Except for the cancelled Xbox version, Pro Evolution Soccer 6 will kick off this year on every major platform, from PC to PS2, Xbox 360, PSP and DS. But what about the Wii? Surely, some interesting things could come out of this combination. And Konami couldn't agree more because, according to a CVG story, they are already working on a PES game for the Nintendo Wii console.

PES producer Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka has confirmed that a Wii version of Pro Evoltuion Soccer is in development and testing right now - indeed, meaning that it's already playable (to some degree) on Nintendo's upcoming console. What they're still experimenting with at the moment is how to use the Wii remote and Nunchuk controllers in the game. If they can figure out a way to use them for things like shooting, passing or throw-ins, I would shurely be interested to see how it plays.

And if not, they can always get a clue from Nintendo's Mario Strikers Charged. Or from EA, because apparently they're also keeping busy on a Wii football (as in soccer) game. Although their approach, according to Seabass' hearsay, is a bit more radical:

"Seabass also revealed that he's heard whispers of EA getting busy in R&D, by looking at strapping a remote device to a player's foot for shooting. Quite what that turns out to be we don't know, but you can bet that it'll have FIFA in the title."

I can already imagine a Wiimote loosely strapped to my foot one moment, and the next one flying around the room and scoring in the corner of my TV. It's a goooaaal!

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Sony vs Immersion Part 2: Cheap Rumble In PS3 Still Possible

Four months ago, Sony claimed that adding rumble to the motion-sensing PS3 controller was "technically impossible". Immersion disagreed immediately, and in less than a day, their engineers had already come up with three solutions (which they cleverly kept for themselves). Now, Sony admits that it can be done, but claims that doing so would make the controller far too expensive for consumers. Well, guess what: Immersion disagrees. Again.

Speaking to GameDaily BIZ, Victor Viegas - CEO of haptic technology specialist Immersion Corporation - claims that they know how to include force feedback alongside motion sensing in the PlayStation 3 controller, without skyrocketing the console's overall price. "We knew how to technically solve their problems and now we know how to do it without adding any incremental cost", he said.

Viegas' reaction was sparked by the following comments made by SCEA president Kaz Hirai in a recent Kikizo video interview:

"The issue... is trying to isolate the vibration feature from the motion sensors. Is it technically feasible? Absolutely. But the balancing act that you need to do, is to be able to present the controller to the consumer at an affordable price.

If we have to come up with technology... to isolate the vibration from the sensing, but if that means that the controllers are going to be so expensive, then we're doing the consumer a huge disservice by coming up with a controller that is not very affordable. ... And we felt that ultimately, the vibration feature, which is a feedback feature, as compared to the motion sensing which is an input functionality, when you compare the two, we decided that the input device or methodology is a lot more important than feedback, and that has been a strategic decision that we've made."

In response, Viegas points out that Kaz Hirai makes not one, but two astounding mistakes. The first is to claim that integrating rumble feedback with tilt sensors can't be done cheaply. And the second one is to assume that most gamers would rather have a motion sensing controller, than a vibrating one (contrary to the results of a study conducted by Immersion). Immersion is still willing to work together with Sony on this issue, but by the looks of it the feeling is not even remotely mutual. And no wonder, since the two companies are still battling in court over Sony's violation of Immersion's patents, in the PS2 DualShock controller.

Unfortunately, the ones that are really losing here are the gamers. In the worst case scenario, Sony could even shut down all vibration commands from the PlayStation 3, effectively cutting out any third-party vibrating controller from companies such as eDimensional (who previously created the G-Pad Pro PS2 controller, that incorporates both motion sensing and vibration, for just $29.95).

Poor Sony. The last thing they needed right now was yet another bashing. And they got it.

