News round-up September 19-23
OnLive rises in UK while Zynga falters - a week in videogames.
OnLive rises in UK while Zynga falters - a week in videogames.
Microsoft's unique take on the slider smartphone comes from a USPTO filing which covers a "mobile communication device having multiple, interchangable second devices." More >
YoYo Games, creator of Game Maker, has launched a new version of its drag-and-drop game development tool that outputs games in HTML5-compatible Javascript. The release of Game Maker: HTML5 means that users can export their creations to a webserver from which it can be playable in-browser on PCs, smartphones and tablets, without the need for any additional plug-ins More >
In a post on the Eve Insider Dev Blog, senior producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason cuts a contrite figure as he assures disgruntled Eve Online players that CCP has listened to their concerns about the direction the game has taken in recent months, and will reveal its response in the weeks to come. More >
Heiko Hubertz, CEO of browser game developer Bigpoint Games, was last night named Entrepreneur Of The Year at the Investor Allstars Venture Capital Awards. More >
Plus, the Oblivion books book and the 3DS photograph exhibition.
Katamari Amore, the latest in the Katamari Damacy series created by Keita Takahashi, will be released on the Apple App Store on September 29, publisher Namco Bandai has announced. More >
In a press release, Blizzard has announced that Diablo III has been delayed, and will now be released early next year. More >
CEO Mark Zuckerberg details updates that will see friends' social gaming activities return to feeds.
Brighton developer tried to scale back Split Second to fit with Disney's drift away from triple-A.
The developer behind the God Of War, Team Ico and Metal Gear Solid HD collections on the perils of remastering the classics.
4Introducing E233, featuring the cold northerly climes of Skyrim.
According to a regulatory filing seen by Reuters, Zynga's profits last quarter fell by 90 per cent, with the blame pinned on increased spending and the absence of any major game releases. More >
This trailer is our first look at Grasshopper's Diabolical Pitch, an Xbox Live Arcade title for Kinect in which players see off an advancing demon horde by throwing baseballs. More >
Publisher Atlus has confirmed that it intends to keep its Demon's Souls online servers up and running into next year, despite the impending release of sequel Dark Souls. More >
Gears Of War 3 makes top three debut but fails to dislodge EA’s ice hockey title and Dead Island.
Electronic Arts has appointed 15-year Microsoft veteran Rajat Taneja as its global chief technology officer. More >
The California studio which made its name with the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, but has more recently been occupied with Guitar Hero, is hiring for a new project. And, in a departure for the studio, it's an FPS. More >
Here's a gallery of screenshots for Soul Calibur V, the Namco Bandai fighter that's due for Xbox 360 and PS3 early next year. More >
Speaking to CNN, a Sony spokesperson has confirmed our suspicion that the revision of its PSN terms of service to forbid class-action lawsuits was prompted by a US Supreme Court decision from earlier this year. More >
Swedish developer Paradox has revealed to Rock Paper Shotgun that its new project, PC strategy title Cartel, was inspired in large part by EA's decision to reboot the classic Syndicate series as an FPS. More >
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Tommy Rydling, junior producer at developer DICE, reveals that all "full-blown" Battlefield 3 expansions will be exclusive to PlayStation 3 for a week. More >
1Find your future at Crytek UK - to work on Homefront 2? - or up and coming Playground Games.
Developer Focus Interactive has released the below trailer for A Game Of Thrones: Genesis, a strategy game based on George R R Martin's novels, ahead of its PC release next week. More >
In a press release, Square Enix says its iPad peripheral is a "faithful recreation" of Taito's original Space Invaders cabinet from 1978. Set for release later this year, the Invadercade has an internal amp and speakers, headphone socket, joystick and a single button. More >
Valve is to incorporate one of Counter-Strike: Source's most beloved mods, Gun Game, into the upcoming Global Offensive. While the name has been changed - Gun Game will now be playable across two modes, Arsenal: Arms Race and Arsenal: Demolition - Valve has turned to the original modders for help. More >
For adults, that is. Plus, meet the voice of the Prince and [7]ing anything.
Details on the 3DS RPG unveiled by Square Enix at last week's Tokyo Game Show remain scarce, and these screens reveal little beyond its charming aesthetic. More >
Californian mobile game developer Appy Entertainment's iOS games have been downloaded ten million times since the studio was formed in 2008. More >
Speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, Yusuke Amano, the man charged with coordinating development between Nintendo and Q-Games, said that the lack of online multiplayer in the recently released Star Fox 64 3D was due to cost and time restrictions. More >
1Sega has confirmed that Dreamcast classic Space Channel 5 Part 2 will be released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on October 4 and 5 respectively. More >
CEO Steve Perlman on why his new cloud gaming service can kill the hardware cycle as we know it.
Cloud gaming service finally debuts in the UK with special offers for BT broadband customers.
33DS sees a healthy jump in sales to reclaim the number one hardware spot from PS3.
Edge publisher Future has teamed up with Sony Computer Entertainment UK to launch Access, a new on-console PS3 video show available to download for free every Wednesday from the PlayStation Store. More >
Angry Birds creator Rovio is reportedly preparing to launch a new publishing label for independent studios. More >
The PlayStation Network has been out of action for over three hours and there is currently no indication when it will be back online. More >
Plus Angry Birds invade fancy dress parties and the monitor Carmack coded Quake on.
5The Angry Birds developer is reportedly continuing its expansion into other walks of life by entering talks with Starbucks with a view to putting leaderboard displays into its coffee shops. More >
While rumours of the precise date on which Apple is to unveil the next iPhone have been swirling for some time, we're inclined to believe All Things Digital's claim that new Apple CEO Tim Cook will reveal the device to the world on October 4. More >
Online retailer Play.com has been taken over by Rakuten, the largest online retailer in Japan, in a deal worth £25 million. More >
3According to Japanese blog Esuteru, From Software is taking on those who have somehow acquired an early copy of the upcoming Dark Souls in typically cruel fashion. More >
3"We've learned what we need to learn to take on Zynga," says EA subsidiary Playfish following The Sims Social's successful launch.
1UK minister for culture Ed Vaizey has called on developers to help create a gaming room in the Houses of Parliament. More >
Viacom, former owner of Harmonix, has begun legal proceedings in its bid to recover what it claims were miscalculated earnings-related payments made to shareholders of the Rock Band developer. More >
Zynga has announced a sequel to its 2008 social game Mafia Wars. Platforms are yet to be revealed - the original is a rare breed of Zynga game, playable not just through Facebook but other social networks and a native mobile app - but the developer promises to take "one of our longest running and most successful franchises to a whole new universe, introducing a vast 3D world where being bad never felt so good." More >
1Upcoming action-RPG Diablo III has entered closed beta, developer Blizzard has announced. The beta features part of the games first act, with players able to choose from any of the game's five classes: barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk or demon hunter . More >
After last week's screenshots comes this first footage of the collaboration between Level 5 and Capcom, which shows Wright defending a woman at a witch trial when Layton enters the courtroom. More >
1Warner Bros has announced that the PC version of Batman: Arkham City has been delayed, and will now be released in November. More >
The much-loved Zen Pinball will be released for 3DS this autumn, developer Zen Studios has revealed. More >
Plus virtuoso shmup play and stellar concept art.
Capcom has confirmed that Street Fighter IV - which made its arcade debut back in 2008, and was released for iOS early last year - is headed to Android devices. More >
1Zynga's latest Facebook game, Adventure World, draws no little inspiration from the Indiana Jones films, and the developer has now announced plans to add Lucasfilm's iconic adventurer to the game next month. More >
EA has announced that an open beta test of Battlefield 3's multiplayer mode will begin on September 29. More >
1THQ passes development of sequel to Crysis 2 developer following closure of Kaos Studios.
2Social gaming site Hi5 has confirmed to TechCrunch that it has reduced its headcount by 28, saying improvements to its infrastructure meant the company needed fewer staff. More >
Square Enix unveiled Vita RPG Lord Of Apocalypse shortly before last week's Tokyo Game Show kicked off. For some reason it declined to mention that Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro, creator of quirky 2010 action-adventure Deadly Premonition, is the game's director. More >
Mac support is the principal addition in Epic Games' latest update to its Unreal Development Kit (UDK) beta, with the company promising developers "easy cross-platform distribution." More >
EA has confirmed reports that it is to close Visceral Studios, the Australian developer which worked on Dead Space, The Godfather 2 and Dante's Inferno. More >
InnoGames' highlights ComScore data which shows significantly higher German player retention rates than that of market leader Bigpoints in June 2011, across fewer releases. More >
Help decide Duke's future by completing a quick survey. More >
Further evidence of freemium's growth as revenue climbs from 28 per cent in 2010. More >
1EA's shooter the sole foreign recipient of CESA award. More >
First shipment of Revelations to include 2007 original. More >
"Japanese families tend to not make a lot of noise in their homes." More >
1Capcom legend asked to stay on as a contractor, but was turned down. More >
The US movie rental service has renamed its mail-order offering Qwikster, and has quietly begun offering game rentals to at last give competition to GameFly, which has operated without significant opposition for the best part of a decade. "Members have been asking for videogames for many years," writes CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings in a blog post, "and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done." GameFly can still boast of a competitive edge, however: its catalogue covers a far wider range of formats than Qwikster's PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Sony Online Entertainment has told IGN that is to restructure its PC and PlayStation 3 MMOG DC Universe Online to make the game free to play. The new, three-tier structure gives those that play for free just two character slots, though more can be unlocked through microtransactions. Those who have spent a minimum of $5 in the game in the past - either through microtransactions or subscription fees - will be Premium players, with access to more character slots and a higher cash limit. The third tier, Legendary, comes at a monthly cost of $14.99, and among other benefits will give players all future DLC packs for free. Executive producer Lorin Jameson said: "We are really seeing the benefits of free-to-play, and we're really liking it. Needless to say we're paying close attention to it and maybe looking to make some surprise moves a little later."
