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Sony Cambridge concept artist shows work from failed pitches
Artist Jason Wilson was a concept artist at Sony's Cambridge studio (before it was folded into Guerilla Games earlier this year). Over on his personal portfolio blog, he's shared a few concept pieces for various pitches put together by the studio on projects that never got made. Simian is the first title he describes: It was an early iteration of what would become Sony's EyePet, with a more alien and mature "adventure game set on a strange alien jungle planet."Wilson also talks about a first-person shooter named Revolution 4 that portrayed a War of the Worlds-style alien invasion in the middle of modern London (but which later was canceled in favor of Resistance: Fall of Man), as well as a first-person survival horror game named Manhattan, featuring frenzied zombies as opponents, and some strategy elements in terms of clearing checkpoints and saving survivors.Finally, Wilson posts art from a third-person assassin action game called Zodiac Assassin, which featured a world-traveling female protagonist and some exotic settings. Again, Heavenly Sword was also in progress at Sony at the time, and the company decided in favor of that game rather than the one Wilson was pitching at Cambridge. It's quite a menu Wilson lays out here, and for dishes we'll never get to eat.
Sony ships EyePet for PSP, complete with camera
Looking for a pinch of adorable, a taste of augmented reality and a shiny new peripheral for your PSP? Look no further, mate. Sony's EyePet title is now shipping in the US of A, and a required camera will come bundled in with each UMD. Amazon and friends have it listed for $39.99, and if you're hoping to avoid the otherwise unavoidable "sold out forever" sign during the final week of December, we'd recommend getting that order in now. Oh, and PSPgo owners need not apply -- this one's too cute for NAND.
EyePet PlayStation Move bundle at Toys R Us
Sony's virtual Monchichi will be available at Toys R Us in a Move EyePet Bundle. The $100 kit includes fuzzy companion simulator EyePet, a PlayStation Eye Camera and PlayStation Move Motion Controller. The bundle will be available in TRU stores and online starting September 24. Also, if you've got the cash to burn, remember that EyePet also supports 3D -- and assists in the war against puppies.
Watch your back, puppies: Kevin Butler talks up EyePet
Sony faux-spokesman Kevin Butler's no stranger to talking smack about competitors -- though, for the life of us, we never expected him to turn his scornful eye upon infant dogs. Check out the US commercial for EyePet after the jump as we await a rebuttal from the dog people of the world.
PlayStation Move review: The launch games
Once you get past that initial thrill of opening the packaging, setting it up and toying around with its settings, any platform is only as good – and as fun – as the games available for it. With the launch of PlayStation Move, the lineup of what's on offer is relatively limited and, as the hardware's all about getting people to, er move around, focuses on sports and party games, with a couple of notable exceptions. Those would be EyePet, Kung Fu Rider and Tumble, all from Sony, with Tumble being a PSN game. EyePet is a virtual pet "game" that's been available as a PS Eye title in Europe for some time and has been reworked to incorporate Move. While charming, it falls under the category of a kid's title (though I've no doubt some adults will find it fun) and it won't be subject to review here; instead I'll be focusing on the more "core" games in the following pages. As for Kung Fu Rider, it's an odd creation out of SCE Studios Japan. That leaves us with Sports Champions and Racquet Sports from Sony and Ubisoft, respectively. Sports Champions comes bundled with the $100 Move starter kit and the PS3 Move system bundle, but is also available separately ($40) for those who decide to buy their Move setups piecemeal. With that out of the way – and without any further ado – it's on with the reviews: Kung Fu Rider | Racquet Sports | Sports Champions Start the Party | Tumble
PlayStation Move review
The PlayStation Move. It's funny to think just 15 months have passed since Sony first unveiled its motion controller, and now we're mere weeks away from hitting the retail market. To be sure, it's not like the company didn't have waggle on the mind already -- patents dating as far back as 2005 reveal as much, and of course the incredible success of Nintendo's Wii proved there's a market for more physically exerting gameplay. And it's not just PlayStation; Microsoft's got its controller-free Kinect motion camera system coming this November. So, in the year where all major game consoles now ask you to get off the couch and earn arm muscle, how does Move fare? Read on for more!
PlayStation Move Starter Pack includes nine demos in the UK
The PlayStation Move is set to launch in the US on September 19 alongside several bundles. The Starter Pack -- a $99 bundle including one PlayStation Move controller, a PlayStation Eye camera and a copy of Sports Champions -- is apparently going to be a bit different when it launches in the UK on September 15. MCV reports that the UK Starter Pack won't include a full copy of Sports Champions, instead giving gamers a taste of nine different titles. The nine demos included in the package include snippets of six retail Move titles: Sports Champions, Start the Party, The Shoot, EyePet: Move Edition, TV Superstars and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. The remaining three demos will be for PSN games: Echochrome 2, Tumble and Beat Sketchers. In the UK, the Starter Pack will have a suggested retail value of £49.99.
