PS3 Fanboy

Yes, White Knight Chronicles is coming to North America; Akihiro Hino, the CEO and president of Level-5, says so himself. In an interview with GameTrailers, Hino reaffirmed that Level-5 plans to bring the game over to North America, but he did not disclose when it would be coming.

Furthermore, when pressed for the possibility of North American gamers playing alongside Japanese gamers in WKC's online components, Hino neither denied nor confirmed the cross-region play with a "hasn't been decided yet" response. This sort of wording leads to speculation that such a feature might be in the works and will be implemented if Level-5 works out all the kinks. It would be great if they do. To see the full video interview, just have a look past the break.

It looks like that Yakuza 3 bundle isn't the only SKU out on the market with an extra dash of special detail. A bundle for Capcom's Resident Evil 5 will also feature a unique 80GB PS3 adorned with a Tri-Cell logo. It's perhaps not as stylish as the Yakuza 3 one, but at least it comes with a second controller. The set hits Japan on March 5 alongside the debut of RE5 and will retail for ¥48,980 ($522).

It's interesting to see Sony pursue an interest in this sort of hobbyist/collector appeal strategy. Microsoft has been employing the tactic in Japan for several years now, releasing major J-RPGs in the territory with custom faceplate bundles. It'll be interesting to watch the rest of the year to see if this stratagem bears fruit, or becomes commonplace for other big name titles. In any case, don't expect to see these babies outside Japan ... seeing as we never got the silver and white units.

The Japanese version of Demon's Souls is scheduled for release in early February of next year, but it looks it won't be the only one making it out that month. Siliconera suggests that the Asian version will also ship in February and most interestingly will be entirely in English. The site recently went hands-on with a new build at the Asia Game Show in Hong Kong and have discovered that the demo was, in fact, completely in English.

Now, it is possible that the final release in Asia may not be in that language; however, that is really moot. It's most important to note that there is some form of English language version and it is currently in the works. At the moment, there haven't been any mention from either SCEA or SCEE in regards to North American and European releases for Demon's Souls.

The results are in, and the annual 2008 PlayStation Awards out of Japan is now a wrap. The handing out of awards commemorates successful titles over the past year. It highlights the best of the best and honors titles that have sold more than 500,000 units with a Gold Award, and those which sold over a million with a Platinum Award.

Unfortunately, only one PS3 title made this year's list. That being, of course, Metal Gear Solid 4 with a Gold Award. With most of the other major PS3-exclusives releasing in late Autumn, we're not really surprised by this. Anyways, congratulations to you MGS4 for the recognition.

[via press release]

SCEJ is pumping up the completely commercial Japanese Christmas season with new promotional material. The company is offering free demo discs to new PS3 owners in Japan upon the purchase of their system. These discs will contain demos and promotional trailers for both already released and upcoming PS3 titles.

Buyers have a choice of either the red disc, which contains family friendly content, or the white disc, which includes more mature content. While majority of the demos to be found on either disc are already currently available on the PS Store, there is one demo of note: Resident Evil 5 with offline and online co-op. Previously, it was announced that a demo for RE5 was to release on December 5 for Xbox Live Gold Members; however, it looks like the PS3 will also be getting in on the action as these discs hit as early as December 18. The demo discs apparently will be only available in-store and while supplies last. See the full disc content listed after the break.

[via press release]

The last time we did a story on White Knight Chronicles, we were bringing you a 14-minute look at Level-5's studio and the online components of the game. It was an interesting look, having the developers show everyone around, but now it' time for a new trailer (and even more footage of online play).

The trailer posted above is the same one that was played at the Tokyo Game Show last month. A lot of it includes spliced up imagery from the first trailer the year, before but it's got a few new things in there. The vid posted after the break shows us a little bit about how the "live party" online portion of the game works. Get into that if you want to know more.

Something is just off about this new MotorStorm Pacific Rift trailer from Japan. It could be the language barrier, sure, but actions speak louder than words and what we're seeing here has us palm-in-face. What exactly does any of this have to do with racing vehicles on off-road turf? Something tells us they do not quite understand what the game's all about. Or, we're just not getting them.

