Project Gotahm Racing Cars have more polygons than expected

Bizarre lied about the poylgon count of most of their car models in PGR3!?!?! I am shocked and awed.

 

It’s not so much they lied (like everyone is freaking out about) but more like they underestimated. They whole "we lied, we’re actually more awsomer than we said before!" angle is good for getting the hype out. When I saw "They lied!!" I was thinking the poly count was going to be lower or the game wouldn’t be coming out until 2008 or something similarly disappointing.  But I digress. Bizarre previously stated that their car models were going to be around 80,000 polygons but now, closer to release, their models ended up being anywhere from 85 to 105,000 polygons. I just hope the game is fun to play. 1up has the new images Bizarre released laid out nicely. 2 wireframe images and 2 (in-game?) finished model shots.

PS3 losing developers to the Xbox 360?

Citing the expensive costs (2 billion yen to start developing, that’s $17.6 million) and how much harder it is to program games for, many developers may be jumping the Playstation 3 development ship for the lush, green hi-def paradise that Microsoft is making the Xbox 360 out to be. Developing for the Xbox 360 will cost less and is more akin to developing for Windows, which many developers are already familiar with. Could this explain Sony’s, or more specifically Ken Kuturagi’s, lack of comments lately? I’d say all PS3 developers should get together and finish KillZone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. That would make it all worthwhile.

 

One journalist, a veteran of the industry, observes, “The Xbox 360 is selling at 39795 yen [US $350], whereas the PS3 will probably be more expensive. To draw a comparison with PC operating systems, the Xbox 360 is like a low-cost and stable version of Windows, while the PS3 resembles a high quality Macintosh [operating system]. Considering the economic variance within the world market, we may find that console selection depends heavily on geographic location.”

Ragdoll Kung Fu released

The string-puppet-ish fighter Ragdoll Kung Fu is now available.

Final Fantasy XI beta on the Xbox 360

The beta program for Final Fantasy XI on the Xbox 360 will launch the day the Xbox 360 is launched in Japan, December 10th. You have to buy a certain limited edition 360 package to actually partake of the testing goodness. You’ll have to sign up for the free SquareEnix PlayOnline service and the also free Xbox Live Silver Package.

Playstation 3 festival coming late October?

According to the-magicbox, Sony is going to be holding an entertainment festival dubbed Akihabara Enta Matsuri in Tokyo starting on October 22 and ending on the 30. They don’t detail whether or not any games are to be playable or what they’re going to be doing at this festival that will keep people entertained for 8 days but I guess we’ll see.

Jack Thompson is still crazy

Doesn anyone even listed to this guy anymore? Apprently he found a media outlet to spill some more, untrue gossip. He’s now claiming that Eidos is (on the always reliable inquirer site) is shelving their upcoming 25 to Life game indefinitely since they no longer want to release it ever. Why do they want to throw out an almost completed title and waste all that they’ve put into it so far? Why to avoid the legal sh!tstorm that is senior Thompson himself. Oddly enough, when Edios was contacted for comment, they claimed to not know of these developments and to not even know Thompson himself.  Of course. Just what will happen if Eidos does decide to release the game (making Thompson look even more like the crazed-crazy man he is)?

 

Of course, even if these rumours from Thompson prove to be incorrect, Mr. Thompson himself says, "If they haven’t pulled it, we’re gonna sue their butts."

 

I am so going to buy this game.

Pay to have an Xbox 360/Playstation 3/Revolution smashed to bits

Want to see a next generation console smashed in front of the fanboys waiting in line to pick that particular console up? Of course you do, we all do. These guy are hoping to raise enough money to smash each next-generation console on the day it’s launched. So far they haven’t raised as much as their SmashMYiPod campaign has raised so we’ll see if they cam emake it to their goal.

Xbox 360 reaches out to indie game developers

Greg Canessa, Group Manager of Xbox Casual Games at Microsoft, is trying to reach out to independant and small-scale game developers with the Xbox 360 . No word of any kind of discounted Xbox 360 dev kits or anything, not yet at least, but this is still cool to hear. Why would you want to work in a cg-sweatshop at a bigger studio when you can go small and build your game by yourself or with your own team? It will be interesting to see how this plays out though.

 

Greg Canessa called the original Xbox Live a dry run, with the 360’s version of Live Arcade as a more true realization of what they imagined. It is all dash based with live links to downloads, trial play, special game achievements, Leaderboard settings for all games, multi-player, and even retro arcade classics with Live support for multi-player.

More Xbox 360 press event impressions…

More feedback is coming in on the, Meet the Xbox 360 – Love the Xbox 360, press gathering Microsoft has been throwing since yesterday. Kotaku’s tech-obsessed sibling, Gizmodo, dug all of the games except Kameo which they described as basically a fairy running around and kicking people. But all was not lost, Project Gotham Racing 3 produced quite the soilage in the Gizmodo’s writers pants:

 

…your humble correspondent felt blood and stool on his leg while fighting Jerry in CoD2.

 

That’s too bad about Kameo, but it’s good to know that the other proposed launch titles (I won’t beleive any of’em will launch until i see them) will still have us reaching for the Depends.

 

The anti-Gizmodo Engadget (which has their own gaming website, despite Joystiq being a part of the same network…wtf?) was less awe-inspired than everyone has been so far. They also saw Kameo as a bit of a letdown although they heard it’s supposed to get better they further you get in the game (if it holds your interest for that long that is). Overall, they liked it but they weren’t in love with it. they acknowledged that a lot of people with pick up an Xbox 360 since it will truly be the only "next-generation" system available.

 

Me? I think I’m going to hold off for Halo 3 or the PS3, whichever comes first

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft invites press and bloggers to try out Xbox 360

Gaming Steve was among a number of bloggers and press people who got invited to New York by Microsoft to get introduced to the Xbox 360 and spend some quality time with some launch-day or near launch-day titles. Gaming Steve dug pretty much every title he had a chance to play with the exception of Perfect Dark, which he cited as being “pretty standard”. That seems to fit the buzz around this game so far. He was pretty stoked about Condemned: Criminal Origins which played “like Resident Evil crossed with an FPS crossed with an psychological thriller”.

Microsoft’s Major Nelson had a good time entaertaining and getting stomped on in Dead or Alive. You can check out some pictures he took of the space the event was held in, here. All in all, sounds like it was a good time had by all.