Following the closure of Electronic Gaming Monthly by parent company Ziff Davis Media earlier this year (after nearly 20 years in the game industry), the magazine’s original founder Steve Harris repurchased the rights and promised a rebirth for EGM. We ran into Harris at E3 2009 and cajoled him into speaking with us about his purchase. (He was a bit busy with business at E3, as you might imagine, thus we’re talking a few months later.)

Though we’re still a little ways off from the mag’s December 1 “return,” he gave us a few hints of what to expect, his explanation of how EGM Now will succeed financially where “old EGM” failed, and a few of his favorite games on the current-gen systems.

Hit the break for the whole thing.

Continue reading Interview: EGM Now’s Steve Harris

Interview: EGM Now’s Steve Harris originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo announced during E3 that the functionality would be hitting American DSis “this fall.” We’ve asked the company for a more firm release date in other territories and will update this post if we hear back. In the meantime, check out a quick walkthrough that our pal Ittousai from Engadget Japan put together for us, just after the break.

[Via Engadget Japan]

Continue reading DSi firmware v1.4 drops in Japan, Facebook connectivity arrives alongside

DSi firmware v1.4 drops in Japan, Facebook connectivity arrives alongside originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it was first revealed, we gave Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a bit of a cold shoulder. Gone was the established story that had first introduced us to the world’s creepiest town, reinterpreted with altered characters and a new otherworld that ditched darkness and rust in favor of jutting glaciers and vaguely menacing snowflakes. Thankfully, our experience with the game at E3 revived our expectations, even if it was at the expense of whole memories.

We later had the opportunity to speak to producer Tomm Hulett, who elaborated on why we should call Shattered Memories a re-imagining — and not a remake:

You’re making Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and you’re tying it to the first game. Harry Mason is back, but you’re calling it a re-imagining, you’re not saying “remake.” Is that a bad word?

Right, that’s a curse word. [laughs] By re-imagining, like you said, we’ve got the premise of the first game: you’re Harry Mason, you’re looking for your daughter Cheryl. Beyond that we’ve changed and updated it, so it’s an entirely new experience. If you’ve played the PlayStation game to death, you still have no idea what to expect for Shattered Memories.

We did that because, on the Wii, maybe there’s a lot of people who haven’t played any Silent Hill games, so it wasn’t really fair to say, “Here’s the sequel to Homecoming, enjoy yourself.” But then, returning fans, they’ve played the first game, they’ve played Origins, they’ve seen the movie, and they’ve played Silent Hill 3 and it all kind of revolves around the events of the first game. So they wouldn’t really want to play a remake and so, by re-imagining it, there’s new content — if you’ve never played it before, of course, it’s new to you — but then, there’s also this extra layer of new content if you’re returning, because you get to experience all these things that are different from what you’re expecting. And that really fits the theme of Silent Hill, which is this place where your reality is subjective and you don’t know what to expect. We’ve built that into the game if you’re a returning fan.

Continue reading Interview: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories producer Tomm Hulett

Interview: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories producer Tomm Hulett originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With E3′s hype train having come, paused then rattled off into the sunset, gamers are free to weigh up the holiday season’s (and beyond!) planned releases, and make plans themselves. Like which of the games they’re going to actually buy.

Market research firm Nielsen ran a poll between June 7-14, and asked a bunch of gamers which of the year’s big Christmas or 2010 releases they’d either “definitely” or “probably” be picking up. You can see the results of that study below.

It’s interesting seeing the disconnect here between the purchasing intent of the study group as opposed to what caught the attention of the people actually there. Or even the type of people reading this site.

OK, there’s no Scribblenauts. That’s to be expected. But no Uncharted 2? No Splinter Cell: Conviction? No Mass Effect 2? And no Modern Warfare 2? Now that’s a surprise. Maybe they should have called it Call of Duty after all…

Who Won The Battle For Gamers’ Hearts At E3? [Nielsen]

Every gang member is played by a real person in APB.
Image courtesy Realtime Worlds

LOS ANGELES It’s easy to imagine a massively multiplayer Grand Theft Auto where every cop and every criminal in the city is played by a human being. It’s more difficult to imagine such a videogame being anything more than nonstop chaos.

