PS3 Launches Greatest Hits

Today announced the start of Sony's Greatest Hits lineup for the Playstation 3. The collection currently has ten games in it which will retail for $29.99 each.

The Greatest Hits games will be in red cases like this one. The games in the series are Resistance: Fall of Man, WarHawk, Motorstorm, Call of Duty 3, Fight Night: Round 3, Need for Speed Carbon, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Assassin's Creed, Oblivion, and Ninja Gaiden: Sigma.

Sony has said that the Greatest Hits version of Warhawk does not include a headset, but that the regular version with the headset should soon see a price reduction to $49.95.

Update on PS3 Trophies

More information has been released about Trophies for the Playstation 3. In the 2.40 update on Wednesday, Trophies will finally be released to the public. Trophies are Sony's version of Xbox 360's Achievements.

Sony says that around 70% of games already released will have Trophies. However, they will not automatically unlock. If gamers want the Trophies, they will have to go back and play the games again and earn them all over again.
Trophies are also not required by Sony. Third party developers will have the option to include Trophies or not. I would assume that most would, especially ones that make cross-platform games for the 360 as well.

IGN Has the Big E3 List for 2008

IGN has posted the list of games that have been confirmed so far to be shown this July at E3. The list is as follows.

Bethesda Softworks
Fallout 3 (PC, PS3, X360)

Capcom
Bionic Commando (PC, PS3, X360)
Bionic Commando Rearmed (PC, PS3, X360)
Capcom Project #1 [untitled] (other)
Capcom Project #2 [untitled] (other)
Dark Void (PC, PS3, X360)
MotoGP 08 (other)
Neopets Puzzle Adventure (PC, Wii)
Plunder (PC, PS3, X360)
Resident Evil 5 (PS3, X360)
Spyborgs (Wii)
Street Fighter IV (PC, PS3, X360)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (PS3, X360)

D3 Publisher
Bangai-O Spirits (DS)
Ben 10: Alien Force -- The Game (DS, PS2, PSP, Wii)
Naruto: Clash of The Ninja Revolution 2 (Wii)
Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 (DS)
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS, PC, X360)

Deep Silver
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (PC)

Electronic Arts
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, X360)
Crysis Warhead (PC)
Dead Space (PC, PS3, X360)
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PC, PS3, X360)
Mirror's Edge (PC, PS3, X360)
Skate It (Wii)
Spore (PC)
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (PC, PS3, X360)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

Microsoft
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (X360)
Fable 2 (X360)
Gears of War 2 (X360)
Halo Wars (X360)
Too Human (X360)
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise (X360)

Namco Bandai
Soulcalibur IV (PS3, X360)

Natsume
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness (DS)
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility (Wii)

Sony Computer Entertainment
Killzone 2 (PS3)
LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (PS3)
PixelJunk Eden (PS3)
Resistance 2 (PS3)
SIREN: Blood Curse Episode #1 [PSN] (PS3)
SOCOM: Confrontation (PS3)

Valve
Left 4 Dead (PC, X360)

XSEED Games
Little King's Story (Wii)

E3 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 14 to July 17 this year.e

Sony Cancels Eight Days and The Getaway

Sony has announced that they are permanently shelving two games that were being developed at their Sony London Studio - Eight Days and The Getaway. Both games were slated for release on the Playstation 3. Sony says they will be redistributing the resources and budgets for both games to other projects.

These games were being developed under the umbrella of Sony Worldwide Studios which recently underwent a change of presidents with Shuhei Yoshida taking charge.

Eight Days was originally announced at 2006's E3 and looked to be a shooting/driving game that took place in the Arizona desert.

The Getaway was a continuation of The Getaway series. The series has been described as GTA's retarded cousin. It was originally shown at 2005's E3 and then again at 2006's. However, then it faded to the background. Apparently, it never really got too far in development.

PS3 Home Open Beta Delayed

PS3's open beta for Home has been delayed again. The release date is not supposed to change, but the open beta has been pushed back to "fall." But Sony is expanding their closed beta this summer to include more people.

Saints Row II Dated

Since we are talking release dates, THQ announced that Saints Row II will be releasing this year on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. The sandbox game will be available on August 26th.

I was a short lived fan of the game, but with all the bugs I experienced I wasn't able to finish every mission or really enjoy the online aspect of it. Let's hope THQ QAs the hell out this sequel otherwise I'll have to save my money for the other great looking sandbox games coming out this year, like APB and Prototype.

XYBA Podcast Ep 19

Andy, Charlie, Jeff, and Josh bring the gaming pain with another XYBA video game podcast. Again please feel free to leave us a review on iTunes.

