The trend of releasing console demos of games that have already hit retail selves continues today with RARE’s Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise landing on Xbox LIVE. If you have been waiting on purchasing the game until you can play the demo, now is your chance.

Wanna recap of what to expect? Here is a gaming blurb courtesy of Major Nelson:

The Pinata Central database has been ruined by Professor Pester and his band of Ruffians. It’s your job to restore the data by collecting, customizing, & caring for over 100 different piñata species in Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise. Professor Pester has plans of his own to slow this process down. New features include: 2 person coop on one console, and 4 person coop over Xbox Live. Ability to compete in mini-games with your Pinata against others on Xbox Live. Over 100 Piñata from various realms including the new Polar Pinarctic & Dessert Desert. Photo Mode ability to share your amazing garden with everyone online. Piñata Vision allowing you to invite new species to your garden with the flash of a card at your Xbox Live Vision Camera.

PC users who wish to play around with the lives of zany piñatas are unfortunately out of luck. No PC demo has been released as of yet, but you can check out our review of it here, as well as the Xbox 360 review here.

If you were not too keen on the thought of gardens and colorful paper mâché animals before, it may not change your mind, but it is always good to keep an open mind. You never know when something outside of your tastes may tickle your fancy, and a demo is a fantastic way to find out.

In one of a continuing series of interviews yesterday, Peter Moore revealed his true thoughts on one of Microsoft’s main partners, Rare. Basically, he flat out said that he didn’t think the studio had the right skills for today’s video game market. So now Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has stepped up to defend Rare and explain why they are crucial to the Xbox 360’s market strategy:

“Rare is a great studio that continuously delivers high-quality, award-winning titles for the Xbox platform and will continue to do so in the future,” stated the newly appointed head of Microsoft Game Studios. Rare plays a strategic role in delivering games and platform experiences that will help the Xbox achieve our long-term strategy of expanding the customer base to a mainstream audience.

“The studio’s current work that includes the recent release of another critically acclaimed installment in the Viva Piñata series, the reinvention of a genre and a franchise with the November release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts as well as the avatar system they’re delivering as part of the new Xbox experience not only is indicative of the value they deliver to our business but proof positive to our partners and the industry at large of our commitment to this strategy and the platform’s continued success.”

That was…well, very PR-ish. Sadly, the fact remains that Rare used to be one of the leading developers in the industry; one of those names that could do no wrong. These days, they’re a studio you approach more with caution than anything. We’ll have to just see how the next Banjo Kazooie does.

Via GamesIndustry.biz

We are all aware of the impending closure of Ensemble Studios, but what we have not heard is Microsoft Game Studios head honcho Phil Spencer’s take on this. Therefore, I will post the email he sent to Microsoft and Ensemble Studios employees in full, which says it better than I can reiterate.

“Today, we shared with our employees at Ensemble that we have plans to close the studio after Halo Wars RTM. Such a decision is never easy. Like any business, we’re accountable for making tradeoffs and the right level of investments that will drive profit and future growth. However, as we reviewed our first-party portfolio and where we need to invest and divest our resources to achieve our long-term strategies, it became clear to us that closing the studio and redeploying those resources to other more scalable ventures is the right thing for our business at this time.

Unfortunately, our decision to close Ensemble will adversely impact many of the studio’s team members. Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch. While the new company will be hiring a portion of the Ensemble employees, its size and resources prevent it from offering positions to the entire Ensemble team. We hope to integrate much of this creative talent into MGS or the broader IEB team, where we have relevant openings.

Ensemble Studios has produced many notable games over the years – including the Ages franchise – that have helped MGS become a leader in interactive entertainment. And now, Halo Wars is already proving to be a hit by people who have seen and played early versions of the game. The Ensemble team is committed to continuing its development, testing and support of Halo Wars through to the completion of halo wars. We’re also working closely with the studio’s leaders to ensure a smooth launch of the game in early 2009 and continuing support thereafter. We will support the studio in every way possible as they work to deliver this highly anticipated game.

This action notwithstanding, I want to emphasize that the overall investment Microsoft is making in video game development is not diminished, and we will continue to bring in talent to work on titles and franchises where we’ll see the most ROI. Our priority is to continue to nurture the creative freedom that allows us to successfully drive our business strategy forward. Meanwhile, we’re launching some outstanding games over the next few months. We’ve just launched Too Human and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, and soon we’ll see many other games hit retail store shelves, including Scene It! 2, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Lips and, of course, Halo Wars.

I want to thank you for your hard work and focus as we head into the next few months and make this a blowout year for first-party games. Please be supportive and respectful of our Ensemble colleagues as they go through this tough time.

Phil

Thanks: GI.biz

Rare’s Nicola Bhalerao, a programmer on Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise is organizing this year’s Women in Games Conference. Her co-organizers are Jane Sinclair and Sara Kalvala; Associate Professors in Computer Science at Warwick University. The conference runs from September 10-12 at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK.

As you might guess, the purpose of the conference is to promote the role of women in the games industry and understanding of women gamers.

There is plenty of research going on into why and how women play games, and the way they are portrayed, and this is another aspect of the Women In Games conference that makes it so fascinating. Bringing together academia and industry to discuss all these ideas, and explore ways in which more women can be encouraged to seek careers in games makes for a unique conference.

The conference is open to both women and men in hopes of creating a dialog between the sexes. The deadline for registration is Friday 5th September. Follow this registration link for the Women in Games Conference to get involved.

