ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Posts From March 2007</TITLE> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE type=text/css></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY text=#fdfdfd bgColor=#7989fb background=""> <P>&nbsp;</P> <P><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/30/07<BR><BR></STRONG><FONT face=Arial size=2>We've seen a lot of Metrovania games in the past five years that have tried to&nbsp;ride on the coattails of Symphony of the Night, but this year is all about the genuine article.&nbsp; In addition to the recent release of Symphony on Xbox Live, there's word that the game will be available in a PSP release that includes both Alucard's adventure and the long-neglected TurboDuo title Rondo of Blood (erroneously regarded by fans as the&nbsp;best game in the&nbsp;Castlevania series, but still a worthwhile experience).&nbsp; <BR><BR>Here's the best part... at the request of Castlevania mastermind Koji Igarashi, Symphony of the Night will be re-localized with&nbsp;a&nbsp;new script&nbsp;and voice overs.&nbsp; After nearly a decade of grinding their teeth through the opening scene,&nbsp;gamers will&nbsp;finally be given a confrontation with Dracula that <EM>doesn't</EM> sound like <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="file:///C:/GRB_XO/bravo%20symphony.mp3" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>an outtake from a Bravo television series</FONT></A>!</FONT><BR><BR> <MARQUEE scrollAmount=5 loop=infinite><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG>RUN, DMC: Sorry, Sony fans... Devil May Cry 4 is migrating to the Xbox 360 whether you like it or not! Despite a petition by hopping mad Playstation 3 owners, Capcom is porting its horror-themed beat 'em up to Microsoft's next generation console. · · · THE EX FILES: Even with skyrocketing development costs, third-party exclusives haven't gone extinct just yet. Namco is releasing three titles especially for the Playstation 3, including Brave Arms, Second Season 01, and the curiously titled Chain Lim!t. · · · FAIL TO THE KING: Watch out, Wii owners! The fourth installment of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is boring its way to the Virtual Console, complete with the dull turn-based gameplay you know and loathe from previous titles in Koei's comatose series. · · · </STRONG></FONT></MARQUEE><BR><BR><STRONG>3/27/07<BR><BR></STRONG><FONT face=Arial size=2>I was going to post about the recent launch of the&nbsp;Playstation 3 in Europe, but now that I've seen the numbers posted on some web sites I'm glad I waited.&nbsp; Both <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.mcvuk.com/news/26261/Record-breaking-165000-PS3s-sold-at-UK-launch" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>MCVUK</FONT></A> (I've never heard of it either) and <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23781" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>Games Industry</FONT></A> (now that sounds a bit more familiar!) have reported that the Playstation 3 is the best-selling game console in the United Kingdom.&nbsp; That's in sharp contrast to the reports on <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2007/03/victory-in-europe-photographic.htm" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>UK Resistance</FONT></A> that stores throughout England are overstocked with Playstation 3 units, and the news on <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.technewsworld.com/story/56490.html" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>TechNewsWorld</FONT></A> that the French launch had more members of the press than purchasers of the system.<BR><BR>So what's the story here?&nbsp; Some claim that Sony overestimated the demand for the Playstation 3 in Europe... just not by much.&nbsp; Others contend that the&nbsp;Wii could have&nbsp;taken the crown as the continent's best-selling system&nbsp;if Nintendo had manufactured enough consoles.&nbsp; My personal opinion is that system launches and the speculation that follows them doesn't mean all that much.&nbsp; The Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 3 all sold well in Europe, but what happens&nbsp;<EM>after</EM> that new console smell wears off is what really matters.&nbsp; <BR><BR>Will the one-two punch of poor third-party support and disillusionment with the once exciting interface&nbsp;send Nintendo's Wii down to the mat?&nbsp; Will the prohibitive price of the&nbsp;Playstation 3 anchor future units to store shelves?&nbsp; Will the Xbox 360 sputter out in the face of fierce competition from Sony and Nintendo, two companies with&nbsp;more strongly&nbsp;defined identities as game developers?&nbsp; We won't know the answers for years, let alone the first week.</FONT><BR><BR><STRONG>3/22/07<BR><BR></STRONG><FONT face=Arial size=2>Urrgh... maybe now wasn't the best time to switch over to a high-resolution site layout.