Gaming News Round-Up: November 17th, 2004

Today's wrap-up includes a new fitness-friendly EyeToy title, a telling poll on Nintendo of America's site, and news of a truly gigantic game music audio set. - Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in association with Nike Motionworks, has announced the development of its latest EyeToy USB camera-based title, EyeToy: Kinetic, for the PlayStation 2. In development at SCEE's London Studio, EyeToy: Kinetic is billed as the first interactive fitness title (although the recently litigated against Yourself!Fitness falls into a similar, if less directly interactive style), and features Nike's fitness training experts playing a role in its development, providing information about exercises and movements. The game will include the following areas: Aero Motion, Combat, The Mind and Body, featuring activities including: Tai Kwon Do, Modern Dance, Kick Boxing, Aerobics and Karate. EyeToy: Kinetic will ship during early 2005. - A poll on the official Nintendo website is leading online sources to speculate about possible planned peripherals from the Mario and Zelda creator. The interactive poll specifically asks: "What level of interest do you have, and how much would you pay for an adapter that allowed you to play N64 cartridges on the Nintendo GameCube?", and then lists possible price points of $39, $49, and $59 for such as theoretical add-on. Nintendo has not officially announced a peripheral of this type, and has not generally concentrated on backward compatiblity for its non-handheld hardware. However, it did recently release the Game Boy Player peripheral for GameCube, allowing GBA and Game Boy games to be played on the console. - According to consumer site Game-Science, Victor Entertainment is partnering with Namco to release what must be the biggest video game music boxset of all time, coinciding with Namco's 50th Anniversary celebrations. The 39 CD set includes all game music CDs released by Victor from 1986-95, including full liner notes, and costs a not inconsiderable 76,500 yen ($735). Bonuses that come alongside the set include a VHS "The Legend of Namco" video, a special T-shirt, an arcade poster set, and Namco coins, and there will only be 2000 copies of the bundle released, meaning that hardcore fans should run, not walk to pre-order the Namco Music Wonder Box now.