NEXT GEN CONSOLES

[Jaybles]

Started downloading Infamous last night, got up this morning.....41%. Quite enjoyed the demo,so.

Wipeout Fury next, cos apparently you get the original too, the first game I bought on Playstation. Original still up in the loft/electronic graveyard.

[t8yman]

Wipeout was the sole reason I bought my ps3, it's utterly fantastic in every respect. Not easy to pick up or master, but incredibly satisfying when you can hold your own. Those not prepared to persevere will be disappointed.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

I spent months getting the wipeout hd platinum but it's easily the most fun, satisfying experience I've ha on the machine. Frustrating in the extreme as well.

In other news, E3 starts today! or should I say started a few hours ago. Lots of good looking stuff should be on the way, not least some dates for 3DS games which for me can't come soon enough. Should see the new Nintendo console as well. I bloody love E3.

[Uncle Liam]

I spent months getting the wipeout hd platinum but it's easily the most fun, satisfying experience I've ha on the machine. Frustrating in the extreme as well.

In other news, E3 starts today! or should I say started a few hours ago. Lots of good looking stuff should be on the way, not least some dates for 3DS games which for me can't come soon enough. Should see the new Nintendo console as well. I bloody love E3.

[luckysalt]

Apparently Tomb Raider was a show stealer on 360, dunno if its an exclusive

FIFA gunna have kinect control

Sounded like a lot of the other games are just voice control tacked on.

20 hours left until Nintendo's showing

[t8yman]

Microsofts conference was uninspiring to say the least. sequel, kinect, sequel, kinect, sequel, waffle, kinect. very disappointed.

I see the NGP is now called the Vita, and its price point is £239 non 3G and £399 for the 3G. very surprised at that pricepoint. I just fear it could be a little late, and the wrong business model. it will also be the end of the 3DS imho.

Interested to see what Ninty are going to show re "Project Cafe". I think that is gonna be the show stealer.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

I hear the 3G model is £299 not £399. I've got to say, it's a game changer. I'd all but written it off but for the level of tech availible that's peanuts tbh. It won't 'end' the 3DS. I feel the PSP and DS were as little competition to each other as the Wii and PS3/360. Although Nintendo are trying to tap the 'hardcore' market with all their retro releases and that might put them back in the firing line.

It could be as simple as having the console out for almost a year before the competition. That's often proved enough to secure hardware sales for a decent long term attachment rate.

It was nice to see no Move or Kinect stuff from EA or Ubisoft last night. Not much else though. Driver San Fransisco (Yawn), Madden (Yawn), Fifa (Yawn), Ass Creed CGI trailer (Yawn). SSX looks good though so at least something was worth watching for.

Easily the most impressive thing however was at EA's confrence. The new Frostbite engine for Battlefield 3 looks amazing.

Multiplayer trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfzqh_a22d4&feature=player_embedded

Modern Warfare 3 might have coloured me interested, but I'm sold on this already.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Greeny_Musicchild

[t8yman]

I hear the 3G model is £299 not £399. I've got to say, it's a game changer. I'd all but written it off but for the level of tech availible that's peanuts tbh. It won't 'end' the 3DS. I feel the PSP and DS were as little competition to each other as the Wii and PS3/360. Although Nintendo are trying to tap the 'hardcore' market with all their retro releases and that might put them back in the firing line.

It could be as simple as having the console out for almost a year before the competition. That's often proved enough to secure hardware sales for a decent long term attachment rate.

[Uncle Liam]

MS are no better either, I was considering buying the "games on demand" version of MW2 on sunday, Ive got a decent points balance on my ms account, and fancied a blast for old times sake, having traded it ages ago. £30 - thirty f**king quid, for a game that is 18 months old, and I wouldnt own a physical copy of, and may only play for 10 hours or so. the big boys need to wake up and smell the coffee software wise.

[Purple Monkey]

Wow, E3 has been utterly underwhelming so far.

Big epic franchise sequels and casual gamer garbage.

If this is what games are from now on, count me the f**k out.

The only thing I've seen recently with any soul was a trailer for Journey. Is that all you've got, games industry?