&nbsp; Shortly after my last update, a key popped off my laptop, and I had to send it back to Compaq for repairs.&nbsp; That leaves me with my five year old desktop and an old-school cathode ray tube monitor for the next week.&nbsp; I suppose I can rough it until then... but man, is this week ever going to be rough!<BR><BR>And now, since I haven't been getting enough hate mail lately, it's time for a rant!&nbsp; You've probably been hearing about the Folding At Home project, which uses the incredible power of the Playstation 3 to cure cancer.&nbsp; Wait, what?&nbsp; I'm sorry folks, but this sounds like the kind of comic exaggeration Sony used to move Playstation 2s back at the turn of the century.&nbsp; You remember all that ridiculous hype, right?&nbsp; The Playstation 2 is your gateway to the Matrix!&nbsp; The Playstation 2 is so powerful, it could become a weapon of mass destruction&nbsp;if Saddam Hussein&nbsp;ever got&nbsp;his hands on one!&nbsp; The Playstation 2 will do anything you want, as long as it keeps you from buying a Dreamcast!&nbsp; Yeah, all that crap.<BR><BR>It was all just empty hype back then.&nbsp; Now, there's at least a&nbsp;grain of truth to the&nbsp;lofty promises... thanks to a recent firmware update, the Playstation 3 can work with other systems to find a chip in the armor of a seemingly invincible disease.&nbsp; That sounds great at first, until you take several factors into consideration.&nbsp; The first is that you can't really do anything else with the system while it's performing those billions of calculations.&nbsp; The second is that folding isn't limited to the Playstation 3...&nbsp;it can be done just as easily with&nbsp;the PC or Macintosh you've got on your desk (just&nbsp;<A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>click here</FONT></A>&nbsp; for the software).&nbsp; Finally,&nbsp;you'd make a more profound impact on the fight against cancer&nbsp;if you just sent that six hundred dollars to a charity.&nbsp; I'd personally recommend the <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.cancer.org/" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>American Cancer Society</FONT></A> or the <A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.lungusa.org/" target=""><FONT color=#ffff00>American Lung Association</FONT></A>.<BR><BR>I just think Sony's involvement with Folding At Home is tacky and disingenuous.&nbsp; It's hard to say as much without looking like you're pro-cancer, which is probably by design.&nbsp; Sony's been getting a lot of flack&nbsp;since last year's E3 debacle, but&nbsp;after&nbsp;manufacturing the only game system&nbsp;that cures diseases (until Frylock finishes the Oogy Miktahk, anyway), they've made themselves practically impervious to criticism.&nbsp; Well played, Kutaragi.&nbsp; Well played.</FONT><BR><BR><STRONG>3/17/07</STRONG><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>What's that, Lassie?&nbsp; There are rumors that Saturn games will be coming to the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service?&nbsp; And one of the first games&nbsp;available will be NiGHTS?&nbsp; Timmy can stay in that well for another hour... I've got to&nbsp;know more about this!<BR><BR>In all seriousness, this is fantastic news... if it's true, anyway.&nbsp; I've never been able to properly&nbsp;emulate the Sega&nbsp;Saturn on anything short of a Cray supercomputer, and Saturn games&nbsp;are&nbsp;going to fill up the Wii's flash drive (all 512 megs&nbsp;of it!)&nbsp;pretty quickly.&nbsp; Still, if Nintendo can wave its magic remote-shaped wand and bring a little of that Saturn magic to the Wii, I'm all for it.</FONT><BR><BR> <MARQUEE scrollAmount=5 loop=infinite><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG>PLAYSTATION HOME CHILDPROOFED: In response to the questionable sexcapades in Linden Labs' Second Life, Sony has taken several steps to make its own Playstation Home service less controversial... and lawsuit prone. First, all profanity will be censored when chatting with friends. Finally, no child-like avatars will be available to PS Home users. · · · LOOK MA, ONE HAND!: The upcoming Wii release Opoona (which sounds remarkably like a slang term for female genitalia) will be the first game on the system that uses only the sidecar controller for input. Can an RPG work with just one analog thumbstick and two buttons? The Japanese will find out this August. · · · TIGRS UPPERCUT!: Got a game you want to distribute, but you don't have the cash for an ESRB license? Well, now you've got an alternative. The TIGRS rating system lets you brand your creation with one of three different labels, ranging from family-friendly green to adult-only red. Sadly, there's no team of reviewers to ensure that the labels are accurate. · · · </STRONG></FONT></MARQUEE></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/14/07</STRONG></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial size=2>This morning, a little part of my childhood came back to life with the release of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game for&nbsp;Xbox Live Arcade.