Velocity Vector
Taito Legends will be available through Sega in the U.S. on October 25, 2005 for the XBox, PS2, and PC. The full title list is as follows:
Space Invaders (1978) Phoenix(1980) Space Invaders Part 2 (1980) Colony 7 (1981) Electric Yoyo (1982) Jungle Hunt (1982) Zoo Keeper (1982) Elevator Action (1983) Great Swordsman (1984) Return of the Invaders (1985) Bubble Bobble (1986) Gladiator (1986) Tokio (1986) Exzisus (1987) Plump Pop (1987) Operation Wolf (1987) Rainbow Islands (1987) Rastan (1987) Super Qix (1987) The New Zealand Story (1988) Operation Thunderbolt (1988) Battle Shark (1989) Continental Circus (1989) Plotting (1989) Volfied (1989) Ninja Kids (1990) Space Gun (1990) Thunderfox (1990) Tube It (1993)
Microsoft has announced pricing for the XBox Live service for the XBox 360:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11420
It will be available in Silver, Gold, and Premium Gold packages at price points ranging from free to $40 for three months of Premium Gold.
News Corp. (owner of Fox) is acquiring IGN Entertainment, owner of teamxbox.com, askmen.com, gamespy.com, and of course, ign.com:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11382
$650 million is a lot of money, but IGN owns a lot of big-name sites.
Crave Entertainment has announced "World Championship Poker 2" for the XBox, PS2, and PSP. "World Championship Poker 2" includes a campaign mode where players start out living in their parents' basements and begin building their bankrolls. The single-player mode has apparently been fleshed out a lot relative to the original game.
Titan Poker, on the iPoker network, has just been launched. They offer some rather large bonuses for new players (up to $500) and pretty good software.
For more details, see the following pages:
http://www.velocityvector.com/games/3400.html http://www.classic-games.com/poker/bonuses.html
Fortune Affiliates has announced a Hurricane Katrina benefit poker tournament. The tournament will be at 9PM EST on Tuesday, September 6 on Royal Vegas. The buy-in will be $25 with no entry fees. Half of the prize pool will be donated to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
In order to play, you need an account on Royal Vegas. You can sign up via the following page:
http://www.classic-games.com/poker/bonuses.html
Turner has announced GameTap, a service that allows you to downloaded an unlimited number of classic video games ported to the PC for a flat monthly rate:
The service should be available this fall.
Some XBox Live Gold (for the XBox 360) pricing rumors are floating around:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11228
Over at gamesindustry.biz, they have a run-down of currently available information about the XBox 360's various features:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11246
MoneyGaming.com is a new site that allows you to bet on a number of different skill games (no poker, though) and somehow they've convinced PayPal to accept them as a merchant:
XPlosiv has announced "Taito Legends", a collection of Taito arcade games for the XBox, PC, and PS2. The titles included are:
Battle Shark Bubble Bobble Colony 7 Continental Circus Electric Yo-Yo Elevator Action Exzisus Gladiator Great Swordsman Jungle Hunt New Zealand Story Ninja Kids Operation Thunderbolt Operation Wolf Phoenix Plotting Plump Pop Rainbow Islands Rastan Return of the Invaders Space Gun Space Invaders Space Invaders part II Super Qix Thunderfox Tokio Tube It Volfied Zoo Keeper
2K Sports has announced that the following poker pros will be appearing in "World Poker Tour", the video game based on the WPT tournament series:
Erick Lindgren Evelyn Ng Michael Mizrachi Lyle Berman Antonio Esfandiari Phil Laak Mimi Rogers
The WPT announcers have also signed on:
Mike Sexton Vince Van Patten
The following casinos appear in the game:
Bicycle Casino (Bell Gardens, CA) Commerce Casino (Commerce, CA) Bay 101 (San Jose, CA) Foxwoods Resort Casino (Mashantaucket, CT) Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (Atlantic City, NJ) Aviation Club de France (Paris, France)
The game will be available in fall 2005 for multiple systems.
Namco has announced a new sequel to "Dig Dug", titled "Dig Dug Digging Strike". DDDS will have above- and below-ground action, new enemies, bosses, etc. It'll be available for the Nintendo DS this fall.
The IGF deadline for submissions is 11:59PM PDT on September 6. If you want to enter, you can't wait much longer:
XGaming has a promotion running: A limited number of the two-player version of the X-Arcade joystick is available for $119.95 with free shipping instead of the usual $149.95:
http://www.xgaming.com/two-playerp.shtml?KBID=60749
If you want one, you'll need to hurry!