Microsoft Re-Branding the 360?

Oh shit.

Recently found by Destructoid, it seems Microsoft may be facing a rebranding of the system, with the imminent launch of Natal. Retailers have been using the banner on multiple boxarts on their sites, namely Kane & Lynch 2 and Mafia II on Amazon.

This goes hand-in-hand with the smaller motherboard leak to foreshadow a possible "relaunch" of the system, including the rumored Xbox 360 Slim. First Sony, now Microsoft. Perhaps this rebranding will help curb enthusiasm in the PS3.

Source via Kotaku
Via Destructoid

How Sony won the last-gen, and how they'll probably win this gen: rebranding

This title has been in the drafts since December 17, so it's not all too familiar with my growing trend of getting partway through a draft, saving it for months on end and casually finishing it.

Ever since Sony announced the PS3 Slim, I had a slight inclination to buy one, purely out of the new design. I grew out of it, and never looked back; I still have my 1st-gen 60GB PS3 that can play my PS2 games (suck it, Sony). Another thing around that time was Sony had changed the way PS3 game's slipcovers look:

As you can see, Sony got rid of the Spider-Man font, and threw everything up top. Hell, they even started to brand which games were PS-only for the first time ever. But, there is a certain...allure to the rebranding here that makes it more appealing. It almost seems, dare I say, less threatening than the original?

[WORK NOTE] FFXIII Ships on 3 discs, Sony considering PSPgo relaunch?

It's been a while since I've done one of these, and there were two interesting stories that I caught while at work.

Final Fantasy XIII on 3 Discs According to GameFly, their listing for the game has been updated, reflecting a very interesting piece of info, giving renters-to-be a warning:

NOTE: This is a three disc game, but it only counts as one disc against your rental plan.

Yea, 3 discs. I'd believe it, simply because Square said a little while ago that 3 discs was their goal. Actually, considering the track records with "goals," there is reason for suspect here.

Original Source - GameFly Listing
My Source - Kotaku

Sony Considering Relaunching/Rebranding the PSPgo Now this is something I'd be looking forward to. According to unnamed sources to Gamervision, they site them by saying Sony is looking into efforts to relaunch - or even rebrand, and seeing as how that helps them with every iteration of their home console lines, I would not doubt this claim - the PSPgo with "a marketing blitz in hopes to rekindle some sort of excitement over the handheld...and there's little doubt a price drop might be among them." A price drop? Again, that would be something for me to consider, but until they live up to their word on the UMD-to-digital conversion program, then there won't be a PSPgo in my house for a long time.

Original Source - Gamervision
My Source - Joystiq


Back to that "UMD-to-digital" thing, my claim is that Sony needs to do with PSP and UMD what they're doing with Blu-ray: Digital Copy. It's a hit with DVD and Blu-ray, and it's something I love. Having Digital Copy for UMD games would be awesome. Then again, who's to say that you could rip an .iso file from TBP or Demonoid and dump it to a PSPgo running custom firmware and homebrew? It's what 360 modders do...