I could very well be wrong about this, but they I think MS, Sony, and Gamestop have a pretty good thing going at the moment. While their focus on preowned sales is pissing off some developers, they also seem to fund the majority of TV ads for games. Nintendo games are the only commercials that don't focus on, or at least end with a message to pre-order whatever game it is being advertised at Gamestop. Microsoft probably isn't quite ready to piss them off.

I've got no interest in these games on demand unless they get marked down considerably cheaper than their store price. If I'm going to pay full market price for a game then I want a case and manual to go with it. I suppose not having to put in the disc to play a game would be nice, but considering how long the NXE game library takes to load it's probably faster to get the disc off the shelf.

Not like I have any room on my 20GB HDD for a full 360 game anyway.

I bet at least one of the big companies will probably attempt a download-only version of a console. It would cut down on so many costs, and with terabyte hard-drives at like $70 space is becoming less and less of an issue.

Isn't there a PSP coming out without a umd drive? I can see some people would be interested in a (arcade like) xbox 360 step-down which can only download games. Think about it, virtually no load times.

Yeah, the new version of the PSP has no UMD drive. Then again, nobody ever buys PSP games anyway so there's not much of a market to destroy in the first place. I'd be surprised if in the next few years while they develop a new generation of consoles the big players don't consider a move to facilitate a lot more digitally downloadable content. Sony are already doing pretty well with this distribution method and a few developers have suggested they'll be the first out with a new console, to avoid the kicking they got from the 360 coming out a year earlier than the PS3. A new generation is still a long way off though. I think digital distribution would catch on a lot faster if MS let you use any HDD with your 360 rather than an offiical one, given you can pick up a terrabyte of storage for the price of an official 360 100 gig one.

Yeah, installed games have no load times whatsoev...wait what

Remember how Bionic Commando was kinda set up for a sequel? Guess we'll never see it.

Source: Joystiq

Took them long enough to talk about it. They've been dropping jobs left right and center for weeks. It's a crying shame, too.

I wouldn't be counting on a Bionic sequel based on it's sales, rather than on this unfortunate newsbit though, to be quite honest.

As some of you might be aware, the Metroid Prime trilogy is coming to the Wii. For those of you who like Pre-ordering and bonuses, Amazon.com has a poster available for those who pre-order the game from them. Gamestop does the game, and also throws in an "exclusive" T-Shirt. The game is cheaper from Amazon.com (46.99 + Free Shipping), so it really comes down to this for those pre-ordering: Do you like T-Shirts? Considering the bland design of the shirt, I'm probably gonna skip it and go to Amazon, but up to the individual of course.

Amazon.com: Metroid Prime Trilogy Collector's Edition: Nintendo Wii: Video Games
Gamestop.com - Buy Metroid Prime Trilogy - Nintendo Wii

Metroid Prime Trilogy ships the 24th of August.

Microsoft manage to demonstrate their 'excellent' understanding of how to price stuff once again:

[ source ]

So they're removing stuff and upping the price. Yep, that's going to stimulate sales for sure.

Does anyone actually buy the arcade model though? Surely putting up the price of something nobody buys won't harm their sales figures of none?

I bought this, but pretty sure I payed $40 for it at Best Buy.

(I still have some catching up to do on my gaming. Just came into some money and vacation time, so I got it.)

Kinda makes sense if you think about it. If MS runs its books based on the US dollar. If the pound is weak, it means selling an item for more UK pounds is gonna bring in the same revenue in US$. That said though, the product still sucks and would need a reduction even with the weakness of the UK pound to sell anything. :P

EARTHWORM JIM

Interplay has announced a new EWJ game for XBLA, WiiWare and PSN, launching in like, two months or something. It'll be a timed exclusive for XBLA (one month). Gameloft is developing it. The talented mobile studio behind Sexy Poker and American Pop Star: Road to Celebrity. :mad:

"The game, with its humorous and edgy style, is a great fit for today's gamer who craves a fully immersive experience that is fun and easily accessible. We look forward to delivering a fantastic game."

