Sony is aware that it broke some PlayStation 3s yesterday with its latest firmware update for the hardware. It took down the patch and is really sorry about all of this.

“We are aware of reports that the recent PlayStation 3 system-software update — version 4.45 — has caused the cross-media bar to not display on a small number of PS3 systems,” a PlayStation spokesperson told GamesBeat in a statement. “We have temporarily taken 4.45 offline and are investigating the cause of the problem. We will announce when the system update is available for download as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The cross-media bar (XMB) is the interface for the PlayStation 3. Without it, the console is nothing more than a big paperweight. We’ve asked Sony what steps affected users should take, and we will update with its response. PlayStation customer support is probably a smart place to start.

Everyone else should have no issues continuing to use their PlayStation 3s. In fact, it’s nice to start thing up and not have to update it for once.

We’ll have more info on update 4.45 as it is available.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Updated at 10:45 a.m. Pacific with additional comment from Sony

Details are still minimal right now, but it seems that the 4.45 update for PS3 is locking up systems. According to reports, owners can no longer boot their systems after the update after the update, which Sony released today.

The update is supposed to let gamers choose whether they want in-game notifications when they earn trophies.

According to website Engadget, the issue only seems to affect PlayStation 3 owners with 500GB or larger hard drives, but that’s difficult to confirm right now.

We contacted Sony representative, who say they’re looking into the issue. GamesBeat will update when we hear more. For now, it’s probably best to play it safe and avoid the system update.

Sony has since pulled the firmware update. A representative for the company told GamesBeat, “We are aware of reports that the recent PlayStation 3 system software update (version 4.45) has caused the XMB to not display on a small number of PS3 systems. We have temporarily taken 4.45 offline and are investigating the cause of the problem. We will announce when the system update is available for download as soon as possible.  We apologize for the inconvenience.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Yamauchi talked with us at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in a small group interview. Here’s an edited version of the talk.

GamesBeat: If you have an untrained eye, what would you notice that’s better about PlayStation 4 racing games compared to the PlayStation 3?

Kazunori Yamauchi: It’ll be an answer for an untrained eye as well, but the hardware performance of the PS4 is much better than the PS3, so you’re going to be a much richer image.

GamesBeat: What if I don’t care about graphics so much, though? What if it looks good enough for me already?

Yamauchi: I totally understand that because you’re right. To an untrained eye, the distinction between the images that you see on PS3 and PS4 might not be apparent. I think in that respect, video games have really matured. From here on, what’s going to be demanded of video games is an evolution that isn’t just about looking better or moving faster.

GamesBeat: [Gran Turismo 5] was very robust. It probably had the biggest scope of any of the GT games. Where do you go from there? What can you add to GT6 to give fans more?

Yamauchi: You’re right. GT5 was a huge game. At the same time, it was kind of bulky and slow as well. That was something I wanted to improve for GT6. I think that if you try out the demo on the show floor, you might realize that right off, going from the top screen to when you’re actually driving a car, there are no loading times. Everything is seamless now. There’s nothing that will stop you in between the scenes when you’re playing the game. The scale might have been great, but we were lacking in response because of the sheer size of the game. In GT6, one of the major objectives was to improve upon that.

GamesBeat: If we could take a broader view for a moment, you’re in a very unique position, having been involved with Sony’s consoles since Sony started making consoles. The series has spanned every one. I was wondering what kinds of things you’ve been able to do with each transition and what you’re looking forward to doing with the next transition. With GT6, you’re building on that speed and efficiency with the PlayStation 3. I’m wondering what else is in store for the next generation.

Yamauchi: Should I start with the first one, then? [Laughs] Back in the days of the PlayStation, the development device was about the size of a refrigerator. I created the first demo on that machine. I did the modeling by myself. I made a demo where an F1 car would drive around an oval track with flat shading — no textures. But the result was really kind of stunning. I never thought that I’d see the day when we could make games with 3D graphics. Of course, back then, I used to tinker with PCs and make games there as well, but I never thought there would come a day when these 3D models could run at 30 frames per second. That was a major surprise for me, when the first PlayStation came out.

When the [PlayStation 2] came out, one unique characteristic of that system was that the screen fill rate was very fast. Even looking back now, it’s very fast. In some cases, it’s faster than the PS3. There, we were able to use a lot of textures. It was able to do that read-modify-write, where it reads the screen, you take the screenshot, and you modify it and send it back. It could do that very quickly.

I don’t know if anybody remembers, but when the PS2 first came out, the first thing I did on that was a demo for the announcement. I showed a demo of GT3 that showed the Seattle course at sunset with the heat rising off the ground and shimmering. You can’t re-create that heat haze effect on the PS3 because the read-modify-write just isn’t as fast as when we were using the PS2. There are things like that. Another reason is because of the transition to full HD.

The PS3 was a combination of a poor GPU with an SPU that’s really fast if you use it right. It’s not a very well-balanced machine. It’s hard to use the hardware properly. That’s one reason why it took us five years to develop GT5. Using the SPU properly, though, that in itself is really interesting. On the PS3, in the demo, we showed the adaptive tessellation. That’s the kind of technology that you normally wouldn’t be able to do unless you were on the PS4-generation of machines. When you optimize the use of the SPU properly, you can do that even on the PS3.

That leads into how we work on the PS4. The PS4 isn’t as off-balance as the PS3 was. If you look at the market right now, Gran Turismo is one of the only games on the PS3 that does 1080p at 60 frames per second. It was really difficult to achieve that. On the PS4, the lowest common denominator is going to be boosted. Most games will be able to do 1080p at 60 frames per second. That’s the real good part about the PS4.

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — Beyond: Two Souls is out to capture the moral dilemmas that you face when you have supernatural powers. Will you use them for good? Or evil?

That’s the heart of the preview scene that Quantic Dream is showing at the E3 video game conference this week. Beyond: Two Souls is a cinematic game with an engaging story, and it was one of the top titles previewed at E3 last year. Sony is promoting it heavily again at this year’s show in anticipation of its Oct. 8 launch on the PlayStation platforms.

The story tracks the life of Jodie Holmes, a girl who has an invisible, ghost-like soulmate named Aiden. She can summon Aiden when she needs him, and Aiden can use supernatural powers like going through walls, choking people, and possessing them. The voice and motion actors include Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page (Jodie). The title is heavily anticipated in part because Quantic Dream always pushes the limit on making artistic, movie-like video games. Its past games include Heavy Rain and Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

With Beyond: Two Souls, Jodie has been recruited into the CIA. But it’s not for her own prowess as a spy, as she is one of the weakest-looking heroines you’ll ever see in a video game. It is because she can tap Aiden’s supernatural powers to do things that no one else can do.

Quantic Dream chief operating officer Guillaume de Fondaumiere told GamesBeat in an interview that the scene shows the choices that Jodie has to make and how she has been repurposed into a weapon by those who want to use her and Aiden for their own purposes. She has been assigned to take out a warlord named Jamal in Mogadishu, Somalia. At the demo’s start, she had just made a harrowing escape with a small Somali boy. Breathless, she says that she must part ways with him. He becomes emotional about that, but they separate.

Then Jodie begins to move up on Jamal’s compound in stealth. She can move quietly behind someone and then take them out herself. Or she can tap Aiden, who can choke the guards to death. If they catch Jodie, it’s all over. Once she spots the compound, she finds it’s heavily guarded. She switches over to Aiden, who crosses the street unseen. He finds a side door and unlocks it for Jodie. She then sneaks into the compound and sends Aiden out once again.

“As the player, you can switch between Jodie and Aiden at any time,” de Fondaumiere said. “You have to find a way to work together.”

Aiden is kind of a wispy smoke character who moves through walls and overhears conversations. He sneaks into a command center and identifies the warlord. You then have to decide how to attack. You can use Aiden to take possession of the body of one of the guards. The guard then walks over to the command center and sprays everyone with bullets. Jodie runs in to view the massacre and confirm the kill for the CIA. But then the little boy comes in and finds that the slain killer is his father. He points the finger at Jodie, who runs into the street.

A bunch of angry Somalis gather in the street and block Jodie’s path. She uses Aiden to clear a path. Some of the soldiers shoot at her, wounding her in the leg. She moves into a house and opens the door. Then she seeks help from others in the bar. No help is forthcoming. Jodie escapes into a building, but the Somalis surround it and pound on the door. She can escape through the roof. But if she is captured, she is taken out into the street. At that time, an extraction helicopter arrives and strafes the crowd. Soldiers drop down and rescue Jodie.

The scene is riveting, and the acting is top notch. But it is not very interactive. If you make a slightly wrong or late decision during the pursuit, you will be captured. The scene tells you what it’s like to become a supernatural agent for the government and what happens when you allow yourself to be manipulated in a bad way.

We caught up with de Fondaumiere at a recent Sony press event in advance of E3. Here’s our video interview.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — I made mine Marvel for decades growing up, so I’m all about the crazy team-ups taking up on intergalactic world-ending threats. That said, it’s entirely possible I’m not the guy TT Games made Lego: Marvel Super Heroes for. The controls feel too loose to me, the action too haphazard, the puzzles too simple yet stringent.

But my kids’ll love it.

And it has to be said, I found enough moments in both my hands-off and hands-on demos to fire up the geek center of my brain. I didn’t get to wander Lego Marvel Super Heroes’ (releasing later this year on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC, Nintendo 3DS and DS, and PlayStation Vita) open-world re-creation of Marvel’s Manhattan Island (creatively fudged to include both the X-Mansion and the Raft’s high-security superprison), but a detour out to Asgard did whet my appetite.

“We had a huge list,” says game director Arthur Parsons. “What characters we wanted, what locations we wanted. That’s where we started working closely with Marvel to write an original story that could mix all those places and characters together.”

The hands-off mission hooked up four of the 100 playable heroes — Thor, the Human Torch, Wolverine, and Captain America — for an assault on Asgard to shut the Casket of Ancient Winters … and shut down Loki. That might sound like a random fanboy-fueled gathering, but each character filled a mission-critical role. Thor provided muscle and minion-clearing lightning strikes. Cap handled defense. The Torch melted the ice blocking their way. And when Loki’s illusions created dozens of fake Lokis, Wolverine’s enhanced senses sniffed out the real one so everyone could pound on the God of Lies.

The plot involves tracking down the shattered remains of the Silver Surfer’s board, but Parsons makes it sound like the real fun happens when you cut loose and roam around the open world on your own. “We’re doing some crazy stuff, like driving around on Deadpool’s Vespa,” he says.

The SHIELD Helicarrier serves as your hub. Getting down to the street-level action is easy; find an edge, and jump off. Characters that can’t fly may parachute in, so the player can drop into any part of Manhattan they want. Once there, you’ll have your hands full with all manner of superheroics and a heaping helping of optional tasks. “A side mission could be going by the Daily Bugle and completing some quests for the editor,” says Parsons. “You have to go to the Baxter Building and do a cleanup operation because, as part of the story, it gets absolutely trashed.”

That’s not tough to imagine. The hands-on mission pitted Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk against a powered-up Sandman who’d turned a natural history museum — and much of the surrounding city — into a desert.

No lie: Hulk-smashing a street jammed with cars goes pretty well, and transforming him back to puny Bruce Banner comes with a very amusing animation. Beating my way through waves of minions felt less satisfying thanks to iffy targeting and a general sense of anticlimax. The goons don’t really do anything but run at you and punch when they get there. They’re hurdles, not enemies.

As always in a Lego game, you can zip between different characters to take their abilities for a spin, something that becomes mandatory when you start taking on the puzzles. Flying around as Iron Man, I felt locked into a 2D field instead of doing whatever I wanted, and one puzzle forced me to transform into Banner in order to climb a chain up to a platform and flip a switch. The Hulk apparently wasn’t able to jump up there for reasons that stretch the very concept of physics (as they appear in most comic books, anyway).

Indeed, the entire end-boss fight with Sandy, swirling around in giant Lego-sandstorm mode, felt like it patiently waited around for me to figure out where on the stage it wanted me to go, with which character, to flip which switch. At one point, I just let go of the controls to see what might happen. Nothing much, as it turned out.

That’s all a bit too gentle for me. At least I know it’s not going to mash my sons into the pavement when they pick up the controls.

