Filed under: Gaming

And so we've come full circle. After accurately predicting that $100 PS3 price drop a few weeks back, Circuit City is back in the rumor game with a flyer that seems to confirm the $50 price cut for the Xbox 360, and even tosses in some info on price breaks for the Elite and Core systems. According to the flyer, on August 12th the 360 Premium will dip to $350, and include a copy of Rockstar's "Table Tennis," while the Elite will raid your wallet for $450 -- a $30 reduction -- and include zero free games. Finally, the Xbox 360 Core will get $20 lopped off, and sell for $280, which might be the end of the road for the stripped down console once stock runs out.

[Thanks, Sam] 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Eidos U.S. CEO Bill Gardner has said that while he doesn't believe that the price of Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console is too high, he also believes that the recent US 100 price cut for the console will not be able to draw as big a part of the mass market as Sony hopes.

"I don't think [the price cut] is enough to reach the mass consumer," said Gardner in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, "but I think it is enough to get it moving again, and it will move a little bit further, and they'll need to do it again and it will move a bit further."

Gardner also emphasized the PS3's value thanks to the console's built-in Blu-ray player. "Go buy an HD or a Blu-ray player. Go ahead. Tell me what it costs you. Then take a look at the PS3," he said. Gardner also said that he thinks "additional people [will] pick it up and use it, maybe not necessarily exclusively as a game player but as a Blu-ray player and a game player, and there is an advantage to that."

For th...

Codemasters has denied rumors that its recently-released PC and Xbox 360 title Overlord will be ported to the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console. This according to European video game news site Eurogamer.

The rumors surfaced due to a job listing spotted on the website of Overlord developer Triumph Studios. The job posting advertised for somebody who could handle porting Xbox 360 and PC code base to PS3.

There is no word yet on what exactly Triumph is planning to port to the PS3. The most recent title on the Triumph website apart from Overlord is Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. The latter was first released four years ago.

EB Games is currently taking pre-orders for Sony's behemoth 80GB PlayStation 3 model. And if we are to believe the recent listing found on the retail chain's online site, consumers should be getting it starting tomorrow, August 1. It comes with MotorStorm, aside from the now-standard five free Blu-ray movies.

Consumers should take note that these new SKUs don't come with the Emotion Engine so those who are planning to buy it will encounter problems with backwards compatibility. Despite that, it should be remembered as well that Sony has promised to come up with a software solution to this in the future.

Furthermore, EB Games cautioned that it is possible to have one or two-day turnaround time for initial deliveries that will cause some delays. The new SKU is priced for US 599.99. We know a lot of you currently own PS3 units right now. Anybody planning to buy a new one?

Interested parties may place pre-orders to EB Games by clicking our Read link below....

Codemasters has circulated a press release announcing that Colin McRae: DIRT (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) will be hitting the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console this September. There's also a video focusing on the game's damage elements which you can check out below.

Colin McRae: DIRT's damage system is powered by Codemasters' proprietary engine, Neon. It gives some pretty detailed vehicle and environment damage effects, and the soft body damage system replicates perfect deformation on any vehicle from any impact.

Each individual car in the game is also modelled to a fine degree of accuracy. Each car has specific weak points and strengths, ensuring that they will break, bend, warp and disintegrate realistically and in fantastic detail. Anyway, check out the vid. It also comes with commentary from DIRT producer Alex Grimbley.

1. PS3 Price Going Back To $599 Only news.com, yahoo.com, IGN, and other news sites all “confirmed” that the PS3 will sell at $599 price after the 60GB models sell out. Of course, Sony didn’t say this. They did say the 60GB hardware variant is being phased out and they are moving to a single SKU approach. [...]

Much like Clive Barker, Codemasters and Mercury Steam certainly know how to grab a person's attention and keep it. We recently found a new promotional video for Clive Barker's Jericho (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) over at IGN, and it managed to ask an important question: WHY do we need an occult warfare department anyway?

Needless to say, this minute-long clip answers that question by interspersing real actors and similarly real-looking events of pyrokinesis, exorcism, and telekinesis with in-game footage. What is the answer to the question posed above you might wonder... it's simple really.

Someone has to kill those supernatural monstrosities, and who better to do it than people endowed with their own supernatural gifts? In any case, view the short trailer and see the light (so to speak) for yourself.

Despite the Cell processor being a joint venture of Sony, Toshiba and IBM, Sony is taking the fall in a lawsuit by Parallel Processing Corporation. PPC filed a patent back in 1991 for "synchronised parallel processing with shared memory,"which they claim Sony has broken with the use of the Cell processor in PS3s. But the PPC is not only asking for money, but the "impounding and destruction" of all infringing units (we're guessing just Sony's stock).
While it's difficult to believe that three major corporations could violate a patent after so much time and investment in the Cell, Sony was forced to pay big bucks to Immersion for their rumble technology used in PS2 controllers (since absent in the PS3's SIXAXIS). If PPC has a legitimate claim, expect the PS3 to become even less profitable for Sony. [gamespot]

PSM3 has a preview of Assassins Creed which has been posted on the C&VG website. The gist of the preview is that it could be a flawed classic let down by fiddly controls and a dodgy camera. It seems as though the controls will change depending on the situation you find yourself in: It pays [...]

Virtua Fighter enthusiasts know why the PlayStation 3 version of the video game Virtua Fighter 5 lacked online gameplay: lag problems hamper Virtua Fighter's combat system. An interview with Sega's Scott Steinberg though revealed another reason for the dismal lack of online fun.

According to Steinberg, Sega wanted to release the Virtua Fighter 5 PS3 SKU within the PS3's launch window, leaving out the online multiplayer that the Xbox 360 version enjoyed.

Certainly not a delightful news for PlayStation 3 owners. When asked why the Xbox 360 got the online multiplayer option despite the lag problems that also plagued the PS3 SKU, Steinberg said that AM2 - also known as Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2 - felt that they can do online gaming with the 360, and managed to come up with online multiplayer with almost unnoticeable lag. He continued:

I think they felt like, "hey, let s surprise the world" (referring to AM2). That s how it al...