Capcom Is Thrilled Adhoc Party Is Coming November 19th

By Paul Munn | November 16, 2009

ps3_adhocparty_us Last week the PS Blog mentioned that Adhoc Party was finally coming to the USA, and IGN notes they’ve gotten a press release that says this Thursday the 19th is the big day for its release. This is very welcome news, and Capcom immediately blurted out a very hastily written email right after Friday’s announcement that couldn’t contain their excitement at never having to add online modes to their PSP games:

Did you hear the news? Sony’s Ad-hoc Party feature for the PSP is coming to North America this month! This awesome new service allows you to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite ONLINE by enabling your PSP to play through your PS3. This is HUGE news for Monster Hunter fans as now they can play MHFU with their Monster Hunter buddies around the country! The new feature also allows you to use text or voice chat to communicate with friends, which is critical for coordinating those 4 player hunts and taking out those tougher Monsters.

Granted that Adhoc Party will actually bring lots and lots of OLD PSP games online, going back literally years with no patching needed, but it’s also letting developers off the hook to a certain extent. Keep in mind that your PS3 will have to be dedicated to this to work — no DVD, Blu-ray or Netflix use by someone else in your household while you’re online with the PSP — and that you need a hard-line ethernet connection to it so the PSP can talk to it via the built-in Wi-Fi chipset. It’s a great deal for existing PS3 owners at zero dollars and zero cents and no ongoing online service fee.

All of that said, the technical triumphs of things like the two excellent Syphon Filter PSP games from the Sony Bend Studio that included not just online play for a first-person shooter but also had voice chat proved years ago that it could be done, and done well, without having to fall back to another service. Yes, this is just like having Xbox Live to fall back on if you think about it, and yes, this might help boost sales, but there are side benefits to running your own servers.
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Ones To Watch on PS3, PSP for November 2009

By Paul Munn | November 1, 2009

200911_PS_Exclusives_580px

Ok here’s the thing: I don’t care about the huge military-themed, cross-platform shooter coming to the PS3 this month. It’ll get its spot of ink below, don’t worry, but I’m highlighting the three exclusive franchises returning to PlayStation platforms this month first.

The God of War Collection lands on November 17th as a new experiment: a reissue of two PlayStation 2 games in high definition on a single Blu-ray PlayStation 3 disc. The remastering of the top-selling God Of War and God Of War II includes the addition of Trophy support. Sales of this collection will be watched closely – it takes quite a bit of work to remaster games like this, but if it sells well we might see other Sony PS2 franchises reappear like this on the PS3. I’m a huge fan of the franchise, partly because of the brutally satisfying gameplay, partly because of the mostly-consistent mythological backdrop, so this is a must-buy for me. Of note: this is a $40 game.

The PlayStation Portable gets the PS3’s most recognizable mascot this month with its very own version of LittleBigPlanet. While you’ll be able to make and share your own levels in LBP on the PSP, you’re going to be playing them alone since multiplayer didn’t make it into this game. I’m being cheeky by mentioning this would be a $40 game as well since PSP games tend to debut at this price.
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Lexar Memory Stick Deals

By Paul Munn | October 21, 2009

lexar_mspd_w15px_border Think your PSP-2000 or 3000 is perfectly fine compared to a Go? Got enough space in there for some tantalizing digital downloads? If you need more, check out a couple of deals on Memory Stick Pro Duo cards I saw over at DealNews. You can get a 4GB stick for $9.99 and an 8GB for $14.99 with $2.95 shipping additional on either of them at JR.com.

That’s a great deal for a whopping amount of storage. I’ve had a 4GB stick in my PSP for probably three years now and think that as more and more PSP games go download-only an 8GB will only be more useful.

NPD Says The PS3 Price Cut Worked

By Paul Munn | October 19, 2009

ps_logo_gray_95x95 The NPD numbers covering September (five weeks from August 30th to October 6th to be exact) are out, and the PlayStation 3 price cut to $299 seems to have worked. Microsoft cut their console down to size as well, of course, and even Nintendo decided to take a dip in the profitability of their console with their drop to $199, boosting everyone’s numbers, but the PS3 outsold everything except for the DS.

The DS didn’t exactly blow its doors off, though. The DS sold 524k, the PS3 sold 491k, the Wii sold 462k, the Xbox 360 sold 352k, and the PSP (pre-Go, remember) chugged along at 191K. In last place, limping along, is the PS2 with 142k units sold. The 360’s number is nothing to sneeze at, but it looks like that PS3 price cut showed that consumers still really did want a PlayStation 3 after all this time. Does Microsoft consider that along with having sold a full 110,000 units less than the Wii this time a problem?

September was also notable for stopping a long slide of months where game sales were down significantly from the previous year. This is no small feat, even if this month just meant staying on par with 2008. New consoles on the market could have been a big part of that and if the holidays are good to those new console owners it could very well be a very happy holiday for all three console makers after all.

Seen at Gamespot.

UK retailers already dropping PSPgo price

By Adam Englebright | October 5, 2009

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The PSPgo has been out for about four days, and… well, Eurogamer is reporting that UK retailers Amazon.co.uk, Play.com, and GAME have already dropped the price of Sony’s new handheld to £199.99, (or about $350). Other retailers have retained the original price, and Sony have announced an 120% sales increase in PSP’s overall, however, sales of the PSPgo only equalled PSP-3000 sales.

