thirdworldgamer

Much has a already been said about Microsoft losing over a billion dollars thanks to the 3 Red Lights of Death / RROD...this time Sony is in the news because they've lost even more money than Microsoft! http://kotaku.com/5018899/sony-lost-331-billion-to-ps3-cost-pricing-imbalance " Sony Lost Over $3 Billion To PS3 Cost, Pricing Imbalance Pricing the PlayStation 3 below its production cost caused Sony to lose $2.16 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2008 , the company revealed today. Sony's fiscal 2008 annual report delineated potential risk factors to its investors, outlining that "the large-scale investment required during the development and introductory period of a new gaming platform may not be fully recovered." The loss figures were provided as an example of the "significant negative impact" introducing a new platform can cause at first. "In the past, large-scale investment relating to capital expenditures and research and development for t...

Pictures of Race Driver: Grid that I took with a DSLR: (Note: the game has no photo mode and doesn't let you save race replays.) - The graphics are so incredible when this game is in motion.....gave me the exact same feeling I got when I played PGR4 last year. It's just exhiliratingly fast! - The best advantage of this game is the career mode, which feels more involved and interesting. I like the idea of having a racing teammate. Also, those 20 car races are just EPIC. - It doesn't take too much of your time. Only a few menu screens to navigate before you get to the actual race. - The racing itself is so exciting and intense. Those two words describe it perfectly. The game never feels as ridiculous as Burnout, but there's a lot more drama and fantastic moments that happen every race compared to racing sims like Forza 2 or Gran Turismo. As a result, you'll never fall asleep on the wheel. There's always something happening at every lap, be it an accident, spin-out...

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2008/06/18/rumor-industry-rumblings-regarding-resident-evil-5/ "RUMOR: Industry Rumblings Regarding Resident Evil 5 By now, you may have heard about the “Major RE5 Reveal at E3″ that Videogaming247 is reporting. Some more information has made its way to PlayStationLifeStyle.net… Whether or not this information is true is unknown. However we felt it is our duty to give fans a heads up on a HUGE announcement that MAY be coming @ E3. Please take this as a rumor as that’s all it is at this point. No solid information on the subject yet. From what I have been told, Microsoft is looking to pay Capcom an undisclosed amount, for timed exclusivity of Resident Evil 5. It is still not known if Capcom has accepted the offer… The information we got, was only that Microsoft has made the offer. If this is going to be announced it will be @ E3. Similar to the GTAIV “showing of the tattoo” a couple of years ago. If this is true, all of you petition fanatics out ther...

One time I got to race on go-karts with some friends. It's been a long time since I last experienced the thrill of karting. I think the last time I went karting was when I was 12 or even younger, and that was during a trip to Australia a long, long time ago. Going back to my story, so here I was eagerly awaiting my turn to race. I guess I couldn't help but think of driving in video games before I took the wheel. I thought to myself, how far are we, really, towards emulating the entire experience of driving? After several minutes of laps around the circuit, I realized that the video game technology that exists today just isn't enough to really give you that thrill of real speed. Yes, I know I was on a go-kart and I probably wasn't going that fast....but the sensation of speed is something else. It isn't just visual--it's a full body experience. The one thing that may never be emulated in a video game is the strength of the G-forces on you when you take turns or w...

The Japan racing league is really interesting. If it hasn't been mentioned yet, there are three leagues in the game, one set in American street tracks (usually inside cities a'la PGR series; and there is also a destruction derby mode), another one set in European racing tracks (touring cars and F1000 - F3 cars), and a Japanese league (which feature touge races and drift races). I'm really beginning to like the diversity of styles of racing in this game. It's practically several racing games rolled into one. The only type of racing not featured is RALLY racing, which I guess goes to the Codemasters' DIRT racing series. Spent a bit more time with the Japanese league today. Drift racing has two types (that I've tried so far)....the regular 'Drifting' competition where you have to score points and score higher than everyone else....then there's the FREESTYLE drift competition, where the game puts you in an area that's wide open (though there are road...

I remember in my youth, I'd buy a game for a hefty price of about 2,500 - 4,000 pesos (60++ dollars), go home and rush through the entire thing in one afternoon. I'd see the end of most Sega Saturn games after around three or five hours of play. And to think that today's gamers complain that games are too short this generation..... ten hours of play is actually quite a lot of time. Anyway, at some point, having used up nearly a fortune in game purchases, and staring at my library of titles, I realized, there must be something wrong with what I'm doing. I mean, think about it.... it takes long enough to save up enough money to buy a single game ....and I would beat these same games within an afternoon, or three hours or less, depending on the type of game. Then it occured to me, in my simple minded adolescent brain----" Sayang pera." [What a waste of money....] Was it the game's fault? It didn't matter. All I knew was that I was blowing through money t...

