Friday, August 7, 2009

Best Buy's Awesome Market Test

Apparently a Best Buy store in Utah is doint a little market test. In this market test they are selling new games for the price that the game would cost at Gamestop or another specialty shop like GameCrazy. This means that if a game is $30 dollars used at Gamestop, you could feasibly go to Best Buy and purchase the same game, brand new, at that same cost, regardless of what it cost at new at Best Buy.

IGN spoke to a rep for the company and told them that they could not comment on the possibility of this being executed nation-wide. They were also told that stores are allowed to conduct their own market research as individual stores, separate from corporate strategy.

This seems great to me, since I buy a lot of things at Best Buy already it would be awesome to see this rolled out across the country but it's highly unlikely. If Gamestop doesn't think Digital Distribution would kill them, a program like this almost surely would. What would you do if your Best Buy offered this deal!?

via IGN

Are Massive Price Cuts Imminent!?

I think most gamers would be hard pressed to say that they would not like to see cuts across the board on the consoles. Actually I think that the price of games could stand to be cut as well, most of us who game a lot, that crave new releases like crack, could stand a little more affordability in our gaming habits. Most of these needs is what will end up driving the adoption rate for digital distribution. With console sales slowing for each of the big three it would appear that console price cuts are in the works for each of them, most especially Sony.



No one will argue the fact that Sony launched the PS3 at too high a price point. At $600, it was a tough pill for anyone to swallow. I couldn't even get my own until the launch window was almost closed. I will not say that the price wasn't worth it, and I wasn't exactly swimming in a sea of games. Still Sony has to lose a lot of money to make a lot of money down the road, so does Microsoft and Nintendo. Well Sony and Microsoft at least because Nintendo released a next-gen and a half system instead of going full on like their competitor's, this way they could be profitable out of the gate. There was risk involved in that strategy, the Wii could have been as successful as the Gamecube, and though they will never say it Nintendo had no clue the Wii was going to take off like it did.

Now here we are in the last half of the year and the reports that Sony are getting ready to lay a massive strike to cut the price of the PS3 is practically written on the wall. Pictures of the PS3 Slim have been making the rounds months, with parts ordering doubled in th last few weeks and European retailers pratcially breaking NDA's saying that it's coming and on it's way.

The price that everyone seems to be gravitating too is $299USD, and a similar price in EU. Some of the box pics that leakend onto the internet have showed a larger HDD at 120GB. Works for me, and though I already have one, I may trade it in for a newer beast. The announcement could be done any day but with Gamescom coming up it's likely going to be there at their presser on the 18th of the this month. As soon as the news breaks you can read about it here first.

Final Fantasy XIV Info!

I don't know how many of you have played(or currently are) Final Fantasy XI, but I have not. Most of you probably won't think of that as very surprising since the game never generated a massive interest since it came out during a time when MMO's were still kind of only for PC players, and the PS2 was barely online capable. Add to that the fact that the Xbox 360 had just launched and most of those players were looking for a different kind of game. Imagine my surprise at E3 when Jack tretton announced Final Fantasy XIV for the PS3(and PC). A lot of people were shocked, most especially since Final Fantasy XIII has yet to even be released in Japan and this game is set to come out next year as well!

For me this is a personal win, I have had a love affair with the Final Fantasy series since I was a kid and played Final Fantasy IV on my Super Nintendo(that would be II to us Westerner's playing it at that time), and then followed that up with Final Fantasy VI(again III to those not in Japan). With the exception of Final Fantasy XI, I have played and loved every Final Fantasy released, even X-2. Details on Final Fantasy XIV have been kinda scarce since it's announcement in June but the official site has launched given up a ton of info for the game.

The new game takes place on the world of Hydaelyn, in the geographic region of Eorzea, on the continent of Aldenard. There are three city-states in the game each with it's own denizens and bustling culture, I would presume that the world itself will be expandable with other area's of Hydaelyn to be explored through expansion packs, such is the nature of an MMO. There are several races in this world that will be sure to give players plenty of options in who they want to be, though it is currently unknown what the game's antagonists look like and/or will be though my money is on humanoid creatures.

