At E3, you’ll tend to find companies coming out to check out their fellow developer’s work, which I have always taken as a sign of respect.  

This year, according to one of Turn 10′s crew Che Chau, they were demoing Forza 3 to a pretty interesting group this past week; members of the Polyphony Digital team, which of course is the development house behind Gran Turismo.

Che writes in his blog:

“Perhaps the most surprising to me was when a couple developers from Gran Turismo makers Polyphony Digital came by to personally get hands-on with Forza 3, all the while taking careful notes, examining our UI system, shooting photos, and directly asking us some pretty interesting questions. The reason I say I was personally surprised was because PD aren’t generally known as a studio to acknowledge that there are racing games that exist beyond their own. Which could explain why the GT franchise has been so stagnant in the racing genre since GT3. So it seems competition is good for the consumer after all. I know for a fact that Turn 10 will never stop pushing racing games to the next level.”

Good for the guys at Turn 10.   They certainly deserve that attention as Forza has become a very formidable racing game on the Xbox platform. 

BTW, quick fun fact for you.   Did you know one of Turn 10′s group includes Senior Designer Jan Taniguchi?   He worked on bringing Sega Rally to the Playstation 2 in 2006.

Yeah, this game is going to be hot.

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Nintendo has been getting beaten over the head from the gaming community over the past couple of years for not exactly catering to the “hardcore” audiences that Sony and Microsoft have been fighting over.   And the truth is, why should they feel like have to?   The Wii is the best selling console of this generation by leaps and bounds, sometimes doubling the sales of the Xbox 360 and quadrupling the sales of the PS3.

But that may not be enough anymore.  Reggie Fil-Aime in talking to CNET at E3 got to ask about Sony and Microsoft’s motion control schemes and other things.    Then they asked Reggie, “What about the Halo audience?”.     Wait.   Did he just ask Nintendo about the hardcore Halo player?    What was even more interesting was the answer from Reggie:

“We think we win over the Halo audience with something like The Conduit, a multi-player, online, shooting experience, or Dead Space Extraction. And you know what? Once those people buy into Wii, they’ll go buy Mario Kart or Wii Fit Plus. We’re not going to be satisfied just picking up that existing gamer. We have to reach beyond and get that consumer who doesn’t game. That’s the only way we’ll be able to continue growing as a company and as an industry.”

Pretty strong words from the erstwhile head of Nintendo of America.     But will Halo and Killzone players leave the comforts of their Xbox 360′s and PS3′s to flock to the Wii to play Dead Space Extraction or The Conduit?

I finally got a few videos up on our GCN youtube page. These two videos spotlight the Xbox 360 Project Natal as well as the Milo demonstration. Check them out below.

Eurogamer had a chance to sit down with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi and talk mostly about Gran Turismo for the PSP.    As you know, Polyphony was not talking at all about GT5 this week at E3.    But what was interesting is the revelation by Yamauchi that the game may be closer to completion than anyone ever thought.

So with Forza Motorsport 3 coming in October, and Turn 10 already throwing down the gauntlet on Monday saying it would be the “definitive racing game on any console”, why not go ahead and put GT5 up against it this fall?     Yamauchi-san explains:

“I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it’s at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it. It’s very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail.”

Well, this is Gran Turismo.   And it’s going to be one of the three premier racing games on the console market (along with Forza and Need for Speed: Shift).   So perhaps letting them complete the polish and getting the game completely right is a good thing.    I know this, there’s going to be a LOT of racing going on in the Mullis house over the next year.

Fans of the old NES game should remember this one.

Seems like every generation there is a catchphrase or something that defines the consoles of that time.    Whether it’s “Blast Processing” or “32/64-Bit gaming”, there is always something.  

Well, apparently this generation the phrase is “10 year life cycle”.    Sony has been boasting the last couple of years that the Playstation 3 was going to have a 10 year cycle.  And they point, rightfully so, to the Playstation 2; which just can’t seem to be stopped, even outselling the Playstation 3 at times.

Well, now you can add Microsoft to the list too as Shane Kim tells digital media website Venturebeat that he believes Project Natal will keep the Xbox 360 in the gaming world until 2015.  This of course is 10 years after the 360 launched in 2005.    This is a pretty good goal considering Microsoft ditched the original Xbox much quicker in it’s life span.    And ask Sega how THAT worked out for them with the Saturn and Dreamcast.    Thankfully, it appears Microsoft didnt suffer the same fate.

Shane Kim points to things like Natal and Xbox Live as a new way to keep bringing new and innovative games and features to the system, and sort of pushes away from the thought that graphics are everything:

“We firmly believe that the Xbox 360 has a life cycle through 2015 (10 years after the launch). Project Natal is a great innovation. It will work with every Xbox 360 sold. It’s not about pushing more pixels on the screen. It’s about how to break down barriers that stop people from playing games.”

So there you have it.   If you are an Xbox 360 owner, don’t worry about Microsoft moving onto the next best thing and leaving you behind.

Hoooooooo-boy.    Is this one going to cause the Internet forums to light up like a 4th of July fireworks display of epic proportions.    The fanboy battle that is going to rage on about this will be huge.    And once again the fight will turn to whether Microsoft was right to stick with DVD-9 format for the Xbox 360.

Ok, here it is.   Joystiq got a chance to sit down with Turn 10 studios and asked them the question to put the rumor to bed:  “Will Forza Motorsport 3 ship on 2 discs?”

The answer?    Yep. 

Now, before people fly off the handle, Turn 10′s content director John Wendl made it clear it wasn’t half the game on one disc, and half on the other.     The “full game experience” will be on disc one and will have most of the 400 cars and however many tracks they are including in the game.    The second disc will comprise of some cars, maybe more tracks.

It also appears as though the second disc will be a load-in, rather than a switch.   Kind of like DLC but on the disc.   Or more accurately, like installing the second disc on the hard drive for use with the full game.  

So no gamers, you won’t have to get up in the middle of a race to put in disc 2 (I’ve actually heard this uttered as a serious arguement).   But what this does put into question is how might this put out the many Xbox Live Core owners who don’t have hard drives.    You’ll of course be able to play the full game without the hard drive, but you won’t be able to play with all the cars and tracks.  

This will be interesting to say the least.   Thanks again to Joystiq.

Snake comes home June 18th.

We all knew it was coming sooner or later, but now we have an official date from Konami on when Solid Snake will be making his long-awaited PS1 return to the Playstation Store. On June 18th 2009 the Playstation Original “Metal Gear Solid” will be hitting the Playstation 3 Store for $9.99.

It looks like Sony is serious about getting original Playstation games onto the PSN. Within the last few weeks the US Playstation Store received Final Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil: Directors Cut.