Eidos Montreal outsourced Deus Ex: Human Revolution's controversial boss battles to Grip Entertainment, whose president Paul Kruszewski admits in a behind-the-scenes video that he came into the project with no prior experience of the series. "Full confession: I'm a shooter guy," he says. "I was coming into this not knowing a lot about the Deus Ex world. The guys at Eidos gave us the design, gave us the engine…and we gave them back that experience." Many players will agree with Kruszewski's admission that bosses were a tough balancing act given the freedom afforded by the game's augmentation system - "Balancing that was brutally hard," he says - but may disagree with his claim that Grip succeeded. "I've been building technology for 20 years," he says, "and it's one of the cleanest, best pieces of technology I've ever built."
1Plus HP Lovecraft envy and blocky resonance cascades.
Arthur Lee's proof of concept demo is pretty remarkable. In it, you can take a screenshot and place it on a surface as a portal into the world as it was when you took the picture. Made in Unity, and described by Lee as a "rip off" of Portal and Retro Affect's Snapshot (see the lower video below to understand how), it sparks with potential, though taming the freedom that it'd lend players is probably the big challenge. Bets on Lee getting snapped up by Valve in the next few weeks?
Last year, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption took home the Writers' Guild Award for Best Videogame Script, and this year's nominees have been announced. Ed Stern is nominated for his work on Brink, and is joined by Alex Garland and Tameem Antoniades for Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey To The West, and Kieron Gillen for Channel 4's online game The Curfew. The award ceremony is set for November 16 at The Tabernacle in London's Notting Hill.
Gamers model retroviral protease, which has baffled scientists for a decade, in just three weeks.
1Projector Games' Xbox Live Indie Game, heavily inspired by Mojang's Minecraft, had grossed a million dollars from 350,000 copies sold by the beginning of last month. The intervening weeks have taken that total past the 500,000 mark, with the developer taking to Twitter to say: "After only 163 days of being available, I'm incredibly proud for Fortresscraft [to] finally sell that magic half-million; thank you everyone."
It's little surprise that Cut The Rope will be released on DSiWare this week given its success - it was downloaded six million times in its first four months - but given Nintendo's stance on small independent, or "garage" developers, it's heartening to see a true mobile success story available as a download for Nintendo handhelds. However, those that take this as a sign that Nintendo has changed its policy on smartphone software should note that it's priced at €5, compared to just 69p on the iOS App Store. It'll also be available on the eShop, the 3DS download store on which an updated 3D version of NES shooter Twinbee will also be released this week.
At E3 in June, Sony Worldwide Studios Europe vice-president Michael Denny said that the company's upcoming PSP successor would be region free "to the best of my knowledge." Now Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has taken to Twitter to confirm that the handheld will not be region-locked - just as well given that we're still without western release dates for the handheld, which will be on Japanese shelves on December 17.
2Two weeks at the top for Deep Silver's zombie-infested action-adventure.
2Speaking to Game Informer at last week's Tokyo Game Show, Sony Worldwide Studios' Shuhei Yoshida said the company realised the time taken to update PS3 firmware was excessive. "It's very annoying when you only have one hour in your busy life to play a game, and when you have to spend 30 minutes out of that one hour to update the hardware," he said. "So it's not necessarily the frequency of how we update, it's the intrusiveness of the current process we have on PS3 and PSP. I cannot talk about specific plans, but we are very aware of the issues, and we'd like to address those issues on PS Vita."
Kotaku reports that EA is to close Visceral Studios, the Australian developer which has worked on Dead Space, The Godfather 2 and Dante's Inferno, following the cancellation of its current project. EA Games vice president Patrick Soderlund has apparently decided that the team's triple-A Xbox 360 and PS3 game was not going to be profitable, and pulled the plug on both the game and the studio itself.
1Ageing DS puzzler selected by panel of the nation's leading developers as Monster Hunter wins Game Of The Year.
Details on Vita's Japanese release, more studio closures and Nintendo's deepening troubles - a week in videogame news.
While cloud streaming service Gaikai can be controlled with a variety of devices, CEO David Perry told Gameindustry.biz that he intends for the company to come up with a controller of its own. "I have my own ideas for what a controller needs to be," he said. "I've been collecting controllers to demonstrate my point on what needs to be done. I've been starting to look into how that can be made at a sensible price as it's quite a complex device, so we'll see. But for the minute our plan is to support as many things as can be plugged in or go through Bluetooth. Whatever your favourite controller is."
1Gizmodo reports that Mastercard is currently working on a shopping and payment system, QkR, which uses Kinect for gesture-controlled shopping. While watching an advertisement for a t-shirt, a "wave to buy" prompt appears on screen, and should the user wave a further prompt appears allowing the user to select size, colour and a stored delivery address while the ad plays on in the background.
Free until September 20 as part of Valve's Learn With Portals initiative.
1Level 5 CEO Akihiro Hino has confirmed at the Tokyo Game Show that Ni No Kuni, the striking collaboration between the Professor Layton developer and renowned animation house Studio Ghibli, will be released in the west. An English localisation of the game is already underway, with a North American release planned for early 2012. Ni No Kuni was released for DS last year, but the PS3 version - which will be released in Japan on November 17 - will feature additional story content, with Hino also revealing post-release DLC is in the works.
2Plus, friendly EULAs and Move painting in LBP2.
The website of Australia's ratings board reveals that Sega has sought classification for Daytona USA, suggesting the much-loved racing game, first released in 1993, is bound for modern consoles. The classification listing suggests the game is in development for multiple platforms. We've sought comment from Sega.
1Keita Takahashi's series returns, and this Vita launch title promises a unique spin on the familiar formula: players can use the handheld's rear touch panel to stretch and flatten their Katamari to fit through small gaps. The below trailer is sadly bereft of gameplay footage, but Namco Bandai has also released a few screenshots showing the new-look Katamaris in action.
Swords & Sworcery, Desktop Dungeons, Fez and Papa Sangre among 36 games selected for next month's Culver City indie festival.
A million votes have already been cast for this year's Golden Joystick Awards. The milestone has been passed in less than six weeks, and with a month to go before voting closes, there's a very real chance of beating the record 1.54 million votes cast in 2010. Associate publisher James Kick said: "One million votes in six weeks is a brilliant result - and we're only halfway through. It shows how much gamers are embracing the awards this year." The 2011 Gamesmaster Golden Joystick Awards take place at the Westminster Bridge Park Plaza, London, on October 21. To cast your vote, follow the source link below.
This latest look at Platinum Games' online brawler comes from the Tokyo Game Show. While we're still concerned that latency may mean it turns out to be a button-masher rather than the multiplayer Bayonetta of our dreams, it's shaping up nicely, and the wide range of styles on show from the game's broad cast suggest there's significant depth beneath that veneer of basic brutality.
In what seems an entirely appropriate move for a game marketed by sex toys and porn stars, Dead Or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki will be a playable character in the upcoming Saints Row: The Third. Itagaki, whose in-game avatar will sport his trademark sunglasses and leather jacket, is currently developing the action-adventure Devil's Third for Saints Row publisher THQ.
Two trailers here, one showing the HD remaster of PSP title Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the other the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition. In Japan, that consists of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, together with the two MSX originals, and a download code for Metal Gear Solid; Peace Walker will be sold separately. In the west, Peace Walker replaces Metal Gear Solid. The collection is set for release in Japan on November 23, and is due in North America and Europe before the end of the year.
1A sequel to Acquire's PlayStation 2 ninja stealth title Shinobido, first released in 2005, is in development for PlayStation Vita. Shinobido 2's Harakiri system lets the player ally with various factions, with a branching narrative dependent on said alliances. A European release has already been confirmed, with Namco Bandai to publish the game, though there's no news of a North American publisher just yet.
New terms of service stipulate that only individuals can take legal action unless Sony agrees otherwise.
5Social gaming network Raptr has announced that it now has more than ten million registered users, of which a million are daily active users. CEO Dennis Fong said: "Raptr has become a vibrant community for gamers to share and discover a fun mix of content about the games they are passionate about. We're constantly adding features that enhance the Raptr community by leveraging our deep data tracking...As a result, Raptr is also in a unique position to provide developers and publishers [with] a deeper understanding of consumer trends and habits, helping creators connect with their customers in meaningul ways."
Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono and Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada have amused us already this year: the two took to the stage at Gamescom last month to complete a series of challenges while wearing lederhosen. In this trailer for Namco's upcoming Tekken Prime 3D Edition for 3DS, Ono seems unimpressed by Harada's claim that Prime will, unlike Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, be playable at 60 frames per second even in 3D. Then...well, we won't spoil it.
1Speaking to IGN at the Tokyo Game Show, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said the company would release an external battery pack to help offset Vita's battery life of just three to five hours. "One of the peripherals is the external battery," he said. "That will extend the battery life of PS Vita...so if you're flying from New York to San Francisco, or vice versa, you have no concern because you have an additional, external battery."