For all you men out there, I can’t count how many times I’ve had friends tell me they wished they could find a gamer of the female persuasion to play with. Get smart and seek out opportunities like this. As for me; I’ve got a house full of them.

It’s time to jump back into the shoes (if he wore any) of good old Banjo, as he and Kazooie are set for their first adventure since 2000. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will be available on November 14 for the (strangely) low price of $39.99. I thought that had to be a typo, but Microsoft confirmed to me that the game is indeed going to be priced at $40, just like Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise — that should be a big boon for sales.

Pre-order the game and you’ll get a pretty sweet bonus: a free download code for the original Banjo-Kazooie, which is releasing on Xbox Live Arcade sometime this fall (”a couple weeks after” Nuts & Bolts, which I interpret as the last week of fall). In addition to getting the game for free, you’ll also get to play the game before anyone else, which will let you employ the “Stop N’ Swop” feature, which will unlock additional content. I doubt most people will remember it, but it’s nice that Rare plans on making it up to those of us who looked forward to that feature in the original Banjo and never got to see it used.

I’m extremely excited. Most of Rare’s games in recent years has failed to impress me (Viva Pinata is their saving grace), but the Banjo games were among my absolute favorite games on N64, so I remain hopeful that Nuts & Bolts will be a worthy sequel.

Rare confirmed release dates for Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise to VG247 this morning. Those hoping to get in on some crazy Piñata action via their Nintendo DS can now look forward to reveling in both the zaniness and sheer weird fun of our favorite paper mache critters stuffed with candy.

Based on the hugely popular Viva Piñata video game for the Xbox 360 and the hit TV series, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise allows players to turn a neglected garden into a lush paradise that will attract a wide variety of colorful piñatas. Build piñata homes, plant and maintain vegetation, feed and breed piñatas, decorate the garden and much more. With the swipe of a stylus and their own creativity, players can create the ultimate piñata paradise.

Features:

• Customization: Design a beautiful and welcoming garden environment to attract piñatas, working up to rare and exotic breeds.
• Caretaking: Ensure the happiness of piñata residents by tending to their needs and maintaining the garden environment.
• Collect Them All: Complete the Piñata Pyramid with over 60 piñatas to collect, including 7 brand-new species.
• Training Missions: Carry out missions with characters from the TV series, including favorites Hudson Horstachio, Fergy Fudgehog, Paulie Pretztail and Franklin Fizzlybear.
• Multiplayer: Transfer items – any piñata, accessory or object – from your garden to a friend’s garden. Some exotic species can only be attracted using this feature.
• Playground Mode: Create a lush garden in a short amount of time.

You can expect the THQ published title to hit both the UK and the US on September 2 and September 5 respectively.

You might remember the ‘Believe’ trailer for Halo 3 which showed a lifeless Master Chief being held up by a Brute, only for the Master Chief to raise his head as the video ended. It struck me as quite unusual, as it isn’t the type of thing I would really associate with how you market to the typical Halo fan. (Then again, the typical Halo fan was more than likely going to buy Halo 3 regardless of any advertisements Microsoft released.)

One intrepid fan of Viva Pinata put together a very similar trailer for Rare’s cutesy, pinata-starring franchise which was just way too cool to not share.

It’s strangely moving, likely thanks to those big eyes those damned cute pinata have. How can you not feel bad for them?

via Gamerscore Blog

We’ve got a ton of media on Viva Pinata’s first venture outside of Microsoft consoles. Fine new videos, counting the one above, and more than a few screenshots should give you a good look at what the game’s interface is like and how the graphics look. It’s clearly not a great example of eye candy, but it remains as colorful and friendly as the original Xbox 360 game.

You can check out the screenshots here, or hit up any of the following links for the various videos of the game in action:

Encylopedia
Romance
Sours
Tools

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise will be released for the Xbox 360 on September 2nd (for those in North America) and September 5th (Europe). These new trailers featured at E3 are pretty darn cute. The one posted above is the main theatrical trailer while the other two show off the desert and ice levels for the game.

• There will be over 100 different Piñatas in the sequel, including a chicken called ‘Cluck Norriss’, a Yeti (hey, that’s my dog’s name!), gorillas and moose that during Christmas time changes into a reindeer
• You can quickly go from one landscape to the next such as snowy winter wonderlands to deserts to catch these animals and share them with the whole wide world
• There is a special in-game card that will give you infinite amounts of money and will unlock every item in the game
• The game starts in a green control area where you can jump straight into the action without a tutorial so that you do not have to do all the weeding and fertilizing if you do not want to
• All help missions are optional
• Jump straight into the sandbox and play with your garden as you see fit
• You will start with more upgrade tools and money than you did in the first game, that way all you have to do is start enticing Piñatas into your garden and send them off to special parties and birthdays
• Cooperative play will feature the game and you can tend your gardens with pals and while this is only for direct play with the Xbox 360 at this point, Rare is working around the clock to implement this feature on XBL.
• In co-op mode, only the main player will have full control over the game and will not be able to build new houses or other constructions, but can help with tending the garden thus gaining a form of magic for every uselful act than can be used to turn objects in the garden into different things

Microsoft kicked off E3 with a press conference not unlike a firecracker that has been dipped in water: it starts off exciting, but then the fuse runs out and all you get a a little “pop” if you’re lucky. Similarly, they brought out the big guns for an opener, leaving everything but the last few minutes pretty unsurprising. Read on for a play-by-play of Microsoft’s big E3 announcements. Read the full article