If you haven’t noticed, just about every foreignsales post we do somehow references football (or, as our primitive North American minds have designated it, soccer) — including the post you’re reading right this hot second. The terrifically named, PSP-exclusive J. LEAGUE Football Club Tsukurou! 6 Pride of J took top honors in the Japanese charts this week, pushing the portable platform to a first-place finish over its ill-equipped, football-less competitors.
We know better than to stand in the way of progress — so, from henceforth, Joystiq will be changing its focus from video games to the foot-centric sport which half of our posts tend to be about anyways. Yes, we know very, very little about the game, but we don’t really think that’s too important. You know what is important? Choosing a new name of our blog, which we’ve already done: Joykick. Or, in sticking with our current typographically-challenged theme: Joyqick. Yeah, that’s solid gold.
We know this transition will be extremely difficult, but as you probably already know, we’ve always had a knack for achieving our lofty GOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLS! (See? It’s already started.)
Remember that silly, insane rumor from back in 2008 about Diablo 3 being released by Blizzard before StarCraft 2? Turns out that Blizzard’s Rob Pardo thinks that’s a bunch of hogwash. Rather, that’s at least what we can infer from his recent conversation with Techland on the subject. “We always announce all of our games too early,” he says. “I think it’s safe to say that, yeah, [Diablo 3] is not going to be out next year.”
Considering StarCraft 2‘s delay to 2010, we think it’s fair to assume that Diablo 3 will in fact not be arriving before a StarCraft sequel. Pardo adds that it’s not a question of lacking resources, as “each game has individual development teams; it’s just that the way that we develop games, we develop them very iteratively.” Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be a finish line in sight for D3. “Now when we announce [a game] we just go, ‘Here’s the game we’re working on, we’re going to start talking about it and who knows when it ships.’” If any of you were still holding your breath for Diablo 3‘s release, now might be a good time to exhale.
A few minor glitches which Left 4 Dead 2 players on Steam were experiencing have been squashed by a recent patch. The update includes fixes for an error which impeded matchmaking for players looking for higher difficulty games, for a bug which allowed special infected to team up on players who are being pummeled by a Charger, and for performance problems which cropped up when the game rendered too many decals, “notably when fighting Tanks with shotguns.”
Well, thank goodness for that. If there’s a better way to kill a Tank than with a few well-placed shotgun blasts, we’ve yet to find it. Check out the full list of changes after the jump!
In response to a possible class action lawsuit resulting from a recent round of Xbox Live bans, Microsoft has now asserted the legality of its position. A spokesperson has told the Financial Post that piracy is a violation of the company’s terms of use and that Microsoft is “well within its legal rights” to ban users from its Xbox Live.
It was reported earlier this month that the law firm AlbingtonIP is “investigating” the possibility of a class action lawsuit against Microsoft over the bans. The firm argues that timing of the bans — shortly after the release of Halo 3: ODST and just prior to the launch of Modern Warfare 2 — was designed to get as much money from Xbox Live subscriptions as possible. In other words, the firm believes that Microsoft personally waited for a time when many people — modders in this case — would be purchasing Live subscriptions for popular games — money that probably wouldn’t be refunded after a ban.
Joystiq’s Law of the Game columnist, Mark Methenitis, classified the suit as a likely “cash grab,” explaining that anyone savvy enough to mod an Xbox would know to stay well away from Xbox Live. We might add that major releases, like ODST and Modern Warfare 2, are the biggest targets for piracy, and likely correspond with rises in illegal downloads. And that just might have something to do with the timing of the bans in question.
Cruising the Twitters, as we are wont to do, we stumbled upon a revelation, courtesy of one Major Nelson. That revelation: Today is the fourth anniversary of the launch of the Xbox 360. Yes, just four years ago, on November 22, 2005, the Joystiq universe was just buzzing with excitement. There were freezing cold lines to wait in, boxes to open and new games to play — in fantastic HD resmolutions! And then, of course, it began.
Check out a sampling of our Xbox 360 launch coverage after the break.
Are you in New York City today wondering what to do at 5PM? We suggest you head to the below address in NYC’s beautiful East Village where The Engadget Show is being taped, featuring not just HTC’s Drew Bamford, but also Joystiq’s very own head honcho Chris Grant! They’ll be talking games and giving out an Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 bundle to one lucky attendee. Seating is limited to 450 and tickets are available … right now at the Tishman Auditorium. We’re serious! Head over this minute!
Tishman Auditorium at Parsons The New School for Design
Despite a relatively low-key launch on the PSP this past Fall, Rockstar Games’ Beaterator is showing back up in the news this week for reasons that we couldn’t have seen coming from a mile away. It turns out that kids in some NYC public schools are getting their music education by means of the beat making application and PSPs, with a custom workshop being taught by Dubspot.
CBS2 News reports that students from the East Side High School in Manhattan are being instructed on not just using Beaterator‘s tools, but also creating fully fleshed out tracks. “They’re able to learn music theory in a different format … it’s the same information, just a different way of presenting it,” the class’ teacher says. Copies of Beaterator and PSPs are being provided for free, as is the classroom. We’ve contacted Rockstar to see if it plans on expanding the program into other cities.
At the risk of being repeatedly pawnched, we think we can accurately describe all of Uwe Boll’s video game-based films as “wretched.” However, we’ve got a theory for why that is — his attempt to adhere to the plot of these games limited his otherwise limitless directing potential. Fortunately, that won’t be a problem on his next film project: Bloodrayne 3: Warhammer, a film based on a video game which does not exist.
We’ll contact Majesco to find out if this means another Bloodrayne title is secretly in the works — but let’s be honest, now. This sounds a lot like some good ol’ fashioned Bollnanigans. Bollshines. Bollduggery.
After a long run of Windows Mobile devices, I tried Android back when the T-Mo G1 hit and wasn’t overly impressed. The chin phone failed to capture my enthusiasm. Then came the HTC Hero on Sprint. Excellent device, Sense UI made it an awesome phone, but the lack of keyboard left me out. That’s pretty funny considering the lack of keyboard was one of my main gripes with the iPhone and now I am using the iPhone as my daily driver. I am now finishing up my review of the Samsung Moment, a vanilla Android phone on Sprint. It’s running Cupcake and doesn’t have many bells and whistles on top of the standard Android package. Well, right on cue, I will be receiving the Motorola Droid on Monday. I will test it out for a couple days and hand it over to someone else to do the full review. After that, I will be taking a look at the hottest Windows Mobile phone on the market.
We have a couple editors with the Droid already too. Stay tuned for their opinions as well! One of them will be publishing a husband and wife style real life study too.
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I held acontest on YouTube for a Sanyo VPC-CA9 HD Video Camera and the winner is in. I am announcing it here on Mobilitysite for the archives. Thanks to all that entered.
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4,986 (14.76%)
10,427 (21.31%) 
Japanese hardware sales, Nov. 9 – Nov. 15: New direction edition originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
