Games News Weekly (June 17)

The following is Games News Weekly, Games Toaster’s
new weekly roundup of the news about games from around the world, from
some of the largest to more off beat news stories you might have
missed…

$50 million for GTA IV exclusive content
As we reported earlier, reports are emerging that Take Two will get $50 million for the exclusive downloadable content on Xbox 360.

“It was not our intention to cause offence” says Sony
On Friday, Fox News (vie Gi.biz)
reported Sony apologised to the Church of England after controversy
over Resistance: Fall of Man depicting Manchester Cathedral, but
according to US site GamePolitics.com Cathedral officials have said the apology is not enough.

The dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Rogers Govender had said
“For a global manufacturer to recreate the interior of any religious
building such as a mosque, synagogue, or in this case, a cathedral,
with photorealistic quality and then encourage people to have gun
battles in the building is beyond belief and in our view highly
irresponsible”. Prime Minister Tony Blair added to the debate by
calling it “An immensely difficult area”.

Wii hype might fade quickly says Sega
“I am a little concerned about the creative depth of the Wii
pool,” news agency Reuters quotes  Sega
Sammy US vice president of marketing Scott Steinberg, “The Wii will start
to look really dated in a couple years when developers get more value from the
360 and learn more and more about the PlayStation 3″.

Wii Wii Wii games sales
In the US games sales of Wii sold more then the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined in May, while in Japan Wii and DS Lite made up over 79 percent of sales last week.

PSOne games for the PS3 online store
According to Eurogamer,
Crash Bandicoot, Wipeout, Medievil, Jumping Flash and Syphon Filter are
to be on the PlayStation Store from this coming Friday. One user buy
and download the games they can be played on the PS3 or transfered to
PSP for use.

Halo 3 viral marketing confusing
Kotaku.com outlines how the Halo 3 viral marketing campaign has started in the US and has started to confuse people. Britxbo.co.uk also the online elements of the campaign.

Sam Max are to Steam
The recent episodic Same Max series from Telltale Games are to be made available on the Steam
download system. Bundles of episodes one to three and four to six are
priced at $19.95 each, or per episode at $8.95 each. There’s a 10
percent off before June 22.

Wii Blaster coming soon
Destructoid.com has a screen shot online US GameStop advert showing a “Wii Blaster” to be released next month.

PS3 to rumble after all?
Spong reports
the rumour that Sony may include rumble into the PS3 controller, they
quote a game developer blog Inner bits as saying “Officially, the
corporate line is still “no comment”. Unofficially, Sony is facing some
difficulties with battery life; ie Between the rumble and the wireless
support, the batteries are draining too fast to be acceptable for
consumers”. 

Beautiful Katamari previews… 360 exclusive?
GameSpot and 1up.com both have previews of the new Katamari game, Beautiful Katamari. Kotaku meanwhile gets on the rumor that the game will be an Xbox 360 exclusive.