7Capcom has significantly revised its earnings outlook for the first half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, based on better than expected performances across a number of its business units. The company now expects net sales for the six months ending September 30 to total 28 billion yen (£231 million), up from its May 6 outlook of 26 billion yen (£214 million), and net profits of 800 million yen (£6.6 million), 300 per cent higher than previously forecast. Explaining the revisions, the company said its Mobile Contents business “is performing well mainly because of the popularity of Smurfs' Village”, its Consumer Online Games business “has benefited from strong sales of Monster Hunter Frontier Online and other titles”, and its Arcade Operations unit “is performing well because operations have resumed at all locations that were closed after the Great East Japan Earthquake, sales at existing arcades have recovered, and the impact of the electricity shortage was not as severe as expected”. The company didn’t make any changes to its full fiscal year forecast “because the economic outlook is becoming increasingly uncertain and market conditions are changing rapidly”.
Research conducted by IHS Screen Digest suggests subscription revenue generated by online PC games in the US and Europe dropped for “the first time” in 2010. Subscription revenue amounted to $1.58 billion last year, down five per cent from 2009, and is expected to fall annually to $1.33 billion in 2015. “The 2010 decline in subscription revenue - the first annual contraction experienced by the market since our coverage of this segment started in 2002 - represents an inflection point for the industry,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, senior analyst and head of games at IHS. “The focus of many PC game operators has clearly shifted to microtransaction-based models.” US and European microtransaction revenue leapt 24.2 per cent in 2010 and is expected to hit $1.8 billion in 2015. “This more than compensated for the decline in the subscription area and caused total Western MMOG/MOG market revenue - both subscriptions and microtransactions - to rise to $2.7 billion in 2010,” up 5.3 per cent from 2009, said Harding-Rolls The figure represents a 9.6 per cent share of the $31 billion spent in the West on all games content last year, according to IHS.
Fellow new releases Dead Island, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine and Resistance 3 have to settle for top five places.
Warner Bros Interactive has announced that Netherrealm Studios' Mortal Kombat reboot has sold three million copies since its release in April, which makes it the biggest-selling fighting game of the year. Creative director Ed Boon said: "All of us at Netherrealm Studios are very excited that players have embraced Mortal Kombat. The game was a labour of love for us and we could not be more pleased with its performance."
Speaking to Eurogamer, Treasure's Hiroto Matsuura revealed that the upcoming HD re-release of Saturn brawler Guardian Heroes began life as a sequel. "The project started as Guardian Heroes 2, but the publisher [Sega] said in order to create a sequel, they wanted us to revitalise the IP. So instead of starting on the sequel we made a remake." Should said remake - which will be released on Xbox Live Arcade on October 12 - prove successful, a sequel could yet see the light of day. "The original core game mechanic is a 2D, layer-based game, and that's what we like about it," Matsuura said. "We may create characters and backgrounds in 3D, but the core mechanics will be the same."
1Deep Silver has confirmed that it has already shipped a million copies of its open-world zombie game in North America alone, and expects to have shipped double that worldwide before the week is out.
Organisers of Nottingham's annual videogame festival have announced the first GameCity Prize, an award ceremony that "focuses on and promotes the cultural confidence of videogames." The organisers have assembled a panel of cultural experts - including an OBE, MP, actors, musicians and more - and tasked it with naming the best game released in the last 12 months. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony on the final night of GameCity6, which runs frrom October 25 to 29. For more, follow the source link below.
This is the first footage of Just Add Water's HD remaster of the 2005 Xbox shooter, which is set for release on PlayStation Store, with Move support, this year.
Plus underwater BioShock cosplayers and previously uncharted slurs.
Square Enix has confirmed that its direct sequel to 2009's Final Fantasy XIII will be released in Japan on December 15, in North America on January 31, 2012, and in Europe on February 3. Japan also gets a limited edition hardware bundle, pictured below.
Development kit for Vita, Sony tablets and PlayStation Certified devices confirmed at TGS.
This action-RPG is based on Square Enix's Lord Of Vermillion franchise, and with realtime battles and QTEs, it's a world apart from the collectible card game on which it's based. It's in development for PSP and Vita, and is due for release in December.
Jason Citron, co-founder and CEO of mobile social network OpenFeint, has left the compay to pursue new opportunities. His replacement is Naoki Aoyagi, who joins from Gree, the Japanese mobile company which acquired OpenFeint in April. Aoyagi said: "In just over 24 months, OpenFeint has grown to over 120 million users across 7,000 games. I thank Jason for his leadership growing the company and wish him well in his new adventures. I'm excited to lead OpenFeint through its next phase of growth." OpenFeint and Gree are to integrate their US operations, with more details promised in the coming weeks.
A nice touch from Siliconera: a downloadable ZIP file containing 20 3D screenshots of the upcoming Super Mario 3D Land. Extract the file to the DCIM folder on your 3DS SD card, behold, and continue frantically counting down the hours to the game's European release on November 18.
Namco Bandai's PS3 RPG sells more than half a million units in its first week on sale.
The Tokyo Game Show has kicked off in earnest, and Sony has released two videos of the stunning Vita title Gravity Rush, known as Gravity Daze in Japan: a trailer, and a demo walkthrough courtesy of director Toyama Keiichiro. Set in the mythical city of Hekseville, the game casts players as the wonderfully named Gravity Kitten, tasked with saving the city from the threat of Gravity Storm. A press of the right trigger puts Kitten in a zero-gravity state; move the camera using the Vita's gyroscope, point at an object and press the trigger again and Kitten will fall onto it as gravity is restored. Walls and ceilings become floors, and enemies can either be kicked from great heights or dispatched by thrown items.
Konami has released first footage of the Little King's Story sequel - officially titled The King, The Demon King, And The Seven Princesses: New King Story - to coincide with the start of the Tokyo Game Show. It looks delightful, of course, and appears to make good use of Vita's touch controls.
UTV Ignition's ethereal action-adventure El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron is headed to Android, Famitsu has revealed. A 2D side-scroller which retains the console version's visual flair, a version of the game will also be released for Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play.
1This first look at the Capcom / Level 5 3DS collaboration comes courtesy of Famitsu, via Andriasang. Gameplay details are still thin on the ground, though one new gameplay system is referred to: Gunshuu Saiban, or Mob Judgement, sees Phoenix questioning crowds of witnesses. New characters include blonde girl Mahoney, Wright's defendant, and sword-wielding, red-head prosecutor Jeeken.
This is the new name for the previously announced Pixeljunk Lifelike, and sees Q-Games developing for PlayStation Move for the first time. And, fittingly, it's going back to where it arguably all began for the PlayStation brand: the nightclub. Named after the point of the night where the music gets deeper, darker and often a little twisted, waves of the Move controller in Pixeljunk 4am add sound effects to the deep house soundtrack, with twists of the wrist adding filters, flanges and reverb. There's an interactive demo of sorts at the source link below.
Team Ninja is on record as saying that Ninja Gaiden 3 - the first game in the series to be developed away from the watchful eye of the departed Tomonobu Itagaki - will be less bloody, and will focus on the effects on protagonist Ryu Hayabusa of having killed so many people. That goes some way to explaining the below trailer, though we're wondering what heinous crimes we've unwittingly committed to deserve the British accent in the opening moments.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is the first game in the series to be released for PC since 2008, but it appears the game is little more than a reskinned version of Tiger Woods Online, a multitransaction-supported browser game released last year. Promised features, including Caddie Experience, are missing, and the fact that the game comes with a three-month subscription to Tiger Woods Online is the final insult. Happily, EA is offering full refunds to disgruntled buyers which, as Giant Bomb notes, rather suggests they were expecting a backlash.
The smart money was always on another Dead Or Alive title when news broke last week that Tecmo Koei was to announce a new game at the Tokyo Game Show, and so it proved: Dead Or Alive 5 is in development for Xbox 360 and PS3. Attendees of the publisher's TGS event today were shown a teaser trailer of a pre-alpha build showing Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa battling Hayate. Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi hinted at a departure for the series, describing it as "fighting entertainment" instead of "just a fighting game."
Plus the woes of the first female pro StarCraft player and the Nyan Cat Redeemer.
1Serious game depicting unethical working processes in the manufacture of high-end technology removed from the App Store.
10Consultation underway as Codemasters shifts focus and resources to Midlands racing studios; 66 staff at risk.
1The developer initially said it would not allow same-sex relationships in its upcoming Star Wars MMOG, The Old Republic, but has since relaxed its stance. A post on the game's official forum reads: "Due to the design constraints of a fully voiced MMOG of this scale and size, many choices had to be made as to the launch and post-launch feature set. Same-gender romances with companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a post-launch feature."
2MCV reports that publisher Deep Silver has chosen to delay the European release of Team Persona's erotic thriller Catherine until Q1 2012. No reason is given for the delay, though it appears a safe bet that Deep Silver has opted against putting the quirky Atlus puzzler up against all the other Q4 big hitters, which seems a sensible decision.
Goichi Suda's studio announced its first Kinect project at last year's Tokyo Game Show, giving it the working title Codename D. At Grasshopper's TGS conference today, it was revealed that the game's final name is Diabolical Pitch, which tasks players with seeing off a zombie infestation by throwing baseballs. It's set for release on Xbox Live Arcade before the year is out.
