PlayStation Move Message Board

What if a PlayStation Move controller didn't just move but could also transform (and roll out)? Our friends at Engadget have spotted a US patent filing from Sony for a modular PS Move-like controller that would do such a thing. The patent describes a controller that could attach to additional "blocks" that would change the feel and function of the controller.

The patent shows three examples of how this would work: A block could extend to make the Move controller function as a sword, or rotate to give it the handle and feel of a shotgun. Add on another block for a secondary handle and the shotgun becomes a rifle. Or, in more technical terms, according to the patent: "In the present embodiment, multiple blocks are assembled or transformed, and the shape and position thereof are used as input values for information processing."

Keep in mind that patents are just patents, and there's no guarantee consumers will ever see a product like this that they could actually purchase. A patent for a transforming controller that featured both DualShock and Move functionality, for example, has yet to show its face in the real world.

It was an idea so good that it vaulted Nintendo into first place last-gen with a console using last-last-gen technology. It was an idea so flawed that a Kotaku reader—the moment this series of best and worst features of the outgoing console generation was announced—shredded it. Motion controls... boy did they mostly suck.Read more...

A while back, Sixense Studios delivered the InMotion DLC—which consisted of a bunch of new levels optimized for for the system’s Move controller—to the PS3 version of Portal 2. Now, that version of Valve’s hit sequel will be getting Portal 2 over will be getting new co-op content, rolling out to today as a free update. You’ll be able to get play online with PC owners who have the same motion-control-centric content. The PSN version of Portal 2 and the InMotion DLC will be going on sale, too.

Last December, you voted Portal 2 In Motion the Best Use of PlayStation Move. Sixense is grateful for your support. But we have been hearing one question from you: “Where’s co-op?”

As a “thank you” from Sixense to the PS3 community, all owners of the Portal 2 In Motion DLC will receive Non-Emotional Manipulation, an all-new co-op campaign specifically designed for Playstation Move, for free. We are deploying the patch today via PSN, so if you own the Portal 2 In Motion DLC you’ll get this new co-op content for free, automatically.

If you don’t own Portal 2 and Portal 2 In Motion yet, both the game and the DLC will be on sale for 20% off starting today on the PlayStation Store. PlayStation Plus members will receive an additional 40% off the sale price.

Non-Emotional Manipulation builds off of the new motion mechanics introduced in the previous Portal 2 In Motion single-player campaigns, but now with an added co-op twist. You can play Non-Emotional Manipulation split-screen with two Playstation Move controllers, or online with a friend across the internet. And you can even cross-play with owners of the Portal 2 MotionPack on PC. So grab a friend and start testing!

Remember that if you own the Portal 2 In Motion DLC from Sixense, you’ll have the two award-winning single player campaigns plus the new co-op, all designed for PlayStation Move. If you just have Valve’s Portal 2, but haven’t yet purchased Portal 2 In Motion, you can play the entire game with native PlayStation Move support by Sixense, but you won’t have the motion-specific gameplay features, such as Portal Surfing, Scaling and One-to-One.

Thanks again to all of our fans who’ve made this free update possible. We can’t thank you enough. You deserve it!

Following the successful launch this January of arcade classic Mad Dog McCree, gamers have been asking us “Where’s Mad Dog 2 already?!” Well, we listened, and now I’m happy to say that you’ll be searching for ‘The Lost Gold’ this Tuesday with the release of Mad Dog 2 on PSN. We once again went back to the original video and gave it a fresh HD upgrade for this PlayStation Move release. So pick a guide and get ready to take down the ruthless outlaw Mad Dog McCree once and for all!

This release includes a bunch of extra features, much like its predecessor Mad Dog McCree. We bumped up the original video quality, and remastered it in 720p. We created a fresh new interface to give the game a true western feel. We’ve added all new difficulty modes, which will give even the fastest quickdraw a run for their money in their quest to take out Mad Dog — and post their high scores to the worldwide Leaderboards.

Now this might not be the toughest shooter you’ve played through recently, but the American Laser Game series was a huge hit throughout the 1990s. Arcades, pizza parlors and grocery stores all had these games waiting to eat your quarters, and all you wanted to do was show up your friends to see who was the best gunner. On top of the remastered video, leaderboards and fun trophies – we’ve also once again included the multiplayer party mode. We got such great feedback from you all from the first Mad Dog release that we made sure to include up to four players again, so everyone can get in to the action at once!

It’s easy to forget how far we’ve come in gaming tech over the years, but the Mad Dog series was a hilariously awesome stop along the way, and we really think you’ll have a laugh too! In fact, we’re releasing a fully unlockable trial experience so everyone with a PlayStation Move can give it try – free!

We love the good, the bad and the ugly (did you catch that?) when it comes to classic games, and we’re very excited to share Mad Dog 2: The Lost Gold with you. Whether you remember playing or are new to the American Laser Games series, go ahead and try out the PlayStation Move version of this arcade classic. If you have yet to play Mad Dog McCree, the first in the series, grab the free trial today and see what these games are all about!

Also available with this release on the PlayStation Store is a free XMB wallpaper, videos and a bunch of exclusive Mad Dog 2 Avatars! Check out all the goods and download your free trial next week!

"No, [PS4] doesn't support DualShock 3, but it does support PS Move," Sony worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed. Considering the design of the DualShock 4 and the functionality within, we can't say we're too surprised.

