Early concepts to control portions of Fable III with Microsoft's Kinect sensor just weren't good enough to bring to gamers, a representative for the game told Kotaku this week. Agreed. The tomato idea doesn't sound awesome.

At a Microsoft product showcase in New York on Monday, I learned that two Kinect-oriented ideas that had been tried for Fable III involved making statues and throwing tomatoes at people.The Fable representative briefly mentioned both cut features while demoing interesting content that actually is in the game.

Statue-making and tomato-tossing both sounded like minor gimmicks, diversions from the traditionally meaty Fable series quests. One can imagine how they might have worked, though neither was described to me. Perhaps you would pose in front of the Kinect sensor to make a statue. Perhaps you would hurl imaginary tomatoes against people you disliked. Neither mode sounded like the kind of revolutionary experiences that Microsoft wants gamers to feel when they use the November-launching Kinect.

In August, Peter Molyneux, head of Lionhead Studios and the chief visionary behind the Fable series, told website Engadget that Fable's planned Kinect support would not be available at launch.

"I think something like Fable would be a fantastic experience with Kinect, but here is the thing," Molyneux said during a video interview with Engadget, " Kinect is so different to any other device that is out there — because it makes us designers have to go back to the drawing board — to make the experience that Fable can give Kinect and Kinect can give Fable is going to take a little bit of time....It takes us time to craft that experience is really really cool."

It's still unclear if Fable III will ever have Kinect support added after the game's October 26 release. With ideas like the ones we heard about this week, getting that support late or not at all don't seem like bad options. The last thing Fable III or Kinect need is a mini-game so poor that you're tossing tomatoes at it.

[Tomato pic via Flickr]

I bet you thought that Polyphony Digital was going to stick to the release date for the Playstation 3's Gran Turismo 5 unveiled at E3 earlier this year? Boy were you wrong.

Sony confirmed this morning that the storied racing game will not be available Nov. 2. This is a global delay.

Writing on the official Playstation Blog, SCEA producer Taku Imasaki had this to say about the date change:

We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches.

We'll have more information for you in the near future, but said that it will be coming this "holiday season."

Unveiled at E3 in 2006, one can't help but wonder what could have caused the developer to stall the game's launch so close to the release date. We're checking in with Sony to see if we can get more details.

Although there is no mention of a delay in other regions for the game, I suspect that this is a worldwide push since the game was initially slated to hit around the world within the same day or two.

Update: SCEA tells Kotaku that the delay is indeed global adding that they can't elaborate on whether "holiday season" could mean early 2011. When asked for specifics about the cause of the delay they only said that "Polyphony is optimizing every aspect to provide the best racing experience."

While SCEA won't confirm a 2010 release, the Europe arm of Sony Computer Entertainment says the game will be out by Christmas.

Gran Turismo 5 Release Update

Talk about video games here, please.

And thank you to reader MrMrScott who brings us this timely art for today's post. It's only loosely related to this month's image, but in celebration of the Chilean miners' rescue, I won't quibble. Submit your images for this daily post to #TAYpics.

To: Crecente
From: Bashcraft
RE: Still!

Phew! Phew! Pheeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww!

What you missed last night
Could This Actor Be Right For The Uncharted Flick?
The Sakura Wars Creator, The Young Idol And The Rumored Sleepover
The Whores (And Man Whores) Of Fable III
Darth Vader Can Sure Take A Beating
This Wii Remote Is Made By LEGO, Not Nintendo

There is a new Rune Factory game. But unlike the previous Rune Factory games, it is not a Nintendo exclusive. Oh no.

Rune Factory is a fantasy spin-off of farm simulator Harvest Moon. The first game was released on the Nintendo DS in 2006 in Japan. The sequel was released on the DS in 2008. Home console game Rune Factory Frontier hit the Wii in The Land of the Rising Sun that same year.

Next February, Rune Factory: Oceans is headed to the Wii and the PS3. The game has players play as a male named Azel and a female character named Sonia. Then, players must select one of the two at some point during the game.

