Late Night Consoling

First, the Internet buzzed when Square Enix trademarked "Coded Ages." Then gamers were treated to a teaser trailer found on the Dragon Quest VIII game. Now, Square Enix revealed more details about their new project. It'll first take form as a manga to be released in Japanese bookstores early next month. GameSpot summarized the story as "youths pressured to make decisions in a world that is falling apart." It seems likely that not only will a videogame follow, but at least an animated series as well.

Planet Moon's latest announced PSP title, Infected, will be published by Majesco. The two companies have a three-game deal that has Majesco publishing Planet Moon's PSP titles, as the studio has gone PSP-only. The press release describes Infected by saying it "unlocks the world of Wi-Fi via exciting multiplayer modes. To participate in multiplayer combat, players create their own character or avatar. Those who are victorious in combat can 'infect' the loserâ??s PSP system with their avatar and gain ranking points. Avatars can be defeated through a variety of methods, as well as passed along from player to player thus creating a viral chain letter of attack."

Looking at the sales number through December, the NPD Group reported that Metroid Prime 2: Echoes sold around 470,000 copies. It had a strong sales surge in December, selling 270,000 of the total copies. IGN compared the numbers with the original Metroid Prime, showing that in the same timeframe, the original outsold the sequel by about 250,000 units.

Almost every day there's a new rumor about the PSP price and release date, but this is the most credible so far. Amazon.co.uk updated their listing for the portable and it has a shipdate of March 18. This supposedly makes sense because retailers have been placing dates on accessories for the system on or around March 15. The odd part of the listing is the price; £180, which is roughly $340 USD. Sony has said it will have it sell for $200 in both regions. Hopefully we'll hear more sooner rather than later.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made a few comments about their upcoming home console, currently codenamed Revolution. In an interview with Kyoto Shimbun, the typically outspoken president simply said that Revolution will create a "paradigm shift." The company is looking to do something as innovative in the console arena as it did with the NDS in the portable market. Nintendo is expected to blow the lid off their console at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in late May.

Early last month, gamers were disappointed to learn that The Rise of Kasai would lack an online mode. Well, to make up for the loss, Sony announced two new playable characters for the sequel to The Mark of Kri. IGN has quick bios for the new characters here and the game is on target for a March 15 release.

GameSpot has a video interview with Dan De Oreo of Atari and they discuss Dragon Ball Z: Sagas.