Sony Considering Totally Free PSP SDK

By James Munn | September 7, 2009

Develop asked how Sony’s new Minis scheme plans to draw developers away from iPhone’s free SDK. Sony stated that their PSP Dev Kit that’s currently priced at $1500, may someday be completely free.

“Further down the line, we may investigate a totally free model or supported model,” replied Colaco.

While a free Dev kit would definitely bring a flood of games to the handheld, including a pile of iPhone ports, I’d be seriously concerned about the quality of the games. I’ve been told by numerous iPhone owners that the quality of titles on the AppStore leaves much to be desired. A more popular comment I hear is that shopping for apps is more fun than the apps themselves.

Via Develop Magazine, September 2009

Silent Hill Reimaging Shatters Survival Horror Conventions

By Vikki Blake | September 5, 2009

Shattered Memories Bonus Pre-Order CD

GameShark have posted up a new interview with Tomm Hulett, producer of the up-and-coming and eagerly-anticipated Silent Hill Shattered Memories. After months of speculation about the game’s mysterious in-game psychological profiling, Hulett answers some questions (albeit vaguely on occasion) about this new approach to survival horror.

“You shouldn’t think of [the psych profiling] like one decision affecting something else,” Hulett says. “This isn’t about helping a young prince in the past and then inheriting his kingdom when you come of age or anything like that. The game watches everything you do, and learns what kind of person you are. Past games taught us that Silent Hill reflects the inner mind of each person – so that’s what the psych profile does. This time Silent Hill is looking back at you, rather than James Sunderland, Walter Sullivan, etc. In demos you’ve seen that hallway with a sign at one end pointing toward the exit (left) and the restrooms (right). Well Silent Hill knows which way you turn, and if you go right, which restroom you go into.”

That’s quite a claim from a game that starts with a brief questionnaire during a chat with your friendly psychiatrist. Do you role-sex during sex? Do you make friends easily? Have you ever been unfaithful? And rather have your answers dictate a static pathway through the game from very early on, instead you’ll find that the seemingly inconsequential decisions you make as a player will dramatically change the landscape of the Silent Hill you’re trapped within … from the appearance of the creatures that pursue you to the behaviour of the other characters around you.

I know. Impressive … well, on paper, in any case.

For more of the interview, and information on the release date and bonus pre-order giftage, join me after the cut.

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Ones to Watch on PS3, PSP for September 2009

By Paul Munn | August 31, 2009

ps_logo_gray_95x95 In case you haven’t noticed this summer hasn’t been a dry one for games and it is with some measure of dread that the onslaught of Fall games rises up before me not just on the PS3 but the long-ignored PSP. But if hints of Adhoc Party appearing in September’s release of PS3 Firmware 3.00 for North America do come true, I will be stuck with an even bigger list of older PSP titles I would want to buy and play online. Enough grumping about not having infinite time and money: to the games!
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Rockstar announces GTA for iPhone/iPod Touch

By Adam Englebright | August 31, 2009

gta-chinatown-wars-box-design Rockstar today announced that they are porting their DS game (which is soon coming to the PSP) is also being ported to Apple’s phenomenally popular App Store, so it can be played on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple’s products and the PSP especially seem like more obvious platforms for the game, given the DS appeals to a more casual, younger audience. Oh, and they’ve also announced an app called Beaterator, which “puts the power to make professional-level music at your fingertips.” Sounds fun! Sorry if this is a short post, they haven’t given us much information, but if it’s anything like the DS version, it should be pretty good.

Will Adhoc Party Be In Firmware 3.00?

By Paul Munn | August 29, 2009

adhocparty_psp_lobby Japan has been the exclusive home of the Adhoc Party software that lets gamers use their PS3 to bridge PSPs together across the internet and play adhoc-only wifi games online with a lobby system and voice chat. It looks like that’s about to change. A PS Blog post this week has two very strong hints that it’s coming our way as soon as next week.

First up the trailer for an upcoming PSP fighting game Fate/Unlimited Codes (yawn) mentions that gamers can play online with Adhoc mode (!!!). Savvy online gamers know that infrastructure mode is how you play online (requiring the “infrastructure” of a wifi router between devices) and ad hoc mode is only for local, on-the-fly wifi play. This shouldn’t appear on an official PlayStation Blog trailer by accident, and when asked point blank by a reader in comment #36 whether this means Adhoc Party is coming to the US to be used with this game soon, the writer, John Diamonon, only replied with “…”.

That tells me that yes, finally Adhoc Party is coming. Given that PS3 firmware 3.00 is supposed to hit around September 1st I’m guessing this will be in there. The greatest part about this app is that it instantly and immediately works with literally hundreds of existing Adhoc-only PSP games going way back in the system’s lifespan.

This will allow me to finally buy a Monster Hunter game and could be part of this fall’s big new PSP push. But if Monster Hunter Freedom Unite stays as expensive as it is now, I’ll probably wait for a digital download version since that’s the future of the platform.

Sources: PlayStation Blog and Kotaku (thanks to a txt from Aeropause writer emeritus James Munn).

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