The latest entry in the Metal Gear Solid series will be hitting Japan on March 18 of 2010, game magazine Famitsu reports. The game, starring Naked Snake, is set in Costa Rica during the 1970s and chronicles the rise of Outer Heaven — 10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3.
During E3, we showcased a prototype for a new controller launching next year. We know you probably have a lot of questions, so we sat down with Richard Marks and Anton Mikhailov, two of the main brains behind the new controller, to get some insight on the E3 demo, the back-story behind development, and the future of this new technology. Today, you’ll get an inside look at our R&D team—more specifically, who they are, what they do and how they took camera technology to the next level with the new controller. Check out the video below.
Well with Gamescom 2009 nearing it’s end and most if not all announcements having been made, it’s time to round up all the latest and greatest trailers that have been shown these past few days, starting with the Playstation camp.
Below is a list of trailers available, this list will be updated when new trailers become available.
Buzz TV Quiz : World Games
Dead Nation
Digital Comics reader
EyePet
Gravity Crash
Heavy Rain
Hustle Kings
Little Big Planet : Water addon
LocoRoco Midnight Carnival
Modnation
PixelJunk Deluxe
PixelJunk Shooter
Playstation Minis
Ratchet & Clank – A Crack In Time
Video Store
White Knight Chronicles
More videos and coverage for Wii and Xbox 360 to follow soon, stay tuned!
We’ll be providing live coverage for the Sony press conference, so stay tuned for updates!
6:30 pm: Seems everyone’s in and seated, waiting for the show to get started!
6:32 pm: Conference starts in 5 minutes!
6:37 pm: Here we go!
6:37 pm: Shown in the opening are Eyepet, LBP, and GoW.
6:39 pm: Home clothing, Heavy rain, and Singstore shown.
6:40 pm: Pixeljunk shooter, Mag, Gran Turismo 5, Uncharted 2, and DC Universe Online shown.
6:41 pm: Andrew House, President & CEO of SCEE, takes the stage.
6:42 pm: House talks of a company that’s always changing, taking pride in that fact. “Sony has a very bright future” and “with the PSP and Ps3 we’ve moved the boundary forward.”
6:44 pm: Moving away from announcements to look at sales data – bleh.
6:45 pm: PS2 sales currently at 138 million worldwide, PSP at 52.9 million worldwide, and Ps3 reached 23.7 million, with SCEE at 10 million.
6:46 pm: PlayStation Network offers infinite possibilities (if you pay for the bandwidth!), a service that delivers a unique offering for all.
6:47 pm: There’s apparently 27 million global registered users and global downloads of 560 million (no mention of how many are duplicate accounts).
6:48 pm: “We’ve generated over $280 million through Playstation Network.”
6:49 pm: Homes userbase of more than 7.5 million as judged by downloads of the free PS3 Application, stating content is the draw, mentioning that Singstar will soon receive its own Home space.
6:50 pm: Audi space being launched for Playstation Home by year’s end.
6:51 pm: More dance moves being added, more animations, new character customizations and a camera you can take with you to… uh, take pictures of things with…
6:52 pm: Sept 1st 2009, PSN receiving a new look, BBC iPlayer, and a pile of other channels coming to the UK PSN.
6:53 pm: Next month PSN cards available from UK retailers. (About damn time!)
6:54 pm: Vodzone heading to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand.
6:55 pm: Dude next to me is picking his nose. ( ._.)
6:57 pm: Downloadable movies heading to PAL PSN’s this November.
6:59 pm: Digital reader heading to NA and EU in November too.
7:04 pm: Marvels catalog available through the reader.
7:09 pm: Hundreds of comics heading to the reader, which will have autoflow.
7:12 pm: Loco Roco Midnight Carnival and Eye of Judgement PSP are playable at Gamescom.
7:13 pm: PSP Minis introduced, exclusive to PSN, 100mb size limit.
7:14 pm: 15 New games available at launch on 1st Oct, 50 titles planned for 2009.
7:16 pm: PSP 3000 getting new colors, Turquoise Green, Lilac Purple and Blossom Pink.
7:18 pm: Celebrating the launch of the PSP Go, people who register their GO’s between the 1st and 10th of October will receive a free digital copy of GT PSP.
7:19 pm: Eyepet will be retailing for just under 50 euros, bundled with the Playstation Eye.
7:20 pm: Uncharted 2 trailer shown.
7:22 pm: Taking a look at Heavy Rain, David Cage of Quantic Dream takes the stage.