Hideo Kojima took to the stage at Sony's Tokyo Game Show conference earlier today to confirm that Metal Gear Solids 2 and 3 will be released for PlayStation Vita as part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition. Zone Of The Enders and its sequel are also headed to Sony's PSP successor, with both collections due next year. Kojima also announced an all-new game, to be built using his Fox Engine, that will be released for both PS3 and Vita.
Company president says releasing games on iOS and Android would mean "Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo."
11One thing Street Fighter X Tekken was missing was a comeback mechanic, an equivalent of Street Fighter IV's Ultra combo and Marvel Vs Capcom 3's X-Factor, which gives inexperienced players a leg up while adding a further layer of complexity for the hardcore. This new trailer reveals Pandora mode, in which one fighter is sacrificed to give the other a power boost, though in a game in which success appears to be hugely dependent on tag combos it may be as much of a hindrance as a help. Also confirmed are four-player online battles, an online training mode, and new characters Zangief, Rolento, Heihachi and Lili. Meanwhile, Andriasang reports that as well as Infamous protagonist Cole McGrath, the PS3 and Vita releases of the game will also include Sony mascots Toro and Kuro.
The tenth Final Fantasy was released for PlayStation 2 in 2001, and Square Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto took to the stage at Sony's Tokyo Game Show press conference to announce a tenth anniversary HD remake for PlayStation 3 and Vita.
3Speaking to Industry Gamers, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg welcomed the peripheral that gives 3DS a second analogue circle pad. "It makes the hardware more relevant and compatible to the style of games we make," he said. "I don't have anything to announce in relation to that, but I think it was a great move and it opens up that platform to more styles of games."
Sony has said that Vita's battery will last between three and five hours with the screen at its default setting, with Bluetooth and network features switched off, while using headphones. A full charge, which takes two hours and 40 minutes, will offer five hours of video playback, and nine hours of music.
1PSP successor on shelves on December 17 with 26 titles available at launch.
7Majesco has raised its financial outlook for the full fiscal year after swinging to a profit in its third quarter ended July 31, 2011. Net revenues for the three month period were up 61 per cent year-over-year to $19.5 million (£12.3m), while net income hit $1.9 million (£1.2m) versus a loss of $1.6 million (£1m) a year earlier. For the nine months ended July 31, Majesco’s net revenues increased 92 per cent to $100.2 million (£63.4m), while net income was up from $0.6 million (£380,000) to $10.7 million (£6.8m). CEO Jesse Sutton said: "Despite what is normally a seasonally weak time for our business, Majesco experienced another strong quarter. Driven by strength in Europe this past quarter, Zumba Fitness has now sold over three million units worldwide. The growth of the Zumba phenomenon overall has us very excited about Zumba Fitness 2, the much anticipated sequel coming this November for Wii.” The company raised its full year outlook, with net revenues now expected to range from $120-$130 million, up from the prior forecast of $110-$120 million. Majesco now anticipates non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.35-$0.38, up from its previous guidance of $0.30-$0.35.
DeNA subsidiary Ngmoco has purchased Facebook sports game developer Lionside for an undisclosed sum. Lionside is best known for NBA Legend, a mid-level Facebook title which peaked with over a million monthly active users, although that figure has recently fallen to under 300,000. "We are very excited to have Lionside join the Ngmoco and DeNA family," Ngmoco said in a statement issued to Gamasutra. "They are working on new products for the Mobage social gaming platform, bringing their passion and experience to our continuously expanding first party development capabilities." Mobage, the enormously popular Japanese mobile social gaming network, launched on the Android Market in English-speaking countries around the world in July.
Microsoft’s online gaming and entertainment service will be built into its latest operating system.
Here's 11 minutes from Nintendo's pre-TGS conference in which Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrates both Four Swords and Skyward Sword. Skip to 3:25 for Four Sword action, and to 6:20 for a revealing glimpse of Skyward Sword. There are elements of Super Mario Sunshine, Pilot Wings and even Shadow Of The Colossus contained within.
Dundee's University of Abertay has teamed up with Electronic Arts and Nesta to create a game building tool for children. The Games Unpacked tool is based on Unity and features a drag and drop interface that allows children to combine level elements such as platforms, power-ups and traps. “Every young person I know absolutely loves playing games, and Games Unpacked is a fun and easy way to take the next step into making their own games," said Abertay University director of business development Paul Durrant. “By creating a simple ‘digital toolbox’ of all the elements of a game level, children of any age can build a brand new game and start learning about the fascinating process of games development.” The Games Unpacked initiative is a complement to the BAFTA Young Game Designers competition, and interested parties can download the software for free at the source link below.
1Rovio US general manager claims that the studio's iOS hit has now reached 350 million downloads across all platforms and that mobile gamers spend over 300 million collective minutes playing it each day. The figure follows news earlier today that the company is shifting around one million Angry Birds plush toys and one million T-shirts each month.
Is the Japanese giant's reign coming to an end as investors and customers lose confidence?
27Other Ocean Interactive has a announced an XBLA and PSN title based on HG Wells’ revered science fiction novel The War Of The Worlds. Other Ocean’s previous experience with Dark Void Zero and Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (the XBLA port, anyway) holds them in good stead for this “story of survival as a lone person trying to escape chaos and destruction amidst an alien invasion in 1950s London.” The game is poised for release this year.
Market research data shows significant games spend in Russia, Mexico and Brazil.
Nintendo has put a firm date on 3D video recording using 3DS. Up until now it has only been possible to take 3D photos or watch 3D video, but the ability to capture it will be added via a system update in November. As well as offering useful suggestions for its use (including birthday parties and football matches), Nintendo's spokesperson also mentioned that users could create their own "original 3D productions", which would suggest that some kind of editing software will also be available.
Plus crowdsourcing Easter eggs and can games be more than a game?
Namco Bandai tussles with Kid Icarus for supremacy of the skies in Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble. Trailer below.
At its pre-TGS conference, Nintendo confirmed that a new Fire Emblem is on its way to 3DS and will be the first version to feature co-op play. See the game in action below.
A fresh trailer of Kid Icarus Uprising shows the game positively sparkling visually - whether the clumsy control scheme that was present the last time we played the game has been fixed remains to be seen, though.
Nothing here that wasn't shown in the E3 trailer earlier this year, but another opportunity to dip into Animal Crossing's new 3D world. Trailer below.
Here's the first trailer for the creepy looking AR horror game for 3DS, Shinrei Camera, developed by Fatal Frame creators Tecmo Koei. Follow the source link for more details on the game and its unique notebook 'peripheral'.
1Luigi gets another spell in the limelight fronting the sequel to Gamecube's excellent Luigi's Mansion. We're particularly excited about returning to the series' beautifully spooky environments. Here's a brand new trailer.
Announced at Nintendo's pre-TGS conference, here's the first trailer for Mario Tennis on 3DS which will apparently make use of the handhelds motion control features. There are no surprises in the trailer, but the rotund plumber seems to be just as light on his feet this time round.
Kickstarter appeal to fund a new iPhone game that keeps you fit with the threat of zombie attack.
After the official announcement of a new Syndicate game for 2012, game director Neil McEwan has addressed the title’s departure from the Bullfrog-developed original: "The original nub of the idea was to take that viewpoint from the original game and zoom into the Agent's head, and play that part. A closer experience - to become one of those Agents." He told OXM: "[Our] game speaks for itself. We've been very lucky to work with a great, original world, and create another facet of it really. I would love [fans of the original] to like it. You're never going to please everyone.”
1Nintendo's resolutely flat series makes its debut on 3DS, allowing the cutout cast to jump off the page. See the new trailer below.
1A brand new trailer, below, of the latest in the karting series fresh from Nintendo's pre-TGS conference. The game will be released in Japan on December 7.
3App game Angry Birds is everywhere, and not just on mobile devices. According to Rovio the company is shifting one million t-shirts and one million plush toys per month. Rovio’s North American general manager Andrew Stalbow also revealed the developer is looking at Facebook for its future plans: “Facebook has actually been a massive platform for us, even though we’ve haven’t created a game on there yet. In terms of launching a game on there in the future, yes, absolutely, that’s something we’ll be talking about in the near future”.
Nintendo's 3DS Mario game has been given a firm release date at the company's pre-TGS conference, and is scheduled for release in Japan on November 3. No US or European dates are yet forthcoming. You can watch the new trailer below.
2Square Enix has revealed a new 3DS RPG with the possibly oxymoronic title Bravely Default Flying Fairy. The game is being produced by Tomoya Asano, who ported classic Final Fantasy games including IV and III to the iPad and DS. The game will apparently make use of the handheld's augmented reality features, and you can see a brief glimpse of its exquisite looking graphics below.
Nintendo has announced Monster Hunter Tri G for 3DS at Nintendo's pre-TGS conference. The game goes hand in hand with the new Slide Pad Expansion. You can watch the trailer below and read more about the Slide Pad by following the source link.
No news yet on whether the other Japanese release dates announced overnight hold true in Europe, but Nintendo has just confirmed that The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords will be available to European customers on September 28. Compatible with DSi and 3DS, this version adds a singleplayer mode of sorts by letting lone warriors switch between two characters with a button press, and adds two new areas, each containing three levels.
Nintendo chose not to mention the bulky 3DS add-on, outed last week by Famitsu, at its pre-TGS conference today, but has confirmed it will be released alongside Monster Hunter 3G on December 10 for ¥1,500 (£12.25). The peripheral, which adds a second circle pad and set of shoulder buttons, will require a single AAA battery. As well as Monster Hunter 3G, the Slide Pad Expansion will also be compatible with Resident Evil Revelations, Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D, Ace Combat 3D Cross Rumble, Dynasty Warriors Vs, and Kingdom Hearts 3D.
