A weekly summary of what is being talked about quite a bit in the gaming community.

• Gears of War commercial with Mad World soundtrack
• David Jaffe speaks to Newsweek about EDI and XBLA
• Electronic Arts worries gamers with The Godfather downloadable content

Gears of War commercial with Mad World soundtrack released
Since I saw this Gears of War video a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been silently waiting for it to be released publicly. It was torture. Sitting in a darkened office at Microsoft, the first two viewings of this video gave me the chills. And it still does every time I watch it from the Xbox Live Marketplace download — and it’s been multiple times already. While I was already looking forward to Epic and CliffyB’s opus this holiday, the video officially got me to the point where I couldn’t wait for the game to be released — a sentiment that Brian at Kotaku echoes as well. That’s a hard thing to do since the last time I saw and touched Gears of War was back at E³.

ArsTechnica’s Opposable Thumbs blog opines why the trailer might be so moving, noting that it’s “good to see people who are actually excited about their game try a different feel for their ads and put more thought into sharing that enthusiasm.” The same sentiment which crossed my mind during my first viewing, and I was glad to see such a different and evocative approach taken instead of the usual “lots of guns and explosions” hard sell.

Always a good source of different viewpoints on the same thing (and often beaten to death), NeoGAF’s thread dedicated to the Gears of War commerical is quite the read with a not-insubstantial 35,000+ views. The posters in the thread discussed the merits of everything from the soundtrack choice, the rain, the glass refraction effects, to the in-engine graphical details (nevermind all the Halo talk… for now). If you’re one of the unfortunate few who have been living under a rock in the past week, you can watch the standard or high-definition versions at the links below. Do it. Now.

• Gears of War commercial – standard resolution version
• Gears of War commercial – high-definition version

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David Jaffe speaks to Newsweek about EDI and XBLA
Earlier this week, N’Gai Croal of Newsweek posted an interview with David Jaffe, designer of the Twisted Metal series, God of War and Criminal Crackdown as an upcoming PS3 downloadable title. While I’ve known of David, I’ve never seen him or met him until he appeared as one of the more outspoken of the four heralded game designers on MTV’s “Gods of Gaming” segment. It should come as no surprise then that his interview style is a big more free-wheeling than others and that was definitely present in N’Gai Croal’s piece. In it, Jaffe took a few jabs at the current game offering on Xbox Live Arcade service by calling it more of an oldies radio station based on all the classic game available. I can see how this quote can be taken incorrectly in a written article since there is not much information to contextualize it and provide the tone Jaffe had.

No doubt that is what happened to Joystiq when they summarized the interview with David Jaffe. Chris Kohler at Game|Life somewhat concurs with Joystiq’s analysis while mentioning Jaffe’s move away from epic games to the shorter, quicker release downloadable market. Brian Crecente over at Kotaku took a more rigorous approach to analyzing down the interview, mentioning that while he didn’t agree with Jaffe’s take on Xbox Live Arcade, he welcomes the competition from Sony so both platforms push each other to excel. Even industry business site Next Generation picked up on Jaffe’s comparison between the PS3 and Xbox 360’s downloadable offerings through a music analogy.

A user on NeoGAF posted the Joystiq story and the board heavily debated the merits of the quote and Jaffe’s intent. After some time, David himself popped into NeoGAF and both explained what he meant in the interview and posted a link to his blog, where he responds to the Joystiq post and again explains that he was only being lighthearted by reiterating that he was only “cracking a joke and not realizing how shitty and petty it sounded until I saw it in print.” It just shows how rather difficult it is to not be wholly serious in a print interview, because things can easily be taken in either direction. Something which interviews such as the MTV segment, showing both video and audio, help avoid.

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Electronic Arts worries gamers with The Godfather downloadable content
Following up on Tiger Woods 07 downloadable content, which included things you could unlock while playing the game through, a sizable amount of in-game content for The Godfather was released this week on Xbox Live Marketplace. The downloadable content included several new missions, in-game items such as weapons and in-game currency. It is the latter which made gamers take notice at the downloadable content, even if many did not own the title itself. These are precisely the type of downloadable content that the gaming community feared — ones that could possibly give some sort of advantage of those less fortunate than others. In this case, it only affects a single player title. Gamers hope that this release doesn’t indicate that this type content will accelerate and turn into content which could imbalance multi-player games, similar to how MMOs have been affected.

