 A post on the official PlayStation blog yesterday outlined this week's slate of downloadable costumes for Little Big Planet. One is a design from the community that will cost you nothing, while the paid content inherits its look from a very stylish (and controversial) Sony franchise. Both free and premium outfit packs will be available for download starting this Thursday, November 20. This week's free Sackboy costume -- basically, a television helmet -- comes from PSN user nebu1ou5, who brought home the gold in Sony's Little Big Planet costume contest. The actual in-game outfit is a little less Poltergeist than his original concept, but it's still a pretty nifty add-on for an even niftier price. Should your Sackperson require that extra symbol of status that goes along with paying for your clothing, then this week's premium LocoRoco-inspired outfits should be right up your alley. There are five variations included in the package, all for the asking price of $2.99. If three bucks seems like a bit much for a handful of colorful Sackboy skins, just keep in mind that the premium Old Snake and Sephiroth costumes were $1.99 each. Seems like a decent enough value for a five-pack, no?
 However much Boom Blox (pictured) ended up selling after all was said and done, it seems the amount was enough for Electronic Arts to carry forward with a sequel. Variety reports that EA is indeed currently working on Boom Blox 2 (a placeholder title), which comes along with news that the publisher is closing down its mysterious EA Blueprint division. Formed near the start of the year, EA Blueprint was an experimental division that, oddly, was never given any clear, full recognition (or explanation) from Electronic Arts. The initial reports were that it was a division that would focus on making casual games in conjunction with social networks like MySpace and Facebook, although an EA representative later clarified that the social networking strategy resided in their Causal Entertainment Label. Now according to Variety's reporting, things are a little clearer. An ex-Blueprint employee explained that the division's intent was to create a development process where individuals or small teams could work together across great distances, without all of them necessarily being employed full-time by EA (kind of sounds like what Microsoft is trying to do these days, huh?). "Using distributed people and leveraging technology in a significant way would allow us to break the high-priced model of game development where everybody is on sight, hired as a full-time regular employee," the anonymous ex-staffer said.
 In a case dating back to July of 2006, Sony has been ordered to pay $18.5 million to Agere Systems after a jury found Sony guilty of infringing on Agere's patent for a "wireless local area network apparatus." According to a PDF document of the jury's finding ( via PSPFanboy), the jury ruled that Sony's infringement was willful, with the patented technology being used unlawfully in the PSP as well as the Mylo, and other Sony products. Agere -- which evidently merged with a different company, LSI, in 2007 -- was a company developing wireless data and public and enterprise networks technologies. They sued Sony in 2006, arguing Sony knowingly and willfully infringed on their patents and profited using their technology in Sony products. Sony, at the time, naturally disputed the claims, arguing they had the rights to the technologies from a deal they had made with AT&T and Lucent earlier. They even claimed Agere had obtained their patents improperly, and were seeking for the patents to be declared invalid. Clearly, the jury didn't see things Sony's way. But then again, it's hard to say whether Agere got everything they were looking for, either. They were originally seeking not just the profits lost due to Sony's patent infringement, but also damages totaling as much as three times the amount of those lost profits. It's unclear how much of that is totaled in the $18.5 million.
 Capcom has announced a new branded company storefront coming to the New Xbox Experience tomorrow, and it appears that they slipped word on the release date for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix in the process. Joystiq reports that a screenshot released with the announcement (above) simply says, "Coming Nov 26 to Xbox LIVE Arcade," and it's hard to get clearer than that. We already knew the game was targeting a November release, and with Wednesdays in November rapidly depleting, this was the only date left to hit that target. Barring some freak accident like November 26 being a placeholder date, we're prepared to call this one confirmed. What's suspicious is the announcement itself. Such a massive oversight is hard to see as a simple mistake, but Capcom's Christian Svensson previously said that the company would "broadcast from the highest tower in the kingdom" once it passed the approval process. A screenshot slip-up in a semi-related Xbox 360 announcement hardly seems like the pomp and circumstance he implied there. As PlayStation 3 updates tend to come on Thursdays, you might be welcoming Ryu and Ken into your home by Turkey Day for both systems. We'll let you know when we hear an official announcement. In the meantime, be sure to check out our 1UP Show segment that explores the finer points of game balancing for this arcade classic. [Image courtesy of Joystiq.]
