EA SPORTS MMA to Feature STRIKEFORCE as a Premier League

New World-Class Fighters and Commentary Team Also Announced

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ:ERTS) announced today that STRIKEFORCE, a world-class mixed martial arts fight promotion, will be featured as a premier league in the upcoming EA SPORTS™ MMA video game. In addition, Brett Rogers and Jake Shields, both of whom will be competing in the STRIKEFORCE and M-1 Global co-promoted fight on November 7 (broadcasted live by CBS), join the EA SPORTS MMA roster of fighters.

With this partnership, the STRIKEFORCE cage and the league’s commentary team of Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo, as well as ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr., will be incorporated into the game. Legendary mixed martial arts referee “Big John” McCarthy will preside over the in-ring action and bring his in-depth knowledge of the sport to help deliver a truly authentic MMA experience.

“We are honored that EA SPORTS has selected STRIKEFORCE to serve as a premier league in its forthcoming MMA title,” said STRIKEFORCE President Scott Coker. “EA SPORTS has long been recognized by gamers as a highly innovative, ground breaking provider of sports gaming entertainment. We are confident that EA SPORTS MMA will function as a great ambassador for STRIKEFORCE’s fighters and effectively promote our sport to a new audience as well as to longtime fight fans.”

“We are very excited to be working with STRIKEFORCE and feature them as a premier league in our game,” said Executive Producer Dale Jackson. “They have a wealth of mixed martial arts expertise, put on great shows and have a great stable of top-notch fighters. Together we look forward to growing the sport and delivering an immersive interactive gaming experience.”

Tomorrow night’s STRIKEFORCE fight, to be broadcast on national network television by CBS, will undoubtedly be one of the most watched mixed martial arts fights in history. EA SPORTS MMA fighter roster will feature four of the main card’s fighters, including Fedor Emelianenko, Brett Rogers, Jake Shields and Jason Miller.

Brett Rogers is preparing for the biggest fight of his career as he gets set to take on Fedor Emelianenko tomorrow night. A 6’5”, 265 pound heavyweight, Brett is currently undefeated and holds a record of 10-0-0. In his last fight, he knocked out Andrei Arlovski in just 22 seconds in the first round of action.

Jake Shields, a native Californian, will be taking on Jason “Mayhem” Miller for the STRIKEFORCE middleweight title. This 5’11”, 170 pound fighter, holds a current record of 23-4-1 and comes into tomorrow night’s middleweight title bout with a 12-fight winning streak. He is also the first and last Elite XC Welterweight champion and holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Also slated to appear on the fighter roster for EA SPORTS MMA are STRIKEFORCE stars Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal. Miller and Lawal were announced via a video last month during their visit to the development studio.

EA SPORTS MMA will feature the most authentic, intense and broad mixed martial arts experience to date – complete with a vast array of top fighters and fighting styles from around the world. EA SPORTS MMA will be available on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system in 2010.

For more information about EA SPORTS MMA, visit www.easportsmma.com or follow the game on Twitter at www.twitter.com/easportsmma and Facebook at www.facebook.com/easportsmma.

EA SPORTS™ is the leading interactive sports software brand in the world, with top-selling titles and franchises including Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, NHL® hockey, NBA LIVE basketball, NCAA® Football and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR®.

Activision claims Guitar Hero to be the third highest selling franchise of all time, right behind Mario, and Madden, both of which have become house hold names. The massive sales and immediate popularity after it’s original release back in 2005 have sparked numerous music-based “Hero” games with the hopes of having similar success. DJ Hero and Band Hero both released this fall, but it looks like Activision is planning yet another “Hero” title already.

According to a trademark recently filed by Activision, one of the world’s largest video game developers and publishers, reveals yet another foray into the “Hero” line of music games.

This time, it’s not turntables scratching, or guitar riffs. Instead you’ll be beating your drums in Drum Hero. The trademark which was filed just today covers pretty much everything relating to video games, and any relevant toys of handheld versions of the game.

The LEGO series of video games has captured the heart of the young and old. LEGO Indiana Jones was well recieved and the sequel is on its way.  Recently, the full character list for LEGO Indiana Jones 2 has been revealed. Characters from all of the Indiana Jones films are represented.

The characters are:

• Cairo Digger
• Crystal Skull (Object)
• Enemy Mechanic
• Indiana Jones
• Lao Che
• Major Arnold Toht
• Marion Ravenwood
• Mola Ram
• Mutt
• Native
• Professor Henry Jones Senior
• Rene Belloq
• Short Round
• Spalko
• Willie Scott

The game releases November 17th for the PSP, PS2 and PS3. Stay connected with PlayStation LifeStyle for all of the news regarding Indy and his latest adventure!