Lego: Marvel Super Heroes shows all the same clever touches others in the Lego series do, and it throws around plenty of age-appropriate gags that grown-up Marvelites like me will dig — Thor notes Loki’s fondness for hats with big horns at one point. The team mixes so far throw out a lot of options and fan service at the same time. But this small and entirely fixed segment of the Marvel Universe isn’t enough to really render judgment. I need to untether and spin around Manhattan on a Vespa, getting into any kind of trouble I can find. I can’t help but suspect that’s when the game truly comes alive.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — Sony revealed continued support for its current-generation PlayStation 3 console during its press conference at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The Japanese giant announced new titles and showed never-before-seen footage for some already-announced, highly anticipated games.

Starting off, the company debuted clips for Puppeteer and Rain, two new releases from its Japan Studio. Puppeteer is a whimsical platformer, featuring colorful graphics and intriguing character design. Rain has a more melancholy look, and its trailer centered on wispy, translucent characters walking through a rainy, equally gloomy city.

New footage followed for both the star-studded Beyond: Two Souls and real-driving-simulator-sequel Gran Turismo 6. Beyond’s trailer showcased protagonist Jodie Holmes, voiced by actress Ellen Page, going through some serious training, which included an army-style obstacle course and martial-arts sparring. The video then cut to a warzone scene where Holmes ran from gun-toting enemies. Beyond: Two Souls comes out on October 8.

The next trailer gave us all another glimpse at the upcoming Gran Turismo 6. GT6′s all-new rendering engine was the star here, along with some other new jargon-laden features. Cars were shiny, slick, and fast. Look out for the racing title later this year.

Keep up on all of GamesBeat’s E3 2013 coverage at our hub page.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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LOS ANGELES — It’s not just about the games after all. Sony Computer Entertainment revealed its plans for multimedia applications on PlayStation consoles during its annual press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Michael Lynton, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, took the stage today to reveal that the company’s Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services, which are currently on the PlayStation 3, will also be heading to the PlayStation 4. For a fee (per service), gamers can listen to Sony’s entire music library or rent and own movies on their consoles.

An original programming plan is also in the works for the PS4 and the PlayStation Network, but Sony wasn’t ready to reveal what that entails just yet. “[It] will be tailored and selected specifically for the type of entertainment gamers want and love,” Lynton said.

Additional services coming to the PS3, PS4, and PlayStation Vita include Redbox Instant (with over 7,000 movies to stream) and Flixster.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — Sony is positioning the PlayStation 3 as the premier home for Grand Theft Auto V. The company unveiled a special GTA V bundle that is due out along with the game later this year this evening at its pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo press briefing.

The $300 bundle will come with the PS3 console, the game, and a GTA V-branded headset. It is due out sometime after the game’s Sept. 17 release.

Grand Theft Auto 3 debuted on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. That game and that system formed a symbiotic relationship that led to both selling huge amounts of games and consoles. For years following that release, the franchise was a known as a PlayStation game. GTA developer Rockstar diluted that perception with GTA IV when it simultaneously launched that game on Xbox 360.

Grand Theft Auto V is also due out on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the same day, but this bundle might convince gamers that Sony’s console is once again the best place to play Grand Theft Auto V.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

Sony is holding its press briefing at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) starting at 6 p.m. PST today.

The whole world will be watching what happens at E3, the big gaming trade show that should draw 45,000 to 50,000 game-industry professionals this week in Los Angeles.

We’re expecting to hear more details about Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4 console, coming this fall. GamesBeat staff will liveblog the event in real time on this page, so please be sure to come back later for commentary on the event.

Sony first announced the PlayStation 4 in February and showed off a bunch of new titles, from a new Killzone game to Knack from renowned developer Mark Cerny.

Hopefully, the company will show a real box this time. We’re expecting to hear more about a launch date or launch window today as well, but we might not see a price on the machine until later. Please add your own comments as you watch the event.

Here’s the livestream:

Watch live video from axles on www.twitch.tv

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Memories define who we are. They shape our futures and influence our decisions. They can also be the source of tremendous pain. If we could wipe away the bad and keep only the good, who would we be?

That’s the kind of question the action-adventure game Remember Me (out tomorrow for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC) seeks to answer through the setting of Neo-Paris in the year 2084. The corporation Memorize has created a remarkable brain implant called Sensen, which enables people to share and store their memories in a network. In the first few minutes, players go from listening to people praise the technology to witnessing the devastation it has caused.

When the female protagonist Nilin wakes up in a cell, we watch as her captor strips away her memories in an agonizing process. He misses a few. That makes her dangerous. Nilin is a talented memory hunter who can steal or “remix” people’s memories through their Sensen, and as a member of the rebel group the Errorists, she’s a threat to Memorize. With her mind still intact, a mysterious contact named Edge guides her out of prison and onto the streets where she can lead a revolution.

What you’ll like

An immersive sci-fi world
Remember Me’s opening moments are a powerful way to start out the game. As a disoriented Nilin staggers around the confinement facility, the camera follows her every unsteady movement, creating a sense of dizziness. Everything is a little too bright, and she encounters horror after horror: white rooms that house delirious inmates, a machine that rips the memories out of people’s heads, and even a menacing “coercive” robot that hunts down escapees. She leaves in a coffin — one of many mass-produced containers for the dead and still alive.

The vividness of the environment persists. Neo-Paris is a gorgeous city, its infrastructure part historical and part new — the street level littered with androids, neon lights, and holo-televisions. From the skyscraper vistas to the grimy underground, Remember Me is an atmospheric wonder. It feels well thought-out down to the lingo, which the characters constantly bandy about. The game tops that off with weird, futuristic-sounding music that’s different from anything you’ve likely heard before.

The story drives much of the game and introduces you to eccentrically named characters such as Johnny Greenteeth, Headache Tommy, and Bad Request, among others. Nilin sets out to save the suffering city from Memorize. Only she can reach the people responsible and either enact revenge or “remix,” aka rewrite, their memories — altering their roles in events to better suit the Errorists’ agenda. Without her own complete memories, however, she’s unsure whether what she’s doing is right.

The uncertainty makes the experience that much more compelling and enjoyable.

A deep combat system
While Remember Me is big on story, developer Dontnod Entertainment carefully balanced it with strong combat mechanics. Basically, players assemble combos in the Combo Lab menu. You have only four increasingly long, predetermined combinations of the X and Y buttons to toy with the entire game — you unlock these slowly, one at a time — but the real depth emerges with the Pressens. Think of these as the individual Xs and Ys that you can assign to each entry in a combination.

Pressens come in different forms: Power, Regen, Cooldown, and the rarer Chain. While Power Pressens deal a lot of damage, Regen regains health for Nilin every time she uses one in a combo. Cooldowns reset your S-Pressens (special moves) faster, and Chains magnify the effects of the Pressen that came before it in a combo. Players can mix and match to engineer any devastating combo they please — maybe one string that inflicts maximum damage or another that helps recover more health. Some arrangements can even grant bonus Procedural Mastering Points (PMP), which unlock forgotten Pressens. Think of them as level-ups that offer you even more ways to kick butt.

The inputs are always the same — a series of Xs and Ys — but the results vary. Longer combos are more deadly, too, as later Pressens take on more power.

Remember Me constantly adds new layers to the combat, and it takes the entire 10-hour game to see them all. Nilin can use S-Pressens to more effectively terminate the enemies around her. For example, Sensen Fury is very similar to free-flow in Batman: Arkham City, in which players can rapidly trash a number of baddies without losing stride. And Sensen R.I.P. (Rust in Pieces) turns all robots into allies that eventually self-destruct.

On top of this, Nilin can shoot foes with the Spammer weapon she acquires. It has a number of applications, such as breaking shields or weak environmental structures with its Junk Bolt enhancement. She can also use it to interact with the environment by opening doors, moving objects from afar, and so forth.

Frequent new challenges
Remember Me flavors its gameplay with various activities. Some minor missions involve tapping into people’s memories and activating their “Remembranes” (ghosts of themselves in the environment) to watch scenes from their past. This helps you bypass security and learn vital information.

You can also locate and collect different items. SAT Patches and Focus Boosts increase health and Focus (which fuels your S-Pressens), respectively. Those are useful. And Scaramechs — little white “bugs” that crawl on walls and emit a ticking noise — are fun to search for and kill for PMP bonuses.

Sometimes bosses and minibosses, especially, act as the perfect break from regular combat, challenging you to think fast and use your S-Pressens and other abilities in creative ways. It’s fun to hear a lumbering death robot roar and then tell you “it’s just a flesh wound” when its arm falls off. This is a Zorn, and I love him.

These fights do end with a few quick-time events, but fortunately, the title allots you plenty of time to press buttons in sequence, and you quickly get a feel for when these moments will happen. They shouldn’t catch you off-guard.

For some encounters, though, a little surprise could do some good.

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Developer Ubisoft Montpellier is trying to perfect the 2D platformer genre with Rayman Legends. That might not be the company’s explicit goal, but considering the level of refinement it’s made to the formula built from 2011′s Rayman Origins, the team is certainly headed in that direction.

Since the delay imposed by publisher Ubisoft at the beginning of this year, the development team has taken time to add new levels, bosses, and features to Legends as it ports the onetime Wii U exclusive to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. I spoke to lead game designer Emile Morel about what they’re working on leading up to the Sept. 3 launch and why Legends is shaping up to the be the biggest Rayman game yet.

Making the most out of the delay

Morel figures that when you add in the almost 30 levels they’ve added (bringing the total to over 100), it will take an impressive 20 hours to get through this sidescroller. The team also decided to flex some of the power of its special 3D-development software it uses to create this 2D game, something it hadn’t really done yet. This translated into epic boss battles like the one I saw titled A Madman’s Creation. Here, Rayman and friends battle a gigantic, serpent-style robo-dragon inside of an ornate glass mansion under the sea.

The dragon weaved in and out of background and foreground creating a nice sense of depth. It would then pop up in the players face to fire off a laser from the pink jewel in its mouth and then repeat the process.

“This is typically the kind of level that costs a lot, in terms of all the details you have to put in and the tweaking,” said Morel. Though the team still had to put in long hours to make sure these beefed-up boss battles were done right, creating those moments in Legends was something they were able to explore given the extra development time.

Ubisoft Montpellier also had to figure out a way to adapt the segments that feature the flying frog Murfy from the Wii U’s GamePad to the other consoles’ traditional control layouts. The Wii U version of Rayman Legends supports five-player co-op, where four players control the main heroes and a fifth guides Murfy with the touchscreen. The amphibian can attack enemies, move platforms, cut ropes, and provide other support. The Vita version is similar except it only supports two players (a main character and Murfy).

For the other versions of the game, however, one player can press a button to move and guide Murfy to areas of interest and the flying frog friend will know what to do based on the context. Morel assured me that this would not interrupt the flow of the levels too much, as players can keep moving during this time.

A proper sequel

These additions help distinguish Rayman Legends from Origins even more so than what the Ubisoft Montpellier had back in February. When I first heard of this new instalment, I assumed it was just going to be a collection of new levels and not much more. But I found that the little things like nonlinear paths through stages, beat-based rhythm levels, and 10 playable female characters make Legends seem more like a proper sequel.

The Mansion in the Deep level had me sneaking around like James Bond (or Ubisoft mascot Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell, I suppose), avoiding flying sentry robots with green and red light vision. I had to navigate different floors and rooms of the building in search of some switches to flip in order to progress. I appreciate these areas that break from the conventional “just go right” approach of the genre without delving too deeply into the elaborate labyrinths of the Metroid/Castlevania series.

That is not to say that Legends doesn’t have its share of heading to the right. Each world has a musical level (in place of Origins’ shoot-’em-up stages) that feel similar to rhythm-oriented platformers like Bit.Trip Runner and HarmoKnight. They’re essentially the treasure-chest-chasing challenges from Origins but set to music.

Playing as Rayman, I was sprinting atop oversized Mexican toy snakes, kicking down bright-colored Dia de los Muertos skeletons, and ziplining along strings laid out like a music staff. All of this was in time with a Spanish guitar and kazoo duet of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. It was a blast.

