Sony is cutting the price of its PlayStation 2 console by almost 25 percent in both Europe and North America, the company said Tuesday.
The console, which has just begun its tenth year on retail shelves, will cost €100 (US$133) and US$100 from Wednesday. It previously cost €130 and US$130.
Sony has sold more than 136 million of the consoles since it first launched on March 4, 2000, in Japan. It went on sale in Europe and North America in November of the same year.
As the rest of the tech world scrambles to assess the implications of the recently announced 5,000 layoffs at software giant Microsoft, news has come in that might potentially spell the end of the company’s nearly 30-year-old Flight Simulator series.
Microsoft confirmed Friday that the software giant has shuttered ACES Studios, the developer of the Flight Simulator series of games, whose latest incarnation is Flight Simulator X. The simulation is considered Microsoft’s oldest product, whose original version first shipped in 1982.
However, a Microsoft spokeswoman said that while the studio has been closed, the software company remains committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, without explaining how future products can be launched without a dedicated software development team backing them.
In the midst of a debate over whether they are good for kids, a new study has suggested that video games could be used for education.
An international team has carried out the study and found that online computer games could be used as a powerful teaching tool for children because they are not only popular but engaging as well.
According to researchers, interactive games could be adapted so that children learn skills from them that could be transferred to real life -�in fact, the”immersive” aspect in which the player suspends his belief means that the brain is particularly engaged and can absorb complex issues.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information.
Nintendo has enjoyed tremendous success thanks to the forward-thinking innovations of its DS and Wii systems, but the company’s lineup is focused squarely on the past. The publisher revealed today its first-party and third-party lineup of Wii and DS games through March of 2009, with a scattering of revamps and remakes comprising the majority of its own games.
For the Wii, Nintendo has only two releases planned, both remakes of GameCube games designed to support the Wii Remote’s motion-sensing capabilities. The self-explanatory New Play Control Mario Power Tennis and New Play Control Pikmin will both launch in March.
Capcom’s new survival-horror opus is closer than ever, and the staff of GamePro got unprecedented access to the game.
In GamePro’s exclusive reports, we detail the shocking shifts in gameplay in a new Resident Evil 5 preview, dissect vile new Resident Evil 5 enemies, including giant bats and bloodthirsty crocodiles, and engage in desperate shoot-outs in an oil refinery and a desolate mountain pass. Also check out our new Resident Evil 5 Q&A and new Resident Evil 5 screens. Read more
Nintendo UK has released a massive release date list of Wii and DS titles for Europe today. Eurogamer notes that this list features the first GameCube-to-Wii ports, dubbed “New Play Control!” titles, which include Pikmin and Mario Power Tennis. This new label sees classic GameCube titles revamped to utilize new Wii-specific control schemes. See below for the complete, huge list of upcoming European releases.
Wii Release Dates
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.* An abducted soul, a lifetime of sins, a journey to the depths of despair. Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that EA Redwood Shores, the studio behind the hit horror game Dead Space, is now working on another original property, this one based on the medieval epic poem The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The dark fiction gave birth to the Tuscan Italian dialect and is widely considered the work that has defined the western world’s contemporary conception of hell and purgatory. The poem tells the tale of Dante who journeys through the twisted, menacing nine circles of hell in pursuit of his beloved Beatrice. Dante’s tortured and tormented world is an ideal setting for this 3rd person action and adventure of a video game, Dante’s Inferno. Read more
Good things come to those who wait, but we’re getting more than a little impatient for any news on the first bits of downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV. Long talked about and promised in “autumn” of this year at one point, we’ve been eager to see anything about it this year, let alone play it. Now, at long last, after we’ve finished our sojourn in Liberty City months ago, comes something concrete on the 360 only DLC, with a worldwide release on February 17 next year.
Featuring a whole new set of characters, the new story, subtitled “The Lost and Damned,” seems completely unrelated to Niko and company. The story is based around Johnny Klebitz and his biker gang, the Lost, which existed in the periphery of the main game. Read more
Frogster America, Inc. today announced the start of the open beta for Runes of Magic, its highly anticipated free-to-play Massively-Multiplayer Online (MMO) game being created by Runewaker Entertainment. With more than 190,000 players already registered, Runes of Magic is ready to put the final tests in place to ensure the game is ready for release to the public later this year.
In the coming weeks, Frogster will activate all of the content currently implemented, including the item-shop, where players can buy items to support their questing, adventuring and battles within the game. Since all player accounts were reset at the end of the closed beta, everyone will be able to create new characters and begin their adventures at level one. Read more