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Move over Mario bedsheets–the latest games-as-furniture idea is on the horizon, and it’s a PlayStation fan’s dream come true.

This themed furniture might be making its way to the next gen, as designer Stephane Perruchon has a cool design for a PS3 themed coffee table.  The table features two big Dualshock controllers holding up 2 panes of glass.  While this is all concept art and may never see the light of day, this would be one awesome coffee table for a PlayStation owner.

So what do you think?  Let us know in the comments.

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The epic hack-and-slasher series God of War is receiving its first collection in less than two weeks, and more information is finally starting to trickle in. The God of War Collection was announced as a composition of both God of War 1 and 2 from the PlayStation 2 platform compiled on a Blu-Ray disk with better visuals and PSN trophy support. However, judging by recent screenshots, it seems that the visual enhancement is a much larger improvement than most consumers expected.

In a recent article by IGN.com, the visuals of the original God of War were compared with the enhanced God of War Collection visuals. The PlayStation 3’s God of War Collection was a clear winner with visuals that put the original version to shame. Despite only taking 15 weeks to develop, the added support of 720p HD output has made clear improvements to both the texture quality and character model quality.

Check out the screenshot below for 1 of several screenshots in the new God of War vs. God of War Collection comparison by IGN.com. The God of War Collection has a confirmed release date of November 17th, 2009.

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Tetris, the world renowned tetrinome-stacking puzzle game, has graced nearly every game console known to man. Now, over 25 years since Alexey Pajitnov created it, it’s been re-released as one of Sony’s new Minis for the PSP and PSPgo.

Almost all gamers have played or at least heard of Tetris. For those few that haven’t, Tetris is about stacking different shaped blocks and clearing lines. A line of blocks is cleared when a horizontal line is completely filled with blocks, meaning there are no spaces in that line. This is done by manipulating the block shapes to fit any open spaces. The more lines cleared before the screen fills up, the higher the score.

So what does this version of Tetris offer that past versions don’t? There are 12 different variants here that alter the way Tetris is played. One such variant is the Treadmill variant, which sets the blocks on a conveyor belt, moving the blocks one space to the right with each block dropped. This isn’t game changing, but it does offer a fresh new twist to the Tetris players know and love.

In the end, this is Tetris, and there really isn’t much that can be changed about it without it being a completely different game. It’s  fitting for a PSP Minis release, since it’s the type of game that can be played for 5 minutes here or 10 minutes there. However, the game’s price of $9.99 is definitely not fitting, since it could probably be found for 25 cents in a flea market bargain bin. Only players with a serious hankering for Tetis should invest in this one; everyone else should skip it.

PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score Offers a few fresh twists to classic gameplay Perfect to play in short bouts Overpriced for such a simple game

The first round of Greatest Hits titles for the PS3 came out and were not really what people were expecting, mostly because of how ugly they were, and for perfectionists, how ugly they made their collections.

With the recent amount of redesigning that Sony has done with the PlayStation brand, it seems the Greatest Hits is also in for a face lift.  While it is a very subtle change, it should be a good one, as long as the games do not come in Red jewel cases like the one pictured below.

As always, stay connected to PlayStation LifeStyle for all the latest PS3 news.

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When Kazunori Yamauchi, the father of Gran Turismo, shows up and speaks, people tend to listen, and that is exactly what they did at the SEMA Auto Show as he sat down to talk cars and Gran Turismo 5.

At the recent SEMA Auto Show, Yamauchi, the head of Polyphony Digital, spoke with Autoweek.com about the upcoming GT5.  He touched on various topics, from the budget to the release date.  Some of the main excepts from the interview are below.  The full interview can be viewed at autoweek.com.

What did GT5 cost to make?

$60 million. There are other games that cost more. Considering the size and scale of the game, I think it’s probably a fairly small amount.

When will you release GT5?

We will release it in March in Japan but for other regions, it has not been decided yet.

What’s holding it up?

That’s more depending on SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) marketing decisions.

You have NASCAR and WRC in the game. Does this include the complete list of all tracks in those series?

The NASCAR series is so large it would be impossible to put everything in the game. We will have select courses and select cars in the game. You will also be able to race the stock cars on a number of tracks not found on the NASCAR calendar. In speaking with NASCAR, they said they’d like to see their cars able to race on other tracks, and you can do that [in GT5].

Will you have F1, ALMS or FIA GT?

We had a Ferrari F1 car in the game. For FIA GT and ALMS, we won’t have that in the series yet. But we will have a lot of cars that race at Le Mans, so in that sense, there will be cars from ALMS.

How do you chose which cars get in the game?

