The Games News

2K Games’ recent blockbuster at the top of the charts after just a month of its release.

Things are looking good for 2K Games(ex Irrational Games, creators of the critically acclaimed System Shock series) with their latest game release. Bioshock promised a lot through timed screens, tech trailers and the highly-acclaimed demo, and boy! did it deliver!

The facts (so far):

• nr.1 (360 version) and nr.4 (PC version) in Australia sales charts.
• nr.1 overall in British sales charts.
• an overall rating of 96/100 (!) at Metacritic (for those that don’t know it, Metacritic automatically calculates an average of the most important reviews on the web), based on 25 reviews.
• an impressive #1 in both “Top Rated” and “Best Sellers” categories on Steam (Valve’s electronic game distribution system, www.steampowered.com).

It is interesting to note that almost 88 percent of the entire sales have been achieved by the Xbox 360 version; this could mean, at least on a short term, a substantial increase in 360 sales. On a side note, this also reflects the rather poor state of the PC games market in view of the booming console market.

Personally, I think that Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament, Bungie’s Halo 3 or Blizzard’s Starcraft 2 (not likely to come out this year, but I believe in miracles), are the only games due this year that stand a chance of dethroning Bioshock in both sales and positive reviews, but in view or recent developments, they have a tough fight ahead of them.

Sony recently stated that the last shipments of the 60GB version of the PS3 have shipped to retailers

“We no longer have any inventory in SCEA warehouses. All inventory has been purchased and shipped to retailers.”, stated SCEA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Dave Karraker. This sales boom followed shortly after Sony’s announced price drop of 100 US dollars for the 60GB model just before this year’s E3. Moreover, after just one month of the announcement, the PS3 has outsold the Xbox360 by 2000 units in Canada in July for the first time, spiking from 98.000 units to 159.000 units.

How much of this could be considered good news? First of all, it is rumored that this is the only version that will have the Emotion Engine 2 hardware backward compatibility support. Second of all, Sony will promote its flagship version of the PS3, the one with 80 GB storage capacity that’s priced at 599 US Dollars. So, if you’re living in the US and want to get a 499 $ PS3 with full hardware backward compatibility for PS1 and PS2 games, visit your local retailer and maybe you will get one while stocks last.

The new PSP Lite is slimmer, thinner, faster than the original

So far, the PSP Lite is looking good: additional memory, built-in cache for the UMD system, the ability to play games and videos on a TV (for example) and, a great additional bonus, the loading times in most games has been sensibly reduced.
The UMD loading tray has been somewhat simplified, so you no longer have to fiddle with it in order to load an UMD disk. Also for the better, external video playback is almost near DVD-quality, so getting UMD movies and playing them over a TV really makes sense now. The PSP Lite will be ship in several retail packages with a variety of bundle options that include pack-in games (Daxter rumored to be amongst those games), UMD movies, memory sticks.Personally, I am glad I don’t own a PSP yet, it’s great to get a new improved one - now the PSP needs some extra cool games!

Expect the new PSP (in several color options, too!) to ship starting from September the 17th.

Nintendo UK officials claim that the Wii is the fastest console ever to achieve over a million units sold in the UK.

The company quoted data acquired from Chart-Trak in stating that the Wii has passed the million mark in just thirty-eight weeks. Additional, non-public data from Chart-Trak also underlines the fact that the Wii has held a whooping 68 percent of the entire home console market in the UK, while its little brother, the Nintendo DS broke all records with a share of 86 percent of the handheld console market in the UK.

David Yarnton, Nintendo UK General Manager, has also stated that this is a testament to the accesibility and appeal of the Nintendo consoles, as even in traditional low videogames sales periods, the non-stop demand for the Wii helped achieve this record.

Comparing the Wii with its main competitors that have already passed that mark, the PS2 achieved 1 million units in fifty weeks, and the Xbox360 was even slower, reaching the milestone in sixty weeks.

Xbox Live Arcade subscribers will get some new titles and half-price games after the usual XBLA Wednesday update.

Microsoft representatives have announced the arcade conversions of Cyberball 2072, a futuristic robot battle football game, where you have to score a touchdown while the ball gets hotter and hotter, and SNK’s classic fighting game Fatal Fury Special, where Joe Higashi and the Bogard brothers, amongst other fighting titans, must compete against “the ruler of the underworld, Wolfgang Krauzer”.

Microsoft also announced a special limited time Labor Day weekend special, where they will offer Small Arms, the now-classic Zuma Deluxe puzzle game(both for 400 points/5 $), Gauntlet from Atari and Dig Dug from Namco for just 200 points(2.5$). This limited time offer is going to take place between Sunday, September 2, 12.00 a.m. GMT and Monday, September 3, 11.59 p.m. GMT.

At this moment, Fatal Fury Special is going to be priced at 400 points(5$), but no pricing has been announced yet for Cyberball 2072.