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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Gets Collector's Edition

Much to no one's surprise, Blizzard will be offering a Collector's Edition full of goodies for the upcoming World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion. A behind-the-scenes DVD, a hardcover art book, an exclusive in-game pet (Netherwhelp), two WoW Trading Card Game starter packs (plus exclusive cards), a mouse pad imprinted with the Outland map, a Burning Crusade soundtrack CD, it will all be in there. Along with the World of the Warcraft: The Burning Crusade client itself, both on CD and DVD. Though I can't help wondering: why would anyone buy a Collector's Edition, if they can't even afford a lousy DVD drive?!

The Collector's Edition will be packaged in a special box, pictured on this official page, where you can also find more details about its contents. Some of them, we are also listing below:

"The behind-the-scenes DVD will offer more than two hours worth of developer interviews and commentary on all aspects of the creation of The Burning Crusade, as well as trailers and cinematics from the game.

(...)

Collector's Edition owners will also be able to take their adventures from the computer to the tabletop, with two starter packs for the new World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

(...)

With the Collector's Edition-exclusive in-game pet, the netherwhelp, you'll be the envy of your guildmates and other players as you roam the expanses of Outland and Azeroth. We'll post an image of the netherwhelp, offspring of the nether drake flying mount, in the near future.

(...)

Further details on the contents, as well as pricing and availability info, will be announced at a later date.

Awww... so no price for now. But there is something that should cheer you up, however, if you can get your hands on it: the South Park episode that aired yesterday, which was all about World of Warcraft. Sadly I missed it, but I bet they corpse-camped Kenny, those bastards!

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The Game Developers Conference that took place this week in London may not have been the most exciting game show on earth, but the gathering summoned some well known figures, including Lionhead's charismatic Peter Molyneux, and featured a particularly interesting presentation form one of the lesser known companies, called Allegorithmic. What was so interesting about it, you ask? Oh, not much... just that they claim they will be able to reduce texture file sizes in games by up to 70%!

That really is as impressive as it sounds, considering that if a game has 1 GB of textures, Allegorithmic would be able to reduce that to 300 MB, without losing any quality. As reported by Bit-tech.net, one game that already benefits from this technology is RoboBlitz (soon to be released on Xbox Live Arcade). You probably heard about it by now, and that it runs on the Unreal 3 engine. But what I for one didn't know, is that the entire game had to fit in under 50 MB, and that the overall size for all its textures is less than 280 KB.

Allegorithmic's new texture system is thus clearly a wondrous fit for digital distribution, and even if games will keep their currently extravagant sizes, this technology will allow developers to fit more diverse textures in the same amount of space. It may take some time for it to become an industry standard, but hopefully it will, someday.

For now, one thing that needs to be acknowledged is that developers today are Lazy. With a capital "L"! How else would you explain games that look like five years ago (or worse), but require more powerful hardware - and even then, they have a crappy performance. These days, developers have the luxury of storing their game assets on several GB, when they really only need a fraction of that. With some proper coding, that is.

Unfortunately, modern PCs and next-gen consoles don't force developers to get their proverbial faeces together. Mobile games, on the other hand, have very strict limitations in terms of available memory and processing power. So it's no wonder that they remind us of the old days of leet assembly coding.

Fortunately, however, this trend is making a (modest) comeback nowdays, in the form of procedural design. Remember how Will Wright kept talking on and on about how "procedurally generated" Spore will be? Procedural textures, procedural models, procedural animations, procedural mating, you name it. It's the future, and it's already there for the taking.

Actually, it's been here for like 15 years, but like I sayd: devs are lazy.

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Now that DEFCON set our lust for world domination on fire, BattleGoat Studios is preparing to take us one step further, into the future of 2020. Continuing their geo-political RTS series that began in 2005 with Supreme Ruler 2010, the Canadian developer announced the Supreme Ruler 2020 sequel, due for release in 2007. So we're naturally assuming that Supreme Ruler 2030 will follow in 2009. Unless they will add a Supreme Ruler 2025 expansion in 2008, or something.

