News

In an effort to make a "YouTube for Games", Microsoft have released new software to allow gamers to create a home grown custom slice of gaming fun. The program, called XNA Game Studio Express, will allow XBox 360 gamers as well as windows users to create their own games and distribute them via XBox Live, and has been under trials since August.

Doubtlessly also a small effort to compete with the Wii virtual console and PS3's similar efforts, this also is reminiscent of home-made games from the mid 1980's onwards, and has parallels with the "black playstation", Net Yaroze, which allowed the creation of games... if one forked out a few thousand notes on a special PSX which cost around £500 via mail order, and not to mention the PC, internet connection, and the basic knowledge of C++. It nonetheless produced some surprisingly good games, distributed via the official UK PS magazine's demo disc.

Of perhaps greater note and of a greater parallel, PC's have always had various low-budget shareware games floating around, and possibly more as XNA Game Studios can of course be used to create games for a Windows PC, further evidence that the line between PC and Console is still blurring.

Those aiming to make their own homebrew videogames via XBox 360 however will have to subscribe online to the creators club, for $49 for four months or a $99 annual fee, or £35/65 in the UK.

It remains to be seen what will truly occur from an interesting repolish of an old concept, but if the number of people these days trying to be programmers is anythign to go by, there will be significant intrest and maybe a few gems will emerge.

Source: BBC News

Yes, you heard correctly. The ninth entry of the fabled RPG series is going to be on the Nintendo DS. Very little concrete info has been released thus far, but we know that it's going to be called Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Stars and it's going to be co-developed by the Dragon Quest dearm team (Yuji Horii, etc.) and Level-5, virtually the same team that brought us Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 a year ago. Horii himself stated in the press release that this DS game is "not a gaiden or side-story, but a true part of the series."

This is great news for fans of the series, who are unfortunately accustomed to long delays in between DQ titles (there were five years between the releases of DQ VI and DQ VII, followed by four years between DQ VII and DQ VIII). It is certainly unexpected for Square-Enix to put the next iteration of such a major series on a handheld system, but it might just be a testament to the overwhelming popularity and developer support of the Nintendo DS in Japan. In any case, the tentative release date for Dragon Quest IX is "mid-2007."

source: N-sider

First of all, thanks everyone that took part in our little CoNtest. We had around two dozen entries, with some of them surprisingly close and some of them hilariously off-course. In any case, we had two entries in particular that came awfully close to a perfect four for four. So, I hereby offer heartiest of congratulations to...

Zeromus_X and Nytecrawla!

Both users guessed two correct and had a third guess that was one of the four fakes in the wrong place. No users had more than two correct answers. Still, in any case, both Nytecrawla and Zeromus_X each earned twenty dollars in the form of an amazon.com gift certificate! If there had been a single winner or if the winning entries had been more correct the prize probably would have been greater, but hey, it's twenty bucks! What's not to love?

Also, the staff members of Caves of Narshe would like to thank all of the participants and other interested parties. We had a blast conducting this CoNtest (mostly laughing at the antics of the four fakes) and you can probably expect a new CoNtest sometime next year, but not one like this. Seriously, we'll probably never be able to pull this off ever again now that all of you have experienced it.

And yes, I know what you guys want to hear. Who exactly were those four? Which staff members went incognito? Well, we'll let them tell you themselves. Keep an eye on this thread for the final posts of chou, kimono==kitsune, Inque, and Green Mage for the truth!

You probably didn't need a news post to realize this, but the two simply don't mix.

Should online gamers start keeping better track of their game-world assets? They might have to if World of Warcraft loot morphs into taxable income. The government hasn't made a move in this direction yet, but economic analysts claim that it's a matter of when, not if.

Thanks to the real-money market that has grown up around online games like Ultima Online and Second Life, there's real money to be made by farming game products to sell to other players for cold, hard cash.

Unfortunately, any new tax legislation would not merely tax the people making a real-life living--if it's potentially worth money in the real world, then it's taxable, regardless of whether or not the player ever chooses to take the fruits of his labor out of the fantasy and put it on the market.