 With little warning the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) called it quits today. The following brief message now appears on their official site: AN IDEA WHOSE TIME CAME TOO EARLY
Today BSkyB, STAR, and DIRECTV ended their Championship Gaming Series (CGS) business.
While the concept was ahead of its time and we are extremely proud of what we've accomplished, it became increasingly clear as this ambitious project evolved, that profitability was too far in the future for us to sustain operations in the interim.
Our goal was to be ahead of the curve in the e-sports space, and we conceived CGS as a true sports league. We invested wholeheartedly in the venture and presented viewers with a top-notch production, but the economics just didn't add up for us at this time.
Our only regret is that we will lose a team of creative and talented individuals who invested their hearts and souls into Championship Gaming Series. We recognize their achievements and thank them for their hard work and passion.
BSkyB, STAR, and DIRECTV continue to be committed to the video game sector, which is an important part of many of our customers' lives and a great source of entertainment
Sincerely,
The CGS team League owner and operator DirecTV aired the matches on its exclusive channel The 101, and this summer four 90-minute playoff and championship episodes aired on G4. But despite gaining a good deal of momentum, the CGS lasted only two seasons: 2007 and 2008. This past season saw the Birmingham Salvo take home the championship and its $500,000 prize to split among the ten teammates. The end of CGS strikes a blow to professional gaming, but not the end. Major League Gaming continues to hold events in North America. And the Cyberathlete Professional League which shut down its tournament operations back in March appears to be coming back from the dead. A press release on the CPL official site quotes a spokesperson saying, "The new company will organize videogame tournaments worldwide...We look forward to reintroducing gamers to a better, larger, and more exciting CPL."
 During his keynote address back at TGS, Microsoft's John Schappert revealed that Live had reached 14 million global subscribers. Not to be outdone for too long, in a post celebrating the PS3's second birthday on the Official PlayStation Blog, Sony says they now match that number with 14 million active accounts on their PlayStation Network. The post adds that 273 million pieces of content have been downloaded. Impressive as that sounds, no indication is made as to how much of that number is paid content versus free demos, trailers, pictures, themes, and the like. Neither does the post go into any detail about the gaming habits of those active accounts. We'd like to know how the time spent in LittleBIGPlanet and Resistance 2 stacks up against the staggering 15 million hours of Gears of Wars 2 played on Live during just its first weekend. At the very least these numbers indicate the continuing acceleration of growth in online console gaming and its importance to the platform holders. Along with it may finally come the boost in potential for digitally distributed content we've been looking for. That should get us all excited. Well, maybe not all of us.
 Sonic Unleashed has been delayed in North America, reports IGN. While the Wii and PS2 versions should be hitting stores today, the Xbox 360 version has been pushed to next week, November 24. To make matters worse, the PlayStation 3 version has been given an indeterminate "December" release date. This comes shortly after we heard that the game had been delayed until Spring 09 in Japan, so North American Sonic fans should still consider themselves lucky. The blue hedgehog hasn't had a great deal of success in his transition to the current-gen consoles. In fact, his first 360/PS3 venture was largely panned. This game appeared to be a return to form, but some of that enthusiasm waned when we heard that Sonic will be unleashed as a "Were-hog" for the title. These delays don't exactly make us boil over with confidence, but check back for our review of the game when it hits.
 Japan may officially be in a recession, but we have a feeling Nintendo is doing just fine. Using data from the NPD Group, as well as Take-Two's own sales figures for Grand Theft Auto 4, Gamasutra has put together a fairly reliable estimate of the year's top-five best selling games in the U.S. so far. Not surprisingly -- but still astoundingly -- four of them belong to Nintendo. - Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- 3.5 million (est.)
- Mario Kart Wii -- 3.4 million
- Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360) -- 3.2 million (est.)
- Wii Play -- 3.0 million
- Wii Fit -- 2.8 million
The figures for Smash Bros. Brawl and GTA4 are estimates since neither their publishers nor the NPD Group provided official sales data. GTA4's sales were extrapolated after Take-Two announced at the recent BMO Capital Markets Conference that it had sold to 32 percent of all PlayStation 3 owners and 28 percent of all Xbox 360 owners, but how Gamasutra estimated Smash Bros.' figures isn't clear. Still, they assure that even allowing for the maximum possible error, the rankings would be unchanged.
|
