Pictures have emerged apparently showing the innards of new Xbox 360 model.
They appear to show the console's CPU and GPU combined in a single, small chip for the first time, reducing the number of components and allowing for a significant size reduction. If the images are genuine, then it could suggest that a smaller, slimmer version of the 360 is in progress.
Apparently, rumours are flying around the internet saying that testing of the new motherboard has been completed in China. Microsoft have yet to comment on the news, but we’re sure that they’ll deny the whole thing. But with re-designed versions of both the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo DS, is it possible that we could see a smaller 360? Judging by the picture (above) we’d say it’s plausible but not certain.
 Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil has announced today that he is planning to start up his own development studio.
In an interview with Famitsu magazine, Mikami explained that he will be leaving PlatinumGames in Osaka and move to Tokyo to start his new studio in order to bring in new talent into the games industry. He said:
"One of the reasons I'm building a company is to raise the game makers of the future, people who haven't gone pro yet."
"Game development is often overseen from a pure business perspective here, which is unique to Japan, and I have the impression that environment tends to prune away young talent. I really want to make Tango a company run from a creator's perspective, one that expands upon new talent."
Mikami will continue to work along side Hideki Kamiya on Vanquish at PlatinumGames, but once he’s all done, what will he do next?
"I'd like to make a choice with the rest of the team as we grow our numbers,” said Mikami. “I've been speaking with a number of publishers as well, but we haven't signed any contracts yet."
It seems to us that someone is just pointing out the obvious, but a recent study from America has shown that videogames have a negative impact of children’s homework.
According to the study, children (boys in particular) who receive their first console show no signs of improvement in reading or writing tests over a period of four months.
Robert Weis, the co-author of the study at Denison University in Ohio said:
"For children without games, scores go up over time. For boys with games, scores remain relatively stable. You don't see the typical development in reading and writing." The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) responded to the study and said:
"Can anyone be surprised that kids tend to play more with new videogames, or toys or bicycles, than with the older ones?"
As far as we’re concerned, doing any other activity away from school work will, of course affect, school work negatively, whether it‘s playing videogames, football or a musical instrument. Perhaps the parents should step in and do something about it.
Activision have announced that a brand new Spider-Man game is in development.
The game’s called Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and… that’s it. Nothing else has been said about the game. There’s been zero information about the gameplay, story or what platform(s) it’ll be on. Not even a screenshot. We assume that it’s an original adventure for good ol’ Spidey and not based on any upcoming film.
Bobby Kotick confessed, back in January, that the previous Spider-Man games developed by Activision “sucked.” Needless to say, we’re not holding out much hope for Shattered Dimensions.
The vice president of Codemasters Studios, Gavin Cheshire has some serious issues with Sony's PSP. To be more precise, he thinks that the user experience is rubbish and is threatening to stop people using the handheld. In an interview with UK magazine Edge, he said:
"Well, speaking as a person who bought a PSP, the problem was that I always thought, because it was a better screen than iPod's, that I'd be doing more with it. But it was such a bollocking useless waste of space; just getting stuff on it was ridiculous. That was its downfall.”
"Relatively speaking, we didn't do too badly on F1 PSP, but regarding the future, I think they've got - well... no. PSP Go's a lovely device, really smart, but our senior VP bought one the day it came out and has a great story, because he ended up on some customer support line just trying to do basic stuff.”
"He had to re-download his software, do an immediate firmware update, and that's your user experience. Sony just hasn't got it right. Stuff like that will make people leave it alone."
Although Cheshire doesn’t like the PSP, Sony has recently announced that the UMD media is doing really well and that worldwide PSP sales stand at 60 million units. In fact, last weeks sales figures in Japan showed that the PSP was dominating the charts in first place with over 64,000 units sold. That’s almost double the amount of it’s closest competitor, the Nintendo Wii.
The head honcho at Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime has admitted that the company need support from third-party developers.
In an interview with Industry Gamers, the big ‘R’ explained exactly why Nintendo need the support.
"For us, it is important that third parties bring their very best content to our platform,” said Fils-Aime.
"The fact of the matter is we know we create great content for younger consumers, we know we've got great content for more casual players, and we want fantastic content for that more active player who loves Metroid or Zelda but maybe also wants something like a BioShock 2 to play as well.”
"And we also recognise that we don't create that type of content ourselves. We're not good at it and it's not a key focus area. So we want that content on our platform, so we have to court third-party developers and encourage them to make [those games], but it also has to be financially viable for them as well." It’s strange to hear Reggie admit that Nintendo aren’t good at something, but with Nintendo publishing titles such as Monster Hunter Tri and Dragon Quest IX shows that the company is serious about support from other developers. Perhaps this could be the end of crappy mini-game collections and party games for the Wii?… yeah, right.
Skateboarding legend, Tony Hawk has accidentally leaked information and a screenshot of his upcoming skating game on the iPhone.
It’s actually not a brand new game but a port of one of the best games in the Tony Hawk series; Pro Skater 2. He posted a tweet on his Twitter account, saying:
"In the PR world, this is considered 'going rogue', but I'm too excited to contain it. This is real & dropping soon."
The guys at Activision obviously didn’t like what Hawk was tweeting about, and the post was later removed.
It may just be a port of an old PlayStation game, but we here at the VGS offices think that it’s one of the best games in the series. We’re just hoping that all the quality of the game is in tact on the iPhone.
Epic Games' Mark Rein has said that the third Gears of War game won't be coming out this year, but said the company would be supporting games made by customers of its Unreal Engine.
"We don't have any games coming out in 2010," said Rein, "so from a games standpoint, it's more about our customers' games, right? Already this year we've seen some pretty great games this year -- Mass Effect 2, BioShock 2... and Arkham Asylum's coming out in 3D, the GOTY version, so that'll be kinda’ cool." But the boss at Epic Games, Mike Capps has hinted that a new game could be announced at this years E3. He said:
"We might have a new one coming. I think E3 is going to be very exciting for fans of Epic."
Could we be getting Gears of War 3 next year, then?
 According to information claimed to have come from developers, a successor to the Nintendo DS will be released before the end of the year.
Reports from Nintendo suggest that their next handheld will include two screens just like the DS, except the gap between them will be almost non-existent, giving developers the opportunity to use them as one giant screen.
The report also claims that the handheld will have an accelerometer (just like the iPhone) and the specs of the console are said to be similar to the GameCube. If that’s true then we could be looking at some pretty nice games.
Developers are apparently finishing up their games for the new Nintendo probable launch at the end of this year, and we'll likely see it unveiled at E3 2010.
Nintendo are keeping tight-lipped as to whether this information is true or false, so just treat this as a rumour, for now.
Nintendo of America boss, Reggie Fils-Aime has said that he is "flattered" by Sony's PlayStation Move controller.
The similarities between the two devices has opened up accusations of Move being a complete copycat of the Wii remote. Sony even have their own Nunchuck-type attachment for Move. But despite Sony jumping on the ‘motion control wagon’, Fils-Aime talked about Nintendo’s future of continuing to bring out innovated products. He said:
"So, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery then I am blushing I'm so flattered.
"You know, I didn't see the [PS3 Move] announcement. I did spend some time at the booth and saw some of what they were demonstrating and I think the question isn't how will we react - I think the question is, so what is it that's going to be compelling to the consumer in what they're doing?
"From our standpoint, motion control is core to what we do. We believe that we've brought a range of different experiences that utilize the motion controller and we pride ourselves on being innovators in the space and we're going to continue to innovate. I think the key question is, how will they respond when we continue to innovate if this is their best effort?"
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