There will be three types: cars we want, the cars the users would like to see in the game and then cars the manufacturers want in it.

Have you played Forza Motorsport 3?

I was watching the guys at our company trying it out in the office. I tried it a little bit. It’s very similar in a lot of aspects to Gran Turismo. Some base components of the game are very different from Gran Turismo. It’s a little bit different from what a simulator is. You can feel it when you drive it.

Will there be a Gran Turismo 6?

Yes. You won’t have to wait as long as you did for GT5. GT5 represents a whole new operating system.GT6 is just new apps that run on the GT5 system.

We hope to see Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 early next year, but until then stay connected to PlayStation LifeStyle for all your PS3 news.

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Penguin Books announces groundbreaking novelization based on Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II

Penguin Books and Ubisoft announced today a groundbreaking partnership that will bring together the worlds of gaming and publishing in a unique collaboration.

The new book, Assassin’s Creed Renaissance, is based on Ubisoft Entertainment’s blockbuster interactive entertainment game Assassin’s Creed II®, and will be published in association with Ubisoft.

“Penguin are hugely excited to be publishing the novelisation to the second Assassin’s Creed game” said Editorial Director Alex Clarke. “This partnership presents at last a way for traditional book-publishing to cross-over with the ever growing and increasingly exciting world of gaming media.”

He continued: “Assassin’s Creed II offers a wonderfully rich gaming experience; Ubisoft have crafted a brilliant storyline with superbly realised characters which translates seamlessly into a wonderfully fast-paced and enthralling historical thriller. For Penguin this dovetails perfectly with the appetite of historical fiction fans.”

Assassin’s Creed® is a record breaking game franchise that has seduced millions since its release in 2007. It became the fastest selling new video game ever in the US and the UK, with more than 9 million games sold worldwide for the first opus alone. This second game promises to captivate gamers and history-lovers alike on a similar scale.

“We’re delighted to be working with Penguin Books” said Rob Cooper, Managing Director of Ubisoft. “Assassin’s Creed Renaissance will offer the public a new and exciting way to experience the narrative world of Assassin’s Creed II. The book deal with Penguin, along with the Assassin’s Creed Lineage film series, is part of an ambition to bring the Assassin’s Creed franchise to multiple entertainment media. These projects along with the game itself will provide a truly immersive experience.”

The game will be released on 20th November in the United Kingdom with the book following closely behind, published on 26th November.

For those who picked up Tekken 6 on its release date and felt like the online was less then stellar, an update is on the way.

Earlier this week, Namco Bandai Games announced that they are working on a update that will improve the online play. Not much is known about this update, other than that this will be different from the co-op Scenario Campaign mode update releasing this winter, and that it will be released as soon as testing is complete.

Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle as more info unfolds.

When Final Fantasy XIII was announced in 2006, millions of fans around the globe began anticipating the title. This year, Square Enix stated that the title would hit North America and Europe sometime in 2010. On the other hand, the official release date for Final Fantasy XIII in Japan is December 17th of 2009. The discrepancy between the release dates has been a cause for commotion within the gaming community, and now fans in North America and Europe are anticipating the title more than ever before.

Although the release date outside of Japan is set for 2010, there is one positive bit of news. When asked about the international release date of Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada stated that the there’s a chance that Final Fantasy XIII will release internationally before the end of the fiscal year. This means that the game might release in the states before July 2010. While that’s still a long time from now, many have believed that the international version might release in late 2010.

Final Fantasy XIII is one of the largest upcoming RPGs and will be receiving its very own PlayStation 3 bundle in Japan later this year.

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While Sony has picked up the advertising on exclusive games, they have not really done much in the way of exclusive ads for multiplatform games.  However with all the change going on at Sony, this too might be changing.

In a recent financial call to investors, Ubisoft revealed that they have signed a deal with Sony for an exclusive advertising campaign for the upcoming multiplatform title Assassin’s Creed 2.  Ubisoft CEO Yves Guilemot claims that with this deal the advertising campaign would have seen a lot less activity then it will now.  This is a huge step for Sony as Microsoft has always seemed to gain more of these deals on multiplatform games and might signal a change in philosophy over at Sony headquarters.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is set for release on November 17th, until then stay connected to PlayStation LifeStyle for all your PS3 news.

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Comcast, the 2nd largest cable and Internet provider in the US, has released the details of their new “network management” system recently. The company came under fire last year when it was revealed that they were silently blocking some peer-to-peer network traffic, prompting a rebuke from the US Federal Communications Commission.

While Comcast is no longer targeting specific network protocols, they have essentially imposed a cap on the amount of bandwidth you can use before being throttled. This is in addition to the maximum of 250 GB of data you are allowed per month before they will warn and then terminate your service for a year.

