Grab your popcorn! Film-focused game studio Brash has inked a deal with the Folklore and Genji devs at Game Republic for a game based on, you guessed it, an upcoming Hollywood movie. The announcement follows Brash's recent critically-panned game adaptation of Jumper, as well as confirmed plans by the company to bring gore-porn series Saw to consoles in '09.

Having Game Republic on board does give us a modicum of hope that things will turn out at least playable, with 20-year industry vet Yoshiki Okamoto of Street Fighter II and Resident Evil fame throwing his weight behind the project. Neither studio has let slip exactly which movie will be the victim recipient of the adaptation, however, stating only that it will be based on a "popular" film based in "an incredible fantasy world," and will be released sometime in 2010.

After briefly, mistakenly and idiotically reducing the entirety of Europe, with all its many cultures, languages and shoes to just the UK in an article yesterday, we've taken steps to reinforce the pathways that connect our brains to our rapidly typing fingers. Said fingers insist that we now draw your attention to the PS3's continued success in Madagascar the United Kingdom, with launch titles Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm perching comfortably atop the Chart Track software list for the week ending 24 March.

Insomniac's first-person shooter debuted in the number one spot, with the muddy Motorstorm slotting into second position. Virtua Fighter 5 is all the way down in 14th position, bested by Namco's symphony of slide, Ridge Racer 7 (11th) and the comparitively out of tune F1: Championship Edition (7th). Finally, historically accurate crab battle simulations find themselves relegated to 16th position.

With these PS3 exclusive (for now, in the case of Virtua Fighter 5) titles making a splash in the charts alongside the PS3's strong launch performance in Guam the UK, it seems the doom and gloom impression that resulted from so many dead launch events was unwarranted. The coming weeks will show us whether or not the PS3 can maintain its momentum in both hardware and software sales.

Sparked by uproar over a "game-killing" bug in Genji, Ritual Entertainment QA manager Michael Russell recalls a job interview for FPQA Manager, held at Sony's San Diego offices. There he caught a glimpse of Sony's QA process, which, according to Russell, "allows creativity to squash quality" -- he promptly removed himself from consideration for the job.

Before Ritual, Russell was a lead tester at Microsoft Game Studios. He claims his previous employer is also failing at quality assurance, but from the other end of the spectrum: "At Microsoft, the stringent QA processes often strangle creativity."

Russell calls for some middle ground to be walked, lest the industry fall into turmoil, but neglects to offer any advice to Sony or Microsoft. Are we to be doomed by bugs and boredom?

[Thanks, SickNic]

Rare's latest title, Viva Pinata, looks to have reopened the now-infamous -- and somewhat tiresome -- crab joke from Sony's E3 2006 press conference. A GameSpot forum member stumbled upon this during his game time and took a picture for everyone's amusement. Consider this one company using a first-party title to give its heated competitor a paper cut and pouring lemon juice on it.

After the E3 2006 press conference, the PlayStation 3 title Genji: Day of the Blade was derided for the description of "real-time weapon changing" and "giant enemy crabs" which you could "attack for massive damage." The meme has gone on to be more popular than the game itself, which has received poor reviews since its release alongside the PS3. Viva Pinata, for its part, has actually garnered some positive critical reception, given developer Rare some much-needed praise.

Now that Microsoft has taken the bait and retold a seven month old joke, can we please, please, please let it go?

See Also:
Pile on: Contact takes a jab at Sony meme

[Thanks, Brandon]

[Update: Missed one part of the joke -- real time weapons changing -- and fixed Rare's first-party status.]

Before jumping into Genji to deal some massive damage to historically accurate giant crabs (nyuk nyuk) during Sony's Gamer's Day event on Thursday, MTV News' Stephen Totilo noticed a curious menu option:

INSTALL

What's this all about? Totilo writes, "Also unexpected was a feature in Genji to install the game, committing 4GB of data from the game's Blu-ray disc to the PS3's hard drive -- a three-minute one-time-only procedure available from the game's start menu that a Sony rep said cuts down in-game load times from about 15 seconds to four seconds."

So, regardless of the debate about the relative read speeds of 2x Blu-ray drives and 12x DVD drives, we can all recognize the obvious benefits of having a hard drive included by default. Why Genji appears to be the only title sporting this option is another question. Did excessive load times in the PS3's first finished title necessitate extraordinary measures, or will most games offer this time-saving option, à la PC games.

As part of a flood of press materials coming out of Sony during the Tokyo Game Show, the company has confirmed six of the titles that will launch with the system in Japan on Nov. 11. They are:

• Resistance: Fall of Man
• Ridge Racer 7
• Genji: Days of the Blade
• Sega Golf Club
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight
• Mah-Jong Fight Club Online

This list is tentative, and is liable to grow and change in the weeks leading up to launch. While none of these titles have been officially confirmed for the North American release on Nov. 17, the system is region-free for games, so if worst comes to worst you can get your Mah-Jong fix via an importer.

Speaking of the North American launch, Gamespot is reporting that Activision and Electronic Arts have pledged a combined seven to eight games for launch on this side of the Pacific, with Take Two and Ubisoft likely to contribute a few more in the launch window.