Obviously we knew about the PS Move compatibility, seeing as how it was featured during last night's event, but this is the first definitive word on DualShock 3 support. Last night Sony announced that PSOne, PS2 and PS3 games would be playable on PS4 through technology developed by Gaikai, but that PS3 discs would not work natively.

During today's PlayStation Event in NYC, Media Molecule's Alex Evans revealed the studio has married the PlayStation Move controller with the PS Move, Sony's motion peripheral originally designed for the PS3. The Move was demonstrated as a sculpting tool with the PS4, among other things.

Really, the entire demo was an artistic suite, showing the Move being used as a paint brush and to control two dancing avatars. The sequence eventually culminated in a full rock show where players used Move to control individual instruments. While not Media Molecule's next game, per se, the demo was designed to showcase the creative power of the PS4.

Since we released Fast Draw Showdown a while back, classic arcade gamers have been begging us to revamp Mad Dog McCree and launch it on PSN. Well, we’re stoked to announce that ALG classic Mad Dog McCree — in all its FMV glory — will be releasing this Tuesday, January 22nd on PlayStation Store. We’ve completely remastered this shooter from the ground up, so get ready to unholster your PlayStation Move motion controller and take down that ruthless outlaw Mad Dog McCree!

This PS3 release includes a bunch of new features you could never get in the arcades. First off, the original video has been remastered in 720p and a fresh new interface was created to give a true western feel. Fresh difficulty modes will give even the fastest quickdraw a run to take out these vicious outlaws and post high scores to the worldwide Leaderboards.

Many gamers have fond memories of playing Mad Dog McCree in their local arcades and pizza shops, trying to show up their friends to see who the fastest gun is. Well, on top of the remastered HD video, leaderboards and Trophies, we’ve added a really fun multiplayer party mode so up to four players can get in to the action at once! Pull together a posse and find out who the best shot in the group really is.

Now many of you reading this are probably thinking “this game looks older than me” – and, well, you’re probably right! Mad Dog McCree essentially gave rise to the modern FPS titles we see today. But you probably won’t find a laugh-out-loud western shooter gaming experience anywhere else. In fact, we’re releasing a fully unlockable trial experience so everyone with a PlayStation Move can give it a shot for free!

We love classic games, and we’re very excited to share Mad Dog McCree with you. Whether you fondly remember playing, or are new to the American Laser Games series, go ahead and try out the PlayStation Move version of this arcade classic next week.

Also available on PlayStation Store are a free XMB wallpaper, videos and a bunch of exclusive Mad Dog Avatars. Check out all the goods and download your free trial next week. Relive the gunpowder glory of the Wild West with Mad Dog McCree – it’ll leave your PlayStation Move smokin’!

Sony recently filed a patent that describes a method for determining the location of a PS Move-like controller through a sound capturing device. The patent describes the two-dimensional light-tracking that the current Move device uses in conjunction with sounds emitted from the controller, which would provide a gauge for the controller's "depth" in association with the sound capture device located on the TV.

What's more, the patent includes a number of pictures that show a Move-like controller with swappable face plates for different button setups, as seen after the break, as well as the ability to attach controllers together in a number of ways. Among the patent's illustrations is one depicting a child performing a bicycle kick while playing a soccer game with Move controllers attached to his hands and legs. Simulation sports games may never be the same.

Hi PlayStation.Blog readers! Over the past few weeks, the Sportsfriends designers and I have been posting about the four indie multiplayer games that we’re hoping to bring to PS3 as one action-filled compendium.

We’ve exhibited all four games around the world at festivals and parties, and now we want to get them into your living room. But we need your support on Kickstarter to raise enough development funds. Today is the final day of our campaign!

So far, Noah Sasso has told you about BaraBariBall – a carefully balanced fighting game that plays like a stylized mix of Super Smash Brothers and volleyball.

Bennett Foddy, the creator of browser game classics like QWOP and GIRP, wrote about his head-to-head physics-based pole-vaulting game, Super Pole Riders.

Ramiro Corbetta told you about his popular 2v2 minimalistic sports game Hokra.

And I posted about Johann Sebastian Joust, a multi award-winning, no-graphics motion control game that uses PlayStation Move motion controllers and feels more like a 21st-century martial art than a videogame.

For us, Sportsfriends is a passion project. We believe that local multiplayer is a hugely rewarding way to play games, and we hope to demonstrate that it’s still viable for indies like us to develop these kinds of games. We love all sorts of videogames of course, but we feel like local multiplayer has been a bit overshadowed in the last decade with the rising popularity of online play.

Why local multiplayer? There’s nothing quite like playing games with your friends on the same couch or in the same physical space, yelling, laughing, trash-talking, and just plain old having a good time. There’s a certain magic playing in front of raucous crowd, or seeing the facial expressions of your opponents.

Think back to the console games you used to play in your friend’s basement, the playground games you improvised at school, or the games you played at the arcade. Those are the kinds of gaming experiences that have inspired Sportsfriends. We want to breathe new life into local multiplayer, taking it into the 21st century. We want to make deeply replayable games that will last the test of time. We want to call attention to what happens in front of the screen, between the human beings playing and spectating.

But today is the final day of our Kickstarter campaign, and we need your help to make it happen. Support us now and pre-order four extensively tested multiplayer games for PS3. Support local multiplayer!

A newly discovered Sony patent application reveals a device that literally sticks together the functionality of the PlayStation Move and its Navigation Controller with the form factor of the DualShock. The "Hybrid Separable Motion Controller," filed last May, consists of two halves of a standard DualShock shape, each with a Move-style orb at the top.