&nbsp; Past attempts have been made to bring the frantic beat 'em up into homes, but they've been hobbled by system limitations (as was the case with the NES game, which was great... for an NES game) or licensing squabbles (one of the recent Xbox TMNT&nbsp;releases had a hidden translation of the game with the heart-pounding soundtrack taken out!&nbsp; Arrgh!).</P> <P>I'm happy to say that neither issues raise their ugly heads in the Turtles arcade game for the Xbox 360.&nbsp; There are a few irritations, like the way the attract mode is squeezed into a tiny porthole in the title screen, and the way the introduction comes to an abrupt end the moment the words "Hang on, April!" escape the lips of Splinter, the turtles' sewer-dwelling sensai.&nbsp; There's also word that a four player session is&nbsp;only an option with Xbox Live, but that's a good sight better than being stuck with a single friend in the NES game.</P> <P>When you get past all&nbsp;that, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game remains one of the best titles the long-running license has to offer.&nbsp; The animation is still smooth and dynamic, with the Turtles putting their weight into every swing of their weapons, and members of the Foot Clan giggling as they light sticks of dynamite.&nbsp; The soundtrack is still so infectious that you'll risk blowing out your speakers to listen to it at full volume.&nbsp; Finally, the gameplay is still among the most satisfying and addictive you'll find in a late 1980's beat 'em up.&nbsp; You'll reach a special kind of nirvana when you're&nbsp;fighting alongside three other&nbsp;rabble-rousing reptiles and the Foot Clan's soldiers are flying around the screen like debris in a hurricane.&nbsp; Thanks to you, Konami, for making one of the best video games ever hatched from a cartoon, and thanks to you Ubisoft, for bringing it into the 21st century!</FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/10/07</STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Before I begin, I'd like to thank Doc Holiday from the Penny Arcade forums for taking the time to untangle the jumbled spaghetti code buried deep within the index page.&nbsp; He informs me that the editor I'm using leaves a lot of unfinished business in the HTML, opening tags without ever shutting them.&nbsp; With this in mind, it's not hard to understand why the site would look so ghastly in browsers like Safari and Konquerer, but the revisions Doc made&nbsp;should keep the site looking sharp no matter what you're using to read it! <P>All right, now onto the good stuff!&nbsp; As you can see, this is a copy of the Atari game Mark Ecko's Getting Up.&nbsp; As you can also see, it's got a four dollar price tag stuck to the front of the shrink wrap.&nbsp; I couldn't believe it when I saw it.&nbsp; The cashier at K-Mart couldn't believe it when&nbsp;<EM>she</EM> saw it either, but sure enough, it rang up for exactly the amount shown on the sticker.&nbsp; If you were wondering just how poor Getting Up's sales were, that ought to answer your question!</P> <P>I'd feel badly for Mark Ecko too, if he wasn't a spoiled twat who called all gamers drama queens.&nbsp; I rented the game just days before picking it up at K-Mart (it was free with my rental of Crackdown for the Xbox 360) and it's actually quite stylish and entertaining.&nbsp; The movement of your hip-hoppin' hero Trane feels a little mechanical, but the fighting's got heart and laying down&nbsp;graffiti in a video game has never felt so realistic (sorry, Jet Set Radio Future!).&nbsp; I dunno, maybe my brain's been scrambled after playing that wretched 50 Cent game, but four dollars&nbsp;for a&nbsp;title of Getting Up's caliber is a much better deal than one of those throwaway Burger King games.</FONT><FONT face=Arial color=#fdfdfd size=2><FONT face=Arial><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><FONT face=Arial color=#fdfdfd size=2><FONT face=Arial><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG></P> <P> <MARQUEE scrollAmount=5 loop=infinite> <DIV align=center><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG>THE SPORE, THE ANGRIER: Nintendo fan site N-Europe reports that one of the developers of Electronic Arts' Spore isn't thrilled with the Nintendo Wii. Don't worry... it's not Will Wright! It's actually some guy named Chris Hecker, who opines that the Wii is "shit" and that Nintendo has no aspirations of making art; only video games. Geez Chris, pretentious much? · · · FOUR'S COMPANY: What do you get when you blend the whimsy of Loco Roco with the team-based puzzle solving of The Lost Vikings, then top it all off with a dash of Playstation 3 quality visuals? Why, LittleBigPlanet, of course! The game, featuring