Late Night Consoling

Sony has long indicated that it plans to leverage its considerable cross-medium entertainment content to add additional services to its consoles, but the company was beaten to the punch by Microsoft's Video Marketplace for Xbox 360. According to the Financial Times, however, the company has full intention to get into the content download game, with a downloadable video service launching for PSP in the first quarter of next year. Apparently, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was responsible for developing the service; presumably Sony Computer Entertainment was involved in some capacity as well.

The report indicates that online retailers such as Amazon.com as well as existing download services such as Movielink and CinemaNow are speaking with Sony about offering content through the program, suggesting that it may not be a closed centralized system like iTunes or Xbox Live Video Marketplace. With multiple non-proprietary storage formats, Blu-ray, and standard hard drives being compatible with PlayStation 3, alongside the lackluster sales performance of films sold on the proprietary UMD media format, Sony may be making broader moves away from centralized distribution and storage methods.

No specific movie studios were named as participants. The content protection methods used will allow only one copy of a film to be transferred to a viewing device such as PSP, which may be an incentive for studios that have shied away from iTunes due to less restrictive methods.

Despite PSP being the only device named in today's report, Sony has indicated that it plans to bring downloadable video content to PlayStation 3 as well.

Despite being scheduled for release on December 20, it appears that the Wii's Weathernews-powered Forecast Channel has already gone live for European and Australian users. Wii owners in those territories can now update their system software, after which they will be asked for their location then given access to weather forecasts in a variety of formats. It is also possible to find forecasts for other locations besides the default. At the time this report was published, the service was not yet available to North American owners.

We've got some quick photographs of the service in action (don't worry, the channel does run in 16:9, but technical issues unrelated to the Wii resulted in ending up with those 4:3 shots). The Forecast Channel should be available worldwide by Wednesday.

Last week, Square Enix announced numerous games for portable devices, including a port of Final Fantasy Tactics for PSP and what appeared to be a sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics for an unspecified system. Now, the Japanese press is reporting that the latter game is indeed a new Final Fantasy Tactics Advance title, and it is heading to the Nintendo DS despite the spinoff series' Game Boy Advance lineage. No release date was given.

Both games are part of Square's current Ivalice Alliance initiative, which aims at delivering numerous games set in the world of Ivalice, across multiple platforms. Ivalice was first introduced in Final Fantasy Tactics, and was later used in Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, with its most recent appearance being the setting for Final Fantasy XII. Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings, the FFXII sequel currently in development for Nintendo DS, is also part of that initiative. Ivalice Alliance bears similarities to Square's Fabula Nova Crystallis project, which will see development of several games featuring themes based around Final Fantasy XIII (PS3).

Last year, Sony Online Entertainment released through its Platform Publishing brand Sidhe Interactive's goal-oriented racer GripShift for PSP. Today, SOE announced that it plans to bring a "re-mix" of that game to PlayStation 3 as a download via the console's PlayStation Store. The PS3 version of GripShift will feature 720p graphics running at 60fps, as well as an online four player multiplayer mode. GripShift's levels and objectives will be comprised of those from the original PSP game as well as newly developed content, making for over 125 levels across 25 tracks. SOE sent over some PS3 screenshots of the game.

Sony Online Entertainment plans to release GripShift on PlayStation 3's PlayStation Store for $9.99 in late December 2006 or early January 2007.

It has been long rumored that Ubisoft has a Prince of Persia game in the works for Wii, and today the company confirmed that speculation. In a move consistent with many of the company's releases for the system so far, the game is a revamped port of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the third game in the Sands of Time trilogy which shipped last year for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC. The Two Thrones has also been announced for PSP as Prince of Persia Rival Swords, and the Wii version of the game shares that moniker. Prince of Persia Rival Swords on Wii contains the same levels and story as those of The Two Thrones, but also features a new control scheme making use of the Wii remote and nunchuk controllers. In an attempt to illustrate the workings of these controls, Ubisoft sent along these baffling screenshots.

Ubisoft plans to release Ubisoft Montreal's Prince of Persia Rival Swords for Wii in March 2007.

Wii's Virtual Console got three more titles today, two of which had already been announced by their respective publishers. As it indicated on Friday, Hudson Soft released the TurboGrafx-16 turn-based strategy game Military Madness for 600 Wii Points ($6) the game supports up to two players.

For Sega Genesis, Sega contributed the single-player sci-fi action game Space Harrier II, available for 800 Wii Points ($8).

Finally, Nintendo added another sports game to the Virtual Console's NES library with the two-player Tennis, which can be purchased for 500 Wii Points ($5).

Sega sent word today that a final North American release date for AM2's PlayStation 3 version of Virtua Fighter 5 has been nailed down. The game is set to hit stores on February 20, 2007. Along with that announcement, Sega revealed that Virtua Fighter 5 will be part of the PS3 launch lineup when the system launches in Europe in March 2007.

Midway today announced a shipping date for its naval warfare action game Battlestations: Midway. The game will be available in North America for PC and Xbox 360 on January 30, 2007.