00:00 - Andy, Charlie, Jeff, and Josh
00:30 - Games We're Playing :|: Bionical Heroes, Glory Days 2, Culdcept Saga, Pocker Smash, and Charlies just playing whatever he can steal. M3 chip is sucking up our DS juice.
07:54 - Gaming News :|: MMO Marvel Universal Online Cancelled, DJ Hero trademarked, Leisure Suit Larry game cumming soon, 360 failure rate, PS3 sales, and more
30:04 - Roundtable :|: The XYBA crew discuss the lates Devil May Cry 4 required assets download for PS3 and if this is the future of games on consoles.
50:40 - Games We're Looking Forward To :|: GTA IV, Star Wars: Force unleashed, Dark Sector, and mo
54:27 - Shoutouts :|: Check out our sister sites ThunderPudd.com, Game on Cafe, and Jigsaw HC's Rants

Download XYBA Podcast Ep 19

PSP Getting Skype

Gamasutra reports that Sony has announced that the Skype rumor is true. In a firmware update coming later this month will allow PSP owners to use Skype on the PSP. Now your portable gaming unit can play music, movies, and make calls and it's also supposed to play games from what I hear. Jeff can even call Sony support to tell them that he's having firmware update issues on his older PSP because it will also support land line calling.

XYBA Podcast Ep 16

The XYBA crew is back with a semi long podcast. Lots of video game talk and little news and no rants. We've been gone for more than a month playing games and now have a lot to talk about.

0:00 - Intro Music
0:58 - Games We Are Playing :|: Mass Effect (we talk about this for a while), Rockband, Guitar Hero III, Assassian Creed, Zelda Phantom Hourglass, Kane and Lynch, Stranglehold, Beautiful Katamari, and Halo 3
55:30 - Gaming News :|: Xbox Live Dashboard Update, Super Mario Galaxy not selling as well as predicted, DLC for Bioshock, R4 Chip for DS costing Nintendo millions, Nintendo Virtual Console does good for it's first year, and more
1:24:09 - Shoutouts
1:24:46 - Outro music

Download XYBA Podcast Ep 16

DS Breaking Sales Records in the UK

The DS is selling like, well, a Nintendo product that's not the Gamecube. According to the MCV the DS has beaten out the PSP's weekly hardware sales of 185,000 units from September 2005.

The DS sold over 191,000 units in one weak. Nintendo says "Momentum has been increasing on DS sales and to achieve the highest weekly sales figure ever in the history of the games market is fantastic.”




Just as a side note, I participated in the Black Friday sales and the Circuit City I was at was packed full of people buying the new DS Lites that were bundled and customized for Zelda and Nintendogs. It was a good deal to because you got a cool looking DS with a good game.

XYBA Podcast Ep 15

The XYBA Video Game Podcast is back with Episode 15. Andy and Josh host with guests Sean and Nick from the 217 area code.

Download XYBA Podcast Ep 15

Rumor: Limited 60GB PS3 supplies

I have to give credit for this story to the guys over at Joystiq, but it was something I had to post about. There is a possibility that the 60GB PS3 on sale for $500 is for a limited time only and that once all 60GB PS3 stock has sold out the line will be discontinued, leaving only the $600 80GB PS3.

Joystiq originally posted this rumor as fact but later retracted it when Sony's Dave Karraker contacted them to say they were wrong. But Karraker's quotes don't seem so straight forward to me.

Originally, Sony's European president David Reeves was the one who foretold the end of the 60GB PS3. He was answering questions about why Europeans weren't getting the $100 off like the United States. Reeves said that Europe didn't have enough 60GB PS3 stock and that once all 60GB stock was sold, only the 80GB PS3 would be sold(the 60GB PS3 going the way of the 20GB PS3). He even said flat out that Americans would only be able to buy the 80GB PS3 once all the 60GB PS3s in the US sold out and that the reason for the price drop was to get rid of all the 60GB PS3s.

Now Karraker comes out to put the spin on Reeves statements saying "We have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of our consumers for the foreseeable future." But that doesn't say that it's forever. Is the foreseeable future a month? A year? How long?

I did some more digging around and found an interview with Sony's president Kaz Hirai at VG TV. The site and interviewer are in a different language, but Hirai's answers are in english. About 1:43 into the clip, Hirai says "Well, again, just from a hardware perspective, the $499 price adjustment that we did for the 60 GB version for the American market, uh we're no longer in production for that product so once that product is gone from the retailers' shelves then we're back to the $599 SKU only so it's not like we have a two price strategy here in the US market which we found out very early on that consumers react mostly just to having one SKU as opposed to having two."

So it seems to me like all the overseas Sony management have no problem saying that the 60GB PS3 is done, but the American Sony branch is trying to keep it secret for a while longer. And as we know from pre-E3, Sony will lie to protect its secret announcements.

Sony E3 Press Conference Highlights

Sony had their press conference. Sadly, I did not watch it so I can't tell you any lows, but I will give you some of the highlights.