Today, I came across this video from Adam Sessler. Sessler's Soapbox is Tired of the Bigots on Xbox Live It's a good thing that its being discussed. But Adam Sessler and a good portion of the people reporting this news seems to have missed point that these things exists in the real world. In a nutshell, we have Adam Sessler, one of the hosts of G4 TV's X-Play, getting fed up with the kids he claimed was calling him names. Now I'm not sure if Sessler's gamer tag is already public knowledge or if these kids even know who he was. Sessler claims that this is ruining his XBOX Live experience and issues out a challnge to anyone who can explain to him why 'trash talk' is necessary. Although one has to question Sessler himself for throwing the 'F' word all over his Soapbox video when he is asking for a reason why trash talking exists. This has been today's topic of discussion for me and my husband. And I'd like to put in this blog what we have posted...

So my friend had some problems getting a Playstation 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 this week. We both decided to help him out. We got the system and the game today after a bit of searching in V-Mall, Greenhills. These stores are pretty good places to get brand new Xbox 360/PS3 games because they seem to get new titles on time: Mr. Dynamic in V-Mall ITECH in Market Market It was an interesting day because we had to haggle and ask around at some stores to get the best deal for a PS3. Seems the best place we found was E-Stop in V-mall. So we got MGS4 at Mr. Dynamic and the PS3 itself at E-Stop. The Playstation 3 isn't mine....but I always find it fun to buy one of these things [a brand new game console]. :D My friend was nice enough to let me play MGS4 on it even before he gets his hands on the console and the game itself. I've never played on the PS3 extensively, so you could say this was a more complete introduction for me to the platform. Impressions on MGS4: They spend a lot of tim...

Guess how many times do XBOX 360 fans like me read these kinds of comments? “Uh...any JRPG will sell more on the PS3 since there are more JRPG fans on the PS3” Why should developers put JRPGs on the 360 when its going to have multiple disks” "The Playstation is the home of JRPGs!” “The XBOX is an FPS BOX!” Sometimes I forget that in the Internet I can be reading the comment of a 10 year old that I get frustrated whenever I read such ill-informed opinions. Some people can't seem to get their heads out of the year 2000 when the first XBOX was dead last in the console race with only Halo 3 as its saving grace. Fast forward to 2008 and look at the platform that has the most diverse game line-up in its generation...it's the XBOX 360. The moment Star Ocean 4 was announced, the JRPG fan in me was happy but I expected the news. I laughed when I remembered one of the threads in the Playstation forums urging members to 'pray' that Star Ocean 4 is exclusive. I laughed back th...

I've got nothing but love for this racing game. It sucks you in with the first race, which is just incredibly exciting and straightforward. The controls are simplified compared to something like Forza 2, but the benefit is that your mind is focused on the race and not struggling with simulation controls on a gamepad. The cars move and feel fantastic. Each race feels different and it's quite an experience to have a car that can tumble around and flip over! The damage modeling is insane. What did other devs say about car manufacturers not allowing damage? Clearly, those devs must have been lying....because Codemasters gets away with it, and wonderfully so. Damage is a huge factor in your races. You can get totalled and be removed from the race completely. Your car's performance will suffer with each kind of damage that you can get (engine, steering, suspension, transmission---each part can get damaged pretty severely if you aren't careful). And it's pretty dishearteni...

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/880/880407p1.html Star Ocean 4 just got announced for the Xbox 360! Along with this, MS Japan revealed more on Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Last Remnant and Fable 2. Yet another great year of great games on the Xbox 360 :D

Microsoft is having a press conference this Tuesday to talk about their lineup of JRPGs: Link: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8762178&publicUserId=4549175 "It's been a while since I've written one of these types of blogs. But yeah, I'm off to Japan for over a week to do that thing I do. What am I going to see? Well, the only thing I can disclose right now is that Microsoft is having a press conference in Shibuya next Tuesday, to show off its line-up of role-playing games. Yeah, on Xbox 360. Go figure. At least two of those will be Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery , but they apparently have some surprises up their sleeve." There's speculation that the new RPGs will be Cry On and Star Ocean 4. The SO4 rumor has been around for a long time; it would be an important victory for Microsoft if this rumor turned out to be true. While I'm not sure if more JRPGs will improve sales for the Xbox 360 in Japan, it will improve its reputation for game di...

And I won! Wow, I don't quite know what to say. To be honest I've never won anything like this. In a nutshell, I, Scytherage, have won the Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena ACG Preliminaries. I won out at the end after a series of matches against 9 other players. So I'm going to be the representative for the Philippines at the Asian Cyber Games in Singapore some time August this year :D Today E-Sports had the preliminaries for VF5 and while they weren't as EPIC as the Guitar Hero prelims (which were held over a series of weekends), they were still quite exciting and enjoyable for all the players involved. Players from Pinoyxbox were on-hand and showed their VF5 skills, which were really enhanced thanks to the online fighting experience we all had playing VF on Xbox Live. There were a couple of players who I think joined in thinking VF would be like Tekken. They seemed to be a bit frustrated with the controls....VF is really different from Tekken and takes an entirely differe...

