Sony makes nice with the church, sort of

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Some of you may remember the mess between Sony and the Church of England in June. A particular scene in Resistance: Fall of Man featured a photo-realistic representation of Manchester Cathedral in northwest England. There a bloody firefight ensued in which the player slaughtered hordes of of alien scumbags, and the Church was all in a tizzy because they found it disrespectful to use a church for a bloody gun battle at all, but particularly one located in an area with a serious gun problem, as they claim Manchester does.

Sony finally apologized in the Friday edition of The Manchester Evening News after a month or so of playing it tough. In the apology they state that they met with church leaders and acknowledged that the game had caused offense.

“It was never our intention to offend anyone in the making of this game, and we would like to apologize unreservedly to them for causing that offense, and to all parts of the wider community who we might also have offended,” -Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President David A. Reeves

Reeves also promised Manchester Cathedral in particular would never be used in future Sony games.

Sony refused to comment on the Church’s outstanding demands, which included having the game pulled from store shelves, and some dollar bills donated the the Church’s education department, which educates against gun violence in Manchester. However, Sony released a seperate statement.

“We now consider the matter closed, and will not be making any further comment.”

Sounds like that’s all she wrote to me.

While it’s always heartwarming for things like this to be resolved with a sincere apology, like all things that happen around E3 you have to question Sony’s timing. They’re slashing PS3 prices by $100 dollars today, and although they say it’s because they’ve corrected production issues that were driving up their costs, we all know it’s because they can’t move the things. This apology is clearly a disingenuous attempt to expand their potential customer base because they can no longer afford the hard nosed stance of an entertainment superpower. In other words, “What a bunch of jerks.”

[Via CNN.com]

Sony cuts PS3 price. Microsoft extends Xbox 360 warranty. I’m still not buying either console.

Microsoft vs. Sony

Through the last week there has been plenty of hullabaloo over Sony cutting the price of PS3. If you ask me, it was inevitable. Ask a newborn baby if he’d like a PS3 and he’s say “too damned costly!” Well, Sony has confirmed the cut (after denying it some days ago) and now the PS3 will sell at $499 starting Tuesday.

Sony will also be introducing a $599 80GB model, bundled with a copy of MotorStorm.

Now, the question arises, was this move from Sony a reaction to Microsoft extending the warranty on their Xbox 360? One news item at Digg does say that the Xbox 360 Elite’s sales have jumped by 2400%! Is Sony trying to play safe and garner more sales?

Update

Last morning, I speculated whether Sony would be getting any more sales. Microsoft is swimming in money with the massive sales increase. Sony isn’t left behind, in fact they’ve gone far ahead, atleast at Amazon. The price drop has caused an increase of (I kid you not) 2800% on Amazon. The sales for the 60GB PS3 have actually exceeded the Wii and “Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s”.

I think there are some economics lessons to be learned here.

[Via 1UP, Thanks David]

[Update Via Digg]

Call of Duty 4 E3 Trailer blows our socks off!

Awesome Screenie!

Last night, Gametrailers got their hands on a new Call of Duty 4 trailer and I eagerly clicked on the HD version. And the trailer blew me away. The entire trailer consists of actual gameplay (which isn’t actual gameplay, since I didn’t see a first-person perspective anywhere), but the realism is beyond bounds.

Call of Duty 4 retains the core style of the originals, while adding enough glitz and sleekness to make you slip. There will be choppers firing missiles, night-vision, “we need him alive!” missions, realistic physics and god, the graphics are bee-yuu-tii-full. They may not be Crysis, but they’re awesome enough to make me jump.

I was one of those people who wondered whether taking the CoD series out of WW2 was a good idea, but this one awesome trailer has booked my copy. Modern Warfare, here I come.

You can view the trailer in HD at Gametrailers (coming above), or in our very own Pipeline (below).

E3 07 Predictions

E3

E3 is only days away and I’m here to tell you what’s going to happen with the BIG 3 Consoles.

We already know what games each system will have for its Holiday launch lineup: Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Lair. For all 3 consoles E3 will focus on the lineup for 2008 and beyond.

