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Silent Hill: Homecoming's Australian edits detailed
We reported last week that Silent Hill: Homecoming was finally classified by Australia's OFLC after having been refused classification when it was first submitted last year. It was reported that changes had to be made to the game in order to be classified MA15+, the highest classification offered to video games by the OFLC. Now, thanks to Edge, we know the nature of those changes. Atari, which will distribute the game Down Under, told Edge that the majority of the changes are being made to the game's cutscenes, in which "new camera angles and techniques will be used to reduce the impact of the unclassifiable material." At least some of the "unclassifiable" material, if you'd like to know, was related to the improper and grisly use of a power drill. Atari assures Edge that the changes only apply to "some scenes" and that "the original storyline remains unchanged."Keep in mind that the wording of the article implies that some changes may have been made to actual gameplay, though the nature of any such changes is unclear. Meanwhile, Atari stated that the New Zealand version of the title has received an R rating and that it will not receive any edits.[Via Joystiq]
PAL regions joining World of Goo tomorrow
We called it, and now those lovely 2D Boys have confirmed it: World of Goo will be rocking Europe, Australia, and New Zealand's WiiWare service this coming Friday, a.k.a. tomorrow! Eeee!You may recall that the puzzler endured a rocky road leading up to its Euro/Aussie debut. At one point, plans were afoot to launch the PAL version in something known in the olden days as a "box." Fortunately, the outcry over that decision caused 2D Boy pair Ron and Kyle to opt for a WiiWare release, and we'll be reaping the benefits of that noble decision in just a few hours!See also: 2D Boy reflecting on World of Goo's success with insignificant, meaningless us!%Gallery-16000%
Hyundai brings AH-3110 satellite / OTA HD DVR to New Zealand
Barely a week after the MyFreeview HD emerges, in swoops some competition to keep things level. Hailed as New Zealand's first combo satellite / terrestrial HD personal video recorder, the Hyundai AH-3110 enables users to record Freeview or Freeview HD (sat or OTA) content with full EIT EPG support. Oddly, the box doesn't come with an HDD within, so you'll be required to connect your own hard drive via USB 2.0. You'll find an HDMI port, seven-day EPG, MPEG-2/4 compatibility and component / S-Video / S/PDIF sockets. The good news? It's slated to ship on December 15th. The bad? It's NZ$579 ($319 in US bucks), and remember, that's without an internal hard drive.[Via DTVForum]
MyFreeview HD recorder heading to New Zealand
The Freeview service (or the HD aspect, at least) isn't having the easiest time gaining traction in New Zealand, but we're elated to see that there's enough dedication to the service to create this. As of December 11th, Freeview HD viewers in the country will be able to snap up a MyFreeview HD recorder, which holds a whopping 80-hours of HD footage or up to 240-hours of high-def content. It utilizes an eight-day EPG and contains twin tuners for watching one live show while recording another, but we still don't see any signs of fresh high-def channels to load it up with. Baby steps, baby steps.[Via NZHerald]
Mediaworks' Plus 1 brings nothing new to NZ Freeview
Ugh, just what Freeview needs in New Zealand. The warmly anticipated new Mediaworks channel, Plus 1, will actually bring nothing new to the platform. Instead, it'll simply be a one-hour delayed broadcast of TV3, and worse still, the stale content won't even be beamed out in high-definition. Yeah -- that's despite TV3's original content being available in HD. We'd bother with telling you that it's coming out sometime within next year or so, but you've probably already stopped reading in disgust.
Official Nintendo Magazine launching down under
Cheer up, Aussies and Kiwis -- even though your local Club Nintendo appears to have gone completely AWOL (checking ... nope, still nothing), you'll shortly be getting your very own version of Official Nintendo Magazine, basically the UK equivalent of Nintendo Power. That's ... almost as good. Right?Like its Brit cousin, Official Nintendo Magazine - Australia and New Zealand will be assembled by the talented folks at Future, the same name behind such excellent time-wasting periodicals as N64 Magazine, Amiga Power, and Arcade, and who currently churn out Edge. The first issue, a special edition no less, should be hitting shelves in December for AU$8.95.[Via press release]
New Zealand's Freeview benefits from Olympics
New Zealand's Freeview hasn't had the easiest road thus far, but it can't deny the awesomeness that was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. According to new figures, 37,980 receivers were sold between July and September, 19,983 of which were Freeview HD tuners. It's a pretty safe bet that a good portion of those were purchased with the intent of catching the spectacle in high-definition on TVNZ, and the aforesaid sales brings the total number of Freeview set-top boxes sold to 160,496, including 27,319 HD boxes. Unfortunately, the bandwidth crisis is still very real, and things are looking pretty bleak in regard to additional HD channels. Still, we can only hope these additional sales may sway the Ministry of Economic Development into helping out. [Image courtesy of PCWorld]
New Zealand's Freeview HD grabs ChineseTV8 in high-def
Barely a month after hearing that New Zealand's Freeview HD was facing somewhat of a bandwidth crisis, now we're seeing that at least one additional high-def station can fit. ChineseTV8 will be added on slot 28 this October, and it'll bring along "news and current affairs from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, popular drama series, variety shows of diverse formats, documentaries with an Asian emphasis and a wide range of Asian focused infotainment." For those unaware, there are quite a few (150,000 at last count) ethnic Chinese living in New Zealand, so we'd say the interest level should be pretty high.
