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Get to the nuclear shelters, the world is gonna end! Phantom Entertainment, previously known as Infinium Labs, have finally released their first product: The Phantom Lapboard. You might remember Infinium Labs as the company behind the Phantom Console, a device so revolutionary that it was supposed to change the face of gaming forever.

It did in fact change the face of gaming, putting a big freaking smirk on gaming’s face as the device became the very definition of vaporware. After giving up on their pipe dreams the company reformed as Phantom Entertainment and prepared to launch this, the Phantom Lapboard, as its flagship product. How the mighty have fallen, from a revolutionary game console to a keyboard and laptop combo. It must be said though that Phantom Entertainment has held true to its name as all it has really provided during its 6 year history is precisely that, entertainment.

[Phantom Entertainment]

If you thought we have it bad with  micro transactions, game cash shops and virtual economies in the western world you surely don’t know about the QQ coin. In China, a company called Tencent has a monopoly on virtual currencies, one so massive and shady that state regulators fear it may start to affect China’s own currency.

It all starts looking innocently enough. Tencent runs websites with all sorts of games where either subscriptions or items are bought with the QQ, Tencent’s virtual currency. Much like Second Life you can take your QQ and convert it back to cash, and this is where thing’s start getting shady.

Continue Reading »
The Almighty QQ: The Story Of The Worlds Most Powerful Virtual Economy

It seems Acer never heard of the Phantom Console and its thinking of joining the console race. Acer’s senior vice president, James T. Wong, stated that Acer is considering entering the Vide Game market with what he called a console based on “open standards”. He further said:

“If you look at most of the other game machines that are out there right now — Nintendo’s, the Xbox — they are ‘closed’ and proprietary systems,”

Well that’s all good and fair Acer but we already have an “open” platform, its called the PC, you’ve been making those for years! And I somehow doubt a standard-spec PC is going to fly with the PC gaming crowd.

[Betanews]

Thats right! Comon sense out of a game company, I guess we’ve covered it all now, haven’t we? We could die peacefully now after this. Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix, pronounced this pledge in Japan earlier this week by saying they will start “making simultaneous releases the norm.”

Oh my! I feel like I may faint just typing it. Now you may wonder if this applies to FFXIII or Dragon Quest IX, frankly I couldn’t care less. This is a pledge for the future, a trend for the industry. Perhaps one day gamers in Europe and Australia wont have to wait almost a year just for some mystic reasoning that’s never justified. They should be the happiest of us all. Here’s to the future of gaming, may it come to us all at the same time!

[IGN]

 Video Game testing, the holy grail of all dream jobs for many gamers. Just imagine, getting paid to play games all day, not like those suckers, the game programmers, spending their days slaving over petty problems. Or is it? This insider report from Journalist Karla Starr shows us a glimpse of the dark world that is game testing. A snip from the article:

“People were there because they thought it was going to be this great job,” says Sean Day, referring to his time as a tester, “but you were always threatened with the prospect of losing your job at any minute. There was a guy, we were testing and sitting there, it was 10:30 in the morning, and just out of nowhere, this security guard comes up, and a supervisor comes up after him and says, ‘Grab your things.’ I’ve seen that several times. At all three jobs,” says Day, who counts these inexplicable firings among the more unsavory aspects of his time in QA.

A bunch of people reduced to mere junkies, wasting away in front of screens just for a dose of the dream.

[Seattle Weekly]

I one of the lucky ones who got to see E3, no i didn’t get to go to E3, I’m stuck here in my house, and its raining. But thanks to G4 their live streaming of the conferences made my day!

But man do i have news for you who happened to miss the Sony Conference today!

let me dial you in on what happened.

Sony Has announced:

Slimmer PSP, 18% slimmer and 33% lighter, and at the new price to boot!

Killzone 2 for 2008, i got to see the trailer, and i must say, it looked BEAUTIFUL, i didn’t play the first one, and if i ever get the money for a PS3 i will get this.

The fourth and final Metal Gear Solid game is also going to be released in early 2008, there was no demo at E3, but the director said that “if you guys want to come to Tokyo next week, we can get you one, hope to see you there!” ha ha, no. sorry man but I’m flat broke from my trip to acen…STILL.

Nintendo has also Announced:

New controllers/peripherals for the Wii, Wii Fit (basically Wi Sorts and Wii Play, 2) and a Zapper Gun, hopefully Resident Evil 5 and Time Crisis compatible.

One of the more anticipated games of the next-gen Super Smash Brothers Brawl, has been slated to arrive in stores December 3, 2007. Just in Time for the holidays.

Tskiller should have the details from the Microsoft show, or Nahu, or…someone.

Stay Tuned!

This post is old; I originally posted it on my.qj.net back in March, and then on my own blog, Warriors of Gaming. As such, it is slightly out of date. However, it still holds true and it reflects my core beliefs about the gaming community. It’s pretty long, so it’s after the split.

Continue Reading »
Why Console Wars Don’t Matter

This week Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils Fils-Aime, seen above giving the crazy eye to Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, announced Nintendo’s plans to launch a platform where indie and big developers alike can launch new games to be downloaded via the Wii’s Shop Channel.

