• A high quality collector box set featuring varnish & metallic blue arabesque finish
• An exclusive 24 pages Comic book unveiling the backstory of the Hunter, one of the key antagonists in the game.
• A scratch card with unique code to unlock exclusive in-game skins for the Prince (Prince classic skin) and Elika ( Farah skin).
• A bonus DVD including soundtrack, videos, e-goodies, widget and more!

• Zavvi: limited edition artbook (54 pages)
  
• HMV: limited edition inlay sleeve w/ signed artwork
  
• Blockbuster: Prince of Persia Xbox 360 faceplate
  
• not specified: Prince of Persia Classic PSN/XBL DLC redeem code

• Ubisoft, Penny Arcade reveal Prince of Persia storybook
• An early Christmas: Prince of Persia release date confirmed

LittleBigPlanet has been critically acclaimed and sold quite well, but the PlayStation 3's big holiday exclusive has not exactly set the world on fire. Sony is aware of this, and has claimed that at any other time of the year, LBP would have been a chart topper. Damn those other videogames, damn them for existing!

"We're really pleased with the initial reaction to LittleBigPlanet - it has been our highest scoring game ever I believe with a Metacritic score of 95 and a huge list of 10/10s or 100 per cent scores," explains Sony's David Wilson. "We are also pleased with its commercial performance. In other times of the year it would be a clear number one - so you have to put the chart in context. This is an incredibly volatile time of year and the chart reflects that - November 7 saw 47 titles released on that one day alone including many big hitters with Christmas number one aspirations. Look at the chart this week - the top four are all brand new entries."

So, too many new games, that's LittleBigPlanet's problem. Sony isn't unhappy with the game's performance, however, claiming it has "broken the trend" of innovative and critically acclaimed games selling poorly.

"LittleBigPlanet has broken this stereotype by not only being brilliant and original but also by selling really well on a global basis," Wilson explains. "LittleBigPlanet is breaking many preconceptions. There are some games that are hardcore experiences that the kudos lies in getting it first. LittleBigPlanet is excellent on day one but even better as time goes by."

I still think it's a shame for LBP and the PS3 that it wasn't this massive blockbuster. That said, it's obviously doing well and will likely become a huge franchise as time goes by. You can't complain about that.

Capcom has unveiled the second official trailer for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, complete with Joe Esposito's seminal Karate Kidanthem "You're The Best."

Not only is the music perfectly suited to the classic fighting game action, the game again looks utterly phenomenal. Even alongside all the huge blockbuster releases of this holiday season, SSFIITHDRis one of my most anticipated titles of the year.

Thankfully the long wait for the recreated classic is almost over. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers will be able to download the game come November 27.

But that’s just what we started with, and PS3 has come a long way since November 17, 2006. If you stood in line the night before launch, the PS3 that you took out of the box when you got home isn’t the same system that it is today. We’ve added new features and enhancements that you all have asked for, such as Trophies, XMB access in-game, Remote Play with PSP, DLNA Media Server capability, and BD-Live support, to name just a few. Along the way, we became the first gaming system to be recognized by Guinness World Records for Folding@Home and, because of the strong PS3 install base, helped Blu-ray win the format war.

PlayStation Network has truly hit its stride with unique downloadable games and a video delivery service featuring movies, TV shows, and original programming that you can watch in HD with your PS3, or bring with you on your PSP. And with 14 million active accounts and 273 million pieces of content downloaded, we know that you’re thirsting for this digital entertainment.

Of course, most important to all of you is the game library, and we’ve seen exclusive titles launch that showcase the PS3’s capabilities, from Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots, which takes full advantage of Blu-ray’s massive 50GB capacity to deliver the best installment in the storied franchise, to LittleBigPlanet, whose infectious charm and user-generated content make it a genre-defying experience. There’s something for every type of gamer on PS3, and the efforts of SCE’s first-party development studios (the industry’s largest ) along with our third-party partners will continue to deliver knock-out titles.

Thanks to all of you, PS3’s momentum is stronger than ever. There are nearly 17 million PS3 systems around the world, and in the United States, PS3 hardware sales are up nearly 100 percent from where we were at this time last year. Software sales have tripled from a year ago. Yes, we’re proud about everything we’ve accomplished, and we’re even more psyched about where we’re going with our holiday software lineup (our best to date) and the new Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune PLAYSTATION 3 Bundle, which features a 160GB PS3 and is available now.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without your continued support and all of the feedback you’ve provided here on this blog. We don’t have a crystal ball, but we know that you can look forward to many great games and PS3 enhancements over the next 12 months, starting with the upcoming launch of PlayStation Home’s open beta, which will bring the PS3 community closer together. Then, just around the corner, you’ll have Killzone 2, inFAMOUS, and tons more. So please join me in wishing a happy second birthday to PS3!

