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A secret informant has apparently told Kotaku that the development schedule for one of the Wii game titles has been reduced drastically. The ship schedule shrinkage has team members believing that an October release will be likely. With final hardware component production started, Nintendo could probably have the Wii out the door by October. Any breathing room that Nintendo can get from Sony’s launch would be a good thing, allowing Nintendo to avoid the vast monetary black hole that the Playstation 3 bundles will generate. Most analysts have predicted an early November release anyway; pushing forward the launch into October might be doable.
Read More 
| Kotaku
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Microsoft’s latest Gamerspeak gave Xbox.com forum users the opportunity to pitch their dream Xbox 360 Ad. The user generated ideas range from great to awful, and are great for wasting your time. Check out a sample pitch,
Two kids are playing a basketball game on Xbox 360.
Grandfather walks into the room.“Hey I didn’t know there was a game on today, who’s winning?”
Kid raises hand “I am.”
Xbox.
Centrocal
California
Even though Microsoft is not going to film the best fan submitted ad, you can still vote for your favorite ad pitch.
Read More | Gamerspeak
John Romero Founds New Company
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Internet, MMORPG, PC,
John Romero, infamous game developer, has launched the website for his new game development studio. The studio, called Slipgate Ironworks is hiring to fill a few positions for his new “Super Secret” massively multiplayer online game. The company is looking for a couple of artists, a game designer, and a tools developer, suggesting that whatever project Romero is working on is in its infancy. Romero has had a rather checkered past in the game world; his largest successes came while he was at iD software. Games like Doom and Quake really shaped the first person shooter genre. To date, however, he has not achieved anything paralleling his early successes. The most infamous game to bear Romero’s stamp was, of course, Daikatana. After Ion Storm’s collapse, Romero would go on to explore mobile games with Monkeystone Games. This company would later fold. The next high-profile game would be Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows for Midway; Romero left Midway before the game’s release under mysterious circumstances. Now, his latest attempt at a comeback involves massively multiplayer online gaming.
The new control scheme for Madden 07 on Nintendo’s Wii is now available. The control system is called “Freemotion”, and relies heavily on the motion sensing abilities of the Wiimote. The new control scheme is impressive and appears very intuitive. “Freemotion” may be the first control scheme since the original NES that allows me to challenge my Dad to a match of videogame football. Video Game Generation has more screenshots and details on Madden 07 for the Nintendo Wii.
Read More | Video Game Generation
As game developers look toward the future for new ways to enhance the gaming experience, one of the areas of focus has been physics acceleration. HardOCP recently was able to talk with the big players in the field to try and map out the state of the field. Right now there are basically two camps. First, graphics card manufacturers like ATI and nVidia are offering GPU based solutions. ATI’s Crossfire configurations allow gamers to utilize a single ATI graphics card as a physics accelerator paired with another card. nVidia will also offer GPU-based physics acceleration, but this will be integrated on a card with other shader effects. nVidia has announced that they will be working with the HavokFX engine from Havok, and it is highly likely that ATI will do the same. On the other side of the fence, Ageia offers a dedicated physics acceleration card, PhysX, with their own API. All four players submit their perspective on the burgeoning market.
It is interesting to see how each company seeks to address the problem. The overall conclusion is that early efforts will focus on effects physics; things like debris and environmental effects that don’t impact gameplay but can enhance the experience. There just isn’t enough market penetration at this point to offer anything more. As the market matures and physics acceleration is more commonplace, it will start to make more sense for developers to attack gameplay physics. This strategy will benefit companies like ATI and nVidia; they currently make great graphics acceleration cards with the potential to accelerate physics in the future. Ageia is kind of in a bind with the PhysX card; it could offer greater environmental gameplay, but needs developer support. By the time the market reaches the user saturation where gameplay physics makes sense, ATI and nVidia could both have better on-board solutions for physics acceleration, leaving Ageia behind.
Read More | HardOCP
Valve Turns Down the Pressure in Parts of Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: First Person Shooters, Internet, Mods/Hacks, PC,
If you’re the kind of person that worries about companies invading your privacy, prepare to don your tin-foil hat! In response to massive gameplay statistics collected by Valve through the Steam service, the developer has decided to lower the difficulty on the slightly-intense elevator section of Half-Life 2: Episode 1. The update is delivered in the form of a patch and makes this particular section of the game easier, and as of right now it looks like Valve isn’t giving you the option of choosing which version you’d like to play.
Beyond being a bit peeved that Valve’s gone and insulted my gaming prowess like this, I don’t think this is really reaching into “Big Brother” territory. More likely, this is Valve’s way of showing off to prospective content producers how flexible their Steam system is. And under the right circumstances, changing a game to make the play experience better for the majority of users might not be a bad thing. Still, I’m of the church of Gamer Choice, so if Valve doesn’t start including the ability to turn off future mods, I might get a bit antsy. Do you think this is a good idea? Or is it time to start disconnecting the ol’ ethernet cable every time you play a single-player game?
Read More | SteamPowered.com via Kotaku.com
Top 10 Strangest NES Mods
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Culture, Mods/Hacks, Nintendo, Retro,
Tech E Blog has put together a fun list of the Top 10 strangest NES mods. If you have any old NES hardware sitting around you can easily come away from this list with a good weekend project. My personal favorite is the NES alarm clock, which won an honorable mention.
Read More | Tech E Blog
New Bullet Witch Game Play Video
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Third Person Shooters, Xbox 360,
A new 5 minute game play video for Bullet Witch has surfaced on YouTube. Bullet Witch is a forthcoming third person shooter set for a July 27 release in Japan. It is uncertain whether or not it will see a European or American release at this time. Bullet Witch looks very impressive and includes stunning acrobatics and highly interactive environments.
Read More | YouTube
Dennis Dyack Says There’s More Eternal Darkness On The Way
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Adventure, Nintendo, Rumors, Survival Horror,
Over at his blog on IGN.com, Dennis Dyack (director at Silicon Knights) says that “absolutely yes”, they have sequels in mind for Eternal Darkness, arguing that too much time went into creating the universe for that game and that there are “numerous other stories to tell”.
What’s the plot going to be? Who can say. Will it show up on a Nintendo console, since the original Eternal Darkness was on the Gamecube? Again, who knows. SK’s exclusivity deal with Nintendo is ancient history. Will it take place before or after the original? Nope, no answers there either. All we can do for the time being is wait and hope that turning Eternal Darkness into a trilogy won’t result in a Matrix-like fate for the franchise. The original was great - please don’t ruin my memories, guys!
Read More | blogs @ IGN.com via 1up.com
CNET has published their “Worst Tech of Q2 2006” top ten list, and four game or game-related technologies make the list. Nyko’s Intelligent Remote 360 is the top game-related offender at number 2 on the chart. The remote control makes it for “Worst use of the word intelligent,” which, if you have tried to use this remote, makes a lot of sense. At number 4 is And 1 Streetball for “Worst electronic referees” and X-Men: The Official Game gets dinged for “Worst Game Based on a Movie.” Finally, the last game-related entry is the Nintendo Wii at number nine, garnering the title “Worst name change.” While the name change shocked a lot of gamers, Infinium’s announced name change to Phantom Entertainment had to be in the running for this narrow category. For a company that has been synonymous with vaporware to change its name to something as ephemeral as a phantom may have been too easy of a target. CNET’s weird quarterly restriction feels kind of like when a restaurant names itself “Best Barbeque On the Block”; the attribution may be true, but is ultimately meaningless.
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