I can count three new PS3 exclusives from Sony, two of which are smaller downloadable games:

1. Demon’s Souls
2. Dress
3. Derby Time Online

And three new PS3 exclusive announcements from third-party publishers:

1. Spelunker from IREM
2. Quantum Theory from Tecmo
3. Metal Gear Online Expansion from Konami

It’s safe to say, that this TGS was a disappointment. Now, the enthusiast gaming community is perpetually disappointed by absolutely everything (our appetite for new games and major announcements is “truly insatiable”). But this goes beyond the usual: This TGS was blatantly oversold.

And I want to know who is to blame. How did things change from nine new first/second party PS3 game announcements to a measely three (two of which are smaller, downloadable types)? Did games get pulled at the last minute? Did Sony lie? Did some news source butcher the facts and propagate the false info to everyone else?

I want answers. And I’m surprised more people aren’t asking for the same thing.

IGN: “Sony has nine unannounced first party PS3 games set for the show” (plus two from Konami/Irem)
Destructoid: “TGS 2008: Sony: 14 unannounced titles at TGS”
Gamespot: 12 internally developed PS3/PSP reveals. 9 Sony published PS3 reveals.
1UP: “Sony Plans to Show 11 Unannounced PS3 Games as TGS” (including Konami + Irem reveals)

Sony PR Manager, Ron Eagle, said this at E3 last July:

I’d also stand by for Tokyo Game Show. There are still other products that need time to incubate before they’re announced.

Now, this does mean that a bunch of the links were found as long as a week or two ago. But fortunately, most of them are pretty evergreen due to their randomness, so I hope you'll accept them as we get up to speed again, hurray.

Link link link:

PC World - Independent Games Take Flight
'We're not seeing aggregators that specifically serve the indie community.' I think someone is going to step up.

Channel Surfing: Americas Virtual Console/WiiWare Sales Chart, W/E 9-28-08 | VG Chartz.com
Just wanted to mention - shame on you, VGChartz, unlike the similar looking XBLA charts, which are extrapolated from real data (feeds of gamertag-related info), these are apparently done by looking at the top titles in the Wii Shop Channel and then just guessing sales numbers. For pity's sake.

Gamasutra - UK Video Game Archive Coming To National Media Museum
'Academics at Nottingham Trent University are partnering with the Bradford, UK National Media Museum to launch the country's first National Videogame Archive, to preserve the history of the medium and "recognize the significant contributions made by videogames to the diversity of popular culture across the globe."' Thumbs up.

<i>Singh Is King</i> — Flash Game Brings Humor to Indian Political Issues | GameCulture
'He's smarter than your average PM — that's the tagline for an Indian Flash game called Singh Is King (pictured), whose cartoonish graphics and simple, runner-game mechanics harbor some dark moments in Indian politics.'

Financial Woes | How They Got Game
Stock market analysis and, uh, crash-related games, from the Stanford archives.

Lost Garden: Rules of Productivity Presentation
For everyone, but amazingly relevant to game development (and from a game creator), too.

super nohoho fighter ii x: Three Charts was the Morning
Wow, proper graphs for who wins what, character-wise, during Japanese tournaments in Super Street Fighter II.

Ludomancy » The Kongregate Experiment
'If you were wondering, after 66,000 gameplays, Moon made… 45 bucks (it can be increased by implementing the Kongregate API and signing exclusively, but still).' He's done a bit better since then (see post updates), but will be great to see just how well you can do out of this, if he'll spill.

Matt Sandorf: Journey to Endless Entertainment - Jay is Games
'Matt Sandorf: Journey to Endless Entertainment is not just an artistic point-and-click game. It is a *sniff* advergame — a promotion for the Sony empire from music to gadgets to games.'

T=Machine » Over $150M invested in Europe into social games, VWs, casual MMOs & games
Quite a wide definition, as is often the case with things like this, but interesting nonetheless due to the lack of previous VC interest in the game biz - also see $350 million outside of Europe predictions.