Game Releases

* Metal Gear Solid 4 - Early 2008 and exclusive to PS3
* Unreal Tournament 3 - 2007 Timed exclusive for PS3, UT 3 will also have some crossplatform capabilities with the PC
* Haze - 2007 Time exclusive for PS3
* Infamous - 2008
* Killzone 2 -
* Resident Evil 5 - 2008

Commitments

NC Soft has signed an agreement to produce exclusive games for the PS3.

Home

Home will include the ability to launch games from within Home. (Which I had already thought they had shown before...)

New Improved PS3 (or Price Drop)

Well, it's official. Only hours after we finished recording our 10th podcast where we briefly discussed Sony dropping the PS3 price, Sony has declared a price drop of $100 for the 60 GB PS3 starting tomorrow(Monday the 9th). Or you can pay the normal $600 for a new PS3 SKU coming out in August in North America which will have an 80 GB harddrive and a copy of Motorstorm.

Apparently, Sony wanted to get this price drop out there before Microsoft's press conference Tuesday at E3 where Microsoft is rumored to be announcing a price drop as well.

I find it interesting that the PS3 considers the 20 GB of extra harddrive space worth $100. We've had many arguments about it with the Xbox 360 at XYBA because their 20 GB harddrive retails for $100 and their 120 GB harddrive retails at $180.

Sony Fires Another Shot in Format War - Free Movies

In an effort to drive up Blu-Ray DVD player sales, Sony has started a new promotion. When buying a Blu-Ray player from Panasonic, Phillips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony Electronics or Sony Computer Entertainment(that includes the PS3), consumers can take part in the mail-in offer and receive 5 free Blu-Ray movies. The promotion started July 1st and ends September 30th.

The movies consumers can choose from are:

Babel
Black Rain
Blazing Saddles
Chicken Little
The Corpse Bride
The Devil's Rejects
The Guardian
Hart's War
Invincible
The Italian Job
Kiss of the Dragon
The Last Waltz
The Omen [2006]
Pearl Harbor
The Phantom of the Opera
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Species
Stealth
Stir of Echoes
The Transporter 2
Underworld: Evolution

Five free Blu-Ray movies is a sweet deal, especially since each movie can set you back $20-30. So that deal could be worth up to $150. Sadly, the selection to choose from is not the best, but free movies are still my favorite kind of movies.

Sony loses father of Playstation... Does anyone still care?

Well as no big shock to anyone, Joystiq and everyone else on the webbernets has a blurb about Ken Kutaragi officially retiring from Sony. Does anyone really care, sure the man may have been a pivotal cog in our grand gaming history, but he was also an egotistical bat-shit kook. I think it was obvious after PS2 that he didn't really care about game programmers, and basically implied they were lazy if they couldn't figure out his machine. And PS3 only hammered that home more. Technically superior design? Maybe, but when it came down to real world manufacturing cost, budgets have to be in line, and again the machine runs in to limitations that he did not want to compromise. Oh well, it mentions he'll be working with his new company doing software now, maybe he'll be as successful as that other crazy bastard with the pricey high powered 3DO system, I wonder what he's doing now?

SonyStyle Removes PS3 20GB

Those rumors about Sony getting rid of the 2 skus may be true. Sony's online store, SonyStyle.com is no longer listing the 20GB sku. It's no longer future proof. Lets hope Microsoft follows suit and dumps the Core system.

PSP Price Plunge Predestined

According to several sources, Sony is going to announce tomorrow that the Playstation Portable (PSP as it's called in the hood) will drop in price. Currently the handheld system runs you a cool $199, but will drop to $169.99. Wow $30. That's really gonna blow the dust off of those units and now they should start flying off the shelves.

No Mo' PS3 20GIG?

Charlie told me about this article a couple of weeks ago, where a dude went out looking for some PS3s with the 20GB sku. He was unable to find any, and after talking to some of the stores he was told that those sku's were removed from their systems. Kind of weird. Now Joystiq has a Best Buy printout showing that the PS3 20GB is discontinued. Sony still says that they are manufacturing them. Are retailers phasing them out or is Sony?

If it's Sony, then I say good job Sony. Don't make the same mistake that X-Box 360 made with a 2 sku system. It only causes problems for the system later.

PS3 Home Not New?

There's some chatter about Sony's PS3 Home not being a new concept and being ripped off from this person or that. In fact, some people keep pointing to this forum post from 2005 about the future of gaming.

But I say that even this post is not new. The concept of an interactive online world has been around for along time. Cyberpunk stories usually have an interactive internet as part of their world. Anyone who knows about Shadowrun (which was first developed in 1989) knows about the concept of the internet being a place where people have avatars and wander around a world that looks like the real thing.

Remember, basically everything has been thought of in one form or another at one time. So, is PS3 Home a new concept? No. Just look at all the comparisons to Second Life. But Sony has the capability of actually pulling it off and putting it into the mainstream.