Both sides have accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers to sense motion, and can be operated either separately or locked together into one unit. It's designed such that games will be able to detect the configuration in use.

We're asking Sony if the company intends to use this concept in the PS3 or future devices.

#playstation Yesterday, a patent filed by Sony Computer Entertainment way back in May of 2011 was finally published, revealing designs for a new PlayStation Move controller that's essentially a Sixaxis crossbred with the OG Move and given the power to split in twain. Combiform team, eat your heart out. More »

As gaming résumés go, few can compare to that of Warren Spector. After starting his career on the fabled Wing Commander series back in 1990, he went on to work on massive franchises such as Ultima and System Shock, before re-inventing the stealth genre with Deus Ex and Thief. In short, he’s a true giant of game development.

And this week sees him return to the fray, with Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two – an ambitious sequel to his epic 2010 platforming adventure, packing in full co-op play and PlayStation Move support. The Junction Point founder was kind enough to lend PlayStation.Blog a few minutes of his valuable time to discuss the game – read on to find out what he had to say.

PlayStation.Blog: There are a lot of PlayStation gamers out there who might not be too familiar with the first game. What did they miss?
Warren Spector: What did they miss? Only the greatest game experience of all time! No, okay, seriously… what they missed was the reintroduction of Mickey Mouse as a game hero the equal of Mario, Sonic, Link or any other platforming or adventure star.

“Each player is the teller of his or her own story.”

They missed the return of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first cartoon star – a great character who deserves better than to be forgotten. They missed what I hope was and is a unique combination of platforming and adventure game elements – with players getting to decide how the game felt and played.

They missed the “Deus Ex” choice and consequence idea applied to completely different genres – in Disney Epic Mickey games, each player is the teller of his or her own story, just as in Deus Ex and all the other games I’ve worked on.

They missed a cool story, a brand new game world and a trip down Disney Memory Lane. They missed all sorts of stuff!

And for those who did play it, what are the key improvements you’ve made for the sequel?
WS: Camera, camera, camera! The team worked really hard to enhance the camera system. And when I say “really hard” I mean “really hard!”. I think we did a better job of player direction – knowing where to go and what to do. Games should be about how to do stuff, not figuring out what stuff to do!

We’ve added full voice for all characters, some of whom even sing. We’ve taken the idea of choice and consequence to new levels – your play-style really matters this time around and your choices may have consequences that last forever and can’t be undone.

Oh, and we’ve added a little thing called two-player co-op. Now, one player takes the role of Mickey, with Oswald as an AI-controlled character, but at any point, a second player can sit down next to you and play as Oswald. It’s all about the Power of Two!

The camera was indeed one of the issues that came in for criticism last time. How have you refined it?
WS: We’ve worked non-stop on the camera since the day we shipped the first game. We made a ton of code changes – including always allowing manual control of camera, while working to ensure you don’t have to take manual control any more than necessary.

“Everything’s better this time around.”

The level builders – designers and artists – were way more experienced this time around building levels that were less likely to break the camera system. And we just understood the ramifications of changing the world, dynamically, with paint and thinner.

Everything’s better this time around. I’m sure you and your readers will tell us if everything’s better enough!

Developers often struggle introducing simultaneous co-op play – was making it work in Epic Mickey 2 a big challenge for you?
WS: I don’t think so, really. I mean, once the team decided to go with Oswald AI throughout the game, we didn’t have to design maps to work with and without Oswald. He was always going to be with you, even in single player.

And I’m not a fan of special modes of play – I mean, there’s no special co-op mode, or co-op story, or co-op specific missions. There’s just the game. Oswald’s there to help. Sometimes he’s AI controlled and sometimes he’s player controlled.

It wasn’t easy – I’d never say that… the team would kill me! But we have a great team at Junction Point, a team that really wanted to tackle the problem, rather than being told to tackle it. That makes a world of difference.

You’ve included PS Move support. Do you see that as the definitive way to enjoy the game?
WS: Well, there’s certainly a lot to be said for the combination of gestural control and high definition graphics! That’s as close to a “definitive” statement as I’m going to make!

We know you’re a huge Disney fan – have you managed to pack plenty of fan service into the sequel? What new characters can we expect to see?

“The entire team embraced their inner Disney geek.”

WS: The key isn’t that I’m a huge Disney fan; the key is that the entire team embraced their inner Disney geek. On the first game, there was a learning period where people who might not have been huge Disney experts became huge Disney experts. I pushed the team to find Disney inspiration for everything in the game but that battle was won on the first game. No need to fight it again. The whole team went after it, Disney-style, this time.

There’s plenty of “fan service” in Epic Mickey 2! As far as specifics go, especially new characters, let’s move on. I want players to discover that for themselves.

Epic Mickey 2 is a big, colourful title that seems both family-friendly but also deep enough for core gamers to enjoy. How hard is it striking a balance between the two?

WS: Man, making games at all is hard! Making games where “play-style matters” is even harder. Luckily, making games where players really get to decide how to interact with the world and the characters makes reaching a diverse audience a little easier. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.

The thing to remember is that, in most, if not all cases, if a player tries something – fighting or erasing or sneaking or platforming – and it isn’t working, or it’s too hard, or they’re not having enough fun, they can just try something else. When there’s more than one way to solve every game problem – or nearly every one – reaching players of different skill levels, different ages, with different interests, is kind of a given. But don’t underestimate how hard it is to make games that offer choices and real consequences! That’s the tricky bit…

Do you think younger gamers – or their parents – have enough choice these days? Epic Mickey 2 seems at odds with a number of the other big Christmas blockbuster releases…

“There’s an amazing amount of choice in games these days.”

