Square Enix has confirmed the final release date for the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII is December 17th 2009. Yoichi Wada took to the stage earlier today at the Final Fantasy XIII Premiere Party over in Japan and announced that the game would debut on December 17th 2009 for ¥9250, roughly $100 / £60 / €70.
The PlayStation Network vs. Xbox Live debate has been going on for some time, with fanboys/girls from both camps arguing why one is better than the other. There’s at least one developer out there that believes the PlayStation Network is superior to Xbox Live. United Front Games, the developer of upcoming title ModNation Racers, wants “everyone who buys a copy of the game is able to get online for free and then share all this content.”
The FIFA 10 demo is hitting PSN and Xbox Live this week, now a demo for the new Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 game has been confirmed by Konami’s European PES Team Leader Jon Murphy. “Not long to go now until we release a demo for everyone to test. You’ll get a chance to see the new PES for yourselves and make up your minds about how we’ve reflected what the what fans want,” Murphy said in a recent blog entry.
According to VGChartz’s preliminary data, the PlayStation 3 Slim sold around half a million units in the first week, which is a 400% increase week on week. In Europe, some regions saw as much as a tenfold increase in PS3 sales, and over 200,000 units were sold in “other regions” (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia etc) according to their preliminary data. In Japan, reports have already been independently confirmed from Famitsu magazine of over 150,000 units sold – twice as much as the previous best week for PS3.
3D gaming has gained some serious support over the past several months, and its clear that 3D is the way forward. Earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year when Gran Turismo and WipEout HD was shown to be running in 3D. There are already a few 3D games available, including Invincible Tiger and James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game. According to Engadget, a software update for the PS3 sometime in 2010 will enable it to provide a 3D viewing experience to “all” existing games on the system.
The PlayStation 2 has been around for almost ten years now, but it’s still going as strong as can be expected from a last generation console. It has sold more than any other console to date, but SCEE boss Andrew House believes that the PS3 will eventually trump it in terms of lifecycle. The PS3 is still in its infancy, will less than three years under it’s belt. It’s still early days to see if House’s theory comes to pass. Some industry insiders have predicted a new console generation to kick off in 2012, though the lifecycles of this generation’s consoles can still continue even further.
If you have experienced issues with playing games after installing firmware 3.00, then you are not the only one. There has been numerous reports of game freezes when playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and other titles. Though the issues seems to isolated, SCEA is actively looking into them. We can expect to see a minor firmware update within the next week or two to address the issue.
A playable LittleBigPlanet demo will be finally released next week to coincide with the release of the Game of the Year edition of the game. The new edition of the game and the demo will be out on September 10th 2009. The demo will contain a hand full of in-game levels and mini-games to play by yourself or with 3 of your friends, the ability to customize your Sackboy and plaster levels with a variety of stickers and objects, and a handful of community levels.
This week on the US Video Store, catch the new release thriller “State of Play,” starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Helen Mirren, available now for rent and to own. Other new content include Sin Nombre, Behind Enemy Lines II and lots of new TV shows. As for this week’s top movie downloads, I Love You, Man is on top, followed by The Last House on the Left and Duplicity, taking second and third place, respectively.
There have been a lot of comparison videos surfacing this week testing the loading speeds between the old PS3 and the new PS3 Slim. It’s pretty clear that the PS3 Slim is faster than the older model, and it’s not just because of the new Cell CPU. Other reasons include the updated Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 Slim and better hard disk performance. EuroGamer did some extensive tests to see how fast the PS3 Slim exactly is.
