Rogerpq3 writes "A G4/Tech TV feature on DOOM 3, offering a history of the DOOM franchise in the words of the folks at id Software. The clip can be found on the air on The DOOM Franchise, episode 310 of a series called 'Icons.' The piece offers clips from DOOM 3 and other games, interview footage, analysis and more, and for those without access to the program. You can download the movie at: 3DGamers, Doom3HQ, Doom3.de, Doom3maps.de, and FileShack. It's really worth the download for any Doom and id fans out there. (Thanks: BluesNews)"

Thanks to 1UP for its 'Freeloading' article discussing Falcom's freely downloadable PC tactical RPG Vantage Master Online. According to the author, the title "surprising balance and depth of play", even though it "took rather a while to make, and by the time things were nearing completion it was showing its age pretty badly and was practically unmarketable. The usual course of action in that situation is to just ditch the project and cut one's losses. In Falcom's case, they wrapped it up, put it up for free download at their own expense, and even went so far as to make an English (sort of) translation."

thenextpresident writes "Over on JoeUser.com, there is an interesting article, from the creator of the previously mentioned TotalGaming.net subscription service, that discusses two things: the PC game market vs the console market, and how one game developer views game publishers as a bigger problem than the software "pirates". "So don't talk to me about piracy. It's not the pirates that have ripped us off of hundreds of thousands in lost royalties. It's been "Real businesses" doing that thank you very much. The position of royalty eating parasite has already been taken." He also digs into all the problems PC games have: usually being buggy on release, CD keys, patches (and more patches), hard drive space while still requiring the CD be in the drive. All together, a really interesting look at the game industry from just one developer."

An anonymous reader writes "The Halo 2 movie trailer hit theaters last week and rabid fans have been passing around 'cam' versions since then. A lower quality streaming version went up on MSN and Xbox.com yesterday, but today GamePro.com premiered a high definition 1920x1080 5.1 surround sound version of the trailer for the home theater purists. More interestingly, a Halo.bungie.org newspost reports on subliminal messages within the ad, when 'the Xbox logo changes, for a frame or two, from www.xbox.com to www.ilovebees.com', an apparently legit website where 'some very, very strange stuff is going on' - there's already speculation and a little evidence this could be from the same Microsoft group who stealthily made the AI web game?" Elsewhere, an anonymous reader writes "Remember Quake Done Quick, the effort to complete Quake as fast as possible? Well, halo.bungie.org recently wrapped up its Going Nowhere Fast contest, which was an effort to do much the same thing for Halo. You can view the results and download the videos, though some are still being posted, at the Going Nowhere Fast contest page."

Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing the Xbox-related financial results from Microsoft's Q4/annual 2004 earnings, released yesterday. The article notes: "The Home and Entertainment Group, which includes the Xbox division, had a $339 million operating loss for the quarter on revenue of $499 million and anemic revenue growth of 3 percent - the lowest growth rate of any of Microsoft's seven business segments. Though Microsoft doesn't break out separate results for the Xbox, it's pretty clear that the console business is still a strategic investment, not a profit center." However, it's not all bad news, since "Xbox shipments increased 27 percent over the same period a year ago. Microsoft reports 15.5 million units sold worldwide through the end of June: 1.5 million in Asia Pacific, 3.9 million in Europe, and 10.1 million in North America. The company also quoted industry research group NPD's claim that Xbox has a 33 percent market share in the US, with 50 percent growth in software sales over Q4 last year." Does this bode well for the apparent 2005 launch of Xbox 2?

Thanks to Waxy.org for pointing to an overlooked March 2004 Pitch.com story discussing scenes from America's Dance Dance Revolution arcade culture, as the article starts: "In the strange world of Kansas City's Dance Dance Revolutionaries, Wayne Giles didn't step so lightly." It goes on to describe Giles' transition "from social outcast to high roller in a crowd funded by allowances and minimum-wage paychecks", and his eventual "skimming... [of] more than a thousand dollars' worth of tokens [as an arcade tech]", before his exposure and return to local tournament play, arguing of DDR: "Lately it's all about speed. Whatever happened to playing for fun?"