A slew of bloggers reported on this latest series of downloadable content with the same concerns. Joystiq points out how the downloadable content “charges” a gamer twice “when you realize you don’t have enough virtual money, you turn around and use more real money to buy more virtual money, so you can re-buy the gun you already bought with real money.” On Game|Life, Chris Kohler points out how he feels that gamers are being charged by content which was not created after the game was released, but rather that the game content was already included and gamers were only paying to unlock it. On ArsTechnica’s Opposable Thumbs blog, Ben Kuchera echos the worry of the gaming community by warning that “EA tends to take these kinds of ideas way too far, so let’s see how they’ll make this a bad idea in the next year or so.”

Several message boards voiced their displeasure with this type of paid downloadable content, nearly all referenced these as a continuation of the Tiger Woods 07 downloadables. Over at Quarter to Three the original poster summed up the sentiment by stating “I don’t know which is worse… selling money, or selling this: [The Level 4 Weapon Bundle].” NeoGAF was likely among the most outspoken of message boards getting over 200 replies and 7,000 views in a mere 16 hours — the posters were visably not thrilled about this downloadable content.
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A weekly summary of what is being talked about quite a bit in the gaming community.

PLAYSTATION 3 worldwide launch is a no-go: Only 400,000 units in North America and 100,000 units in Japan at launch; rest of the world sees delay until March 2007

Far and away the most discussed and debated topic this week comes from Sony’s announcement late Wednesday night (for me, on PDT) that their worldwide launch plans have altered significantly. If you don’t know what the details are you must have been living under a rock! I guess the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe press release can bring you up to speed:

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) today announced that it would revise the launch date of its PLAYSTATION® 3 computer entertainment system in the PAL territories of Europe, Russia, Middle East, Africa and Australasia from 17th November 2006, as previously announced to March 2007.

When other news outlets such as the International Herald Tribune, who attended the press conference in Tokyo, posted their stories, everyone was treated with another shocker with the number of consoles that are projected to be available at the U.S. (400,000) and Japan (100,000) launches this November.

This news resulted in bannings, thousand post threads, message board server crashes, intense debate and trolling and at least two feature articles and twice that many news stories on Gamesindustry.biz. Joystiq even compiled a list of less than complimentary quotes from all manner of online media sites from Europe about the delay. Seriously, who in Europe and Australia (among other places) would actually be happy about this news, so it’s not surprising.

On message boards, the thread on NeoGAF exploded to over 1,000 posts in less than less than tweleve hours while Sony’s English language community forums in Europe crashed. Supporters of all three console came out in full force although nobody could refute this was bad news. It seems most people think that the low number of units at launch in Japan pretty much handed Nintendo the market over there. Europe, well, nobody was still happy there, some felt resigned to waiting yet again and others will import — no surprise. On the U.S. PlayStation forums, some posters still did not believe the launch allocations for some time and it seems like they still might not based on their interpretation of the reporting from various sites. Despite still looking forward to launch, there’s still a seed of doubt in some poster’s minds on how well launch will still turn out.

Joystiq lets their most prolific and most junior contributor go

There’s no denying that Robert Summa has driven a lot of discussion this week. He drove several threads on NeoGAF, TeamXbox and no doubt several other places stemming from a posting on Joystiq that he had some key next-generation console news coming late on Thursday night. Everybody, including other journalists, who likely thought that did not receive the embargoed news, were whipped into a frenzy as Joystiq is no small site. Nobody had any clue what big news could be released on a Friday and by whom in the next-gen console space. When 12:01 a.m. hit, the news that IBM has been shipping the CPU to Nintendo for the Wii for some time now was less than well received. Blog readers and message board posters fell for the hype they had built for themselves in the hours between the tease and the announcement. When the dust settled, Codicer at posted on the Evil Avatar forum that the comments on the post made it seem like the readers were “almost personally wronged, like Joystiq owed them something.“