Edited June 7, 2011 by Purple Monkey

[Halcyon]

I see the NGP is now called the Vita, and its price point is £239 non 3G and £299 for the 3G.

[Gre]

Once again, we get stiffed on the price of a console. It's $239 and $299 in America... or just £145 and £185 in the currency conversion.

Why do companies thing that it's ok to just change the currency symbol, resulting in a massive unfair price hike. It's not just Sony that do it. At launch, the iPad cost $499 and $629 for the 16Gb version, or £300 and £382; yet in this country the launch cost was £429 and £529 - not quite as bad, but still 40% more expensive.

Sick of it.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Gre

[G-Stud]

Thinking of selling my Wii. How much can a Wii fetch nowadays? Seeing as they cost so little new I think I might be struggling. Do have about 10 games, 2 motion+ controllers, 2 classic controllers, a Wii Fit balance board and 2 Wii wheels.

Tempted just to take it to HMV or Game/Gamestation for ease...

Edited June 7, 2011 by G-Stud

[t8yman]

Once again, we get stiffed on the price of a console. It's $239 and $299 in America... or just £145 and £185 in the currency conversion.

Why do companies thing that it's ok to just change the currency symbol, resulting in a massive unfair price hike. It's not just Sony that do it. At launch, the iPad cost $499 and $629 for the 16Gb version, or £300 and £382; yet in this country the launch cost was £429 and £529 - not quite as bad, but still 40% more expensive.

Sick of it.

[t8yman]

nintendo = epic fail.

[Halcyon]

nintendo = epic fail.

[t8yman]

get a fucking grip. There's no way you can know one way or the other. All we've seen is the controller and a few videos that may or maynot be showing real gameplay stuff.

[Halcyon]

bit harsh?

Edited June 7, 2011 by Halcyon

[Jaybles]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/07/wii-u-nintendo-games-console

So its a HD wii............With a tablet controller.

Apart from it offering nothing that presumably the ps3 couldnt do with the PS Vita it could be pretty cool.

But its nothing jaw dropping, the videos showed graphics equal to current 360/ps3 games so not a step forward in that sense. Its hard to know really as the conference focussed way too much on the controller rather than the console (which i am more interested in). What are the specs? Does it have backwards compatibility? Does it play DVD's/Blurays? Does it do 1080p? Does it have a new OS or just a HD upgrade of the wii OS?

Its going to offer many new ways of playing having that controller to interact with but i need more convincing

'The Wii U' - Finally i can play scrabble on a console without people knowing my letters

[Jaybles]

Perhaps, but you're comment was just the sort of hasty comment that's common place when announcements like this get made. It's not been 5 minutes since they'd announced the WiiU and you've already dismissed it outright. We just don't know yet... it could well be an epic failure. Or it could be massively impressive. The fact that nintendo couldn't really show us anything was disapointing, we'll have to wait for reports from the show floor.

Personally, I think it's all going to hinge on the cost of that controller, and what else you can actually do with it. Around £50 (unlikely) and it might just work. Anything over £100 and no one in their right mind will have two... making the whole social gaming thinng moot. It's also important that whether Ninty's claims that it can play actual next (this) gen games (and they've announced Arkham City, Assasins Creed, Darksiders 2 and a bunch of others) without scaling down the graphics is actually true.

But it's certainly got me interested.

But I agree that the microshaft kinect discussion was dull as hell, and I didn't care for the 3ds stuff (as that handheld isn't for me anyway). Didn't watch Sony's.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Jaybles

[t8yman]

Perhaps, but you're comment was just the sort of hasty comment that's common place when announcements like this get made. It's not been 5 minutes since they'd announced the WiiU and you've already dismissed it outright. We just don't know yet... it could well be an epic failure. Or it could be massively impressive. The fact that nintendo couldn't really show us anything was disapointing, we'll have to wait for reports from the show floor.

Personally, I think it's all going to hinge on the cost of that controller, and what else you can actually do with it. Around £50 (unlikely) and it might just work. Anything over £100 and no one in their right mind will have two... making the whole social gaming thinng moot. It's also important that whether Ninty's claims that it can play actual next (this) gen games (and they've announced Arkham City, Assasins Creed, Darksiders 2 and a bunch of others) without scaling down the graphics is actually true.