Gift with Purchase Promotions

* Ninjatown [DS] - Free DS skins with purchase (link)

Best Buy

Software Discounts:

* World of Warcraft: Battle Chest [PC] - $29.99 ($10 savings)

Fry’s

Software Discounts

* Saints Row 2 [PS3] - $52.99 ($7 savings + free shirt with purchase)
* Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility [Wii] - $44.99 ($5 savings)
* Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway [PC] - $44.99 ($5 savings)

GameStop

Software Discounts

* Mass Effect [360] - $29.99 ($10 price drop)
* Unreal Tournament [PS3] - $19.99 ($10 savings)

Accessory Discounts

* 2 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo - $19.99 ($10 price drop)
* 2 GB SanDisk SD memory card - $14.99 ($10 price drop)
* Wired Controller for PS2 - $14.99 ($5 price drop)
* Logitech Precision Headset - $24.99 ($5 price drop)

Gift with Purchase Promotions

* Xbox 360 - Two free games with purchase (up to $29.99 value each)
* Playstation 2 - Two free games with purchase (up to $9.99 value each)
* Nintendo DS - Two free games with purchase (up to $19.99 value each)
* Saints Row 2 - Mini-Bike and UFO toys, poster and desktop pack with pre-order
* Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - Soundtrack with pre-order

Other Discounts/Promotions

* 30% bonus trade credit when applied to purchase of Saints Row 2

Toys R Us

Software Discounts

* Buy two get one free on all video games. (see this FAQ on CAG for great info on this deal)

Accessory Discounts

* 40% off all Wii accessories (excludes Wii remotes and nunchuks, ends 10/13)

Gift with Purchase Promotions

* All Littlest Pet Shop titles [DS] - Free Littlest Pet Shop stylus with purchase

Link

TOKYO -- Nintendo DS represented nearly 20% of the games being shown at Tokyo Game Show; PlayStation 3 merely 3.5%.

We got the information sheet above as part of the Tokyo Game Show press pack, and there's a lot of interesting nuggets of info in that chart. Note that Nintendo DS' percentage of titles has doubled in the last two years, where PlayStation 2 has dropped from owning 20% of the floor space to just 1.7%.

Claims that this year's show was the "year of the PSP" might be greatly exaggerated, but it's clear from the number of titles on the floor that Sony's portable is getting much more support from Japanese publishers in the post- Monster Huntereconomy.

PlayStation 3's low percentage of titles has remained steady, but Xbox 360's has nearly doubled.

And for one final indicator of where gaming is going in Japan: Games that do not fall into traditional gaming genres like shooting and racing have leaped up in number, from 24.8% to a whopping 45.7%.

The giraffe has lost its mind.

Toys R Us is having a HUGE video game sale this week. All games are "Buy 2 get 1 free," including new releases! This includes titles from the website, so you could score a great deal on some games that haven't even been released yet.

Not only are the games on the cheap, Wii accessories are also deeply discounted. You can score 40% off on all sorts of plastic crap for your waggle machine. Now, the promotion excludes Wii Remotes and Nunchuks, which goes against the concept of "all" accessories being on sale, but I'm willing to forgive them. Why? Nintendo Points cards are also part of the promotion! It's like free money!

Meanwhile, the other retailers have pretty lackluster promos going this week by comparison.  Circuit City is offering gift cards with purchase of a few of this week's releases and has a "Buy 1 Get 1 50% off" deal running. Target comes to the party a week late by discounting Guitar Hero Aerosmith. And check out Steam today if you want to save 50% on Peggle Deluxe, as that promotion ends tonight.

All the deals this week get rounded up after the jump.

[Massive thanks to Cheapassgamer for gathering info on the Toys R Us promos this week.]

The giraffe has lost its mind.

Toys R Us is having a HUGE video game sale this week. All games are "Buy 2 get 1 free," including new releases! This includes titles from the website, so you could score a great deal on some games that haven't even been released yet.