WS: Honestly, I do think there’s an amazing amount of choice in games these days, if you look at the full range of platforms and distribution methods. I mean, if all you look at is console titles, sold at retail, then, sure, you might see a lot of games falling into a small handful of genres. But include digital distribution systems like PSN into things and the world looks a lot more diverse – in terms of content, gameplay, purchase price, commitment required, etc. Then, roll Facebook and browser-based games and iOS and Android games into your equation and the world of gaming is crazy broad.

Having said all that, I love the fact that Disney Epic Mickey 2 is one of the few truly family-oriented titles I see coming out this holiday season. And by ‘family-oriented’ I mean ‘of interest to everyone and anyone!’.

At long last, the very first title for the new Wonderbook peripheral, Wonderbook: Book of Spells, officially launches today in North America! The team at SCE London Studios worked hard to conjure up a truly amazing experience using the latest in augmented reality technology that combines Wonderbook with the PlayStation Eye camera. Starting today, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in the world of Harry Potter and begin learning the art of spell-casting while using your PlayStation Move motion controller as your magic wand. The book features new and original writing from J.K. Rowling, and will allow you to learn about the histories of some of the well-known spells from the Harry Potter series, as well as other interesting insights.

Over the past few months, we’ve shared that Wonderbook: Book of Spells unlocks the secrets of casting your favorite spells like Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa and Expelliarmus. Today, I’m excited to share that the book will also teach you a very powerful spell – Expecto Patronum! With this incantation, you’ll have the chance to discover the animal form of your very own Patronus, the manifestation of your positive thoughts and your best weapon to drive away attacks from Dementors. That’s just a small taste of the magic that we have in store for you!

To help celebrate the launch of Wonderbook: Book of Spells, we’re excited to give you a glimpse of the spellbinding experience in action in the new TV commercial (seen at the top of this post). Thanks for watching, and we hope that you enjoy checking out Wonderbook: Book of Spells with your families this festive season!

With the Portal 2 In Motion DLC releasing today, we’d like to share a little more about its content and development. The DLC now available on PSN is a campaign designed by our team at Sixense to take full advantage of the capabilities of the PlayStation Move controller. We started with all of the great features that already exist in Portal 2. Then we envisioned Portal 2 In Motion as a new game experience (including a new campaign) built for motion control – not just the addition of motion controls on top of existing gameplay that was designed for a traditional PS3 controller. So the result is a new gaming experience that requires new thinking and use of the PlayStation Move motion controller. We’ve included a video here that demonstrates the new features you’ll get when you buy the DLC. I’ll discuss these features a little more. I’ll also discuss at the end of this post the Move support for Portal 2 that we have implemented in the PSN downloadable version of the game and the patch for the Blu-Ray version, all of which is available today.

Sixense designed three new motion mechanics for Portal 2 In Motion and tuned them to feel like a natural extension of your body. The “One-to-One” mechanic allows the player to manipulate objects as if they were held in the player’s own hand. This means that when using One-to-One you can change the object’s position and orientation by moving and rotating the Move controller. This opened the door to a lot of new possibilities for our team in terms of puzzle design, which you’ll see in Portal 2 In Motion. It is very satisfying to reach out with the controller and redirect lasers with the Discouragement Redirection Cube to light up some poor Sentry Turrets.

The “Portal Surfing” mechanic is the ability to move and rotate a portal along a “portalable” surface. Portal Surfing allows you to change an object’s trajectory as it passes through a portal by rotating the portal. Spraying gel with a Move controller is quite a different experience than when using your typical input device.

The “Scaling” mechanic went through a number of iterations in development until we found a balance between required motion complexity and functionality. Scaling is performed by reaching out with the Move controller while holding a cube in the game, pressing the scaling button and moving the controller horizontally to increase or decrease the size of the cube. To scale along a different axis, the user rotates the cube prior to scaling. The mass of the object also scales with its size, allowing for plenty of satisfaction as you use giant objects to crush turrets or punch through glass.

Finally, for the basic aiming of the cursor in the game, we implemented the highly intuitive view mode that we call “Freeaim”. Freeaim uses the Move controller’s orientation to determine cursor position. The controller’s absolute position does not affect the rotation of the view, so the user can adjust the camera view using only small wrist movements. The result is a camera system that is much more fluid than using the analog stick on the traditional PS3 controller. We have a great demonstration of this in the video. With Freeaim, aiming and firing portals also becomes extremely natural and intuitive and the overall experience becomes much more immersive.

The features that I’ve described to this point are all included with the Portal 2 In Motion DLC. Because the patch and the downloadable Portal 2 are both releasing today, I want to make clear what is included in those products with regard to the work Sixense has done. Both the digital download Portal 2 and the patch include PlayStation Move support, meaning that the full single-player and co-operative Portal 2 campaigns can be played with Move, and users will be able to take advantage of the Freeaim mechanic to play (or replay) the game. You can even play split screen with both players using Move motion controllers. Only the Portal 2 In Motion DLC, however, includes the advanced mechanics of One-to-One, Portal Surfing and Scaling, as well as the new campaign consisting of test chambers that require the use of the new mechanics. The patch and Portal 2 on PSN do contain a short tutorial designed familiarize the user with the Move motion controller and the Freeaim feature. At the end of the tutorial, we provide a taste of the One-to-One feature that is otherwise exclusive to the Portal 2 In Motion DLC.