Starting today I’ve got a series of interview bits I want to share from my chat with “Gears of War 2” chief creator Cliff Bleszinski. All of these posts will cover spoiler aspects of the game, so don’t read them if you don’t want surprises ruined.

First, here’s me and Cliff talking about how a studio that’s making a shooting game decides to make driving levels in their holiday blockbuster.

(As a bonus, this is the first time I’ve transcribed an interview in which I cursed. See what drove me to swear… pun intended)

This interview was conducted by telephone a few days before the release of “Gears of War 2.” I finished playing the game’s campaign over online co-op with Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal a day earlier, a session I referred to throughout the interview. N’Gai had played as “Gears” hero Marcus Fenix. I played as sidekick Dom.

Multiplayer: How do you approach driving sequences? When you’re making a game that people are purchasing for something other than driving sequences, how do you approach something like that and make sure it feels good and not like something that doesn’t fit at all?

“It’s a way to switch things up a little bit and let the player forget about the cool, core cover combat.”

Cliff Bleszinski, Epic Games: The game, yes, is a shooter, but it’s a game that alternates between the player feeling scared and vulnerable but then also having that swing back and feeling empowerment. It’s kind of like a turret. You approach an enemy that’s on a turret and you feel scared. You manage to find a way to flank him and then you finally get the turret and it spawns 400 enemies and now you have this massive moment of empowerment.

With vehicles it’s the same thing, where you want to have the player — he’s been dealing with cover this entire time, it takes almost a clip per locust on medium to hard difficulty level — and then to get to a point where you’re on a tank and one shot takes out eight or 10 of them using the crowd system. You’re power-sliding through them and it’s like “Screw you!”

And then we take away that empowerment by putting the player near a Brumak or putting them vulnerable in a dark cave with Corpsers. We keep alternating with that sense of pacing. And fundamentally it’s a way to switch things up a little bit and let the player forget about the cool, core cover combat, so that when he comes back to it and he’s like, “Oh I kind of missed this a little bit.”…

Multiplayer: Let Dom drive in the co-op next time. Patch that in. N’Gai’s a s—- driver.

Bleszinski: Some people have said, oh I found the icy lake part difficult. If you take your time you’ll be fine.

Multiplayer: That’s what I told him: “Dude, they’re not going to blow up all the ice. I’m sure of it. I’m sure it’s all pre-scripted.”

Bleszinski: And we don’t blow it up beneath you. If you just cruise along at a normal speed and don’t get ADD on it all…It’s kind of what we’re trying to do a lot with “Gears.” If you take your time and use cover and don’t run into your enemies like an idiot, you’ll do really well.

***

“Gears 2″ players, what did you think of the game’s vehicle sequences?

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‘Predator 2′ Thankfully Not Among ‘Gears of War 2′ Cinematic Influences
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Games need to grow up. As this medium follows that inevitable path toward mainstream social acceptance, the limitations as an art form become more apparent.

The focus of our work is still far too narrow, or more correctly, our narrow focus is pointed in far too few directions. As the medium that will lead youths into the next generation, I feel that we have a social responsibility to represent a diversity of views in terms of our content.

Every other mainstream media, from books to theatre to movies to comics, has major genre or thematic derivations. Narrow focus isn't a bad thing in itself -- I think it can actually help people identify strongly with a given subject. But we greatly need to diversify the themes and subjects we tackle.

In video games, the vast majority of content is still combat and competition-based. This isn't a problem; after all, most games -- electronic or otherwise -- are about good-natured competition.

The trouble is that due to the common theme, the message is often quite simple: there are good guys, there are bad guys, and maybe the bad guys aren't who you thought they were at the start, but really you don't care as a player. You just want to keep shooting, smacking, or otherwise subjugating whatever's in front of you.

Social Context

Games have been dealing with social issues for as long as they've had narratives. Unfortunately, they usually have very shallow messages to impart. War is bad because it killed your family. People should understand each other, because your character used to be poor.

The intentions are good, but generally the message is told to the player, rather than shown to him. If you want to be told that war is horrible, play Metal Gear Solid 4. If you want to be shown, play Call of Duty 4.

