A tale eternally retold (and resold), the Soul Calibur franchise will be making its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 debut on July 29th in North America. In case you haven't been staying abreast with the fighting franchise's ample development, Soul Calibur IV sees the character roster expanding in an inverse proportion to the size of Ivy's clothes. At last count, the cast included an undead demon pirate, a Sith lord, an asthmatic S&M fetishist and a little green friend. Oh well, at least Spawn's not in this one.
As excited as we are, purchasing the game won't be as easy as simply walking to the store shelf and stuffing it into our trench coats, like we normally do. It seems Namco Bandai has constructed a chicane of decisions for us all: Want to play as Darth Vader right away? Get the PlayStation 3 version. Perhaps you'd prefer Yoda instead? That's the Xbox 360 version. Would you like a comic book, a "tournament kit" and "extra customization content?" Oh, you want the $79.99 Premium Edition ... don't you?
Rumors surfaced over the last couple of weeks about Beautiful Katamarirolling itself away from PlayStation 3 and towards Nintendo Wii. An Xbox 360 version, already weighted its own speculation, is the only confirmed version to be shown at next week's E3.
Now comes word that Famitsu (via PS3 Center) has validated the rumors and that Namco Bandai has indeed quietly canceled a PS3 iteration in favor of rolling the Prince of All Cosmos onto the Wii. As we have yet to see the purported issue of Famitsu, we're still labeling this as rumor fodder.
We've contacted Namco Bandai for a statement. In the meantime, take a stroll down memory lane with our recent b[ack]log on We Love Katamari.
The biggest third parties in Japan are throwing their support behind Nintendo in a big way. Namco/Bandai, Sega and Capcom are all increasing both the number of distinct titles and the number of units ordered for games on Nintendo systems, according to research done by the Nikkei newspaper and reported by Variety Asia. Namco Bandai alone is planning a ridiculous 115 games for the DS and Wii in fiscal 2007, a 109 percent increase. Sony, meanwhile, can expect a 30 to 40 percent decline in shipment orders from the big three, according to the report.
In more potential bad news for Sony, the Variety article off-handedly mentions that "Square Enix ... has no plans to develop titles for the PS3 until sales improve enough to make the steep development costs financially worthwhile." This seems to confirm earlier reports that the company wouldn't release any PS3 games until the next fiscal year starts on April 1, 2008. Deep breaths, Final Fantasy fans. Just remember, patience is a virtue.
Voicework by Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Perlman? Check
The hip hop-infused anime Afro Samurai has all the elements of a game destined for greatness. Namco Bandai showed a trailer for the game and, according to Game Daily, looks to have "lots of acrobatics and plenty of swordplay." Licensed games historically have been of subpar quality, with some exceptions. If they can get Jackson and Perlman to revise their roles for the game, we're sold.
Japanese development studio Monolith Soft has been purchased by Nintendo from NamcoBandai, according to a press release (PDF file) from credible Japanese news source Nikkei translated by gaming site The Platformers.
Our team of translators have discerned from the release that Nintendo now owns 80% of the company's stock, while Namco Bandai still retain 16% of their original 96% holdings in the developer, whose total worth is approximately 75 million yen.
The studio, formed in 1999 by former Square employee Hirohide Sugiura, is responsible for the Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos series. The company is also reportedly developing Disaster: Day of Crisis, a Wii title that hasn't been seen since its appearance at E3 2006.
We've contacted Nintendo further details. For the console maker, this gives them an experienced second party RPG developer. We'll keep you updated as this story progresses.
[Thanks for the translation help, Patrick and Andrew]
EB Games lists a PS3 version of arcade game Time Crisis 4 that might be released late this year. Sure, a "no image available" page with little other information doesn't usually interest us, but this might-be $89.99 game might include "Guncon," which might be a PS3 version of the light gun. Maybe. Is this another Namco Bandai exclusive?
The GunCon and GunCon 2 connected with a wire to previous PlayStations, but we can only imagine that a PS3 version would work wirelessly over Bluetooth. (Seriously, our imaginations are that good.) And as long as we're imagining, why not include some Sixaxis controls to look or move?
Namco Bandai hasn't officially announced a PS3 version of the game and told us the company chooses not to comment on the EB Games listing.
