| Blurbs By Company |
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| Written by Chase | |
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None of these bits of information are worthy of their own headline, but they’re worth sharing with you, because you, dear reader, are special. Why? Because you’re willing to accept such patronizing comments! Blurbs are sorted by Company. Sony This week Sony announced that their system has recently entered production and the first completed systems will be in their possession by the end of the month. Supposedly, this puts them on track to hit their mark of 2 million consoles available at launch, 4 million by Christmas, and 6 million by the end of March. These are worldwide numbers so expect to have the consoles readily available in your area sometime around next June. Expect the first defective systems by next February. Nintendo Several websites ran editorials this week wondering about third party games for the Wii. The system is looking great and has plenty of games for launch (it seems). But, because no one was really expecting Nintendo to do so well (at least before E3), companies hasn’t really hopped on board to develop games for the system. Aside from Ubisoft’s Red Steel, which was demoed at E3, very few third party games will be ready for the Wii for the holidays. Again, this may not be a problem for some consumers and the library should be pretty decent for a launching system, but it certainly sucks for third party publishers who didn’t hop on the bandwagon early enough. It also means that we won’t be seeing more mature content (Nintendo’s philosophy is to cater to everyone, hence the ratings of their games) until 2007. http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/19/publishers-to-miss-boat-if-wii-sells-well-this-holiday/ Nintendo also gave out a few more details about their “Wiimote” this week. It will run for 30-60 hours (depending on which functions the controller is using) on two AA batteries, has a rumble function that can be turned on and off, and uses a SYNCHRO button function to initially communicate with the system. Cool stuff, but they still have no official release date or price for the system. http://wii.ign.com/articles/718/718946p1.html There have been several reports this week of DS Lites that have a cracking hinges. So far it appears to be a purely cosmetic problem, and does not affect the system’s performance in any way. However, no one can seem to figure out how or why the crack is appearing. Also, at current, Nintendo doesn’t consider this problem to be covered under the DS Lite’s warranty and will only fix it for a price: 50 bucks. http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/17/nintendo-ds-lite-cracks-on-hinge/ Microsoft Microsoft was able to toot its own horn a bit this week. First, they announced that the attach rate of Xbox Live was 60% among 360 users. Also, they started a new Xbox Live Arcade policy of releasing one new Live Arcade game every Wednesday for the next few weeks. This was done in response to the constant pushing back of Live Arcade games. Also, Microsoft can brag this week about being the first console manufacturer to (sort of) break the summer drought of games. In the past two weeks they’ve released four titles of at least decent quality. Despite the reports of copies that freeze, Chromehounds has been getting decent reviews and should be a hit on Xbox Live, as has Over G fighters. Prey came out last week and is so good that rumors are currently circulating about a movie adaptation. And of course there’s NCAA Football 2007. I’m not in to any of these, but at least they’re well made games, and they hopefully signify the end of the summer drought. |
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