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Atlus sure does love the PSP, announcing two games for Sony’s handheld in just as many days. Hexyz Force is a new RPG from Sting, creator of Riviera: The Promised Land and Yggdra Union. This classically-styled JRPG features two different adventures, each about (what else?) the end of the world. Atlus promises each adventure will take about 25 hours, totaling 50 hours of dungeon crawling and grinding for RPG fans.

PSP owners are all too familiar with the lengthy load times for many of the system’s RPGs. Thankfully, Atlus is promising “virtually no load times” for Hexyz Force. Like a console JRPG, the game will also feature twenty minutes of anime cutscenes. The UMD version is scheduled for release on May 25th, while a PSN version should follow shortly thereafter. Check out a video preview after the break.

Continue reading Atlus uses the Hexyz Force on PSP

Atlus uses the Hexyz Force on PSP originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Austin Independent School District makes deal to buy more video games for classrooms originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you only play games with Ryu Hayabusa in them, then Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce is likely to be your first experience with Koei’s historical-ish brawler franchise. If you only play games with the ancient Chinese ruler Fu Xi in them, however, you’re likely to be much better versed in the series. In either case, there’s a Strikeforce for you: as reported, Fu Xi (and other characters from the Warriors Orochi series) appear in the Xbox 360 version, and Ryu in the PS3 version, both with exclusive missions that grant you the use of their “signature weapon” when completed.

New galleries give you a look at Fu Xi and the extra-beefy crossover ninja. And a new trailer (above) does what it can to get you pumped about Strikeforce, the Dynasty Warriors game with not only characters from other franchises, but giant tigers in it!

More Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce media than you can shake a Dragon Sword at originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And here we thought Tetris DS was the best blend of the Russian puzzler and Nintendo’s classic platforming game Super Mario Bros., but Tuper Tario Tros. is a quite imaginative combination of the two. In fact, we haven’t seen Tetris go so well with something since we were introduced to the conflict resolution capabilities of Tresling.

Already the culprit behind a sharp downturn in Joystiq productivity today, we now offer it to you. Just, uh, don’t play it as much as we did. We can get away with it since, y’know, it’s kinda our job.

[Via digg]

Mario plus Tetris equals one fun game originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just three short years after the CES 2007 announcement that Microsoft’s Mediaroom software would turn your Xbox 360 into an IPTV set-top box, Microsoft is finally ready to deliver on that promise (and no, the 2008 BT rollout doesn’t count). “I’m happy to announce that later this year AT&T will also enable subscribers to U-verse to enjoy [the new Mediaroom 2.0] service on their Xbox 360 consoles,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his keynote audience. This was in addition to U-verse support for Windows 7 and Windows Mobile, though the details on all three platforms end there.

We’ll be digging for more details at CES this week, but this is certainly promising news for the country’s 2 million U-verse subscribers (and the “more than 20 million living units” that the service is purportedly available in).

Xbox 360 getting Mediaroom IPTV ‘later this year’ via AT&T U-verse … just three years late originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On the heels of its CES 2010 keynote speech, Sony released a chest-pounding press release declaring worldwide sales “exceeding 3.8 million” of the PlayStation 3 during the 2009 holiday season. According to the company, “during the five weeks following the last week of November 2009″ (ending on January 3, 2010), the console sold more than during any previous holiday season — a 76 percent increase over last year’s numbers.

Alas, the PSP and the PSP Go were neglected a mention in the presser, though Sony did reiterate the 38 million PSN user number we’d heard a bit earlier. We’ll have a clearer picture of what exactly the sales shook out to for North America when the latest NPD numbers arrive next week.

Sony PlayStation 3 sales ‘exceed 3.8 million’ worldwide over the holidays originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remedy’s Xbox 360-exclusive Alan Wake, described as “the TV show Lost, as written by Stephen King, and filmed by David Lynch,” by Microsoft Entertainment & Devices head Robbie Bach will — much like Fable II — be expanded upon via additional downloadable episodes. Bach made the announcement concerning the long-in-development title during the company’s CES 2010 keynote this evening, saying, “story-driven like a TV series, Alan Wake will be told in episodes with even more episodes available on Xbox Live after its launch this year.”

Let’s just hope Remedy isn’t taking cues from The Sopranos when deciding how long it will be between the release of the game’s episodes.

Alan Wake will stay up late with post-launch DLC ‘episodes’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Microsoft’s CES announcement that Xbox Live “is now an active community of over 20 million people” is somewhat blunted by Sony’s claim of 38 million PlayStation Network accounts (though if our dozens of collective PSN accounts are any indication, some of us have more than one), Redmond did have some other numbers to share regarding Xbox and Xbox Live during tonight’s CES keynote. First, “Nearly 10 million people have logged into Xbox Live’s nongaming applications” including “Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm, Sky, Canal and Zune.” We’ll do the math for you: that’s 50% of the Xbox Live audience, and those are all paying Gold users.

More numbers: “Between Christmas and New Years Day, Xbox Live experienced its busiest week ever, adding a new member every second and a record of more than 2.2 million concurrent members online.” And not a network failure in sight! Congrats, Microsoft! Lastly, “there are now over 39 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world,” “more than 500 million games have been sold” and “$20 billion spent in retail.” Feel free to bookmark this post for frequent consultation in your comment debates.

Xbox by the numbers: 20m Xbox Live users, 10m nongaming, 39m Xbox 360 consoles worldwide originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a press release summing up Microsoft’s CES 2010 keynote that dropped just before Ballmer took the stage, the company will be releasing Project Natal in “holiday season 2010.” We heard earlier today about what year the future controller would be arriving, but now, folks, now we know during which group of months it’ll be arriving at retail.

The release explicitly states that the still-codenamed Natal project is “scheduled to be available in holiday season 2010,” adding that Natal “is only the most recent example of Microsoft’s work creating natural user interfaces.” With any luck, by E3 we’ll have an actual name and maybe even a specific month for when we’ll get to check it out at home! Until then, we’ll have to get by with the inspirational video about Natal’s origins created for today’s release, embedded above.

Microsoft says Project Natal coming ‘holiday season 2010′ originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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