Kaz Hirai: "Difficulty Making PS3 Games is a Good Thing" Bash

Yesterday, we posted about Kaz Hirai's statements, stating:

"The power that we've packed into PS3 will really manifest itself in software titles that come up four, five or six years down the line."

And:

"If you look back at the commentary we received when we launched PS2, there was a lot of talk to the effect that 'It's very difficult to program for' and 'It's easier on a Dreamcast'. It's happened before," Hirai told OPM, acknowledging that PS3 is a more complex animal for developers to work with compared to its rivals. "If they came back and told me, 'PS3? We can do this in a heartbeat,' that would be worrying because what it is telling me is that we're not pushing the envelope from a technology standpoint."

Well, Evil Avatar user Dr. Finger has something to say about that:

Now that's spin! So all of the stories that have come out lately about how hard the PS3 is to develop for - including inferior PS3 ports, massive delays and even cancellations - that's all good news. It shows just how powerful the hardware really is. Of course Kaz then goes on to drop this bit of wisdom on us. (first quote). So you'll finally be able to play games that really take advantage of the PS3's power....a few years after the PS4 launches. Wonderful!

Woah, big words there, but very agreeable Dr. Finger. Sony needs to get it's act together.

[Via Evil Avatar]

onAXIS: PlayStation Store Exclusives vs. Xbox Live Arcade Exclusives

While checking over at N4G for the latest news, I came across an article between exclusive games on the PlayStation Store and exclusive games on the Xbox Live Arcade. I wanted to post my own little segment on it.

Below, you'll see a list of exclusive games for each of the online platforms. You'll notice a lot of Xbox Live Arcade's titles are retro remakes. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, really. Now, to take a look at the list, do your comparisons. On this list, you cannot compare the amount of games really, since they were a year ahead.

Xbox Live Arcade (61)

Released (45)
Games with a Metascore of 75 or Better: 20

Title	Publisher	Metascore
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures	Wanako Studios	65
Aegis Wing	Microsoft	61
Assault Heroes	Wanako Studios	79
AstroPop	PopCap	78
Band of Bugs	NinjaBee	68
Bankshot Billiards 2	PixelStorm	65
Bejeweled 2 Deluxe	PopCap	69
Bomberman Live	Hudson Soft	85
Boom Boom Rocket	EA	69
Carcassonne	Sierra	79
Catan	Big Huge Games	81
Cloning Clyde	NinjaBee	81
Crystal Quest	Stainless Games	65
Eets: Chowdown	Klei	77
Feeding Frenzy	PopCap	65
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved	Bizarre Creations	86
Hardwood Backgammon	Silver Creek	66
Hardwood Hearts	Silver Creek	66
Hardwood Spades	Silver Creek	65
Heavy Weapon	PopCap	77
Hexic HD	Microsoft	82
Hexic 2	Microsoft	75
Jetpac Refuelled	Microsoft	73
Jewel Quest	iWin	68
Lumines Live!	Q Entertainment	77
Luxor 2	MumboJumbo	70
Mad Tracks	Load	62
Marathon: Durandal	Freeverse	67
Marble Blast Ultra	GarageGames	79
Mutant Storm Reloaded	PomPom Games	77
Novadrome	Stainless Games	54
Outpost Kaloki X	NinjaBee	77
Pac-Man Championship Edition	Namco Bandai	83
Pinball FX	Zen Studios	67
RoboBlitz	Naked Sky	76
Small Arms	Microsoft	73
Soltrio Solitaire	Silver Creek	59
Space Giraffe	Llamasoft	48
Spyglass Board Games	Strange Flavour	53
Street Trace: NYC	Gaia	N/A
Texas Hold'em	TikGames	63
TotemBall	Microsoft	44
Uno	Microsoft	81
Wik and the Fable of Souls	Reflexive	77
Wing Commander Arena	EA	54
Zuma Deluxe	PopCap	79