The Elezen are an Elf-like race and seem to be the more refined species of the bunch, the straight out pointing ears are definitely interesting. The Lalafell look like this game's Moogle type character, I am not saying they look like Moogle's, they just have that small and cutesy look to them. Hopefully Moogle's make an appearance, they are one of my favorite races that have traversed the series and since there are Chocobo'sin some screens I will go ahead and presume that Moogle's will be in there as well. The Hyur are the definite human race of the game, and it would be pretty hard to dispute that. The Roegadyn are the pirates, merchants, and muscle of the game and the Miqo'te which seem to be an animal humanoid race similar to Fran of final Fantasy XII. This is supposed to be a world unlike Ivalice or Vana'diel, but it seems to me they are definitely drawing inspiration from the games that take place in those worlds, Final Fantasy XI and XII are the most recognizable games.

SquareEnix has stated that this Final Fantasy will be high on the fantasy aspect of it's name, and the civilizations will have a more prominent technological prowess than Final Fantasy XI's more medieval setting. With airship's, vehicle's and other things that are set to drive the machine of war this looks to be a very promising outing in SquareEnix's best series. Though the different races seem largely similar to those in Final Fantasy Tactics/XI/XII, it looks very different in terms of the worlds and setting they are building which is always a win for RPG fans.

I think it goes without saying that I am excited for this game, and hopefully others are as well and it ends up doing well on the platforms it is released on. Though the Xbox 360 isn't a listed platform I would not be surprised if it made it over to it as well, so don't lose hope if you want this game and own an Xbox 360. Check out the official site for more in-depth info.

Final Fantasy XIV is listed for release on the Playstation 3 and PC, and is expected to be released sometime in 2010, my guess would be late in the year.

Final Fantasy XIV (site)

Welcome To Sunrise Games!

I would just like to use my first post to welcome everyone to Sunrise Games! This blog was born out of an intense desire to share my passion of gaming with others who share that same passion. I want to keep this site as bias free as possible. I love all games, but I definitely lean towards the Playstation family of products, which has dominated my personal use for the last ten or so years. Most game reviews will be done on the Playstation versions of multiplatform games, and I will expand into other platforms as soon as I can to review their exclusive content. Anyway, let me tell you a bit about myself.


I am a stay at home father of three, my oldest son is getting ready to begin his foray into school as he starts pre-K in two weeks! My daughter is happily situated in the middle, and my youngest son has his first birthday in about six weeks. I have been gaming for a long time, the first game that played was Frogger on the Atari. I have owned just about every console that has been made by the big players. In order I have owned an NES, Genesis, SNES, Saturn, PSOne, Dreamcast, PS2, GBA, DS, PS3, and Wii, a lot of systems and games by most standards, though not enough by other gaming enthusiasts. I will be adding a PSP to that list in the coming months and folow that up with an Xbox 360. Given enough demand and time, I would really enjoy doing retro reviews, so if that seems like something people would like to read be sure to speak up!


For the time being, as stated above, I will mostly be doing reviews of PS3 games, and then others will follow. There will be some Wii games thrown in here and there, but I will not be reviewing shovelware for the any system, so those reviews will almost always be core games. I don't have the time or money to do reviews for those kinds of games and I doubt anyone will fault me for it. Some of them will get reviewed but most will not, sorry to disappoint. The reviews will all be recommended as Play, Buy, and Disregard. Point systems are to ambiguous to be effective and it's all opinion, so what I like some others may not, but I don't want to halt a presons decision to play a game.



I will try to follow news as well. I don't have any moles in comapnies, so no breaking news can be found here, yet. If you want a fresh spin on the news of the day, I hope you choose to come here. I hope to build this into my own network of blogs, and will expand into Sunrise Movies in a couple of days for similar news and reviews as here.


Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I hope you keep coming back!


G.A.