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Early last year, Sony's movie format known as UMD (universal media disc), a variant of the standard form of digital media, was still largely viewed by North Americans as a gimmick enabled via the PlayStation Portable with few supporters. But soon after Sony themselves transfered their own films to the small discs, movie studios began believing it financially foolish not to do the same. The UMD format was their ticket to ride the speculated success of the PSP, thus the handheld was launched with a wide array of movies within its media library.

But the present tells an alternate and unforseen story. Contrary to the hopes of the studios involved, sales of UMD copies have been slowing to a crawl. "It's awful. Sales are near zilch," said a high-ranking executive of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. "It's another Sony bomb..." As such, Universal Studios has recently opted to cease releasing versions of their films in the seemingly unfavorable format as a response to the slouching business. Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, another studio that's chosen to currently halt UMD production, states they will continue with the format if and when doing so again proves to be a lucrative move.

It's even been rumored that Wal-Mart retailers may soon refuse to stock UMDs.

Not all is lost, however. Although a vindication attributing to the format's lapse in appeal has not been pinpointed, the president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Benjamin Feingold, does recognize a few of the glaring issues behind the nosedive in sales. All the same, he persists as a strong supporter of UMD movies. "I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device rather than purchasing," Feingold said. Additionally, eye strain resulting from viewing films on the handheld's small screen for hours on end could pose as a sales-deteriorating threat.

Source: GAF

This past Monday marked the arrival of an eager, video game enthused audience packed within the walls of the ArcLight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California. The occasion, to the surprise of few, was the long-awaited North American premiere of the entirely CGI-constructed DVD movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, to be precise. An engaging event both for fans who'd already seen the Japanese version and those who hadn't alike.

Although the dubbed film won't be in stores until the 25th of this month, a one and only theatrical screening of the sequel to the hit RPG was taken in by an enormous 800 person crowd. Among those gathered at the scene were several big hands in the movie's development including the group of English voice actors, scenario writer Kazushige Nojima, co-directors Takeshi Nozue and Tetsuya Nomura, and producer Shinji Hashimoto.

In addition to the movie itself, the well received game trailers of the now available Kingdom Hearts II and the unspecific yet soon-to-be released Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII were shown preceding the feature presentation.

GAF's detailed overview of the screening

If you're one of the virtual boatload of PC or Xbox 360 gamers currently, or soon to be, engulfed by the world of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion then you've probably already heard of the various downloads being offered by Bethesda Softworks to enhance your experience, such as the controversially priced horse armor and a selection of themes. But wait! As recently stated by a Bethesda representative, and relayed to GameSpot News, that's far from all the developers have in store for fans. Some brand new features, including additional locations and powers, should be available to the public (that's you) within the following weeks.

The first of which will be a venue intended for players to treat as their own turf: The Wizard's Tower. Here you'll be given a choice of many useful tasks to perform, among which are growing herbs, summoning atronachs, and conjuring spells; all your pad will likely be missing is your own pet wizard. It's unknown at the time whether or not the Wizard's Tower will be accessible as a questing reward or simply obtained as new property.

Another inclusion will be a quest involving a Dwarven Orrery in much need of repair. Since the Orrery is capable of revealing the movements of the moon and other celestial bodies, special powers related to the lunar cycles will be granted to you upon completion of the quest. Lycanthropy, a power hinted at by both the lunar aspect of the quest as well as the werewolves present in The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon expansion, is a result possibility.

Both forms of new content will materialize as parts of the ordinary map - rather than as expansions - by residing in the existing sections of the world once added.

According to Bethesda, the company plans to monitor what types of content fans prefer the most in order to determine the nature of future downloadable extras. "It certainly may be the case that some plug-ins will appeal to some folks and not others, but we hope we'll be able to provide a good variety so that there's something for everyone... and hopefully more than one something for everyone."

The price of the upcoming downloads is set at $1.99 (US) for the PC versions; the Xbox 360 variants' price has yet to be confirmed.

Source: GameSpot

NOTE: This was our 2006 April Fool. I think we got a few of you! -Tiddles

After several days of discussion with staff, Caves of Narshe webmaster Rangers51 has officially decided to take the next step in the CoN's evolution. After witnessing fewer hits on the main site, decreased participation levels in the forums, and generally lower morale among staff and members ever since the debut of the Final Fantasy VII section on February 13, 2005, R51and staff agree that sometimes the best course of action can be to admit a mistake.

The decision to eliminate Final Fantasy VII content from the CoN was not an easy one for R51 to make. Echoing the sentiments of the staff who worked on the section, R51 states, "I really loved the FF7 content we made, I thought it was the best on the web. But in the long run it just wasn't bringing in the kind of clientele we were looking for to sustain the site."

Even though this is certainly a step backwards in terms of site content, the CoN is bound to take a few steps forward almost immediately with the addition of a brand-new section to replace old content and hopefully generate new interest in the CoN. While the Final Fantasy VII section took a very, very long time to build, we've really worked hard as a group to finish up an all-new section and have it almost ready; look for it to launch sometime in the next week or so. If R51 has availability while he moves, it may even go up sooner. We know that our work will ultimately lead the CoN in a direction that staff and members alike have always hoped to see it go in.

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It will be sad to see all the hard work of the creators of the FF7 section come to naught, but I, for one, am excited about the new direction the site will be taking. Hopefully, this change will begin to diminish the influx of FF7 fanboys and instead attract fans of the next game to grace the CoN's pages!

Announced at a Tokyo press conference Wednesday, Square-Enix and Gakushuukenkyuusha (aka Gakken) have teamed up to establish a new company, named SG Lab, designed to develop and publish "serious" game titles - that is, video games with teaching purposes such as educational research, government, medicine, and more.

As unappealing a move as this endeavor may sound, some of these so-called serious games will be unintended for regular gamers. According to the presidents of both companies, SG Lab will develop the educational software after receiving and accepting orders from various clients, a task they've only recently begun. Currently there's no telling just what sort of game themes SG Lab is likely to expect in the future, but they're already working on expanding their market to include topics ranging from health care to public relations dealt within private enterprises.

Due to the amount of expert knowledge required to tackle such a business, this is one field Square-Enix would not be able to handle alone being strictly an entertainment developer; therefore entailed the decision to partner-up. As Youichi Wada, president of Square-Enix explained, video games aimed at entertaining players and serious games are of two very different leagues. Gakken, in search of a skillful and influential company within the gaming industry, found the idea of an education-based joint effort by the two rather intriguing.

With an overall lack of competition in the genre as of now, it's extremely likely SG Lab's desire to be the global market leader will be well within reach.

Source: RPGFan

At the recent Nintendo conference Satoru Iwata revealed many things featuring upcoming Nintendo products, including of course, the Nintendo Revolution. Up until now all we've known is that it would support NES to N64 on the virtual console. Of course, there were hushed whispers and rumors about Sega really liking the idea and wanting to put their games onto it.

Well, it's no longer a rumor. The Revolution's virtual console will now offer downloads from not only Sega, but the TurboGrafx-16. It won't be every game, of course. But they're going to get all the best ones.

It's things like this that make me want a Revolution more than I already do. And I mean, I really want one.

Source: 1UP (Link courtesy of Phunbaba)