Valve's movement to the console space has been slow, but this year will see the release of Half-Life 2 on both the 360 and PS3. They seem to be having mixed reactions to that move. On the one hand (according to CVG), they're very much hoping that 360/PC crossplay will be possible for their upcoming Team Fortress 2. On the other hand (according to Game Informer and 1up), their reaction to the PS3's online component is one of fear. Valve's Marketing representative Doug Lombardi: "PS3 is brand new and PS3's online is kind of scary so we're hoping that EA is going to be a strong partner for us. (laughs) It's always the scariest thing when it's not all yours. With the PC it's all ours, Steam is all ours, code's ours, game's ours. On 360 we're making it, we've made it before, we know what the Live thing is, although it's Microsoft's so we kind of know it. PS3 we're not building it, we haven't made a PS3 title before, and we don't really know what PS3 online really is. It's always the devil you don't know that you're the most scared of."

Now that the news about Microsoft's Elite has had a chance to set in, there are a few objections being raised by commentators. That 120 gig hard drive (the really expensive one) is going to come pre-loaded with content; all well and good, but the content transfer cable and software is a bit odd. Additionally, there are serious objections being raised over the frustrations of early adopters. Despite the easy dismissal out of hand heard on Major Nelson's Wednesday podcast, it's not as easy for early 360 buyers to roll with the changes. "Current Xbox 360 owners, who can purchase a separate 120-gigabyte hard drive at a cost of $179, appear to be getting a raw deal. Not only are these early adopters stuck with an older model of the console that offers less in the way of high-definition support, but factor in the cost of a current premium Xbox 360 ($399) and the price of the larger hard drive and the figure is close to $600 dollars, far exceeding the Elite's retail price, due to be $479."

An anonymous reader writes "Second Life is a virtual world, maintained through a combination of client software and hosting servers. It has the unusual quality that nearly all of the content is user-provided. It is also unusual in that Linden Labs recently announced the release of its client software as open source. This is something that is rarely, if ever, done in commercial MMO apps. This article introduces the client (or "viewer" in Linden terminology) and explores the Second Life development environment."

Gamasutra has the word that EA has the Lord of the Rings IP locked up through the end of next year. With the additional license for the books under their wing and no competition from Vivendi, they have big plans set for their next game inside the franchise world. "The announcement follows EA's previously announced The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open world RPG for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. However, with EA making plans for a new The Lord Of The Rings title, the fate of this project, once referred to as the cryptic Project Gray Company, remains uncertain. EA confirmed in early February that the game, while not canceled, had been put on hold." Relatedly, Game|Life notes that one million players will soon be traveling through Middle Earth as the open beta for Lord of the Rings Online gets underway. If you signed up to get in, you probably will. Update: 03/30 04:00 GMT by Z : The text referring to the White Council game was edited on the Gamasutra story, and here as well to reflect that.

katalin writes "Arenanet, makers of the Guild Wars Massive game, have announced the first 'true' expansion pack to the game - Eye of the North. Next year will also see the beginning of a Beta test for a true sequel to the original Guild Wars. The new game will be substantially different from the current offering, with many elements similar to a more traditional fantasy Massively Multiplayer game. It still, however, will not require a monthly fee to play."

narramissic writes "Included in a filing made by Sony to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this month regarding a change to the PlayStation 3's Bluetooth module is notification of a new PS3 game console with a higher-capacity hard-disk drive. From the cover letter: 'The model CECHE01 to be added by the difference of the capacity of hard disk.' It then says the new model will have an 80G-byte drive. Of course, Sony is downplaying these rumours, saying that 'Application to the FCC has been made with various possibilities in mind, however, it does not lead to a new product announcement at this time.'

MTV's Stephen Totilo has a simple, common-sense solution to the issue of friend codes on the Wii: friend sentences. Using a tool like PhoneSpell.org, he advocates turning your incomprehensible code into something a bit more manageable. Instead of the sixteen digit mishmash that the Wii offers me, I can instead offer up "a-010-lure-texsku-50". Not a heck of a lot better, but certainly more memorable. "Each time, I had to send them my code, input theirs, and then wait for the Nintendo network to recognize we both wanted to be on each other's friends lists. A couple of months ago, however, my Wii broke. I got a new one. I was excited, but then spotted the dark lining to my silver cloud: My new system would force a new Friend Code on me, a Friend Code that I'd need to send out to everyone and hope they'd be willing to cancel my old listing and type in the new. That's when I realized the true pain of these 16-digit codes."