An hour later, Joystiq posted an apology which perhaps even referenced NeoGAF, at least the board regulars thought so. By next afternoon, Robert was no longer at Joystiq and found a new job at Destructoid, where he posted some biting remarks while he detailed his feelings for what happened. Both the move by Joystiq and Robert’s first post on Destructoid left no small impression on the community. Notably, Evil Avatar and CMP Media’s GameSetWatch blog all provided their impressions on what happened. There is no shortage of opinions on what happened as best demonstrated by the debate-filled NeoGAF thread on it — there were people on both sides of fence and some even on the fence. However, the disappointment for falling for the hype was clear, no matter who was really responsibile for letting it get out of control.

Take a look at what Sony’s “Entitlements” could really be in the future

On the topic of NeoGAF, a new feature article got posted on their forum portal page which I encourage you to read. Written by board member Panajev, “It’s All About the Entitlements” is an in-depth look at a patent Sony has applied for titled “Incentivizing software sharing through incentive points” (US Patent and Trademark Office). I’ll let the article speak for itself, but it does paint a somewhat interesting or scary image (depending on where you stand) on where a large console maker could go with word of mouth incentives and in tracking unique instances of game discs.

A weekly summary of what is being talked about quite a bit in the gaming community.

(Running a little late this weekend with the holidays, shenanigans and what not. This week I will return to Saturday posting of this summary.)

Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility Update

This week Microsoft released another sizable backwards compatibility update, which comes hot on the heels of yet another thread on NeoGAF pondering the current state and future of Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. The update was forty-eight games and now adds some other titles I just have to pick up like Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and rare US-release of Sneakers — yeah, don’t poke fun, thanks. On top of that, this most recent update blew a long-running conspiracy theory floating around about Xbox 360 BC on NeoGAF and other message boards out of the water.

This theory was that Microsoft would not release the backwards compatibility option for either an Xbox game that hasn’t been released yet or an Xbox game that also had an Xbox 360 version or both of these. With the inclusion of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy both of these theories have been disproven. Spyhunter: Nowhere to Run and The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning further adds weight to disproving the theory, something the Gamerscore blog also points out.

Message board poster and PS3 fanboy reveals unknown information, how much of it is true?

Hands down,the fastest growing thread on NeoGAF last week was easily this one posted by typhonsentra, where he quoted an excerpt from a thread titled “PS Questions Answered! (Bonus PSP info)” on the General [M]ayhem message board. Many think the Scrivener is an insider, possibly at a Sony first-party developer even, not only based on his information — which would be dismissed would it come from someone else — but because he proved some point by previously mentioning an upcoming PSP bundle and detailing it’s contents including UMD movie titles perfectly. Among other things, Scrivener mentioned that Resistance: Fall of Man currently stands over 20 GB in size, days before the MTV feature on that very title came out. This has made many people believe, beyond the obvious hyperbole when describing some of the games, that he is not only legit, but feeding out information which will come true in time and doing so very deliberately. He even states in the lengthly General [M]ayhem thread that he got approval before posting any information, which did bring up some questions as to what he aims to do.

Apart from all of that, there is no doubt some of what Scrivener says is true, some of it is clearly (fanboyish) enthusiasm and some of it is pure speculation (such as the possibility of a 4x Blu-ray drive instead of the announced 2x drive). No matter what anyone thought aboutt him and his information, nobody could stop talking about him and the thread saw all manner of defensive statements, damage control by the opposite side and jokes. Time will tell just how much was frenzied hyperbole and how much was wishful thinking. I have no doubt someone on NeoGAF saved that thread to bring up at a later date to compare.

Assassin’s Creed rumors end, multiplatform confirmed

This week, Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed would be released on the Xbox 360, confirming it as a multi-platform title after revealing it would be PC bound earlier in the week. Since E3 2006 and based on Ubisoft’s statements that Assassin’s Creed was only announced for PLAYSTATION 3, many inferred that the title would be exclusive to Sony’s console. On top of that, Assassin’s Creed picked up a lot of hype at E3 based on the excellent trailer released at E3 (embedded below) and closed doors presentations to the press, seemingly strengthening Sony’s third-party stable.

