Asian version of UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE patched to V1.01, Trophies added.

Our Asian version of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune finally receives a patch to version 1.01 on Sept 15. The patch adds the long awaited Trophies (all 48 of them) to the game.

However, you must play the game again to unlock the Trophies even if you have collected all 61 treasures and 1000 medal points in your previous saves.

Happy Trophies collecting!!

Latest games in MY stores.

PS3:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (EU) - Action


Xbox360:

Infinite Undiscovery (JPN) - RPG
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (EU) - Action
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (US) - Sim
TNA iMPACT! (US) - Wrestling
Warhammer: Battle March (EU) - RTS


Wii:

Ferrari Challenge: Trofeo Pirelli (US) - Racing
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All Play (US) - Sports
Mario Super Sluggers (US) - Sports

US Xbox 360 price cuts now official.

With the rumors and leaked info being rampant over the past month all pointing to Xbox360's imminent price cut, Microsoft have finally made it official.

With effect from September 5, Xbox360 Arcade is priced at US$199 (RM650), lesser by US$80. The standard 60GB Xbox360 is now cheaper by US$50 to US$299 (RM1000) and the 120GB Xbox Elite gets the highest price cut, from US$449 to US$399 (RM 1300), a cut of US$150.

Microsoft's latest move is seen as it's effort to boost stagnant sales especially with Xmas season coming soon. This effectively makes Xbox Arcade as the cheapest next gen console in the market.Will Sony and Nintendo follow suit? With Wii's leader position and sales not seemingly letting up, its highly doubtful, but hey.... anything is possible.

Also, be mindful that prices in Malaysia may not come down so soon as prices in Asia have not been announced and due to existing stock levels.

Latest games in MY stores

It's been a while since new games appeared in game stores, but the flood gates for Fall 08 games have started.

PS3:

Vampire Rain: Altered Species (US) - Action
Disgaea 3: Absense of Justice (US) - RPG
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (US) - Sports
Siren: New Translation (Asian) - Horror
Soul Calibur IV (US) - Fighting

PSN:

The Last Guy - Puzzle
Racthet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty - Platformer

Xbox360:

Too Human (US) - Action RPG
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (US) - Shooter
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (US) - Sports
Spectral Force 3 (US) - Strategy RPG
Tales of Vesperia (JPN) - RPG
Soul Calibur 4 (US) - Fighting

Wii:

Order Up (US) - Simulation
CSI: Hard Evidence (US) - Simulation

GTA4 patched to V1.02

Last week, GTA4 was patched to version 1.02. The patch is mainly to improve the online multiplayer experience by fixing the following:-

• Fixed an issue where players were unable to enter or exit vehicles in GTA Race.
• Fixed an issue where scripted vehicles were causing games to unexpectedly crash.
• Improved reliability and frequency of PS3 online leaderboard updates.
• Fixed a rare hang some players encountered when moving from a Race or GTA Race lobby into gameplay.
• Fixed a hang that would occur when players were switching teams during the countdown in the lobby.
• Fixed an issue where players were able to get ridiculously high scores from Cops 'n Crooks matches.
• Changed GTA Race and Race so that the last player remaining always receives a reward of $250.
• Fixed an issue where spectating players would prevent the game from finishing.
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to spectate in Round 2 of Cops 'n Crooks games.
• Changed countdown timer in lobby so that it no longer resets when new players join a game.
• Changed the kick option so that kicked players are no longer brought back to single player.

The patch retrieval is done automatically when you launch the game and is connected to the internet, and the patch is small download at 19MBs only (if you are using broadband). Now let me get back to MSG4....

Latest Game Titles in MY stores now.

Here are the latest games available in MY stores, but obviously the most anticipated and biggest release for the PS3 ever arrives on Thursday, Solid Snake's first and final appearance on Sony's console, and I hope to bring you impressions as soon as I get my hands in it the same day.

PS3

Haze (US) - FPS
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (US) - Adventure
Singstar (game and mic) (US) - Singing


Xbox360

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy - (EU) - Action
Ninja Gaiden 2 (EU) - Action
Grid (EU) - Racing
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (US) - Adventure


Wii

Kawasaki Snow Mobiles (US) - Racing
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (US) - Adventure
Wii Fit (US) - Fitness

GTAIV Xbox360 is region locked.

A warning for all Xbox360 owners, Rockstar's latest humongous game, GTAIV, is region-locked.

This simply means that you have to get the game region that corresponds to your Xbox360. It means that you cant import the game from locations that have released the game (ie. Australian and Asian gamers cant play US or European version of GTAIV, imported or otherwise).

You have been warned.