Once again, BattleGoat plans to combine political, diplomatic, economic and military strategy elements, in what they're hoping to be the ultimate geo-political wargame / simulation. It sounds a bit over-complicated to me, and as Introversion proved just days ago with DEFCON, sometimes simplicity works miracles!

Although the basic concepts of Supreme Ruler will remain the same in the sequel, the devs are particularly fond of their new Sandbox mode, that lets players customize their playing experience. Here's what Lead designer David Thompson had to say:

"We've taken a look at all the suggestions that have been made to us from the first game and are taking Supreme Ruler to the next level. Every aspect of the game will be improved in some manner. I'm especially excited about the Sandbox mode that will let players focus on the aspects of the game they like best, allowing them to play against the entire World with customizable victory conditions, opponents, difficulty settings and much more!"

Supreme Ruler 2020 is slated for a Q3 2007 release, so BattleGoat has plenty of time on its hands (and horns?) to make the game they want, and hopefully one that gamers will also enjoy playing. If you're not into wargames yet, do try the recent DEFCON demo - you might be in for a very pleasant surprise!

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An early morning update from Major Nelson today reports that the Need for Speed Carbon demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Indeed, this one's only for Xbox 360 owners, but we do expect a PC demo to follow sooner or later this month. The Major also indicates that the demo is 1 GB big, and offers the following promotional blah-blah:

"The Battle for the City is Won in the Canyons. What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you in the world's most dangerous and adrenaline-filled form of street racing. You and your Crew must race in an all-out war for the city, risking everything to take over your rivals' neighborhoods one block at a time. As the police turn up the heat, the battle ultimately shifts to Carbon Canyon, where territories and reputations can be lost on every perilous curve. With Online racing and the most advanced graphics and car customization tools ever, Need for Speed Carbon is the ultimate next generation racing game."

"The ultimate next generation racing game", eh? Rrright! Maybe the ultimately rushed racing game, because players are already complaining about framerate slowdowns in the demo, especially during Drift and Canyon races. And that's not all they're complaining about. Here's just one comment that sums it all up:

"Wow, this demo is ... incredibly .... baaaad. Wth [what?] are EA and M$ thinking ? Seriously, this demo is gonna harm sales big time. Framerate drops that nearly bring the game to a full halt for a second in tight turns, controls that could better be described as lack of controls, lack of physics, lack of AI ..... lack of everything that made Most Wanted a good and fun game."

So... go ahead and buy it if you like the demo. It's coming out on November 1, and I bet a whole lot of people will be waiting to get their hands on it. Sad thing is, I'm not being ironic at all.

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A couple of days ago, after Electronic Arts had completed the acquisition of Swedish developer DICE (Digital Illusions), I was wondering when the "Origin syndrome", a.k.a. "Westwood syndrome" would kick in. You know, closing down studios out of the blue, leaving talented people without jobs, the usual EA stuff... Well, little did I know that EA's classic methods had already been put into action!

As Blue's informes us today, on the morning of October 2 - just hours after EA finalized the buyout of DICE - their Canadian subsidiary was shut down. DICE Canada was responsible for the less admired Battlefield: Vietnam and Battlefield 2: Special Forces games, and the oft-delayed Battlefield 2 patches. So much for those, for a while.

At the time of its closure, Digital Illusions' Canadian studio reportedly employed 28 people. Guess that's more workforce potentially available at EA Canada now.

Shutting down a measly DICE satellite may not be something unusual for Electronic Arts anymore. But what's really scary is just how fast they're operating nowdays. Good luck to their next victim!

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PlayStation 3 Overheating Leads To Fall Of Sony Shares

Repeated delays of the PS3, poor sales of the PSP and various other recent happenings have caused Sony's reputation to hang by a threat - and it too is about to catch on fire. Reports from the recent Tokyo Game Show claim that many of the PlayStation 3 units there suffered from overheating problems (déjà vu...) and had to be frequently reset, according to a report issued on Monday by Macquarie Equities analyst David Gibson. The Associated Press quotes Gibson as writing:

"While the reason for [the PS3's technical difficulties] is unknown, we suspect it may be due to overheating as a result of enclosing the units and the high temperatures at the [TGS] venue.