Discussion started over on NeoGAF around 7:00 PM Pacific when Zonar spotted that IGN had updated their Xbox 360 landing page feature graphic with the Assassin’s Creed news. It was taken down within an hour and speculation ran rife on when the announcement would be official, if the different platforms would get the game at the same time and what reasons and motiviation may be behind the marketing. Luke over at 1Up posted that the October issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly would also confirm the announcement, but that the feature would not answer a lot of these very questions that the guys over at 1Up and EGM were wondering too. Seems those questions will go unanswered for now as the lists for third-party exclusives for any console dwindle by one. At least this great looking title has the chance to be played by larger group of people than if it had stayed exclusive, from what little I’ve seen, Assassin’s Creed deserves it.

A weekly summary of what is being talked about quite a bit in the gaming community.

Earth Defense Force X

The official website for Earth Defense Force X opened this week in Japan and not without people noticing — NeoGAF was all about the upcoming Xbox 360 title and TeamXbox picked up some screens too. As pretty much a sequel to Earth Defense Force 2, a budget title from D3 Publisher and Sandlot for PlayStation 2, it will hopefully get published here in the United States. Basically the game is protecting earth while killing huge ants, spiders, centipedes, robots and what not, in a fully destructible enviornment while alien ships, that you can shoot too, hover above dropping more of these on you. How does that not sound like a fun game?

Pink and Black come to the US

After rumors started circulating, Nintendo announced this week that the pink and black versions of the Nintendo DS Lite, , previously available only in Japan and Europe, would be on sale in the U.S. on September 13. While the U.S. still doesn’t have the enamel navy or ice blue versions, at least black seemed to be one of the more coveted versions on the boards when it was announced, leading to at least quite a few imports I’m sure.

Leipizig Games Convention: FIFA 07 and Pro Evolution Soccer

As part of a briefing at the 2006 Games Convention at Leipzig, Microsoft announced that the next-generation versions of EA’s FIFA 07 and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 6 would only be available on the Xbox 360 this holiday — and even the next twelve months. This was huge news for Europe, probably the biggest market for these soccer games, and a firestorm of a debate ignited about the reasons, significance and implications of this news on NeoGAF. Pro Evolution Soccer producer Shingo Takatsuka stated otherwise in a 1Up interview, completely reigniting the debate on NeoGAF and on TeamXbox. Whatever the details end up to be and what fans of either platform say, Xbox 360 is going to be where the biggest soccer market in the world is going to have to play their favorite game anytime in the near future.

Lost Planet at the 2006 Games Convention

At the Games Convention this week, Capcom showed off some great looking new screenshots of Lost Planet and the first peek ever at multiplayer gameplay. Joystiq compiled the videos into one handy post so you can see how Fox Hunt and Post Grab modes play out. There’s a reason this game is so anticipated and the demo on Xbox Live, all the screenshots released and now these videos show exactly what that reason is — the game looks and plays incredible. Coming off of the success of Dead Rising (the thread on NeoGAF has over 52,200 views!), Capcom is really showing off its goods on the Xbox 360.

Penny Arcade Expo

Over in nearby Bellevue, WA, the guys at Penny Arcade are putting on their annual expo, PAX. Bigger than ever and looking to keep getting bigger especially after the demise of E3 as we know it, PAX is all about games — video, tabletop and pen and paper. John over at Gamerscore blog has been constantly keeping a Flickr gallery filled with photos from the expo. Don’t forget to check out the events and concerts on top of the games. Because of what I do, I think “The Role of the Community and PR in the Game Industry” (with Frankie from Bungie) and “Blogphotopodcasting: New Media in the Game Industry” (with Brian from Kotaku) are pretty interesting panels to check out — don’t toss them any softballs if you ask them a question. Joystiq and Kotaku are blogging live from PAX all weekend.

Contact

The official website for the upcoming Atlus game, Contact, went live this week. The website did reveal some unfortunate news — the release date was pushed back to October from a mid-September release. This game, from the content of it’s gameplay to details like the Livejournal-style manual in the English version, has been highly recommended by message board posters in Japan.