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Would Natal Enable User-Generated Mo-Cap?

Let’s start the week with a million-dollar-idea, courtesy of Kotaku, offered for free. An idea’s been rattling in my head I’d like to share (reader warning: I’m home sick today). It’s an idea for the Xbox 360‘s controller-free control system, Project Natal, for which I’ve been able to get no official comment. Perhaps folks don’t…

Marvel VS Capcom 2: Claws Versus Fireballs

So Marvel VS Capcom 2 isn’t coming until the end of July. That just means more time for Capcom to release promotional strategy videos! While I’m not sure what the above clip is supposed to be, I do know the ones below are demonstrating how to handle the game’s two most iconic characters in head-to-head…

Monkey Island’s Ron Gilbert to Keynote PAX

Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert plans to keynote the sixth annual Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle in September, the organizers said today. “This is an unbelievable moment for us,” Penny Arcade’s Robert Khoo said. “I wasted an entire family vacation one year trying to figure out how to win that stupid spitting…

Blame WoW For Starcraft II’s Late, Late Release

Blizzard’s Starcraft was released in 1998. It’s sequel, Starcraft II, won’t be out until at least 2009. Why the hold-up? Blame World of Warcraft. Rob Pardo has told Eurogamer that development on Starcraft II began in 2003, and there’s been a playable build since 2005. But then along came World of Warcraft. One of the…

Celebrate Independence Day With The Sacktue Of Liberty

Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free, and Media Molecule will give them a free costume that embodies their hopes and dreams in LittleBigPlanet. Media Molecule follows up last week’s free druid costume with another new outfit for your sackboy, or perhaps sackgirl, in this case. The Sacktue of…

THQ: Who Needs a Diverse Portfolio

Last week THQ announced that they were dividing up the company into three divisions, core, online, kids and famiily and casual games. The decision seems to put an end to what some viewed as THQ’s attempt at breaking into the mega-publishing business with the like of EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Games Industry talked to THQ’s…

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Launch Trailer

Tomorrow you can play the game based on the upcoming movie based on the book you’ve probably already read, in EA’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Harry gets stronger, magical crimes run rampant, and a guy sharing a name with my cat Rufus takes over as Minister of Magic in the sixth book of…

Pre-Buy The Next Final Fantasy XI Scenario Next Week

While there’s no word on when you can play the second of three new Final Fantasy XI scenarios. A Moogle Kupo d’Etat – Evil in Small Doses, now we know when you can buy it. Starting on July 5th, Final Fantasy XI players will be able to purchase the follow-up to A Crystalline Prophecy –…

Halo ODST Features An Open World, “Reach” Could Use Natal Tech

Upcoming Bungie shooter Halo ODST won’t be a straight-forward linear shooter, rather blending elements of traditional shooters with the open world exploration of Grand Theft Auto, Bungie told he Seattle Times in a recent interview. “We’re doing a lot of pretty neat things in terms of mixing it up, introducing some non-linearity, some free exploration,”…

Fragile Breaks Into Europe With Rising Star

Celebrate the newly-announced European release for Tri Crescendo‘s Wii RPG Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, with a batch of new screens courtesy of publisher Rising Star Games. So Fragile is making it to the states courtesy of XSEED, and now Europe is getting the game sometime in the first quarter of 2010 via Rising…

The Nintendo Download: Summertime In The Fantasy Zone

It’s summertime, and on top of the usual crop of random puzzle games and a return to the Fantasy Zone, Nintendo has a couple of games available for download today that accurately simulate being outside. What’s outside, you ask? No earthly clue. As far as I am concerned my world ends at that heavy curtain…

MTV Lands Former THQ Veep

Scott Guthrie, former executive vice president of publishing THQ, was named MTV Games new executive vice president and general manager today. MTV Games also named former Sony Computer Entertainment America sales and merch director David Cox as their senior vice president of sales. “With our acquisition of Harmonix to our relationship with Jerry Bruckheimer Games,…

Talk Amongst Yourselves

A fraction of your Kotaku team is under the weather today and has spread his germs to our favorite yellow-hatted bunch. Drink plenty of fluids, and please comment about video games here. Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ.

Let’s Try Shiso Pepsi!

To: Crecente From: Bashcraft …like shiso. I love me some shisho, but fizzy Pepsi shiso? It’s drinkable, but more of a novelty. Less mouthwashy than the cucumber Pepsi released a few years back, maybe even “good”… Think I’m going to have another glass! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. What you missed last night StarCraft II Hands-On: Round Three StarCraft…

Licensed Avatar Clothing Starts Rolling Out

Over the weekend, Microsoft’s Larry Hryb confirmed that the mysterious “Xbox 360 Beta” that a bunch of Microsoft employees were “testing” wasn’t a game. Wasn’t Natal. It was…licensed avatar clothing. Here, we can see what he’s talking about, as MS employee “Randy No Arms” here is fully decked out in garish Halo threads, from his…

Sony’s Exclusives Coming Up Short?

From the day of the PS3’s launch, Sony have pursued a bold strategy of constantly launching new, original IP as exclusive titles on the console. But while it’s a move that should be applauded on principle, it’s just not translating into sales. Number-cruncher Matt Matthews has, in a report over on GameSetWatch, detailed the sales…

Michael Jackson Spent Big Bucks On Gaming

We’ve all seen that clip from Living with Michael Jackson where he goes bananas buying stuff in Las Vegas. Jackson didn’t limit his spending sprees to tacky furniture. Oh no. This image from Japanese tv shows that a then-34-year-old Jackson allegedly spent over half a million dollars at a London toy store on video games…

The Making Of Earthworm Jim: Worms, Beasties, Rocky Mountain High

During the 90’s, Sega had a reputation for some fairly left-field (for the industry/time) marketing. Here’s a great example: the making of Earthworm Jim. WARNING: features John Denver. Isn’t Dave Perry’s accent kooky? What the Hell: Badical Earthworm Jim Documentary [Bitmob]

Tetsuya Nomura On Kingdom Hearts 3

One new Kingdom Hearts game, KH 358/2 Days, has been released in Japan. Two more Square-Enix-meets-Disney mash-ups are forthcoming: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP and Kingdom Hearts: Coded for cell phones. But where is the one everyone is waiting for, Kingdom Hearts 3? Kingdom Hearts designer Tetsuya Nomura says he already has…

If Only These Characters Were Actually In Scribblenauts…

Scribblenauts looks amazing. 10,000 in-game items? Can’t. Wait. And yet…something tugs at the subconscious. Just like it did with LittleBigPlanet. We love creativity, yes, but we also love existing characters. The game won’t, of course, let you conjure the intellectual property of other characters. So if you’re in a pickle, you can’t just write “TRAVIS…