Enterbrain, publisher of Japanese gaming mag Famitsu, has polled its readers as to why they don’t buy the Xbox 360. You know, the reasons why.

Here is the breakdown:

• Worried about its future 35.71 percent
• Price is high 7.14 percent
• No games I want to play 3.57 percent
• Another reason 53.57 percent

What were some of those other reasons? “I’m holding back from buying,” said a 35-year-old man, “because it seems like new hardware is coming out.” Another 35-year-old man stated, “It has a bad image because of that over 30 percent failure rate back when the console first launched.” Other reasons included things like because it uses DVD and the very blunt “I have a PS3.”

XBOX360が買われない理由は「将来性の不安から」とのこと [はちま起稿]

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A World of Warcraft subscriber has accidentally been given a powerful in-game item normally reserved for internal testing. And what’d he do with it? Why, he used it.

Yes, instead of doing the right thing and returning the item (”Martin Fury”, an in-game shirt), he kept it and went out on a bit of a killing spree. Because the shirt allowed the wearer to destroy everything within a 30-foot radius instantly, the user - Karatechop - managed to rack up an impossibly impressive set of achievements in the game, including the destruction of the normally-difficult character “Flame Leviathan” in a single blow.

While his account has since been banned, with Blizzard accusing him of cheating to obtain the item, Karatechop maintains that the item was accidentally presented to a guild mate of his by Blizzard, in an official Blizzard email, as part of the restoration process for a hacked character.

Who to believe, who to believe?

Regardless of who’s telling the truth, sure, he should have reported it. And the use of the item was a violation of the game’s user agreement. But on the other hand, this guy was given the in-game power of a god and used it to…rack up a few achievements. This could have been a lot, lot worse.

The Martin Fury scandal: Karatechop reveals all [WoW Insider]

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Face it, when you’re playing on a console with a controller, typing is tough. Japanese PS3 exclusive White Knight Chronicles has players do just that.

The American version may not.

Tsubasa Inaba, who’s producing the US version of White Knight Chronicles, tells the PlayStation.Blog: “We realize the necessity of voice chat. We’re trying to get this in before release in the US market. We’re working on it.”

While Japanese gamers aren’t exactly known for favoring voice chat, the feature really should have been in the game when it launched in The Land of the Rising Sun last December. Another thing that should have been in the game is worldwide online play. Once again, Inaba to the rescue!

“We’re looking into it,” says Inaba. “We’re doing online testing domestically and also overseas. It is in our mind set, we’re just trying to make it happen.”

White Knight Chronicles will be out this winter in North America.

White Knight Chronicles - Your Questions Answered [PlayStation.Blog via Siliconera]

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LittleBigPlanet developers Media Molecule must have a lot of knitted Sackboy plushies lying around the office, because they’ve just announced a deal where anyone living in Britain can get one for free.

Yes, if your postal address is anywhere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland, all you need to do is sign up at MM’s YouTube page then send Sony Europe an email. After that, return to your work, wait patiently, and a few weeks later (provided they haven’t run out, as there are “only” 5000 available), you should get a free Sackboy plushie.

Simple.

[Offer Details]

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New Wii rhythm game seems to have the all the ingredients for a music game hit: The reuniting of PaRappa The Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura and PaRappa artist Rodney Greenblat.

The duo also worked on the groundbreaking PlayStation title UmJammer Lammy.

Their latest offering, marching title Major Minor’s Majestic March, was released April 24. The game did not make the Media Create weekly top fifty for the 4/20 - 4/26 sales week. According to Japanese site Do Blog, the game didn’t get anywhere near the top fifty.

It apparently sold only 600 copies in its first two days on sale. Matsuura has had low sales before — PaRappa sold only 35,000 in its first month. Word of mouth caused that game to ultimately become a smash hit. Three hundred copies of the game were given out to V-Jump readers; however, those numbers should not factor into weekly sales.

We’ve compared the Do Blog sales tallies with the Media Create ones, and there is a discrepancy between the numbers: Some are lower, some are higher.

ゲームソフトランキング2009年04月20日～04月26日 [ドぶろぐ via チラシの裏でゲーム鈍報]

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Valve have implemented a great new feature within Left 4 Dead that, courtesy of Steam’s obsession with cataloguing data, is able to track and display your game stats.