YokimaSun writes "SEGA. and Nintendo today made a historical announcement that two of the biggest icons in the entertainment industry, Mario and Sonic, are joining forces to star in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. 'In Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, players will compete in events that take place in environments based on the official venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Using a supporting cast of characters from the amazing worlds of both Mario and Sonic, gamers will be able to compete as or against a range of lovable personalities including Mario, Sonic, Luigi, Knuckles, Yoshi, Tails and more. Innovative usage of the Wii and DS control systems to maneuver a favourite character will allow players to race the likes of Mario and Sonic down the 100m track, engage in exhilarating rallies in table tennis and churn water in a swimming heat, all while competing for the much sought after gold medal.'" Has to be better than the usual Olympic Game titles, which have been categorically awful.

A new expansion pack for Civilization IV has been announced, with an emphasis on the late-game portions of the title. CVG says that new civilizations, technologies, and leaders will be available; added functionality includes the ability to form corporations and spread them throughout the globe, new espionage elements, and the ability to start games further up the tech ladder. "Advanced Starts: A major fan request, this new feature will enable players to 'buy' components of a custom-tailored empire and begin play in the later part of the game, allowing them to experience many of the new features of the expansion pack in a shorter amount of time." Also newly announced: Ninja Gaiden:Dragon Sword for the DS, an overhead 3D action game wholly unlike the side-scrolling original titles. That article, at 1up, also points out that a demo for the PS3 Ninja Gaiden title will be available in April.

In GameStop's quarterly public conference call, company COO Dan DeMatteo called out Nintendo on what he sees as intentional supply shortages. Along with the news that the company hit $5.3 Billion in 2006, Next Gen reports that the call contained several remarks on the next gen systems. The Wii, Dematteo thinks, has been short supplied because 'they made their numbers for the year ... [Nintendo's] new year starts April 1st, and I think we're going to see supply flowing.' They also commented on the Euro launch of the PS3, with CEO R. Richard Fontaine saying, 'I think the summary of that was that it was a very good launch falling somewhat short of what [GameStop's Euro managing directors] would call a great launch.'

1up's Luke Smith takes a look at February's NPD numbers, and has an observation to make about what they might mean for Sony. Though the company is almost certainly not selling as many PS3s as they'd like, the console still sold more units between November and February than a supply-constrained Xbox 360 did last year ... and despite a $200 more expensive pricetag. Though the console is certainly getting off to a slow start (and really needs great software, fast), it's still keeping pace with Microsoft's console from a year ago. "What does this mean for Sony? Considering the system's higher price point, if the platform can keep pace with the Xbox 360 through the first year (while the software matures), regardless of the installed base, the system has to be considered semi-successful. A concerning statistic between the two platforms' first January and February months is the drop-off in sales for those two months. From January 2006 to February 2006 the Xbox 360 sales trailed off 36% (250K units down to 161k units). At the same point in its lifespan, Sony's PlayStation 3 experienced a drop-off of 48% (244K units down to 127K units). That drop in sales, considering the units are available at retail, is cause for concern. Yet, despite trailing off by 25% more than its supply-constrained predecessor, the system does still cost $200 more."

Aided by racing titles MotorStorm and Formula One, the PlayStation 3 had the best UK console launch ever, according to Joystiq and MCVUK. This generation saw the Wii kick off with 105,000 units and the Xbox 360's sell through 70,000. The PSP still holds the record at 185,000 for a portable console, but I imagine Sony's pretty happy about this either way. "With plenty of consoles left in the 220,000 strong initial shipment, it would appear that a strong supply is the key to launch victory. Will sales remain brisk in the foreseeable future? We'll find out soon enough, but until then, expect some elaborately spun responses from Sony's competitors. Perhaps UK journalists ought to return those stacks of beer to Microsoft -- then again, alcohol already seems a likely explanation for steering the Xboat to the wrong continent."