Game designer David Jones, who helped create the quintessential criminal gaming experience with GTA and revolutionized the genre with sleeper hit Crackdown, plans to test the limits of multiplayer anarchy with upcoming game APB.

When APB launches on the PC early next year (with an Xbox 360 version to follow), its in-game city, San Paro, will be split into districts that accommodate up to 100 players. Gamers will opt to play as “enforcers” bent on cleaning up the streets or as criminals laying waste to peace and tranquility. They’ll be matched against each other and sent on missions in a city filled with other players doing the same.

“Just like any single-player game, there are cars driving around, there are civilians walking around,” says Jones, who founded Realtime Worlds after leaving GTA maker Rockstar North.

“But two seconds later, you might hear a car screeching around a corner, pursued by two enforcers screaming past you,” he says. “You might hear shots to your left, see a car smashed into a storefront, squad cars inside, exchanging fire, people screaming and shouting at each other. You’re entering into a game with loads of other players, and you have no idea what you’re going to see or hear.”

What do you do in the midst of all this chaos? Nothing. APB isn’t a free-for-all bacchanalia of shots fired and car crashes. The city is a big multiplayer hub, and you’ll be matched up to do battle with other players on a case-by-case basis. You might learn to be a better criminal in the process.

Wired.com spoke with Jones at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month to find out more about how his latest game works. If it’s tough to wrap your head around at first, don’t worry Jones says that’s kind of the idea.

“There’s nothing to compare it to, but that’s kind of what we try to do with games,” says Jones.

David Jones. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

For example, let’s say you’ve decided to play as a criminal. You do what everyone does in the first few minutes of a GTA-style game: Steal a car. A mission opens up, and tells you that you can make some easy money by driving the car to the nearest chop shop.

But if anyone saw you get in the car, an all points bulletin will go out and the police will be alerted. One of the enforcers in the game will be dispatched to take you down before you get to the chop shop. If you make it, you win the mission; if not, the enforcer wins.

These missions cut both ways. As an enforcer, you might be given the task of guarding a truck full of gold bullion on its way to the bank. Criminals will find out about the transport and pursue you.

As a criminal, you don’t just have to worry about the cops. Gangs can come into conflict as well, says Jones, “just like in real life.”

Can you learn to be a better criminal in APB? Absolutely. All-points bulletins don’t go out automatically, Jones points out. If you’re stealthy and smart about how you go about missions, you can get away with murder without the cops ever knowing.

“Some players will just go and jack a car in the middle of the street, and the APB goes out immediately, because the (computer) character that owns the car phones in and says, ‘This guy just jacked me,’” he says. “A smarter player will look for a parked car, break into it, hotwire it, and they can stick to the back streets so the APB won’t go out.”

That sense of tension did anyone notice me? can heighten the intensity of the gameplay, says E.J. Moreland, the game’s lead designer: “That anticipation, that stealth game, is just as much fun.”

You can be a covert cop, too. If you see a criminal hanging around looking like he’s about to get up to no good, you can follow him discreetly. If you catch him in a criminal act and call it in, you’ll receive the highest priority in the matchmaking process.

The missions aren’t just one-on-one affairs. You can team up with friends, and the game will attempt to match you with similar-size groups. And if you start doing really well, more and more of the cops or robbers on the servers might start coming after you. If you’re the greatest criminal the city has ever seen, you might have all 50 enforcers on your server attempting to take you down, says Jones.

But unless they’re assigned to face off with you, no one else can interfere. To an extent, anyway. “If you’re in a vehicle, you can potentially grief a little bit,” says Jones. You could interfere with someone’s mission by driving a car right into them, for example.

You can’t open fire on anyone that the game’s matchmaking system hasn’t paired you up with. If players truly want to experience this, however, Jones says APB will have “chaos servers” where anything goes. But it’s a “completely different game,” he warns.

“You might go in with the best of intentions,” he says, “but then you accidentally run over someone, and his friend shoots you, and 15 minutes after flipping on the servers, it’s all-out warfare.”