This new stats page can track you performance (kills, deaths, survival time, etc) over time, and show stuff like how often you use each weapon and play as each character. It will then allow you to compare your stats to other players, letting you swing dicks with your friends as well as seek out other players of a similar skill level to your own.

You can even filter out “undesirable” types, as the stats will also record things like how many times a player has killed their teammates.

The more general statistics have been tracked within the game since December 12, 2008, while weapon-based stats have been gathered since February 11.

The stats page should go live any day now That was fast, it’s already up! If you’re at work and can’t login to your Steam account, you can check out the level of detail Valve have gone to in the screens below.

Needless to say, because this uses Steam, it’s for PC players only.

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Sirens. Breaking glass. Gun shots. Square Enix has launched a new website for a “NEW GAME”. It features a cityscape, a cacophony of sound and a quote from John Kennedy.

The Kennedy quote reads: “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.”

There’s not much more to go on it than that — making it a mysterious title. The site’s URL confirms that: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/mystery/

Smart money says this could be recently trademarked Front Mission Evolved—or maybe the equally mysterious Vanguard Storm. That title could be related to the publisher’s rumored “yet-to-be-announced action game,” teased via a single mysterious screen shot in the latest PlayStation: The Official Magazine. Though, like, the URL says, this is a mystery.

NEW GAME [Square Enix]

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According to several sources, The Cut Scene is reporting that Sony are set to unveil a new motion-sensing controller, perhaps as soon as E3 next month.

The controller - which reportedly uses “small LEDs” and a “small webcam” to track the players’ movement - is apparently similar in function to the Wii Remote, though because it can register “different color lights and the shape and angle of each light”, it will be more accurate.

Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard rumours of a new motion-sensing controller from Sony.

According to The Cut Scene’s sources, this controller is a close match in function, if not in form, to the one described in this patent, though from the sounds of it it’s also making use of technology found in this one as well.

E3, for reference, is only a month away.

Sony’s motion sensing controller for PS3 to be unveiled at E3 [The Cut Scene]

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Swinefighter allows you to get revenge on the virus that has been dominated the news. It’s a pretty simple game. You just go around trying to disinfect flying pigs.Reuters has a video of someone playing the game if you would prefer to watch. Reuters notes that the game also offers recommendations from the U.S. Center of Disease Control on how to avoid contracting the flu. You can find the CDC’s official swine flu resources here. Links to more H1N1 swine flu resources can be found here.







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Posted under Computer games, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Games, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii Games, Playstation 2 Games, Playstation 3 Games, Playstation Games, Playstiotion, Playstiotion 2, Playstiotion 3, Uncategorized, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Games, Xbox Games

Starting May 1 in Japan, the Nintendo Wii is getting a new video service channel called “Wii no Ma” (Wii Room). Nintendo president Satoru Iwata introduces it in a new video.

Nintendo is partnering with Japanese ad agency Dentsu for the endeavor, which is for the Wii and the DS. Instead of offering existing movies and television programming, as seen in Sony’s video on demand service and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Nintendo is offering cartoons and “mainly family-oriented programming” options created especially for the Wii video service.

In a video message from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, the exec does admit that there are few programs at the moment, “but that number will increase.” Iwata also announces that five Tokyo TV stations have signed on to provide continue.

Iwata points out that the Wii was luckily launched when large screen TVs became popular — giving more reasons for families to congregate in the living room like they used to. Wii Sports and Wii Fit capitalized on the idea of families congregating in the living room. “Our own research says that approximately 87 percent of Wiis are connected to the largest TV in the house, which is in the living room,” says Iwata.

Wii no Ma also allows those who might not be gamers enjoy using the Nintendo Wii by watching programs. According to Nintendo, things like this can help video games be accepted.

“In the beginning, Wii no Ma is available only in Japan,” Iwata says, “but there are plans to launch the service aboard in the future.” All the programs will be free at first, but Iwata does reveal that down the line Nintendo is readying programs with a “small” fee — something that Nintendo has stated since announcing this project.

Wiiの新しいチャンネル『Wiiの間』についてご紹介します。 [Nintendo via ヨッシーの愚痴]

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