Shopping Basket

A listing for the collectors edition of Heavy Rain appeared on the HMV website earlier today, priced at just £40. Buying from HMV will get you a voucher for the game’s first DLC offering, a copy of the soundtrack and a dynamic dashboard theme for the PS3 along with some swanky packaging.

You can get the theme on PSN for about £1.50 and will anyone listen to the theme music more than once? Maybe you could listen to it while playing it? The DLC sounds good but chances are you’ll get it on PSN for a few quid – but then again that’s a few quid I’d rather have in my pocket. Hopefully for HMV the swanky packaging won’t be a non-standard DVD case like they did with Viva Pinata (boy that was a bitch to display and sell).

There’s a little bit of controversy at the moment with Bioware and Mass Effect 2. Word on the street is that when you buy the game new you’ll get a one-time-use code to download the Cerberus Network. This little portal allows users to download FREE content to extend the game. Buyers of preowned copies therefore will not have this code in their box as the previous owner will have likely used it all ready (unless they’re not online then you might get lucky). That means you’ll then have to log on to Xbox Live and purchase it for about a tenner.

‘Why the hell would they do that?’ I hear you say. Well, the main reason is that whenever horrible game shops like ours sells a second hand game then Bioware gets nothing. They think that’s unfair and that they should get paid EVERY SINGLE TIME a copy of their game is sold. I can see a few problems with that: (more…)

So the word on the street is that Green Man Gaming, a company based here in the UK, is about to launch a digital download shopfront for the PC with a difference, claiming its store will be able to offer “pre-owned” digital sales.

“Previously the minute you had paid and downloaded your game it had no resale value”, says Gian Luzio, Green Man’s COO. “This is extremely expensive for the gamer and does not encourage the consumer to try new genres or franchises. Our leading edge technology gives downloaded games a value that gamers can trade-in at any time”.

To answer your inevitable question of “how will this work”, Luzio says “We will pay significant royalties to the publisher each time the game is traded in perpetuity”. As for your inevitable follow-up questions, like “how much will pre-owned games cost?” and “who’s going to determine the value of trade-ins?”, sadly those are going to have to wait until Green Man launches sometime around March.

The real question is who the hell are Green Man and why does their website not have any info on there? Has somebody leaked the story under their noses or is this the usual case of a company getting carried away with an idea rather than actually carrying it out? What’s to stop Steam doing this? If it’s workable then probably nothing – so why would you go to a site called www.greenmangaming.com?

It seems Microsoft have really got one over on Sony:

“We have a 30-day timed exclusive on the Modern Warfare content packs,” a spokesperson told website Eurogamer. “So it will be available on other platforms, but you get to try and play on Xbox 360 first.”

Oh my freaking god, are you saying that Xbox will have the new maps a whole month before PS3! However in hells name did you manage that? I bet you only paid a million or so to those generous boys over at Activision.

It seems not even the mighty Grainger Games can keep up with these guys! The UK’s LARGEST indie games chain has been trialling the interactive information kiosk Xplace Games Advisor, in five of its outlets: Yeovil, Guisborough, Arnold, Dudley and Hartlepool.

Supplied by German manufacturer Xplace, the kiosks allow consumers to read up on new releases, as well as view product descriptions, screenshots, artwork and the latest trailers. Feedback from each of the stores has been positive so far, with the public taking full advantage of everything the Xplace kiosks offer. CHIPS staff members have even been using the devices to improve their own product knowledge. “After a one-month trial, we are very happy with the Xplace Games Advisor,” said Guisborough CHIPS franchisee Paul Whitfield.

Gizmodo reports that an official Sega Genesis (that’s Megadrive to you and I) emulator is coming to the iPhone as a sort of virtual console and store (that’s a way of making money out of old games to you and I). The Sega Genesis Ultimate Collection will be a free app that supports a store filled with emulations of classic Genesis titles. The app, said to hit the iPhone next month, will come with Space Harrier II and the ability to purchase four other games.

• Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
• Golden Axe: $4.99
• Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
• Shining Force: $2.99

This seems like a fantastic way to break free of the increasingly bloated App Store and have your own space in which to hawk and sell your games. I’d love to see more publishers doing this. Can you imagine a Capcom Arcade packed with retro emulations?

I’m gonna be running some game tournaments in the near future. Make sure you sign up by hitting the ‘COMPETITION’ button at the top of the page. The general idea will be like a league table where the winner of each match will get points and at the end of the season the winner(s) will get a prize.
Make sure you sign up as this isn’t gonna be like any gaming tournaments you’ve ever experienced!

Oh wait, I thought you meant Obama! No?

It seems that little countries like Venezuela have Presidents too and this one seems mighty peeved at video games. For some reason, the country whose mass export is Cocaine, seems to have a bit of a hang up on video games. His problem seems to stem from the fact that “Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, [where] you’ve got to find Chavez to kill him.” (think he’s on about Mercenaries 2). It seems games “promote the need for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol so they can sell them”.

Thing is Hugo more than 50% of cocaine snorted in the UK comes from your country – technically, we (UK) don’t ship any video games to your wonderful nation. Are you just bashing cos you’re up for re-election or you bored?

Just wanted to congratulate myself on updating the website – think it was a bit overdue. I should be spending a bit more time on it as we go forward so please contribute and get involved.

If there’s anything you would like to see here or any other ideas please post a comment and if it’s worth doing I’ll try my best.

How dare I? Well I… er… simply dare!

Yes MW2 is the greatest game ever made and yes it sells by the bucket load but for a retailer of video games that’s not actually such a great thing. What the hell am I talking about? Does anyone know? Is this guy crazy? OK let me lay it down simply, because Activision are the greediest and nastiest motherfuckers on the planet they put the price up to the average independent retailer so that we pay about 42 quid a copy then they continued to supply supermarkets in their droves when they threw the game out at £26, thus completely devaluing the game and the games market and making normal game stores like mine look like greedy gets for trying to charge £45.

My second point probably deviates from logic in that… (more…)