If this is the year of the PS3, then the PS3 isn't especially bothered about games so far - exclusive ones, anyway. Aside from MGS4, there's been little to talk of - yet, sales have risen on the whole, proving that the gaming public is naturally drawn to black shiny things.
That's how I see it, anyway.
Nevertheless, one of the PS3's big exclusives - LittleBigPlanet - could be set for a release this October, with U.S. retailer Target claiming it'll be on American shelves in time for Halloween. (That's the 24th.)
Are we to believe them? I can't think why not, to be honest. LittleBigPlanet made a big splash at Sony's E3 press briefing last week, suggesting it forms the backbone of the PS3's output this year. Plus, Target do great deals on underwear packs, so I can't think why they'd lie.
Sony in 'FFXIII on 360 is quite a good thing' shocker!
Dille makes twist
Sony's Peter Dille has likened Square-Enix's decision to make Final Fantasy XIII multi-platform to that of Grand Theft Auto IV, claiming it'll only help the 360 slog it out in the American "dogfight".
Marketing man Dille told MTV Multiplayer that Microsoft is having to spend serious amounts of cash to bring big games to the 360, whereas the industry is being drawn to the PS3 all by itself. Apparently.
"Consumers responded to GTA IV on the PS3 just as they did on the 360...And I think if you fast forward to when Final Fantasy XIII comes out I think you're going to have millions of people who grew up playing Final Fantasy on the PlayStation playing it on a PlayStation 3," he said.
"If you look at the global footprint, PlayStation 3 dominates in Japan where the 360 is really irrelevant. In Europe, the PlayStation 3 is already past the 360. And in the United States you have a dogfight. So back to the third-party community, they're looking at what's going on, they're realigning their development resources to exploit PS3 and I think they understand that if they want to have a global return on their investment, PlayStation 3 is the only place they're going to get it."
That sounds suspiciously like the kind of things former Sony man Phil Harrison was saying at the turn of the year - that studios were naturally aligning themselves to the PS3, porting to 360 if they needed to. But with PS3 sales still between 5-6 million units behind, would it really make sense for developers to put Sony's format first?
Mass Effect just too damn good for PS3, apparently
BioWare takes poke at Sony
It launched on the Xbox 360, and made a leap to PC, but Mass Effect will apparently never ever hit the PS3, because BioWare is intent on keeping the quality of the franchise high. Ouch.
“We said we were committed to supporting Mass Effect as a franchise and have the trilogy on the Xbox 360, and that’s still our goal," BioWare founder Ray Muzyka told Australia's 360 Magazine, adding that the entire trilogy would hit the 360 "exclusively".
"We’re always very ambitious in our goals and the most important thing is quality, so we’re never going to compromise that.”
Confirming a key franchise as a 360 exclusive is one thing. Suggesting it wouldn't be able to hit the same heights on the PS3 is quite another. I say again: ouch.
It'll be worth the wait. Honestly, PlayStation Home will be worth the wait. I say that, because a Sony executive has just waved his hand in front of my face and told me that "it'll be worth the wait."
Yet again, Sony's Kaz Hirai has claimed that the giant was right not to launch Home early on, as it wasn't ready, and games that aren't ready anger gamers. Well, I'm with him there.
"...had we launched it before we thought it was the right time and the right features and functionality to launch it - with the high anticipation, people would go there in droves the first time around, they would check it out and say, 'This isn't fun at all, so I'm not coming back again'," Hirai told. GamesIndustry.biz.
"Okay, we've been dinged, I've been personally dinged many times. But if I know we're doing it for the right reasons and that once we launch the service this fall it's going to be something that the consumers, once they go there, see that it's actually going to be a fun service. That to me is a lot better than doing it the other way around."
After all this, it damn well better be a 'fun service'.
PS3's BioShock to be identical to 360, PC versions
My worry regarding the PS3 version of 360 and PC smash BioShock continues to grow, with publisher 2K claiming it has no desire to update any elements of the game - graphical or otherwise - when it hits Sony's system later this year.
Other than mopping up a few sales and building hype for the sequel, then, what exactly is the point of a re-release of the year old BioShock? I may have just answered my own question, there.
"We're looking to match the quality of the original version. We want to make sure that the water is just as great, and I think you can see from the demonstration, that it looks no different from the 360 version," 2K's Melissa Miller told VideoGamer.
Still, it's not as if Rapture wasn't stunning enough the first time round, is it?
