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Late Night Consoling
by Chris Remo, Dec 19, 2005 8:00pm PSTWe're getting close to the end of the year. Crazy stuff!
- ...assuming you work for Bungie, anyway. The Microsoft-owned developer has revealed in its most recent Weekly Update that the studio's next project is already in playable form and is currently undergoing prototyping and even some testing.
You Can Play Bungie's Next Game!
[xbox360]But ironically, the way we're prototyping aspects of this next game mean that even some gameplay tests, demos and experiments, are surprisingly polished and playable. We're all in the giddy position of being "forced" to play moments and elements from the next project.
The obvious next Bungie game would be Halo 3, but reports over the past year or so have suggested that the team might be getting just a bit burned out on the mega-blockbuster shooter franchise. Last October, studio manager Pete Parsons said, "After Halo 2 we are planning to do something different. We will do something else and we have a few ideas." Rumor had it that the game in progress may be some kind of fantasy-themed title. Bungie's Joe Staten, writer of Halo and Halo 2, also mentioned around the same time last year that Bungie was considering reviving its dormant project Phoenix, a "non-sci-fi" game which had about two years of work done on it before the studio put its efforts into Halo 2 full time. Of course, Bungie is still owned by Microsoft, and the Halo franchise is an undeniable cash cow, one only matched in modern gaming by the likes of Grand Theft Auto, so the developer may not necessarily have too much say in the matter. - Almost a year ago, researchers detailed a repressor protein linked to cancer. They called it Pokemon, for POK Erythroid Myeloid ONtogenic, which didn't go over so well with Pokemon USA, owned by Nintendo. The researchers were threatened with legal action for using the trademark following headlines such as "Pokemon causes cancer." Now, the most recent issue of scientific journal Nature reports that they have abandoned use of the name. It will apparently now be referred to in the context of Zbtb7, the gene which encodes that repressor.
Pokemon Now Only a Metaphorical Cancer
[psp] [gamecube] [ds] [gba] - Sony has indicated its intention to have doubled the number of PSPs sold in North America in the last two months of this year. This means that Sony plans to have the number of consoles sold in November and December equal to the number sold between its March launch and the beginning of November. Sony claims that this will result in total sales of 6 million units, with 3 million sold until November, but NPD sales data indicates that the November cumulative figure is closer to 2.5 million. It seems like a pretty steep order for Sony's target audience to fill, but the PSP may be benefitting from the low Xbox 360 launch quantities, with some consumers possibly opting for alternative consoles such as the PSP instead.
Sony Plans to Ship Way More PSPs
[psp] - Penny Arcade has announced that its third annual Child's Play Charity has broken $420,000 worth of toys and donations. The program delivers video games, toys, books, music, and movies to hospitals around the world for use by recovering children confined to their beds or rooms. Despite how successful it has already been, Penny Arcade hopes to break the half million mark this year, so if you've got some spare dollars and want to bring some fun to some sick kids, head on over and either purchase some games from an Amazon wishlist or toss in a few bucks via PayPal.
Child's Play Going Strong
[ps2] [xbox] [gamecube] [ds] [psp] [gba] - IGN has coverage of the 2005 Jump Festival, which mainly consists of a bunch of Japanese RPGs. GameSpot has some impressions as well. The New York Times has an extensive analysis of a possibly piracy-encouraging line of dialogue from Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS). It's complete with rather suspect marketing lines from Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan as well as possibly a lack of awareness that Nintendo games are translated by a bunch of guys in Seattle, and the line in question probably didn't even exist in the original Japanese. Interesting read though!
Misc. Q&As/Features
Comments
This is your life shackers, enjoy it.
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Sell your soul to the devil, and the devil calls the shots.
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I just wanted to say that, don't know why.
But hey, Hamill, Rhys-Davies, McDowell and Thomas Wilson are high class actors in that game, I had so much fun playing all the WC games.
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Microsoft: Same story with original XBOX. That biatch needs to go down 50 bucks.
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800mhz p3 (omgomg!)
128mb ram.. lol??? (oh, but its 133mhz!)
32mb Geforce1
19" crt
etc.
OH, the PRICE?! 2,300.00
I cannot believe... I spent that much... on THAT. I think im going to be ill.
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I haven't been in and asked questions in one in a while...
My god they are suck cocks - it's such a wank, I wanted to cut someone.
I'm a gamer, an antisocial gamer - I want to walk into an empty store and quietly ask the clerk embarassing questions about games- I want the people to be embarrassed about working there.
Instead the stores are always chock full and now the .AU stores are copying the USA ones - it's just ... oh it's horrible - the people don't even listen they just run their fucking speil instead of answering simple questions - they were all "uppity" and happy and fuck it was like I was in some hip hair salon or juice bar and it's too bright.
Bitch, I don't want to pre-order the xbox 360, I don't want you to tell me "I pretty much have to" pre-order it just to get one when I wasn't asking that - ugh.
They have (apparently) 60 pre-orders which is like way more than they'll be allocated so I just walked out - ugh.
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decisions!
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With the Marathon, Myth, and Halo franchises all under their belt that says alot -- they are excellent franchise builders and show alot of versatility in what they can tackle.
They definitely aren't a one hit wonder or an unproven studio. Now if Halo was their first successful franchise I'd say they had little to fuck all chance of convincing a giant like microsoft to fund a big tangent development...but that isn't the case. All praise to our Bungie overlords.
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Hooray, or something?
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At least this signals that the developers are past the planning stage. But the testing crew can be involved as early as pre-alpha.
This is all according to the book Game Design: Second Edition by Bob Bates. Interesting read.
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Seriously though, it was an interesting read, but I think folks are reading way to much into it. K K Slider is supposed to be a singer/songwriter, right? So they give him lines that sound appropriately "counter-culture."
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On the other hand, if that sacrifices the quality of Halo 3, that's pretty unacceptable.
Wrap up the trilogy (?) Bungie, and then go nuts with your other genre-busters or whatever.