These fun musical stages came about almost by accident. Rayman creator Michel Ancel was demoing a level of Legends to some of the men in suits once, but the stage was a little too hard to play well by anyone except the guy who created it. Since that designer wasn’t able to make the meeting, Ancel showed footage of the guy playing the level, lightheartedly synched up to a heavy metal song. Everyone loved it, so Ubisoft Montpellier then decided to add stages like that to the game on purpose.

Gender balance

As far as the Rayman roster goes, the developer has added 10 new playable female characters (compared to zero in Origins). The women all based on the same template, but Morel explained that the area-themed costumes and names for each qualifies them as separate people. Barbara is the barbarian with wings on her helmet and an ax, for instance. While Ursula (an homage to the Bond Girl Ursula Andress from the film Dr. No) is suited up for deep sea espionage and wields a trident.

Though each of these female warriors still need to be initially rescued, they provide a refreshing break from the voluptuous, scantily clad nymphs from Origins (how was I supposed to explain them to my niece?!), whose only purpose was to bestow new powers upon the male heroes. They can kick ass and help bring some much-needed gender balance to the game.

“The key thing about this new character to us, is to make sure that when you play, you have four different silhouettes,” said Morel. “So you have Rayman, Globox, a Teensy and another character,” as opposed to the confusing setup in Origins’ co-op with two Teensy players at once.

For both experts and novices

All of these features round out a game that has been carefully balanced to cater to both expert and new players. While all the unlockable skills from Origins are available from the beginning Legends, each world will focus on one at a time. Novices can go through the stages at their own pace, while pros will appreciate the returning ingenious level design that allows each level to double as a race course with an optimal path.

“We wanted to keep the flow to the game,” said Morel. “That’s the core of Rayman gameplay that we know experienced players enjoy.”

Anyone who is a fan of old-school platformers should keep an eye on Rayman Legends. Ubisoft Montpellier looks to have improved tremendously on an already solid experience from Origins and the version of Legends they had at the beginning of the year.

“I was already happy with the game we were about to finish in January … proud of it,” said Morel. “But honestly, now that I see what we have right now, I feel like it would have been sad to release the game then because right now. It’s really in a sense that it’s the biggest, longest Rayman game we’ve ever had.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Beyond: Two Souls made a big splash at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend with the premiere of a new trailer and more than 30 minutes of footage. Shortly after the screening, I chatted with Beyond’s director and developer Quantic Dream’s founder, David Cage.

Since he’s already done dozens of interviews about Beyond: Two Souls already, I focused more on questions around his storytelling growth, the deeper meaning behind Beyond, and his controversial comments around the state of the gaming industry. I also couldn’t help but ask if he’d ever want to direct a film.

Check out the full interview below.

GamesBeat: What was it like showing off Beyond here at the Tribeca Film Festival? This is a first right?

David Cage: Oh, yah, it’s the first time a video game is a part of an official film selection at a film festival. [L.A. Noire also appeared at Tribeca in 2011. I forgot about this little tidbit, and I assume Cage did as well --Ed.]

It was a great pleasure and a great honor to be here. It was just fantastic. We work on creating bridges between films and games for 16 years. So being here just shows that it’s something that comes true. It’s very exciting.

GamesBeat: Did you ever think this would happen back in the Indigo Prophecy days?

Cage: Oh, no. No, no — not at all. It came really as a surprise, even for us, even today. … I was also really surprised to see the enthusiasm that there is here in the festival and with the audience. This audience was really curious about what we were doing. There were some gamers in the theater, but there were also some movie buffs. People were just curious to see this new form of interactivity and storytelling.

GamesBeat: How have you grown as a storyteller, as a director since your last few games? I see a direct progression in skill.

Cage: I try to get better at what I’m doing, game after game. But I’m learning, I’m still learning. When I started I wanted probably to make games that were inspired by films that I liked. So if you think of Indigo Prophecy, or even Heavy Rain somewhat … .

But Heavy Rain was for me a big turning point, because it was the first moment where I realized I could write about things that were more personal. I didn’t have to write about superheroes saving the world. I could just write about a father wanting to save his son and things that were closer to my personal life.

I think the difference between Heavy Rain and Beyond is that Heavy Rain still had a lot of references to films. Especially in the mood and it was a dark thriller … where in Beyond we tried to create something truly original and doesn’t refer to anything.

GamesBeat: Do you feel more confident now as a storyteller? You’re doing it more as a game lifting what you need from movies, instead of trying to be like movies.

Cage: It’s about confidence, it’s about also what I realized on Heavy Rain — when you talk about something personal it makes … it could make an interesting story, or at least a story that would be appealing to others. And I saw how players responded emotionally to Heavy Rain was absolutely amazing… You see the emotional response that you can get when you’re sincere in your writing, and when you write about something that matters to you.

GamesBeat: How do you write around the danger of the “Choose your own adventure book” gimmick?

Cage: Well, for me each moment is unique in the story, so I don’t work on mechanics really. I don’t have a set of rules that I define at the beginning and I just use them in the course of my story. It’s really like every second of the game I try to reinvent the rules and say, OK, this is the story I want to tell, this is the moment I want to create, what is the best possible way to interact in this scene and to play it and make something meaningful?

So it’s very challenging to write, because in each scene you need to reinvent yourself. But at the same time, it creates, I hope, an experience that’s really different and unique, that really comes out like a journey where you never know what to expect next.

GamesBeat: Would you ever consider directing a film?

Cage: Honestly, I don’t know where I want to go with my career right now. I never thought about it like … I don’t have a plan for where I want to be in five years or 10 years from now. And I know that making films has never been a goal for me, so I’m not making games in the hope that one day I’ll make a film. But it’s something I may explore at some point, because working with people like Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe has been an amazing experience.

GamesBeat: It would actually be less work for you to make a film.

Cage: It would be a different work. I’m really cautious about this because I have a lot of respect for cinema. And I know where we are, and I know where the best filmmakers are, and there’s a huge gap. I still feel I have a lot to learn before having something meaningful to say in a film. But, yah, this is something I’ll start thinking about.

GamesBeat: Your game is called Beyond: Two Souls. There seems to be something very metaphysical about it. How do you define the soul?

Cage: Working on Beyond I try to give an explanation to death that’s different from the explanation religions have to give. So I made up my own story around all this, and how life and death and souls work. So I don’t want to reveal too much of this now. But I think my story makes sense, in that aspect of telling how life and death work together.

GamesBeat: I know you’ve talked about how a lot of games right now are really focused on shooting. It seems almost as if gamers are defensive when you bring this up.

Cage: Well, I said what I had to say at DICE, and I don’t know if I should elaborate on that.

But, yeah, the game industry can be very conservative in some ways. So people want more of what they already know, but I believe games can also explore different directions.

And I’m not against shooters, I’m not against all these things. There’s a market for this, and people enjoy it. That’s fine. I’m just saying, why not explore in different directions. So we’ll see. I mean this is something happening right now, whether some people like it or hate it, whether they scream on forums or not, it’s happening.

So there are different people trying different things, and there are people playing these games. And if you look at the success of different games and how the market evolves right now, you see this. Some gamers become older; they want different types of games.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Note: This article contains spoilers from more than 30 minutes of Beyond: Two Souls gameplay. 

Beyond: Two Souls is the first game I’ve seen that lets you play through both a suicide attempt and the birth of a child.

It’s a game that asks big questions about life and death, all the while straddling the line between “game” and “cinema.” None of that is surprising since it comes from the mind of Quantic Dream’s David Cage, who’s known for pushing gaming narrative boundaries with titles like Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy.

Judging from the 35 minutes of footage I saw last night at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival (available in its entirety below), Beyond’s gameplay can easily be enjoyed as a dramatic film, as well as a thrilling game experience. [A new trailer for the game also premiered last night.]

The PlayStation 3 title stars Ellen Page (Inception, Juno) as Jodie, a young girl with a mysterious connection to an entity she calls Aiden. She also has a close relationship to a scientist played by Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Antichrist). Jodie’s life is in shambles, and you’re joining her on a journey of self-discovery.

Sure, you’ve got occasional flashing buttons for quick time events (in gaming parlance, these are buttons you hit to complete specific actions during cut scenes) and a disembodied entity that lets you manipulate the game’s world. But, for the most part, Beyond: Two Souls presents a strong story that’s well written, well acted, and well directed.

It seems Cage’s ambitions of delivering a story cinematically through games have come true.

It’s a snowy night. We find Jodie sleeping outside on the city street. It seems she’s been homeless for a while now. She struggles to get up, and slowly makes her way to a phone. She calls a friend, possibly her only friend, Nathan Dawkins (Dafoe).

“They’re all around me,” she says. Despite Nathan’s pleas, she doesn’t give up many details about her situation. It’s just a check-in call. She hangs up — and with little energy left, collapses on the street.

Jodie’s eventually saved by Stan (played by Eric Winter), a kind-hearted homeless man who nurses her back to health. But after finally recovering, it’s not too long before Jodie tries to kill herself by stepping off a highway overpass (You also have the option of not trying to jump). Aiden, her mysterious spiritual friend, saves Jodie, but she’s none too pleased.

“I’ve been running for weeks, and for what?” she cries. “I have no home, no money, no food. My life is a fucking disaster. I’m tired of life, I give up.”

Suicide is rarely a topic in games, but in this scene you can feel Jodie’s desperation. For her, life is a curse.

The suicide attempt is made even more poignant with a later scene, where Jodie helps a homeless women deliver her child. Amidst the filth of an abandoned building and Jodie’s own desperation, life is born. (It’s reminiscent of a similar scene from the film Children of Men).

The footage is full of beautiful moments, as well as shocking ones. In an effort to earn some money on the street, Jodie picks up a guitar and sings a mournful rendition of Beck’s Lost Cause. Later, after Stan is jumped by a group of punks, Jodie delivers an ass-whupping of Jason Bourne proportions. (I love the fact that she’s strong on her own, without always needing Aiden’s help.)

When the gameplay footage ended on a cliffhanger, you could feel the audience’s anticipation to learn what happens next. That’d be a decent accomplishment for a  film — but for a game that’s meant to be played, it was astounding how much Beyond was able to rope us in simply based on watching it.

In a Q&A session after the footage screening, Page admitted she hadn’t played a game since Crash Bandicoot, but she found herself astounded by the world Cage had created. It also took some time for her to get used to acting with 90 motion capture dots on her face (though she noted that getting prepped with mo-cap equipment wasn’t much different than makeup for a normal film).

Beyond: Two Souls hits stores on October 8.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Icelandic game publisher CCP Games announced today that its first-person shooter online game Dust 514 will formally launch on the PlayStation 3 on May 14.

Reykjavik, Iceland-based CCP Games has created the shooter as a downloadable massively multiplayer online game, where players can engage in ground combat in the same sci-fi universe as CCP’s Eve Online title. In fact, players in Dust 514 can affect the gameplay of Eve Online and vice versa. The game is groundbreaking because it combines not only two online universes but also PC gamers with connected PlayStation 3s.

In Dust 514, you can play as a mercenary and engage in massive battles on a particular planet within the full galaxy of New Eden, the universe of Eve Online, which has half a million subscribers. As the tide shifts on the planet, the ground forces can take over weapons that attack the starships in Eve Online. In addition, starship pilots in Eve Online can rain devastating orbital strikes against enemy squads on the planet. So players can form alliances between the ground and space forces. The combat will eventually stretch across multiple planets. On the ground, up to 32 players will be able to fight at the same time.

“Reaching this point has required many years, hundreds of CCP employees, and the engagement of millions of players who contributed fantastic feedback during the beta process,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, the chief executive officer of CCP. “Now we start the real journey, which, decades from now, we will look back on with astonishment at all we accomplished. The Eve universe will outlive us all.”

CCP was founded in 1997, and it launched Eve Online in 2003. The game has had an amazingly long run so far. In honor of its second decade, CCP announced today that it will launch Eve: The Second Decade Collector’s Edition in October.

The $149 limited-edition box game is available for preorder now. It includes a series of exclusive collectible items as well as a 190-page hardcover book commemorating the first decade of play. It also includes a “mystery code” that will grant owners special privileges in the future.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

With its Xbox 360 successor, Microsoft may just one-up Google for once.