See Also:

• We’ll Have a Gay Old Time With Next Grand Theft Auto
• Why You Need to Play Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
• Grand Theft Auto IV Delivers Deft Satire of Street Life
• Opinion: Is Grand Theft Auto IV a Threat to America?
• Grand Theft Auto: A History of Violence

Now that the excitement of E3 has died down, research firm Nielsen has readied the results of a new survey, which gauged consumer purchase intent for titles from the show. Obtained between June 7 to June 14, the results (via Edge) concluded that Bungie’s upcoming jaunt through New Mombasa, Halo 3: ODST, had the highest purchase intent, with 53% of respondents taking interest. It was followed by God of War 3, which received 49% in support of its comical, over-the-top violence, and Nintendo’s log-splitting sim, Wii Sports Resort, which managed 45%.

While undoubtedly big titles, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t surprised by the top three. Some other titles we thought would be huge scored lower in this survey, including Assassin’s Creed 2 (32%) and The Beatles: Rock Band (30%). Clearly, the allure of wasting extra-terrestrial lifeforms is still very strong in gamers. What would Spock say?

Nielsen: Halo 3: ODST, God of War 3, Wii Sports Resort most desired games post-E3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you notice? Namco’s now-gen Splatterhouse reboot was nowhere to be seen at this year’s E3. Following the game’s troubled development history, that wasn’t much of a surprise to those of us in the know, but we decided to send off a query to the folks at Namco Bandai, just to make sure.

They told us, “Namco Bandai Games America Inc. is hard at work on Splatterhouse. Development is in full swing and we are committed to bringing it to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010. This will give us time to polish and incorporate all the content to deliver a top notch game worthy of this classic video game franchise.”

So, the American development team behind Afro Samurai has taken the reins from previous developer BottleRocket (with help from some now-former BottleRocket staff), and any 2009 release window you may have heard about in the past has been smashed with a gore-soaked two-by-four. So consider this a public service announcement: you won’t be splattering any houses until 2010 (or “early 2010″ as Siliconera was told).

Surprise! Splatterhouse missing 2009, splattering in 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cliffhanger at the end of yesterday’s Chain Interview had Xbox exec John Schappert wanting to know what a Sony exec thinks of Xbox Live. Let’s get past the halfway point with an answer.

[This post is the third in a series that recounts the chain of questions and answers I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

In a hotel room suite on the Wednesday of E3 week, I asked the next chain interview question to Sony’s Peter Dille. He had just let me play Gran Turismo on his white PSPGo and answered a batch of questions about Sony’s E3 showing. Dille was happy to answer Schappert’s question, but admitted to having trouble doing so simply due to a lack of regular use of Xbox Live.

Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment of America responds: “I don’t spend a lot of time on it Xbox Live has been out for a while and Microsoft’s done a really good job getting people involved in online gaming. And that’s good news for the industry.”

Dille surprised me, and I told him so. I thought he would have made a remark about Microsoft charging for online play, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he took the opportunity to keep the chain going for my next interview, located on floor below.

Peter Dille asks Sony Computer Entertainment vice president of product development Scott Rohde: “What advantages do you see in developing for PS3 compared to other platforms?”

Armed with that query, I headed over to Rohde’s room. We talked about Sony’s U.S. studios, whose efforts he oversees. He let me videotape his PSPgo’s sliding action. And then I lobbed him the softball.

Scott Rohde responds “What developers have discovered over the past three years — you’ve heard [Sony Computer Entertainment president] Kaz [Hirai] make reference to this in other interviews — it’s kind of the machine that just keeps giving. As you peel off new layers of the onion, you kind of find out more capabilities that the machine can do. When people start taking advantage of the [PS3's seven] SPUs and the Cell [processor[ they really find that, wow, we can throw more and more tasks and processes at those SPUs and we have all this freedom on the main processor to more."

I pointed out to Rohde that Dille was asking for a comparison to other platform. His answer implied that the same kinds of things couldn't be said about the other major consoles. Fair? "Absolutely," he replied.

