If the Japanese details for the launch of the PSP store ring true for Americans, you’ll soon be able to download any and all Sony games in addition to buying them in retail stores. This is happening soon 14with the 5.00 firmware update, scheduled to hit Japanese Wi-Fi networks on October 15th. Three games will be available at launch included Patapon, LocoRoco 2, and Secret Agent Clank. Every first party title will follow day and date with their retail counterparts. No pricing is announced, though if they’re the same price, why wouldn’t you get a boxed copy?

No word on an official date for US and European gamers, though this stuff historically doesn’t take too long after a Japanese test run.

While there were fears to the contrary, it turns out those folks from down under will get a version of Rock Band after all. Sure, it’s only the first game and it’s way overdue (by about nine months), but it’s better than nothing in the end. Oh, and Australians won’t be getting a bundle. They’ll have to buy their instruments separately from the game itself. The total price? Around $208 US.

All platforms will get their own version as they did elsewhere, which includes the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. So, what happens if three months from now Australians have Rock Band 2? That’s a surefire way to lose consumers, as if this extensive delay wasn’t enough already.

Well, it’s a start. With all of those nifty WiiWare titles and Virtual Console games already out there, it’s likely you’re out of space on the meager internal memory of the Wii. That’s about to be fixed… sort of.

While the internal storage will remain the same, you’ll finally be able to play games directly off of the SD card that’s been sitting inside your console. Nope, no more swapping games out back and forth when you want to play them. The bigger question is will games have to support this feature? One would assume some DRM will be in place for games that use this feature. Will older games without it be able to work the same way?

Gee Sony, think its about time to push these things into stores? The competition is killing you.

The pre-paid PlayStation Network cards have been available at Meijer stores (thankfully, right down the street from me) for a little while, but that’s about it. The rest of the populace has been left out in the cold. Thankfully, a nationwide retailer has stepped up to the plate. The cards should now be available at your local Blockbuster video…

… yes, one of those stores where you have to walk in to rent movies instead of illegally downloading them or renting from Netflix. Weird, huh?

Image via Wikipedia

During E3 one of the big rumors surrounding Nintendo was the pending redesign of the best selling DS lite. Those rumors proved to be untrue for E3 but it looks as if they could have been pointing to the 08 holiday season instead. DS Fanboy is reporting a  Japanese newspaper with an article describing the new machine. Unfortunately as of yet, there aren’t any pictures. However we’ll be sure to let you know as soon as any new details or pictures arise!

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Considering they release new tracks every week and have sold millions of them, the least Harmonix could do is offer some freebies. Thankfully, that confirmation has happened. While details aren’t finalized, the company did at least confirm we’ll be getting 20 tracks “sometime this fall” with no strings attached for Rock Band 2. No song names, no exact time, and no press releases (it was confirmed on the official forums), but this is better than no information.

The other announcement is that the Jukebox mode didn’t make it into the final cut for unspecified reasons. And no, it’s not currently planned as DLC either.

from ages 18-48 the average gamer spends over $30,500 on videogames and hardware. This amounts to about $765 per year for each individual gamer…

As one would gather, this figure goes to demonstrate the economic machine the gaming industry has become but a recent interview of some big name publishers indicates that’s not enough. The sticking point is that retailers such as GAMESTOP and GAMECRAZY, who sell used games, are cutting into their profits. The article quotes a Bungie executive as saying,

It’s hard to gauge the effect of used game sales on Halo, but I’m sure it’s big. Complaining about sales when you have a multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify, but it seems to me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldn’t stop receiving income from further sales,

It’s already been surmised that the game consumer is willing to part with their hard earned money as evident in the poll. What comes into contention is the quality of games and perceived value; I’ll explain my line of thinking.

Personally, I am a fan of the HALO series and I would probably pay any asking price for the ability to play. But IF I pay to play, complete my experience, and then choose to sell back my game in an attempt to recoup my money because I do not perceive the value of keeping it, who are they to criticize a business willing to broker that?

On the other hand, what if I am someone who did not purchase the game near the release date and buys a second hand copy either to save money or out of lack of initial interest?  How can a game publisher expect to govern my purchase decisions? In either case if the perceived value was there I would have chosen to keep the game or I would have chosen to make the purchase happen on or near the release day.

So what does this mean to us Mr & Mrs gamer?

