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Square Enix are preparing for E3, of course; it officially starts next Tuesday. For us, they're mainly doing it with a microsite that, as of this writing, doesn't work. If you care to find a metaphor in that for your faith in the company, well, I won't stop you. Hopefully it comes back online soon, though, as the site last year was really pretty nice, as I recall.

Square Enix are only talking about a few of the games that they'll be showing, and I haven't yet found any mention of a standalone presser that will be aired anywhere public. I don't believe they did one last year, either, so we'll have to feast on scraps that we get second-hand. For now, though, we do know of several games that will appear; of most interest to RPG fans will be Final Fantasy XIII-2 and WAKFU. However, Tomb Raider, the new Hitman, Deus Ex, Dead Island, and the new 3DS game Heroes of Ruin also headline the offering. There's no mention of Type-0 or Dream Drop Distance in the press release, but there's little doubt that they'll be in the booth in some fashion, surely, along with some other big-ticket games that escape my mind at the moment.

As for CoN, we're going to cover E3 the way we did last year, I think, as much as possible. That means that we'll be watching the big three press conferences in chat, as well as posting live thoughts about the offerings to Twitter and Facebook. After each of the big pressers, one of us will write up a kinda-bloggy recap for CoN news as well. If you want to participate, all you have to do is follow us on Twitter (@cavesofnarshe) or on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/cavesofnarshe), come to chat to make snide comments about the games you're seeing, or watch this space for the wrap-up news.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, we'd love it if you'd reference us in your own tweets or posts about E3, or if you'd retweet or share our comments to your own network. Help us keep our following growing by making sure all seven of your friends know about us!

Source: Square Enix, Kotaku

As an apology for the recent hacking and outage of the PlayStation Network, Sony is offering free games to PS3 and PSP owners who lost service during the outage. In addition, users will receive 30 days of free PlayStation Plus service and free rentals from their online video rental service.

To claim your free games, just log onto the PSN Store anytime the first 30 days after it's restored (which it should be soon) and download the games. Two game downloads from the list of available games are allowed for each system - 2 for PS3 and 2 for PSP. Five games are available for each platform, including the critically acclaimed inFamous on PS3 and LittleBigPlanet on both the PSP and PS3. Check the listed source for the full menu of free games and other stipulations of the deal.

This is for the North American PSN Store only; other regions will likely have their own "customer appreciation packages" announced later on. I dunno about you guys, but I'll be getting my Wipeout on at the first opportunity.

Source: North American PlayStation Blog

You might recall laszlow's post from a couple months back, in which we, the gamers, were invited to vote upon which games should be included in their retrospective. Time has flown, and now the results have been made public - well, people who voted got the results an hour ago, but now they're actually public.

So, how did your favorite games do? If you're thinking specifically of Square Enix games, they did pretty okay. For the PlayStation, three of the four games came from the old Squaresoft: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Einhander. Beyond that, though, not so hot; Final Fantasy lost to Zelda, Chrono Trigger also lost to Zelda, and Actraiser whiffed against the first Sim City on SNES.

I think a fair number of the results were pretty predictable, but that's probably because a lot of the games are either truly impressive, had lax competition in their categories, or both. I happily greeted the news that Bioshock and Portal both got in, personally, and was quite amused to see Minecraft topple the Starcraft II juggernaut. To form your own opinions, just hit the source link below.

Source: Smithsonian Institute

Since our last post on the Wii 2, there has been a considerable amount of new information to hit the interwebs. So let's break it down!

First of all, Nintendo pretty quickly confirmed the rumors that were going about: yes, there is in fact a new console well in the works, codenamed "Project Cafe." Because, you know, you gotta have a codename. As initially supposed, the console will receive its first public unveiling at E3 2011.

We also have a few notable details about the system's capabilities. Its processing power will be greater than what is currently boasted by the PS3 and Xbox 360. Apparently, Project Cafe will be able to achieve resolutions of 1080p. I don't really know what that means, but another source says that it will be capable of HD resolutions, so I'll just assume the terms are synonymous. In addition, it has been stated that the new system will be fully backwards compatible with the Wii.

Perhaps the most interesting info currently available concerns the new control. Nintendo appears to be returning to a more classic style with this control, which will feature analog sticks and a pretty standard layout. Oh, plus a 6-inch touch screen right in the middle. Think Dreamcast appearance. This touch screen controller will allow for additional interaction with the game, but it will also be able to stream content from the console to be played on the control exclusively. Sources have said that the touch screen will also be HD resolution, leading to some serious cost speculations. In addition to the already-existing usefulness speculations. (Check the first link below for more information and an image.)

Most recently, information has come out suggesting a system price in the range of $350 to $400. The console will apparently be ready to ship as early as this October, though Nintendo may very well hold off on that date. "Stream" is rumored to be one potential name for the new system; and we'd only just gotten used to Project Cafe.

Nintendo also intends to make a pre-announcement (it's kinda like LeBron, just go with it) in the relatively near future.

Source: IGN, IGN, IGN

It really does seem like yesterday that the first trickles of news about the Revolution started showing up, even though in reality it's been very nearly seven years. Today, though, while Nintendo won't cop to it, gaming news outlets have begun to report that the Wii's successor will be out late next year.

It appears that Nintendo is willing to admit that they will no longer be able to survive on first-party console games, and that the new box will be better equipped to deal with, at the very least, the current competition. Of course, there's no way to know how Nintendo's next outing might cope against the next Xbox or Playstation, as there are just way too many variables way too off in the future. However, it does seem that the specs or even prototypes might already be in the hands of some third-party developers, which provides a nice bit of lead time into day-one titles for next Christmas.

Lending further credence to this still-not-official news is the fact that the current Wii is looking to get a price cut in May. This will be only the second price drop for the system, and the new price will settle in at $150.

For more information, it's probably going to be E3, which is in early June. However, it's all but certain that someone will break more concrete information sometime in the next eight weeks.

Source: Game Informer

The April 2011 edition of Dengeki Playstation is out in Japan, and a sidebar article in it breaks the news of a new Sony Playstation 3 controller that seems to have remained under the radar until recently. The new controller, says the sidebar, is a joint effort between the two Japanese gaming giants, the first time a developer has worked with Sony directly on a custom controller.

The controller is called the DualShock3 SE (for "Square Enix", not "Special Edition"), and it is expected to list at about 5,500 Yen (currently about $67 US), about the same as a standard DualShock3, shares a lot of physical characteristics with the original PS3 pad. It will, at least for now, be offered only in black, just as the original DualShock3, with the standard general layout and handgrips. After that, though, the pad is departs wildly from the standard controller - the article quotes a Squenix source as saying "we determined that the best way to play games from the modern Final Fantasy series was to streamline the controller so that the most necessary buttons are always front and center." The development team for the new controller realized that most of the action in Final Fantasy games in the last decade results from either pressing the up arrow or tapping X, to either progress through the linear maps or dismiss repetitive dialogue or cutscenes, and as such they made those buttons the focus of the pad.

The team realizes that the new style of the pad is not for everyone, and suggests that gamers choose the pad that works best for them individually. "We know that this isn't what you'll want to use for Gran Turismo [or other games], but we think that our pad will make sense for those who love Final Fantasy games." The controller will be released in Japan concurrently with Final Fantasy Versus XIII; there's no indication yet whether it will come to the West, or if Square Enix are working with Microsoft or even Nintendo on a similar device.

Below is a scan from the issue of Dengeki, as well as a higher-resolution render also released by the magazine.


Source: Dengeki Playstation