6The announcement at Nintendo's pre-TGS event of a Misty Pink 3DS, to be released on October 20, was apparently motivated by the gender split in the 3DS userbase. Company president Satoru Iwata explained that, while the DS and Wii were owned by a roughly equal number of men and women, 55 per cent of 3DS owners are male.
DSiWare Four Swords due this month; Kid Icarus confirmed for Q1 2012.
2Capcom's system-seller confirmed at pre-Tokyo Game Show conference; Fire Emblem, new Square Enix RPG and more also announced.
3DS sales will probably fall 16 per cent below Nintendo’s annual target of 16 million units despite a drastic price cut introduced in August, less than six months after the portable launched. The figure is based on the average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter thinks the annual 3DS sales total could be as low as ten million units. Nintendo stock fell 1.4 per cent in Osaka trading yesterday, extending this year’s drop to 46 per cent. The platform holder is expected to unveil a 3DS peripheral that adds a second circle pad and a set of shoulder buttons to the system at a press conference taking place tomorrow.
Driver: San Francisco, SingStar Suomisuosikit and Madden NFL 12 debut in the top ten.
EA has won the dismissal of a lawsuit by former Rutgers University quarterback Ryan Hart which alleged the publisher used his likeness in NCAA Football 2006 without permission. While the game didn't refer to Hart by name, his lawsuit pointed out that the virtual quarterback for Rutgers shared his general appearance, attributes, uniform number, height, weight, home state, and even a distinctive left hand wristband he wore, Gamasutra reports. US District Judge Freda Wolfson said EA’s right to free expression under the First Amendment outweighs Hart's right to control the use of his name and likeness. EA lawyer Elizabeth McNamara said the judgment "validates Electronic Arts' rights to create and publish its expressive works". Similar cases brought against EA by Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller and former Cleveland Browns player Jim Brown remain active.
Ubisoft and Eidos veterans have formed Tribute Games, a Montreal-based start-up focusing on "retro games with a modern twist for home consoles and mobile platforms". Tribute consists of Ninja Senki creator Jonathan Lavigne, Justin Cyr, and Jean-François Major, whose prior credits include the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Shaun White Snowboarding and Star Wars: Episode 3, Gamesetwatch reports. The studio's debut game, a 16-bit-style pinball/RPG hybrid called Wizorb, is due to launch on Xbox Live Indie later this month with a PC version to follow. "We chose the name Tribute Games because when we make games, we want to pay tribute to all the cool games from our childhood," said Lavigne. “We’re passionate indies aiming at making entertaining games with a focus on pixel art and classic game design (sometimes with a modern twist)."
Plus the fightstick with no stick and Duckhunt by way of Minecraft.
1A version of the latest update to world-build ‘em up Minecraft, which adds a wealth of new features, has been publicly leaked. The pre-release build of the update has been “sanctioned by [creator] Mojang” according to Minecraft forum sectional moderator Opeth. The build is available, via one of Opeth’s posts, for download, however: “Any user found distributing the .jar or links to it will be dealt with and have posts removed,” asserts the post. “The links above should be used.”
1UK retailers Game and Gamestation are to sell music and Blu-ray movies in some 300 of their nationwide stores. The move has been encouraged by the PS3’s price-point: "The PS3 console is now under £200 and for that price gamers are getting a great Blu-ray player as well as one of the best consoles out there”, says Game’s head of UK PR, Neil Ashurst. The stocking of Blu-ray titles also coincides with the release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga which is available in the UK now. Blu-rays can also be traded for in-store discount, as with pre-owned games.
5Game retail chain executive says he doesn't see free-to-play or digital distribution as a threat.
3US retailer GameStop will launch its "GameStop certified gaming platform", a tablet, across its stores next year. The company’s president Tony Bartel says the tablet will use the Android operating system and be compatible with a dedicated controller. GameStop intends to stream games to owners of the device. Bartel says: “We've created a controller that we're testing to really allow for immersive gameplay. It's hard to imagine how to stream a game - let' say Modern Warfare 3 - onto a tablet and then play it with your finger.”
1Online game company Bigpoint has acquired 49Games and its 40 employees. The developer previously made sports games for Wii, but under Bigpoint will be put to work, unsurprisingly, developing online titles. 49Games' CEO Jan-Hendrik Ohl said the team will "deliver fantastic 3D MMOs" for Bigpoint, which has made a number of acquisitions recently.
The much-rumoured, Starbreeze-developed Syndicate game has been confirmed and given a release date of early 2012 for 360, PC and PS3. Described as “a unique and brutal sci-fi firstperson shooter experience set in a not too distant future, where business is war”, the new EA-published title sounds a far cry from Bullfrog’s 1993 original.
1David Darling, a co-founder of Codemasters in 1986, has launched Kwalee. The Leamington Spa-based studio will focus on mobile apps. The company’s website states Kwalee "will develop smartphone apps that are very special indeed (not just games), we are striving to give our customers unique and rewarding experiences." With mobile development ushering in a return to bedroom coding days of the '80s, Darling's move seems a good fit.
Four games make their debut in the top ten this week as Techland's open world shooter takes the top spot.
14Today’s the final day to have a chance at winning a pair of tickets to the London leg of Nintendo’s Zelda celebration concerts. We’re giving away five pairs of tickets to the event taking place at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo on October 25 – the only confirmed European date for the tour. Enter at our Facebook page (follow the source link below): hit the competitions tab in the left column, and answer the multiple choice questions. While you’re at it – give us a Like and get involved with your fellow Edge readers, eh?
A report by Flurry Analytics reveals the biggest spenders and players of mobile freemium games. The research was extensive, taking “a sample of iOS and Android freemium games with over 20 million users across more than 1.4 billion sessions… which tracks over 110,000 apps across the major smartphone platforms.” Though the 18-24 age group spent the most time playing freemium app games (32 per cent compared to 29 per cent for the 25-34 group), it’s the 25-34 group that spends the most money (a huge 49 per cent of spends compared to 16 per cent for the 18-24 range).
Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere says “between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties” were lost due to second-hand sales of the developer’s interactive thriller Heavy Rain. Though he understands the plight of a customer, trapped in a recession and faced with full-price retail, Fondaumiere is keen to find a solution to the problem. “I've always said that games are probably too expensive so there's probably a right level here to find,” he said. “And we need to discuss this altogether and try to find a way to I would say reconcile consumer expectations, retail expectations but also the expectations of the publisher and the developers to make this business a worthwhile business.”
10The Super Meat Boy developer complains about platform-holder’s lack of support.
3Double Fine's mech battler Trenched, recently blocked from release in Europe due to a board game designer's ownership of the trademark Trench, will be renamed Iron Brigade worldwide when it launches in Europe this month. Speaking on Whiskey Media's Big Live Live Show Live Double Fine's Greg Rice and Brad Muir said that the decision was to ensure that players of all versions could play online together, and that the update would include a new survival mode, weapons, costumes and gestures. Muir also confirmed that additional DLC is currently being worked on.
Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada and Little King's Story creator Yoshiro Kimura have both left Grasshopper Manufacture after less than a year working with the No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw developer. Wada was Grasshopper's chief operating officer, while Kimura was the company's chief creative officer. Neither has yet commented on the reasons behind their decision to leave.
Cloud gaming service Gaikai has received new funding from Intel's investment organisation Intel Capital. The undisclosed amount came from a total of $24 million invested by Intel in eight different companies, including gaming analytics firm Swrve - who you can read more about in the next issue of Edge magazine, out September 27. "The best computing experiences unite leading-edge hardware with amazing software," said Intel executive vice president Arvind Sodhani. "These investments in best-of-breed software vendors play an integral part in Intel's software strategy by fueling the creation of compelling and unique user experiences across devices."
Electronic Arts plans to add thirdparty content to its new Origin digital distribution platform in the near future, putting the service in more direct competition with the likes of Steam, Impulse and Direct2Drive. "Initially, Origin is set up to deliver EA games, but very soon, we'll be delivering thirdparty content to Origin," EA CFO Eric Brown said at a UBS conference in London attended by Gamasutra. "We're fairly excited about Origin," he added. "We have about four million installs of the client, we expect that number to climb substantially as we enter this ... holiday season."
Hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in legal battle between the former Infinity Ward bosses and the Call Of Duty publisher.
1Dragon Quest X, bulky 3DS peripherals and Dead Island's woes - a week in videogame news.
The social gaming titan's latest game for Facebook, Adventure World, was revealed last week. Overnight, Zynga got in touch to confirm that the game, which takes no little inspiration from the Indiana Jones films, is now live on Facebook. This is the first game from Zynga's Boston studio, and it claims it's its "most feature-rich" work so far, with a world 40 times the size of FarmVille. "We call this genre social adventure," said Nabeel Hyatt, general manager of Zynga Boston, "where players can explore, discover and team with friends on an adventure of a lifetime. We hope our players have as much fun playing the game as we had building it." Find out for yourself by following the source link below.
In a press release, Square Enix confirms that it has already shipped two million copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution since its launch last month. Its first DLC pack, The Missing Link, will be released next month; should you still be on the fence, follow the below source link for our review.
3Plus the mod that modernises Deus Ex and win every Quarrel.