The new Xbox will reportedly be able to control your television and cable/satellite box, similar to what Google (unsuccessfully) attempted with Google TV, reports the Verge.

The console would reportedly connect to your cable box via an HDMI pass-through (just like Google TV), which means you’d be able to view both the next Xbox and your standard TV programming in the same video input. It would display an overlay on top of your existing TV content, enabling the next Xbox to offer features around what you’re watching without the need to process the video.

VentureBeat attempted to confirm this report. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company doesn’t comment on rumors.

You could say we should have seen this coming. After selling its MediaRoom IPTV platform last week, Microsoft noted that it will focus on the Xbox as its core TV strategy. The Xbox 360 has proven to be an incredibly popular video consumption device, thanks to apps from Netflix, Hulu, and others, but it makes sense for Microsoft to aim much higher with its next console entry.

This isn’t the first time such rumors have cropped up, either. Video game industry insider — he calls himself a “fixer” — Kevin Dent says he’s been forecasting this since the summer.

Not surprisingly, the Verge is hearing that the console — which gamers have nicknamed the Xbox 720 — would also require an Internet connection to use the entertainment services. If these rumors hold true, you would have the next Xbox running practically the entire time you’re in front of your TV.

Gamers have been suspicious about rumors of “always-on” consoles  (so-named because they require a constant Internet connection) as we gear up for this next generation in gaming — especially since recent always-on games like SimCity and Diablo III had major issues at launch. For game publishers, being always-connected also adds another level of piracy protection. But gamers don’t appreciate the inflexibility of not being able to play their games offline.

The rumor follows some controversial comments from Microsoft Game Studios’ Adam Orth, who didn’t see much of a problem with always-on consoles (and didn’t have much sympathy for those living in the boonies). Microsoft ended up apologizing over his remarks, but it didn’t outright deny that the next Xbox would be always-on.

I’m a big fan of what Google tried to do with Google TV, but slow hardware and a lack of decent content kept it from being a success. It sounds like Microsoft wouldn’t make the same mistake, as the Verge notes that the company already has partnerships with content providers. (And unlike Google, it’s not trying to promote cord-cutting.)

Microsoft’s Kinect sensor is also said to be a big part of the next Xbox’x entertainment experience. The updated version of the motion controller would reportedly be able to detect multiple people within a room, and it could even pause what you’re watching when you turn your head.

If this particular rumor is true, Microsoft would also have a leg-up on Sony (once again) when it comes to entertainment. Microsoft wisely maneuvered to make Netflix exclusive to the Xbox 360 for more than a year before it was available to the PlayStation 3 or Wii. We haven’t seen much of Sony’s PS4 entertainment plans yet, other than the fact that it will support 4K video.

Microsoft will reportedly unveil its next Xbox on May 21, which should lead directly into this year’s E3 convention in June.

Sony started off the press demo of Rain with a PowerPoint presentation — usually not a good sign. Director Yuki Ikeda rattled off a bunch of feelings he hopes his upcoming PlayStation Network stealth/adventure game will capture: “lost,” “uncertainty,” “curiosity” … .

These words reminded me of the emotions I felt while playing another PSN adventure: Journey. That 2012 game of the year (contender for some, winner for others) is one of those “everyone will get something different out of it” experiences, and Rain certainly feels like that.

It does have a more structured story than Journey — at least initially. “One morning, he sees an invisible girl with a silhouette in the rain,” said Ikeda of the young, mute protagonist. “He sees that she’s been followed by an invisible creature. He chases after her to save her, and while following her, he somehow enters the mysterious world of Rain. He learns that he, too, has become invisible.” Throughout the demo, we saw glimpses of the girl in danger, and we continue to run after her in silence, never quite catching up, never quite understanding what’s going on. It’s very dreamlike and surreal — much like Journey.

Some people will see Rain simply for the stealthy gameplay: Our ghostly main character only becomes visible when directly under the ever-present (and slightly depressing) downpour. It helps him stay grounded as a physical presence in this supernatural story, but it also exposes him to danger, such as the demonish hounds who constantly stalk and kill him if they see or hear him. If the boy ducks under cover, the rain will stop outlining him, and he’ll vanish, leaving only wet footsteps as a trace of where he’s actually at.

He can use this water-based mechanic to lure the creatures to certain areas (to knock over scaffolding to create new sections to climb on, for example) or simply to get them to stop blocking the exit out of a street. He can also purposely step on large puddles to create noise to draw enemies to him. Think of the boy as Sam Fisher, the sneaky agent in the Splinter Cell series, using dry cover (shadows for Fisher) or splashing (sounds) to manipulate foes in order to get around them more easily.

Only Rain’s main character has no guns, spy cameras, flashbangs, or night-vision goggles. He’s armed with nothing, in fact, and those threatening him operate under the exact same rain-cover conditions. He can’t even run very quickly. This leaves players with a very vulnerable child character who’s at the mercy of the dark, dangerous, and foreign world around him. And that’s really what Rain is getting at.

“I remember the sadness and the fear I felt as a child getting lost,” said Ikeda. “But as an adult, if I go to a new place and get lost, I feel excitement. I wanted to combine those two emotions into Rain.”

Certainly it works, at least from the few minutes of live gameplay we’ve seen so far. The oppressive gray city, the relentless rain, and the haunting soundtrack may not initially remind anyone of the more whimsical and colorful Journey, but the feelings are the same: lost, uncertainty, curiosity … .

And similarly to how a mysterious second player from somewhere in the Internet may just suddenly join you in Journey, providing much-needed companionship in that otherwise isolated adventure, Ikeda is going for a similar effect: “Initially, when making the game, I only had the boy by himself. But when I was playing it, I noticed it was really lonely and sad, so I decided to add the little girl.”

Rain is due out later in 2013. See below for more screenshots and a gameplay video.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Square Enix is giving one of its Final Fantasy classics a high-definition upgrade. No, not Final Fantasy 7 — that’s crazy.

The publisher launched a website announcing Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. The collection is available for preorder on Amazon for $39.99, but the company hasn’t set a firm release date yet.

On Monday, Square Enix will release a full announcement trailer, but for now it release a handful of HD screens:

Square Enix originally released Final Fantasy X in July 2001. It was the first Final Fantasy game on the PlayStation 2 after three on the original PlayStation.

The publisher followed up with Final Fantasy X-2 in 2003, also for the PlayStation 2. This was the first time the company ever released a direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Former Sony chief executive officer Howard Stringer announced he will step down from his position as chairman and retire in June, according to Games Industry International.

This ends a 16-year period that Stringer spent with Sony.

The British businessman started his career as a journalist at CBS. He moved up the ranks and spent the last seven of his 30 years with the network as its president. He left CBS in 1995 to start TELE-TV, a set-top-box company that developed an interactive television service.

He left TELE-TV in 1997 to begin working with Sony as president of its U.S. operations.

In June 2005, Sony named Stringer its CEO and chairman. Sony launched the PlayStation 3 during the following year against strong competition from Nintendo’s novel Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which had a year head start.

Despite the PlayStation 2′s success, PlayStation 3 struggled to justify its $499 and $599 price tags to early consumers. Not only that, but developers struggled with PS3′s complicated architecture and most cross-platform games looked and played better on Microsoft’s console until about 2009.

In April 2011, hackers breached Sony’s PlayStation Network and stole millions of user’s data and credit-card information. Sony waited a week before telling users. Stringer didn’t get a handle on the public-relation disaster until he released an open letter in May 2011.

Since these struggles, the PS3 has found worldwide success comparable to the Xbox 360, but only after several price cuts that dug into profits. The early PS3 models cost an estimated $800 to $840 to manufacture, so even at the $499 and $599, the system cost Sony money to sell. The eventual “slim” redesigns helped alleviate that issue.

In 2009, Sony replaced company president Ryoji Chubachi with Stringer. The executive used this time to initiate a company-wide restructuring with the purpose of bringing Sony’s varying divisions closer together.

One of the results of a closer-knit Sony was an intense focus on 3D technology throughout 2010 and 2011. Sony attempted to leverage the PlayStation brand by combining the promise of 3D games on its 3D televisions.

Today, Sony’s effort to promote 3D is seen as a failure. By 2012, the company had ceased actively talking about 3D in its games or televisions.

In April 2012, Sony Computer Entertainment chairman Kazuo Hirai, who had overseen the PlayStation brand, replaced Stringer as CEO and president. Stringer also stepped down as chairman of Sony and took up the position as Sony’s chairman of the board.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the Wii U out on the market and Sony’s recent reveal of the PlayStation 4, there is no doubt that the next generation of consoles is already here. Along with that is all the talk about technology and specs that will (hopefully) open up new avenues of interactivity and gameplay. Early adopters pick up a console with the promise of fantastic games down the line, but most consumers have to be convinced to purchase a new system. With many gamers satisfied with their current consoles, the major players are going to have to convince them to break away from their outdated boxes.

Since all three systems (the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3) have a robust library of games, the only way these companies are going to attract new customers is with fresh offerings — not just the latest Call of Duty or the best-looking game in existence, but ones that present completely new experiences that people cannot get anywhere else.

It is uncertain what each of the new systems’ must-have games will be, but the titles below are what made me buy each of the current-generation consoles. Today, I look back on the three games that sold me on the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, in the order that I bought them.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I will admit that I was one of those people who cried when I saw the reveal of Twilight Princess (LoZ:TP) at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2004, weeping in happiness in front of a 20-inch television screen as Link strode across the Hyrulean landscape in what appeared to be the darkest Zelda game to date. It was slated to came out on both the Wii and GameCube, and while I owned the latter, I was blown away by the thought of playing a Zelda title with motion controls — swinging my arm like a sword to cut down enemies and shooting arrows just by pointing at the screen. Even the fishing minigame looked to fun with the Wiimote as a rod. There were also rumors that the Wii version would be the superior version not only control-wise but also graphically. (It’s true. The Twilight Realm in the Wii version looks significantly better.) I grew up a fan of Nintendo, so I knew I would get the Wii one day. Twilight Princess convinced me that I had to have it day one.

It’s the reason why I was outside Costco at 5:00 in the morning, waiting with my friends and other fans, playing Mario Kart DS, and chatting about what games we were all going to play first. My friends and I ended up playing Wii Sports and Excite Truck together the first couple days — so caught up in the excitement of beating each other up in boxing or crashing into each other’s cars. I was also scared to play LoZ:TP. What if, after the excruciating wait and all the hype, it was bad? I did not think I could bear having my spirits crushed.

When I popped in the disc on the third day, my worries were unfounded. Playing LoZ:TP with the Wiimote, swinging it around, and becoming engrossed with the characters and the dark tone of the story is still one of my favorite memories as a gamer. It showed me just what the Wii was capable of — an experience I couldn’t get on any other console. It is debatable whether or not the Wii was successful in that regard, but it still is a console I had immense fun with.  LoZ:TP ranks as one of my favorite Zelda games of all time as well as one of the best launch titles I have ever played.

Dead Rising

I was not sold on the Xbox 360 at first. In middle school, I was a part of a small club of podcasters for a while. We had a segment dedicated to video game discussion, and one day, the topic was about the recently released Xbox 360 and whether it was worth buying or not. I clearly remember saying, “Yeah, it’s good if you want to pay a lot of money to play the same games you can on the Xbox with shinier graphics.” At the time, it was a good observation. Most of the games that launched with it were just prettier versions of the same games you could get on current consoles, and the rest were not very good. Even when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out, I could play it on my PC, so what use was a 360 to me?

My mind was changed a year after the 360’s launch with the release of Dead Rising. I have been a zombie fan since the day my father sat me down with him to watch Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, so when I played Dead Rising at my friend’s house, I was floored. It was exactly how I imagined a video game based off that movie would be like. You could fight hordes of zombies with anything you could find (everything was a weapon), explore an enormous mall, save survivors (or kill them), be a hero (or not), snap photos (sacrificing survivors was perfect for those achievements), and unravel a conspiracy.

