No Soul Caliber love? Xbox 360 getting a lotta love ...

1. No Soul Caliber Love?
   
2. Xbox 360 is getting a lotta love
   
3. How many miss-steps for Sony?
   
4. New Releases of note
   

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NEWS:
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1. No Soul Caliber Love?
   
   
   
   • Namco announced that Soul Caliber III is going to be a Sony Playstation 2 exclusive launching in 2005, and may launch on the PS2 before on arcades -- a first for the franchise. The franchise will introduce customizeable characters and a "museum" retrospective mode.
     
   • One of the more hotly anticipated games of 2004 (and arguably responsible for the resurrection of the fighting franchise), Soul Caliber II brought Todd MacFarlane's character Spawn only to Xbox. Let's hope this nin"PS2-exclusive" is a time-bound (a la Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas). While we're at it, let's make it a time-exclusive for PS2, and then an Xbox 360-exclusive. That would rock. And, yes, I would be small about it ...
     
   
   
2. Xbox 360 is getting a lotta love
   
   
   
   • OK, so there's the Soul Caliber III announcement suckage, but Xenon/Xbox Next/Xbox 360/Xbox Now (I'm holding out that they'll pick my name) is looking to rock on first- and third-party support. Aside from the Ubisoft stuff a mentioned a couple of weeks ago, and the Bethesda Oblivion announcements, here's a brief rundown:
     
   • The next-gen 'box my have an EyeToy-like motion sensing camera or peripheral.
     
   • There's nothing like first-party love for a platform, and though Nintendo still reigns as king (with 8 out of 10 platform best-sellers developed in-house), Microsoft is stepping up for the next (hopefully smaller) black box (or silver; we'll see). Head of Microsoft Game Studios Shane Kim confirmed the existing franchises Halo, Fable, Project Gotham Racing, and new franchises Jade Empire and Forza Motorsport will be on the next version of the Xbox, as well as "new and unique intellectual" property.
     
   • Majesco Games (the most impressive re-invented publisher of 2004) and Starbreeze Studios (the geniuses behind the incredible The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay) have officially announced The Darkness, Top Cow's fan-favorite comic book. "Union Entertainment, a feature film and video game production company, packaged the deal which includes Paul Jenkins" who'll provide the story and dialogue.
     
   • Then there's the console backbone making a switch to Xbox's next offering: Final Fantasy's Hironobu Sakaguchi; Space Channel 5 creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi; and Game Republic's Yoshiki Okamoto. Okamoto went so far as to say "a powerful fleet of Japanese designers" have signed on for Xbox 360.
     
   • Say what you want about Sega after the Dreamcast downturn (the most under-rated system of all time), and letting go of up-and-coming powerhouse Sammy Studios, Inc. after the Sega/Sammy merger (It's now High Moon Studios). But these guys know how to make games! They've consistently shown early love (Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller); Innovative love (Jet Set Radio Future, Iron Phoenix, Otogi); Classic love (Sonic Mega Collection Plus); and now, Next-Gen love (Condemned).
     
   • Of course, there are rumors swirling around too, ranging from the next-gen Tomb Raider, to Quake IV, to Nintendo franchises on Microsoft's hardware.
     
   
   
3. How many miss-steps for Sony?
   
   
   
   • So, Dual-Shock is a core ceature of PlayStation controllers, but it looks like the little piece of technology may belong to someone else. In March, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California entered judgment in favor of California-based Immersion Corp., and "issued a permanent injunction against the manufacture, use, sale, or import into the United States of the infringing Sony PlayStation system including PlayStation consoles, Dual Shock controllers, and the 47 games found by the jury to infringe Immersion's patents." Oh, and a $90 million fine. As a footnote, Microsoft chose to settle with Immersion for $20 million for a "perpetual patent license", $6 million invested in the company, and an allowance for Immersion to borrow as much as $9 million more through a "convertible debenture arrangement".
     
   • Sony shorted console sales during the Christmas season, and had to resort to airlifting units into the U.S., which still shorted demand, cut into their profits, and hurt holiday numbers for the entire game industry.
     
   • Despite a somewhat strong marketing campaign, Sony's PSP (gaming launch dramatically shorted units in some markets. Additionally, complaints about dead-pixel handling policy makes me thing Sony didn't negotiate adequate fiscal deals with their vendors in relation to QA, and may be eating profit on replacement units in order to maintain good PR.
     
   • Sony canceled an expected Japanese PS3 event in Japan at the nth hour, and is recanting whether they'll unveil PS3 details prior to E3.
     
   • Changes in management are hurting Sony, too. Ken Kutaragi (THE driving force behind PlayStation), was rumored to be the next in line for CEO. Then he was demoted, and a Brit (Sir Howard Stringer) was put in the position. Stinger's background is in its media division, and he has nil experience with Sony's hardware. If Kutaragi stays on and Stringer leverage's his impressive legacy, things may pan out fine; if Kutaragi storms off, things could be bad indeed.
     
   • What about non-exclusive PS3 technology? That'd suck. For Sony. Big Blue announced they'll be offering custom design services to help integrate the Cell processor developed for the PS3 into technology offerings. While touted as "an example of IBM offering innovation on demand -- helping manufacturers in a variety of industries solve their most challenging technical problems and create entirely new products," someone was asleep at the Sony PR switch. This potentially waters down the perception of the powerful brain behind Sony's next gen bad boy being anything special.
     
   
   
4. New Releases of note
   
   
   
   • March
     
     
     
     • Star Wars: Republic Commando (I've played this; single player makes me squeak like a joyful fanboy; multiplayer is pretty mheh.)
       
     • Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (the new standard in WWII shooters)
       
     • Phantom Dust (a port of a Japanese RPG-ish fighter -- over Xbox Live!)
       
     • TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (with Live play and a map maker!)
       
     • Dragon Ball Z: Sagas (the franchise finally comes to Xbox -- with co-op play; it's a shame they didn't make it Live co-op ...)
       
     • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (redefining Live and co-op and Live co-op all at the same time)
       
     
     
   • April
     
     
     
     • Doom 3 (Live co-op is just for Xboxers; sorry, PC Suckahs!)
       
     • LEGO Star Wars (it's the geek equivalent of peanut butter and chocolate, but doesn't go right to my thighs)
       
     • Close Combat: First to Fight (Squad based military, built under the direction of the U.S. Marines)
       
     • Jade Empire (BioWare's new RPG; can they re-do the KOTOR success? Playing the demo says "yes")
       
     • Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (early builds made this prettier than Halo 2, and the third-person melee in the demo kicks pou-pou)
       
     • Psychonauts (The Xbox needs more good platformers, and this looks to be an incredible little sleeper (hah, I made a funny! See, 'cause it's about a guy who does battle in people's dreams, and ...)
       
     • Raze’s Hell (An action shooter where you kill all things cute, because, as in life, horribly cute things are horribly evil (damn you, Hello Kitty!)
       
     • Predator: Concrete Jungle (because something needs to resurrect the franchise from Aliens vs. Predators)