My next interview later in the day would be with Microsoft's corporate vice president of strategy and business development for the company's interactive entertainment division. That'd be Shane Kim, former head of first-party game development for the Xbox 360. This would be Sony's chance to turn things back on Microsoft and keep the chain connected. Question, please?

Rohde prefaced his question by noting that I always ask him about sports games, largely because Rohde used to run Sony's San Diego studio which produces the PlayStation's basketball and basebell games.

Scott Rohde asks Shane Kim: "[Stephen] identifies me as a sports guy and, at heart, I am. I would love to know if Microsoft has any thoughts about getting back into first-party sports development.”

Shane Kim’s answer, and more links in the chain including the most awkward question of the week will run here tomorrow.

[Scott Rohde Pic via GameTrailers]

Remember the possible gaming revolution that will or could be OnLive? We recently connected some dots and asked Microsoft if they could be a part of it. We received an answer and a compliment.

Despite what appears to be a converging of technological capabilities, Microsoft has told Kotaku that it’s too early to talk about whether the Xbox 360 could be capable of replicating the promised capabilities of the OnLive service.

Those abilities would have freed Xbox gaming from requiring discs, downloads or possibly even an Xbox itself.

To explain why we asked such a question, it helps to remember what OnLive is. Announced in March and proven to work in controlled press demos (one of which I experienced, hands-on), OnLive would alter the way games are bought and owned, if not how players would control them. The crux of the service is a shift that moves the computations that typically occur in PCs or game consoles when a game runs to a server farm located far away from any OnLive gamer. The OnLive gamer would play games as they normally would, using a traditional-style controller. They would see their game play on the screen of their broadband-connected PC or TV, the latter of which would need to be plugged into a “microconsole” that’s a little larger than a DS. The secret sauce of OnLive would be the ability for it to send the video signal of the game from that server farm to the player’s screen with no delay in sync with any button presses by the gamer. As seen in the press demos, games such as Crysis and Burnout Paradise could run smoothly through OnLive. In theory, any game could. Gamers would be able to buy, rent or even spectate new games with no delay.

That was March.

And then, during this month, June, Microsoft announced at E3 that the Xbox 360 would support a technology called Instant Streaming In 1080p. When demoed, it presented no-delay, no-disc, no-download high-quality feature-length video, something any user with a fat enough Internet connection would be able to enjoy. During the same E3 show, Microsoft signaled an increased willingness to support disc-free gaming by announcing the August launch of a program to sell full-sized downloadable games digitally to the 360.

I thought I saw roads about to converge.

With Microsoft showing off this blistering ability to stream high-quality video and a gusto for expanding its involvement in disc-free gaming, I asked John Schappert, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services, if these developments put Microsoft on a path to offering OnLive-like functionality via the 360.

“I think [that] you connecting the technology dots is astute,” Schappert said. “But it’s nothing we’re ready to announce or talk about today I think that a broadband-connected console to the television enables us to do many things. And, as the bandwidth continues to increase and latency continues to decrease, I think it opens up new avenues of possibility. And of course I’ve got 5000 smart people back home that will tell me all the crazy things that can’t be done. But there’s also just as many that can solve all these technological problems and deliver the amazing innovation that they’re doing. I think anything is possible but nothing that we’re going to announce right now. I think just delivering 1080p [without delay], something that no other device has done, is pretty amazing.”

I jokingly suggested Microsoft just buys the service. OnLive Xbox Live Xbox OnLive?

“I think they liked our name, didn’t they?” Schappert laughed.

Interstellar bounty hunter Samus Aran's history will be revealed in Metroid: Other M, coming next year for Wii. Image courtesy Nintendo

LOS ANGELES When Nintendo needed a development team to handle one of its few hard-core game properties, it knew where to turn: ninjas.

In what was easily the most surprising announcement of this year’s E3, the game company said it had tapped the developer of the Ninja Gaiden series of ultraviolent action games to produce a radical new take on one of Nintendo’s classic series. Metroid: Other M, slated for release on Wii in 2010, will add a deeper storyline to the stoic series of outer-space action games, going further into the back story of its heroine, galaxy-traveling bounty hunter Samus Aran.

