June: The month that...
Backwards compatibility was the burning issue
Microsoft man Peter Moore gave the backwards compatibility hornet's nest a vigorous shake by suggesting that gamers weren't fussed about playing old Xbox games on 360, prompting a collective, frenzied and quite deafening buzz of anger from forum hives everywhere. Microsoft moved quickly to sooth the situation, although comments from other industry figures suggesting that backwards compatibility was simply a fan boys' obsession stirred things up again and ensured that 'back compat' was the month's hot topic.
DS Lite launched in Europe
Redesigned to be slimmer, sexier and visually sharper, Nintendo's original chubby DS was instantly superseded by the infinitely superior DS Lite when it elegantly arrived in European shops on 23 June. With titles like Nintendogs, Animal Crossing and Dr Kawashima's Brain Training available alongside the super sleek handheld, it took Nintendo a mere 10 days to shift 200,000 of the delightful dual-screened desirables.
Above: We dumped our old fat one without a second thought for the brand new skinny model. Does that make us shallow...?
PlayStation 3 became a computer
Anyone under the impression that PlayStation 3 would merely be a lowly games console was put in their place by smiling Sony boss Ken Kutaragi when he revealed that the machine was, in fact, quite clearly a computer. Sony's head of worldwide studios, Phil 'head in the clouds' Harrison, also rammed the message home, explaining that when the PS2 successor arrived, we would no longer be in need of the humble PC.
GAME ditched its 10-day return policy
Perhaps not massive news but certainly the end of an institution and, if you'd ever exploited GAME's generous, no quibbles 10-day return policy as a way to play all the games you wanted for no real detrimental damage to your wallet, then the bombshell that the high street retailer was dropping its charitable service in favour of a more financially beneficial (for GAME, at least) policy certainly came as a blow.
Above: We dumped our old fat one without a second thought for the brand new skinny model. Does that make us shallow...?
PlayStation 3 became a computer
Anyone under the impression that PlayStation 3 would merely be a lowly games console was put in their place by smiling Sony boss Ken Kutaragi when he revealed that the machine was, in fact, quite clearly a computer. Sony's head of worldwide studios, Phil 'head in the clouds' Harrison, also rammed the message home, explaining that when the PS2 successor arrived, we would no longer be in need of the humble PC.
GAME ditched its 10-day return policy
Perhaps not massive news but certainly the end of an institution and, if you'd ever exploited GAME's generous, no quibbles 10-day return policy as a way to play all the games you wanted for no real detrimental damage to your wallet, then the bombshell that the high street retailer was dropping its charitable service in favour of a more financially beneficial (for GAME, at least) policy certainly came as a blow.