I don’t remember how I convinced my parents to buy me a 360 — it must have had something to do with how good my grades were — but under the Christmas tree in 2007 was a box with a copy of Dead Rising in it. It still remains one of my favorite games to this day. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record for the PC is a go-to-game for me when I am feeling down, but if Microsoft were to rerelease the original for the PC, I would snatch it up again in a heartbeat.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

I never owned a PlayStation 2, but I had played through the entire Metal Gear Solid series with a friend. Despite not owning the three main games, I adored the franchise. There were so many rumors that MGS4 would eventually come out on the Xbox 360 because of the slow sales of the PS3, but my heart sank when Konami squashed the possibility of that ever happening. If I wanted to play MGS4, I was going to have to buy a PS3 or else I would never get to experience the end of Solid Snake’s story.

Thankfully, I was working a job when Sony announced that it was discontinuing the 80GB model of the console. It was the one I wanted because it had backward compatibility for the PS2, something that the future models were not going to have. I did not have nearly enough to pay the $600 price tag of the MGS4 bundle at Fry’s, so I convinced my mom to pay for half because it was a Blu-ray player we could all enjoy.

We rarely used it for Blu-rays because they were so expensive, though. What it was used for was games. I was finally able to experience all the PS2 games I missed out on, like Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of the Colossus, and the Devil May Cry series. For a while, I had more PS2 games than PS3 games, but it all started with MGS4.

Arguments aside about the length of the cutscenes, the game is a technical marvel and, in my opinion, flawless. The gameplay was perfectly balanced between sneaking and gun fights, and you could play any way you wanted. The story tied up everything wonderfully. The presentation was beyond stellar, from the set pieces to the cutscenes and the boss battles. Very few games have satisfied my needs like MGS4 has, which is why I am afraid to play it again in fear of ruining all the amazing moments I had with it. But I know I have to again one day.

Was it worth it, and what’s next?

For one or two games, buying a whole system is never worth it. You always have to look at the complete package and think about what you are investing in. However, there will always be that one game that makes you need the console, and that will open up the door to a plethora of experiences you could not get anywhere else.

I have not regretted owning all three consoles. The Wii has provided me with excellent titles and unique games that took advantage of the hardware, like MadWorld and No More Heroes. The Xbox 360 introduced me to the world of online gaming with the Halo series. Although I no longer pay for Xbox Live, I have to thank Halo for showing me how much fun it is to play with friends and strangers online. I don’t use the PlayStation 3 for online play but rather its amazing single-player titles like Heavy Rain, Uncharted, and HD collections of games I missed in the last generation — not to mention the backward compatibility that I am grateful for every day.

I bought a Wii U on launch day and have already gotten a taste of what the future holds with ZombiU, which was what sold me on the console largely because of the GamePad. I have also had a load of fun with Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge, which proves that traditional titles work wonderfully on the system. I am not fully sold on the PlayStation 4, nor do I think I will fall in love with the next Xbox at first sight. It will take a good game to do that — one that shows me that yes, the next generation of gaming is here. I look forward to it.

What have been some games that have made you want to buy a console and why? Leave comments, criticisms, and concerns down below. Thank you for reading.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We all know that Nintendo’s Wii U is in trouble. It sold more than 3 million units during the holidays and was in short supply. But with a dearth of new titles after that launch, sales have slowed down. Nintendo shaved its sales target for the period ending March 31 to 4 million, down from its previous estimate of 5.5 million hardware units.

And now the Game Developers Conference has published a survey showing that U.S. developers are making few titles for the Wii U. The GDC’s survey of 2,500 attendees showed that only 4.6 percent of developers are creating a Wii U game, and 6.4 percent plan to make their next game on the console.

This is a critical problem because the developers are the canaries in the coal mine. When they start dropping, there’s a bigger problem.

The Wii U is a brand-new console, but its developer support is significantly below the level for the Xbox 360. About 13.2 percent of companies are making games for Microsoft’s current machine, and 14 percent plan to make their next title for the Xbox 360. About 13 percent are making current games for the Sony PlayStation 3, and 12.4 percent will do so again. Sony’s announcement of the PlayStation 4 could put a big dent in developer support just as Sony’s early announcement of the PlayStation 2 helped kill off support for the Sega Dreamcast.

By comparison, developers are moving en masse to mobile. About 55 percent are making games for smartphones and tablets, and 58 percent plan to do so for their next title. And 48 percent are making games on the Mac and PCs. The only weaker platforms than the Wii U are the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita. Despite the grim picture, Nintendo chief executive Satoru Iwata said that no price cut is coming for the Wii U, whose basic version is selling for $300 in the U.S.

It’s not a happy state of affairs for Nintendo, which launched the Wii console in 2006 and sold more than 100 million units worldwide. It has sold more consoles than Microsoft and Sony in this generation, but for the last couple of years, the Wii has been weak. That’s why Nintendo introduced the Wii U, which has a tablet controller, last fall. But the naysayers were out early, saying the Wii U’s processing power was feeble and that its support for only one tablet controller was a major problem.

Cevat Yerli, the chief executive of game studio Crytek, said that his company made a Wii U version of Crysis 3, its flagship game that just debuted. But Crytek didn’t have a license to publish games on Nintendo, and his publisher, Electronic Arts, hit its own impasse over deciding to publish on the Wii U. And with that, Yerli said in an interview with GamesBeat, “Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.”

Now a lot of people are tossing rocks at Nintendo. EA has offered very little support for the system, and EA chief executive John Riccitiello said that the “true next generation” consoles will begin with the launch of machines from Sony and Microsoft. Cliff Bleszinski, the former design director at Epic Games, said that Nintendo may need to get out of hardware.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that Nintendo “misfired on the Wii U.” Sales were weak in January, and Microsoft’s old Xbox 360 outsold the new Nintendo machine that month. Another marquee developer, who asked not to be identified, said, “The Wii U is already a non-event. I couldn’t be more disappointed with the launch titles.” Mario Wynands of gamemaker Sidhe said that he had multiple conversations with developers who are dialing back their support of the Wii U because of the weak sales.

“While I believe they need to build a very strong digital marketplace for both developers and consumers longterm, their current business model demands they continue to respond to the needs of retailers and hardcore consumer,” Wynands said. “Fundamentally, they just need to start selling a lot more hardware in order to create a viable marketplace and survive long enough in order to be able to transition their business.”

David Cole, a longtime analyst at DFC Intelligence, said, “The Wii U is in big trouble. Nintendo didn’t get out in front with [games on the Wii U], and that means third parties are cautious. We are lowering our Wii U forecasts quite a bit, and it can become an ugly cycle. It is really on Nintendo’s shoulders to turn it around. They can’t rely on third parties.”

Ben Sawyer, a leader of the games for health movement, said that Nintendo’s ecosystem isn’t open enough compared to smartphones and tablets.

Nintendo isn’t giving up yet. In a statement to GamesBeat, the company said, “[We are] proud of the relationships we have built with all our third-party partners, from the large publishers and their well-known franchises to our independent developer partners making incredible downloadable games for the Nintendo eShop.”

Indeed, while the Wii whiffed at coming up with a rival to Microsoft’s Xbox Live, some developers say they like the eShop, where gamers can download new titles.

Nintendo also said it “has robust third-party support on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The biggest publishers in the world — Ubisoft, Activision, EA, 2K, SEGA, Disney, Warner Bros. and Namco Bandai, to name a few — have brought their best franchises to Wii U with games like Call of Duty: Black Ops II, ZombiU, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, Assassin’s Creed III, Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, Just Dance 4, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. On Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo has a great lineup of third-party games, including the upcoming Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate from Konami and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate from Capcom.”

Nintendo has also done a good job of recruiting smaller developers. Nicalis, WayForward, Gaijin Games, Tomorrow Corporation, and Renegade Kid are all in the midst of working on downloadable titles for the Wii U.

Alex Neuse and Mike Roush, co-founders of Gaijin Games, said they enjoy developing on the Wii U and it is a step up from the Wii. They just released Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien for the Wii U eShop.

“We see great business potential in the Wii U eShop. It’s a particularly indie-friendly distribution channel, and if you’re an independent developer and want to get your game on a console, the eShop looks like it might be the next big thing,” the Gaijin founders said in an email. “But above and beyond the eShop, the Miiverse has been an integral part of growing our community of fans. Being able to interact with fans in real time, on the console, while the game is running is an incredible feature that only Nintendo has. If Nintendo can manage to continue their efforts towards wooing indies, as they have been doing so far, they could probably corner the console indie market without much trouble.”

Of course, Nintendo has always been its own savior. First-party games on the Wii U are spread out and slow in coming. But if its own gamemakers create bigger hits, then console sales could pick up, the third-party developers could return, and the ecosystem will look better.

Even if this griping about the Wii U’s prospects continues, don’t expect Nintendo to waver. The company has been in tough spots before, and it has pulled off turnarounds. It can still point to Sega and say that getting out of hardware is not always a good solution. Nintendo is working on some big games. And it still has a hold on young audiences and families, which are different from the audiences for the other consoles, said Jon Peddie, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

Whatever happens with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony shouldn’t gloat about the slow acceptance of the Wii U.

Alex St. John, the co-creator of Microsoft’s DirectX technology, who has been predicting the death of consoles for years, said, “I think Apple is the next-generation console and that all of the next-generation consoles will fade. If your next-generation ‘console’ isn’t a cell phone that can deliver a console experience to a TV, you’re already obsolete.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Follow our PlayStation 4 coverage

Forums are igniting with discussions. Twitter is rife with speculation. And hardware rumors old and new are popping up across game blogs and news sites. This can only mean one thing.

Happy new console day, everybody!

At least, that’s what we think is going to happen. Sony Computer Entertainment is only a few hours away from its big announcement at 3 p.m. Pacific in New York City. Though it hasn’t said anything about it, the leaks and teasers of the last few weeks clearly point to the coming-out party of the PlayStation 4 (or whatever Sony is going to call it).

But console reveals are tricky. Lofty promises are often made and then broken by the time of the actual launch. Games depicted in promotional trailers may not represent the final product, and in some cases, may never see the light of day again. The company obviously wants to show its fancy new system in the best possible way, but if experience has taught us anything, it’s that we should view these momentous occasions with a healthy dose of skepticism.

That’s why we decided to dig through the past three PlayStation reveals — PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 — and remind you of Sony’s track record of preparing its new consoles for launch. Some things it did were funny, other decisions left us scratching our heads, and a few choices were just plain weird.

PlayStation

Announced: October 1993
Release date: 9/9/1995 (U.S.)
Launch price: $299
Number of launch games: Eight

A new challenger appears: 

In the early ’90s, Nintendo joined forces with Sony to create the Play Station (with the space), a console that featured the cartridge-based Super Nintendo Entertainment System combined with a CD-ROM drive. But that didn’t work out.

In short, Nintendo wasn’t satisfied with the business terms of its partnership, so during the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, it announced that Philips, a Sony rival, would be the one developing a CD-ROM expansion to the SNES. This came a day after Sony publicly revealed its Play Station plans.

Sony executives were understandably furious. But at least two of them, a former Sony engineer named Ken Kutaragi — often called the “father” of PlayStation — and president Norio Ohga, didn’t want to scrap the project. After facing some internal strife, Kutaragi spearheaded the creation of a standalone 32-bit system to compete against both Sega and Nintendo. It re-branded the project simply as “PlayStation,” which made a big splash at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 1995. At the time, the PlayStation was the scrappy underdog in a market dominated by giants.

Fun facts and broken promises:

• During the U.S. rollout at E3 ’95, Sony said “20-Plus” launch games would coincide with the console’s release (at the 4:50 mark in this clip). It delivered less than half that amount.
  
• Early marketing in the U.S. labeled the PlayStation brand as a lifestyle, not just a product or toy. Its TV ads featured such cryptic messages like “U R Not E” (You are not ready) and “ENOS Lives” (Ready Ninth of September). In the U.K., advertisements proclaimed the console was “more powerful than God.”
• The disembodied head known as Polygon Man was the first PlayStation mascot. But disagreements about marketing led to the poor guy’s quick demise prior to launch. About 17 years later, developer Superbot Entertainment brought him back as the final boss in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
• On 9/19/00, Sony released a new, petite PlayStation model called the PS One for $99. This set the precedent for a slimmer line of systems during the latter part of a console cycle, as we saw with the redesigned versions of the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3.

