In an interview that featured more ducked questions than a limbo contest at a mallard convention, Red Octane's Ted Lange managed to boast a little regarding their plans for Guitar Hero II and the Xbox Live Marketplace. When asked about the service, Lange points out that while they're still working on the fine details, Red Octane's current plans include having the most content available for any game to date.

This can, of course, be a very good thing or a very bad thing. Still, a bold statement nonetheless.

What could Red Octane possibly offer in order to follow through with these plans? The most obvious chunk of content are songs from the original Guitar Hero, but it could also be anything from new characters skins to original songs. Our wallets can only hope that they recognize the thin line between what is a micro- and what is a macro- transaction.

Speaking with SCE Liverpool, Develop magazine has seemingly uncovered news of a pair of WipEout installments bound for PlayStation 3 and PSP. The unsurprising revelation has been tied to Sony's downloadable content strategy. Liverpool's WipEout Pure showed promise, registering more than 800,000 downloads of add-on content, but subsequent Sony efforts have failed to follow suit.

Liverpool plans to pick up the slack with upcoming versions of WipEout. "Downloadable content helped keep [WipEout Pure] on the shelf and encouraged people to not trade the game in," explained development director Clemens Wangerin, adding, "Being able to cater to a much finer resolution of gamers' tastes and maybe create more byte-sized or customizable gaming is a massive advantage." Sounds like Sony's starting to understand the importance of PlayStation Network.

[Via CVG]

According to a Team17 forum post (registration required), Worms HD, is nearing completion for Xbox Live Arcade. The game is currently being tested on Partnernet (debug version of Xbox Live for devs), and allegedly, only a single bug remains. With some string-pulling, Worms HD could wriggle out of the XBLA pipeline in early 2007.

Worms HD will be officially unveiled at CES next month. The XBLA version is thought to be more accessible than its strategy-rich predecessors, but a 'pick up and play' foundation could deter the already waning fanbase (poor 3D sequels have soured the series). Team17 is also supposedly prepping a series of downloadable content packs (a mix of free and premium offerings), perhaps due in part to Microsoft's imposed 50MB size limit.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Speaking backstage at the Spike TV VGA awards, Epic Games President Mike Capps decreed that they will be providing downloadable supplements to Gears of War, free of charge. "We always take care of our customers," he said. "We always give them stuff for free and we're going to keep doing that forever."

Capps' statement doesn't rule out the possibility that Epic will also release premium content, but this is a sign that the fans have more goodies -- likely maps, à la Halo 2 -- coming up. Rare, whose Viva Pinata seems intended for Gears' antithetical demographic, has gone on record stating hesitance at downloadable content, especially when money MS points are involved.

Now that we have new downloads to look forward to, how about Epic gets that patch out before Christmas so we can put it behind us?

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Rare's lead designer Gregg Mayles sounded reluctant about developing downloadable content for Viva Piñata. "We've got plenty of ideas for what we can do ... But the jury is still out," said Mayles. For now, Rare seems content to sit back and watch other studios' successes and failures.

It's clear that if Rare is to continue to provide downloadable content, it doesn't want to go the EA route; that's not to say the developer is in the business of hand-outs. Ill-reception of Kameo's premium content has forced Rare to rethink its strategy, leading the studio to consider that resources are perhaps better spent on the 'next' project. Despite forming a branch of the Microsoft camp, Rare is having a difficult time adopting its parent company's content-for-now, content-for-later model.

EA is determined to be the bully of Xbox Live Marketplace. Once again, the world's biggest games publisher is offering pay-don't-play content, inviting gamers to buy Need for Speed Carbon's unlockables.

EA and Microsoft will argue that this is simply a matter of choice: choose to buy content; or choose to unlock content by playing. But this new set of choices defies our learned experience.

Gamers want instant access to unlockables for all sorts of reasons (some are too busy to "earn" unlockables; some to lazy; others are inferior; and still others just have more fun when it's easy). There used to be a simple solution: cheat codes. But EA wants us to forget codes ever existed; wants to punish our wallets for not approaching its games with the Protestant ethic. All told, you'll burn an additional $49.25 if you want accelerated access to Carbon's goodies. Hey, you don't get to the top of the industry by offering handouts.

See also:
EA's premium ripoff: football tutorial videos on XBLM
EA charging gamers to access unlockable content
EA charging twice for downloadable content

Ritual Entertainment is about to release four extra maps and a new gameplay mode for Sin Episodes, at no extra charge for auto-download via Steam (the "no charge" bit will no doubt make many console owners jealous). The four new maps will be dedicated to the new mode called "Arena"--which is a single player experience akin to many games' survival modes--and will be designed around typically generic first person shooter situations like an office, a turbine room and a processing plant. Shawn, the lead game designer of Sin lays it down on his blog; "It's an infinitely repayable single player mode where you continually try and beat your high score". Our translation: "shoot loads of people and then obsess over the number of enemies you shot in the groin".

Other bits mentioned on Shawn's blog include a comprehensive stat tracking system, enabling yourself and other players to compare their groinshot score, the mention of the impending release of a Software Development Kit (SDK) and a Sin development Wiki, and absolutely no news about when Episode 2 is going to hit Steam; Shawn got a little excited and forgot to give us any information beyond saying that he'd "be on the look out for some Episode 2 media in the near future" if he was you. We want dates dammit!

[Via EuroGamer]

Speaking with Game Informer, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime confirmed that Wii would be equipped to process microtransactions.

Whoopty-freakin-do. What else is new? Well, it's interesting to note that Nintendo hasn't committed itself to microtransactions*, rather, it's placed the ultimate decision in the hands of 3rd-party publishers. "If our licensee partners want to go in that direction, it's certainly possible in our system," Reggie told GI. Whereas Microsoft was gung-ho all along about microtransactions, Nintendo seems to be on the fence.

Is leaving the decision up to 3rd-parties a sign that Nintendo is struggling to keep up with modern trends? Or is it just Reggie skillfully deflecting negativity towards the impending microtransaction standard?

*Virtual Console downloads/subscriptions are not considered microtransactions.

Lore Sjöberg of Wired took a look at the games from his imagination this year's E3 that no-one wanted to play. In his own words, all these games contained the best mini game of all "not standing in line." So did he find any gems in his mind at E3? Here's a selection of what he imagined saw:

• Sandbox -- playing off the popularity of open-ended GTA style games comes Sandbox, a game that's 100% true to its genre. Sandbox exposes children to the delights of a real life sandbox, sans the real life sand. The developers told Sjöberg that they'd like to include a shovel and bucket in the final game, "but that may not be a realistic goal."
• Mission: Marketplace --  this game progresses the demand for downloadable content and episodic games to its climax. Mission: Marketplace's innovation is that it requires players to purchase all the content separately -- alternatively you can just plunk down $200 and watch the credits roll. We can't wait for this one.

That's not all: he also discovered Pac-Man Boulevard, a game that demonstrates the continued advantages of sequels over original franchises and Casual Game: The Game, a game so casual that engaging your brain (or even possessing one) reduces your overall enjoyment. We're like, totally hyped about these completely revolutionary games, so get your arse over to Wired and read all about 'em.

[Image credit: art.com]

We just finished registering for the big Sony PlayStation press conference to be delivered on Monday, May 8 in Culver City, California.

Along with the invite, Sony encouraged attendees to "bring your Playstation® Portable to the Press Event for acccess [sic] to downloadable content."

The distribution of the download will likely happen via Sony's PlayStation Spot kiosk that made an appearance at GDC.

Both Nintendo and Sony now offer content distribution to their respective portable gaming devices, but which will offer the best content for download this E3?

[Update 1: added a [sic].]