GTAIV arrives in MY, and along comes problems!

The much awaited and anticipated open world game from Rockstar arrives in MY, but only the Xbox360 version for now. Unfortunately, the PS3 versions have not arrive so there will be more waiting for PS3 users, and this means that I could not compare the two versions yet. Even as the game just arrives, the internet boards have lit up with several problems being mentioned.

The biggest problem so far are reports that GTAIV is locking up during or after the FIRST cutscene! This problem appears on both consoles, and Rockstar is working hard to find out the problem. The other problem mentioned is specifically for PS3 players only. It seems that the system is having some problem in connecting to the multiplayer portion of the game. If players try to connect the multiplayer by dialing the option on the phone, users will get the messages: "Cannot connect to game provider, please try again later". This could simply be due to the massive amount of players trying to connect to the servers, but Rockstar is also looking into this issue.

There you have it, GTAIV finally arrives in MY(even if only the Xbox360 version, so PS3 owners sulk a few more days, like me!), but it seems that there are some bugs that have followed it too. Also note that the PS3 version requires a 3.4GB HDD install while not for the XBox360.

Let me know if the problems happens to you.

Latest Game Titles available in MY stores.

PS3:

Dark Sector - (US) Action
Viking: Battle for Asgard - (US) Action
SEGA Superstar Tennis - (US) Sports

Xbox360:

Universe At War - (EU) RTS
Football Manager 2008 - (EU) Sports
Armored Core: for Answers - (JPN) Action Shooter
SEGA Superstar Tennis - (EU) Sports
Viking: Battle for Asgard - (EU) Action
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 - (US) Action Shooter
Dark Messiah: Might and Magic Elements - (EU) FPS RPG


Wii:

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 - (US) Sports
Dewy's Adventure - (US) Platformer
George of the Jungle - (EU) Platformer
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure - (EU) Action
Arctic Tales - (US) Action
Destroy All Human! Big Willy Unleashed - (US) Action
Puru Puru Pack - (US) Mini-games compilation
Cocoto Magic Circus - (US) Mini-games Complilation
My Horse and Me - (US) Pet Sim
Super Mario Galaxy - (US) Platformer
Big Brain Academy Wii Degree - (US) Mini-games Compilation
My Word Coach - (US) Mini-games Compilation
Worms: A Space Oddity - (EU) Action
Baroque - (JPN) RPG
No More Heroes - (US) Action
EA Playground - (US) Mini-games Compilation
Ninja Reflex - (US) Mini-games compilation
The House of The Dead 2 & 3 Return - (US) Light Gun Shooter
Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue - (US) Action

Latest Game Titles available in MY stores.

PS3:

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (Chinese) - (Asian) Racing [Download or Blu-Ray]
echochrome - (Asian) Puzzle
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 - (Asian) Shooter


XBox360:

Condemned 2: Bloodshot - (US) FPS
Army of Two - (US) Shooter
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - (US) FPS
Lost: Via Domus - (US) Action
Frontlines: Fuel of War - (US) FPS
Lost Odyssey - (Asian) RPG


Wii:

Winning Eleven: Playmaker 2008 - (Jpn) Sports
Pinball Hall of Fame: The William Collection - (US) Pinball Sim
Bully - (US) Action
Balloon Pop - (US) Puzzle
SEGA Bass Fishing - (US) Fishing Sim

Haze is PS3 exclusive?

Ubisoft's Haze is now being mentioned as a PS3 exclusive during a Play.com live event. Initially announced as a multiplatform title for PS3, Xbox360 and PC, it was later hinted as a "timed exclusive" for PS3.

Its now being mentioned as PS3 exclusive, heading for Sony's console in May 2008. We shall find out which is true by then.

Latest Game Titles available in MY stores.

PS3:

Army of Two - (US) Action Shooter
Conflict: Denied Ops - (US) Action Shooter
Lost: Via Domus - (US) Action
Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions - (US) Action Shooter
Fifa Street 3 - (US) Sports Sim
Unreal Tournament 3 - (US) FPS
Dynasty Warrior 6 - (US) Action


Xbox360:

Army of Two - (US) Action Shooter
The Spiderwick Chronicles - (US) Action
Devil May Cry 4 - (US) Action
Turok - (US) FPS

Blu-Ray wins the High Def video format, blu-ray in Xbox360 soon?

The 1080P High Definition Video format war is over. When HD-DVD exclusive Warner Bros studios switched to support the Blu-Ray format exclusively, the winner was effectively decided. Shortly thereafter, Toshiba (the main player in the HD-DVD format) too announced that they will cease to produce new HD-DVD players and withdrawing from the format war.

