Nintendo Wii 2 may use “Screen Stream” to make you scream (no news of Steam)

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

In the flurry of Nintendo Wii 2 rumors and news, yet another tidibit of information has trickled down for Mario’s next console.

The pic on your left shows a slide from a Nintendo presentation, possibly for E3, possibly for developers they’re showing off the console to. It displays an interesting prototype design, one looking a lot like those controllers we reported the Wii 2 may have.

Even more interesting is the fact that Nintendo may be pursuing a new take on splitscreen gaming, taking the partitions of a screen during such multipalyer sessions and putting it on a controller. It’s also reminiscent of the Gamecube’s Gameboy Advance interoperability, putting certain elements on the screen for games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. You have to admit, if it’s going to be a small screen anyway, it’s kind of like taking the tried-and-true couch multiplayer and turning it into handheld multiplayer. Those controllers better have speakers!

The Nintendo Wii 2 will be officially unveiled at this year’s E3. We’ll keep you posted on all the details.

Posted in News, Wii U |

Sony still analyzing extent of damage to PSN, unsure if credit card info was compromised

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Mike Gutierrez

It’s been a rough couple days for PlayStation Network users, and despite rumors of the service coming back online soon, there’s really no end in sight. The latest update from the PlayStation Blog claims there’s no “update or timeframe to share at this point in time,” but that they’ll let us know as soon as new information becomes available.

Satoshi Fukuoka, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment in Tokyo, stated that a full investigation is underway to resolve the problem, which still is not being disclosed to the public. Even more alarming is that the company doesn’t know the scope of the security breach, stating that they don’t know if credit card information has been stolen. Fortunately, Fukuoka assures everyone that PlayStation will disclose such a breach immediately if it turns out to be true.

This is getting really bad, but I’m sure we all know who’s really behind this, despite them claiming they wouldn’t attack the PSN anymore. I guess they’ve gone back to looking at gamers everywhere as collateral damage.

Posted in News, PS3, PSP | Tagged

Nintendo Download: 4/25/11

Posted on April 25, 2011 by John Scalzo

Did the Easter Bunny hippity hop his way to your house yesterday? It may be a day later, but Reggie Fils-Aime has donned his bunny ears and added three new games to the DSiWare Shop and one game to the WiiWare shop.

Hit the jump to learn more about Airport Mania: First Flight, Inchworm Animation, Ubongo and Word Searcher Deluxe.

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Nintendo confirms Wii 2 will launch in 2012

Posted on April 25, 2011 by John Scalzo

In a note to investors released this morning, Nintendo has confirmed that a “successor to the Wii” will launch in 2012.

The rumored code name of “Project Cafe” wasn’t mentioned in the statement, so it’s still just the “Wii 2” for now. But the publisher did confirm that we’ll all get our first look at the system (along with some hands-on time) at this year’s E3 expo, which will be held from June 7th through the 9th.

Nintendo didn’t narrow a release date down beyond “TBA 2012,” but they did say that “sales of this new system have not been included in the finanical forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012” so don’t expect the “Wii 2” to appear before April 2012.

Posted in News, Wii U |

Daily Scoop: April 24, 2011 – The Easter Bunny did not fix the PSN

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Nicole Kline

The only thing I wanted in my Easter basket today was a functioning PSN, but apparently, that’s not in the cards just yet. Sony is busy re-building the PSN right now, while the rest of us are gorging on candy and getting ready to have dinner with the fam. Hopefully this means no more external intrusions will mess up my online play. Was it Anonymous? Microsoft? Someone hacking through the shiny new Steam functionality? No one knows.

At least Amazon’s still got plenty of deals for us. Today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is MadCatz’s “Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 – Call of Duty: Black Ops Dolby True 5.1 Gaming Headset – Powered by TRITTON,” which is just $179.99 down from $249.99. “Featuring 8 precision-balanced speakers which accurately reproduce the 3D gaming environment,” these headphones will allow you to “mark your enemies’ location long before they sense your presence.” It’s also got “individual backlit volume controls allow you to fine-tune each channel (front, rear, center, subwoofer)” as well as “gold-plated connectors enhance acoustics to amplify stealthy footsteps.” If I didn’t already have my heart set on other headphones right now, I might be tempted to buy these!