Check out the video, and experience Portal 2 In Motion today!

We gave the world a glimpse at E3 back in June, and now it’s official. On November 6th, 2012, Sixense will launch Portal 2 In Motion, a motion DLC campaign for Valve’s Portal 2 on PlayStation Move. Our development team at Sixense has applied our expertise in motion gaming to create what we believe will be the defining experience for PlayStation Move. The Portal 2 In Motion DLC will be priced at $9.99 on PSN. We’ll also have a special launch promotion of 30% off for PlayStation Plus members.

Those who are familiar with Sixense know that over the past few years we have focused on delivering motion gaming experiences that are intuitive and natural for users. We are excited to now work with Sony and Valve to deliver content that takes advantage of the advanced motion tracking of the PlayStation Move. Portal 2 In Motion introduces gameplay mechanics, including scaling and rotation of objects as well as portal surfing. These new abilities are all required as the player progresses through an increasingly challenging set of test chambers that look familiar from Portal 2, but require new thinking to solve.

We are timing the release of Portal 2 In Motion to coincide with Valve’s release of Portal 2 for digital download on PlayStation Network, which now includes PlayStation Move support (implemented by Sixense) for the entire single-player and cooperative campaigns. PS Plus members will also receive 30% off on Portal 2 when it launches on PSN. Owners of Portal 2 on Blu-Ray will receive PlayStation Move support through a free patch, which will provide a touch of the motion experience provided by Sixense. While the original Portal 2 campaigns will be fully playable with PlayStation Move, only Portal 2 In Motion features the gameplay mechanics designed by Sixense specifically for motion.

We hope that Portal 2 In Motion will mark the beginning of much more to come! Look for everything on November 6th!

Happy Halloween, everyone! This is an exciting day for all of us on the Until Dawn team with our minds occupied by ghouls, beasts, and other things that go bump in the night. We love teen-horror movies (“DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR,” we cry… but alas, they always do). That’s why we’re so excited about Until Dawn: this game provides a truly interactive teen-horror experience!

Until Dawn puts you in control of eight teenagers, stranded in a remote location, under threat and trying with all their might to survive ’til sunrise. Since today is Halloween, we have a special treat from Supermassive Games hinting at some of the scariest moments in the game. Don’t worry: no spoilers here.

Even though you won’t see any spoilers, eagle-eyed viewers may spot some details that spark lingering questions. Who owns the items on the wall? Are the pictures portraying past victims or those who remain? You’ll have to wait for Until Dawn to arrive on PS3 in 2013 to find out!

Stay safe tonight and have a Happy Halloween!

I am super excited for Sports Champions 2 to launch on PS3 on October 30th, and hope you feel the same! So start warming up with your PlayStation Move motion controllers, because the team at Zindagi and San Diego Studio have been hard at work packing the title with five all-new sporting events including Skiing, Boxing, Tennis, Golf and Bowling – plus an updated Archery experience, a new Party Play Mode, an Avatar Creator feature, and more. Check out our trailer below to see these new features in action!

Today, we’re excited to give you a free taste of the experience with a demo on PSN. In the demo, you’ll have a chance to start working up a sweat in a singles Tennis match against the AI, play a hole of Golf for one to two players, and try out a fast flying and jumping Ski run for up to two players. Of course the full game has a ton of additional content and challenges, but I hope this gives you an idea of how a few of the events play from the start.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the full experience and you purchase Sports Champions 2 in the first run at retail and on PSN, you’ll receive a cool DLC bonus called the Golf DLC Pack. This limited time free DLC includes Scramble, Best Ball, and Stableford Golf modes, and a set of carbon fiber golf clubs for your Champion. Some of you may already be able to see Sports Champions 2 popping up on store shelves early in your area, so be sure to keep an eye out!

I’m also pleased to announce that we’ve teamed up with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition to support the Active Play PALA Challenge. This initiative aims to promote playing active videogames as a fun way to help establish a healthy lifestyle. As part of the challenge, you can use active games like Sports Champions 2 as a way to work towards earning a Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA+).

We’ve pulled together lots of fun activity routines featuring all of Sports Champions 2’s action-packed sporting events that will help you get up off the couch and start working towards earning your PALA+ using PlayStation Move. Click here to learn how you can join the fun!

That’s all for now! Please stay tuned to the PlayStation.Blog for the latest Sports Champions 2 news.

Lights, Camera, Party! fans: Today we are launching new DLC called The Good, the Bad and the Monkey! The DLC pack contains 10 new minigames as well as a new game mode called The Duel. Six additional trophies and 40 additional in-game awards are also part of the package. You do not want to miss this opportunity to PARTY ON!

Duel mode lets you play six rounds of mini games head to head against another player in order to defeat your opponent and win a classic high noon showdown. Of course all 60 LCP minigames can show up in the Duel.

The team has decided to give an interesting twist to this DLC by focusing on exploiting the most challenging and entertaining gestures with the PlayStation Move. The themes of the new minigames are as silly as ever, and include:

Eating corn on a cob (as a monkey!) Shaking the hell out of a banana-shooting coconut tree Stopping a rampaging Funzaur using a laser-beaming satellite Keeping Ape TV’s studio afloat by fixing its monkey-busted monitors Assembling a snowman for Clovis, because you just love that dog SO MUCH Putting out your flaming monkey crewmen with a hose…inside the studio Dodging incoming ghosts Blasting aliens with Billy the Lightkid! Taking part in an epic skiing action reel Surprising Funzaur before he wakes up!