If you want to be told about the dangers of capitalist extremism and its dystopian results, play Final Fantasy VII. If you want to be shown, play BioShock.

These examples are a bit trite, as these are the games everyone trots out when they want to praise the future of narrative. But my point is only further validated by the fact that better examples are still very difficult to find.

Entertain to Inform

If games are going to be tackling social issues, which most narrative games seem to strive toward, there needs to be more outside influence. I don't mean outside the industry -- I mean game developers need to draw more from their daily lives and other media for inspiration.

Right now, games are too influenced by other games. People know games, and they're safe. We need to move outside the comfort zone if we're to make any impact. BioShock's reflection on Ayn Rand is a good start, and games like Civilization do a good job of simulating real-world economies and warfare, but we need more examples to point to.

A Dickens- or Fitzgerald-inspired game, properly handled, could yield amazing results -- and what about taking inspiration from an original video game work like Braid? This sort of thing is usually relegated to the Experimental Gameplay Sessions panel at GDC, but these sorts of games should actually be made.

Who Needs It?

Really, most games don't need complex narratives or themes. We insert them because we want our games to have an "awesome story," but most games fall horrifically flat here, and would be better off with simple objective screens.

In games like Halo 2 or 3, where you sometimes can't even understand what the characters are saying and the plot is needlessly convoluted, wouldn't the experience be better with no story at all?

One of the large problems is the lack of a true director or auteur. The compartmentalization of leadership in Western game companies has its serious advantages in terms of workflow, but one thing Japan still has over us is singular vision. One person truly directs the project and has the final say.

This yields both astounding successes and spectacular failures, but if nothing else, helps to point a game in a specific direction.

Broadly Narrow

I think most current games, even the hardcore ones, appeal too much to the mainstream in terms of their themes. Just as the movie 300 appeals to frat boys, so too does God of War or SOCOM.

Our blockbuster games are designed to be mainstream, even if they do only appeal to the hardcore by and large (see my previous editorial "The Hardcore Niche.")

I want to believe that game developers care about more interesting things. We should be showing more of this in our games. We need to present a diversity of viewpoints, themes, and gameplay styles to the people who are absorbing and internalizing our content (when we do it right).

Last year proved that games with vision can actually be popular. So now, the only limiting factor is our own creativity.

If you are the type of gamer that has no time for this holiday’s blockbuster console games, then I recommend you pick up a copy of Ninjatown, sit down for about an hour a night, and enjoy the cuteness levels beaming from this solid, tower defense game.

Gstar, South Korea’s equivalent of E3, opened yesterday in Seoul, and presented what most agreed was a slightly better show than last year, but still oddly positioned in this online-dominated market.

Gstar is a curious event. It’s open to the public, and is consumer-facing on the surface. As one expects from an event of this nature, a number of the major game developers and publishers set up large booths with loud music in the Kintex exhibition hall. But realistically, the consumers are not who this event is tailored toward.

The game market in South Korea is almost exclusively online, with MMOs and microtransaction-based gameplay the most pervasive forms of interactive digital entertainment. That being the case, why hold a giant event, an hour and a half outside of Seoul, to demonstrate games that anyone can play in open beta from their home computer?

The answer is that Gstar is funded and promoted by the South Korean government. It’s not like in China, where game companies are incentivized to exhibit by various voluntary or less voluntary means. But the aim of the companies here does seem much more like an appeal to the government rather than consumers.

Last year, a number of developers told me they felt that the event was going downhill, getting smaller and smaller over the years. From that perspective, this year was actually a slight improvement. The show floor was visibly a bit more crowded, and NCSoft's just-launched Aion was on prominent display.

More importantly, Nexon announced five new games which were previously unknown, during the show, which actually validates the stated intent of the event. And this makes sense indeed, considering that there are Nexon executives on the Gstar board of directors.

But realistically, Gstar’s main objective seems to be showing the power of Korean games to the world. Quite simply, “we are here, we are great.”

Feeling Gstar

Those I spoke to about the event, press and publishers alike, felt that this year was indeed an improvement over the last, but that Gstar still didn’t have an immediate relevance to the current shape of the game industry.

From the developer’s perspective, I spoke with several in-the-trenches types prior to the show, all of whom flatly stated that Gstar is “for government and executives.”

Developers have little desire to go, though a manager at Neowiz mentioned that his team members would occasionally make the trip simply to see the booth babes -- which have this year been cut from the show (though everyone agrees this was for the better).