four colorful pipsqueaks in a world five sizes too large for them, will be released early next year. · · · COMMODORE COMEBACK?: Well, Yeah!ronimo sure hopes so! The current owner of the Commodore brand name is set to launch a line of computers optimized for gaming. Yeah!ronimo hasn't had a great track record in the past- their eVIC MP3 player was almost as popular in Europe as the black plague, minus the market penetration- but here's hoping they have more luck this time! · · · </STRONG></FONT></DIV></MARQUEE></P></STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT> <P><FONT face=Arial color=#fdfdfd size=2><FONT face=Arial><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/08/07</STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></P><FONT face=Arial size=2>The man who said "Home is where the heart is" would have changed his tune in a hurry&nbsp;if he ever saw the&nbsp;<FONT color=#0000ff><A style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/07/playstation-home-the-free-virtual-world-of-playstation-3/"><STRONG>Playstation Home</STRONG></A> </FONT>service in action.&nbsp; What was rumored as a merger of the Miis on the Nintendo Wii and the achievements in the Xbox 360 is in reality a virtual world where Playstation 3 owners around the globe can share their experiences.&nbsp; Sounds great, right?&nbsp; Sure, until you&nbsp;witness the soulless&nbsp; presentation.&nbsp; Rather than&nbsp;Nintendo's simple but charming cartoon artwork, every resident of Playstation Home is rendered for maximum realism... and minimum personality.&nbsp; The service allows you to create a perfect replica of yourself, but do you really want your online friends to see you exactly as you are, with a five 'o clock shadow and a sagging spare tire?&nbsp; Even in the cutting-edge, detail-obsessed 21st century, some things are best left to the imagination. <P>Playstation Home also suffers from the Google factor.&nbsp;&nbsp;Five years ago, there were many online search engines, but none of them were especially good at their&nbsp;jobs, keeping the user from their results with a&nbsp; cluttered&nbsp;page&nbsp;of irrelevant topics.&nbsp; Then along came Google, which consisted of nothing more than a text window, five links,&nbsp;and a little grey search button.&nbsp; The only thing Google did was offer search results... which coincidentially was exactly what users had wanted in the first place!&nbsp; Fast-forward to 2007.&nbsp; Google is the undisputed champion of online indexes, while those other guys... wait, are they even still around?</P> <P>That's what Microsoft brings to the table with its achievement system.&nbsp; While Playstation 3 owners will have to dig through their virtual house for trinkets representing their accomplishments, that information is available to Xbox 360 fans with the touch of a button.&nbsp; Microsoft learned some important lessons when Google crushed its MSN search engine&nbsp;like a tin can back in 2002.&nbsp; It finally understands that it's best&nbsp;to give their customers exactly what they want, when they want it, without letting white noise get in the way.&nbsp; Judging from the extraneous interface of Playstation Home, Sony's going to have to take a few hard lumps of its own before it learns these lessons for itself.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial color=#fdfdfd size=2><FONT face=Arial><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/04/07</STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial>Another year, another new look for The Gameroom Blitz.&nbsp; I have a funny feeling that this one will&nbsp;be sticking around for a while, though... it's simple yet elegant, without the rough edges present in many of the site's past designs.&nbsp; It also makes better use of high screen resolutions, with native support for 1084x768 monitors.&nbsp; Any resolutions&nbsp;higher than that will letterbox the screen with black vertical bars... and anything lower is probably going to look pretty awful.&nbsp; Sorry, luddites!</P> <P>If you notice any kinks in the new design, feel free to drop me a note on the forum.&nbsp; I haven't tested this with Camino, or whatever browsers the cool Mac kids are using these days, but I understand that the Crazy Climber motif wasn't quite up to building code standards on computers running Apple or Unix operating systems.&nbsp; Hopefully GRB '07 will be more Jobs and Torvalds compliant, but I won't know for sure until someone tells me!</P> <P>Just a couple of gaming-related notes before I get back to polishing up the site.&nbsp; After getting smacked around by the Nintendo DS for the past two years, it&nbsp;looks like the PSP will be taking Round 2 of the handheld wars a lot more seriously.&nbsp; God of War, one of the Playstation's most popular first-party franchises, will hack and slash&nbsp;its way to Sony's potent portable by the end of the year.