Subscribers using over 70% of their allotted bandwidth for 15 minutes, will be “throttled”. Also, if the portion of the Comcast network that you are connected to becomes congested and your traffic is identified as the culprit, you will be “throttled”. In either case, your connection will be “throttled” until such time as your bandwidth usage goes below 50% for at least 15 minutes.

Throttling in practice means network packets get prioritized lower than those of customers that are not throttled. By default Comcast’s network traffic is prioritized as “Priority Best Effort”, or PBE for short. When you are throttled, those packets are changed to just “Best Effort” prioritization, or BE for short.

What does this mean for gamers? If you are anything like me, Thursday evening you do a lot of downloading on the PSN. Or maybe you like to watch movies or TV shows from the PSN Video Store. In any case, say that you have a 10 Mbps download speed. If you are somehow using 7 Mbps of that 10 Mbps connection for more than 15 minutes, the Comcast network is going to start to deprioritize your traffic. With any luck, you are the only person in your neighborhood that is doing this and you will be fine. More likely, your packets will start to take longer to get from the PSN down to your PS3. If you are just downloading games or demos or videos, this will just mean your throughput will drop slightly. Instead of a 20 minute download taking 20 minutes, it might take 22 minutes or 25. Hopefully you aren’t trying to stream an HD movie, or even worse, trying to play anything with an online component.

With typical Internet traffic like web browsing and e-mail this is generally not as much of a problem. For these applications the major factor in perceived “speed” is your available bandwidth. If you happen to get throttled your web pages might take a little bit longer to load, and your e-mail will download a little bit slower.

However, when it comes to online gaming, more important than bandwidth and throughput is “latency”. Latency is the amount of time each packet takes to make the trip between your PS3 and the game’s servers and back. Or, in the case of games that use peer-to-peer networking, to the host’s PS3 and back. This is your “round trip time” or RTT. The longer your RTT the more “lag” you will perceive when you are playing online. In general your  RTT is going to be higher the farther that you are geographically from the destination. Also, if the destination has a “slower” connection or is congested, your RTT will be higher; the packets will have to queue up and trickle through, increasing the RTT. But now, in addition to geographically induced and bandwidth induced latency, if you have triggered a throttling event during a period of congestion, your RTT is going to skyrocket as well. Your network traffic is only going to be able to move across the network after all non-throttled traffic has moved across. If there are non-throttled packets waiting to be sent out through the network, those packets will be sent before yours. Just hope that nobody is about to start streaming a Netflix movie while you line yourself up for that headshot.

It will also be interesting to see whether Comcast is only keeping track of download throughput, or if they are also measuring upstream throughput. Your typical multiplayer FPS generates about 40 Kbps of traffic. Many online multiplayer games utilize peer-to-peer networking, which requires one player to be the host for any given match. This means that your 40 Kbps of data becomes 40 * the number of players coming into your network. For a typical 12 player multiplayer game, that’s 480 Kbps. While this is still only about 5% of your 10 Mbps of downstream bandwidth, Comcast has a much smaller quota for upstream traffic. If you have a 10 Mbps downstream, you more than likely have around 2 Mbps upstream. 480 Kbps is approximately 25% of that upstream bandwidth, so you are already over 1/3rd of your way to getting throttled if upstream bandwidth is being “managed” the same as download bandwidth is.

What effect do you think this new policy and others like it will have on online gaming? How will it effect efforts towards digital distribution, be it one-time game downloads from the PSN or future on-demand gaming applications like OnLive?

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Over the past year, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, has frightened and angered many gamers, particularly PS3 fans. A few months ago, before the September price cut, he publicly threatened (whether his words had substance is another story) Sony to cut the price of the PS3, or Activision would cut support from the overpriced behemoth.

Even more recently, PC gamers are furious that Modern Warfare 2, Activision’s flagship title, is priced $10 more than regularly priced PC games. That, and custom servers, a cornerstone for gaming communities, would not be in Modern Warfare 2.

Many gamers have taken action into their own hands, they have created countless online petitions (although one, created by the announcement of no custom servers for the PC version, reached well over 150,000 votes) and boycotts, never doing any coordinated damage. Well, Activision’s recent financial report shows that even disgruntled gamers buy games.

PS3 sales represented 10% of Activision’s Q3 results, bringing in $73 million. This fell just short of the Xbox 360, which accounted for 15%, totaling $103 million. Compare these numbers to last year, when the PS3, and PS2 each accounted for 9% of Activision’s Q3 numbers. That year, the Xbox 360 took 11%.