Perhaps the most useful element of Gstar is the associated Korean Game Conference, or KGC, which is akin in spirit to the Game Developers Conference. KGC is held concurrently with Gstar, is quite well attended, and rather extensive in its scope.

Developers I spoke with said essentially that the conference is far from perfect, but it’s much better than nothing.

This is the kind of event that could not occur in Japan, for example, where sharing of technology, design, or knowledge of the product is often still forbidden even for two teams within one company.

As incestuous as the game industry is worldwide, it’s even more amplified in the Seoul area, where most Korean game development takes place.

One need only go out drinking with one group of developers to see who knows whom... and the quick answer is everyone knows everyone, if you’re someone in the first place.

KGC supports and is supported by this rather open group of developers, and is a hallmark of the different nature of this industry when compared to other development hubs in Asia.

Walkabout

The Gstar show floor itself is home to booths from the likes of NCSoft, Nexon, NHN, CJ Internet, Neowiz, and most of the major online players, with looping video trailers and PC kiosks for trying new products.

Microsoft made a return appearance, showing off localized versions of Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 – a potential draw for the small number of consumers that actually play console games.

Unfortunately, the major, though absolutely unstated reason I perceive for Gstar’s existence, that is to say to promote the Korean industry to the world, is also the place that the show continues to need improvement.

The event does little to engage the foreign audience in a meaningful way, and because of the same problem of being able to play an open beta from anywhere in the world, there is little reason for foreign press to attend.

Gstar will never be a blockbuster event the likes of a 2006-era E3, but at least this year there was an effort on the part of the exhibiting publishers to make it somewhat worthwhile.

If the organizers can continue to wrangle a few game launches, or perhaps attract the likes of a Nintendo or even some foreign exhibitors, Gstar’s fire will continue to burn. However, perhaps its flickering flame does not quite match the blaze of improvement that the Korean game industry itself has undergone in the last five years.

But Nintendo is not expressing concern yet.

“You’ll see in [the NPD sales] that it did about somewhere [like] 65 or 66,000 based on our internal numbers for the two weeks that was reported,” Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, told Multiplayer in an interview at the New York Grand Hyatt yesterday.

By comparison, NPD reported that “Wii Fit” sold more than 687,000 copies in its first month of sale.

These aren’t blockbuster numbers, but Dunaway offered an explanation for the game’s performance:

“We’re predicting that it’s going to be an evergreen title. And if you look at titles like ‘Brain Age,’ it’s about the same as what ‘Brain Age’ did during it’s first few weeks and went on to sell 2.5 million copies. ‘Wii Fit’ certainly had a larger launch than that. But I think that people are starting to understand ‘Wii Music.’”

“We’re predicting that it’s going to be an evergreen title.”

In general, Nintendo hardware and software is hot. The Wii sold more than 800,000 units in October. “Wii Play” sold 282,000 copies, according to NPD. “Mario Kart Wii” sold 290,000. And “Wii Fit” tallied another 487,000 units that month. Those games do have legs, having each been on the market for months. (The new “Guitar Hero” for Wii also performed well, selling more than 183,000 units and easily outselling “Wii Music” despite coming out two weeks later.)

“Wii Music,” which has received harsher reviews from critics from the average Nintendo title, could just be a harder sell. “People have a box in their head of what music genre games are all about,” Dunaway said. “And we’re doing something that is a complete departure from that. As people start to experience that and tell other people about it, I have no doubt that ‘Wii Music’ is going to be a long-selling, top-selling game for us.”

Dunaway expressed a personal goal for selling the game: “I feel as EVP of sales and marketing, [it is] both a responsibility and a real opportunity and privilege to take this game that is so unique and so much from the heart of Mr. [Shigeru] Miyamoto, and make sure that people are exposed to it and understand it.” To that end, Dunaway said Nintendo has been showcasing “Wii Music” with local musicians around the country and is working with schools and an organization representing 100,000 music educators in America to integrate the game into a music education curriculum.

So if anyone compares “Wii Fit” launch sales to “Wii Music” sales and deem the latter a failure, they’d be wrong? “They’d be off-base to say that,” Dunaway said. “Very few of our titles are launch-and-move-on these days. Certainly something like ‘Wii Music,’ we have a long-term commitment to.”

Related Posts:
‘Guitar Hero: World Tour’ Sells More On Wii Than On Any Other Platform
One-On-One With Miyamoto: ‘Wii Music’ DLC, Negative Reviews, And How ‘Mario’ Fans Benefit
One-On-One With Shigeru Miyamoto: From ‘Wii Music’ To Bowser To… MotionPlus?