Source: GameSpot

In other news, a suspected PlayStation 3 thief was shot to death in his apartment by officers who may have mistaken a game controller in his hand for a gun. The teenager, who is believed to have been behind the robbery of two PlayStation 3 consoles as their owner unloaded them at a campus apartment, did not come to the door promptly enough as officers kicked it in. Also killed was his dog, a German shepherd.

You'd think police officers everywhere would be cautious before unloading into a suspect on the off-chance that he might be armed after the big stink in New York City over the unarmed groom-to-be who was shot by police...and that's only the most recent in a long line of itchy trigger fingers. But a game controller looking like a gun? I guess we have to assume that he was playing his hot PS3, because, otherwise, the trailing cord should have been a dead giveaway.

Source: IOL (among other news outlets)

Of course, even bureaucracy has its moments. The state of Michigan has recently been ordered to pay the court fees accrued by the Entertainment Software Association in its legal battle over the state's restrictions on selling games to minors. Michigan's law is only one of several in recent years to be declared unconstitutional by various state courts; the laws generally impose punishments or special restrictions prohibiting the sale of adult-rated games to children.

Wait, my bad. That was the courts having a moment of clarity--the government bureaucracy is still responsible for this huge waste of taxpayers' dollars over a free speech issue in the first place.

Source: GameSpot

The Caves of Narshe forum community has seen a number of very interesting and amusing new users. There's the Kimono^_^Kitsune the Japanophile, The Green Mage the aspiring author, Inque the capitalizer, and chou the obnoxious jerk. Just one thing you should know about those four....

Each of them was a staff member posting in disguise.

This is where the contest comes in - we will be awarding Amazon.com gift certificates to anyone who can correctly guess the true identity of those four users. Each of them is one and only one unique staff member - no staffer did more than one fake, and no staff member shared a fake with any other staff members. The prizes will be Amazon gift certificates ranging from $20 to $30, depending on how many perfect entries we receive, but we will guarantee that at least one user will win one, even if no one gives a perfect entry. We'll stop accepting entries and determine the contest winners two weeks from today's date. If you aren't sure who's a staff member and who isn't, then check the staff link here - any current staff member on that list is a possible candidate.

To enter, just send an email to contests@cavesofnarshe.com, with a subject line of "CoNtest". Your entry should clearly and concisely show who you are and what your guesses are, sort of like this:

laszlow's guesses

chou is Rangers51
Kimono^_^Kitsune is Tiddles
Inque is Neal
The Green Mage is Mr_Thou

Now, I'll give you an extra hint and say that the above entry isn't 100% correct. Aren't I generous? Anyway, have fun! You guys didn't actually think chou was for real, did you?

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Sony is pouring their efforts into selling the console they can actually stock: the PlayStation Portable, or PSP. Their lagging foray into the handheld market currently dominated by the Nintendo DS will be bolstered by a new marketing campaign that, oddly enough, mimics features the DS has had in place for a while.

The new PSP Download Stations will allow PSP owners to visit and download content via a wireless connection. (Sound familiar, yet?) Available content will include demos, movie trailers, videos, and game sharing. Sony is also launching a new advertising campaign pushing the PSP.

Unfortunately, Sony isn't doing the thing that fans have been most hoping for: lowering the PSP's $200 retail price as an added incentive for people to buy.

Source: GameSpot

Really, I don't see how Sony thinks that the PSP can possibly win in a head-on battle with the DS. Sure, it can show movies (if you can find anywhere to buy them), but, when it comes down to it, the PSP is just a Playstation you can take with you...but with shorter games and inferior graphics. The DS has innovation on it's side, not to mention the fact that the DSLite retails for only $129.99. In fact, if you're really on a budget, a refurbished DS will cost you only $80, compared to $170 for a used PSP. Then you factor in the complaints about dead pixels on the PSP's screen (which Sony claims are not a true defect and hence not a reason for repair or exchange), and it's really not hard to figure out why I don't own the only handheld to feature a Katamari game.

Of course, lowering the price would have gone a ways toward putting the PSP back in my ballgame, and doing so right before the holiday season could have done nothing but boost sales.

I don't think I need to call Sony an arrogant corporation this time. They pretty much speak for themselves.