Remember Cellius, the subsidiary company formed by Namco Bandai and the head of Ken Kutaragi? You'd be forgiven if your memory is a bit hazy on the matter, since the $824,000 investment had naught to show for its efforts at the time. Today brings a different story, however, along with a slew of scans supposedly escaping from the pages of a recent Famitsu issue. It would be wise to sprinkle the word "supposedly" throughout this entire post, as these images have migrated hands and servers so many times, it's difficult to pinpoint their source or level of authenticity.
[Update 1: The caution was justified, it seems. Our Japanese translation slave brings up the following points:
These likely aren't scans at all -- they're either mock-ups or leaked page template files.
There is no confirmation that these are PS3 games or even games at all! Team Aces is behind the wheel, however, and they recently made Ace Combat 6 an Xbox 360 exclusive...
If Cellius is involved, it is not evidenced here.
While this new information doesn't rule out the possibility of these being PS3 exclusives anyway (the internets would certainly like to believe so), it would be wiser to take a step back and merely view these as new-gen game concepts.
Though the stunning screenshots of Brave Arms, Chain Lim!t and Second Season 01 could represent target renders or similar technical tomfoolery, the abundance of guns, explosions and atmospheric lighting conveys quite a bit of excitement nonetheless. Take in the full scans images after the break.
Today's video featuring in-game footage from The Idolmaster is completely wacky and strange ... even somewhat bizarre. That is, unless you speak Japanese or have a universal translator handy. We've talked about this game for the Xbox 360 before, and this footage seems to confirm just how strange this thing really is.
In fact, if you're anything like us, you might feel a bit brainwashed after seeing this video. It's enough to put you into a trance, while your brain says WTF over and over. Hopefully someone can translate this for us before we decide to worship these strange Japanese girls and form a cult.
Tekken Dark Resurrection plops down in North America's PlayStation Store later this month, following its debut in Asia. Namco Bandai's downloadable fighter joins Sega's disc-based Virtua Fighter 5 in the waning weeks of February, as two high-profile franchises battle for PS3 owners' idle attention. While unconfirmed, expect Tekken to be offered in the $15-20 range; VF5's gonna go for the standard $60. 1UP speculates that Namco Bandai could offer additional updates for Tekken -- like online multiplayer -- but the publisher has shot down rumors that the (initial) North American release was delayed to add new content. If you already nabbed the Asian version, no worries, you won't be missing out.
With the release of Mage Knight Apocalypse, Namco Bandai may have been hoping to steal a few precious hours from RPG gamers before Neverwinter Nights 2 and Gothic 3 hit the shelves. Unfortunately, a few hours is all it takes to realize Mage Knight is one for the bargain bins. You might be better off getting your hack-and-slash kicks from Titan Quest, or even Dungeon Siege II: Broken World.
IGN (54/100) was displeased with the game's production quality: "The storyline isn't executed very well. The frequent cut scenes never deliver any kind of engaging dialogue and are further hampered by voice acting that sways from average to terrible."
GameSpot (44/100) didn't appreciate the innovative combat system: "Since the save points are all over the place, you'll usually only have to take a few steps to pick up the fight right where you left off. You'll quickly fall into a very repetitive and annoying cycle of death where you resurrect, fight, and die over and over again...slowly picking away at the mob of monsters until finally they're all dead. It removes any sort of challenge or sense of attrition from the game."
GamePro (40/100) thinks Mage Knight sets new lows in pathfinding: "Allies constantly become stuck behind walls and pillars, enemies lose track of you when you walk out of their line of sight, and glitches allow you to hurl spells at blissfully unaware boss mobs. On occasion, we were forced to complete an entire level solo when our two computerized comrades became stuck in a maze somewhere."
PC World magazine listed Apple's ill-fated game console, the Pippin, 22nd on their list of the "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time," writing:
"Apple had an Internet-capable game console that connected to your TV. But it ran on a weak PowerPC processor and came with a puny 14.4-kbps modem, so it was stupendously slow offline and online. Then, too, it was based on the Mac OS, so almost no games were available for it. And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles."
Of course, we recognize the Pippin not only for its contribution to the annals of also-ran consoles, but also as fodder for years of subsequentrumors of another Apple game console. Of course, it also lets Mac zealots everywhere point and stomp, claiming gaming consoles as yet another area where Apple beat their arch-nemesis Microsoft to the proverbial punch. Might want to let this one die fellas, it's just better that way.