And because we like you so much, see above for a new video featuring some of the new minigames as well as a glimpse of the new game mode! Reminds you of any popular movies from the ’60s?

Priced at $4.99, we believe that we believe that The Good, the Bad, and the Monkey will give you more fun with the core game. Also, you should always keep in mind that we will always take your comments in consideration and we widely encourage you to send your feedback our way. If an awesome idea strikes you, don’t hesitate to let us know!

If you had the most random idea for a mini-game fitting into Lights, Camera, Party!’s wacky setting, what would it be?

Last month’s debut of PlayStation Move-based horror game Until Dawn generated enough intrigue to propel the game onto at least one news site’s best of gamescom list (LINK: http://www.t3.com/features/best-of-gamescom). And after watching a 30-minute gameplay demonstration of this cheeky horror game at gamescom, it wasn’t hard to see why. The game oozes confidence and style: its immersive use of the PlayStation Move motion controller (from flipping levers to tugging zippers), rapid-fire banter, and unabashed reliance on genre tropes all point to a game that’s determined to push horror gaming into uncharted territory.

It’s important to note that Until Dawn is firmly a teen horror game, trading in the healing herbs and bullet counting of the survival-horror genre for quips, jump scares, and salacious scenarios that wouldn’t seem out of place in Friday the 13th or I Know What You Did Last Summer.

After Until Dawn’s gamescom debut, I had a chance to speak with SuperMassive’s executive creative director Will Byles, who discussed the game’s genesis, HUD-free presentation, and adaptive storyline.

Sid Shuman, PlayStation.Blog Social Media Manager: Until Dawn got a great response at gamescom. What do you mean when you say it’s “unashamedly a teen horror”?
Will Byles, Executive Creative Director: Teen horror is where we started. It’s where you have a group of teenagers disappear off to some remote location. The power is usually out; the phone is always out. And then, one by one, they get killed off. And they’re always trying to get it on with each other, often at inappropriate times.

PSB: Until Dawn has no HUD at all – no onscreen button icons, no text. Why is that important?
WB: We think it’s massively important for two reasons. We wanted to make sure this game was fun to play, but also watchable — we wanted a couple or group of friends to sit down and those that weren’t playing would be really happy to watch the whole thing. It just seemed like a much better way of doing it.

Every time we put something on screen, it breaks your suspension of disbelief just a little bit. So we try to keep it to a minimum. We wanted to try and keep all the shocks and scares first-person, so they’re happening to the player, with as few abstract elements as possible.

PSB: Until Dawn’s use of PlayStation Move is fascinating and helps make it a very tactile game. When did you settle on Move, and why?
WB: The game was designed from the ground up for PS Move. We started off making a first-person teen horror game that was flashlight-based — everything you needed to do or navigate used the flashlight. And PS Move is perfect for that; it looks like a flashlight, it feels like a flashlight. The T button underneath it handles your walking speed. Then, when you’re interacting without the flashlight, we map the PS Move controller to what your hand would do.

PSB: Until Dawn’s story adapts to your play decisions, so this isn’t a linear game in the traditional sense. How many variations are possible?
WB: I don’t want to give too much away about the story, but we’ve got two things going on. The story adapts to what’s happening. A massive part of teen horror movies is people getting killed one by one; with our game, we want the fate of the character you’re playing is in your hands. Another thing: If you die in this game, you die. The story will change, adapt. There’s no reset or respawning — that’s it. You’re onto the next character.

During development, we did a lot of testing to make sure that there was a pacing to the fear. We did galvanic skin response (GSR) tests, which sounds quite technical, but it measures the conductivity of people’s skin — like a lie detector. Then the person would play the game, we would film them and see what’s onscreen, and we’d get this graph showing how frightened or relaxed they were. It’s quite interesting: The scene when Michael and Jessica are in the lodge and it starts to get amorous, we saw some interesting skin galavanic responses when some of the younger men were playing it. [laughter]

PSB: Heavy Rain is the last time we’ve seen this kind of branching story. Was Heavy Rain an influence for you at all?
WB: I think Heavy Rain is a great innovator in interactive narrative, [the team] is phenomenally good. David Cage is a great leader in that, so yeah, we definitely took some inspiration there.

PSB: The game seems to have a good sense of humor, such as that scene where you use PlayStation Move to begin disrobing your girlfriend.
WB: We keep coming back to the game being unashamedly a teen horror. If we didn’t do that stuff, I think that people would feel cheated. We’ve got to go there, we’ve got to do it. People see teen horror movies as date movies, and we’re trying to do the same thing here….To us, the three words of teen horror are scary-sexy-funny. Things like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream…on TV, Buffy or Supernatural. All of those have the same sort of feel — they’re teen horror.

#harrypotter Wonderbook; The Book of Spells, the not-really-Harry-Potter-but-endorsed-by-J.K.-Rowling-so-you-think-it-is bundle of game and hardware, is gonna hit shelves in November, Sony said earlier today. More »

Hi Playstation Fans!

I wanted to give you an update on a project that we are incredibly excited about here at PlayStation: Wonderbook. Although we only announced it a few months ago, our team at London Studio has been working hard on the technology behind Wonderbook for years.

We recently sat down with the team to create a series of “making of” diaries that give you a closer look at the development of Wonderbook. To kick off these developer diaries, the team focused on the core technology that helped form the foundation of the project.