Bandwidth restraints hindering New Zealand's Freeview HD expansion
Oh noes! Merely months after Freeview execs were celebrating the surprising uptick in Freeview HD users, in flies word that bandwidth is already becoming an issue. You see, Freeview was initially launched as a "satellite only service using MPEG-2 video compression software," while the HD terrestrial component uses MPEG-4. Transponder space on the Optus D1 satellite is "rapidly being used up, and any further expansion of data bandwidth would require Freeview broadcasters to purchase more space from Optus." If the old MPEG-2 system was suddenly canned and replaced with MPEG-4, every last satellite Freeview user would be forced to buy a new set-top-box. We shouldn't have to explain the glaringly obvious problem with that scenario. Thus, the only stop-gap solution is to simulcast the signals, which obviously requires oodles of bandwidth. Unfortunately, broadcasters are gun-shy about dropping even more cash to expand the available space without assurance of a good return on their original investment, so as of now, expansion plans wait while bigwigs figure out where to get more funding.
Movies now showing in NZ and Australian iTunes stores
They may be first to see the sun, but they've been waiting quite a while for movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store -- now that patience has paid off, as movies have now arrived in a land down under. Aussie and Kiwi iTunes users can purchase and rent movies to their hearts' content. New releases on DVD will premiere day-and-date on the iTunes store at the same time as they're on sale in physical form in the two new countries of service.iTunes movie purchases in Australia will kick off the price tier at A$9.99 for catalog titles, A$17.99 for recent releases and A$24.99 for new releases; rentals will be A$3.99 for library title rentals and A$5.99 for new releases. iTunes movies in New Zealand start at NZ$9.99 for catalog title purchases, NZ$17.99 for recent releases and NZ$24.99 for new releases, rentals are NZ$4.99 for library titles / NZ$6.99 for new releases. As in the US store, getting the high-def version costs an additional dollar. Rentals can be held for 30 days before you start watching and then you have 48 hours to finish (a whole day longer than US customers? Must be the International Date Line).Thanks to everyone who sent this in
WAR beta reaches down under
It seems that oftentimes Australia and the Oceanic region gets the shaft when it comes to MMO server allocation. Most of the time, Aussies find themselves choosing between an American or European server, with incompatible peak playing times.Today, Warhammer Online fans in the Oceanic region will be pleased to hear that their own server has not gone ignored, as the WAR Oceanic Beta has officially begun. Players in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore should check their inboxes for a beta invite which will pave the way for the simultaneous launch of Warhammer Online across North America, Europe and the Oceanic region on September 18th. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Rumor: Nintendo of Australia to solve New Zealand's distribution problems
We recently fretted over neglected Nintendo fans in New Zealand, as the country's Nintendo distributor had to file for receivorship (effectively taking them out of them distribution picture). Now, though, it seems that there's a light at the end of the tunnel for the Kiwis, and the loss of Softprint Interactive might not be all doom and gloom. When we last mentioned the issue, we hoped that Nintendo would step up and take care of things themselves, but we never thought they actually would. Yet, current rumors are putting our doubts to rest. While an Australian company called All Interactive Distribution seems to be taking up things on the distributing end, Nintendo of Australia will supposedly support them and promote Nintendo products.While this is certainly good news for Kiwis, we think it's also good news for Nintendo, as the company has had trouble gaining a foothold in New Zealand. [Via GoNintendo]
New Zealand warming to Freeview quicker than expected
Freeview HD only went live in New Zealand three months ago, but already upwards of 7,500 installations have been logged. Even more impressive is the overall quantity of Freeview receivers sold (123,903), with 25,000 of those being moved this quarter. Freeview bigwig Steve Browning proclaimed that he "didn't think it would be quite this fast," but plans are already in place to produce a Freeview PVR for the adoring public. As expected, Browning and company are fully expecting adoption to increase further when the Olympics kick off, though he wasn't so bold as make a prediction about exact numbers. Here's to hoping that an astronomical amount of Kiwis take the high-def dive.