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Sanzaru Games, taking over for original developer Sucker Punch Productions, rescued the burgling raccoon Sly Cooper from obscurity when it released an HD collection in 2010. Now, after almost a decade, we have a new entry in the stealth-platforming series. Sanzaru has learned well from its experience remastering the first three games, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (out today as a cross-play title for PlayStation 3 and PS Vita) is a big cause for celebration.

What you’ll like

Classic sneaking and stealing

Despite the near eight-year gap, fans will immediately recognize familiar traits and ease into the gameplay no matter where the gang’s time machine takes them. Like before, Sly evades yellow searchlights that alert guards, uses his Thief Sense to tiptoe around corners or spring to wherever he sees blue sparkles, and hunts for items like the good old clue bottles. It’s partly a collect-a-thon — completely optional and perfect for those who want to relive the golden days of platforming and explore a world in search of shiny baubles.

Aside from the bouncing clue bottles (find 30 to break the safe in each hub area), players can track down treasures (and race them back to the hideout to claim them) and Sly masks (which unlock extras, like design alterations to Sly’s paraglider or outfit). They can also open ThiefNet, the store accessible from the hideout, to redeem coins for more powerful attacks and moves.

Even the narrative style is the same, with a single character talking over animated cutscenes, which are a real highlight — cartoony, charming, and funny to watch. Sanzaru unloaded a lot of detail into these beautiful cel-shaded worlds, and even the hideout and the animals (friendly and hostile) that populate these locales change alongside the theme (from feudal Japan to ancient Arabia). The developer did its homework; this is a true and polished sequel.

More depth than a motley crew needs

Thieves in Time delivers a surprising amount of content, too. It takes around 20 hours to finish the campaign and even longer to achieve full completion. As the Cooper gang jumps through time, chasing after the villain who’s targeting Sly’s quirky ancestors, the player controls a well-rounded cast of characters: the old trio, including the computer-savvy turtle Bentley and the heavy-weight fighter Murray; the feisty Inspector Carmelita Fox, who’s Sly’s girlfriend (or possibly ex-girlfriend); and of course, the Coopers from each of the five eras you visit.

The controls give you a lot of freedom to fiddle around as you please — try spinning Bentley around in his wheelchair and just feel the snap-back of those tires — and although each character can learn a ton of techniques, many of them build on existing ones. They’re also mapped similarly between characters, so you can pick them up more easily. For example, holding Triangle charges up a special move that’s unique to each team member while pressing Triangle and Square in quick succession unleashes a one-hit-kill stealth attack for any Cooper. ThiefNet purchases expand on Bentley’s bomb abilities and dart types, which you can access from the gadget grid (by holding L2), or upgrade Murray’s punches.

The grid also acts a wardrobe for Sly. Using it, he can don any of the costumes he acquires as souvenirs while skipping around various time periods. Each comes with a specialized set of moves. The Samurai outfit, for example, enables Sly to walk through fire unharmed and reflect fireballs with a golden shield.

Each Cooper possesses a signature technique that grants you access to specific areas or lets you bypass certain obstacles. “Tennessee Kid” Cooper from the old West can use his Crackshot to fire at multiple targets, and the ninja Rioichi can leap to distant blue-sparkle points.

Some help from the team

You can’t say that Thieves in Time doesn’t take pains to guide players through levels. The radar marks your current location and that of your objective, but clicking the left stick brings up an arrow beneath the character that points him in the precise direction he needs to go. Enemies appear as red dots on the radar too, and the character icon in the upper left corner of the screen (which displays health) blinks red when one’s nearby or flashes red and blue when a guard has spotted you. So no matter what the task or how far you’ve wandered, the game gets you back on track. Even the environment contains visual clues that steer you along; sometimes arrows are even visible on the walls or floors. It’s a bit of overkill, but it works.

Thieves in Time’s real asset is how well it brings the gang together to pull off heists. Some missions require multiple characters to work together or handle certain parts of a job, and their joint efforts help the team take down the bad guys (who are awesome, by the way, with the exception of a few annoying boss personalities).

It’s surprising, but much of the experience consists of minigames, and the developer manages to implement them without frustrating players. They’re appropriately short and never too taxing, and the sheer variety is impressive. Each one centers around a character and his strengths. You might cringe at the thought of Sixaxis tilt controls and computer hacking in other titles (I hate them), but each one is fresh and interesting — whether it’s a dance performance as Murray or a mech showdown between nerds.

What you won’t like

Still loading

These load times would embarrass dinosaurs, and they occur rather frequently. Get ready to take a lot of coffee breaks while you wait for cutscenes and jobs to begin.

Help, please! … No, not like that!

Maybe it’s because I enjoyed playing as the different characters so much and because they’re so distinct from one another, but I wish Sanzaru balanced out their screen times a bit more. You play as Sly a lot and Bentley and Murray a good deal, but I wanted more practice with the other Coopers and Carmelita especially. Their missions are sprinkled nicely throughout the game, but there weren’t enough to satisfy me — especially after buying new moves for the foxy inspector.

On the other hand, I could have done without so much chattiness. I’m glad the voice actors provided so much dialogue as it makes the scenarios fresher, but Bentley, in particular, is a little too helpful. The know-it-all turtle doesn’t leave you much of a chance to figure things out on your own before butting in with a few words of advice. (That said, he’s one of my favorite characters. Unlike Sly, he has great one-liners. He’s just garrulous.)

X, Up, Down, Square … what?

Thieves in Time features a full digital manual, which contains a thorough list of moves for the central characters. But this convenient feature isn’t accessible from the game itself, which renders it pointless when you need to look up a move in a pinch. The controls reference from the Options menu won’t do you much good unless Sly is your main concern; Bentley and Murray didn’t make the cut, which is unfortunate considering how many moves they have at their disposal.

Command prompts do pop up during play to remind you how to execute skills, but sometimes these hint boxes appear for no reason, and they temporarily block the radar when they do. It’s excessive and annoying, and you can’t turn off this part of the interface.

But one crucial aspect of the title’s cross-play capabilities puts PlayStation 3 owners at a big disadvantage. Aside from taking the game on the go, players can turn their PS Vita into an augmented-reality device — a viewfinder for locating the clue bottles, treasures, and Sly masks in each world. The binocucom (kind of like “binoculars,” but a little more technological) in the original Sly Cooper provided the same benefit, so it’s unfair that PS3 players can’t rely on some in-game (but less exciting) equivalent for help without going out and buying a Vita (or hitting up GameFAQs).

A fizzle of a finale

Although some shine more than others, the boss fights in Thieves in Time are challenging and cool. But the last showdown is little more than a string of quick-time events — little effort required. It’s anticlimactic compared to all the work you put in previously. Even minor encounters, like Carmelita’s battle with a three-headed mechanical dragon, worked up more of a sweat.

Conclusion

Sly Cooper: Thieves is Time is a fantastic addition to the series and a great entry point for newcomers. Most of my gripes are minor, but the aggressive load times present the biggest detriment to the game, and the need for a PS Vita might irritate anyone who wants to collect everything these time periods have to offer. The rest is just a few hiccups in history, but they shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the latest chapter in the Cooper story.

Score: 89/100

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was released for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita on February 5, 2013. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a PS3 copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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But after about 10 hours, the combat may drive you mad — or bore you.

Ni No Kuni is all about a heartbroken young boy, Oliver, who ends up leaving his world to help another. On the way, as in many other RPGs (Japanese or Western), he meets an oddball band of characters who helps him take on a menace. One that is, in this case, threatening two worlds.

At times, Ni No Kuni feels almost like one of Studio Ghibli’s — which developed this with Japanese RPG house Level-5 — animated films. The storytelling is just a notch below movies like Howl’s Moving Castle. At other times, Ni No Kuni feels like another RPG that’s grounded in a grindy past.

What you’ll like

The poignancy

The affecting storytelling is at its best in the first 10 hours. Oliver deals with the loss of a loved one, and one of the reasons he’s traveled to this land of fantasy is to bring that person back to life. This is tricky territory for any artist, be it a video game studio, a film writer, or a poet. Yet I found that Studio Ghibli and Level-5 nailed this, and I speak from my own experience.

Children do not know how to deal with loss, and a flight into fantasy is one way in which they cope. I can’t remember how many times I could’ve used magic or some other fantastical method to have brought my mom back when she died when I was 7. After my father died recently, my niece wanted to bring him back with a magic potion. So it’s no surprise that Oliver, when confronted with an epic quest that could just happen to bring back someone he loves, grabs hold of the opportunity.

But Studio Ghibli’s and Level-5’s take on poignancy isn’t limited to Oliver’s coping with his loss. In Ni No Kuni’s world, a number of citizens are dealing with the loss of vital emotions and drives, such as enthusiasm. It’s up to you to heal these folks, but how? It’s simple, and to me, it’s also quite moving. You find people who are bubbling over with such emotions, and you sprinkle in some magic by taking some of this extra emotion and transferring it to another person. Typically, these little quests net your stamps — fill a card with enough of them, and you can trade it in for an ability boost (or save it and trade in two or more for bigger boosts).

What amazes me about these two elements is just how much they work together. As a child who suffered a great loss early in life, I wanted to do whatever I could to help others feel better about things in their life. I have no scientific or psychological evidence to back this up, but from talking to others who as children also suffered similar losses, I found that the need to “fix people” is something many of us share. And Ni No Kuni nails this. You are fixing people here. It makes me wonder if any of the writers also suffered similar losses when they were young.

The animation

Years ago, Level-5 established its reputation with some of the best visuals in Japanese role-playing games. Its lush animations in Dragon Quest VIII remain one of the best we’ve seen on the PlayStation 2, and the same goes for the Professor Laytons for the Nintendo DS and 3DS. Marry this with the beautiful animation work from Studio Ghibli, and you’ve got one of the best-looking creations not just for the PlayStation 3 but any platform.

The animation is at its best during the cutscenes; the work here is just as top-notch as what you’d find in Ghibli movies. Normally, I’d get upset when a game takes its time to “clear its throat,” so to speak, and get on with its opening (it takes about 45 minutes before Ni No Kuni does so), but since I spent most of that time admiring the masterful visuals, I really didn’t mind.

But when the action moves away from the cinematics — be it as you explore a city or venture out in the wilderness — the world you find is still better looking than that of most role-playing games. What’s particularly keen about the artwork is how it complements the world. In one fight, a genie pulls out Victorian dresses and parasols from a big pot, and these have all of the embellishments one would expect from clothing that just might fit the set of Downton Abbey. Oliver’s “real world” looks like snapshots of 1950s America. The greenery is appropriately lush in forests; the grass seems to almost flow on the Savannah. When it comes to the visuals, Level-5 and Studio Ghibli have put together a game that almost asks, “Do we really need new consoles when we can do this?”

Drippy and the familiars

Drippy is one of the best companions ever written for a Japanese RPG. A doll your mother made that your tears bring to life, he’s also the Lord High Lord of the Fairies — and your best friend, your guide, your mentor, and your smart-alecky older brother. He adds to the richness of the fantasy world.

With a snhozz that would inspire envy in Jimmy Durante, Drippy propels you through the story, especially when you’re just learning about combat, magic, taking or giving heart, and traversing between the fantasy world and the mundane. It’s during this time that most players, I imagine, would bond with Drippy. His insights and humor almost always add to the story. At first, with his outrageous accent, I thought of him as a variation of Angus of Dragon Quest VIII. But Drippy grows on you much quicker, proving to be an invaluable resource — and more importantly, a friend — on your journey.

Another of Ni No Kuni’s charms is its familiars. These are mostly cute little critters that you raise like Pokémon and send into combat. While Ni No Kuni’s lore establishes that they’re born from a wizard’s heart, in truth, your best tactic for finding and training these creatures is to capture them in combat (which, sadly, you can’t do until you’re double-digit hours into it).

What’s great about the familiars is their variety and their names. I would hope the writing staff had a thorough “pun cleansing” after finishing their work as the wordplay for many of them goes beyond anything you’d find in Dragon Quest. Things like “Sore Boar” and “Green Buncher” (this looks like a walking bunch of bananas) — and my favorite, the “Purrloiner” (a pirate cat!) — enhance the charm and show that while the writers are dealing with some heavy issues, they also have a light heart (if a heavy hand when applying it).

