Don't have a gaming collection? Don't know where to start? Well, markcz5581 is selling his collection at a starting bid of $25,000. Buy it now for $75,000 and you get a Wii with that.

List after jump!

Continue reading "Massive Console Collection!"

After months of chatter, Sony today finally debuted its downloadable games for purchase on the PSP.

Calling the portable plaything "wildly popular," Sony's press release is filled with lots of words -- most of which are a bunch of "yackety, yackety."

But tucked in the lengthy missive, it did list five games that are now available for download:

- Cool Boarders;
- Crash Bandicoot;
- Hot Shots Golf 2;
- Syphon Filter;
- Tekken 2

Sounds like fun, sort of. For the price of $5.99 you can own these "classic" games and whip them out wherever and whenever the need strikes. They are available from the online Playstation Store.

[From PRNewswire]

With the recent (but heavily delayed) release of the PSP's v3.0 firmware, it finally looks as though you'll be able to play PS1 games on the move. Sony has stated that, starting tommorow, you will be able to download some, err, classic PS1 games.

While some are to be celebrated, such as Bishi Bashi Special and Resident Evil, others are certainly not, such as Hot Shots Golf 2. What worries me the most is the lack of bloody brilliant games. Where is Tekken 3? Where's Gran Turismo 2? Where's Syphon Filter? Where's Soul Blade? Where on earth are the classics? Surely the release of such a service would prompt Sony to come out with all guns blazing!
Saying that, there are positives -- they don't cost too much, at only £2.35 a pop, and you are getting at least one Tekken game.

As many of you may already know, version 3 of the PSP's crippling (you can't play Doom on 2.8!) firmware has been awaiting release for quite a while now. PSP fanboys all over the world have been crying out for support of the (unreleased) camera and (just released, but PS3 necessary) PS1 games, as well as the (unreleased) GPS system.
It does, however, offer a much needed link up between the PSP and PS3, so now they can play nicely together just as Sony promised.
Joystiq has the full list of improvements, and I'll repeat it after the break.

Continue reading "PSP v3 Making Rounds"

And when is a cow considered wild? During what period of human existance have cows been seen in the same light as, say, a bull elephant? Or a tiger? Frankly, in a brawl, mano-a-mano between a tiger and a cow (vicious as they may be), I think I could safely bet on the cow to lose. And not only to lose, but to lose by an incomprehensible degree. If there were cow pieces left, I'd be worried.
But I digress. Now available, presumably not through popular demand, is a stick-on "skin" for the PSP and 360 pad that allows your game to be as fierce as that of a cow.

There is one redeeming feature, however, as you can also buy it in a leopard print, rather than cow.

When the week started, Sony was ever so slowly beginning to ramp up interst in its Playstation 2 launch less than a month away from launch.  "Certainly," one could reasonably begin to expect, "certainly this marks a turnaround, and we'll encounter a reinvigorated Sony showing us the best PS3 launch info we've seen yet."

Of course, that fails to take into account that Sony and logic seem to have a tenuous relationship at the best of times.

More after the jump.

Continue reading "Sony has a bad week."

When the suits say Easter, they mean Easter.
As many of you already know, the PS3 is said to arrive in Europe, the biggest videogaming market in the world, next year. After the furore over eBay sales of little printed receipts, you'd have thought Sony would know better to deprive people of the things they most desire - but oh no.
The haven of people like me has, for the past few years, been Lik-Sang, a "grey import" site which allows people to import their videogaming wares from abroad, usually Japan. I was one of the lucky ones who got a few 360 games (region free of course) for about £20. It won't be so for the PS3. Sony has explicitly banned all "grey importing" of Sony hardware into Europe. Europe only. Nowhere is it mentioned that you can't import into the US. Hell, you can send it to an island in the south pacific, but god forbid we in Europe get one!

Continue reading "PS3 to Europe - We meant what we said"

NFL fans have Madden, NBA fans have NBA2k or NBA Live, MLB fans have …. You get my point. But for years Xbox wrestling fans have had nothing worth talking about.   The RAW series was a car crash and Wrestlemania 21 was a train wreck that caught fire and blasted though a village of orphans (yes, it really was that bad).  Xbox wrestling fans for the past few years have had to watch in envy as year after year the Smackdown series grew and matured into an essential game for the wrestling afficiando in all of us.  All the while the Xbox failed to even register a victory.  This left fans to wonder why Smackdown wasn't just ported to other consoles to expand upon its success. When THQ failed to respond, it was assumed the Smackdown series would remain a Sony exclusive for years to come...

Then, March 30th, 2006 THQ announced Smackdown was going next gen and it was doing so on the Xbox360

September 28^th, 2006 – Bringing it home – day 9, as X06 begins to wind down Microsoft catches gamers off guard by smacking down (see I can use cheesy puns) a demo onto the Xbox live marketplace. So after putting a significant amount of time playing the demo of Smackdown (I have played close to double figures at the moment) I feel I am able to properly preview this game and do it the justice it deserves.

So come inside and see if THQ have managed to quench wrestling gamers thirst for grappling action in my preview of Smackdown Vs Raw 2007.

Continue reading "Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 Preview"

Hello again, Video-Gaming enthusiasts!  George here with yet another upbeat nugget of Sony goodness as we all tremble with excitement for the imminent release of the future of gaming, the Playstation Three.

