The February issue of the Official Xbox Magazine will be packing in the usual disc the mag comes with, but this might be a more valuable disc than most. Three new, exclusive Rock Band tracks are available on the disc – “Sprode” by Freezepop, “Rock Rebellion” by Bang Camaro, and “Shake” by Count Zero.

What limitations there will be on the disc remain unclear, but logic dictates that there must be some sort of DRM that will prevent one person from getting the three songs and then passing it along to all of his or her friends.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. While I don’t like the idea of these songs being tied exclusively to the magazine, I’m assuming that they’ll eventually be released on the Marketplace. Otherwise, wouldn’t the songs just disappear when next month’s issue rolls around?

The holiday season is approaching, and it’s the time of year when some people look outside, see dismal weather, and just get depressed. If that’s you, then Telltale Games has the perfect cure for you: an all episode of Sam & Max! That’s right, the dynamic duo of a dog and a rabbit are returning to lift your winter spirits high. In this trailer, which can only be seen on the 1UP Network today, you’ll get a sneak peek at the upcoming Episode 202 of the acclaimed title.

Episode 202 of Season 2 is titled Moai Better Blues ( you heard it here first!), and takes Sam & Max off to the tropics for a bit of R&R, spring break style. You’ll get to explore a tropical island, fraternize with the natives, and try to figure out why there’s a naked rabbit in so many scenes. Scheduled for a GameTap exclusive release on Jan. 10, 2008 with a worldwide release on Jan. 11, Moai Better Blues looks to be a surefire hit for fans of the Sam & Max series. Check out the trailer, and get your island clothes ready for winter vacation!

Reuters has an interesting article up today exploring the question, is Metal Gear Solid 4 destined to be the last of the great third-party exclusives? Video game production costs are rising these days, costing between $10 million and $50 million to make a quality title. Assistant producer for MGS4, Ryan Payton, says that the game will need to sell a million units on day one to recoup production costs. That’s quite a tough mark to hit, since only two other PS3 games have sold that many to date. Thus, many game developers are going multi-platform, a fact that Sony has been observing for some time now:

“We understand publishers are needing to recoup their investment,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony. “From our perspective, as long as the games aren’t going exclusive to other platforms, PS3 gamers are not actually losing anything.”

For my money, I doubt MGS4 will be the last great third-party exclusive, but they are becoming rarer these days. Still, as long as the console makers have enough money to lure developers to their camp, I’m sure we’ll continue to see the occasional major title remaining exclusive to one console or another.

Via Reuters

Are you looking for a new ringtone for your cell phone? Hoping for one of those interesting quotes from the members of the Jericho squad in Clive Barker’s Jericho?

If so, you’re in luck. FileFront has 5 exclusive Jericho ringtones for your enjoyment, free of charge. These ringtones include quotes from Delgado and Ross, as well as a couple of taunts from the twisted creatures in the recently released horror-based squad shooter.

If you’d like to download these ringtones for your phone, just click the badge below!

We’ve all been watching as Clive Barker’s Jericho hit stores recently (It’s on Gametap as well). After all, there’s never anything wrong with a quality, horror-based shooter, especially one that bears the legendary name of Clive Barker. But what makes a horror story great? It’s the monsters, of course!

Now, courtesy of the folks over at Codemasters, we’re going to bring you some exclusive artwork showing off the monsters you’ll encounter in Jericho. Not only that, but we’ve included a short Q&A session with Lead Designer Joe Falke. Find out what it’s like working with the visions of Clive Barker firsthand.

You can find more images, and the complete interview after the break.

Read the full article »

I realize the fanboys are waiting to just rip through these claims as soon as they’re posted, but it’s still an interesting story nonetheless. Jason Booth, a former Harmonix employee who worked on the first two Guitar Hero games and Rock Band before leaving the studio last month, has posted a fairly long blog post explaining, in his own words, “exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck.”

While it can be equated to a bash fest (he addresses that exact point), it’s hard for anyone other than an actual developer to disagree with him. So far as I know, no one here at Gaming Today is experienced in the field, and while we can all cite as many other developers as we want, it doesn’t necessarily prove what Booth is saying to be wrong.

Why the PS3 version often pails in comparison to the 360 version, and why exclusives often suck:

As outlined above, getting equivalent performance out of the PS3 requires a lot of work unique to the platform, and in many cases, even with all these tricks, you still won’t see equivalent performance. Thus, many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions. On top of this, there is shrinking incentive to do this work; the PS3 isn’t selling.

