At least I haven’t seen it. I’m actually more interested in Versus than FFXIII myself. Hopefully square will have more info about this in the coming weeks.

Jump Festa 2008 Final Fantasy Versus XIII Trailer Leaked! (Translations and Downloads Added!)

After seeing the E3 presentation by Sony about the new game MAG, I thought it was just a stand-in title. MAG stands for “Massive Action Game”. Which, really, is more of a description than a title.

But it seems like this will actually be the title of the game! At least at this point. I’m crossing my fingers that Sony will clear the cobwebs from its collective brain and give the name a real title. And it would be nice if it didn’t have a colon in it!

What do you guys think? In my camp about this? Vote in the sidebar as always.

First look at MAG

Previous Poll Results:

How will you use PS3’s Trophies?

* Actively pursue them.: 28% (56)
* Try to get one here and there.: 39% (76)
* Check to see what I got every once in a while.: 20% (40)
* Ignore them.: 13% (25)

Total Votes : 197

From IGN’s preview:

All the enemies that are assaulting your base will be trying to get in and get their fair lady out. Now, you can kill these guys if you like, but your best defense is to go outside of your stronghold and find pieces of cake and other dessert items. You’ll then bring these snacks to the opponent’s princess, force her to eat them, and watch her get fatter. Big gals are heavy and that means your opponents are going to have in groups to carry her fat ass back home.

The fat thing is a little weird, but aside from that, the game sounds really fun and has generated a lot of excitement. However, the fat thing has caused others to get quite offended:

—but the only thing I can’t figure out is why anyone would want to rescue a fat princess in the first place, since everyone knows that fat girls are unlovable human garbage at whom any sensible bloke would sooner hurl invective than cast a longing glance.

Woah!

UPDATE: Removed semi-offensive picture

So are fat people taking this cartoon action game a little too seriously? Or maybe the game should have toned down the force feeding fat girls cake gameplay?

As a lowly Canadian, I do not currently rate access to Sony’s PSN video download service. But if I did have such access, I don’t know if I’d be using it after all.

When Sony announced the availability of the store, I was excited that I now had another source of HD content. But now I hear that HD movies (all of them? some of them?) on the PSN store are only in stereo.

As in, two channels of sound.

We aren’t in the 80’s anymore Sony. We need our surround sound. If I’m going to dish out that much dough for an HD movie rental, I expect top notch video and sound. That means at least 720p (preferably 1080p) video and 5.1 surround sound (at least!).

Quite a disappointment. I hope that this is only a temporary thing, or is just being reported incorrectly. Otherwise, once the video store finally does make it to Canada, I will not be partaking.

HD movies featuring stereo sound in PlayStation Video Store

Mmmmmm. Four player racing next-gen goodness.

These videos looked a lot better to me than some other stuff I’ve seen. And I’m wondering what the guy means when he mentions special modes for splitscreen play…

Vote in the comments. These will be manually tallied

• Best Exclusive PS3 Game
• Best Multiplatform PS3 Game
• Best PSN Game
• Best Surprise (Game)
• Best Surprise (Non-Game)
• Best Conference
• Biggest Disappointment
• Best of Show. Game, event, anything.

Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Microsoft all have Internet based movie download stores, now Sony finally launches their video service for the PS3. The concept is the same, but what’s really important is the quality of the implementation.

Selection

I don’t have an exact count, but I would ballpark their selection at about 100-150 movies in addition to TV shows. The movies are mostly recent, fairly mainstream movie picks. The selection is currently a weak point, but for launch day, this is understandable. We will see how quickly they can grow their selection.

I found it kind of odd that the selection of even Sony Pictures movies was slim. Of course, that is a completely separate division within Sony, but I still would have expected a tighter integration.

Pricing + Rights

The pricing structure varies quite a bit. I bought a single TV episode for $2 an and an HD movie rental for $4.50. This seems a little high, but not outrageous.

You can start watching the movie almost instantly, but there was a big problem. Even after letting the movie download for twenty minutes before starting it, I could only watch about ten minutes of movie before the movie stopped to buffer. I gave the download another five minutes to download, but I only got another minute or so of movie watching before it started to buffer again, so I left my PS3 to download and read a book for the night. By the morning the movie was fully downloaded, but my 24 hour viewing period expires this evening and I probably won’t even get to see my movie. The 24 hour viewing window begins as soon as you hit play, so it might be wise to wait until the movie is mostly downloaded before doing so.

Quality + Features

I only have an SDTV, but the two videos I bought looked as good as anything else I’ve seen on my TV. The audio was less impressive. It was stereo only (even on an HD rental), there were no language options, no optional subtitles, and there are no special features that you normally get with a DVD/blu-ray rental.

Convenience + Interface

The main browsing interface is very quick and snappy and most movies offered convenient preview clips. However, the interface lacking several important features such as a movie rating and recommendation system, community features such as user reviews or “movie friends”, and a queue or save to watch later type of system.

Bottom Line

This is a great feature to offer console owners, the movie download stores are clearly going to grow in quality and popularity. Currently, the service clearly has many limitations, but clearly the service just launched, and will take some time to mature.

The official press release from Sony:

E3, LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 16, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) held its E3 media reception this evening at the Viceroy Hotel, Santa Monica, with David Reeves, President of SCEE, providing a European perspective on the announcements made at the Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) press conference yesterday.

“We have been listening to our customers and are pleased to be able to answer one of their key requests”, said David Reeves, President, SCEE. “There is more downloadable content than ever before, with the emphasis moving towards user generated content, something clearly seen this week in LittleBigPlanet™. When you add this to the already compelling entertainment offering on PS3, where you can store games, music, videos and pictures, the extra storage becomes invaluable.”

Listening huh? What about the cries for backwards compatibility to be brought back? Not that I care as I have a 60GB PS3 but I never play PS2 games on it anyway.

The Platinum range for the PS3 will hit Europe on August 1st (day before my birthday, what a coincidence ). Confirmed titles are Heavenly Sword (SCEE), MotorStorm™ (SCEE), Ratchet and Clank™: Tools of Destruction (SCEE), Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (SCEE), Virtua Tennis (Sega), Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft) and WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 08 (THQ).

Smackdown Vs Raw 08 hasn’t got a confirmed release date yet. The games will be priced at 30 Euros.

We were tantalized with a small bit of Home during the keynote, but here’s more!

Gametrailers.com - Home (PSN) - E3 2008: Developer Walkthrough HD

It just doesn’t end. New footage. New details. New awesomeness. See video below. But not only that, IGN has some new multiplayer Killzone 2 details as well.

Namco

So, what was the secret PS3 title that Namco hinted at? Was it a Tales of … title to complement the 360’s Tales of Vesperia and the Wii’s Tales of Symphonia? No, it’s just the PS3 port of Eternal Sonata. Apparently, this has enhancements and more content beyond last year’s 360 version, but I thought that this port was already official. On the bright side, there’s a good chance that Tales of Vesperia will get released on the PS3 after a 360 exclusivity window.

So far, no word on Tekken 6, which is still supposedly a PS3 exclusive and scheduled to ship after the Cell-powered arcade version.

Nippon Ichi Software

Brighter news from NIS, the developers behind the Disgeaa series (as well as many others). While not at E3, they had this to say:

[NIS America Rep] also mentioned that NIS’ home branch in Japan was interested in using the Wii’s motion capabilities in RPGs in the near future, but mentioned that the Sony family of platforms was still NIS’ main focus.

They also mentioned that they have shifted from PS2 towards PS3 development. They have two titles that they plan to announce in July and October.