EyePet PSP and Invizimals may not support PSP Go in North America
The upcoming camera-enabled launches of EyePet and Invizimals in North America may not be available to PSP Go owners at all. PlayStation.Blog's Sid Shuman accurately admits that the upcoming PSP camera was "designed for pre-Go models only," and the "current camera will only fit onto the larger PSP model." Shuman suggests there are "no workarounds," suggesting he has forgotten about the rarely-seen PSP Go "converter cable," introduced at Tokyo Game Show last year. Whether or not the attachment will ever find a Stateside release is still up in the air. "We don't have any information yet on a peripheral attachment for the Go," a Sony rep told us, neither confirming nor denying the possibility. Of course, should SCEA choose not to ship the cables, there's another solution: importing from Japan.%Gallery-73857%
Ape Escape joins Japan's 2010 PlayStation Move launch library
We haven't seen much (or anything) of Ape Escape's first foray onto PS3 since it was announced at Tokyo Game Show last year. However, a new announcement video (after the break) showcases the first few seconds of footage of the Move-exclusive game. Furi Furi! Sarugetchu, as it will be called in Japan, joins a relatively small line-up of games launching this year for the PlayStation motion controller in Japan. In fact, only six games are planned for release on the hardware's October 21 launch date: EyePet (SCEJ, ¥3,980) Sports Champion (SCEJ, ¥3,980) Beat Sketch (SCEJ, ¥2,980) Fure! Fure! Bowling (aka High Velocity Bowling, SCEJ, ¥1,900) Machi Suberi (aka Kung Fu Rider, SCEJ, ¥3,980) Big 3 Gun Shooting (Namco Bandai, ¥6,279)
Visual overload: Sony's E3 PlayStation Move lineup
PlayStation Move is essentially a brand new platform for Sony. While many of the motion-sensing launch games for the new PS3 controller are "Wii HD" titles, there are a few noteworthy additions, including echochrome 2, Heroes on the Move and a Move edition of Heavy Rain. Check out trailers for all of Sony's first-party Move titles after the break.
EyePet Move Edition ... now in 3D!
EyePet may have been delayed a year for its North American debut, but it's become a far more advanced game since its original release (at least technically). High tech families equipped with a super-fancy 3DTV will not only play the game with the Move motion controller, but with newly added 3D support as well. Whereas implementing support for Sony's motion controller added about nine months of development time to London Studios' pet simulator, 3D took about a month to implement. Unlike many other games, very little detail has been sacrificed to produce the 3D effect. The character model has been largely untouched, although some of the props have received some tweaks. (Other games drop the polygon count or texture resolution to achieve the demanding technical requirements necessary for 3D.) Most families won't experience EyePet in 3D, an unfortunate reality of the formats infancy. "The switch to 3D won't happen overnight but we're very proud to be pushing the first family titles in 3D, including Eyepet," a Sony rep told us. However, EyePet's implementation of 3D is some of the best we've experienced from Sony. Instead of focusing on flashy effects, there are a number of subtle implementations. The best part of the demo was washing the EyePet. Over time, steam appears on what appears to be virtual glass. The steam builds up slowly over time, and the slow drops of water that roll down are incredibly believable in 3D. Does it change the game? No. But did it look cool? Absolutely.%Gallery-95463%
Interview: EyePet's Nicolas Doucet discusses Move integration
We were starting to worry that SCEA had forgotten about EyePet when its planned holiday 2009 release came and went. Sony's Eye-enabled virtual pet simulator made a surprising reemergence recently, now featuring PlayStation Move support. We chatted with EyePet producer Nicolas Doucet about implementing Sony's motion controller into the game, and what that means for gamers, new and old. By removing the Magic Card, and replacing it with motion controls, isn't this new version of EyePet, essentially, a brand new game? Especially for North America and Japan, as well. It's going to be the first release, so yeah it's a brand new game. We've really made a lot of effort to make sure that whatever we converted from the Magic Card for the Move wasn't just a port. We deconstructed and reconstructed things to really make it feel like a Move-dedicated game. Obviously, to begin with it wasn't. We put a lot of effort into that. We've extended the development by another nine months to really give something special to players. Will it be a PlayStation Move launch title? Yes it will be, this Fall. %Gallery-88229%
The PlayStation Move games (we know of)
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/playstation/The_PlayStation_Move_games_we_know_of_Joystiq'; According to the block of info posted on European PlayStation Blog, there are a lot more PlayStation Move games out there to be seen than tonight's press release let on. Beyond the already revealed support for Move in SOCOM 4, LittleBigPlanet and EyePet, a whole mess of games were shown off at Sony's GDC event, from Move Party (um, a party game) to Slider (Mirror's Edge meets Pain?) to a Western shooter in The Shoot. (We've dropped a screen of Sports Champion above -- a game we think looks particularly fantastic.) Oh, and the Euro Blog's mention of "DUKES" is just another name for that Motion Fighter game, which was mentioned onstage during this evening's press event -- so cool your heels and put the Jump to Conclusion mat back away. (We do rather like the name "Dukes," we'll admit; though we've been told it's a regional thing, and us North Americans are likely stuck with "Motion Fighter" instead.) We've yet to confirm which studios are developing which games, but you can be sure we'll ask Sony just as soon as we can. Here's the complete list of PlayStation Move titles that we know of, though, for now: Sports Champion The Shoot Slider TV Superstars Move Party Motion Fighter
EyePet to support PlayStation Move, hits North America holiday 2010
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/playstation/EyePet_supports_PlayStation_Move_US_release_this_holiday'; Sony announced during its GDC 2010 press conference that the upcoming US release of EyePet will feature support for its motion controller, PlayStation Move. The game will allow players to manipulate toys and also play games with their EyePets. Furthermore, it's even possible to create new toys. The promotional video during the event showed off a child using the Move to draw a car on some virtual paper, which then jumped off the page and became an object that players and the EyePet could then interact with. In addition, Sony announced that EyePet is slated for a North American release this holiday. There was no mention of what will happen to the European version of the game, which was released last year. Presumably, Move support will be added once the peripheral launches.