The service, called WiiWare, is Nintendo’s answer to Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s Playstation Network. Many will remember hints of this where stated by Nintendo last year. The games will be priced by Nintendo in coordination with the developer or the publisher, there has been no price range announced but expect it to be pretty competitive with the competition.

It really sounds too good to be true, as Reggie put it, ”WiiWare content is new content. It can come from Reggie’s Videogame Garage or from EA”, but don’t get too excited, if you were planning to start coding right away keep in mind that Nintendo wont do much for your game until you have secured an ESRB rating for your game, no AO rated games though (sorry Rockstar). Be on the lookout for the first WiiWare titles come 2008.

[Newsweek]

Starcraft Ghost, the oh so hyped Starcraft game, the game I once saw in a booth two years ago at and though “oh wow that looks complete”, was “postponed” early last year. Blizzard wanted to evaluate the potential of next-gen consoles. Hey, maybe that was going to be a good thing, a better game. A year and a half later we finally get word that Blizzard still has the game in mind, as Blizzard’s Rob Pardo said:

“With that game we were very stubborn. I still believe in that game and the characters but we were not able to execute at the level we wanted to…Rather than work on that we had to focus on our other games. We’re hoping one day to return to it.”

Then again, this doesn’t mean much, if the game concept were to be resurrected it would have to be a whole new project, starting from scratch. Much like Duke Nukem Forever, and we all know how that’s going.

[next-gen.biz]

The gaming industry is an amazing one, it gets away with things that wouldn’t fly on any other industry, the kind of stuff that gave the dot com industry a bad rep. Like this fantastic Nautilus-inspired Steampunk office space that Three Rings Designs, maker of online games including one with Steampunk cowboys, commissioned.

Its pretty badass, it even has a plush attacking octopus couch and a secret lair. If you are going to work making fantasy worlds, might as well be working in one!

[Wired]

Sony’s Self Delusion Public Relations department sure is working hard on making the PS3 an attractive system for consumers everywhere. First, Next-Gen wouldnt begin until Sony said so, then only the PS3 had true Hi-Def. Now if you dont want a PS3… well, youre not even a real gamer or so says Sony’s Dave Karraker:

I am pretty sure if you asked just about any real gamer out there if they would like to have a PS3, their answer would be a resounding “Yes!” I think a lot of this goes back to the proliferation of the Internet, where a very vocal minority can make a lot of noise and potentially alter perceptions of the masses, whether they are accurate or not. A lot of this, naturally, is driven by the media who seem focused on taking swipes at us lately, without taking in the full picture.

Sorry to break it to you, millions  of gamers, you arent real gamers after all, just the result of a conspiracy by the gaming illuminati. Find another hobby.

[GamePRO / Via Kotaku]

What you see is a short machinima film by Australian artist Thuyen Nguyen. He calls it a love letter to video games and it is just that. This is why we game, these are the emotions we feel and some of the great moments we remember. In a world where gaming can be considered a stigma a film like this serves to remind us gamers that what we do is not only not bad, its artistic, creative, human.

Lets all take a moment to remember why we love video games, and while we are at it show some love to those who go out of their way to set us back in track.

[Game Set Watch / Via Kotaku]

The day finally arrives, the day of dreams.

But for some, it didn’t come till later in the day. Due to unknown circumstances the players who bought “Crackdown” for the beta code to play, there was a problem with the downloads so the promised 5 am release time was pushed back, till. say, PM CST. With me and my roommates all waiting patiently on the Bungie Forums, many MANY people were on complaining, which didn’t help of course, but it made us all feel better.

But the glorious time has arrived, and this writer has been playing it for the last 2 hours. The beta is beautiful with new weapons, the Spiker, the Spartan Lazer, (Imma chargin mah lazor!) Rocket pods, removable turrets, and the glorious return of the Assault Rifle. 3 new maps, including a remake of a timeless classic, Blood Gulch, and a special ranking system, this was an occasion to wear my special Red Vs Blue shirt, signed by Caboose, whom i saw at ACEN.(Which btw i still need to make a post about).

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shigeru Miyamoto was asked what he thought about American gamers preferring FPS games and if he’s missing sight of what American gamers want by not making games like Halo. Miyamoto’s reply, as expected, will create more than a few ripples.

“I could make Halo. It’s not that I couldn’t design that game. It’s just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.”

He then went on to explain how he designs games and his game-testing methods.

“With rising budgets, I understand why game companies have a great deal of concern if they don’t design games in this way. But you need to create what you want to create! In that sense, I would really like to see people develop games like I do. When I show a game to people I don’t ask their opinion or give them a survey. I just watch their eyes and their face while they play. Do they smile? Do they look frustrated? So I guess I do test my games — but it isn’t very scientific”

So its about fun, and not about getting frustrated when you missed the last warthog. That’s cool, fun is fine too!

[GameDaily / Via The Tanooki]

The results are in and Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2007 have been chosen. And guess who’s number 9? None other than Shigeru Miyamoto, with 129,573 votes, being one of the most voted personalities in the poll landed just below #8, Keifer Sutherland.

But seriously, you dont want to be above Keifer Sutherland, lest Nintendo becomes the next terrorist force in the next season of 24. The write-up for Miyamoto’s entry is by progamer Fatal1ty, go read it and enjoy another step towards gaming’s world domination.

[Time]

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