MCV issue 357 (7 October 2005)

Here's another issue of British trade weekly MCV. This is the sixth of a consecutive run of 17 unpreserved issues that I'll be scanning over the coming months, running from September 2005 to the end of December — a period that includes the launch of the Xbox 360, the European release of the PSP, and the first public demo of the Wiimote.

In this issue:

• Microsoft ramps up the hype for the Xbox 360, due out in a few weeks. 160 titles have already been announced. I haven't fact-checked this, but that seems like a high number!
• At the same X05 event, the Halo movie, executive produced by Peter Jackson and due in 2007, is announced. Obviously, that project died, but I didn't realise it turned into District 9, which even included props built for Halo.
• Jimmy Carr to host 2005's Golden Joystick Awards. Would have searched for it on YouTube, but then I might have ended up seeing Jimmy Carr.
• Both Sega and EA start to release games on mobile, which I'm assuming—though it's not very clear—meant J2ME. Wonder if they're still playable?
• Does the advent of weblogs mean the end of game journalism? In retrospect, no. Capitalism did that.
• Leading the all-formats chart this week is FIFA 06. On the PlayStation, the bestselling game is FIFA 06, while on the Xbox, it's FIFA 06. Meanwhile, over in Nintendo land, the GameCube chart is topped by FIFA 06. Remarkable (but untrue) fact: despite its sales, fewer than one person on the planet has played FIFA 06 in the last decade.

Find it on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/mcv-357-2005-10-07