Console gaming news: Sony, Halo and Wii

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Thursday, 02 November 2006

Sony urges consumers to be wary of PS3 scams, the Halo movie is officially postponed, and the Nintendo Wii to launch with 62 games by year’s end.

Sony has released a warning to US consumers to be wary of ordering PS3 consoles from pre-order sites which have no official affiliation with the Japanese electronics maker. With relatively limited availability of the console in the US from November 17 onwards, scammers have been trying to extract consumers dollars by promising access to consoles that will likely never arrive.

Sony has advised that consumers either pre-order consoles from established retail chains or to purchase in stores after the date of release, although given that pre-orders from selected stores in the US sold out quickly, it’s understandable that some will try anything to secure a PS3 for the holiday season.

In PS3 and Xbox 360 related news, an online report suggests that both consoles are more-or-less equally matched in power, with the PS3 having more processing power, but less onboard memory to take advantage of it, while the Xbox 360 has more memory, allowing developers to do more. In less than three weeks time, we'll be able to see for ourselves as the first PS3's and their games reach consumers and the user reviews start appearing all over the Internet.

In Microsoft news, the planned Halo movie, originally due for 2008, has been through a tumultuous time. With the help of Peter Jackson, famous for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Halo movie was set to take the best-selling video game to the silver screen.

But last week the wheels started to fall off the wagon as Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox decided to pull out of the deal, withdrawing their financial backing. Microsoft immediately countered by indicating it would fund the movie itself, and all seemed well in the Halo world once more.

Unfortunately the latest news is that Peter Jackson and Microsoft have decided to postpone the movie for now. No specific date has been set for the movie to re-start production, although indications are that Microsoft still wants the movie to be made.

Finally, the Nintendo Wii is set to have 62 games available by year’s end, with 32 new titles, and 30 classic titles from Nintendo’s massive archive of older games. Brand new Wii titles due for release Zelda, Need for Speed: Carbon, Call of Duty 3, Rampage: Total Destruction, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Creature from Krusty Krab, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam and many more.

The Wii to be released in Japan is also slated to come with DVD playback capabilities, although this is said to be a Japan-only feature at this stage, as adding DVD playback lifts the price of the console, and DVD players are inexpensive and already in wide use in homes.

Quite why the Japanese need their Wii to play DVDs is questionable, as Japan is one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth and would have massive DVD player penetration.

HD DVD recorders are already on sale in Japan, so the Wii/DVD/Japan connection is definitely an odd one, especially considering it adds to the manufacturing cost at a time when console makers dearly wish they could make more profit on every sale of console hardware.
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