Mid February for PS3 and 360. Rejoice, bitches, we’re only a few short months away. I have to say, though, that Capcom is missing out by releasing this after the holiday season.

Then again, this holiday season is already more packed than a gay man’s ass after a night on the town, so I should be thankful.

This morning, Capcom officially revealed that Street Fighter IV will be coming to North American Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s on February 17, 2008. The game will launch in Europe days later, on February 20.

For gamers, quarter 4, more commonly known as the holiday season, can be difficult. October, November and December generally see more game releases than any other time of the year. Moreover, a lot of those releases are big-name, triple-A titles that a lot of people look forward to for the whole year. As a gamer/college student with a modest budget, it pains me to see this flurry of releases and be forced to sit idly by, begrudgingly paying my bills instead of buying everything I want. Still, I’ve been through years of this exact phenomenon by now and have learned that the key to surviving is compromise.
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Boy, sure has been dead around here, eh?

Yeah, that’s my segway into the actual review. Just shut up and hit the jump.

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Holy crap, I think I just poo’d my pants a little. I’ve been jealous of Japan’s Club Nintendo for years, and it’s finally coming to the States!

For those of you unfamiliar with Club Nintendo, the basic premise is that consumers register their Nintendo products for neat prizes. When I say neat prizes, I don’t mean cheap crap like a kazoo or a pack of cards, I mean crap like full DS games, game racks, carrying cases and exclusively designed controllers.

Also, I guess that we’re also getting a WiiSpeak channel, too. Whoop-de-doo.

[via Infendo, which, by the way, is an awesome site]

So now that I’ve seen the new DSi, I’m pretty pumped to shell out another good chunk of money and abandon my 2-year-old DS Lite. Hell, I might even sell my iPod to help cover the cost, since having a DSi would mean that I would be carrying around a total of 4 MP3 players, and that just seems unnecessary.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about the specs of this new machine since I’m sure you’ve already read about them at other news sites. Mostly I just want to pose a question: is the DSi a big enough improvement over the DS Lite to get the average gamer to make the upgrade?

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Let me tell you something: this game kicks ass. I picked it up on PSN last week (reason: better D-pad than 360, more storage space than Wii) and I’m effing loving it. To be fair, I still haven’t quite beaten the last set of levels in Wily’s castle, but the robot masters alone have been worth their weight in money, Microsoft points or Wii points. Here are my thoughts on of each of the stages:
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Joystick Jockies is a radio show where me and two of my best buddies chat about our all-time favorite subject: video games! I’ll warn you that the show is perforated with local advertisements and weather updates (since it’s hosted by my college radio station), so there will be a few times when, if you aren’t from the Midwestern plains area, you’ll be a little left out. Anyway, I just wanted to let all you internet people know that you can listen in to the show live from 12:00-2:00 PM Central either by clicking here or simply plugging 146.57.73.100:8502 into your favorite media player. This week we’ll be detailing how YOU can win a brand spankin’ new download for The Behemoth’s thoroughly kick-ass game, Castle Crashers!

If you can’t listen to the show (or you read about this post after it was over), then shame on you! However, I will be updating this post with details on how to enter. We’ll be announcing the winners on next week’s show, so at least be sure to tune in then!

UPDATE: You have until this Friday at 11:59 PM to submit your best Video Game Haiku to JoystickJockeys@gmail.com. Be sure to give us a way to contact you to give you your prize! A winner will be chosen based entirely on our opinions of how creative and hilarious his/her haiku is. Even if you don’t win, there’s a good chance we’ll read your submission on the show. Get on it!