You train your familiars by throwing them into combat, feeding them food that boosts their abilities, and using “drops” to help them transform into more powerful forms. This can be a timesink, and while some will find it fun, I did grow a little bored of spending time leveling these critters up.

What you won’t like

The disjointed story

One of the greatest challenges that designers of role-playing games face is the balance between combat, exploration, and story. Focus too much on one, and many players cry out for the others — and your game turns into either a slog of going from one place to another, fighting too many enemies to get where you’re going, or not offering enough “gameplay” to balance out your cutscenes.

Because you must level up your characters and familiars in order to withstand some of the bosses, I kept spending more and more time wandering the wilds, encountering monsters and engaging in combat, which extends the time between one story bit to another. Now, maybe I was too obsessive about leveling up my party and familiar (I do tend to be a bit compulsive when I play Japanese role-playing games or any other genre that grants some level of freedom of choice and exploration), but I felt like I had no other alternative, especially when I arrived at a couple of points where my party just wasn’t strong enough to deal with a boss fight or another specific encounter. It would’ve been great to have experienced Studio Ghibli’s cutscenes more often. They’re that beautiful and engaging. Sadly, you’ll find yourself spending more time chasing experience than you will pursuing the story.

The combat system

You spend a great deal of your time fighting, and the more you fight, the more obvious it is that the combat system needs help.

When you fight, you may choose to control Oliver (or another party member) or one of your familiars. You can switch among these choices during combat should the need arise to use powers available to a specific character or familiar. This is the best part of the combat system, giving you the flexibility to throw the right weapon at the problem instead of fighting with a disadvantage. If you’re battling a monster that’s weak against fire, it’s easy to scroll through your party members and familiars and find the one that’s best equipped to handle that encounter. This works just fine.

Other things make combat a chore. The fights take place in real time, but each action — be it from a party member or a familiar — is on a timer, and sometimes, you find yourself wishing that this limit didn’t exist. You’re defending against an attack, and more often than not, the defense routine would end just as my foe was taking a strike at me. So of course, I suffered a blow. Your familiars are also restricted in this way; you can use them for only so long before you need to switch to another.

Your allies are also stupid. Just plain ol’ stupid. They don’t always choose the best positioning or attacks, and they love to snare glims (small balls of energy that fall from your foes as they suffer damage) that heal you or restore your mana. Your allies are especially fond of nabbing the special gold glims that unleash the most powerful attacks of your familiars. During fights against bosses, I swore more than I have while editing copy from a busy day at E3 — and in a much smaller window of time — because of my allies’ insistence on being “ballhogs.”

You may think this is a nitpicky compliant, but when you spend as much time in combat as you do in Ni No Kuni, it escalates from annoying to ball-busting.

Conclusion

Ni No Kuni is a noteworthy achievement for Studio Ghibli and Level-5. Take a master of film animation and add one of the well-regarded studios for role-playing development, and in this case, we get a video game that’s stunning to behold — one that can take players to unexpected emotional places and make them eager to push through the story to see the next brilliant cinematic.

And we also get an experience that’s a bit too rooted in old Japanese role-playing traditions.

I hope Ni No Kuni’s reception — and sales — convince Studio Ghibli that its dive into video games was worthwhile. I’d love to play another from them — as long someone there remembers that video games, like movies, need good pacing.

Score: 72/100

Ni No Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch is available now for the PlayStation 3. Publisher Namco Bandai provided GamesBeat with a copy of the game for this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Don’t call it a map pack. The Revolution downloadable content for Call of Duty: Black Ops II has more than just some new multiplayer arenas.

Activision unleashed the first add-on pack for its popular first-person modern-military shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops II today on Xbox 360 for 1,200 Genuine Microsoft Points ($14.99). Developer Treyarch titled the DLC “Revolution.” It includes four new multiplayer maps, a new Zombies mode, a new Zombies map, and a new multiplayer weapon.

If you have the $49.99 Black Ops II season pass, you can boot up the game and start downloading the content at no extra charge.

The new maps include a hydroelectric power plant in Pakistan, a skate park in California, a ski resort in the French Alps, and an oasis in the Gobi desert.

Turned, the new Zombies mode, allows players to chase after player-characters as a zombie. The expansion includes a new Zombies map called Die Rise, located in the “far east.”

Finally, Revolution adds a whole new weapon into the mix. The Peacekeeper small machine gun is a light and powerful weapon. It has a fully unlockable experience and add-on path just like any of the other guns.

Activision hasn’t said when this DLC will hit PlayStation 3 or PC, but most other add-on content in the Call of Duty series hits those platforms a month after Microsoft’s console. Expect the same with Revolution.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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No other company besides Disney could make Disney Infinity. Aside from the obvious, the amount of resources it can pull together for this upcoming platform is staggering.

Disney Infinity is essentially an open-ended Grand Theft Auto sandbox with a Minecraft/LittleBigPlanet creative component that you can use to make their own content. You can unlock new characters, items, worlds, and more by placing stylish collectible figures and chips onto a special base. And everything is wrapped in the family-friendly ethos of the Disney films and theme parks.

Infinity launches this June for PC, all major home consoles, and mobile platforms. Leading up to the summer, the House of Mouse is making a big push to establish this new brand (read: money machine). It officially unveiled Infinity this week at the classy, Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, was on hand to talk about Infinity’s emphasis on play and creativity.

I had a chance to preview the game and learn about all its different elements. I came away with one main conclusion: Regardless of how you feel about conspicuous consumption or one company owning so many different things, you must admit that something as ambitious as Disney Infinity is only possible because one conglomerate owns all this:

Walt Disney studios: It’s no coincidence that Infinity and the upcoming Monsters University film are both coming out in June — and that the game features characters and stages based on the movie. Expect this to become the norm whenever a new high-profile Disney flick comes out. Instead of having to spend two or three years making a standalone movie-game tie-in, developer Avalanche Software can just make a new set of levels and characters to expand Infinity.

Executive producer John Vignocchi explained to me that Disney hooks Avalanche up with unprecedented access to filmmakers like Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean), Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and their teams.

Talk about going to the source for authenticity.

The type of audiences that Disney commands from its motion pictures is tremendous, and now each of those viewers is a new potential customer to try an inspired interactive experience with Infinity. How many people are fans first of Spyro the Dragon and other characters from the rival Skylanders series and then get into the games second? Compared to all those for the beloved Disney franchises, not many.

Since Avalanche is able to draw from all the Disney-owned properties, what else might we see in the game? One of the add-on vehicles available at the event was the Electric Mayhem bus from The Muppets. Does this mean we might see some Marvel Avengers or Star Wars content when Disney releases those blockbusters in the following years?

“The possibilities are infinite,” Vignocchi said.

Parks and resorts: Picture the iconic Sleeping Beauty castle from Disneyland with a Finding Nemo underwater twist. Now, swap out the coral decorations for some neon-laced Tron trim. Add a constantly growing interactive world around it and you start to get the idea. These are the kind of images Disney showed us to promote some of the creative potential for players using the Minecraft-inspired level-editor Toy Box.

The theme park connection is also visible in the Play Sets. These are what Disney calls the different in-game worlds (each with mission-oriented gameplay) that players can unlock with Play Set figures. The Pirates of the Caribbean level we saw had a couple of visual references to the classic ride. As Captain Jack Sparrow rowed a boat under archways and between vessels exchanging cannon fire, I instantly thought of the Disneyland attraction. No one had to tell me. The park experience is that ingrained in me, and that can be a powerful way to connect with customers

Consumer products: “We’re all game developers,” Vignocchi said. “So while we hoped and dreamed, since the inception of Infinity back in 2010, that we’d have this line of collectible figures that went with it, none of us know how to make toys.” That’s where Disney’s massive Consumer Products division comes in. This is the group that manages the mountains of official Disney licensed stuff in stores.

They help us “identify factories that we we’re going to work with for manufacturing, make sure that we’re delivering the correct file formats to the various factories, quality assurance, working with the FCC. …” said Vignocchi.

Disney’s Imagineering and other research teams also served as consultants to the special figurine technology that Avalanche conceived of. Those teams are also helping to develop what future versions of the base reader (what you use to connect the toys up to the game) can do.

Club Penguin: With user-generated content, fans inevitably will try to make levels featuring swastikas, marijuana leafs, penises, four-letter words — you name it. Hell, some rogue Disney animators even inserted a picture of a topless woman into The Rescuers. That’s apparently the kind of thing some people will always do given creative freedom.

To keep the game environment family-friendly, Disney is bringing in some pros to vet the levels that players submit. The customer support staff from the popular online children’s game Club Penguin (which reportedly has over 30 million registered user accounts) will sort through submissions and weed out the inappropriate ones before players can download any of it for Toy Box mode.

Club Penguin is aimed at kids ages 6-14 and has been around since 2005. I cannot imagine a group of people who have more experience cleaning up online f-bombs and hate speech than the folk who work there.

Avalanche Software: A quick glance at this developer’s portfolio shows that the people there definitely know how to make solid licensed games. They’ve been crafting them since Disney acquired the studio in 2005. More intriguing is the Octane development engine that they’ve been adding to for the past 11 years.

“Right now, I know that we have well over 60 different mechanics in the game,” said Vignocchi. “Whether that’s melee combat to sword fighting to projectiles, driving … it is on par with some of the biggest games out there, like Grand Theft Auto, and it is a ‘family game.’”

This foundation is essential for Avalanche to make each Play Set feel different. The Incredibles level involves a lot of superhero fighting and robot smashing, while Monsters University is more focused on stealth to scare students from rival Fear Tech. The Pirates of the Caribbean world featured galleon customization and naval gun battles. These certainly aren’t cookie-cutter platformers. Considering how many developers treat the stable cash-in of licensed properties, it’s refreshing to see Avalanche go the distance. “As game developers,” Vignocchi said, “our mantra is, we kind of take a page out of Pixar’s book, we create games for ourselves but that are accessible to kids.”

That focus will ultimately benefit fans since the freedom in Toy Box mode turns them into game makers. In a demo video, we saw how quality assurance staff could change the camera angle to 2D for a working Donkey Kong arcade game level. Another person re-created the Bowser’s Castle race track from Mario Kart 64 that players can actually drive on. When you add in the programming logic items that enable aspiring level designers to add and chain together triggers, doors, moving platforms, and more, the potential is pretty promising. Disney plans to foster user creativity by holding themed contests.

It’s that emphasis on play and imagination that appears to ground Disney Infinity. So much of this corporate synergy is a bit mind-boggling. The business model is classic Disney (movie tie-ins, collectible trinkets and toys, and so on), but it’s the gameplay that will determine whether Infinity is just a massive cash-in or the title that could finally establish Disney Interactive as a formidable, traditional game maker.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Update: The batch of photos have vanished although Sony has confirmed that the site is indeed the official German Facebook page.

A representative at LucasArts has told GamesBeat that the Facebook post was inaccurate: “We have not confirmed any platforms yet for 1313 and do not have any announcements to make at this time.”

Original story: A batch of 31 photos have popped up on the Sony PlayStation DE Facebook page that suggests a platform and release date for the upcoming action-adventure game Star Wars 1313.

We’re currently checking with Sony and developer LucasArts to confirm whether the webpage is an official source. The description “Star Wars 1313 erscheint 2013″ translates to “Star Wars 1313 appears 2013 for PlayStation 3″ on Google Translate (click our screen capture below).

This new Star Wars tale takes players deep below the surface of Coruscant, the galactic capital that’s one huge planet in the sci-fi franchise’s universe, to the criminal underground called Level 1313.

If the Facebook update is true, the exclusivity to the PS3 is interesting since the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed games are multiplatform. The Walt Disney Company recently purchased the rights to Star Wars — and LucasArts — with its acquisition of Lucasfilm in October last year.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Even if we haven’t wanted to admit it, we’ve all known for quite some time that the days of abundant Japanese console role-playing games are behind us. If you’re like me, you kinda secretly hoped a few breakout titles would swoop in and save us from this seven-year drought we’ve been living through.