With the Wii there’s already Mario, Zelda, and Metroid – so what’s next? We’re not going to be seeing sequels to any of these titles, it will be all about the spin-offs. Mario Kart is a must. Since both the Wii and Mario Kart scream,”Party time!” it’s a no-brainer. We could also see Nintendo going to their secondary stars Donkey Kong and Starfox, although a big show stealer could be a new Pilot Wings or Wave Race game. Nintendo could also show off some indie games for its upcoming WiiWare channel. Nintendo themselves could be developing games for this downloading service. Potentially sequels to their low profile games like Luigi’s Mansion and Pikmin. Hopefully they’ll solve the storage issue that the Wii faces in light of this and the Virtual Console services.

Halo 3

On the Xbox 360 front, I predict Microsoft will be stealing the show. Halo 3 is Halo 3. Future titles such as Alan Wake will expand games into the territory of compelling storytelling with satisfying action-adventure gameplay. Not only that, but titles such as Atari’s Alone In The Dark 4 will show that the 360 doesn’t have to rely on shooter games to survive. Microsoft will tout its Xbox Live system and it’s casual games service, as Microsoft aims to broaden the appeal of the Xbox 360 to all types of gamers.

 

Lair

A lot will be going on in the Sony camp as they try and reposition themselves in the gaming market. They have to show off a new slim PSP model that will compete with Nintendo’s DS Lite. Other than that they need to prove that KillZone 2 looks just as good as the 2005 E3 trailer did. Remember the “Is it pre-rendered or in-game?” fiasco? Well, now is the time for Sony to prove that those were in-game graphics. For Sony it won’t be about showing we have X sequels – well, maybe I’m wishing too much, maybe that’s for E3 08. I hope that Sony realizes that it needs original and exclusive titles in order to compete with Xbox 360 and Wii. I won’t predict anything else for the Playstation because I expect them to talk about many things that have never been seen before.

In the end E3 07 will be about showing off why gamers need to own all 3 consoles. Each manufacturer will sell itself out to prove how their console is different if they want to keep up with the competition for seasons to come.

Super Mario Galaxy MIA

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Ah, E3 and Internetz, spilling the beans for as long as I can remember. Seems like Nintendo may have some big announcements in store for Super Mario Galaxy.

Our very own David Rodriguez discovered today that Super Mario Galaxy has mysteriously vanished from Nintendo’s master list of games on their company website. You can go check it out yourself right here. I would have just posted a screen shot for you guys, but this worthless PC I’m borrowing doesn’t have MS Paint, let alone a photo editing app. Thanks for nothing, Danny!

This is suspicious news in and of itself, but considering that video game mega-con E3 is just around the corner, we here at SWL are willing to bet they’re planning to drop a bomb or two. Perhaps a street date, maybe even a new name? Wasn’t Super Mario Galaxy a working title?

[Update]

Now even Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is missing in action…

More digging on Cloverfield throws up new photo, half-baked forum

[Update] – Check out more of our Cloverfield Coverage!

 

The two photos, as of right now.

I’m a sucker for viral marketing campaigns. I spent a whole night chasing one particular campaign several months ago (the end result of which frustrated me). Well, “Cloverfield” is one interesting campaign and it has absorbed me. Again.

Following a link from a commenter, I found a related site (which was up for quite some time, as a bit of research pointed out). The site can be found here. To summarize, it just says “The Parasite” with a couple of links below and a “sponsor” link below that (I’ll get to it real soon). There is also a countdown which will end at August 1st (which, if you remember, is the date ‘Van’ mentioned). Now, the second link leads to the “Ethan Haas was right” place.

The second site released around the same time Ethan Haas did, but I missed it, apparently. The site showed a photo of a two women looking in shock at something. Now, nightowl3090 has posted a series of analytical breakdowns about Cloverfield. He suggests that the two womens’ images, if merged can form a perfect woman – with a bit of a problem at the teeth. He also talks about a possible “organic” thing in the background.

The second image, which I’m guessing was recently posted shows a bit of the party seen in the Cloverfield trailer. Looks pretty much like an average party pic, with the words “We’ll Miss” in the background. What I find creepy about that image is that guy (gal?) at the far right.

Read on to find out how a crappy forum figures into the grand scheme.

Continue reading “More digging on Cloverfield throws up new photo, half-baked forum”