Thanks to 1UP for noting that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has founded his own independent development company, according to Japanese magazine Famitsu Weekly. The company will be using "a small group of elite creators", planned to include "artists Yoshitaka Amano and Takehiko Inoue" - the article author also mentions: "Sakaguchi was ousted from any position of significant responsibility at Square after the multi-million-dollar boondoggle that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." Elsewhere, RPGFan mentions a third Final Fantasy VII spin-off has been announced, following the CG movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and the mobile phone-based Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, but "no release date or platform information has been given so far" for this new title. Finally, Warcry reveals the Final Fantasy XI clock, due out Fall 2004 in the U.S., and featuring "the time, day of the week, date and year in both [Final Fantasy XI's game world] Vana'diel and also here on Earth."

KaiEl writes "An article on TotalVideoGames is quoting Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser as saying Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will have 150 hours of gameplay. That's all well and good, but what does it really mean? The way I see it, a game that I enjoy for 20 hours is much better than a game that I hate for 150. So why the obsession in video game media with quantifying gameplay time?"

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with CEO id Todd Hollenshead and Doom 3 lead designer Tim Willits, as part of a carefully orchestrated fusillade of interviews that also includes a subtly different interview at IGN and another interview at GameSpy - topics discussed include the limit on 4-player multiplayer ("I have no doubt that one of the first mods for Doom 3 to come out will be eight-player Doom 3. But it's my guess that eight-player Doom 3 will be most effectively played on LAN servers"), game pricing ("Activision has a minimum advertised price on the game at launch of $54.99; anything above that I would say is just retailers padding their margins"), and what id will do next ("Our very talented art staff has already started on the next game. Kenneth (Scott, id Software artist) is leading the team, working on some proof-of-concept stuff.")

An anonymous reader writes "Sony Japan has put some more info about its PlayStation 2 DJ mixing software DJbox onto the official site. Check out the three 'Movie' links at the bottom of the page for video of the software in action - there are a few screenshots on other Japanese sites. The software, which allows you to mix and scratch music on your PS2, is released on July 29th as both a standalone PS2 title, as well as a special Premium Kit version including the PlayStation 2 'BB Unit' (hard drive), which is required to save DJbox creations." There's no word on a Western release yet, but this looks like a neat piece of software.

Moryath writes "Ever wonder how to quantify a game's camera, or why some videogame genres tend towards problems while others never see it mentioned? Glide Underground has some basic attempted quantification up in their Weekly Musings column for this week - they break possible game camera views down to six categories, and go over which are the most likely to have issues." Are there obvious steps that can be taken to improve some game cameras?

Thanks to Eurogamer for its two-part interview with the creators of Xbox/PC FPS Men Of Valor, another of the raft of current/forthcoming titles based on the Vietnam War. The interviewer pointedly notes: "2015 is determined to try and avoid making a political statement or offending anybody. Yet, at the same time, they've chosen an African-American man for the lead and aim to touch on some of the delicate racial issues that were unfolding at the time... There are certainly some aspects of the equation that don't quite add up." A hands-on Xbox preview from Eurogamer also delves deeper into gameplay for this September-due title, praising what looks like "a solid first-person shooter with some thoughtful ideas behind it", although cautioning: "we'd argue there's certainly some cynicism in the Vietnam game idea."

Thanks to Warcry.com for its three-part interview with Playboy: The Mansion lead developer Brenda Brathwaite. She discusses the Sims-like gameplay of the multi-platform title in development at Cyberlore, arguing: "I think I have an advantage as a heterosexual woman in that Playboy just wasn't part of my past: I was able to approach it from a brand-new angle... I can flip through those magazines and not have it effect me in the same way that it would clearly affect a heterosexual male." She concludes: "We go through and take a comparatively high road with this game, and show you a little of what it takes to build the Playboy empire, and what has happened historically. That was the challenge."

Rogerpq3 writes "Before the game goes on sale, id Software has been kind enough to release some benchmarks for DOOM 3 with the latest video cards on the market from NVIDIA & ATI. HardOCP has published the five page article which should help anyone trying to decide if they should upgrade their video card for DOOM 3. There's also an introductory note from John Carmack, mentioning: 'The benchmarking was conducted on-site, and the hardware vendors did not have access to the demo before hand, so we are confident that there is no egregious cheating going on.', and the HardOCP writers comment: 'As of this afternoon we were playing DOOM 3 on a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 box with a GeForce 4 MX440 video card and having a surprisingly good gaming experience.'"