It’s the latest twist on a series with a convoluted development history. After 1994’s critically lauded Super Metroid, the series went dark before being resurrected in 2002 with a first-person shooter called Metroid Prime and a Game Boy title, Metroid Fusion.

Other M, says Nintendo’s Yoshio Sakamoto, represents a second rebirth of the series, one that he hopes will be “the ultimate Metroid experience,” one that differs greatly from the first-person shooters.

“The story I want to tell with Other M can’t be achieved with that approach,” he says.

The Metroid series is Sakamoto’s baby. As one of the first game designers hired by Nintendo (he worked with Shigeru Miyamoto on Donkey Kong Jr.), Sakamoto directed the original 8-bit Metroid game in 1986. It was notable at the time for its nonlinear exploration, striking graphics and atmospheric music and also for the revelation at game’s end that masked hero Samus Aran was actually a flaxen-haired woman.

Sakamoto didn’t have anything to do with the Metroid Prime games, which were developed in Austin, Texas. But in 2006, with the third Prime game already under way for Wii, Sakamoto says he began to think of a different sort of Metroid game that delved deeper into Samus’ history.

Yoshio Sakamoto.
Image: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

“One of my goals is to present Samus as an appealing human character, and that involves explaining a little bit about what happened in her past as well as the characters that influenced her,” Sakamoto says.

Just one problem: Sakamoto didn’t have a development team with the know-how or experience to bring his vision to life. His group at Nintendo produces quirky 2-D portable games like Rhythm Heaven and WarioWare, not 3-D action games with massive production values.

“I realized that I’d probably need to find a partner, someone to collaborate with in making my concepts a reality,” Sakamoto said. “Someone who not only understood my concept as it existed, but would also be able to contribute based on their own experience to what I had in mind.”

Sakamoto found that partner in the unlikeliest of places: Team Ninja, the development group inside Japanese publisher Tecmo responsible for the company’s biggest hit series. Last year’s Ninja Gaiden II was at best an uneven game, but Team Ninja’s programmers and designers clearly had the high-def technical chops that Sakamoto’s team didn’t.

They were also eager to work with one of gaming’s most legendary worlds.

“While we do have a lot of experience creating action games for the core audience, when Mr. Sakamoto approached me with his project, I thought this would be an excellent new challenge for my team to take on as well,” says Team Ninja leader Yousuke Hayashi.

Yousuke Hayashi.
Image: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

“It’s not our goal to make a Team Ninja version of Metroid,” Hayashi says. “It’s our goal not just to make a game that appeals to Metroid fans or fans of Team Ninja games. It should be a game for everyone.”

Neither Hayashi nor Sakamoto, however, are saying a word about what, exactly, the vision is. We can glean some insight from the game’s trailer: Besides the story scenes that will give us a deeper dive into the character of Samus Aran, the gameplay of Metroid: Other M will jump between a few different styles. You’ll be exploring the world with the traditional side-on, third-person 2-D camera view (pictured top). But the game will also occasionally jump into first-person, perhaps for fights against larger enemies.

Apart from that, everyone’s lips are sealed. Sakamoto would only say that the game’s storyline is set between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion.

At Nintendo, Sakamoto says that he and three other “key people” from the Metroid staff are overseeing development. The rest of the game’s 100-plus-person team is split between Team Ninja and a company called D-Rockets, which is producing the cinematic scenes.

Metroid: Other M will be the first game produced by Team Ninja since the acrimonious departure of its former leader Tomonobu Itagaki, whose name had been synonymous with the series. As the new team leader, Hayashi says it is his charge to maintain the team’s reputation for stylish action.

“I think within the entire Nintendo universe, I have a responsibility to make Metroid the most beautiful, not only in terms of graphics but in game design,” Hayashi says.

See Also:

• Hands On: Metroid Prime Trilogy Brings Entire Series to Wii
  
• New Mario, Metroid and Vitality Sensor Coming to Wii
• Report: Key Metroid Prime Staff Depart Nintendo
• Trailer: Metroid: Other M