CNN Money has up a piece looking at the next defining force in online games; neither Blizzard nor Lord of the Rings Online has their attention: it's all about stuffed animals. 'Tweens', as they're called, are a hugely influential market and game-makers are finally responding with online spaces keyed to their interests. Titles like Club Penguin and WebKinz allow older kids their freedom while still providing a safe place to play. Outfits like Disney and Nickelodeon are getting into the fray, and with good reason. Tweens, the article estimates, are a $40 billion demographic. "Club Penguin and Webkinz trumpet their sites as safe, ad-free environments. Disney and Nickelodeon are more frankly commercial and--in a big shift--ad-supported. Marketing to kids is always tricky; no one wants to be seen shilling to children. And whether the kids will buy the branded content, or the products advertised, remains to be seen. But the biggest question hovering over this whole market is what the kids will want in the future--like next week. The most carefully crafted strategies can be blown up by an overnight shift in whatever adolescents deem cool. "

Gamasutra is running a piece right now called Rethinking the MMO. Game designer Neil Sorens takes issue with some of the consistent blights on the traditional Massive gaming experience, like the phenomenon of the 'ordinary' hero, and the extremely large time investment required to 'get anywhere'. Though he doesn't offer a lot in the way of concrete solutions to these issues, his appraisal of the genre is sure to spark a few conversations: "As long as developers and publishers do nothing but copy what is successful, they--and gamers--will continue to miss out on these games' staggeringly awesome potential. And as long as [MMOGs] are designed by and for stat geeks (whom I know and love and sometimes am) with little regard for traditional game design fundamentals, they will continue to waste that potential."

1up reports on a clarification of last week's Xbox Live security scare. Though there are no technical problems with the service, there is a service problem with the service: account information was obtained via pretexting. Essentially, social engineers called up Xbox Live tech support and lied, saying they were users of certain accounts. Thanks to the sloppy training and privacy consciousness of Live's customer service operators, information was given out that allowed these pretexters onto accounts. "That probably means calling in to deal with customer support about the nitty gritty of your Xbox Live account will become both much more secure and potentially a bit more time-consuming and annoying. That may be the necessary price for full security, although as long as we're dealing with humans (and information that can slip into others' hands), there's sure to be the occasional case of successful pre-texting."

superdan2k writes "When Nintendo brought the Wii to market, one of their stated goals was to get people who didn't normally play video games using their console. Based on an article from the AP, it seems they've made some headway in capturing the senior citizen market. With the Wii's price point, and it being a good way to get people engaged in physical exercise, it's easy to envision it catching on with other retirement homes beyond the one mentioned in the article."

IGN has a longish piece up looking at the possible future of Sony's handheld. They examine the upcoming success of Sony's overshadowed creation via several excellent interviews from people with SCEA, first-party developers, third-party studios, and indies. I particularly enjoyed the comments by indie homebrew dev Fanjita, who had a great outsider's view of the little black dynamo. "I suspect there are 2 factors that make them especially resistant to homebrew on the PSP - the first is that point I just made, about not wanting to dent the already shaky platform image. The second is that we already know our way around almost all the PSP internals, and so they probably feel that there's a risk that a publicly endorsed, restricted homebrew platform would soon be cracked wide open, leaving them with an officially endorsed route to piracy. I like to believe that the capable homebrew devs would be respectful of a move from Sony to open up the platform, but it's obviously impossible to have any guarantees."

Dekortage sends news of what may be a new development in the attempted mainstreaming of Second Life. We've seen plenty of examples of real-world news media, politicos, and PR campaigns setting up in SL. But so far most of this action has been about first-life organizations trying to gain real-world publicity by their forays into SL. CNN is reporting that the real estate firm Coldwell Banker is moving into SL for the purpose of selling and renting in-world properties. From the article: "Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central 'mainland' of Second Life. (Most companies own 'islands' scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent... 'A small number of land barons mostly control real estate in Second Life, and we thought we could bring real estate to the masses,' [a VP explained]."

hansamurai writes "As we've previously discussed, the Folding@Home client is now available on the PS3, and already some early results are in. The total number of teraflops generated by PS3s has already exceeded all other OS contributions combined and the entire project is heading towards one petaflop of distributed computing power. Stanford notes that their teraflops calculation is conservatively calculated so the total power could be under-appreciated. With the PS3 European release complete and the Folding client already available to them, the number of users will continue to grow for the time being, let's hope that the project does not run out of work units to pass out. Kotaku has some numbers that are a few hours old since the Stanford server is getting hit pretty hard with the renewed interest in the project."

stpk4 wrote to mention some articles discussing the launch of the PlayStation 3 in Europe; London saw Phil Harrison handing out HD sets, while Microsoft's party barge and lackluster crowds marked the Parisian launch. The Australian launch went well but also saw disappointing crowds, with media, security, and store officials outnumbering the customers for much of the event. Eurogamer has a comprehensive list of launch titles, for those of you in the new territories thinking of picking up a console.