Now, its reported that Sony is talking to Microsoft about adopting the Blu-Ray format to its systems. While Sony have approached Apple for the same talks too (Microsoft and Apple are supporters of HD-DVD format), there are now strong rumors that Xbox360 may feature Blu-Ray as standard drive format.

While these are rumors at this point of time, it is not impossible for Xbox360 to adopt the Blu-Ray as the format due to the larger storage capabilities and as games becomes bigger (Lost Oddessey will fit in one dual layer Blu-Ray disc instead of four dual layer DVD dics). Alternatively, Microsoft could come up with a Blu-Ray add-on drive, as they have done with the HD-DVD add-on drive.

This will be interesting to keep watch, to see how Microsoft will react.

Silver Satin PS3 and Xbox360 Arcade debuts in Japan.

This past weekend is a good weekend for Japanese games. On March 7th 2008, two new console SKUs have appeared in the land of the rising sun to woo gamers to these brands.

Sony rolls out their Silver Satin PS3 thats is of the same specifications with the Ceramic White and Black cousins, while Microsoft unleashes its Xbox360 Arcade, which have been long available in other markets.

Will these two new SKUs from Sony and Microsoft pry Japanese fingers from Nintendo's Wii? Only time will tell.

Hackers able to run PS3 back-ups via HDDs!

Hackers working on PS3 have manged to run PS3 retail games back-ups off its internal HDD or via USB HDD! This may soon lead to piracy issues similar to Sony's PSP UMD games being run off the Memory Sticks. While there seems to be more that needs to be done before this leads to mass piracy so rampant on the PSP, but things are slowly creeping towards that eventuality. Oh no!

While some are quick to point out that blu-ray discs can contain up to 25GB of data in one single layered disc, it must be noted that cross platformed games appearing on Xbox360s and PS3s does run on dual layered standard DVD (9.6GB) for the Xbox360 console. This simply means that current games are not using the limit of the blu-ray discs yet. So a 40GB HDD PS3 could still store up to 4 dual layered DVD games, theoritically speaking.

This will be very interesting to watch, as the PS3 is seemingly close to being fully hacked for piracy.

Link to the mumbo jumbo tech stuff here.

PS3 Devil May Cry 4 requires HDD install.

As a first for PS3, Capcom's Devil May Cry 4 will install 5GB worth of files on the PS3's HDD. The whole installation will occur during the initial run of the game and will take a whopping 20 minutes to complete. In that time, Capcom have kindly inserted a history of the entire Devil May Cry series while the PS3 is locked during the installation process.

The installation is supposedly to improve loading times on the PS3, but there are contrasting reports that this may not work that well. Many have said that load times are just few short seconds faster than the DVD streaming of the Xbox360. I will test it out when I get the Xbox360 version soon.



I sure hope that this is not the sign of times to come, as I did not get consoles to bear with installation times.

Xbox360 HD DVD prices cut to USD130 each

Microsoft had announced further price reduction of the Xbox360 HD-DVD addon peripheral. With immediate effect (from last week, I was slow in reporting this), you can get it for only USD130 (RM560), down from USD180 previously.

While this latest move will undoubtly save HD DVD from losing the format war (Blu-ray have many exclusive studios, with Warner being the latest to run away from HD DVD to be Blu-ray exclusive), its a good time to invest in one unit if you are wanting to see high defination movies via the Xbox360.

Me? I will stick to my blu-ray playing PS3 for my high def movie fixes.

Latest Game Titles available in MY stores.

Xbox360:

Burnout Paradise - (Asian) Racing

PS3:

Turok - (US) FPS

Yahoo! board rejects Microsoft's bid, saying its too little.

Well, that was fast. Shortly after Microsoft announced a USD 44.6billion offer for Yahoo! to the Yahoo! board, Yahoo! have officially announced that they are not interested in the deal, citing that the offer was too low for Yahoo!'s potential.

In the press release, "the Yahoo! Board of Directors has carefully reviewed Microsoft's unsolicited proposal with Yahoo!'s management team and financial and legal advisors and has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders."

"After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments.", it adds.

Microsoft have since then said that they are still very keen on pursuing this merger/buy-out. Lets see how this unfolds.

Entry-level Xbox360 debut in Japan on March 6th.

Microsoft is trying to revive Xbox360's fortune in Japan by announcing an entry-level Xbox360. Consisting of a console bundle with an extra 256MB memory unit, wireless controller, and game pack, all for tax-inclusive ¥27,800 (about RM1000).

No mention of the games titles in the pack, this SKU will debut on March 6th, 2008.