John Diamonon of Capcom just threw up a blog post that’s, well, totally tubular. If you’ll look above you’ll see a hard copy mock up of Mega Man 9. Unfortunately, this is apparently fanfare that’s limited to the press. Says Diamonon:
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Check it out, bitches; it’s Monday, which means that Nintendo is once again going to try to entice you to spend your rent money, grocery money, and tuition on downloadable content. This week brings us a whopping two WiiWare titles and one thoroughly kick-ass NES game. Hit the jump to see what they are instead of just checking the Wii Shop channel yourself (which, if my Wii is any indication of everybody else’s, would probably take several hours of loading time.)
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Jeez, this place has been dead lately. To be fair, the majority of our writers have just had to start school back up, which makes life a little hectic. Anyway, I’m sure that all of our devoted readers are just dying to hear my opinion on the games I’ve been playing in the last month. So, without further ado, I give you reviews for Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Castle Crashers, N+, and the first 20 hours of Tales of Vesperia!
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Only by one week, though. Still, the promise of battling some of the coolest AI ever seen makes the push all the sweeter. The new release date is October 14th, and for those of you who, like me, are planning on just going without food for the month of October, this is both exciting and depressing news. The friendly PR fellas at EA would also like you guys to check out this kick-ass website, too. No, really, it’s awesome. EA didn’t even pay me to say that.

All I can say is that it’s about damn time.

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The PlayStation family got a little bigger today as Sony announced the PSP 3000 and a 160gig PS3 bundle.

The PSP 3000 features an improved screen and a built-in microphone for Skype and Go Messenger. The screen is said to reduce glare when outside and display colors more vibrantly. The PSP 3000 will be included in two different packages:

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters Entertainment Pack
Updated Mystic Silver PSP 3000
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets UMD
Echochrome PSN download voucher
1GT Memory Stick PRO Duo
Available Oct 14 ($199.99)

PSP 4GB Memory Entertainment Pack
Updated Piano Black PSP 3000
4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo
Everyday Shooter PSN download voucher
Available November ($199.99)

Of course, the system will also be available in a core package which just includes a Piano Black system for $169.99

Also announced today was an Uncharted entertainment pack, which includes a 160gig PS3 system, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and a PSN voucher for Pain, all for the reasonable price of $499.99.

How ironic! Since demand has suddenly raced beyond supply, Microsoft Japan has been forced to put out an official statement:

お客様各位

平素より Xbox 360® をご愛顧いただきまして、誠にありがとうございます。

現在、Xbox 360 本体の品切れにより、多くのお取扱店で Xbox 360 本体をご購入いただけない状況が発生しております。これは、弊社の販売予測を超えた多くのお客様に Xbox 360 本体をお買い求めいただいた結果発生したもので、ご購入を検討いただいておりますお客様ならびに販売店の皆様、パートナーの皆様には多大なご迷惑をおかけしておりますことを深くお詫び申し上げます。

只今マイクロソフトでは、 Xbox 360 本体の生産を鋭意行っており、スタンダードモデルにつきましては次回 9 月の出荷を予定しております。なお、エリートおよびアーケードモデルにつきましては順次出荷を行ってまいります。商品の入荷まで、今しばらくお待ちいただきますようお願い申し上げます。
今後とも Xbox 360 製品およびサービスをご愛顧いただけますようよろしくお願い申し上げます。

マイクロソフト株式会社
ホーム&エンターテイメント事業本部

You heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, people: Microsoft rove you rong time, one dorrar.

Seriously, though. Apparently Bandai Namco’s Tales of Vesperia is to the 360 as Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is to the PSP. I have to admit, I did not see this one coming. What the statement really says is that MS Japan apologizes for not meeting demand and that they’ll be shipping out more as soon as they can.

Note to self: use above image as often as possible.

As a gamer, my mind often trails off into a dream world populated with my favorite video game characters. Sometimes I’m brushing blades against Ganondorf on the fields of Hyrule; sometimes I’m barreling through loop-the-loops in pursuit of Dr. Robotnik; sometimes I’m just spending some quality time with Sheena from Tales of Symphonia (and who could blame me?)

There are times, though, that my fantasies become more elaborate. Any time that I’m forced to spend several hours in a car, or when I have to mow the lawn, or if I had to perform open-heart surgery. It’s times like these that have made me speculate on many occasions, “if aliens were to attack my beloved Earth, what video game characters would I assemble to combat them?” These are the musings that bring you this article. Hit the jump to find out which characters made the cut and what weapons they’ll be issued in the battle against the extra-terrestrial menace!
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