7:23 pm: David asks how far we would go for someone we love.
7:24 pm: New character for Heavy rain introduced, a character born from the fear, guilt and panic that David himself felt upon losing his child in a supermarket.
7:25 pm: Heavy Rain is a story of guilt, love, and redemption.
7:25 pm: Trailer being shown for Heavy Rain.
7:26 pm: Talking about how Heavy Rain isn’t based on the same patterns and violence as other games, it will use motion controls and will be shown fully at TGS this year.
7:31 pm: Here comes Kaz!
7:32 pm: Kaz labels Gamescom the third major date for gaming calendars.
7:33 pm: He has something to show us…
7:34 pm: It’s the PS3 Slim, no duh!
7:35 pm: It’s smaller, lighter and has the same features… but, wait for it, there’s more…
7:36 pm: Will be priced at 299 euros, 299 dollars, and 29,980 yen.
7:36 pm: Andrew House is back again.
7:37 pm: Reiterating his previous comment, “Company with a bright future.”
7:37 pm: He leaves the stage.
7:38 pm: That’s it folks!
Magazine photos follow.
Is there going to be a PSP2?, It’s a question i am asked quite often to tell the truth, and it’s one of the easiest questions to answer.
Simply, Yes.
While details are yet to be unveiled, the games industry has an E3 2009 date pegged for the PSP2′s Debut and more recently Kotaku posted about the possibility that the PSP2 will be without the obligatory UMD drive.
Indeed the prospect is there and a huge possibility given the relatively power thirsty optical medium and the most common fault for the PSP to date has been defective umd lasers, That leaves four options which i will go over and compare the pros and cons with, to help you decide which Sony are more likely to opt for.
Internal Memory
This seems to be the ‘risk’ of the three given the yoyoing market value or memory in the current economy, as well as the component being a permanent fixture which could only be expanded upon by use of an external memory medium, which will more than likely use either MS Duo or Micro SD but given Sony’s position in the Ms Duo market this seems a no brainer.
Solid State drive (SSD)
In recent months the price of solid state drives has dropped considerably, if the PSP2 is to ship with a hard disk this is the most obvious choice, the option does exist however to use a normal platter based drive but given read/write noise and the power consumption involved i can’t really see it being a viable option, this of course would also be backed up by the external media options.
Memory stick only
Opting for no internal storage device would be the radical move, depending entirely upon customers purchasing memory stick devices for their games, it also reduces the ability of developers to make use of video formats.
Cartidge
This is something you can almost bet your life on sony NOT using, despite it’s success with the Nintendo DS and Gameboy series, Partly because they have set a bar on how much space is available in making the original PSP, to release a new model which restricts the developers more than the unit before it would be a very bad choice.
So what can we expect from Sony?, well we can be sure of a few things, If the rumors of dropping UMD are real then the next Playstation Portable will utilize internal or SSD storage, but almost definately SSD, the alternative would be to stick with the UMD format, allowing the next console to continue to play first generation PSP games and movies, this would be the smartest move as it provides the device with an extensive back catalog of games from the beginning.
There is one thing we can be sure of however, Sony will NOT utilize both SSD and UMD in the same unit, they have been burned badly by overengineering in the past with the PS3 and will be looking to make profits on every sale from the get go.
What else can we expect?, i think the answer to that question is obvious, expect voice communications, Playstation Home integration, Email (psn mail), Microphone as standard possibly a camera, and the much faught over element the PSP was missing, a second analog stick.
What will it look like? ask yourself why the home ‘pad’ in Home got switched from a virtual PSP to something that more closely resembles a pda?, Bingo.
Since around Mid 2005 Capcoms Japanese site has in their release schedule listed Devil May Cry Series as an upcoming title, that page has since been removed during a recent site update.
Curious as to the fate of the game i contacted a Capcom employee i met during the 2006 Leipzig event and was informed that the game has been scrapped!
Bad news for all PSP owning Devil May Cry fans i’m sure but i’ve always had to wonder how the control system would have translated over to the PSP with it’s single shoulder buttons and single analog stick, given this discovery it’s seems we’ll never get to find out!, still i can’t help wondering about the fate of other long since announced and rarely heard from games such as the fabled Gran Turismo Portable which was shown over three years ago.
Polyphony it seems rarely mention the title and each time they have done it has been to extend the already sketchy release period by another several months, Will GT Portable be the next big title to vanish? only time will tell.