Way back last month at the Tokyo Game Show, Sony's booth had a small closed theater for White Knight Chronicles. After watching an all-Japanese interview and a brief trailer, closed theater-goers received a little card which gives access to a special video made available starting today. While all of you couldn't grab a card and consequently are not able to see this new video, we've done the work for you and are hosting the special treat for you to watch right here.

White Knight Chronicles fans (especially the ones who can understand Japanese) will surely be interested in seeing this 14-minute long look into the making of the game. The first five minutes takes us on a guided tour through Level-5's posh Fukuoka studio. CEO and president of Level-5, Akihiro Hino, then takes us through eight minutes of the battle system, fending off overgrown monsters and transforming into the White Knight himself. The last minute includes some footage seen from the TGS trailer. So watch it right now! WNC is out in Japan on Christmas Day, December 25.

Did you try out the demo for The Last Guy yesterday? If you did, and if you liked it, you'll probably be glad to know this bit of news. According to IGN, The Last Guy will be available for the North American PS Store next week on August 28. As for the price, it's going to cost only $9.99 -- nearly half the price of the Japanese version which will release on the same day.

So make sure you play up that demo over and over again, and practice saving the herds and herds of people. You'll also want to check out Andrew's hands-on with the US version to prepare for the monster-dodging to come.

The Last Guy will be fully released in Japan next week. On August 28, the full game will be available on the Japanese store for ¥2,000 ($18.44). For those who purchased the Japan Premium pack (which was the Asakusa-only level), you can get a refund of your ¥500 for purchasing the full game. However, you'll only have until October 31 to get the "discount."

Checking out the newly released trailer (embedded above), the game will include cities such as London, Berlin, Sydney, Yokohama, Washington D.C., and San Francisco, and will also include a whole slew of new (and deadly-looking) monsters. Now, all we need to do is wait for dates and prices on a Western release to pop up.

Remember The Last Guy? It was a title that Sony trademarked awhile back. Other than that fact and a name, the only other thing we knew about the game was that it received an E10 rating from the ESRB. However, now we've got a little more to work with as Gpara points out a teaser site for this supposed title.

On the teaser site, we can see rows of red caricatures seemingly marching. The red text stating "2008.7.11" suggests we may see something soon this Friday. A star adjacent to The Last Guy text also seems to be more than just a design -- it appears to be part of the title itself. We sense a strong allusion here; the game could possibly be about Communism (soldiers, red star, etc.), but that's just a thought. Anyway, feel free to play around with the site; maybe you'll find something we've missed.

[Via Gpara]

Afrika is a safari sim hitting Japan in late August. While we haven't heard much about the game recently, we have heard sounds from the game -- the main theme to be exact. Coming from ScoringSessions, this video shows composer Wataru Hokoyama leading an orchestra on Afrika's title music. It sounds rather Indiana Jones-ish in lieu of what we'd expect to hear; like, uh, say something out of The Lion King.

Still, it's a good track, and, no, the video has no sights of Africa ... just sights of Hollywood where the music was recorded. If you want to check out more on Afrika, you can hit up the official Japanese site. A North American release has yet to be announced.

[Via MultiplayerBlog]

Consider that not too long ago rumors of an August 28 release for Japan surfaced from the watering hole when Play-Asia listed the date on their retail calendar. If that date is anywhere accurate, then perhaps we're just waiting for an official word from Sony -- the official word that will soon replace that teaser page perhaps.

[Via TheSixthAxis]

A press release sent out by SCEJ has revealed that firmware version 2.30 and, by extension, the newly redesigned PlayStation Store will be available on April 15th. There's no word on whether new content will be placed on the store on the day that the redesign goes live, and we're all too familiar with how much Sony hates updating the store on days that don't begin with "Thurs." When the update does go live, however, we'll have plenty of exciting content to look forward to -- Americans can finally get their hands on GT5:P and Warhawk fans the world over will be able to grab the latest expansion. What else? We have no idea, but we're excited to find out.

Reacquaint yourself with the new Store design via our gallery below.