All in all, Activision saw a net revenue of $703 million, so far this year. With the impending release of Modern Warfare 2-one of the year’s biggest games- they have raised their projections to a staggering $1.3 billion income for their financial year.

Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard had this to say on the numbers:

Our performance was driven by positive audience response to Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero 5, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, and the Guitar Hero® and Call of Duty® franchises, as well as Blizzard Entertainment®’s World of Warcraft®. Year to date through September 30, the Guitar Hero franchise was the #1 best-selling third-party franchise in North America and Europe. For the month of September, sales of music games in the U.S. increased 72% in dollars year over year, which demonstrates the sustained interest in this new and important game category.

During the quarter, we continued to see strong sales for Call of Duty World at War™ and associated map packs, which year to date have sold more than seven and half million units. Despite a challenging overall software market, the company grew its quarterly U.S. share by 3.1 points over the previous year to 13.3%. This success is the result of our focus on delivering the highest game quality and the best entertainment experiences possible for our consumers.

“We believe we have the industry’s strongest holiday release schedule which includes Bakugan Battle Brawlers™, Band Hero, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2, DJ Hero and Tony Hawk®: RIDE™. We are committed to making great games and our fall releases deliver against this more than ever before.

“As of today, our calendar 2009 financial outlook remains unchanged, and we still expect to deliver record non-GAAP operating margins based on the strength of the Call of Duty franchise and high consumer anticipation for Modern Warfare 2, which we project could be the largest entertainment launch of the year. Even though there is a great deal of economic uncertainty in the marketplace and the consumer risks around the holiday season are high, we believe that our strong balance sheet and solid cash position, coupled with our leading franchises, operational capabilities and broad global reach will enable us to take advantage of the long-term opportunities afforded by our industry.”

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After yet another dreadful work week has past, the gamers like to kick back and unwind by popping our favorite games into our favorite console. We here at PlayStation LifeStyle are no different. Find out what the PSLS staff will be playing this weeknd, and share your very own weekend gaming playlist.

We have gathered a playlist from random members of the PlayStation LifeStyle staff of just what they were putting in their PS3 and PSP this weekend. For myself I will be playing a bit of NHL 10 to try and gain more XP. Need to treasure hunt more in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves as I have 73 treasures. Also going to try out Inferno Pool and start my reviews for Bakugan and Jurassic: The Hunted.

Anthony Severino – Editor-In-Chief

This weekend I’ll be gaming  mostly on my PSPgo. I’ve got GTA: Chinatown Wars I want to jump into, I am addicted to Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe (I guess you could call me a Pixeljunkie), and I’ve got to play some more LittleBigPlanet PSP for my upcoming review (Shhh! It’s under embargo!).

Adam Wolfe – Editor/Reviews Manager

I want to try and beat Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, probably some Trine and hopefully some more Uncharted 2.

Joseph Peterson – Forum Administrator/Author

I will probably dive back into Demon’s Souls. I haven’t been able to play it in quite some time. For my on the go fix I am still playing Persona on my PSPgo. Slowly working my way towards the Smackdown platinum, plan to work on it some more as well.

Kishen Patel – Author

Mostly I will be playing Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time

Kyle Phillips – Editor/PlayStation Network PR

This week I finally finished the epic Uncharted 2 single player (yeah, I know…I’m slow). So this weekend I will dig into the online. Aside from that, I will play some more Metal Gear Online, or if I’m in the mood, download some episodes of The Office.

Louis Edwards – Author

I’ll be playing Inferno Pool and Uncharted 2 Multiplayer

Paulmichael Contreras – Author

I am going to play a lot more Uncharted 2. I’m only on my second playthrough! I’ll be playing that online as well. My copy of Ratchet and Clank should come in tomorrow, so I’ll be enjoying that too. Oh and the obligatory DJ Hero, I am addicted to it! I just got a new surround sound system and upgraded to 7.0 (No powered sub at the moment), so I imagine a lot of this will sound incredible! On my PSP, I’ll be playing Gran Turismo (UMD) and some Sonic’s Genesis Collection (Downloaded). Those are nice for when I have a few spare minutes.

Ryan Ordway - Technology Systems

Getting my Borderlands platinum, just need to grind up to level 50. MW2 for my review, assuming it comes before the weekend and I hope to finally crack open R&C:ACiT

Sebastian Moss – Author/European PR

I won’t be playing too much due to my limited time. If either Borderlands or Eyepet arrive I’ll be playing them, otherwise Uncharted 2 and the GOWIII demo will be eating up my precious free time.

So now you know what we are playing this weekend, what about yourself? Maybe some Dragon Age: Origins which just released or still stuck in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves? Let us know in the comments.