We are concerned that such a problem has occurred so close to full production and is clearly negative news for the company."

So negative, in fact, that on Tuesday Sony's shares dropped 2.75 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, despite the company's desperate claims that "it's not a problem with the PlayStation 3 unit itself". Sony spokeswoman Nanako Kato said that about 200 PS3 units were clustered together in close proximity at TGS 2006, and housed in kiosks that concentrated the heat generated by their processors and provided poor ventilation. Overheating under such circumstances is a common affliction at trade shows, afflicting not just Sony products but those of its competitors, Kato added. She concludes by assuring us that "for a normal player at home, there shouldn't be any problem". Umm... "shouldn't" or "wouldn't"?...

Next-Gen has an update on the matter, with a statement coming from David Karraker (senior director of corporate communications with SCEA). He calls Gibson's comments "unsubstantiated" and also concludes SCEA's official defense by stating that "PS3 does not suffer from an overheating problem".

We've seen this overheating mess happen to the Xbox 360 shortly after its release last year, so it's nothing new for early models of next-gen consoles, it seems. But nevertheless I have a feeling that this issue - were it to affect final PS3 retail units - would spell total doom for Sony.

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Nowdays if a game is pirated around its release, we think of it as normal. If it "leaks" one week prior to the official launch, it's usually an anticipated title. But when the pirated version gets a full month head start, it can only mean one thing: Final Fantasy XII. That's right, some 30 days before the game's planned release on October 31, the US version of Final Fantasy XII was leaked down the torrent drain.

"Investigative journalism" can only go so far at times like this, so we'll just play along with reports claiming that the pirated version appeared on several torrent websites in ISO format, and that this is indeed the full English version of the game. Clearly, somebody, somewhere, screwed up real nice! It's times like these that resignation letters come in handy...

I'm still curious to see how Squenix will react to this, and if they will react at all (silence has been known to be golden). But whatever they choose to do, let's hope that Final Fantasy XII will still ship on October 31 in North America. Not that I care, really, since here in Europe the game was pushed back all the way to 2007.

So, in the end, the only interesting thing to be observed in days to come is how many of the so-called "FF fans" will betray Square and download this pirated version. Because finding it is probably not an issue. In fact, as one Kotaku commenter said - "Why do I need to find a torrent? It should just download itself, the same way the game plays itself."

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Footy News: FM 2007 Demo, CM 2007 Demo, PES 6 This Month

Football fans, and those who fancy management games in particular, have been pretty spoiled these last few days, with the release of some demo versions for both Football Manager 2007 and Championship Manager 2007. Not to mention that Codemasters have already launched their LMA Manager 2007 in September, so this is turning out to be another plentiful year for the genre. Not that anyone had any doubts about it.

The first ones to kick off a demo last weekend were Sports Interactive and SEGA. And it seems they're making it a habit to send out two distinct versions of their FM demos: a "Vanilla" flavour, with just the bare minimum needed to play it, and a more copious "Strawberry" flavour (mmm Ichigo), assorted with all relevant kits, player photos and graphics. It's this last one (260 MB) that we've also put up for download locally. You can grab the Football Manager 2007 "Strawberry" demo from here, but there are also mirrors for the other PC / Mac versions on SI Games' website. Expect the final PC version on October 20, and on the Xbox 360 in December.

Next came Beautiful Game Studios and Eidos, with their Championship Manager 2007 demo (127 MB). This one is playable for six months with the English, French and Italian leagues, and it's supposed to be fully save game compatible with the full version of CM2007 - which will be released in the UK on October 13.

And speaking of releases, another football game is lined up for retail this month. Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is expected to hit store shelves starting October 27 on the PC, PS2 and Xbox 360, with the PSP and DS versions to follow soon after.

P.S. In other footy news, you can now check out the FIFA 07 review we published today.

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