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Nintendo has announced a new title this week, Kurikin Nano Island Story for the Nintendo DS. This game will be another step in the creature capture genre Nintendo has created, only this time you won't be capturing lovable monsters, you'll be scooping up bacteria.

You play the game as a young inhabitant of Nano Island home to one hundred different types of bacteria. As the game progresses you'll be exploring the island, and be able to both capture and train new types of bacteria. The game's story mode is mission based, and will be 24 chapters long. Of course, to succeed in your missions you're going to have to engage in some germ warfare. That's right, you'll be fighting other teams of bacteria.

In battles players will control an army of germs that first appear as a single pixel on the DS's touch screen. You'll be able to instruct your troops by circling part of the group and then drawing a line, instructing them to go there. You'll also be able to disperse the group you've circled by blowing into the DS microphone. When your germs engage the enemy in combat the top screen will show a zoomed in view, allowing you a nice view of the germ combat. Bacteria of course, will divide and multiply the entire time, keeping your troops with a steady stream of combatants.

Each battle will feature a different requirement from winning, going from things like simply wiping out the enemy, to having the most remaining bacteria.

Kurikin Nano Island Story will release May 24 in Japan, a US launch date has not yet been announced, and it is unknown whether the game will make it here.

Source: RPGamer

It still isn't $40 and bundled with Final Fantasy Tactics, but gamers critical of Sony's expensive handheld can now confirm what they've been saying all along: the PlayStation Portable was just too expensive.

Originally sold as a $249.99 "Value Pack" bundle, the PSP received it's first price drop when the package was cut down to the $199.99 "Core Pack" containing only the PSP, a battery, and an AC adapter. This move was criticized by those who noted that the price of the handheld itself remained virtually the same, as a memory stick still needed to be purchased in order to use most of its functions.

Finally, Sony seems to have realized what the rest of the world has always known: if they want the PSP to compete with the $129.99 Nintendo DS and it's massive developer support, they were going to have to do something about the price. Effective immediately, the PSP Core Pack will retail for $169.99, but, this time, without a hit to features or accessories.

Industry analysts have greeted this news happily, generally affirming what seemed like common sense to the rest of us... Things sell better when people can afford them.

Source: GameSpot

I've toyed with the idea of getting a used PSP somewhere along the line, but now I'm wondering if this will dry up the supply even more. Currently, a PSP trades in at Game Stop/EB Games for something in the neighborhood of $40, and we just don't see very many people who wouldn't rather just keep the darn thing. Since the new price is now less than Game Stop's preowned price, the trade-in value is going to have to dip even lower... You'd have to be an idiot to put up with it when eBay is right there.

With the X-Box 360 launching a full year before either of the other next-gen (this-gen?) consoles, Microsoft must have found it hard to stay in the limelight. Sure, the 360 had the highest holiday sales, but no one was lining up at four AM to find one, and, as a proven success, there was little speculation regarding 360 titles. But now, with a new name and new features, the X-Box 360 Elite just jumped back into the discussion.

As rumored for months, one of the major changes for new console will be hard drive size. The X-Box Elite will have a 120 GB drive in order to accommodate huge file sizes from the game and video X-Box Live download services. The color scheme will be switched over to black (or "premium" black, as Microsoft puts it), and the console will ship with a matching wireless controller and headset. The X-Box Elite will also have an HDMI output port and come bundled with an HDMI cable. Take that, Sony.

The new console will retail for $479 in the United States, a full $20 less expensive than the "cheap" PS3. The 120 GB harddrive plus a data transfer cable will also be released separately for $179.

Source: GameSpot

Despite Sony's snotty reminder that the new X-Box still won't come with high-def DVD playback that no one has any use for anyway, this looks to me like Microsoft is giving gamers what they want. If Sony could knock the PS3's price into this range by making BluRay optional, I'd be right there. It seems ironic to me that Microsoft, the same company that insists on huge bundles for their PC products, is allowing consumers to decide for themselves whether or not they want a video game console or an entire entertainment center.

After months of delays, product detail changes, and other reasons for European gamers to grumble against Sony, the PS3 has finally launched in Sony's largest European market, the United Kingdom.

Though only a few hardcore fans took to sleeping on the pavement in order to secure a console, the line did improve as the midnight launch at an Oxford Virgin Megastore drew closer. And those truly rabid fans found themselves with a terrific pay-off for their determination to get a console at launch. No, silly, not the mere fact of having a console at launch. Mere minutes before midnight, a Sony rep announced that everyone already in line would receive not only a complimentary copy of the game Resistance: Fall of Man, but a 46" Bravia plasma HDTV.

Clearly, the PS3 launch went well for those who chose to show up for the midnight launch, and this is an unprecedented show of generosity on the part of a company that has been known to void a user's warranty if they admit to using 3rd-party AV cables. But as much as I wish I'd been in that line, what does this really say about Sony? Isn't giving away free plasma TVs for buying a video game system kind of like handing out cookies to secure votes for prom queen?

Source: GameSpot

It's still not official, but Sony's "we haven't announced, but we're not going to deny" denial hardly puts the poop on the party: Sony's PlayStation Portable may be undergoing a redesign to make it slimmer and lighter. Hey, it worked for Nintendo, so why not?

According to UK Sony rep Ray Maguire, any future "iterations" of the portable gaming device will be improved with an aim toward making it "smaller, lighter" while preserving the current screen size.

No mention of what effect, if any, this will have on the current model's price has been made.

Source: GameSpot

With the PS3's European launch finally approaching (but still a month away), our friends in Europe and Australia are finally close to Sony's next generation. But this eager anticipation may take a downward spin with the latest news from Sony.

Striving to cut costs, Sony has announced that the European PS3's backward compatibility will be far more limited than the North American and Japanese versions. Only a "limited range" of PlayStation 2 titles will play on the European PS3, while a "broad range" of original PlayStation titles will function. A short list of compatible games will be available at launch, and the list will be expanded as Sony gets around to it. Specifically, the PS3 will not ship with the Emotion Engine chip, which was essentially the CPU for the PS2.

Sony intends to focus on software emulation as a cheaper solution to providing backwards compatibility to European gamers.

Source: GameSpot

Sigh. Sony, Sony, Sony... You're going to charge European gamers the highest prices worldwide for your product, and now you're removing one of its most attractive features?

If this had happened to the US version, there'd be no way that I'd buy a PS3. I don't like making stacks of consoles, and, frankly, holding onto my older titles means a lot to me. And what about the people who were planning on making the PS3 their first Sony console? What games are they supposed to play? Launch titles? Oh, please.