One of the driving factors behind my early adoption of the PS3 was the fact that I could play all my PS2 games on it thanks to the Emotion Engine Chip that it had under the hood. In subsequent SKU’s, that hardware was removed, and Sony even said that they were focused on moving forward without it.

Well, that may be changing in the near future. According to Siliconera, Sony has secured a U.S. Patent for the technology that will apparently allow the Cell Processor in the PS3 to emulate the Emotion Engine of the PS2.

Couple this with the rumors of a price cut and the release of the PS3 Slim this fall, and you start to think that Sony may have a fundamental strategy shift under way.

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This week’s Rock Band 2 Music Store tracks update features Pearl Jam, Mission of Burma, Lacuna Coil and The Offspring. Wii owners can look forward to a wealth of tracks every week until the catalog catches up to the over 700 Rock Band tracks available for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Each original master recording is an even $2 or 200 points available for purchase at the Wii Shop.

(All tracks are original master recordings)

All the above tracks go online Tuesday, June 30th.

Freedom Force, the Silver and Gold age super hero game that broke the curse, didn’t feature a licensed universe with Superman or Captain America. Instead, it played like a tribute to the classic comic book story and while it never became a mainstream commercial success it remains an active and cherished game for its fans and their modification efforts.

This weekend, IGN uploaded an interview featuring 2k Boston’s( formerly Irrational Games) Ken Levine, who was executive producer on both games as well as writer, and some key members of the Irrational Games team regarding the past, present and future of the game series. Levine and his team discuss the rough ride the series experienced, their personal favorite characters in the Irrational universe and the passion it requires to get a self-published sequel out on the street.

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Last week we saw the id/Bethesda merger under parent company ZeniMax Media and there was much rejoicing, but what if Electronic Arts merged its two online game developers into one giant super developer wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows and be general cause for mass excitement?

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement - a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort - the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.

So, do you like drinking Dr. Pepper while you’re playing your EA Games? If so, you’re going to really enjoy this piece of news.

Electronic Arts and Dr. Pepper have entered into an agreement that will see Dr. Pepper providing codes for exclusive DLC for EA Games throughout 2010, starting with The Sims 3.
If you’re a Sims 3 fan, you can grab codes from Dr. Pepper that will unlock one-of-a-kind beach party items, or everything you need for a perfect tailgating party.

Tony Jacobs, Vice President of Marketing for Dr Pepper, said,

“The first-of-its-kind partnership with EA will give Dr Pepper fans an unrivaled experience by adding exclusive value to their games such as new levels and items. EA is the only media company that could reach our target audience with the breadth and depth of titles for gamers on any gaming platform.”

Honestly, these types of arrangements are going to become more and more prevalent in the future. As gaming becomes more and more accepted by mainstream marketers, there will be more tie-in opportunities to reach gamers as a market. This will end up being good for the industry, and good for individual gamers as well, as it will give us more opportunities to get cool little add-ons for our games like these.

You can check out the full text of the press release after the break.

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In the past year or so, we’ve seen some big mergers and acquisitions in the gaming industry. Activision and Blizzard’s merger was the big news, but there have been others. Today, another newsworthy acquisition was announced.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has acquired id Software. This acquisition puts franchises like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Doom, Quake, and RAGE under one roof. The best news out of all of this is that all of the principals at id Software have signed long term contracts, meaning that id will continue to operate under the same management going forward.

In discussing the deal, id Technical Director and industry icon John Carmack said, “This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward. We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

So, what sort of speculation can we make because of this deal? Bethesda games driven by id engines? That would seem to be a logical step, wouldn’t you think? What do you think this news means to the future of the two companies?

You can read the full text of the press release after the break.

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If you haven’t heard yet, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has threatened, in a roundabout way, to drop his company’s support for PS3 if Sony doesn’t consider a price cut.

According to MCV, Kotick said in an interview,

“I’m getting concerned about Sony – the PS3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation.

They have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console — and the PSP too.”

That’s a big shot fired across Sony’s bow. So, will Sony take him seriously, and how will they respond?

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InFamous is an action packed trip into a familiar genre with an interesting twist. You start out as Cole McGrath, a poor schmuck who has a mysterious delivery package blow up in his face, leaving him with burgeoning electrical based powers and everyone else in a six block radius with a slight case of death. You emerge from your baptism by fire, crawl out of the blast zone and run for your life guided by your buddy Zeke as the police force hunts you down.

Once you reach the relative safety of your roof top penthouse, the game truly begins throwing you into a grand conspiracy masterminded by a clandestine mystical organization. As you unravel the mystery, you can either fight your reputation as the bringer of the apocalypse or revel in the new coolness that is you and start building your own evil empire.

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Like many other people, I was very interested in seeing the ‘official’ unveiling of the PSP Go during Sony’s E3 press conference. Of course, we’d all seen it before the conference started, but I still wanted to see the official reveal.

My first thought was that other than the size of the unit, the PSP Go really wasn’t all that different from the PSP I already own. Over the weekend, I read an interesting article on Ars Technica, where they reached a similar conclusion. I thought I’d share it, as it tracks closely with my early impressions of the system.

The bigger news, according to Ars Technica, is the news that Sony is moving all their PSP distribution to digital, as well as on UMD. However, there’s no reason to buy the new handheld to take advantage of this move to digital. After all, with the right Memory Stick, I can download all these nifty new games onto my existing PSP. So, how will the PSP Go do at retail?

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So, you may remember that I mentioned the tumble that game sales took in May. Well, it should be no surprise that Microsoft is looking at the massive drop in Wii sales and seeing an opportunity there.

What would be surprising would be for them to attempt to capitalize on that opportunity by launching a new console. Well, according to Sam Kennedy at 1UP, that’s exactly Microsoft’s plan.

In their Listen Up podcast, Kennedy was chatting with David Ellis of Microsoft, where they were discussing the new motion-sensing Natal technology, Ellis apparently let it slip that there will be a new XBox console next fall. Yeah, you heard that right. They’re planning another console launch in 2010.

Gamers will also be able to purchase Natal as an add-on for existing 360’s, which begs the question: Why launch another console now?

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