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This Year’s Tokyo Game Show Will Be Good for the Environment. And So Effing Sweaty.
With the earthquake, there was concern whether the Tokyo Game Show would happen. It will, and TGS will reduce energy consumption by 25 percent by doing things like switching to LED lights and limiting electricity use at the booths. [TGS]
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
Liveblogging Whatever Smart Stuff Gabe Newell Has to Say Today
Valve Software chief Gabe Newell, a man who seems to always be ahead of the curve on everything happening in video games is speaking at New York University today. He’s keynoting the Games For Change festival’s Games For Learning Institute‘s keynote address. Newell could be keynoting a crochet festival and we’d still be able to…
By Stephen Totilo Published June 22, 2011 -
This One Goes Out to All the Ladies
Reader Bondage_Zombie has spent over a decade in video game drag. He’d like this option in more games, but not just for his sake. He thinks that there aren’t enough female gamers out there and it could be the developers’ faults. So what can devs do to bring in the elusive audience? It seems like…
By Sam Winstrom Published June 22, 2011 -
The Rarest (and Most Touching) NES Game in the World
Twenty years ago on Christmas Day, Andrzej Zamoyski and his brother Adam spent the day playing with their new toy: a Nintendo Entertainment System. Andrzej was Mario, and he let his little brother play as Luigi. “More than a decade later, we again found ourselves sat side by side, this time testing Fable at Lionhead…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
Playable Gears of War 3 Goes on Nationwide Tour of WalMarts This Summer
Gears of War 3 is going on a nationwide tour of Walmarts starting on June 24 in Dallas. The Gamecenter Mobile Tour will give gamers a chance to play Gears 3 and check out Horde mode 2.0 before the game’s September launch, according to a press release. You can check out the full list of…
By Brian Crecente Published June 22, 2011 -
Talk Amongst Yourselves
It’s Wednesday! Now go Talk Amongst Yourselves, but please keep the topic to video games. I know. What a silly request. Special thanks goes out (again!!) to Incursor for today’s image. Wanna get your TAYpic on Kotaku? Submit your pic to #TAYpics (Read this thread for directions on how to do a TAYpic.)
By Jen Schiller Published June 22, 2011 -
How the Wii U One Ups Television
The master controller for Nintendo’s Wii U was born not of a desire to replace television, but to fix one of television’s very small problems. Those few second between when a person presses the power button on a remote control and when a television blinks to life prevents gaming consoles from becoming the sort of…
By Brian Crecente Published June 22, 2011 -
1-Bit Ninja is a Sublime Paper Mario, Super Mario Mash-Up
At first blush 1-bit Ninja looks like another iPhone game knock-off, but spend ten seconds with the game and you’ll dismiss that notion. Spend a minute with it and you’ll be ready to toss your phone at the wall… and then pick it up and keep playing. 1-bit Ninja is a sort of mash-up of…
By Brian Crecente Published June 22, 2011 -
Beatles or Stones? Pick!
Sympathy | JULY 1968: The Stones on the set of Jean-Luc Godard’s documentary. (Photo: Keystone Features | Hulton Archive) PS3 Hacker Resigned to Prison Sentence after Money Dries Up American hacker George Hotz got all the headlines for his exploits trying to bring Linux back to the PS3, but he was only one of many…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
Report: Dragon Quest X to Surface on Wii U?
Nintendo is working on a new console. Square Enix is working on a new Dragon Quest. See where this is going? This past May, Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama seemed to indicate that DQX will be out in 2012, saying, “I’m aiming for next year and am in the middle of composing music for Dragon…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
When Did Sony Start Giving Birth to the PS Vita?
Kotaku already broke that Sony had a ¥25,000 pricetag in mind when it began work on the PS Vita and that the company almost dropped the rear-touch feature. Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida filled in more details with Famitsu, like that work began on the Vita in spring 2009 and that the current button layout was created…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
EVE Online is Selling Horse Armour. In Space.
It’s been over five years since Horse Armor, and still, developers and publishers are struggling with how much to charge for downloadable content. Just ask EVE Online developers CCP. They’ve got no idea A new EVE Online store opened this week (along with major new updates like an interactive “Captain’s Quarters”), with a new currency…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011 -
The Control Pad of Your Nightmares
When I need to use a control pad with my PC, I use an Xbox 360 pad. It’s reliable, it’s comfortable, and best of all, it’s subtle. This controller? Not subtle. It couldn’t even tell you what subtle meant, let alone spell it. It’s the Warrior, a USB control pad for PCs that takes a…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011 -
How Big Are Life-Size Monster Hunter Monsters?
They’re big! Yes, yes —we know Universal Studios and Capcom are teaming up to recreate Monster Hunter this August in the Osaka theme park. Here are some more details. According to Capcom, the collaboration will produce 1:1 scale versions of monsters like the Rathalos Rare Species, the Silver Rathalos. It will be over 20 meters…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011 -
Well of Course Halo: Reach Can Play Pinball
Using the game’s in-built level creation tools, Halo: Reach player Pete_the_duck has been able to construct a working pinball game within the Xbox 360 shooter that uses sniper rifles and land mines to get the job done. Halo, Pinball Edition [Halo, via GameSetWatch]
By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011 -
PS3 Hacker Resigned to Prison Sentence after Money Dries Up
American hacker George Hotz got all the headlines for his exploits trying to bring Linux back to the PS3, but he was only one of many working towards the same goal. And while Hotz today walks free, not everybody is so lucky. Fellow hacker Alexander “graf_chokolo” Egorenkov, whose home was raided in February by police,…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011 -
The Wii U Could Have Been a Handheld Console Instead
The main appeal of the Wii U, other than the promise of Mario and Zelda in HD, is its large controller with a fancy touch screen. That controller wasn’t ordained to be a controller from the start, though. “During the roundtable discussions there were such arguments about should we make it capable of being a…
By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011 -
Is Lady Gaga Taking Cues from a Virtual Idol?
This week, pop superstar Lady Gaga arrived in Japan, sporting the aqua colored hair she’s had for weeks now. She’s in the country for a Japanese earthquake charity event. She wore wrist bands that read “Pray for Japan” in English and Japanese. But as soon as she stepped off the plane, her Japanese fans wondered…
By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011