Unreleased (16)

Title	Publisher
Alhambra	Vivendi
Battlestar Galactica	Vivendi
Castle Crashers	Behemoth
Every Extend Extra Extreme	Q Entertainment
Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown	PopCap
Geon: Emotions	Eidos
Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm	Sega
HoopWorld	Streamline Studios
Mutant Storm Empire	PomPom Games
N+	Metanet
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness	Hothead Games
Schizoid	Microsoft
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe	Empire Interactive
Tetris Splash	THQ
Undertow	Chair Entertainment
War World	Ubisoft

PlayStation Network (24)

Released (12)
Games with a Metascore of 75 or Better: 3

Title	Publisher	Metascore
Blast Factor	SCEA	68
Calling All Cars	SCEA	77
Cash Guns Chaos	SCEA	N/A
Flow	SCEA	71
Go! Puzzle	SCEA	62
Go! Sudoku	SCEA	63
GripShift	SOE	67
Nucleus	Kuju	56
Piyotama	SCEA	N/A
Super Rub A Dub	SCEA	48
Super Stardust HD	SCEA	83
Warhawk	SCEA	83

Unreleased (12)

Title	Publisher
Echochrome	SCEA
Elefunk	SCEA
Everyday Shooter	SCEA
Go! Sports: Ski	SCEA
High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition	SOE
High Velocity Bowling	SCEA
LocoRoco	SCEA
Pain	SCEA
PixelJunk Racer	SCEA
SOCOM: Confrontation	SCEA
Toy Home	SCEA
Wipeout HD	SCEA

Now as you can see, none of the PlayStation Store exclusives are retro remakes. Though we do have a few, such as Rampage, Joust, etc. A quote from Peter Dille, the SCEA Head of Marketing explains why:

"Whereas our competition takes a bunch of old content and catalogs content from previous generations and offers that in a download fashion, our development organization are making games specifically for PS3."

But Peter, is that really a bad thing? Does seeing games like Sonic the Hedgehog be released on the Xbox Live Arcade make you want to play it? It sure does make me. I would love to play all the retro games Live received on the PlayStation 3, along with these new games Sony wants to bring out too.

If you'll also notice, Live has many games from companies you haven't really heard of, those are called Indie Developers I'm pretty sure. Sony needs to work with them to create more of these original games.

All in all, Sony will be the winner when they enhance their retro market, pertain to these situations, and start releasing more PSone Games on the store. To top all of that off, they need a design that will let us better browse the store and access archived content easily.

Rumor: SCEE Announces New PS3 Bundle w/ Heavenly Sword & F1 Grand Prix

Sony sure loves releasing their bundle PlayStation 3 packs, and this one includes F1 Racing and Heavenly Sword. Since there is not press release, it is being labeled as a rumor. It looks very legit though. The whole package is supposed to come with: PlayStation 3 Console, Heavenly Sword, F1 Grand Prix, and two SIXAXIS controllers.

[Via NeoGAF]

Games Radar Previews Trials of Topoq

Games Radar previews Trials of Topoq in their latest PlayStation 3 post. Here is how they describe it:

We've been busy putting The PlayStation Eye through its paces again. First we played with tropical fish, and now we've been delicately pushing a ball over tiles in Trails of Topoq.

But this is not as simple as it sounds. Each tile is made us of a series of tiny squares that can be individually raised and lowered to create slopes and ramps, or any other shape you care to make with your body.

Starting off with simple tasks involving collecting boxes and getting to the exit, it soon becomes a lot more of a challenge with the edition of titling platforms and a ticking clock.

While it’s easy to complete the first few routes by simply moving your hands, you’ll find yourself becoming a lot more active as the game progresses. The later levels certainly had us rushing around the room as we tried to keep the metal sphere from falling into oblivion.

Trails of Topoq will be the first PlayStation Network game to fully utilise the PlayStation Eye. And if this is an example of things to come, we can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Great preview guys, view a video at the source link.

