Sony did have some games to speak of at the GDC, specifically, the God of War and Ratchet & Clank franchises.
God of War 2 has been officially announced (as if there was ever any doubt) and is in production for the Playstation 2 (what?) by Sony’s Santa Monica Studio under the watchful eye of God of War producer and current gaming wonder-boy David Jaffe. Really, they could release the same game and I’d buy it, but there are some concerns that the sequel will be a quick cash in on the original. Jaffe had this to say: “"In the gaming world, it's rare that a sequel equals, let alone eclipses the original, but I think this is going to be the exception to the rule in terms of quality, gameplay and story. I always said that God of War was my dream game, well no longer, God of War II really is the game I've always wanted to play." Sure it sounds hammy, but you know you’re still going to buy the game when it comes out in early 2007.
Insomniac, creators of the Ratchet & Clank series, announced a new entry in the series for the Playstation 3. Not much else is known at this time, but the prospect of playing the wisecracking, gun-toting, robotic sidekick-sporting furry one is good enough for me right now. They’re also working on a Sci-Fi shooter called Resistance: Fall of Man (formerly I-8) which has been confirmed for release this year. It will most likely be a launch title for the PS3. Not much else is known about this one, but I’m betting it will make a fine shooter given Insomniac’s strengths.
Sony & Microsoft Put Best Foot Forward, Are Intentionally Vague
Written by Chase
Sony and Microsoft both showed up to the Game Developers Conference this week to outshine one another. Here’s what each company brought to the event concerning their systems.
Sony has finally elaborated a bit more on their next console system, the Playstation 3. This week they announced that the system would launch worldwide in early November as opposed to just “November 2006.” Of course this means that you, the consumer, will not actually see them in stores until May 2007 without either camping out or getting incredibly lucky. It has also been widely reported that the PS3 will come with a 60GB detachable hard drive standard. The same European Sony PR manager that said this also said that there will be several other sizes sold separately for extra storage, though he didn’t say anything specific about sizes or price. And of course, no price has been announced for the PS3 yet. Not that price is a warm fuzzy subject for most buyers, but I certainly want to know how much money I’m going to have to beg Grandma for this Christmas, don’t you?
Microsoft, already having their system out, had to focus on something else. What better to focus on than that the company might actually get their product out to stores in the near future? Microsoft announced that they will be increasing production of their system to “2 to 3 times” the original rate starting this week. These new yields can be attributed to component manufacturers getting more parts to Microsoft and the inclusion of a third manufacturer. Wait, you might be asking yourself, didn’t Chase write something about these happenings in January? Yes, I did and might I add that you have a fantastic memory!
Microsoft also announced that they will have 80 titles available for the Xbox 360 by June. This figure includes Xbox Live Arcade titles, however (to contrast that, the PSP saw the release of 9 new titles this week). On the subject of Xbox Live, Microsoft announced that their marketplace has logged 10 million downloads and that they did it faster than iTunes when it launched. This means little because iTunes and Microsoft’s marketplace operate differently with different payment structures (mostly that Microsoft customers pay for use of their system and iTunes charges by the download).
For putting a crappy spin on stories that were hardly news months ago, Microsoft gets an F. For being overly vague and less than forthcoming, Sony gets an F too. Neither company brought their A-game to this event. Hopefully they’re saving up for E3 or something.
I mean for the different territories, of course. Unless you have 500 bucks to burn and are willing to pre-pre-order, or you’re willing to camp out for days in advance, you probably won’t have one. Hopefully someone you know will be more fortunate. SCE Prez Ken Kutaragi stated that, due to delays in copy protection of blu-ray drive, the PS3 would ship worldwide in November 2006. Of course, Sony spewed some crap about producing 1 million systems a month to keep all supply channels full and having 6 million systems produced by March 2007, but you and I know there will be shortages.
OOOh! Also, Sony said that their new system would utilize a 2.5 inch, 60 GB hard drive. They do not know at this time whether or not they will package the hard drive with the system, presumably due to the already high price of the system. However, they have been telling developers to make games assuming that players already have the hard drive. So, a mandatory piece of equipment for your new shiny may not ship with said shiny because the shiny itself is too expensive. Does that make any sense?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145972.html
PSP Price Drop Incoming!
Written by Chase
On March 22, the PSP will drop to $199. In addition, a few new features and peripherals were announced. The largest among these were a PSX emulator that would, of course, allow you to play Playstation games on your PSP, and flash support for games. Because the PSP itself has very little internal memory, this seems to point to a new PSP model to be released soon that has internal flash memory. Sony didn’t mention anything about this, but if Nintendo can get away with it….
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145973.html
Mini News!
Written by Chase
For those of you that don’t like your news to be so filling, as the post above was, I’ve snagged a few mini news morsels from gaming blog joystiq. Consider them the bagel bites to other news sites’ deep-dish pizza. Try ‘em out sometime. They’re delicious.
Snoop Dog has launched his own gaming league fused with his favorite brand of music (no, not polka, dummy). The Hip Hop Gaming league is reserved for celebrities hand picked by d-o-double-g and began this past Saturday after the NBA All Star Weekend. I’m sure it will be wicked phat and stupid and pop n’ fresh (sorry, my geek is showing).
It’s been all but officially announced that there will be an online version of Gran Turismo 4 released sometime in the second quarter of this year. 6 people will be able to compete in online races along with player replays for download and rankings. No word on whether or not the original game will add any original content or what price will be, but our guess is that it will be released as a greatest hit. At any rate, you’ll soon be able to relive your loss to awesome_racer01 from his perspective!
Vin Diesel has signed on to play The Wheelman in a movie based on the Driver franchise. It won’t be out until 2007. I’m really not even going to bother with this one, because Joystiq said it better. This new franchise will "irrevocably change the very concept of entertainment forever."
A leaked document from Sony has revealed a few tidbits about God of War 2. Really we only know that it’s schedueled for release in February 2007 and it will be for the Playstation 2, not the 3. You can begin salivating for more over the top ancient Greek action now though. I won’t tell anyone.
Weekly Game News 
