We knew it was coming, it just made sense. Every time the Zune got an upgrade the rumors came flooding once more. “Microsoft is making a handheld!” Well of course they are but up until now it wasn’t anything but business logic and rumors. No more though! Shane Kim, a MS VP recently declared in an interview that "For us, it’s a matter of focusing on ‘when’". That, right there, is an admission of what we all knew was going to happen. He went on to say:

"because if we chased after a mobile or handheld opportunity, we would not have the resources and ability to do things like instant-on 1080p HD, Facebook, Twitter, Project Natal … And so we’ve chosen to focus on the living room experience from a hardware standpoint, if you will, but we’re building a service in Live that will… extend to other platforms. No question about it."

Oh, cool stuff Microsoft, so not only are you confirming that you will eventually release a handheld but that it will run Live? Well color me shocked! What’s next, are you going to announce this device will use electricity? Oh right, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, an announcement like that will probably take another 2 years.

[Gearlog]

As the years go by and I become older I find myself feeling like there are very few good games out there, nothing worth playing for months at a time. Certainly not like when I was a kid. Man, even the NES had so many awesome games. Sure the mainstays like Mario, Zelda, Castlevania and all those others, but there was also the TMNT games, the Felix the Cat game, that one Flintstones game and Top Gun! Oh man Top Gun was good! So many memories. They don’t make so many good games games anymore.

Except they do.

Read more!

Germany’s Interior Ministers are requesting the Bundestag (German Parliament) to enact legislation forbidding the production and distribution of all videogames, "where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or unhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters." Seen as a response to the rise in youth related violence, politicians hope to present a number of reforms before national elections take place on September 27th.

Earlier German efforts had included a ban on war-like game scenarios such as paintball and laser tag, where the current age requirement is 18 or older, only to be scrapped when the measure was seen as immensely unpopular. IF this were to become law, limiting the cash flow of an already troubled German economy may send local developers like Crytek to neighboring countries.  

Soapbox please…
The greater issue is the lengths to which politicians are willing to go under the guise of maintaining social order. Videogames are often labeled as the correlation between minors and juvenile violence, until said minor reaches 18 and other factors such as depression, social anxiety and a bevy of other reasons may play into the perpetrated crime. Generally speaking, Germany is sensitive to realistic violence, often having developers change blood color, remove Third Reich imagery, or completely omit game scenes, and understandably so in the context of their war torn history.

However, an outright ban will cause more harm than good, especially when you consider the practical uses for videogames as a teaching tool for real world simulated experiences, particularly military uses (this includes aviation style games). Granted, I don’t live in Germany so I do not have the same perspective nor have I read any real proposed legislation. I understand the goal motivating those who want to ban violent videogames, but I do not believe this is the proper way to reduce violence in minors.

[Chip Online]
[Spiegel]

Last year when apple bravely proclaimed the iPod Touch/iPhone to be officially a handheld gaming device we laughed it off as all the iPod really had were some casual games and a Doom port. Fast forward a year later and here we have Kill-Test, a full 3D First Person Shooter game for the iPhone/iPod touch, and guess what? It’s not looking bad at all!

In fact this is pretty impressive for what’s basically a cell phone game. Now that the iPhone is fully 3D capable and has a big multi-touch screen all bets are off. If Apple can get its hands on a couple of key developers we’ll have to acknowledge a serious 3rd player in the handheld market.

So if you read Dasuraga’s log of Microsoft’s conference today you read about Project Natal, the suposed Wii-killer functionality of the Xbox 360. Now there’s a video to explain it further.

First things first, I’m a little reluctant to believe everything shown in this video, it could very well be just application concepts. However, if it’s real, if the technology is as good as shown, then this is huge! The technology to clearly capture the movements of several people, with facial and vocal recognition would open up games to a whole new range of experiences in games and applications. Forget flailing your arms around, skating or driving a car, those are blunt and coarse examples of what could be done.

Project Natal is extremely promising, but I remain skeptical, it could very well end up being a supped up eye-toy.

Is this a Wii Killer? I doubt so, not this generation, by the time it catches on and develops to full potential it would be too late in the game to knock the Wii off its place. However this totally changes the outlook of for the next generation of consoles. Now Nintendo has real competition and the only real winners will be us, the gamers. What are your thoughts on Project Natal? All hype? Game-changing? Let us know!