[Via Games Radar]

Lair Scores 8.9/10 from Game Revolver

Game Revolver's review for Lair is in and they have given it an 8.9 out of 10, here is their final break down.

PRESENTATION - 9.5
Beautiful cover art and overall packaging. Storyline is intruguing and controls are innovative.
GRAPHICS - 9.0
Great FMV’s and the game itself is beatiful. The occasional slow down pulls this away from a higher score.
SOUND - 10.0
A terrifice score that adds so much depth to the game. The music truly creates the experience.
GAMEPLAY - 8.0
Innovative control scheme that actually takes away from the game. No option to change out of the motion controls is definately a bummer.
REPLAY VALUE - 8.0
Lots of unlockable content and extras to gain through winning medals in your missions. Online leader board helps you strive to be the best.
FUN FACTOR - 8.9
OVERALL - 8.9
Very fun and innovative game. Every PS3 owner needs to give this one a spin and is a solid addition to any collection.

Another good review for Lair. It seems like they just keep coming in.

[Via Game Revolver]

Lair: 1.92 Firmware Update Improved SIXAXIS Controls?

Rumor has it that the 1.92 PlayStation 3 firmware update improved the SIXAXIS controls? Meaning the controls for Lair. Watch the video above for yourself and tell us if it was really improved upon, all you Lair owners.

[Via YouTube]

PS.Blog: Sony Putting Together Compatibility Site

According to Sony's latest PlayStation.Blog post:

A search site for looking up compatible titles is also in the works, as soon as it’s live, I’ll publish a link to it here.

So alls they mention is compatibility site, I'm guessing it's backwards compatibility. The link will be posted when it goes live.

[Via PlayStation.Blog]

Lair: How To Start Fires

The fellas over at Kotaku were sent this lighter along with their copy of Lair from Sony. Pretty basic lighter actually just with the Lair logo on it. If you want to win it, keep an eye out on Kotaku, they might do a contest for the logo imprinted lighter.

[Via Kotaku]

Night Note: School Starts in New York

To: onAXIS Readers
From: onAXIS Administrator

Before I start anything, I saw that Brian Crecente on Kotaku does these, and it's a pretty cool idea. So I figured I'd start my own entries.

Anyway, school started today in New York, so it was back to school for me, which meant less updates on the site today (sorry). I'm still looking for writers to come along and post so we can become the top PlayStation blog.

I was thinking of maybe converting the software to WordPress once evey thing gets rising up. None of the news posts will be deleted since you can just use it's built in converter to do all that. But we will talk about that when I get hosting and a good domain.

Anyway, school was pretty good, had some nice classes, good teachers, threw some paper here and there (we are all kids inside), and waited for the city bus and headed straight home. Thats about it for today. Remember, we need writers! Come and help the onAXIS blog!

What You Missed Last Night
PlayStation Firmware Update 1.92
Sonic the Hedgehog: SEGA Fix
Skate: PS3 vs. X360 Comparison

PlayStation Firmware 1.92 Features List

Yeah, are we missing something here? The features for the update that was released today only contains one thing:

Playability

Playability status with the PS3^TM system has changed for some PLAYSTATION®3 format titles*.

* This does not affect titles in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania.

Certainly does seem pretty odd to me.

[Via PlayStation UK]

MotorStorm 2.0 Patch Available For Download

Yes, the MotorStorm 2.0 patch is now available for download over the PlayStation Network. Here are the features:

Our latest update to the game brings you a range of improvements detailed below as well preparing the game for the MotorStorm™ Revenge Weekend PLAYSTATION®Network download pack that will be available to purchase within days and two additional vehicle packs that will be available later this month.
You will find more information on these in the PLAYSTATION®Store or within the PlayStation Forums at www.playstation.com in the coming days


Here’s what the patch brings:

Vehicle Select enhancement – your last-used vehicle in each class will now be presented as the default choice during vehicle selection.