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the announcement of Stardock's TotalGaming.net PC indie gaming subscription service. The press release explains: "While users can purchase games individually, Stardock expects the real appeal of TotalGaming.net to be in the subscription. For $89, users receive a host of good games plus everything added to TotalGaming.net for an entire year afterwards", and goes on to note: "For the initial launch, Stardock has put together an impressive list of games that will be available on day one, such as Galactic Civilizations, Celtic Kings, Orb, The Corporate Machine, LightWeight Ninja, and a new compilation of Disciples II called Disciples II Ultimate Edition... [and] plans to add a new game each month for the rest of the year starting with The Political Machine in August." Notably, the announcement mentions: "Even if [users] choose not to re-subscribe, they can still re-download the entire game years later." Does this approach appeal more than somewhat similar monthly services offered by Comcast, Atari, and Yahoo?

PhotoBoy writes "The Register has an article about the UK's High Court ruling PlayStation 2 modchips to be illegal. This means all homebrew and hobbyist coders in the UK can no longer modify their consoles to run games they have written. Gamers who like to mod their consoles to play games on import early are also out of luck. It's like saying you can't modify your car or your house or your clothes! Would Ford sue you for removing the rev limiter from your Focus?"

Thanks to LinuxDevCenter.com for its profile of open-source strategy game engine Stratagus, interviewing the creators of the multi-platform engine formerly known as Freecraft, before the makers "received a cease and desist order" from Blizzard over name/design similarities. The author explains: "There are no essential technical differences between Stratagus and FreeCraft - Stratagus continues where FreeCraft left off. The goal of making a customizable RTS engine remains the same, although the designers now de-emphasize compatibility with WarCraft 2." The piece also discusses future plans: "The big new technology under development for future versions of Stratagus is a meta-server which will enable the engine to connect Internet players to play together. 'We intend to add a team play mode where you can share resources and technologies with your allies. [This] will allow for a much better community with features such as online chat and user statistics,' says [lead programmer] Russell."

Thanks to The Adrenaline Vault for its article discussing the actual significance of videogame trade shows, now that "e-mail, Internet press releases, cell phones, faxes, personal digital assistants and the like make communication and transmission of information virtually instantaneous among developers and vendors." The piece makes the suggestion, with regard to "trade shows like Comdex, CES and E3", that: "In earlier days, people were attracted to attend the national conventions because of all the novelty present. Now, new software and hardware products seem more evolutionary than revolutionary, with a lot of copycat items that differ from what is already out there just through cosmetic differentiation." Do shows like E3 matter as much as they used to?

Zonk writes "Last Thursday 'Thunderheart', the Community Manager on PC MMO Star Wars Galaxies' forums, dropped a bomb: the long awaited patch rebalancing combat within the game has been pushed off until after the Jump to Lightspeed expansion [which just announced 13 of its 15 spaceships] launches. Given that the JtL expansion is not due until this fall, this puts the combat rebalance somewhere around the beginning of next year. The playerbase has... not taken this well. The original thread on the official forums was locked at 64 pages - it was then picked up again in a thread already surpassing 50 pages. The players are rightly outraged, and the reaction has prompted a response from the Sony Online chain of command. It will be interesting to see how this turns out." Update: 07/21 15:52 GMT by S : There's an interview with producer Haden Blackman over at Game Informer which discusses the issue in more detail.

Thanks to IGN PS2 for relaying the news that Namco has confirmed bizarre PlayStation 2 'object conglomeration' videogame Katamari Damacy for U.S. release, as it's officially "due out on [North American] store shelves this September." The article explains of the previously featured PS2 title, thought "very unlikely" to get a U.S. release at the time: "Your father, the great king, has inadvertently eliminated the stars from the sky and it's your job as his son to clean up the mess that he's created. To do so, players become a sticky rolling mass that can collect objects and items from all over the world" - a review of the Japanese version at Game Science explains gameplay further.