Set among the blue sea and green islands, Rune Factory: Oceans features real time battles and a giant monster named Ymir that players mount and with whom players explore their surroundings and battle enemies.

Priced at ¥7,140 (US$87), Rune Factory: Oceans will be out on February 24 in Japan. The PS3 version supports PlayStation Move controls.

Thanks, Kyle!

Slated for release later this month, action role-playing game Fable III raises the stakes. The game is about more than being good or bad. It's about causing a revolution.

This new trailer features the tune "Young Men Dead" by Texas rockers The Black Angels. Those who have played Xbox 360 thriller Alan Wake might recognize it as the song appeared on the game's soundtrack.

Having recently blocked the new PlayStation 3 piracy devices via a firmware update, Sony has finally released its first retail game that forces users to upgrade to the same firmware.

The PlayStation 3 version of Medal of Honor is the first game to ship with the 3.42 firmware - which combats the use of devices like the PSJailbreak - included on the disc, meaning it must be installed before the game is played.

As more and more games ship with updated firmware bundled on the disc, fewer and fewer games will work on the current versions of the jailbreak devices.

The emphasis is on "current", though, as just like Sony's updates, the makers of the jailbreak chips are theoretically able to upgrade their firmware, which would result in a cat-and-mouse game between pirates and platform holders.

It's important to note, however, that these jailbreak have yet to receive such an update, and indeed may never be able to be upgraded to a stage where they can once again circumvent Sony's copy protection security.

Medal of Honor blocks PSJailbreak [Eurogamer]

I am intrigued by the upcoming zombie downloadable content for Red Dead Redemption. On the one hand, zombies are so 2008. I'm done with them. On the other...that's John Marston riding a zombie horse.

Plus, it's nice seeing some serious single-player added to the game, rather than more multiplayer, seeing as the appeal of Red Dead for most is the single-player, and not that other game mode, where random strangers like to gang up and shoot the poor guy who's stuck riding into town on a donkey.

Sega has made a lot of Sonic games. Too many, perhaps? You betcha.

"We've probably been guilty of bringing too many Sonic games to market too quickly," Alan Pritchard, Sega's US sales and marketing man, tells website Joystiq.

By comparison, Pritchard believes Nintendo has been slightly more strategic in how and when it releases Mario games.

"If you look at all of the Sonic releases over the last four or five years, there's a real mixed bag out there," he adds. According to Pritchard, a Sonic game can sell even if reviews are not stellar.

"But is that really what the consumer wants? Is that what we should be doing as a publisher and a developer? We should be bringing much higher quality products to market to deliver a better experience for the consumer."

Sega has recently released Sonic 4: Episode 1. Sonic Free Riders will be release next month as will Sonic Colors. Another Sonic game is planned for next year. Good thing Sega stopped releasing a bunch of Sonic games, huh?

Sega 'looking to improve Sonic strategy,' reducing supply of older Sonic games [Joystiq via CVG] [Pic]

The upcoming release of a Ferrari-branded game on the PlayStation Network, combined with the expiration of Sega's licensing deal with the Italian car manufacturer, means Outrun Online Arcade just became an Xbox 360 exclusive.

This licensing deal is the key to the game's disappearance, as the latest Outrun game featured several authentic Ferrari cars; lose the license for those cars - as Outrun has - and you lose the license to sell the game.

Which is exactly what's happened. A new game called Ferrari: The Race Experience was released on the European PlayStation Network last week, and ever since, the PS3 version of OutRun Online Arcade has been unavailable for purchase. If you've got it, you can still play it, but if you don't have it, well...unlucky.

So it's an Xbox 360 exclusive! Well, not really. The Xbox 360's exclusivity is temporary, with that version scheduled to be removed from Xbox Live Arcade in December 2011. After which, the game will just be...gone.

Which is a damn shame, as I loved it. Blue skies, fast cars, big drifts...it's a fantastic racer. Or should I say, was a fantastic racer.

End Of Ferrari Deal Pulls Sega's OutRun Online Arcade From XBLA, PSN [Gamasutra]