Assigned player colours are now displayed in the lobby to make keeping track of your friends and rivals easier during online races and Eliminator matches.

Further Player-Stat Improvements.

Purchasers of ‘Coyote Revenge’ can now race this track in Online and Time Attack.

Purchasers of Eliminator Mode will find results from this mode also contribute to their Fame Ranking.

Track Exploits for Grizzly and Raingod Mesa have been addressed.

Headset support – An occasional firewall conflict with headset communications has been resolved.

Headset support – voice comms output now available exclusively through headset.

Many other improvements and tweaks throughout the game.

[Via PlayStation EU Boards]

Asia Gets PlayStation Network Cards

Yeah, they finally got it, the PlayStation Network cards. It is for people who do not want to use/do not own a credit card and simply want to buy the credit beforehand. All thats required is inserting a simple code on the store front.

Apparently, the cards will not only offer an improvement for customer payment flexibility, but will also arrive bundled with some hot Sony titles. In addition, there will be a variety of special edition cards released on a weekly basis.

There is no information on a North American or Europe release, we will inform you about it once we get some details.

[Via PSU]

TGS 2007: Over 40 Playabale PlayStation 3 Titles

The Tokyo Game Show 2007 takes place between September 20 to September 23, 2007 and Sony has just announced that there will be over forty titles playable at the show floor.

' アガレスト game description ' (idea factory)
' Spider man 3 ' (アクティビジョン)
' Transformer ' (アクティビジョン)
' パイレーツ of カリビアン world end ' (ウォルト ディズニー Japan)
' FIFA 2008 ' (electronic arts)
' NBA live 08 ' (electronic arts)
' ニードフォースピード professional street ' (electronic arts)
' Horseman group of Halley ポッター and immortal bird ' (electronic arts)
' Railfan Taiwan high iron ' (music mansion)
' Devil May cry 4 ' (カプコン)
' PixelJunk RACERS ' (queue/cue ゲームス)
' Unpublished title ' (queue/cue entertainment)
' Gee one jockey 4 2007 ' (コーエー)
' Truth three 國 hit and miss 5 ' (コーエー)
' The Elder Scrolls IV: オブリビオン ' (spike)
' トニー hawk project 8 ' (spike)
' SEGA RALLY (tentative name) ' (Sega)
' 忌 fire drafting ' (Sega)
' In it is, the loco loco! ! BuuBuu Cocoreccho! ' (SCE)
' THE EYE OF JUDGMENT BIOLITH 叛 rebellion of REBELLION - machine God - SET.1 ' (SCE)
' Echoc h rome unlimited corridor (temporary) ' (SCE)
' Go! Sports Ski ' (SCE)
' Heavenly Sword - ヘブンリーソード - ' (SCE)
' Little Big Planet (tentative name) ' (SCE)
' RISE FROM LAIR (ライズフロムレア) ' (SCE)
' WARHAWK (war hawk) ' (SCE)
' Secret treasure of アンチャーテッド l ドラド ' (SCE)
' グランツーリスモ 5 prologue ' (SCE)
' Will not the ちit is and the っ does the ょ ' (SCE)
' Ratchet & crank FUTURE (temporary) ' (SCE)
' White horseman story ' (SCE)
' The restaurant whose レミー is tasty ' (THQ Japan)
' Dark Sector ' (D three ･ publisher)
' Time crisis 4 ' (バンダイナムコゲームス)
' Assassin creed ' (ユービーアイソフト)
' Ghost recon advance war fighter 2 ' (ユービーアイソフト)

[Via Dengeki]

Firmware Update 1.92 Released Now

Sony released firmware 1.92. Apparent changes show that the ability to add Flash wallpapers has been added. People are also reporting faster XMB load times and XMB screensaver option. The feature list is yet to be posted.

[Via PlayStation Boards US]