&nbsp; There's no word on how a game that used nearly every&nbsp;button on the Dual Shock controller will be ported to the less accommodating PSP.&nbsp; However,&nbsp;a simplified control scheme could actually do wonders for a series that in all honesty is a little less user-friendly than it should be.</P> <P>On the Nintendo side of the fence, SNK's American president Ben Herman has some depressing news for Neo-Geo fans eagerly awaiting the arrival of&nbsp;the system's&nbsp;games on Nintendo's Virtual Console service.&nbsp; Not only will there be no online support for these titles, but Herman claims that gamers won't see online ANYTHING for the Wii for at least another year.&nbsp; If that weren't enough, the Neo-Geo titles that&nbsp;will make it to the Wii aren't likely to be the ones fans actually want.&nbsp; The secret word from "Pee-Wii" Herman is that "There'd be a lot of money involved in releasing a version of a game that has limited or niche appeal."&nbsp;&nbsp;In other words,&nbsp;don't be surprised if you excitedly leap out of bed and power on your system one sunny Monday morning, only to find a long-forgotten dud like Andro Dunos or Mutation Nation waiting for you there.</FONT></FONT></P> <P> <MARQUEE> <DIV align=center><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG>THERE IS NO "U" IN "MII": They were created by Nintendo, and with Nintendo they will remain! The bobble-headed Wii avatars known as "Miis" will remain exclusive to first-party releases, to the annoyance of Electronic Arts and other outside developers who were eager to incorporate them in their own video games. · · · HOMEWARD BOUND: Maybe Sony will be a little less stingy with their own avatars, set to be unleashed on the Playstation 3 in a couple of months. The Playstation Home service works like a bit like Animal Crossing, with players designing their own characters, then using the items won in official Playstation 3 games to spruce up their homes. · · · WII TO GO!: The hobbyists at Quasimondo.com have found a way to make online games recognize all the buttons on the Wii remote. This lets players use the remote as a game controller for any Flash or Javascript games that support it... a big step up from the ghetto mouse control in past Wii- enabled titles, like those offered on the Homestar Runner web site. · · · </STRONG></FONT></DIV></MARQUEE></P></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT> <P><FONT face=Arial color=#fdfdfd size=2><FONT face=Arial><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#fdfdfd><FONT color=#fdfdfd size=3><STRONG>3/02/07</STRONG></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial>After five years of fighting tooth and nail with Immersion Technologies, Sony has finally laid down its arms and come to an understanding with the company that brought the world force-feedback game controllers.&nbsp; In the agreement, Immersion gets the $100 million dollars originally awarded to them by the United States courts... and in return, Sony gets the rumble technology that was conspicuously absent from their first run of Playstation 3 controllers.&nbsp;</FONT> <P><FONT face=Arial>Let's forget for a minute that Sony told us rumble was a thing of the past, and that it would be impractical to include in the SIXAXIS with its (largely unnecessary) motion sensor.&nbsp; This is an important step forward for a company which had considered its leadership of the video game industry to be an unalienable right, rather than a privilege that must be earned through fierce competition and customer satisfaction.&nbsp; Instead of telling&nbsp;gamers what they want (or what they'll learn to live with), Sony is&nbsp;finally listening to its user base and addressing their concerns.&nbsp; </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial>It's starting to&nbsp;sink in, folks.&nbsp; If this news&nbsp;comes with a contrite press release from Sony (an announcement that <EM>doesn't</EM> make the reader want to strangle Jack Tretton or Phil Harrison), there may be some hope left for the Playstation 3.&nbsp; And if there isn't, hey, there's always the Xbox 360 and the Wii!</FONT> </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Arial color=#ffffff><FONT face="Century Gothic" color=#ffffff><FONT color=#ffffff></P> <P></P> <P><FONT face=Arial color=#ffffff size=2> <P><FONT face=Arial></FONT></FONT></P> <P></P> <P></P><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #7989fb" size=2></FONT> <P></P> <P align=right><A href="http://www.boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?user=mneko"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #7989fb" size=2></FONT></A></P> <P><A href="index.htm"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #7989fb" face="Century Gothic" size=2><IMG src="return.gif" border=0></FONT></A><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #7989fb" face="Century Gothic" size=2> </FONT></P></FONT></FONT></FONT></BODY></HTML>