The new PSP is Go! Quite literally, this is the new PSP Go, the next iteration of the PSP line, and it has just been leaked unto the internet. Much like with Nintendo and the DS/Game Boy, Sony says its not trying to replace the current PSP with the Go and that they will live together happily every after on the store shelves. Here’s what we know so far:

Read more!

Nintendo’s catching up with the times and finally releasing a video service component to the Wii. Called Wii no Ma (Wii House), its actually a bit more ambitious than a video channel. The service also introduces a virtual home for your Mii, kinda like Playstation’s HOME but stripped down. There’s video voting, sharing with the DSi, calendars and even video coupons that you use at businesses with your DSi.

The weirdest feature of them all seems to be the ordering of services via the Wii, like a Wii shop channel but for actual products. Maybe inspired by World of Warcraft’s /pizza command? Who knows! This also opens up the possibility for adding clothing and color options to the Mii system which is something that’s badly needed.

The Wii House service goes live in Japan on May 1 and no content list has been released so far, much less is known about a western deployment of the service. Nintendo is further pushing the Wii as a sort of family central with this new component but honestly it all looks a little bland to me. What’s your take?

Remember months ago when that one kid bought Madden at Wal-Mart only to find Redneck Shit inside? And even before that, remember that guy who got a PSP preloaded with porn? Well this time its Nintendo’s turn! Jodi Wykle, a mom in Tampa Bay, went to buy her son a Nintendo DS for his birthday, when the time to open up the present comes, oh surprise! There’s no DS inside but a bunch of rocks and a chinese newspaper.

Walmart refused to replace the box with one that had a slightly more technologically advanced content than rocks. It was only after the local TV station pressured with the story that corporate heads at Wal-Mart finally agreed to replace the product and add a $20 gift card.

Surely a mistake with a previously returned product or a piece of stolen hardware back at the production plant right? Well I beg to differ! I think Miyamoto was trying to test out his next revolutionary portable platform: a bunch of rocks. He got the idea from when he was little and he used to play with a bunch of rocks.

[10Connects]

The PS2, much like the Madden franchise, refuses to die. Only unlike with Madden, its a good thing! Furthermore the PS2 has just been given a nice price cut to $99 USD, which coupled with music games and JRPGs still coming out for the console will ensure many more years of its existence.

However Sony believes the PS2 will be the gateway to owning a PS3. John Koller, Director for Hardware Marketing at Sony said to Ars Technica that they’ve "found that almost 80 percent of PlayStation 3 owners either currently own or have in the past owned a PlayStation 2, so that statistic on its own speaks volumes". That’s some hardcore deductive power right there guys!

I’m sorry but I dont see a $99 console bought to play Guitar Hero making people buy a $400 dollar PS3. Just as much as I dont see soccer moms who bought the Wii to play Wii Fit ‘graduating’ to an Xbox 360, as Microsoft has stated in the past. Mr. Koller, that most PS3 owners had a PS2 does not mean most PS2 owners will buy a PS3. Just as much as me making a bitter Playstation post does not mean all my Playstation posts are bit… ok I’ll give you that one.

[Ars Technica]

“Sin” taxes are state-sponsored taxes added to products or services seen as vices, such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling. State governments favor sin taxes because they generate an enormous amount of revenue and are usually easily accepted by the general public because they are indirect taxes only affecting those who use the products.

As the global recession worsens US lawmakers are looking to levy videogames as a creative solution to help fill the budgetary gap. Videogames are not typically seen as the traditional vice, however the gaming industry as a whole has been very resilient during this modern great depression and cash strapped local governments have trained their sights.

There have been multiple attempts to increase taxes on “violent games” like Gears of War or Dante’s Inferno, as well as videogame and television equipment. Thankfully, most legislation seems to be dead on arrival. However this doesn’t mean we should sit idly by while lawmakers, who the majority of whom have never played the next generation of games, propose unfair taxes.

It’s time to join the movement. I’m not going to take it anymore, and neither should you.

[Video_Game_Voters_Network]

[Reason]