In a shockingly clever move, Warner Home Video last month dropped the price of their UMD movies in Japan to 980 yen (approx $8.50), resulting in a staggering 900% increase over the previous month’s sales.  That’s right, they moved ten times as many UMD movies after this price cut. 

And lo, another triumph for the UMD format has graced us!  As I have only my mortal tears to protect me from its radiance, I must sadly avert my gaze somewhat from this divine word.  With this mathematical juggernaut of sales supporting this medium, surely the golden age we Sony fans have long envisioned is finally upon us.

In this neo-utopia of high-mobility next-generation data formats, owners of less expensive, more compatible formats will be forced into a coliseum where, in the vein of Hades’ own Cerberus, a three-headed Kaz Hirai will viciously sodomize them with Betamax cassettes in an inexplicable melee that can only be loosely described as some kind of bloodthirsty Macarena.  

Continue reading "Japan UMD Sales Increase Tenfold! Truly, Everything is Coming Up Sony"

As if Sony needed even more of a buzzkill these days.

Rumors that Target stores will be dropping UMD movie disks from its shelves have apparently been confirmed.

Kotaku first heard the buzz, and now it seems that it's true. Daily Tech has more or less confirmed that Target -- and possibly Wal-Mart in the near future -- will indeed be scrapping UMDs in favor of movies loaded onto MemorySticks.

This doesn't bode well for Sony, especially now with its attention squarely devoted to the "next big thing," Blu-ray.

Personally, I'm kinda sorry this is happening. As a PSP owner and fan, I enjoyed having a case full of lots of great movies for watching on an airplane or long car trips. I didn't buy many because -- and I'll be dirt honest -- the films that Sony offered on UMD kinda didn't appeal to me. Sure, there were lots of action films, but Sony didn't seem to make much effort to expand its catalogue to include films I'd want to OWN, with the possible exception of "House of Flying Daggers."

Sony clearly targeted its UMD cinema catalogue on young males. And as it lived by that sword, it also died by it. Many times I wandered into UMD aisles of retailers only to launch into a string of, "Nope. No. Not on your life would I buy that. I wouldn't be seen with that one," and I'd leave empty handed and a little disappointed.

I can't help but think that, had Sony actually devoted itself to making the PSP a viable movie player, instead of a junk-movie purveyor, I and my PSP bretheren might have forked out more cash to purchase UMDs and kept them on shelves.

As for MemorySticks, well... Again, the medium is only as good as what's contained on it. If Sony insists on niche marketing their movies by only offering extreme-CGI-and-things-blowing-up cinema, I don't think you'll be seeing me running out to get those either.

Overview:

The PSP has just passed its one-year mark recently, but rather than being the runaway success Sony was hoping for -- Sony is still trying to sell the PSP handheld to the masses.

We should applaud them for not giving up but for the past year. The PSP has been accused of just using its installed fanbase and major franchises to push the handheld, and to be honest -- for the most part their critics are right. The PSP has lacked originality, and it is suffering from "portitis" and "sequelitis." When you look down the road for the PSP what are the most anticipated new titles? Grand Theft Auto : Vice City Stories, Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, and so on so forth. Hell, even my most anticipated title is a port of its console brother (Def Jam Fight For New York: The Takeover).

But when it comes down to it we are all guilty of buying these ports and sequels. I'm not for one second claiming that the aforementioned titles will not be good -- even great -- games, but there comes a point when you need to play something original.

Thats where Loco Roco comes into the fray.

Much like Katamari before it, this game intends to inject the PSP with some originality. The game has simple mechanics and controls and some of the oddest music ever heard in games. The graphics are cutesy, and the developers want you to fall in love with these Locos.

But, in the end, is this game possibly too out there?

More after the jump!

Continue reading "Am I Loco for Roco?"

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here with a little e-mail that just popped into the ol’ inbox:

"The success of Liberty City Stories on the PSP system was nothing short of spectacular," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games and Executive Producer. "The incredible PSP system technology allowed us to do things we never thought possible on a handheld system and we are excited to once again give our audience a fresh experience in one of their favorite locales in the Grand Theft Auto series, Vice City. With Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories we look to once again smash expectations of portable gaming, bringing an all new story and exciting new gameplay elements to this classic setting."

"Our collaboration with Rockstar Leeds has been a tremendous experience," said Leslie Benzies, President of Rockstar North. "Together we have been able to create uncompromising experiences on the PSP system that not only stay true to our initial vision for the series but that surpasses our own goals of what could be done on a handheld. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories will thrill longtime fans and excite new PSP system gamers like never before."

"We are proud of what we were able to achieve with Rockstar North on Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories," said Gordon Hall, President of Rockstar Leeds. "By staying true to the high standards of the series and surpassing fans' expectations for a Grand Theft Auto title on a portable machine we feel confident that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories will redefine what handheld gaming is capable of with the most intense PSP system experience yet."

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is a new game in the Grand Theft Auto series with an entirely new storyline, new missions and gameplay that brings an unprecedented experience to mobile gaming. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories features the interactive, open environment of Vice City with professional voice talent, a diverse soundtrack and high production values that have become trademarks of this landmark series.

Looks like Rockstar is really sharing the love this E3. Liberty City Stories was an EXCELLENT game for the PSP. Heading back to Vice City, handheld style?

Dude, I’m there.

Hey Rockstar, just a suggestion, how about porting Table Tennis to the Wii?

Just a suggestion.

Semper Fi!