Viva Pinata, Like All Popular Kids, To DS

[Aussie Ben]

So you'll soon be able to play Viva Pinata on the DS. Being developed by Rare's DS team, interestingly enough - hopefully there's no unnecessary microphone blowing and suchlike. The pinata mailing over wi-fi should work pretty well though. I wonder if they'll have new species?

Looks like they're adding a sandbox mode for this version too, which is pretty neat - I think I'll be picking this up. (Not that 360 party game though, that looks bloody awful.)

[Nachimir]

Interesting. I caught part of a presentation on it last week, and just as I had to leave there was something about it originally being planned as a mobile game (I think even before even Pinatas had been decided on). I wonder if they're planning to use previously shelved mechanics?

[LOPcagney]

What surprised me more was Viva Pinata for Windows.

Gears of War too is coming to PC (with exclusive levels and modes), and of course Lost Planet and the Halos. As much as I disagree with their practices, I can't help feeling that at this point, the PS3 has a huge advantage over the 360: that they aren't losing any of their exclusive titles to other systems.

[DanJW]

I can't help feeling that at this point, the PS3 has a huge advantage over the 360: that they aren't losing any of their exclusive titles to other systems.

You mean like Resident Evil? And Final Fantasy? And the rumours about MGS?

[Thrik]

I would assume he's talking about actual modern exclusives that aren't franchises that've been going for a million years.

Even MGS1 came out on the PC and (later) the GameCube, and MGS2 came out on the PC and Xbox. Although MGS3 has remained exclusive thus far, it really isn't much of a stretch to imagine MGS4 appearing on other machines. Final Fantasy didn't even start with Sony in the first place (it was Nintendo), and Resident Evil has appeared on the Saturn, Nintendo 64 and GameCube (at least).

I'll be very surprised if the PS3 doesn't enjoy some excellent new franchises, and it already has God of War as a modern classic.

Moving on though, I had no idea Viva Pinata was coming to the PC. That's really great news, and that now makes zero games that were starting to tempting me to the 360 now that Gears of War is also PC bound, and my PC is good enough to handle BioShock with ease.

I enjoy the way people who shell out for PCs get to enjoy a lot of the 360's wares, including the pads.

[Roderick]

The day of the exclusive is over -unless the console companies are willing to fork over an enormous amount of money. I'd say Nintendo's actually doing a good -if risky- job: forcing exclusivity by making a batshit insane console whose games will not play properly on others

That said, I see a lot more possible appeal in Piñata for the DS than for the 360. This sort of sandboxy game works best on a quick-play handheld anyway. But then I say that for almost all genres.

Hey, anyone excited about the Crystal Chronicles DS trailers? I know I am.

[Wrestlevania]

Ah, it's nice to see it in the pixels finally—thanks for posting the snap. Looks like it'll be a pretty beasty on the diminutive DS, too.

Wonder if they've built a camera dolly, into their development copies of the Xbox 360 version, to help in authoring the isometric textures for the DS game? Interesting…

You mean like Resident Evil? And Final Fantasy? And the rumours about MGS?

And, um, there's that quaint little franchise from Rockstar too.

On the defensive ("fucking WHY?!"), Kojima has been active in trying to quell the MGS4 → Xbox 360 speculation lately. Which is odd, seeing as Kojima Productions were notably vocal about how PS3 wasn't a financially viable platform for mega-budget exclusives not so long ago.

I don't think anyone bought Sony's recent, "we don't buy exclusives" horseshit a couple of weeks back, so I wonder if they're firming up Kojima's plans with fat wads of Folding. They certainly had enough to court Rockstar back into exclusivity last week, albeit with an as-yet-unannounced (new?) property.

[LOPcagney]

You mean like Resident Evil? And Final Fantasy? And the rumours about MGS?

Heh. I guess that was a kind of closeminded statement by me earlier. What I meant (being a PC person myself) was that all the 360 games were coming to PC specifically, and therefore people like me who primarily use their PC for gaming would be smart to turn either to Nintendo or Sony.