Amazon’s got a lot of Easter deals as well, including savings of up to 75% on select game downloads. This includes Battlefield Bad Company 2 for $9.99 and Medal of Honor for $14.99. Playing an FPS would be the best way to celebrate this holiday!

And don’t forget the Amazon list of Bonus Offers, which includes a $50.00 promotional credit if you buy a 4 GB Xbox 360 with Kinect. It’s perfect timing for everyone annoyed with the PSN outage. Does this mean I’ll finally be getting an Xbox 360? Not after reading this. That’s the last straw for me, Microsoft.

Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360 |

Weekly Warp-Up: Hop Hop Edition

Posted on April 24, 2011 by John Scalzo

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

Get Warp Zoned!
I hope you’re having a good day so far on this fine Easter morning. But I’ll bet it would be better after you check out our Mindjack contest and enter to win the Square Enix shooter. Now then, with the impending holiday, gamemakers kept their announcements pretty low key this week, but that didn’t stop the rumor mill from churning out some really good stuff instead.

To start out the week, American McGee revealed that American McGee’s Alice would be included with Alice: Madness Returns. EA confirmed this proclamation a few days later. Speaking of scary stuff, Capcom’s Masachika Kawata started talking about Resident Evil 6 and pledged that it would be “totally different.”

Kratos may be painting the town red (with blood!) soon enough as rumors point to a September 2012 release for God of War IV. And to finish up our theme, no matter what the rumors say, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees aren’t going to be added to Mortal Kombat anytime soon.

But frightening future games wasn’t the only subject of rumors this week. Another Wii 2/Project Cafe rumor made the rounds, claiming that Rockstar was the first developer to be given a dev kit and that they plan to bring Grand Theft Auto V to the system. And it looks like Nintendo may have the next generation console space to themselves for a while as Kotaku revealed that they have multiple sources predicting the PS4 and Xbox 720 won’t be ready until 2014… at the earliest.

In non-rumor news, we got a chance to talk with Kierin Chase, the Brand Manger for Dungeons & Dragons, on the future of the tabletop game, upcoming video game adaptations and our own fond memories of rolling the dice.

Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up.

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Posted in News |

Sony “re-building” PSN; back online in two days says anonymous source

Posted on April 24, 2011 by John Scalzo

Day four of the second PlayStation Network outage of 2011 is here and Sony still doesn’t have very many answers for us.

The latest statement from the company reveals they “are working around the clock to bring them both back online,” but that there’s still no timetable on when the PSN will be operational again. Apparently, part of the reason for the continued downtime is Sony’s desire to protect the PSN from future attacks as they are also “re-building [the] system to further strengthen [the] network infrastructure […] to provide the system with additional security.”

However, PlayStation Universe received an email from “a source with close connections to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe” discussing the latest round of attacks in a little more detail. According to the source, the PSN was hit with a LOIC attack, a specific type of denial-of-service attack that was previously used by Anonymous in their operations against Scientology websites and organizations that disapproved of WikiLeaks. Anonymous has denied responsibility for these attacks and claimed OpSony is over.

PSU’s tipster also gave a timeline for when we might see the PSN back online. He said “Japanese servers may be restored tomorrow while the U.S. and E.U. servers will likely be operational the following day.”

Posted in News, PS3, PSP | Tagged

Hitman: Absolution trademarked by Square Enix

Posted on April 23, 2011 by John Scalzo

Siliconera has unearthed a new trademark filing by Square Enix Europe for Hitman: Absolution. In light of IO Interactive’s recent Hitman 5 ARG, which pointed to an E3 2011 debut for the sequel, I’d guess that Absolution is the game’s official subtitle.

With E3 2011 just six weeks away, we won’t have to wait long to learn more about Agent 47’s next assignment.

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