Earthworm Jim Coming to WiiWare, PSN and XBLA

Also good fucking work using a badly emulated ZSNES screenshot, 1UP.

But Shiny Entertainment is dead, man. DEAD.

Gameloft took Assassin's Creed and made this :gonk:

Well if there were any doubts left about a new PS3 console, they have been dissolved. Today at GamesCom 2009, Kaz Hirai introduced the PS3 Slim which will contain 120GB of space, released on the first week of September internationally, and will retail for $299.

The current 80GB phat model will have the price cut to $299 starting tomorrow.

"[10:36] The PS3 Slim is 32 percent smaller and 36 percent lighter and has 34 percent less power consumption than the current model. It will have all the same features and functionality as the current PS3."

Source

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen017.jpg

Apparently they slimmed it down by making it ugly.

Good for them.

Not like they ever looked great to begin with. Hopefully with its 34% reduction in power consumption it won't have that deafening fan anymore.

God dammit, Sony, put the backwards compatibility back in. $300 isn't a bad price, especially since my PS2 died.

Also, how about that aboutface from Sony? They were pretty steadfast on price for a while, and unless I missed something, the price drop came completely out of nowhere.

Granted, the Slim has been rumored for months, but I never saw anything about a new price being attached to it.

The price and the lack of proper BC were the two main things holding me back from considering one. The slim reduction is a nice bonus, but yeah, BC is found in the other two consoles (with varying degrees of success) so I should think it wouldn't be that hard to include it in the PS3.

Of course the reason I've heard that it DOESN'T feature proper BC is because they don't want people to not buy a PS2, which (while making sense from a business perspective since the PS2 is the main money-maker in Sony's Game Division) is stupid all the same.

This is great. There was never any hope for any further backwards compatibility in new models, so I'm not concerned about that. What I do like is that there is extra hard drive space for the $299 price and the unit is no longer the size of a mothership. If you like the price and don't mind the old phat units, BB has a bundle deal with the regular 80GB model bundled with Wall-E and Little Big Planet all for $299. Not a bad deal...

*The actual unit reminds me vaguely of a Neo-Geo without the cartridge slot, probably because of the round buttons below the drive slot...

Fix'd.

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8383/slimlol.jpg

This is by far the worst job of "slimming" I've ever seen. And they did it so well with the PS2.

If this is slim then I think the ps2 slim should be rename paper thin. I really didn't mind the size of the original one anyway, even if yes it's pretty big. I don't really like the new matte surface either, it make it look cheap, but I guess people were tired of wiping finger print of their ps3...

I guess the only great thing about the ps3 slim is the price drop, which if I'm not mistaken, is now cheaper than the Elite 360 no?

Fingerprints on you triple? What the fuck? How do you insert discs, by rubbing yourself over it and using your elbows? I get dust on my machine, but fingerprints? No. No I do not feel the need to fondle my electronics to let them feel loved.

I play Uncharted for that.

I didn't say I was wiping fingerprint but some don't like that glossy finish because of that, like the psp but that's another thing since it's a portable system...

Backwards compatability is completely pointless. Everyone on the planet already owns a PS2 and if your breaks you can pick up a decent second hand one for the price of a PS3 game. On top of that, once you have your shiny new HD PS3, you'll probably never be that arsed about playing any old PS2 games ever again. I haven't played an original Xbox game since I bought my 360 and I've not really had any desire to play any of them.

The very slight price drop is pretty cool I guess but I'm still going to wait for there to be more decent games before I buy a PS3. God of War 3 is about the only thing I'm bothered about on it currently.

Alright, nov completely pointless but I would have thought anyone desperate to play PS2 games would just buy a PS2 for forty quid, rather than dropping three hundred on the PS3. Only one console ever released has been properly backwards compatible and I'd question how many people bought a PS2 just because of that feature.