The code needed to make the PS3 work is most likely only useful to you on the PS3, as the types of tricks you need to do to make the thing perform are very unique to the platform and unlikely to be useful on any other architecture now or in the future. These issues all stem from unbalanced hardware design, and any future hardware that is this unbalanced will likely be unbalanced in a completely unique way.

Finally, there’s the problem of resources. Game Development is, at it’s heart, a resource management challenge. Given finite resources, do I have these five engineers work on optimizing the PS3 version to look better, or do I use them to make the game play better and fix bugs? Do I change my design to fit with what the PS3 hardware does well, or simply run the game at a slightly lower resolution on the PS3 to make up for it? Developers striving to push the PS3 hardware have often sacrificed their game in the process.

This post might come across as a lot of Sony bashing, but it’s just the reality from the trenches. Sony let their hardware be designed by a comity of business interests rather than a well thought out design that would serve the game development community. They are going to loose hard this round because of it, and I hope that in the next round they take lessons from this round and produce a more balanced and usable machine.

This doesn’t make Ratchet & Clank Future look any less beautiful, so even if this is all true, does it really matter?

Read the full blog post here.

After a slight delay, a limited open beta for the upcoming expansion to Relic Entertainment’s smash hit Real Time Strategy game, Company of Heroes, is now available to the masses. Woohoo!

If (like me) you are a regular visitor to RelicNews, Buggo, a Relic Community Manager, had this to say on her bloggo (cute):

It’s been a while! I’m excited to tell everyone that the Opposing Fronts open beta will begin August 30th. Anyone with a Fileplanet account can download and play the beta. Keys will be released twice a week through till the end of the beta.

Not so fast there, kemosabe. This limited beta signup is yet another Fileplanet exclusive. Assuming you are still interested, make sure you have a Fileplanet account before you attempt a signup (free accounts seem to be eligible as well). The open beta also has the following system requirements:

• Windows® XP
• DirectX® 9.0c
• 2.5 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon XP processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 3 GB free hard drive space for installation
• Nvidia GeForce 6600 and above with 128 MB Video Memory, or ATI x800 and above with 128 MB Video Memory
• DirectX® 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
• Keyboard, Mouse

No, I did not make up that last requirement (kinda scary to think about, actually). As it seems to be the case with most exclusive betas these days, the slots are extremely limited. So why are you still reading this? You could have missed your chance already! Get moving, soldier! Pronto!

Via Relicnews

Recently, Final Fantasy Executive Producer Shinji Hashimoto was quoted by Japan’s Nikkei BP as saying, “As for Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360, it’s currently a completely blank page.” Many people thought that this meant the title would never be seen on 360 again. However, Square has issued a ‘clarification’ on his comments, saying that he was merely referring to the company’s current plans.

In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Morgan, says that he expects the next title in the Final Fantasy seriesti be exclusive to the PS3, but also thinks Square will be facing a tough decision, saying, “The series has always been single console and given the Xbox 360 sell through in Japan, it would be hard to put the next Final Fantasy installment on the 360 only. Square Enix faces a dilemma: put the next game on the 360 only and alienate Japanese fans, depart with tradition and make it multi-platform, or go with PS3 as an exclusive and deal with the backlash from the west. I view Square Enix as a tradition-bound company, and expect the last alternative to be chosen.”

Personally, I think Pachter hit this one right on the head. Square has had a long relationship with Sony, and I can’t see them breaking that relationship just for a few more sales on the 360. Besides, Sony’s PS3 sales haven’t been as abysmal as everyone seems to think, and they’ve already sold through a million units in Europe faster than either the PS1 or PS2 did.

Things are looking bad for Sony, indeed. And if they get any worse, other game companies are not going to help it.

Folks over at Newsweek’s Level Up have interviewees that predict game companies are not going to be helping out the PS3 with exclusive content, or even throwing them a bone at all.

“Already third party executives are telling me that if PS3 sales stay below 100k for 3 consecutive months, PS3 SKUs may start disappearing from release lists,” Geoff Keighly said in the blog. “In turn [this wil create a wealth of de-facto exclusives for the Xbox 360.”

No exclusive content for the PS3 and exclusive content for rival consoles would mean Sony’s baby would join the ranks of failed over-priced systems. The only light outside of Sony’s very dark tunnel is that PS2 games will dry up soon enough, and there’s a chance these gamers will switch to the Playstation upgrade.

But at $599, Xbox is looking like a more appealing option…