The first game to use this new technology is the product of our collaboration with J.K. Rowling, Wonderbook: Book of Spells. By taking PlayStation Move’s augmented reality capabilities and pairing them with the Wonderbook peripheral, we were able to create a truly immersive, magical world in which you’ll be able to learn how to cast many spells including: Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa and Expelliarmus, with your very own spell book and wand.

Wonderbook: Book of Spells will launch in the U.S. on November 13th, 2012. For those of you who are ready to get your wizard training started, we’ll be offering two cool ways for you to pick it up.

First, there’s the Wonderbook: Book of Spells Move Bundle that comes with everything you need to start practicing spells on your PS3 system including the Book of Spells game, Wonderbook peripheral, PlayStation Eye camera and a PlayStation Move motion controller – all for just $79.99.

If you already have a PlayStation Eye camera and a PlayStation Move motion controller, we’re also offering a Wonderbook: Book of Spells standalone for $39.99 that comes with the Book of Spells game and Wonderbook peripheral.

I hope you’re excited to check out Wonderbook when it hits stores this November! Stay tuned to PlayStation.Blog for the latest information on Wonderbook: Book of Spells and additional Wonderbook titles for 2013 including Diggs: Nightcrawler, BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs and experiences from Disney.

Hi again, this is Sports Champions 2 Senior Producer, Jeremy Ray, and I’m super excited to finally let everyone know when Sports Champions 2 will be available here in the US — October 30th! Since we’re getting close, I’ve got a small update on the game for you.

We’re giving the game one final coat of polish and squashing bugs right now, and I’m proud to say that we’ve surpassed many of our lofty internal goals. We can’t wait until it’s in your hands.

One example: the Avatar Creator feature has turned out so much better than we envisioned it. In fact, we are already starting to think about post-release support to make this feature even better — hopefully I’ll be able to announce something on that after launch. The creativity we’ve seen with the QA team on the avatar creator has been inspiring, and we’re incredibly excited to see how much further the fans take it.

We are also getting a ton of great feedback on Skiing, Boxing, Tennis, Golf, Bowling, and the new Archery. Just like with SC1, everyone seems to have their personal favorite. While my personal favorite in SC1 was Bocce, I’ll wait until SC2′s been out for a bit before making that call for the sequel.

Party Play keeps getting better and better, too. I really hope this takes off, as it’s been a blast to make. Thanks to the tremendous talent of Zindagi for making this possible, with big time improvements on core systems — like the removal of three point calibration.

Thank you, and continue to stay tuned for more Sports Champions 2 news. We’ll see you on the leaderboards!

#untildawn There's a new horror game coming to PlayStation 3 called Until Dawn. It's sort of built like a teen horror movie; you play as seven characters that you have to keep alive throughout a long night. More »

Sports Champions 2 will be releasing this fall for PlayStation Move, adding new sports such as skiing, boxing, tennis, bowling and golf, in addition to a much-evolved archery mode. These six sports lend themselves particularly well to motion gaming, with some requiring strategy and finesse and others a blend of speed and reaction time.

But given the popularity of Archery in the original Sports Champions, we wanted to demonstrate how far we’ve come with Sports Champions 2. Read on for lots of new details!

One early goal was to eliminate the need for PlayStation Move calibration, which could be pretty annoying in the first game. We are now able to get enough starting data when you turn on the game or a controller, and we’ve integrated some of the information gathering into the games themselves — along with some corrective behind-the-scenes calibration — so you can just play.

But our primary goal with Archery this time around was to combine the competitive nature the original game with the fast-paced, high-action style of Deadmund’s Quest archery. The idea was to maintain the tried-and-true archery mechanics from those two games while really emphasizing and expanding on the arcade element of the gameplay. We also wanted to continue to offer the player several different ways to play Archery. This was a notable feature of SC1, and we made every effort to continue that tradition. SC2 Archery offers an even more expansive variety of match types, and tests the player’s abilities with numerous different types of targets to shoot at.

Marksmanship is largely the same mode from SC1, with the addition of new marksmanship targets and more control over which target types you’ll see in a given match.In Shooting Gallery, you’ll shoot at many, many more types of target, such as bullseyes, fruit, money bags, balloons, rings, bottles, and more. Memory is a new take on the classic game, where you’ll try to uncover matching pairs of pictures using your bow-and-arrow. In Race mode, the goal is to raise your flag to the top of a pole before your opponent can raise theirs. You’ll raise your flag by shooting a bullseye target, and you’ll move faster by nailing high-score shots, forcing you to strike a balance between speed and accuracy. This is one of the more fun head-to-head matches, especially since we’ve introduced power-ups such as Shot Blocker. Push is now more fast-paced, as the two opposing archers are closer together and we made the rolling push targets move much faster. Players must choose to play more defensively by focusing on preventing the targets from reaching their side, or going more offensive and trying to push as many targets as they can to the opponent’s side. Rally is our most ambitious new mode, and has the opposing archers juggle a large cube between them until it hits the ground. The longer a rally goes on, the faster the cube flies back and forth between the archers. This mode is a fun, fast, intense experience that will test the player’s ability to be both accurate and quick with their bows. Players looking for an extra challenge can even opt to add a second Rally cube to the mix. Finally, Random mode will randomly select one of the Archery events for each round of the match. You’ll have to be prepared for anything when you select a Random game.