Not only are the games on the cheap, Wii accessories are also deeply discounted. You can score 40% off on all sorts of plastic crap for your waggle machine. Now, the promotion excludes Wii Remotes and Nunchuks, which goes against the concept of "all" accessories being on sale, but I'm willing to forgive them. Why? Nintendo Points cards are also part of the promotion! It's like free money!

Meanwhile, the other retailers have pretty lackluster promos going this week by comparison.  Circuit City is offering gift cards with purchase of a few of this week's releases and has a "Buy 1 Get 1 50% off" deal running. Target comes to the party a week late by discounting Guitar Hero Aerosmith. And check out Steam today if you want to save 50% on Peggle Deluxe, as that promotion ends tonight.

All the deals this week get rounded up after the jump.

[Massive thanks to Cheapassgamer for gathering info on the Toys R Us promos this week.]

The giraffe has lost its mind.

Toys R Us is having a HUGE video game sale this week. All games are "Buy 2 get 1 free," including new releases! This includes titles from the website, so you could score a great deal on some games that haven't even been released yet.

Not only are the games on the cheap, Wii accessories are also deeply discounted. You can score 40% off on all sorts of plastic crap for your waggle machine. Now, the promotion excludes Wii Remotes and Nunchuks, which goes against the concept of "all" accessories being on sale, but I'm willing to forgive them. Why? Nintendo Points cards are also part of the promotion! It's like free money!

Meanwhile, the other retailers have pretty lackluster promos going this week by comparison.  Circuit City is offering gift cards with purchase of a few of this week's releases and has a "Buy 1 Get 1 50% off" deal running. Target comes to the party a week late by discounting Guitar Hero Aerosmith. And check out Steam today if you want to save 50% on Peggle Deluxe, as that promotion ends tonight.

All the deals this week get rounded up after the jump.

[Massive thanks to Cheapassgamer for gathering info on the Toys R Us promos this week.]

Continue reading Day 2 BlizzCon 2008 coverage from WoW Insider

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Anyhow, the features put up this week on Gama span the gamut of neatness, including this year's Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie from Ernest Adams, a postmortem of last holiday season's Uncharted, a great editorial from Parappa's Masaya Matsuura (pictured), and a v.informative Microsoft-sponsored feature on how they certify Xbox 360 games (don't think they've gone into that much detail before).

Time to list links:

Next-Gen Audio Square-Off: PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360
"Next-gen's about more than graphics -- how about audio? Gamasutra discusses next-gen audio approaches on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with Bungie, Naughty Dog, and the hardware creators."

Sponsored Feature: XNA Game Quality: The Certification Story
"In the latest Microsoft-sponsored article, part of the Gamasutra XNA microsite, Microsoft's Nick Bodenham, Andrew Donnelly, and Michael Steer lay out the processes that go into certifying Xbox 360 and Games for Windows releases."

The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! IX
"Designer Ernest Adams is withholding the confections again, taking big design mistakes to task in this ninth installment of his seminal series."

Postmortem: Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
"Naughty Dog calls Uncharted their 'biggest and most complex' challenge yet, and shares successes and stumbles in this fascinating postmortem."

A Sense of Fun: Anybody Could Be Your Player 1
"In an impassioned opinion piece, seminal Parappa co-creator and 'father of music games' Matsuura talks about his hopes for the future of games as tangible experiences with positive feelings attached."

Afro Samurai's David Robinson: New Studio, New Problems, New Chances
"In this in-depth Gamasutra interview, we go inside Namco Bandai's internal U.S. development studio with senior producer David Robinson, discussing outsourcing and art direction for Afro Samurai."

[Want to get RSSed-up with all Think Services' game sites? Quick list, with WWW links after the RSSes, goes like this: GameSetWatch's RSS (editor.blog), IndieGames' RSS (indie.games), Fingergaming's RSS (iPhone.games), GamerBytes' RSS (console.downloads), Gamasutra's RSS (main.site), WorldsInMotion's RSS (online.worlds), and GameCareerGuide's RSS (game.edu.info).]