Further to this morning's news that Crytek's 2007 PC shooter is headed to PS3 and Xbox 360 comes confirmation from EA that it will be a downloadable title, priced at 1600 MSP / £14.99, run on CryEngine 3 and support 3D. CEO Cevat Yerli said: "We are extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish with Crysis. We set out to create a next-generation FPS and delivered a PC experience that became a benchmark for quality – and still is for many gamers even four years later. By bringing the single-player campaign to console, we believe we are again setting a new standard for quality in downloadable gaming."
While it is yet to specify target platforms, Rockstar says it is giving "the full HD treatment for mobile devices" to 2001's Max Payne. In a statement, the publisher said: "Available for the first time on mobile, Max Payne will have connectivity to the Rockstar Games Social Club and boast the same features as its PC counterparts, including HD graphics and high-resolution textures that take advantage of the latest mobile technologies, including incredibly customizable controls and support for wired controllers."
Last October, Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada and Yoshiro Kimura, the brain behind Little King's Story, left Marvelous Entertainment and joined Goichi Suda's studio Grasshopper Manufacture. Now, Siliconera reports that both men quit Grasshopper last month, without having released a single game.
Rock Paper Shotgun reports that Ubisoft has fulfilled its promise to remove From Dust's always-on DRM in a patch; update the game through Steam now and play offline to your heart's content. Meanwhile, Ubisoft confirmed yesterday that the Eric Chahi god sim will finally be released for PlayStation 3 on September 14 in Europe, and September 27 in North America.
The retailer announced a huge loss of £121.7 million in June, and despite offloading HMV Canada and bookshop chain Waterstone's its misery continues. Sales in the eighteen weeks to September 3 fell 21.8 per cent, but an increased focus on technology in selected stores saw their sales more than double. As such it is to roll out its new shop-floor strategy to the majority of its 150 stores before the end of the month.
3Online retailer GameStop is to sell the white PS3, first released in Japan last year, from November 1. The console, exclusive to Gamestop, comes with a 320GB hard drive and two white Dualshock 3 controllers, at a cost of £249.97.
Launches internal investigation after "feminist whore" reference is found in PC code.
9Nintendo reports 185,000 units sold after August 12 price cut, an increase of 260 per cent.
This is the first footage of Arc System Works' Persona fighting game, Persona 4 The Ultimate In Mayonaka Arena, and it's shaping up nicely. Given Arc's recent past it's little surprise that Arena bears more than a passing resemblance to its anime-themed fighter BlazBlue, an accessible and welcoming game that deserved a wider audience. Here's hoping the more recognisable Persona cast gives Arena a leg up when it's released in arcades next spring, and consoles next summer.
Rumours that Crytek's 2007 byword for powerful gaming PCs was headed to consoles first broke in July, when the Korean ratings board outed a planned Xbox 360 and PS3 release. That has now been confirmed, and while no specific date was given, the EA-published title will be released next month.
When Fumito Ueda admitted he wouldn't be at E3 in June it was widely assumed that our next look at The Last Guardian would come at this month's Tokyo Game Show. Sadly, in a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony's associate product marketing manager Brian Dunn reveals that won't be the case after all. "We wanted to confirm that The Last Guardian is not on the schedule for this year's Tokyo Game Show," he writes. "However we can assure you that Ueda-san and the rest of the development team are hard at work to bring his lofty vision to life and deliver the very best gaming experience possible."
Deus Ex tops software chart after just five days on shelves, but retail sales revenue falls for a fourth consecutive month.
Activision plans to step up its efforts in the social and mobile gaming markets in a “thoughtful, methodical way”, chief financial officer Thomas Tippl said at the Citi 2011 Tech Conference in New York today. While the firm is no stranger to the digital marketplace – its online sales grew to a record $423 million in the second quarter of 2011, representing 37 per cent of the company's net revenues – its exploration of the social and mobile spaces has been cautious, with activity generally tied to extensions of its core franchises. Tippl said this will change, albeit not overnight, Gamasutra reports. "We're methodically investing in social and mobile gaming projects. While our goal is always to be number one in anything we do, even if we only get to half of our fair share in mobile and social over the next three years, it will still represent a significant upside, given that the mobile and social gaming markets have finally reached critical mass. And I expect it to grow at a double-digit clip for the foreseeable future. To date, we've mostly [explored social and mobile] around our existing franchises. In the future you will see more activity on our part to broaden our social and mobile parts of the portfolio. But it's going to be done in a thoughtful, methodical way, and in a way that will tend to create value for our shareholders, as opposed to venture capitalists and private equity firms [that are contributing to] what I would call a bubble valuation."
THQ CEO Brian Farrell says the publisher expects future consoles to drop physical disc support in favour of cloud gaming, resulting in reduced hardware manufacturing costs, lower console prices for consumers that will drive mass market adoption, and no physical goods costs for publishers. Delivering a keynote presentation at the Cloud Gaming USA conference, the executive said the transition from physical retail to digital is well underway. "The box, ship and done model is transitioning to observe, measure, and modify," he said, according to GamesIndustry.biz. This is "a games as a service model where direct consumer feedback allows the ability to operate in this always on, always connected environment. We have the opportunity to interact with players in new ways that can be reactive to their desires, play habits, and buying habits.” Farrell then revealed plans to release 40 weekly DLC packs for upcoming title Saints Row: The Third, "which will grow and change the experience as the consumer engages with the game… We intend to create an online digital ecosystem with the consumer that keeps them interested for almost a year, perhaps even longer. And we expect most of our large console games going forward will extend the base experience with DLC packs. Things like online in-game storage, and consumables and other online items that will go on for at least a year post-release."
7Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown has given the first public update on the financial performance of the company’s Online Pass scheme. Initially launched with EA Sports games - beginning with the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 in June 2010 - but now extended to the company’s wider software portfolio, Online Pass combats the used games market by offering game-specific, one-time registration codes needed to access online services. Second hand buyers are required to pay a $10 fee if they want to unlock all of a given game's online features. "The revenues we derive from that haven't been dramatic,” Brown said at the Citi 2011 Tech Conference, as reported by Gamasutra. “I'd say they're in the $10-$15 million range since we initiated the program." Nevertheless, Brown pointed out that the sales total is all "found revenue" that comes from users who previously "consumed bandwidth for free", and the profit margins are of course significant.
2Find your future at Sony or DICE on the game industry's premier recruitment board.
Atari founder says his Speed To Learn project can rescue America's "disaster" of a public school system.
7Says closure of Homefront developer Kaos and four other studios this year is part of its "fewer, bigger" strategy; Montreal headcount to more than double in two years.
In a press release, Rockstar has confirmed that E227 cover star Max Payne 3 will be released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in March 2012. "Max Payne 3 gave us an amazing creative opportunity to evolve one of our most iconic characters," said founder Sam Houser. "We're excited to show fans a modern version of Max that pulls them back into his dark and twisted story."
2One of PSP's unsung heroes, the DJMax series, is headed to PlayStation Vita, according to Siliconera. Korean developer Pentavision is to bring its turntablism game DJMax Technika - first released in Korean arcades in 2008 - to Vita, using both front and rear touch controls.
Plus a guide to starting a life making games and a new game culture startup.
In July it was noticed that the domain modernwarfare3.com redirected to EA's Battlefield website. Activision sought to gain control of the domain, and a three-person panel at the US National Arbitration Forum has ruled in its favour. According to Fusible, the previous owner of the URL Anthony Abraham had argued that the phrase "modern warfare" was generic, but Activision satisfied three essential criteria: that the domain was identical or "confusingly similar" to its trademark; that Abraham had no legitimate interests in owning the domain; and that it had been registered and was being used in bad faith.
ThinkOptic claims the Wii, its controller, sensor bar and even games violate patents used in its motion-controlled TV remote.
Win a pair of tickets to the London leg of Nintendo's Zelda celebration concerts.
1Richard Lemarchand, lead designer on the Uncharted series, will give the keynote address at the fifth annual IndieCade festival in Culver City, California next month. As well as Lemarchand's keynote, Beauty And Risk: Why I Love Indie Games, there will be talks from the likes of Braid creator Jonathan Blow and Canabalt mastermind Adam Saltsman. Elsewhere there's an experimental gameplay workshop, the IndieXchange networking sessions, as well as a host of previews of upcoming indie games. IndieCade runs from October 6 to 9 across multiple Culver City venues, with tickets costing $195 in advance and $250 on the door.
The publisher has announced Super Star Kartz, a kart racer starring characters from Dreamworks films including Shrek, Madagascar, How To Train Your Dragon and Monsters Vs Aliens. It will be released for DS, 3DS, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 before the end of the year.
Speaking to Gamasutra at last weekend's Call Of Duty XP event, Activision's digital vice-president Jamie Berger said the social features in subscription service Elite will serve to unite the Call Of Duty playerbase, creating a holistic community from a previously hostile one. "One of the most interesting things to me is how positive people are in the service," he said. "People are being supportive; they're actually talking to each other, and amongst each other. [Elite] creates a social contract," he added, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau spun in his grave. "You try to treat your neighbours with respect. It starts breaking a lot of the bad assumptions about what a shooter is. It breaks down these anonymous walls and turns it into something where you start knowing each other."
4The PC RTS set in George R R Martin's Game Of Thrones world but sadly bereft of Sean Bean will be released on September 29, Rock Paper Shotgun reports. Developer Cyanide made 2009's Blood Bowl and is now hard at work on two RPGs: one is another Game Of Thrones tie-in, the other called Orcs & Men.