1. We are willing to spend the money on what we deem worthy.

2. It is up to the game industry to capture our interest and HOLD it as well.

3. We live in a free economy and it is OUR choice where and when we purchase our games as long as we do so legally.

We enable or disable the gaming industry accordingly with our purchases. If we, the consumers, allow this sort of thing to take root what is next? Pay to play or monthly subscription prices for games? To the gaming industry: If you build a worthy product we will purchase it but WE will decide where!

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You knew it was coming. Like the number of sites out there that deliver Xbox 360 achievements, someone had the rather obvious idea to do the same with the PlayStation 3’s trophy system. Thankfully, that someone has done a fine job of it.

The SixthAxis lets interested parties see which games currently support trophies, which ones might, and which ones won’t. Even better, they back up those games where there’s a possibility with sources for their reasoning, whether that be interviews or confirmed forum posts. For games that do support them, you can check out each trophy and what you’ll need to get them. Kudo guys for a valuable site that will help out thousands who simply need to get “one more trophy.”

A longtime franchise that has finally made its way to US, MLB Power Pros is probably the best baseball game to grace the DS yet. Given the dubious quality of the majority of them, that’s not saying much. Also, that’s only referring to gameplay, not the featureless product as a whole.

In fact, this could have been one of the better arcade-style baseball games in some time if it offered anything to do. Instead, the menu greets you with a playoff system, single game, hoe run derby, and generic team editor. That’s it. No season play, none of the RPG elements that make the console versions unique, and no Wi-Fi play.

Multi-player fans can partake in download play or wireless connection play. However, they won’t be doing much. It’s a shame too, because as its core, this is a fine example of how bring retro style baseball games into the present.

Batting is a simple cursor system, but it works well. There are standard and power swings, the latter giving you a small dot to make contact. The d-pad provides responsive controls, and there are no motion controls to clog things up. Pitching works in the same manner, with a cursor selecting where you’ll throw. The d-pad selects which pitch to throw prior to the toss.

The annoying and robotic PA announcer can go at anytime, but the pleasant, catchy music is enough to give the game some atmosphere. AI tends to go on hitting binges. After countless pitches where it doesn’t even think to swing and strikes out, it suddenly realizes it’s playing and swings at everything.

Fielding is touchy, mostly due to the automatic player swapping. You’ll control an infielder who is near the ball, and then suddenly, you’re control is swapped to an outfielder. It’s annoying and hard to adjust to. Running the bases offers simple touch screen controls, including the option to tap the lower right to help the base runner gain speed.

From a gameplay standpoint, this is an enjoyable baseball romp. It’s simple enough to perfect on-the-go, and the games go by quickly. However, playing single games is far too retro even for something like this, and it’s a shame we can’t take this big-headed players into something more.

Any Xbox Live Achievement Point seeker has played NBA 2K6, King Kong, or Avatar. They all offer up a simply way to gain some quick points and boost your Gamerscore. Even The Simpsons Game let you boost a bit with a parody achievement for hitting start.

Sadly, art often imitates life.

EA released an application for the Live Arcade called the Live Score Tracker. This lets you tally up your EA Fantasy team scores quick and painless. However, due to Microsoft’s requirement of every game being required to have Achievements, this one had them too… including one five pointer for pressing start. Oh, and if you pause, that’s 35 points. Change a menu setting? 35 points. So, if you need some quick points, spend the measly $1 for 200 points. It’s a bargain!

The recent and all around superb remake of Bionic Commando Rearmed has been doing well for Capcom. Across the three platforms it’s available for (PC, PS3, Xbox 360), it’s been downloaded 130,000 times in its first week. Capcom’s Ben Judd didn’t get into sales specifics as to how well it did on each piece of hardware, but did let gamers know that’s an astounding number for a downloadable title. Judd sees this as proof of the following:

We are tired of meta-emulated crap.
We want the titles of yesteryear to be paid the proper respect.
We want them done right.
And if the price is right, we’ll buy.

Really didn’t need Rearmed to figure that out.

Ha Ha!

This one goes out to all of the gold farmers out there in Warhammer land.

Ha ha!

Mythic co-founder Mark Jacobs has had enough of gold farming shenanigans. He’s laying down the law, as his “strike team” who do nothing but find the gold farmers of the world and ban them. So far, 400 people are out of shady work that preys on the lazy. This will continue, and won’t end until the last gold farmer finally realizes this isn’t going to work… which will probably be never, but rest assured that the Warhammer team is all set to keep banning them as needed. Kudos Mythic.