At the Microsoft E3 2011 conference, EA had a tremendous showing of their support for Kinect, with the addition of motion controls to their sports franchises and voice control in Mass Effect 3. Later on at the EA E3 2011 press conference, “EA SPORTS announced Kinect support for several of its blockbuster titles in 2012, including Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR and FIFA.”
In the next year, The Sims 3 Pets and Family Game Night 4 will also launch with Kinect support.
We can’t say that we are really surprised that most of these games are getting motion control. No, we are most shocked that Tiger Woods is still fronting a golf game. That is so 2009.
This isn’t really surprising news, more and more people tend to stream content to Xbox 360’s from their PC’s and the rise of digital distribution also helps the statistic. Microsoft posted this just before E3, which was intended to flaunt strategic vision for the conference more than anything else. While people are still playing lots and lots of games, 40 percent of all Xbox activity now is non-game. Put another way, Microsoft is seeing an average of 30 hours of video consumption per month per Xbox, a number that is growing fast. In Microsoft’s original blog post, they tend to waffle on about how this has been their strategy all along and discount the fact that alot of this probably has to do with torrenting. It’s not exactly a “new era” of entertainment as they put, however I think consoles are going to become vital in the digital distribution of films and effectively phase out rentals in the future.
But it is an interesting statistic and probably something you’d find the PS3 shares with its competitor. Microsoft also go on to talk about other stats such as selling 53 million Xbox 360 consoles and that the Xbox has been the top-selling console in the last year. There are more than 30 million Xbox LIVE members and more than 10 million Kinects have sold to date, good selling stats hey? I’m assuming alot of people watch movies on their Xbox 360 more than anything, whether or not they were paid for is another question, one stat that Microsoft strategically chose not to reveal.
If you’ve been wondering how Cave Story will look like on the 3DS then you won’t have to use your imagination anymore. We’ve seen character art as well as box art, but now NIS America has released a handful of screenshots for the title which you can see below.
These screenshots show a number of different areas in the game, including inside of a lab, a temple like area and even an area with some grassy hills. A little bit of the game’s combat is shown in one screenshot as well. Originally developed by Nicalis and Studio Pixel, Cave Story 3D will be the first game from NIS America’s library to arrive on the 3DS and will be released on August 9th of this year.
MasterAbbott caught up with Tak Fujii Producer of his soon to be released 3DS title Frogger 3D at this years E3 Expo 2011. Everyone’s favourite little green frog is back with some really cool remake. Fujii go through all the new features and also some old school updates that he’s throw in into the game.
Frogger is defintely a classic and to see it in 3D form will be exciting and nostalgic, albeit a little frightening. Frogs are already creepy and having their nasty, little buggy eyes popping out at you even more is insane. Luckily, the Frogger is a little cuter than most ribbiters.
What do you think? Will you be investing into the the hip, new Frog?
Normally in the U.S., Monday is the day you check to see what is new in the Nintendo e-shop on the Wii & DSi (and as of last week the 3DS). That date is now looking to change starting this Thursday. Last week, 3DS owners received a whole shop launch to themselves, consisting of the new Virtual Console with a few Game Boy Classics, a free 3D Excitebike, as well as the standard DSi library and a handful of 3DS E3 trailers. Most users were readily looking forward to what today would bring to the service after such an eventful launch, but Nintendo want us to wait just a few more days to see what new content they have up their sleeves.
So what changed? Here is the official statement from Nintendo:
Starting June 16, the Nintendo Download will include information about the newest additions to the Nintendo eShop, including new 3D games, 3D Classics (select classic video games re-mastered in 3D), Virtual Console versions of games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color systems, and hundreds of games originally offered via the Nintendo DSiWare service. What’s more, this modified weekly update will be posted Thursdays instead of Mondays, giving fans a heads-up on the latest offerings just in time for the weekend.
I think a few days certainly won’t kill anyone. I can say though that I am waiting with a Nintendo point card for more content to be added to the 3DS e-shop, so the sooner we see what new goodies await, the better. The DSiWare/WiiWare users out there should also breathe a sigh of relief as Nintendo have ensured that support will continue on both systems, but with the new “Thursday” release.
If you thought that paying for Dead Rising 2: Off the Record was a bit too expensive for the same type of title that you already paid for once then the following news may help a little bit of that wallet pain your suffering. Eurogamer reports that Dead Rising 2: Off the Record will only cost $40 instead of your standard $60 amount. This makes the fact that the game is more or less a reskinning of Dead Rising 2 with some new features a bit less painful.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record will be released some time later this year on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Jason Leigh went on to say that there are “new environment, weapons, combo weapons, new clothing, food items, vehicles, bosses and a new story.” I had a bit of time to play a section of the game and I can see that it will definitely be a fun and relatively new experience. Though not everyone is going to be as easy as a sell as I am.
In a bit of depressing news today, the Nintendo 3DS has reached a million handheld sales this past week in Japan. This means it took thirteen weeks for the Nintendo 3DS to take and reach this benchmark, while the DS only took four weeks and the DS Lite and DSi only took eight weeks.
Andriasang pointed out this fact and also pulled in a statement from Nintendo’s head Satoru Iwata. Iwata stated that the handheld isn’t doing as well as the company would like and they are planning to make a big push this summer in sales.
Nintendo announced officially that they had sold 3.61 million 3DS units at the end of March, though the very slow install base in their home country is probably disappointing for the company to say the least. Though with Ocarina of Time 3D coming out in a week and a few other big name titles being released soon, one can expect sales to hopefully make a jump in the coming weeks.
Motorstorm: Apocalypse may have been released in the rest of the world at this point but Sony’s home nation hasn’t seen any sign of a new release date for the title which was placed on indefinite delay after the natural disasters which struck Japan earlier this year.
It seems that any fans of the game in Japan will never be able to play the title though, without importing it at least. Because today Sony Japan officially announced that they will be canceling the release of Motorstorm: Apocalypse in Japan. This news is a bit of a surprise as the title was practically on the delivery truck to stores the day that the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami occurred. No actual reason was given for the cancellation but it is easy to guess as to why it occurred, especially after hearing that Disaster Report 4 has been canceled as well.
Bleach: Soul Resurrección may not be coming out for a few months still but that doesn’t mean that websites like Gamestop aren’t already placing up product pages for the titles to help lure in early pre-orders. Now these product pages actually are a bit more helpful than usual because this time it leaked a bit of extra information.
Apparently NIS America will be bundling a voucher that will allow anyone who purchases Bleach: Soul Resurrección to download three episodes of Bleach for free. The exact information for this voucher is still unknown, and whether or not these product pages are to be believed is still up in the air. We’ve contacted NIS America to shed some light on this reveal.
It looks like the backing for Vocaloids to begin showing up more and more in the United States is growing as VIZ media announced that they have officially acquired the license rights to everything that is Hatsune Miku in North America. Unfortunately beyond announcing that they now own the rights to Hatsune Miku VIZ did not elaborate as to what this means for her fans.
The press release that contained this information reminded fans that VIZ will be attending the Licensing International Expo next week and so will Hatsune Miku in the form of her products and other things. What this will mean down the road for the popular Vocaloid has yet to be seen, but with her concert appearance in the United States at the Anime Expo soon; Hatsune Miku may just establish at least some small foothold in the US shortly.
