Late Night Consoling

I wasn't expecting to, but I found enough console stories of note today to justify a special holiday-weekend version of LNC. Enjoy!

• Video-Senki recently posted a follow-up to their story about Tecmo suing that company that released a nude patch for Dead or Alive 2. It turns out that the hack in question is just a save-game modification, and the nude artwork was there all along.
• According to this story at ZDNet, Nintendo expects retailers to completely sell out of their initial supply of GameCubes by this weekend.
• The first shots of Max Payne on the Playstation 2 are up at PS2.IGN.
• Also at PS2.IGN is a preview of Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, which is based on their impressions of a playable build of the game. Everyone keeps telling me that this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and they seem to agree.
• The first one's not out in the US yet, but Miyamoto is already hinting that a sequel to Pikmin is on the way.
• The GIA has posted a hands-on preview of Rez, Sega's nutty game that mixes the shooter and rhythm genres with vector graphics thrown in for fun. There are also lots of screenshots.
• New shots from the arcade version of Soul Calibur 2 are up at Core Magazine.
• In a noble, if somewhat odd move, Namco has announced plans to market peripherals to allow the handicapped to play PS2 games.
• Here are a few reviews for you: Cube.IGN has a review of Crazy Taxi for the GameCube (6.9), IGN Gear reviews the Xbox DVD Playback Kit, and Core Magazine has a roundup of recent scores from major Japanese publications.