Found Footage: Engadget hands-on with the iPhone 3G
We here at TUAW thought we were crazy about Apple, that is until we heard Engadget's Ryan Block actually flew to New Zealand to be amongst the first in the world to buy an iPhone. He has posted a first look at the phone itself, as well as some of the new features in the 2.0 firmware. There aren't too many surprises to be found in the firmware, but the 'blue orb of GPS' is kinda neat.Head on over to Engadget to check out the video.
Meet the world's first ten iPhone 3G owners
With just seven hours to go out here in New Zealand before the first worldwide iPhone 3G launch (yeah, we flew all the way out for it), the line at the Auckland Vodafone store is growing steadily but surely. Everyone's in high spirits, despite the fact that it's winter here in the southern hemisphere, and they can't as easily get away with that whole hippie line-sitter thing like in New York. We'll check back in soon as we get our international iPhone 3G launch lineblog started.#1Name: Jonny Gladwell, 22 (pictured above, right)Current phone: Sony Ericsson K800i on VodaWaiting for: more than 48 hours nowBuying: black 8GBMotivation: to be the first, duh! His girlfriend is just in it to keep him company, she's not actually getting one herself. Jonny tells us he's not going to eBay the world's first iPhone 3G, though. Whatever, dude!
Vodafone New Zealand's iPhone pricing taking a lot of heat
So we're getting the impression that there are a lot of Kiwis out there who think they're getting a raw deal from Vodafone on the iPhone 3G. That wouldn't totally surprise us -- they know when they've got an exclusive on a hot item, and they're going to try to milk it for everything it's worth -- but with the Rogers fallout rumors flying, Voda might want to tread lightly here.Anyway, here's out it breaks down: on a maxed-out plan, you get a 16GB iPhone 3G for $349 and pay $250 a month, which nets you 600 anytime minutes, 600 texts, and 1GB of data. That works out to $264 for the phone and $189 for the plan in US currency, so you get a little bit of a break on the phone (AT&T charges $299), but in exchange, you get totally hosed beyond comprehension on the plan. Americans shelling out $149.99 will get unlimited voice, unlimited data, and unlimited texts, for which they'll gladly pay the $35 extra up front we'd imagine -- so yeah, by our voodoo calculations, that's about a raw a deal as any we've seen. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPhone Jonny: world's first iPhone 3G owner (in waiting)
See that guy? That's Jonny Gladwell from Auckland New Zealand. He's special no matter how you define the word. He's camped outside of Vodafone NZ right now which puts him on a path to be the world's first iPhone 3G owner. Of course, there's still time for other Kiwi's to get in line at the Wellington and Christchurch shops which will open simultaneously. A red hot trinity of buffoonery to be sure. [image credit and thanks to Darryl Carey]
New Zealand iPhone details
At the most recent World Wide Developer's Conference, Steve Jobs listed the countries that will see iPhone availability once the 3G model is released. As we approach the big day, more retailers are announcing their plans.This week, Vodafone announced details of the New Zealand launch. Specifically, three Vodafone branches will host a midnight sale on Friday, July 11. Those branches are 171 Queen St., Auckland City 358 Lambton Quay, Wellington 681 Colombo Street Christchurch Other stores will open with 3G iPhones on the shelves at 9:00 AM. No details on specific pricing or data plans, but Vodafone says that this page will be updated with those details later in the week.
iPhone 3G launching 00:01 NZ time, home delivered in the UK
Vodafone just went public with the information you already knew, New Zealand will see the world's first iPhone launch at 00:01 local time on the 11th. That's almost a full day before any New York, propaganda farmer gets his. In the UK, O2 is now taking pre-orders (one per customer) on a first come, first serve basis. Better yet, your new slab of 3G will be delivered to your home on the 11th of July by courier where you can activate it from the digital comforts of iTunes. So civilized.Update: According to a handful of tipsters, O2 sold out of the 16GB version of the iPhone in about three hours. Here's hoping you made the cut.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Read -- O2 UKRead -- Vodafone NZ
GameStop officially acquires NZ's Gamesman
Even the Kiwis were no match for the armed and fully operational GameStop empire as it acquired New Zealand's largest independent gaming chain. GameDaily reports that New Zealand's The Gamesman will be absorbed into the GameStop collective and bring the company's presence in the country to 38 stores. This news confirms rumors from last month of The Gamesman's demise.On the bright side, Phil McPhee, general manager of The Gamesman, says the move will "enhance the service and experience for customers." Wow, Gamesman's customer service must have been awful! Good thing it got bought out by GameStop.
