Sony: No PS Vita price cut this year

Sony will not implement a price cut for the PlayStation Vita this year, Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer in a new interview. The executive explained that Sony engineers are currently working on methods to reduce the cost of manufacturing so a price cut can be possible, but that will not happen before the year is out.

“It’s too early,” Yoshida said.

The PS Vita launched in February 2012 with a Wi-Fi-only version at $249, and a Wi-Fi/3G model retailing for $299.

Instead, Yoshida said he hopes PS Vita software bundles–like the LittleBigPlanet and Call of Duty offerings announced this week–will be a significant enough value to steer prospective buyers towards a purchase.

“Of course, cost reduction is one area our engineering team is working on. But we just launched the platform earlier this year. It takes time to do so,” he said. “At a certain point in the future we would like to address the pricing issue for some of the people who are waiting. But this year we are trying to add value by creating different types of bundles. We announced we will provide LittleBigPlanet PS Vita bundle pack. That’s affordable for people who are looking for a good deal.”

Sony has also been criticized for not offering enough PS Vita software support. Yoshida said Sony has acknowledged this concern, and noted adding new content for the device is a principle priority.

“The reaction to the hardware platform itself has been very strong,” he said. “We are very pleased with the response we got. It’s up to our expectations in terms of what we were hoping for in bringing PS Vita to the market,” he said. “But the actual sales of PS Vita, obviously we would like to see more uptake. We see lots of feedback from consumers saying they would like to see more content, they would like to see their favorite franchises coming to the PS Vita.”

As for what kinds of new content Sony plans to bring to the PS Vita, Yoshida said it will run the gamut from major franchises to digitally distributed smaller titles.

“We have to continue to work on bringing more content from big titles people are looking for in terms of franchises, to very small, snack-sized, intuitive casual games on the digital distribution side,” he said.

Big-name projects headed to the PS Vita include the previously announced Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, as well as the brand-new Killzone: Mercenary.

DICE talks future of Mirror’s Edge, Bad Company

The Mirror’s Edge and Bad Company franchises have lain dormant since 2008 and 2010, respectively, with developer DICE remaining coy about the future of both series. Now, DICE executive producer Patrick Bach has confirmed that it remains committed those properties.

Speaking to IGN, Bach said, “We never kill something that is great. Mirror’s Edge is a game that we of course all love. It was a great game. It had some flaws, of course, like all games. But in general, it’s an IP that we love and of course we haven’t killed it, because it’s too good to kill.”

As for a sequel to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Bach expressed a similar level of adoration for the franchise, but did not lay out any specific plans for the series.

“The Bad Company IP is still something we love,” Bach continued. “And it’s very dear to me because I worked on both titles. We have no information with where we are to a sequel to Bad Company.”

DICE may already be at work on new entries is both franchises. In May, various LinkedIn resumes included mention of Bad Company 3 and Mirror’s Edge 2. Publisher Electronic Arts declined to comment on these rumors.

Nvidia unveils GTX 660 Ti

The GTX 660 Ti–the latest in Nvidia’s Kepler-based GPU range–will be available to purchase on August 16 for £249 in the UK and $299 in the US, the chip maker revealed today. The 660 Ti will be almost identical to the much pricier GTX 670, with 1344 CUDA Cores, a 915Mhz Base Clock, a Boost Clock of 980 Mhz, and a slightly lower TDP of 150 Watts. The key difference lies in its 2GB of memory, which runs on a 192 bit architecture, rather than 256 bit.

Nvidia claims there is just a 15 percent drop in performance when compared to the 670, while also realising gains of up to 80 percent when compared to older cards like the GTX 470, and GTX 260. PC builders who purchase the card will be given a free copy of Borderlands 2 via download, with the promotion running until launch stock of the card is exhausted.

The GTX 660 Ti follows on from the launch of the GTX 680, and GTX 670 earlier this year. All cards are based on Nvidia’s latest GK104 Kepler chip architecture. For more on Kepler, check out our review of the GTX 680.

Meeting the Maker Cutscene – Darksider II

Death wakes up to a new face, the face of the Maker, in this cutscene from Darksiders II, before heading out to the Tree of Life.

 

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“Meeting the Maker Cutscene – Darksider II” was posted by JimM on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:45:15 -0700

Die Another Day & Licence to Kill – 007 Legends Trailer

007 Legends you say? But where’s legendary Bonds like Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Goerge Lazenby and if there’s any of those first ones, Sean Connery anyone? All I see is Daniel Craig, turned me off from GoldenEye remake too.

And on the grapchics. Why they look so poor and undetailed in these Bond games?