Features// SPOnG's Review Of 2006: March

[b]PS3 worldwide ship in November 2006
15/03/06[/b]

Self congratulatory? Yes. Yes we were.

The first news for March came in the form of further conference disappointment. The PS3 failed to make any kind of appearance at Destination PlayStation Miami. Now you're screaming at us for being so bloody naïve, but at the time, we still had timid hopes of more news, or footage, or pictures… or anything at all. Still, we can laugh (bitterly) in retrospect.

Then came the big one (Ahem, sorry, one of the big ones): in a short, sharp press releaseSony confirmed the PS3 would not ship until November 2006, when it would go worldwide. As we already observed: 'One cynical wag in the SPOnG office commented …"PS3 will not launch here until next March/April."'

Hot on the heels of further Sony letdown came a glimmer of hope about a possible earlier than expected Wii launch. The rumour mill was grinding harder than David Hasselhoff at '80s night, and word on the web was that we might see the Wii released as early as June. It made us feel better at the time, at least.

By the rear end of March Sony was kicking things up a gear with its PSP marketing drive. It injected an additional £3million into the campaign which brought Londoners such chuckle-worthy marvels as 'Your Girlfriend's White Bits Here' (it makes more sense on a billboard, honest. Click the link if you don't believe us).

In the last gasps of March Nintendo put technophiles everywhere in uproar as details leaked of the Wii's horsepower: only 1.5 times the power of the GameCube was the basic message. This perceived lack of kick to the new machine served rather neatly to underscore the differing philosophies between Nintendo and their counterparts over at Sony and Microsoft on graphics vs. gameplay. We're still waiting to form an opinion…

In terms of releases, March was a good month in the push towards the casual market, with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney making its debut on the DS, and Buzz: The BIG Quiz launching the franchise into the realms of general knowledge. The titles that touched (in the most appropriate of ways) the hardcore gamer in us were Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Tomb Raider: Legend on the PSP.

Read on for SPOnG's review of April, or look back at February