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  From Arcades To Wine Cellars: The Transmigration of Makoto Asada

  They start out as normal looking dudes. Dudes you’d want to drink beer with, have a pizza with. Several pizzas. Then, they change. Whoosh! There’s been Microsoft’s J Allard, Sony’s Kaz Hirai and SEGA’s Toshihiro Nagoshi. But the latest game exec to go through a metamorphosis is Cave producer Makoto Asada. Let’s take a trip…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  A Couple More Details About Final Fantasy XIV

  Over the weekend, Square Enix held an event that not only celebrated 8 years of Final Fantasy XI, but held a “mysterious” Final Fantasy XIV event. How…mysterious. According to website FFXIVCore, a teaser site FFXIV for March 11 is opening, and the game will have a beta (details are scant). On March 1, info for…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  Borderlands DLC Getting Retail Release

  Borderlands, Gearbox Studios’ surprise hit shooter of 2009, will soon be bundling its downloadable content into a single package, which will be released in a box for retail shelves. The game has so far had three pieces of DLC: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot and the Secret Armory of General…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  PS3s Suffering From Global Network Lockdown [UPDATE 7]

  Around the world, PlayStation 3 consoles simply aren’t working like they’re supposed to, with an error — Error: 8001050F — preventing people from not just going online, but from playing some PS3 games offline as well. [Post updated throughout day.] From Europe to the Americas to, well, my house in Australia, users (mostly of older…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  I Like To Keep This Handy, For Close Encounters

  Let’s say you’re about to go out on a mission, and you’re a little unsure. Is this a straight-up fight, or just another bug hunt? Best way to be prepared is to take a full-size pulse rifle with you. This is the “Aliens Hero Pulse Rifle”, from Hollywood Collectibles. It’s 1:1 scale. It’s made entirely…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  Nintendo Has Sold Ten Million Wiis In Japan

  The home team sure loves the Nintendo Wii. As February 28, Japan has purchased ten million Nintendo Wii consoles. But that’s not all. According to Enterbrain, 10,009,736 Nintendo Wiis have been sold, 4,766,408 PS3s have been sold and 1,235,049 Xbox 360s. For comparison sake, it has taken the Nintendo Wii 170 weeks to break the…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  Play Heavy Rain On Your PC

  With the PS3 having some, ahem, problems today, you may not be able to play Heavy Rain. Ah well! You may as well kill some time by playing it on…YouTube. Sony’s Scandinavian outlet has posted a series of “interactive” clips on the video site, which allow you to “play” certain sections of the game. You…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  The Underclass of the Japanese Gaming Industry

  The pay? According to some, it sucks. Programming Japanese video games might seem like a glamourous job to those outside the industry, but according to some on the inside, it pays peanuts. A thread on Japanese bulletin board 2ch asked Japanese game industry programmers about how much they made each month. These 2ch salary claims,…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  The NBA’s Portable Xbox 360 Systems

  You, me, we play console games in our living rooms. NBA players, however, are on the road most of the year. So they have to play on these amazing portable rigs instead. Sponsored by 2K, that’s a metal-cased portable Xbox 360 that would put Ben Heck to shame. Presented by the publisher to help shill…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  Time To Talk Masturbation With Tecmo

  Besides action and fighting games, Japanese developer Tecmo is known for its saucy bikini characters. It’s latest title, Dead or Alive: Paradise, has even been described as “creepy” by the ESRB and once features females with ridiculous proportions jiggling about. Leading website VideoGamer.com to ask questions about playing with more than this PSP game. Here…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  Lara Croft vs Princess Leia

  Had a rough weekend? PS3 gettin’ you down? It’s OK. Prepare for the week ahead and unwind with this, a very girly snowball fight between Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and Princess Leia in her slave bikini outfit. You’d think with those latent Jedi powers Leia would be dominating, but no. She’s on the receiving end…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  PS3 Failure, You Are Not Alone

  A large number of console hardware devices failing all at once. This sounds familiar. On December 31, 2008 at around midnight PST, Microsoft’s first generation Zune 30GB portable device began to go kaput en masse. “Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar,” a tipster told sister site…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  Now It’s Aliens: Colonial Marines’ Time To Shine

  It’s been a long, long time since we saw (or heard) anything meaningful from Gearbox about their promising shooter Aliens: Colonial Marine. So you’ll be happy to know that, with Borderlands out of the way, it’s good to go. Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford has told MCV that “It’s the thing I’ve been stealing from all my…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  Square Enix “Suspicious” That Avatar Was Influenced By Final Fantasy XIII

  Avatar, the biggest grossing film ever, looks familiar, says Square Enix’s Motomu Toriyama, director of Final Fantasy XIII. A little too familiar. “The in-game universe this time around is quite fantasy based, but also futuristic at the same time,” Toriyama told website Tech Digest in a recent interview. “We never really had any particular reference…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  When PlayStation Meets Hurt Locker

  A recent Fox News report has shown that while video game controllers can sometimes be used by US and British forces in combat, they can sometimes be used against them as well. This clip shows a humble PlayStation 1 controller, seized by US forces in a raid on a bomb-making “factory” in a remote village…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2010
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  Gears of War Designer Mentions Something About Doing Things In Threes

  Burgers, burgers, boy oh boy, I love burgers. One burger, sure! Two burgers, definitely! But three burgers? Montreal-based Fez designer Phil Fish gets excited about Hulu and In-N-Out burger while in the States. But who doesn’t? Microsoft didn’t correct Crash Bandicoot developer Jason Rubin when he mangled the pronunciation of Natal. So polite! Want to…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2010
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  Money Well Spent

  To: Luke From: Owen This past week I got my taxes done – because I lived in three states last year, and other circumstances, I figured a professional was the best way to go. The bill wasn’t so bad. California got nothing. Considering how badly they screwed up my vehicle title transfer, and rejected my…

  By Owen Good Published February 28, 2010
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  Natal Marketing Effort Targeting Women’s Magazines

  You know those women’s magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan that promise BIG SEX NEWS every single month? Well, if a report’s to be believed, they’re going to be delivering BIG NATAL NEWS as the product nears release. MCV reports that Microsoft’s ramping up marketing plans for Natal that go after Nintendo’s top-of-mind awareness in nontraditional…

  By Owen Good Published February 28, 2010
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  Mario 1Up Quilt, as Made by a Dude

  Two years ago, longtime reader Jacob C. was expecting his first child, a daughter. “I wanted her to have a handmade video game quilt, unrivaled in awesomeness as only they can be.” Problem is, neither he nor his wife quilted. Jacob enlisted the help of four female friends (“Maija, Grace, Rebecca, and especially Carol) to…

  By Owen Good Published February 28, 2010
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  Week in Games: Baseball’s Back

  Pitchers and catchers reported last week. One week later we have opening day on the consoles, as MLB 2K10 and MLB 10 the Show release on Tuesday. Oh yeah, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is also out. This week’s count: Eleven for PC, 10 for Wii, nine for DS, six for PSP, five for Xbox 360,…

  By Owen Good Published February 28, 2010