Weekly Rewind: #2

Do I have any definite sources for this? No, not really.
The signs are everywhere though. This morning, Reuters issued a report saying
that analysts have determined that Sony needs to drop the price of the
PlayStation 2. It seems that with the Xbox price drop, Microsoft may have sold
more units than Sony in the past month. Next month isn't looking too great,
either.

Our very own Chris Faylor echoes the sentiments of many
that feel that a PS2 price drop is imminent. Will it boost sales? Do you know
anyone that’s waiting for it to drop another $30 before getting one? I
didn’t think so. The Xbox price drop works because many people are purchasing
it as a second system, because they already own a PS2.  

I don’t see the drop causing sales to increase in a big way, but it’s
nice for those people that have to buy new ones because of the pesky disc read
errors

Update: Today, Square Enix announced that Chains of
Promathia will be released simultaneously in Japan and North America this fall. This
would be great news if I didn’t suck so badly at the game that I couldn’t
leave the first town. Alas, I suck at the game. Those of you that are spending
all of your waking hours on the game will no doubt rejoice at this news.

Hip Games, in an apparent deal with the devil, has
announced a Garfield game.  
There
really doesn’t seem to be any good that can come of this is there? I’m going
to call it right here – WORST GAME OF THE YEAR. Prove me wrong Hip Games.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today confirmed that
Gran Turismo 4: Prologue Signature Edition, a sort of demo disc containing 46
challenges and 64 cars, will be released in Europe next month. Sadly,
that won’t be coming out in the United States. Keep your chins up though! We
get a Garfield game before anyone else!

The Coors Light Twins as well as two Playmates will be at
E3 this year. There will be more celebrity
announcements soon, but this certainly isn’t a bad start. Don’t be shocked
to find some pictures of these lovely ladies on the site, courtesy of our fine
staff.

Gone gold/ shipped…

Capcom
of America shipped Onimusha 3 Demon Siege and it’s got new polygonal
environments, which would have been a big deal about 3 years ago. Alas the
lackluster second game went a long ways in killing this series.

Activision ships Shrek 2 to stores,
game reviewers everywhere pray that they don’t have to review the game. The
first games were horrible, regardless of system or genre, so one can only
imagine what the sequel has in store for us.

The new Transformers game has gone gold ,
and believe it or not, it sounds pretty cool, at least it does compared with
previous games. You get to control Optimus Prime in this one, which again, is
cool, but you might want to keep that quiet around your lady friends.

10         

PS2-NFL Street
 

Hitman has a
strong debut, and somehow, someway, Mafia is still hanging on to the charts. Who
is still renting this game? I guess it’s good that they’re not buying it,
but it has been on the charts for months!

This week’s poll wants to know how good the upcoming
E3 show will be, and it looks like most of you are feeling pretty positive about
things.  
78% of you feel that the
show will be somewhat to much better than it was last year. 9% of you think it
will be about the same, and 14% of you are miserable grumpy gamers that think
it’s going to stink. I think it’s going to be a little better than last
year, if for no other reason than the PSP will be unveiled.

What have we learned this week? Shovelware is alive and well
with both Shrek and Garfield games coming to a store near you. We also learned
there will be Twins and Playmates at E3, which is like 3,432,562 times better
than any Garfield game you could possibly make. We also learned that Sony
doesn’t like giving us Gran Turismo demos, and that my friends, really stinks.
That’s it for this week, drop me a line at aaront@psxextreme
and let me know what you think.