Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton sat down for a discussion on the console wars with CNN where he took potshots at his company’s competitors, Microsoft and Nintendo.  Tretton noted that he does not necessarily view Nintendo’s DS as competition.

“Our view of the ‘Game Boy experience’ is that it’s a great babysitting tool,” Tretton said during the interview, ‘Gameboy experience’ referencing the Nintendo DS, “something young kids do on airplanes, but no self-respecting 20-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those. He’s too old for that.”

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Despite launching only a month ago, the Nintendo 3DS slipped into second place in the Japanese weekly Media Create rankings. The PSP beat the 3DS by a margin of about 15,000 units. While the PSP has a very strong following in Japan, it’s a little surprising to see Nintendo’s new flagship handheld get beaten. According to Japanese news site Inside Games, the 3DS has only sold around 836,000 units so far.

A lack of strong launch titles could be what’s holding the 3DS back. I can’t speak for the Japanese, but personally there’s nothing in the 3DS’ current list of titles that grabs my eye. If there was new Mario or Zelda game, then things might be different. Also the recent disaster in Japan could also be a factor. I doubt you’d be rushing out to buy a new gaming device if your home just got destroyed by an earthquake/tsunami. What’s telling is that only one 3DS title, Pro Baseball Famista 2011, made it into the top 10 for the week of March 28.

[via Joystiq]

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The premise is simple: you go to a bar and see a bunch of people playing this cow abduction game on the big screen. They’re using their iPhones, iPads and Androids as controllers, pressing on the screen to abduct, tilting their phones to move. You connect via your mobile device and you’re next in line. Consider it the 2.0 version of putting your quarter up.

Cow Snatchers was just one of several games demoed at D2S Games’ underground event last week. However, the event wasn’t really meant to demo their games more than it was showcase their platform, which is all about playing games socially without the likes of Facebook. As D2S chief visionary officer Donna Bonifield put it, “it’s all about taking people away from Facebook and into face time.” In fact, this event was more about redefining what a social game is. Read more… »

Killzone 3 just got patched to version 1.07 yesterday. According to the preliminary notes Guerrilla implemented a lot of changes, including the ability to create private custom games. While I haven’t gotten a chance to play with the new patch yet, I can tell you this: Killzone 3 is in dire need of repair.

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Let’s be honest, Nintendo pretty much blew its load last year. We usually see sequels to beloved Nintendo franchises evenly distributed throughout a console’s life cycle. For whatever reason (the 3DS launch perhaps?) Nintendo decided to do it in six months.

So now that we’ve had our fix of Kirby, Samus, Donkey Kong, and Mario; what’s left before we throw our “dusty Wiis” into the proverbial closet for good? Well aside from the obvious answer – The Last Story. Nintendo of America recently registered a domain for Mistwalker’s Wii RPG. While that’s a far cry from an official announcement for a Western release, I’ll take it.

Don’t burn us again Nintendo; I’m still bitter about Disaster: Day of Crisis and Fatal Frame IV.

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Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions really seem to live outside the box when it comes to creative processes. The series of indie games being developed by Double Fine is actually the result of a so-dubbed Amnesia Fortnight, where Double Fine was divided into four teams and each came up with a prototype of a game. Costume Quest was the first of the indie games, and now Double Fine has offered up Stacking to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network customers. I certainly hope this isn’t the last Amnesia Fortnight that Double Fine decides to have, because the thoughtfulness behind Stacking makes it short but sweet and extremely satisfying.

Stacking is a game that almost sounds like a parody if you read a summary or see a screenshot. The world of Stacking is an industrial age populated entirely by Russian matryoshka dolls that move, speak, and act just like humans. Bizarre Definitely, but it’s the special brand of quirkiness and eccentricity that Double Fine does so well. The doll character lack voices but the old fashioned screens that progress the story and the upbeat piano overtures are reminiscent of silent era films of the 1920s. Light, pleasant piano music provides a backdrop for a world in an industrial revolution built on the backs of hard labour by these intricately designed and detailed dolls.

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Last Halloween Double Fine Productions treated us to their first of a series of indie games in development, Costume Quest, which I promptly fell in love with after ten minutes of play time. It was imaginative, witty, and broke interesting new ground on the idea of video games themed around a particular holiday. Double Fine seems intent on testing the waters of settings beyond Halloween, and thus Grubbins on Ice was made available during the holiday season. It’s all the charm, humor, and cute gameplay for another three hours. Even if it does very little as far as expansion packs go there’s nothing wrong with a second helping.

Shortly after the events of Costume Quest, fraternal twins Reynold and Wren return along with friends Everett and Lucy. Lucy is determined to find evidence that the monsters of Repugia from the first game exist, but she gets more than she bargained for when she’s kidnapped through a portal by Repugian leader Araxia.  Reynold, Wren, and Everett set out on a rescue mission, joining the Grubbins in a revolutionary movement to overthrow the oppressive Araxia and prove that you can’t mess with kids in costume.

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Like books? Like games? Then you might enjoy this. Today THQ and Random House announced that they’re teaming up to “create and develop original intellectual properties (“IP”) for publication across multiple mediums.”

According to the press release, “the team expects the new IP to first appear as a collection of games and books, while they further develop a rich IP universe that will allow for ongoing shelf life through other media.” So what does that actually mean? THQ is going to make some sort of game and Random House will have an author create a novel tie-in and maybe an ebook version too if they’re feeling whimsical.

It looks like we can expect more things like Homefront: The Voice of Freedom prequel novel. According to some reviews this could be a great thing or a sign of Ragnarök. Personally, I haven’t really gotten into tie-in novels, but for gamers looking to read more about their favorite games, I guess I can’t really fault them for that. Let’s hope that THQ and Random House try to create quality products, rather than rushing to get things to market to coincide with video game launches.

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We can agree to disagree about whether or not Dragon Age II is a worthy successor to Dragon Age: Origins, but I think we can all agree on the fact that free stuff is cool. Apparently Bioware is running a promotion where you can score a free copy of Mass Effect 2 on the PC. Read more… »

Yesterday EA launched Battlefield Play4Free, a free-to-play first-person shooter developed by the team behind Battlefield Heroes. Featuring classic maps from Battlefield 2, the classes and weapons from Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and 16 vehicles, Battlefield Play4Free sounds like a great introduction for gamers who may not be too familiar with the Battlefield franchise.

In order to get in on the action, all you need to do is head over to the Battlefield Play4Free site, sign up, create a soldier and download the client. Read more… »

Hudson was founded in 1973 by Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo. The company went on to produce hit series such as Mario Party, Adventure Island and, of course, Bomberman. While Konami acquired a  majority share of Hudson Soft in 2005, it wasn’t until last week that the merger was complete and Hudson became a fully absorbed entity. The developer left with these parting words via Twitter.

“Dear Hudson fans. Thanks for your support for all these years! We’ll be closing our account tomorrow. Please follow our titles @Konami”

To bid them a fond farewell, Hudson’s SNES title Super Bonk landed on Nintendo’s Virtual Console this morning.

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Not your typical fanboys, Ahruon and Orkimedes are the brain trust behind a lovely game called Card Saga Wars. What makes this game (and thus these two individuals) so special is that it lets you pit characters like Master Chief and Samus against one another in card art style battle. The concept of crossover battles is nothing original, but, judging by the gameplay videos that have surfaced thus far, they have gone through great pains to make things just right.

Of course you want to see more. Why would I even ask that question?

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