But it's certainly got me interested.

But I agree that the microshaft kinect discussion was dull as hell, and I didn't care for the 3ds stuff (as that handheld isn't for me anyway). Didn't watch Sony's.

[luckysalt]

Ninty's E3 presentation was f**king AWFUL

and you lot will know im a massive Ninty fan, but a massive intro focusing on Zeldas music... BORING. It totally killed the show, then a bunch of 3DS games which the console DID need but nothing really new bar Kid Icarus as a new franchise, [its nothing like the NES original], that kinda of thing just doesn't make you stop and go WOW.

The idea of the new console

ONE horrid name, TWO looked WAY too much like wii graphics in most of the stuff shown, yes it can do 'hardcore' games, but you could get a 360 for probably a third of the cost. Playing New super Mario Bros with your Mii? Who gives a f**k?

Unless this machine gets some killer games I won't be buying it.

[luckysalt]

CVG-

Here's everything the Wii U is packing:

Size: Approximately 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long.

New Controller: The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analogue Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the

video game world.

Click to view larger image

The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus.

Other Controls: Up to four Wii Remote (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once.

The new console supports all Wii controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk controller, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro and Wii Balance

Board.

Media: A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density

optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs.

Video Output: Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite.

Audio Output: Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI.

Storage: The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive.

CPU: IBM Power-based multi-core microprocessor.

Other: Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories.

Note: Details are subject to change.

Confirmed games

Assassin's Creed

Darksiders II

Ghost Recon

Dirt

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Metro II

Batman: Arkham City

Prototypes/Yet to be confirmed

Battlefield

New Super Mario Bros Mii

[t8yman]

the mention of a proprietary discs and no mention of dvd playback means it wont play dvds then. not a dealbreaker, but still, upscaled dvds would be a small selling point.

[jammy2211]

I think the one big 'winner' on Nintendo's new console is that they're presenting it as an 'upgrade' to the Wii - that is the new controller thing is sort of being positioned as something you have 'one' of for solo games, and if you want to go multiplayer you use it alongside your current Wii Remotes / Balance Board etc. If anyone's played Zelda Four Swords or the Pac Man Gamecube game you'll get where they're going with this - they already did it with the Gamecube / GBA 'link', it's just come along further now.

It was a pretty boring conference but at least you can give them credit for announcing stuff near release - 4 of the 5 3DS games they went through are launching this year. Can't say I'm overly hyped for any though.

Microsoft I just through horribly boring, dreadful looking Kinect games which show the huge gaping flaws in the device (everythings on rails) and sequels to games I don't care for. GoW3 is supposed to be very, very, very good though but it's just one very generic game, albeit a good one.

Sony I enjoyed the conference the most, felt they had the best 'connection' to their audience with the jokes and whatnot. The trailers were good, albeit I'm getting a bit bored of Uncharted and Resistance doesn't really stand out nowadays. They had the best balance of Games / Move / Vita, Sly Cooper 4 is a great announcement and Starhawk looks brilliant imo.

I think Sony had the big winner with the Vita price at $249 too, that's a brilliant price for what you get and pretty much an instant sell to me. I know there's some worried about how that'll convert to £'s, but all I'll say is the 3DS was 'listed' at £229 after Nintendo announced it's $249, and it's now going for £149.99 after no official price cut. Retailers are just being greedy, and starting high until they bring it down. It'll definitely be sub £200.

Vita just needs some 'bigger' games that blow me away... the line up has good games... I'll enjoy Uncharted, Wipeout looks really cool, but nothing makes me instantly want to get my wallet out and buy the thing - there's still no third party announcements though so we'll see in time.

I think PM summed it up best though with the worst part of E3, and gaming atm, and that's this blockbuster driven must be hit type thing going nowadays. Everything is feeling more and more the same, most games take a 'safe' genre and just flesh out one part of it. It's all very generic and repetitive.

Edited June 7, 2011 by jammy2211