Join the Virtua Fighter 5 WCG Preliminaries this weekend, June 7 & 8 at SM Megamall, and get a chance to win prizes from the PINOYXBOX Community just by joining! Remember, you don't have to win the tournament or be a finalist to be eligible for the raffle. Just participate at the games and join in the fun :D These are the prizes that are up for grabs: You can win one of the following games/items! 2 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK with XBOX 360 WIRELESS GUITAR 2 UNIVERSE AT WAR: EARTH ASSAULT 1 GRAND THEFT AUTO IV 1 RAINBOW SIX VEGAS 2 1 GHOST RECON ADVANCED WARFIGHTER 2 1 VIRTUA FIGHTER 5 LIVE ARENA 1 PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 4 1 HDMI Cable Just some reminders: The games will be held on June 7 and 8 at the at the Villman Gaming Area at SM Megamall Cyberzone, 4th Floor Bldg B. The preliminary matches begin at 1:30PM. Player registrations take place before 1:30PM. For VF5 players, please be reminded that WCG is extremely strict with the registration. You MUST SIGN UP AT THE REGIS...

Based on my impressions from their respective demos, both of these games will be big hits with gamers everywhere. Now I couldn't buy both because of budget constraints, and I ordered GRID first and I don't want to cancel that order even if the Ninja Gaiden II demo which came out later on was so incredibly awesome. I really, REALLY want to buy NGII but real life demands that I eat and pay the bills, hehehe. Eventually I will pick up NGII...with the announcement that it's the last in the series, Ninja Gaiden II is now officially an interesting piece of video game history.

CAPTIVATE 2008 is Capcom's showcase of their latest and upcoming titles. I found a ton of news, videos and previews and posted it over on the Pinoyxbox forums (since normally we just post opinion articles or other things here on the blog). Pinoyxbox Forum Threads for Capcom games updated with the latest from CAPTIVATE '08 STREET FIGHTER IV RESIDENT EVIL 5 DARK VOID - New Game from Capcom BIONIC COMMANDO

Microsoft has issued a statement on the Itagaki-Tecmo lawsuit: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/16687/Microsoft-Issues-Itagaki-Statement/ "Microsoft Issues Itagaki Statement By: TeamXbox Staff - "TeamXbox" Though TeamXbox hasn't received an official confirmation to our previous story regarding statements reportedly from Tomonobu Itagaki and his English-language translator, Andrew Szymanski, that Itagaki has left Tecmo and is suing the company, a spokesperson with Microsoft's Japan office did pass on a statement from his company that certainly eliminates any doubts as to the authenticity of the original e-mail: "Tomonobu Itagaki has decided to leave Tecmo and Team NINJA to pursue other opportunities. We thank Tomonobu Itagaki for the many years he has supported Xbox as he has contributed immensely to the success of the videogame industry as a whole." You can expect more details to come out regarding this stunning development, and count on TeamXbox to repor...

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168056 "Itagaki Leaving Team Ninja, Suing Tecmo Ninja Gaiden mastermind quits on the eve of new game's release. By Philip Kollar, 06/02/2008 Last month, Team Ninja head and Ninja Gaiden director Tomonobu Itagaki suggested in an interview that he would be done with the franchise after the upcoming release of Ninja Gaiden 2. On Monday night we received a clearer picture of just what he meant with the announcement that Itagaki is leaving Team Ninja and suing Tecmo. 1UP received the following confirmation of this news from Itagaki aide Andrew Szymanski: "At approximately 2:30 PM Japan Standard Time today, June 3 2008, an official statement from Tomonobu Itagaki was sent by fax to major Japanese news outlets. In the interest of fair and expedient reporting of this story throughout the English-speaking world, I have been asked by Itagaki to convey this statement to you. Herein find attached Itagaki's official statement, in English, for t...

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34662.html I tried the demo. Is the camera that hard to control? When the camera isn't facing the right direction, simply make Ryu face the direction you want, then press RT. Simple. What's so hard about that? Enemies shooting from blind spots. Half the time, if you're running, they'll miss anyway. And yes you can sometimes shoot at the enemies firing from hidden areas. I didn't have a problem with this. Platforming bits. When Mario has platforming bits that are challenging you'll easily find phrases like 'innovation!' and 'gameplay!' but put it in a game like Ninja Gaiden where the lead character isn't a cute plumber, and the phrase changes to 'FRUSTRATING!' I'll never understand that really, really stupid double standard. "Not accessible to casuals" Why does everything have to be like Wii Sports or Wii Fit? Isn't it obvious that the game itself was never meant for that crowd of...

PINOYXBOX is currently down, so I'm not able to post these :( Hopefully the site will be back up soon. Now here's some news. The newest trailer for Resident Evil 5 is now available on gametrailers.com: http://www.gametrailers.com/game/2036.html Surprisingly there's a new character in the game. I recall N'Gai Croal from Newsweek was complaining about blatant racist imagery in the original RE5 trailer. Will this new one make him shut up now? With the female sidekick of Leon now established as another black character, people shouldn't complain anymore that the game is 'racist'. I doubt N'gai will shut up, though, knowing his penchant for putting sensationalism into gaming news. Resident Evil 5 is what it is....it's set in Africa so most of the zombified enemies are going to be black. I don't think Capcom picked black people to be zombies just to show them being picked off by a white lead character (as N'Gai was saying in his write up before). I...