Remember Remember, the fifth of November… This is the day on which Sony has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that LittleBigPlanet will be available in the UK.
Sony has confirmed the new release dates for LittleBigPlanet:
- US - Week commencing 27th October
- EU - Week commencing 3rd November
With US games usually releasing on Tuesdays and EU on Fridays, this points to the 28th Oct and the 7th Nov respectively. However due to the circumstances, and the wording of the update from Sony, perhaps tradition will be cast asunder and the game will arrive on random days of the week.
Whichever it is, it's good news, and closer than early estimates of November 14th. Media Molecule and Sony alike will be glad to have these dates nailed, and so are we!
Several sites have raised an issue with Sony’s new PSN Terms of use, pondering over who will own the rights to anything created using LittleBigPlanet’s Create mode, with it seeming very likely that Sony will own everything.
The paragraph in question by sites such as Gamepolitics, GameCulture, and I have the princess, is below:
You also authorise us [Sony] and our affiliated companies, without payment to you, to license, sell and otherwise commercially exploit your User Material
Whilst to me this doesn’t read anything necessarily about ideas or written content within levels becoming the property of Sony, or perhaps that sticker of your cat’s face that you made, it does give them the right to charge money to others for playing your level. GameCulture notes:
...in three weeks, we could all be working for Sony, crafting and sharing levels that Sony owns outright. Perhaps some of those levels will end up being packaged as downloadable content, much the same way that fruit of some of LittleBigPlanet’s best beta players is being packaged with the official release.
Of course, there’s nothing untoward about any of that. After all, the LittleBigPlanet model encourages users to share their levels for free. The revenue we generate for Sony by building their content for them is just part of the genius of their business model. Crowdsourcing for teh win.
But how does the equation change as user-generated content becomes less a matter of remixing existing intellectual property by ‘modding’ a game and starts to look more like the creation of original work? What happens when the systems game developers build for us are less games than platforms for the creation of new games?
When Sony is done rescuing their golden boy from the tarnished brush of controversy, it would be nice to have them clarify this in non legalese.
The street date breaking and the release date slip / mass recall has culminated in LittleBigPlanet turning up on auction site ebay with an average ending price or buy it now of over £100.
Slightly cheaper than heading to Kuwait to pick up a pre-release copy eh? Unless you live there of course. Still, whether these auctions will be shut down, and what penalties Sony may enforce for people playing it before release, is unknown. In the past it has been known for Microsoft to ban people from Xbox live for playing games before release, notably Halo 3 at the end of last year.
Short emergency update from a friend’s computer: LittleBigPlanet’s release has been delayed, with Sony issuing a full recall of shipped units, because a music track in the game features references to the Qur’an.
“During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an,” Sony said in a short statement.
“We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.”
There is no word yet on when the new release will be, but some are guessing at November 14th.
More news over on Eurogamer.
Slightly different to the japaense one then, really illustrates the difference in cultures… it’s a little bit grating but still fine!
Short but adorable, I hope we see some similar ads outside of Japan, I imagine the Sony Hype machine can come up with something appropriate!
Sony announced a new collaboration with Youtube today, opening a new Sony channel full of trailers etc, which isn’t very exciting at all, but hidden within the press release, was this excellent paragraph:
In the future, PlayStation’s YouTube channel will feature a user-generated content section within the channel, as publishers and developers take advantage of the PlayStation 3’s advanced application programming interface (API) to allow users to create game mode videos. SCEA will also launch game-specific enhanced YouTube channels, starting off with the highly anticipated game LittleBigPlanet™. LittleBigPlanet, which launches on October 21 will also have its own YouTube channel coming out in November and will feature cross-promotion with the LittleBigPlanet.com community.
We were wondering if this would ever come to fruition, and boy are we glad it actually might be. With a game like LittleBigPlanet, a Youtube exporting feature is the perfect marketing and community tool - sending videos to where people already watch them, both easily and in higher quality than a wobble cam can muster, can only help to build on the game’s Play, Create, Share mantra.
Our favourite Scottish duo are back again for a fourth season of their probably award winning online show about Videogames - Consolevania. Rab and Ryan’s triumphant return came with a new delivery format, where sketches and reviews would be released individually over time instead of one long download, which also means we can link straight to specific sections of the show.
With the review embargo being lifted by Sony, they are now able to post their thoughts on Little Big Planet, and they call it ‘a masterpiece’.
Head over here to watch the rest of Consolevania season four, it comes heartily recommended.
The Mm crew are back from the Tokyo Game Show, where on the Sunday night they were awarded with a ‘future’ award which Alex Evans of Mm described as a sort of best of show award which goes to the most anticipated games of the year, and is chosen by the attendees of the show. Alex goes on to describe the award ceremony itself, and how it made them all go a bit weepy…
There was a special awards ceremony, where each game was shown and a member of its team interviewed - in japanese. I stood, glazed and rather silly looking on stage as Kim-san deftly fielded questions and distracted nay-sayers with his trademark golden shoes.
To be the only western-developed game that achieved one of these awards this year, was incredible - so much so that I can even report that tears were shed all round.
We were curious about the other 11 games in the list, but sadly no official list of winners seems to have been published as of writing this. If I see one we’ll be sure to update here, but for now you can enjoy the awesome game names from what I assume is the indie catergory.
Congratualtions everyone at Mm!
We’ve been alerted to a street date breaker! Attention people, Kuwait has copies of Little Big Planet for sale a full week before US release and two before it’s on European shelves…
Now, we know what you’re thinking right now – How do I get to Kuwait, and what the hell region of games do they have over there?
Well good buddy, it’s great news all round. Whilst Kuwait’s assigned region appears to be PAL, the majority of gamers choose NTSC imports of games, that means they’ll clearly have both. As for getting there, well a quick look over on the British Airways website tells me you can get a flight from London Heathrow tomorrow morning for a mere £190….oh but err coming back will cost you another £1090. Americans, you can fly from JFK New York for a mere $3300. Bargain.
Well, we’ll be patrolling the streets looking for street breakers, and we’ll keep you informed, until then, you can make do with this weirdly mirrored and incredibly tedious unboxing video on youtube, over and out good buddies!
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