European PSN releases for October 29
Don't call it a comeback! Well, okay, call it a comeback if you must -- after last week's sorry showing, the European PSN releases from this week are fairly phenomenal. There's a pair of demos for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, new content for DJ Hero, EyePet and PAIN, as well as the full version of LocoRoco Midnight Carnival. Check after the jump for the full list! Choose your platform to view the corresponding release list: (Note: Continue past the break to view both release lists.)
EyePet won't see a holiday release in the US
"EyePet is now out of holiday," a SCEA representative told us rather succinctly, confirming an initial report from Gamervision. The PlayStation Eye-enabled virtual pet has been stealthily pushed out from its planned November release into the increasingly crowded waters of 2010. SCEA explains that its marketing team "will spend additional time to continue educating consumers and retail channels, setting the table for a successful product launch." Essentially, not enough people are excited about EyePet yet for it to warrant a holiday release.Initial plans had EyePet releasing in two varieties: alone; and bundled with the camera. However, considering another big Sony product -- also coming in early 2010 -- requires use of the Eye, Sony may pursue a completely different marketing plan altogether.
13 PS3 motion control games confirmed for next year, motion-enhanced Biohazard 5 coming Spring 2010
Sure, the company's Tokyo Game Show keynote was a bit of a bore, but in a second press conference for Japanese media, Sony did what it could to make up for it by revealing Biohazard 5: Alternative Edition, the first PS3 title we've heard of to support the new motion controllers -- and better still, it's due out Spring 2010. Also confirmed is the existence of 13 first-party titles with motion support coming at some point next year, including Pain, EyePet and Flower. Both Biohazard 5 (known in the US as Resident Evil 5) and a LittleBigPlanet tech demo were shown on stage, and pics from the announcement are being uploaded now, so stay tuned! Update: Some new details of the LittleBigPlanet motion control demo from our friend Ittousai of Engadget Japan. In the presentation, one player was playing the normal way via DualShock while a second person was "assisting" by means of the motion control.
EyePet making your coffee table more adorable Nov. 17
Finally, we can attach a date to the exact moment kids across the world can stop begging for real-life, responsibility-mandating pets, and can instead fall in love with their virtual, responsibility-free counterparts. That is to say, we know the release date for Sony's EyePet -- it's set to drop November 17 in the States. If you've got a PlayStation Eye already, you can pick up the core game for $39.99 -- though an Eye-equipped bundle is also coming for $59.99.For a quick breakdown of what EyePet is all about, check out the recent PlayStation.Blog video posted after the break. Here's a quick summary: It's like Seaman, only way less creepy, and with a Monkey-esque thing instead of a Man-Fish, and also the Monkey-thing will never learn to speak and question you about your sex life. We hope.
EyePet bundled with camera for 50 euros
Those looking to introduce a pet into the household without worrying about all the feeding, grooming, and post-pee castigation will be pleased to hear that Sony has announced a European bundle deal for its inescapably adorable EyePet game. While the company has confirmed that the camera-enabled carefest will arrive in North America this year, it has yet to establish a price for that region. EyePet will launch for €49.99 (roughly $70), camera included, in Europe this holiday. We'll let you know as soon as we hear more or if we somehow manage to use the phrase "post-pee castigation" ever again.Update: Retailers are currently accepting pre-orders for the standalone game (sans PlayStation Eye camera), with a UK price set at £19.99.
Amazon.co.uk unveils EyePet box, bursting with cuteness
Our love for EyePet should be clear. Why? Not only does it take advantage of the Eye in unique and innovative ways, it is absolutely adorable. It looks like London Studios, responsible for SingStar, has another casual hit on its hands. European retailer amazon.co.uk has posted what looks like the official box art for EyePet, and it looks oh-so-inviting. The titular mascot has its paws pressed against the box, beckoning for you to play with it.Kotaku also points out that the box for this upcoming PS3 game looks rather different from other PS3 titles. Notice the lack of the PS3 banner on the left-hand side? The PlayStation Network is prominently featured, but were it not for the PS3 logo stitch atop the clear plastic, you'd be hard-pressed into noticing it was even for the PS3. Is this a subtle marketing change on SCEE's part, or is it something the online retailer is doing for what could be placeholder art?
