copies worldwide since the title was released in 1997." They also have a piece discussing their impressions while testing the japanese version of the game.