In general, The pace of Archery is faster and more exciting with new modes like Race and Rally being geared toward an arcade experience. The arcade feeling extends elsewhere, too. For example, when you shot a bullseye target in SC1, you received points and moved on to the next target. When you shoot a bullseye target in SC2, a couple of balloons might appear out of the broken bullseye target. When you shoot a money bag target in SC2, it will split into two more money bag targets. And those moneybags will split again into even more targets when you shoot them. We strove to make something unexpected happen in every match.

One change from SC1 that should be noticed right away is our scoring format has changed. Instead of adding up every round’s score from the entire match to determine the winner, now each round will have a winner determined, and the champion is decided by whoever won the most rounds. So in a best-of-3 format, a player will have to win two rounds. Also, we have implemented tie-breakers for every round – these will require quick reaction time to come out ahead.

We hope you enjoyed this look at Sports Champions 2′s new and improved Archery mode, and I want to thank my teammates at Zindagi Games for helping me craft this huge PlayStation.Blog post! If you have any questions, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Last year, my team at Frima Studio set out to create the ultimate PlayStation Move party game and in just a few weeks the whole world can enjoy the fruit of our labor on PSN. Lights, Camera, Party! embodies everything we think a party game should be; fast-paced, funny, quick to set up, social and full of a variety of mini-games, challenges and Trophies for a fresh experience each time you play. With only one Move controller required to play, it keeps the whole family on their feet and frantically passing the controller between fits of laughter.

You and your friends will step into the shoes of the Funzinis, a family forced to compete in an array of wild game shows to win a new home after the TV station’s satellite crash lands in their living room. In the primary Story mode, up to four players guide the Funzini family through five rounds, each modeled after a type of TV show (Cooking, News, Sci-Fi, and so on) that contain up to 24 fast-paced mini games. Other modes support up to eight players and feature selections of Lights, Camera, Party!’s 50 mini-games in a variety of challenging formats.

In Lights, Camera, Party! you and the controller are always moving, keeping everybody engaged and tensely waiting for their chance to blast alien ships, whack piñatas, escape rabid dogs, and save the family!

Jakub from Grip Games here! Today is a great day for our small indie studio — Foosball 2012 is out today on PSN! I’m stopping by the PS.Blog today to answer a few questions about the game.

Foosball 2012 is another entry in the line of not-so-typical-for-a-console-game sports, like darts, bowling, pool, or golf that we have seen recently on the PlayStation Store. If you weren’t sure which platform to get the game on, we think you’ll appreciate that when you buy the game for PS3, you’ll get the PS Vita version for free and the other way around!

A lot of people ask us “Why foosball?” and we keep telling them “Why not?” Other games that wouldn’t seem to be well-suited to a console experience managed to capture the essence of those games, and we hope to do the same with Foosball 2012. It is not just about playing foosball, it’s about playing a quick, skill-based game, that is easy to handle, but difficult to master. A game with a great multiplayer component and entertaining single-player mode, lots of customizations and Leaderboards to keep track of where you and your friends are standing against the global competition.

If you own both the PS3 and PS Vita, you’ll also appreciate full cross-compatibility between the two platforms. Not only can play online against people on the other platform, but you’ll also have your saves automatically synchronized between your two PlayStation consoles. That way, you can enjoy Foosball 2012 in gorgeous 1080p, 60FPS beauty on your TV, then take it on the road with you on PS Vita and continue from where you left off.

Many of you also asked about the controls. You can either play using the DualShock controller, where the left stick controls the movements of the poles and the right stick shoots the ball (so you can precisely aim and control the power of the shot), or you can use PlayStation Move and play foosball just like the real thing! You can also use touch controls on Vita, if that’s more your speed.

Both the PS3 and PS Vita versions will come in the form of a free trial that you can upgrade to the full version, so you will be able to try the game before you buy it. Foosball 2012 will be $7.99, or $5.99 if you’re a PlayStation Plus member. Buying the game on PS3 will also let you download it for Vita for free, and the other way around.

For more information, check out our website, along with our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Hey everyone, Jakub from Grip Games here. For the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping you up-to-date with news about our upcoming PS3 and PS Vita game Foosball 2012. Today, I can finally tell you when the game will be released and how much it will cost!

You’ll be able to scratch that foosball itch on July 24th, when the game launches on the PlayStation Store. It will cost you only $7.99 for which will get both the PS3 version and the PS Vita version, so you’ll be able to fully enjoy the awesome cross-platform features we have implemented in the game.

PlayStation Plus subscribers will enjoy a limited-time discount, netting the game for just $5.99!

For more information about the game, like details on its PlayStation Move support, cross play and online multiplayer, check out our website, our Facebook page, and our Twitter, where you can join other foosball fans to prepare for this unique gaming experience!

Right before the launch of PlayStation Move, I sat down with Anton Mikhailov from SCEA’s Research and Development team to get an in-depth walkthrough of PlayStation Move.

Anton and I are back at it again, and this time he’s here to give you a detailed preview of the latest PS Move peripheral: the PlayStation Move Racing Wheel. Paired with the precise tracking of PS Move, the Racing Wheel is a completely functional unit that offers second-to-none mechanics to control all aspects of your favorite racing games. From the motorcycle twist throttle to the folding grip design, Anton shows us how this new peripheral transforms your PS Move motion controller into the ultimate racing experience.

As we mentioned before, the PlayStation Move Racing Wheel will be available this fall for $39.99 and will support upcoming racing games like LittleBigPlanet Karting, in addition to PS3 racing favorites like Gran Turismo 5, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Burnout Paradise, MotorStorm Apocalypse, and more.

#humor Companies want us to play games one way. We actually play them another way. More »