Eric Chahi's classic adventure was announced for Apple devices in March, and publisher Bulkypix has now confirmed it will hit the App Store on September 22. The universal app, which offers remastered graphics as well as the original's, can be controlled using the touchscreen or a virtual d-pad, adds new difficulty levels and audio, and will cost £2.99.
When Dead Island was released in North America on Tuesday, Steam players found that they had downloaded an Xbox 360 development build instead of the final product. Deep Silver has already apologised to those affected, and has now said: "Deep Silver plans to announce a 'make up' to North American fans who were affected by the day one PC issues. Stay tuned in the coming days for those details as internal discussions are ongoing." The publisher has also warned that the day-one patch, which fixes 37 issues with the game, may wipe save files. "We have a solution to help regain some quest progress," it said. "When the game opens, select New Game, select the same character as you were using before, and then there will be an option for Chapter Select which will allow the player to jump to the last chapter they were playing in."
The multiplayer beta of Ezio's final outing, Assassin's Creed Revelations, will be made available to all PSN account holders today. It was originally exclusive to members of PlayStation Plus and Ubisoft's Uplay, but from 10am UK time today all PSN users can download it from the PlayStation Store. A word of warning: the dreaded "scheduled maintenance" means PSN will be offline between 4pm and 6pm GMT today. Oh, and another: the beta is a 2.5GB download.
As we revealed earlier this week, Slavery: The Game was not a game. It now transpires that it was intended to promote a Dutch TV history programme, De Slavernij, which explores the role of the Netherlands in the slave trade. "In the Golden Era, the Netherlands was a colonial power," explains the host of the Dutch TV show Game Kings. "It might seem a long time ago, but when you look at the impact of what happened back then, it is still very visible today. Why aren't we taught this at school? Because it's a very dark period of our history." De Slavernij is to start later this month, and there's even a children's version, De Slavernij Junior, to further raise awareness of that dark Dutch past.
2Electronic Arts says the latest entry in the Madden NFL series has sold 1.4 million units on consoles in its first week of availability, up ten per cent on last year’s opening week performance. Gross digital revenue associated with the game is up 78 per cent over the same period thanks to brisk downloadable content sales, plus chart-topping Android and iOS performances, Gamasutra reports. Speaking at the Citi 2011 Tech Conference today, EA CFO Eric Brown also revealed that Battlefield 3 pre-orders stand at 1.25 million, “well ahead" of predecessor Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with the same number of weeks until launch. Additionally, Brown said Star Wars: The Old Republic is still on track to launch this year, although the company has factored a potential delay to the first calendar quarter of 2012 into its financial guidance. "We have a date set internally [for calendar Q4], with a lot of assumptions around it.”
PSP action RPG Grand Knights History enters at number one on the latest weekly sales charts.
Inside Mobile Apps' report on PopCap's Asian unit is a fascinating read, telling of how the company's well-considered approach to the Chinese market in particular is beginning to pay dividends. Much of that success is down to James Gwertzman, who worked in Asia for Microsoft during the first tech bubble and now runs PopCap's Asian operation. "What we've come to realise is that this is an incredibly complex market," he says. "It's often very difficult for western companies and they have to be prepared for the long haul." PopCap most certainly has been - the office was set up in 2008 and is expected to contribute 10 to 11 per cent of PopCap's total revenue this year.
MCV reports that Fergal Gara, former head of entertainment at UK supermarket Asda, has been appointed SCE UK's managing director and vice-president of SCEE. He replaces Ray Maguire, who left Sony after 17 years of service in April.
Disney Interactive has confirmed to Gamasutra that it has cut jobs at its Utah-based subsidiary Avalanche Software. The studio, which recently completed on Cars 2: The Videogame and before that delivered another Disney tie-in, Toy Story 3, is understood to have let between 15 and 20 staff go on September 1.
European gamers eagerly refreshing their email inboxes in the hope of receiving an invitation to The Old Republic beta will be doing so for a while, after BioWare's Chris Collins said the studio had decided to wait for a new build of the Star Wars MMOG before sending out the invitations. Collins said that asking European players to download a 27GB client, then a few days later wipe their progress and ask them to download the client all over again was "not an experience we want new testers to be exposed to...You have my word that this batch of invites will happen, it may just mean you have to wait a little longer."
Plus concepts from an unreleased post-apocalyptic driving game and the best video game song ever.
1Since Square Enix's confirmation on Monday that Dragon Quest X would be an online RPG for Wii and Wii U, one question has gone unanswered. The publisher has now confirmed on its support page that the game will require a subscription fee to be playable beyond the first few hours.
2Yesterday reports claimed that up to three million codes giving a free Steam copy of Dirt 3 had been taken from Codemasters' servers. The developer later got in touch to clarify that it was an AMD promotional site, and the graphics card manufacturer has confirmed that. In a statement, it said: "These activation keys were hosted on a thirdparty fulfilment agency website, www.AMD4u.com, and did not reside on AMD's website. Neither the AMD nor Codemasters servers were involved. We are working closely with Steam, Codemasters and our fulfilment agency to address the situation. AMD will continue to honour all valid game vouchers, however the current situation may result in a short delay before vouchers can be redeemed."
In a post on the Xbox Live support forums a Microsoft spokesperson confirms a new wave of bans affecting those who are deemed to have "illegitimately accessed" Marketplace content. "Our investigation reveals that this access was intentional and not accidental, constituting a blatant violation of the terms of use for the service," the post reads. "Please know that we are being very careful regarding these suspensions, and have clear evidence regarding each account issued a permanent suspension from the service."
Etrian Odyssey, God Eater and Baten Kaitos among raft of new titles to be announced next week, sources claim.
EA took its time bringing The Sims to Facebook, a curious move given that it seems such a good fit for social gaming. However, it appears to have paid off, with the game amassing more than 30 million active users since its launch last month.
Valve launched Steam Trading last month, a beta phase in which users were only able to trade Steam Gifts and virtual Team Fortress 2 items. Over a million trades later, Steam Trading is now out of beta and officially live, with Portal 2 items now included and, in Spiral Knights, the first sign of thirdparty support.
A Devil May Cry HD Collection was first rumoured in June, when a Spanish retailer briefly listed it for PS3. Now America's ESRB has rated the first three games in the series - originally released on PlayStation 2 - for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. With the Tokyo Game Show kicking off next week it appears an official announcement may be imminent; we'll be spending the next week or so brushing up on our (hopeless) Royal Guard skills and hoping it's Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition, with its kinder difficulty level and save system, that's included rather than the punishing vanilla release.
Expanded version of Wii's Tri playable at TGS and out this year; "Expansion Slide Pad" adds second circle pad, shoulder buttons.
8Ubisoft is offering free access to Driver: San Francisco’s multiplayer modes to all players – and not just those who bought the game new at retail, as initially planned - after a printing error left users unable to redeem codes to unlock the title’s online component. Beginning with Driver, copies of the publisher's "popular core games" were supposed to ship with a valid one-time code required to access multiplayer features, while second-hand buyers would have to pay to get in on the action. A post on the Xbox support forums confirmed that printing errors had put paid to those plans, for now. "To solve this problem, Ubisoft has made the Uplay Passport offer free for all purchasers of Driver: San Francisco,” it read. Ubisoft says players can access all of the game’s online features at no extra cost by accessing the Uplay Passport option from Driver’s online multiplayer menu.
2Ryan Payton, one of Halo 4’s creative directors, has left Microsoft's 343 Industries to establish his own development studio, Camouflaj. Having previously served as a producer on Metal Gear Solid 4, Payton joined Microsoft to help create the new Halo trilogy, focusing largely on story and developing the fictional universe with franchise director Frank O'Connor. "I had a great run at Microsoft," Payton told Kotaku. "I don't regret one day of it. But after a few years, there came a point where I wasn't creatively excited about the project anymore. The Halo I wanted to build was fundamentally different and I don't think I had built enough credibility to see such a crazy endeavour through." He added: "I think time is the most valuable thing we have and I've decided that I'm not going to waste one more day working on something that doesn't speak to my values.” Payton is currently working on two unannounced titles of his own. "Some people say I'm crazy, but I want to make a game that one billion people play at once, and it's something that hits them harder than a great book or film.”
The publisher is doing its bit to help reverse Japan's declining birth rate, offering parents having a third child a support bonus of ¥2 million (£16,120) and those expecting a first or second child ¥200,000 (£1,612). Both male and female employees are eligible for the ¥2 million bonus provided they take a week off in the first 56 days following the child's birth, and write a "child rearing report," though there are no such conditions attached to the ¥200,000 bonus. Namco Bandai will also open a child care centre in its Shinagawa office, and is looking at doing the same in its other offices across Japan.
3The publisher had somehow uploaded a development build of its zombie FPS instead of the final version, leaving many North American players with a less-than-satisfactory experience. Deep Silver has since confirmed to Rock Paper Shotgun that the correct build will be released "during the day."
Future Publishing stablemate Official Xbox Magazine has relaunched its website with a complete redesign today, ushering in a new focus on Xbox Live. The site is celebrating with a selection of new articles, including an interview with Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski as well as previews of Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3. Head over to the site by clicking the source link below.
Platform holders and alleged developer all deny knowledge of supposed RTS.
3Sega has just announced that the HD remaster of Treasure's classic Sega Saturn brawler will be released on Xbox Live Arcade on October 12. Supporting online play for up to 12 players, it will cost 800 Microsoft Points.
