Monthly Archives: March 2009

That didn’t take long. The video after the break shows an infinite combo loop in Street Fighter IV.

It only works with Fei Long against either Seth or Abel, apparently.

Capcom’s told Destructoid that the upcoming Championship patch may fix it. Other loops are also being rumoured.

“We’re always looking into the possibilities with the Championship Expansion Pack on the horizons,” said a PR chap.

“But we can’t confirm anything at the moment yet.”

Thanks, EventHub.

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An American court has dismissed a patent infringement case bought against Activision by guitar-maker Gibson.

Gibson alleged Guitar Hero’s mock guitars – modeled on Gibson guitars under license – infringed on a patent it registered in 1999 for “technology for simulating a musical performance.”

“No reasonable person of ordinary skill in the relevant arts would interpret the ’405 Patent as covering interactive video games,” wrote Judge Mariana R Pfaelzer in a ruling obtained by GameSpot.

“Gibson would have this Court determine that any device that controls something that produces musical sounds is covered by the ’405 Patent.”

The case was originally files last March.

Microsoft’s put out the second and third parts of its Halo Wars-inspired documentary on the Halo universe

You’ll find all three parts after the break. It’s essential stuff for fans and interesting stuff for everyone else.

Watch it even if you hate Halo, in fact. Getting some background on one of the most successful game franchises of all time can’t really hurt, can it?

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DSi has been region-coded to protect the innocent, Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton’s told The Times.

“There are many different age requirements with games around the world,” said Yarnton when asked why Nintendo had blocked games from other regions.

“I’ve been involved with the Industry Body, and we’ve just had the Byron review, so it’s quite topical. As an industry, we are trying to take a responsible stance in that area, to make sure that we have people aware of what content they get, and that there is a certain amount of protection.”

So there you go. It has absolutely nothing to do with grey imports and general sales control. Absolutely not.

DSi hits Europe at the beginning of April.

Yakuza 3 dev lead Toshihiro Nagoshi’s confirmed on this blog that PS3-exclusive Yakuza 3 has sold over 300,000 units in its first week.

Famitsu estimates are putting day one sales at 232,000, according to this Jeuxactu piece.

The Sega game will only be released in Japan.

More than 1 billion games of Halo 3 have been played, according to this Bungie blog post. That’s more than we have fingers and toes, so it’s a bit beyond us.

“Saturday night, while many of us were stuffing food into our faces, plenty of folks were still playing Halo 3,” said the firm in the update.

“At precisely 6.36pm PST, in a three minute and nineteen second game of Infection on Foundry, four players participated in Halo 3′s one billionth match.”

That’s ridiculous, whichever way you cut it. There’s some more silly figures through the link.

Are they new? We think they are. They’re damn pretty, even if they’re not. Get them from Famitsu.

Famitsu’s put a little thumb in the top right corner of that page, which presumably means the RPG looks “awesome thumbs”.

You can expect the media to ramp up on this now. It’s out this year in Japan, and the Advent Children demo – with its hour of gameplay – is releasing this month.

Variety’s reporting that ex-Ubisoft boss Jay Cohen’s moved to MTV Games and Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ JV.

The outfit was formed in 2007, and has been quiet on potential projects since then.

More through there.

Sony’s launched a PSP competition called “yourwholeworld,” which asks you to create videos of how you’d manage to exist without a black Sony handheld.

The results so far are, well, interesting. We won’t be cruel.

See for yourself.

Konami’s to sell PSP double packs in the UK from March 27, priced £20.

The first two double packs will be Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and Silent Hill Origins, and Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and Coded Arms.

More on Kotaku.

Here we go! It’s the big Strauss and Co ramalamadingdong! Take-Two will announce Q1 financials on March 10. It’s going to be awesome.

The press release hits at 4.15pm EST, followed by the conference call 15 minutes later. Get details for that after the break.

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You’ll be able to view your Trophies on PlayStation.com from tomorrow, according to this post on the PS Blog.

Later this year, Sony will “enhance these features giving you the ability to compare and sort Trophies in new ways.”

There’s a movie of it all working after the break.

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You may think that offering huge cash bonuses to execs to offload franchises in the face of bankruptcy was trying quite hard to get rid of the IP involved. Not so, said Midway today.

“We’re not going out of our way to sell Mortal Kombat,” Geoff Mogilner, Midway’s head of investor relations, told Edge.

Midway was reported this morning to be dumping key assets to raise cash. Despite this looking as though Midway is dumping key assets to raise cash, it means, in fact, precisely the opposite.

Mogilner said Midway may keep its properties instead of selling them off in pieces. “That’s management’s goal, to keep the company together.”

So just remember. When you tell someone you’ll give them a massive amount of money to sell something, what you’re really trying to do is not to sell it. See how that works?

BioWare is to form a new studio group within EA Montreal, Gama reports.

The new outfit will be 30 staff strong, and will support the Mass Effect 2 dev team in Edmonton.

“Our new presence… will be located within the existing EA Montreal facilities,” said BioWare boss Ray Muzyka.

“It’s great that we have a strong foundation to build out of.”

Artists, animators, designers and others are to supplement the ME2 team.

“We’ll be working together with our friends at EA Montreal,” said Muzyka.

“There’s a great studio here continuing full-force with a whole bunch of really cool, exciting things as well.”

More through there.

Those of you looking forward to bouncing your Impala through Compton thanks to Midnight Club’s South Central DLC would do well to watch the trailer after the break.

It’s out on March 12, and looks about as LA and LA can look without being in LA. For the streets, etc.

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Dawn of War II has topped by American and British charts in its opening week, pushing down World of Warcraft, The Sims and a European launch for Football Manager 2009.

UK top ten below:

Here‘s the full UK PC chart for the week ending February 28. Top ten US below for February 15-21, courtesy of Shack.

1. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / Relic / $49
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $35
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $19
4. The Sims 2 Deluxe / EA Maxis / $3
5. Spore / EA Maxis / $41
6. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $34
7. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $16
8. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin / Monolith / $49
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19
10. Crysis Warhead / Crytek / $19

Eurogamer’s just posted up more detail on the as-yet unannounced PSP-4000, saying there’ll be no UMD and talking about what controls will be allowed with the slide screen closed.

From the piece:

Our development source today confirmed these reports, adding: “The screen is basically the same as the one in the 3000 – except it slides.” When ‘closed’, we were told, the screen won’t cover the entire face of the console, but the unit will be “significantly smaller in width” as a result.

With the console in its ‘closed’ state, most controls will be inaccessible. However, our source claims that games which use the shoulder buttons exclusively – such as LocoRoco – will be playable, as these inputs will still be accessible. It’s expected that the unit can also be used for media playback in this configuration.

There’s more through. Expect the worst kept secret in the world to be announced at E3.

Killzone 2′s debuted at the top of the UK chart, surprising pretty much nobody.

Halo Wars came second, followed by Wii Fit at third.

Street Fighter IV, top last week, slipped to fourth.

Full top 40 here. Last week’s chart here. Data for the week ending February 28.

Microsoft’s dropped the price of Ninja Gaiden 2′s Mission Mode DLC to 560 MS Points, a saving of 33 percent.

It’s normally an 800 Point thing. That certainly is a Deal of the Week. no mistaking.

More here.

Microsoft’s releasing a red Resident Evil 5 Play & Charge Kit (featuring a red 360 controller, charging cable and matching red rechargeable battery) on March 13 in Europe, the same day as the game launches.

It’ll cost £40.

The pack is in addition to the red 360 Elite previously announced for the game.

Press release after the link.

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