I believe we will see the number of high-quality JRPGs on major consoles continue to decrease as this generation comes to a close and the next one begins. We must accept this reality if we’re to make peace with the void that’s been left since the PlayStation 2 generation ended. Developers and publishers have tried to make JRPGs work in recent years but have found the task difficult. They’ve tried and often failed to deliver deep, engaging gameplay while attempting to create audio-visual blockbusters. Some have seen significant success; however, that has often come at the expense of the traits that made us fall in love with JRPGs in the first place.

It has to be damn tough for a publisher to ignore the financial successes of the Call of Duty and The Elder Scrolls series. Interestingly enough, the elements that make these two killer franchises so addictive are the very same components that originally made JRPGs so wonderful. I’m of course talking about exploration and leveling as well as developing and customizing characters. Hell, even Madden NFL let you do this in excellent ways until Madden NFL 13 came and ruined everything. If these elements have made games in other genres so great, why have JRPGs been forced to live out the rest of their existence on mobile devices and handheld consoles?

The iOS port of Final Fantasy IV marks the game’s seventh release in the U.S. since its original drop on Super Nintendo. Three of those drops have been on mobile devices, one was a PlayStation title, and the other was a Wii Virtual Console release. Why can’t this game find an audience on Xbox Live Arcade? I was told by what surely had to be a gaming industry expert on Reddit that “dudebros don’t play RPGs; that’s why you haven’t seen them ported over to XBLA.” Given the success of the Xbox 360 in the U.S. and the fact that most of the 50 or so friends I have on Xbox Live are not whatever the hell a “dudebro” is, I have to believe there’s a large enough market to make a Final Fantasy IV port on the platform at least a measurable success. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the dudebros and Microsoft’s issues with Japanese publishers and the Japanese market in general are enough cause for concern to publishers like Square Enix. Maybe that’s why Final Fantasy XIII and all it’s weird spin-off children are more interactive movies and convoluted storytellers than expansive JRPGs with loveable characters and memorable plots.

What did we major-console players do this generation to piss you off, Japan? Whatever it was, I apologize on behalf of the lot of us.

But I have to ask … .

Was it the sales of early entries like Enchanted Arms, Blue Dragon, and Eternal Sonata that put you on the path to believing the genre might not work on 360 or next-gen at large? If so, I have to remind you that sometimes sales numbers come to light because the product is shit. None of these games were horrible by themselves. However, I’d agree to run buck-naked down I-95-South if you could manage to convince any significant number of gamers that these titles could even sit in the same room with the likes of Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, or Star Ocean: The Second Story. My point is that developers tried to set the JRPG tone for this generation with shitty games compared to what most of us had experienced in generations past. But as loyal as we are, some of us still bought these mofos to support you guys.

Or maybe it was Sakaguchi-san’s Lost Odyssey not pushing enough units here in the States that set Japan off. Heaven forbid the master of all things JRPG sell under a million. As decent as Lost Odyssey was, it still does not measure up to what many of us consider to be the greatest of its kind. At that point in the generation’s lifecycle, we were two years in without a system-selling JRPG.

As a matter of fact, I would argue that the U.S. did not see a system-selling JRPG until August 26, 2008. I not only think was Tales of Vesperia our first, but also have adamantly argued that it’s the best semitraditional JRPG this generation. However, if I have the story right, Microsoft cut a deal with Namco Bandai to make Tales of Vesperia a temporary exclusive on Xbox 360. So Namco Bandai dropped an extremely niche if excellent JRPG on a system that had already racked up several (arguable) losses in the JRPG sales category with no marketing to speak of. So is it our fault, Japan, that you sold less units than you would have liked? If your answer is no, you sure had a funny way of showing it since the PlayStation 3 version never came out here in the States. The roughly 270K-plus sales in the States shouldn’t really be seen as a failure since it accounts for half the sales of the best-selling Tales game ever, Symphonia. Not too shabby for a system monopolized by dudebros, right?

So at this point in the story, PS3 was on the scene. Less than three months after Vesperia’s release, we saw a little gem called Valkyria Chronicles. I’ve never played this game, but I’ve heard many a gamer rave about its awesomeness. VGChartz shows it sold just under 700K units. So maybe this was the great white hope we were all waiting for — the game that would prove developers could create a JRPG this generation and have it sell well at the video game box office. Unfortunately, while PS3 owners were basking in the glow of a great JRPG, 360 owners were watching Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant flop in the sales department.

It was no coincidence that this generation’s Star Ocean was subtitled The Last Hope. It’s almost as if Japan was telling us, “This is it, America! If this one doesn’t win you over, you’re basically assed out and destined to have Square Enix pimp you with a gang of bastardized Final Fantasy titles.” Yes, I’m being overly dramatic, but damn if that’s not how things have been going for the most part in recent years. Star Ocean: The Last Hope swooped in and took home just under 500K units sold across both platforms in the U.S. Again, not bad for a JRPG in the States.

Besides the lousy launch JRPGs, I believe Japan made another crucial mistake in their approach to this generation. JRPG publishers had their developers focus too heavily on visual presentation. Given the small profit margins of JRPGs, with budget and time constraints, I believe that focus cost us a great deal in the gameplay department. I don’t know of a single JRPG that’s been nominated for the proverbial greatest-of-all-time award because of its graphics. While some of them are beautiful in their own ways, what earned them their stripes was their excellent gameplay. The magic lied in deep leveling and customization systems, gripping plots, and worlds large enough to get lost in. That, my friend, is what made and what still makes our best RPGs the best.

This focus on HD visuals and “epic” presentations caused you Japanese developers to lose sight of why we loved you in the first place. I love The Elder Scrolls. But I love her for different reasons than I loved your games, Japan. And truth be told, it’s because of you that I was ever able to love The Elder Scrolls in the first place. So stop trying to mix her photorealistic graphics into the formula that already makes you beautiful. And that’s not to say you can’t mix it up. I love Dark Souls, and I heard Dragon’s Dogma was actually pretty dope. But don’t completely leave your roots behind while chasing the latest hotness. Side note: You really could take a lesson from The Elder Scrolls and stop producing games with effing save points though, Japan. If you want to copy anything Western developers got right, please make save-anywhere systems the new norm.

I know some of the moves you’ve made were appropriate given the market shift to handheld gaming in Japan. However, I also believe you let your early failures this generation convince you that we Americans wanted you to start following hot trends. That’s where you dropped the ball. That said, isn’t it funny how all these retro games with old-school graphics and nostalgic sounds are the cat’s pajamas right now? Remember when you used to make games like that?

Oh, wait! You still do make games like that, Japan. Unfortunately for me, I don’t want to play games on a mobile device. So I guess I’m destined to play bastardized Final Fantasies (because let’s face it, Versus XIII is never coming out), and occasionally you may throw us a Ni no Kuni or Dark Souls bone. But it’s like I said earlier: the days of having too many great JRPGs to play on our major consoles are gone. I’ve accepted this reality.

If you are reading this, fellow American gamer, I advise you to do the same.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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First of all, I wish to address something all the naysayers seem to be using as ammo against this game: the IGN review. IGN gave it a 4.0 out of 10. That is not good. But the main reasons cited by the reviewer for the low score were technical issues such as framerate, screen tearing, and “game-breaking” glitches. The version of the game that IGN and most other early reviewers played was an early version that has since been patched. I never had to restart my game in either of my playthroughs because of glitches or freezing. The framerate lags and screen tearing are still present, but honestly, it’s not a deal breaker. It’s the same problem that for some reason gets overlooked or ignored in lots of triple-A, big-budget titles (take Skyrim, for example).

I also hear complaints that the puzzles are too easy or not intuitive enough. There were a few times where I felt like the puzzles were not as challenging as they could have been, but while I was playing the game, it didn’t really bother me. I was in Quico’s world — his childlike imagination. So what if the next key I had to turn or the next cog I had to push was obvious? It was still fun. Remember fun? Remember having a nonjaded gamer’s mind, when you entered new experiences without judging them against other games? Yeah, me too.

Third, some people say that the game is “pretentious.” I’m not entirely sure how. Sure, it’s doing something unprecedented in that it is something of a nonfiction game, but it does this in a quiet way. Creator Vander Caballero has said time and again that he wanted to use video games to tell his story — a story about growing up with a monster in his family. Sure, there are lots of other emotional and meaningful games out there these days. Journey comes to mind first. And sure, its metaphors may not be as heavy-handed, but P&Y is different because it’s autobiographical. I can’t remember the last time I played a game that put me in the shoes of its creator as a frightened child. Can you? P&Y is unique in that it is the first time that I, a 30-year-old gaming vet, have ever encountered a game that let me play through someone else’s — a real human being’s — childhood.

OK. There’s got to be more to this, right? Correct. This is probably the main reason why P&Y means so much to me: I grew up with a drug addict father. He is still a drug addict. There were a few moments in P&Y where I knew exactly what Quico was feeling, and it broke my heart. My relationship with my father hurt me so much as a kid that I even cried at the end of Final Fantasy X, when Tidus — with tears in his eyes — finally tells his father he hates him. So you can imagine how I felt at the end of P&Y.

This is something that not everyone playing the game is going to relate to, and that’s fine. I know that. I think Vander Caballero knows that, too. But I also think that he realizes there are people like me out there who grew up with abusive or negligent parents who will play P&Y– who will really be moved and understand that they are not alone. Is that pretentious? I don’t think that Caballero or anyone else at Minority Media ever said that they were the first to make an emotional, symbolic game. But for me, at least, the developers are the first to ever make me feel like I’m not the only person who went through his childhood afraid.

So at the end of the day, P&Y is my choice for GotY. It’s fun, full of wonder, and emotional, and it does something brave in allowing players to experience a bit of Caballero’s childhood. The music is excellent, and the visuals are something out of a dream. It is not a perfect game — there are a few frustrating moments and graphical hiccups, but they’re nothing that will sour the experience. Some may say that choosing a PlayStation Network-exclusive title for my GotY is like picking a short film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, but I disagree. P&Y’s brevity lends itself to replay value. Its length makes it feel all the more like a child’s dream. And there was not a single “triple-A,” big-budget, $60, 25-plus hour game released last year that made me feel anything like what P&Y did.

Caballero says in this diary that he just wanted to make the game to tell his story. I think he succeeded. Here’s looking forward to your next game, mate. Hopefully, more people will see the beauty in it.

One last note: The music is brilliant. Brian D’Oliveira played every instrument live during its recording. Minority Media has made the soundtrack available via the PSN store, so check it out!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Scoring a Nintendo Wii U console for lower than retail price with a few extra games sounds like a Black Friday sale. That’s not the case, these reports are true. According to a NeoGAF thread spotted by Eurogamer, a person can buy a used Wii U and download the previous owner’s digital games.

This is an unforeseen issue that results from the games being tied to a specific console instead of the person and their Nintendo Network account. Sony and Microsoft tie digital game purchases to user accounts. This means that when a user wipes their system clean, they delete all data and games. That person can buy a new Xbox or PlayStation 3 and redownload their old purchases.

If NeoGAF posts are accurate, the opposite is true of Nintendo’s system. This means that currently, Wii U games purchased digitally cannot be transferred to a new console. This is fact GamesBeat confirmed through Nintendo’s support page:

I know games can be transferred from a Wii to a Wii U, but how about from a Wii U to a Wii U?

• Transferring data from one Wii U to another Wii U is not supported at this time. However, we are looking into this feature and will provide an update if there is anything to report.

That’s right, folks,you could be giving away a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U with that Wii U you traded in at GameStop.

We contacted Nintendo, and a representative told us that the company is looking into it and will get back to us when more information is available.

We have also reached out to GameStop for comment.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Sony reached a new deal with streaming video service Epix that will bring the network’s library of movies to both PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, the company announced today via the PlayStation blog.

Epix provides tons of relatively new movies (about 90 days after they release on DVD) like The Avengers, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, The Hunger Games, and more. You may remember hearing about Epix when the service signed licensing deals with major streaming video services Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video — meaning if you subscribe to either of those services, you already have access to the Epix movie library. And now, anyone who already subscribes to a movie package through their cable or satellite TV service can access it on the PlayStation Network.

This is a good move for Sony’s PlayStation 3 and one that will allow it to remain competitive with Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which currently doesn’t support Epix.

The PS3 Epix app will be available for free via PSN soon with a PS Vita app to follow later in the spring, according to the blog post.