2Unity's expansion continues apace: in June it moved its UK operation to larger premises, last month it opened an office in South Korea, and today comes news of a Tokyo office. Focusing on sales, localisation and support to lay the foundations of further future expansion, Unity Technologies Japan will be led by representative director and chairman Shinobu Toyoda, who said: "The Unity community throughout Japan has grown at an expeditious rate over the last few years. With the opening of our Japan subsidiary, we look forward to offering our customers in the region full support and localisation of the development platform."
Philip Reisberger says EA, Ubisoft and Valve are missing the point: "If selling an advantage ruins the game, you haven't done the balancing right."
5Make your own neo-Renaissance candelabra, buy a copy of Edge for £7,000.
3Eidos Montreal's excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution was set for release in Japan on Thursday, but publisher Square Enix has announced a last-minute delay that will see the game slip to October. The reason, according to Andriasang, is an area in the game that "shows expressions forbidden by the Japanese games rating board." We know that ratings board CERO's guidelines forbid references to existing people or countries, and as such our guess is that the offending material may be graffiti in Heng Sha.
1Reuters reports that Sony has appointed Philip Reitinger, formerly director of the US national cyber security center, as its chief information security officer. Kaz Hirai announced the new position in May, in the aftermath of the attack on PSN that resulted in the personal details of over 100 million users being compromised. While Hirai said at the time that the incumbent would report directly to chief information officer Shinji Hasejima, instead Reitinger is to report to general counsel Nicole Seligman.
UPDATE: AMD has provided the following statement: "This past weekend, activation keys associated with free Dirt 3 game vouchers shipping with select AMD products were compromised. These activation keys were hosted on a thirdparty fulfilment agency website, www.AMD4u.com, and did not reside on AMD’s website. Neither the AMD nor Codemasters servers were involved. We are working closely with Steam, Codemasters, and our fulfilment agency to address the situation. AMD will continue to honour all valid game vouchers, however the current situation may result in a short delay before the vouchers can be redeemed." ORIGINAL STORY: Publisher Codemasters has, together with AMD, been running a promotion giving away a download copy of Dirt 3 to purchasers of one of the latter's graphics cards. Kotaku reports that Codemasters had three million codes sitting on a webserver, which was accessed by hackers. One saving grace is that the codes in question were for Steam, which should make it relatively easy to blacklist the stolen codes, and gives Codemasters or Valve the option of banning those who used them.
Well, we didn't see this coming: according to Japanese website Kyoko Shimbun, so strong is Square Enix's faith in Nintendo that the upcoming Dragon Quest X is not just headed to Wii U and Wii, with some unspecified form of 3DS connectivity. It is also in development for the NES. Andriasang has two screenshots which show a battle party of four characters, with an onscreen prompt telling players to connect to the internet. Intriguing.
2Chief designer Tameem Antoniades says odds are stacked against new IP: "The digital revolution can't come soon enough."
4Andriasang brings word from Nikkei that Sony's stock, which has been falling for the last three days, has now hit its lowest level of the year, which one investment manager pinned on yesterday's announcement that Dragon Quest X is headed to Wii and Wii U. Investors are a fickle bunch, and concern over the potential impact on Sony's game business should not be taken as a sign that the financial community is leaning back towards Nintendo. Square Enix's shares fell ten per cent day on day, presumably a result of the company putting all its eggs in the basket of a company whose share price has been in and out of the doldrums for the past few months.
Deep Silver has sent out an extensive list of fixes that comprise the day-one patch for Dead Island, the zombie shooter which is released today in North America and on Friday in Europe. Destructoid has the full list, which contains the likes of "fixed enemy reaction to fire," "fixed the infinite respawning of shooting enemies," and "fixed bug causing all inventory to disappear."
Organisers have announced the ten titles that will be on the Tokyo Game Show floor later this month as part of Sense Of Wonder Night 2011. Now in its fourth year, the event features creators demonstrating their games, with translators on hand to break down the language barrier. This year's indie games are Eufloria, I'm Gonna Be God Of The Forest, Inside A Star-Filled Sky, KuraKuraMaze, Leedmees, QUBE, Reflow, Solstice, Spruzel and Taplib.
US game journalism pioneer Kunkel was a co-founder of Electronic Games magazine, and his Game Doctor columns were fan favourites in the likes of EGM and Computer Gaming World. For 1UP's in-depth obituary, follow the source link below.
There's still no word on a western localisation for this, the PS3 incarnation of the Level 5 / Studio Ghibli collaboration that was released on DS last year. And, the more we see of it - and the Ni No Kuni model PS3 that was revealed last week - the more we simply must have it. Beautiful stuff.
Avni Yerli says allegations of wrongful dismissal and excessive Crysis 2 crunch are "completely misleading."
Player-elected council chairman slams developer's "folly and neglect" following controversial Incarna update.
5Voting for the 29th annual GamesMaster Golden Joystick awards, run by Edge parent Future Publishing, remains open and there's now even greater incentive to vote as five Alienware laptops have been added to the prize fund. UK and US residents who vote in all 14 award categories will be in with a chance of winning an Alienware M14x laptop, Sony PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, a selection of Golden Joystick Award nominated games (as shown in the video below) and peripherals. Four runners up will also receive a laptop, along with a selection of games. You can vote by visiting http://www.goldenjoystick.com or Alienware's competition site below, where you'll find more details on the M14x. Have your say ahead of the awards ceremony in October.
1The publisher has promoted former VP of business and legal affairs Clinton Foy to chief operating officer, and charged him with leading its continued expansion into mobile and social games. President and CEO Mike Fischer told Gamasutra: "One of the key new responsibilites of the COO role will be to shape and drive more aggressive business development initiatives in free-to-play, social, mobile, browser and emerging platforms. Clinton’s valuable experience makes him uniquely qualified to lead our organisation in these important areas." Square Enix will hold a 30-minute presentation on the first day of the Tokyo Game Show which will focus exclusively on its efforts in the social and mobile sectors.
Indie studio Big Block Games is developing an RPG from prototype to final build in 14 days to help gaming charity Child's Play. Those that donate to the charity during development are given various perks including the ability to name a monster in the game and a DRM-free copy of the final product, with special awards for the highest donors. The team is extensively blogging about its work during its frantic fortnight, and is uploading builds and documentation as development progresses. At the time of writing, they're on day five, with the biggest donation so far standing at $500.
1Game Group is to no longer sell older model second-hand Xbox 360s, according to an internal memo passed to Eurogamer. It reads: "As of Saturday September 3 we will not be selling pre-owned Xbox 360 Cores, Arcades and 20GB non-HDMIs. This is due to the high failure rate of the console and the difficulty and cost of repairing them." While the retailer will continue to accept trade-ins of the older models, they will be returned to its distribution centre "as a regular faulty return where they will exit the business."
Last year the Japan Game Awards - the ministry of economy, trade and industry's annual celebration of the country's videogame industry - gave its inaugural Game Designers Award to Heavy Rain. The award is chosen by 12 of the nation's most respected developers, and the panel charged with selecting this year's winner has been announced. And it's quite a list, headed by Masahiro Sakurai and including Fumito Ueda, Ryutaro Takahashi, Hideki Kamiya, Jin Fusijawa, and Shinji Mikami. Any game released in Japan between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011 is eligible, with the winner to be announced at the Japan Game Awards ceremony on September 15, the first day of the Tokyo Game Show.
The Metal Gear Solid creator took to Twitter this morning to reveal that the upcoming PS3 remake of 2010 PSP title Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will support online co-op for up to four players, and runs at a solid 60 frames per second. The game is being released as part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which also contains Metal Gear Solids 2 and 3, plus the first two MSX games, and is due for release in the west in November.
Says terms demanding feature and release date parity are holding back creativity for the sake of "protecting an inferior technology."
17Transhuman nods to 4chan and Demolition Man, and do game reviewers need to be good at games?
1Square Enix title retains number one despite falling sales as Bodycount gets off to a dismal start.
2Online RPG, announced for Wii in 2008, now also headed to its successor with cross-platform play.
Team Bondi falls, while COD rises - a week in videogame news.
Infinity Ward kills the killstreak and puts greater emphasis on tactics and teamwork.
6Christofer Sundberg says developers and publishers need to stop complaining about piracy and punishing legitimate consumers.
4She does "great grunting", first 3D film was made in 1972.
Find your future at Crytek, Codemasters or Ninja Theory on the game industry's premier recruitment board.
1Plans for more Montreal, Upper Heng Sha, and India dropped due to the work involved: "We could fill an Ikea catalogue with all the furniture we designed."
4Nintendo is to publish a localised version of Ubisoft's Wii dance game, which together with its sequel has sold more than 14 million units worldwide. But this is no straight translation: instead Nintendo has licensed a host of J-pop songs ahead of its release on October 13. Follow the source link below for a list of artists and songs that have been confirmed so far.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey revealed that the studio's thirdperson, action adventure Call Of Duty was shelved at the prototype stage because the studio wanted to work on Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward. "We were working on it for about six months," he said. "We had a prototype together that was pretty compelling, and it looked really good. [But] the opportunity to work on the biggest thing in the industry with Infinity Ward was just an opportunity we couldn't [miss]." With some of Sledgehammer's staff having worked on previous games in the series, and others confirmed fans, Condrey described the decision to switch to Modern Warfare 3 as "a nice marriage of experience in the genre and a kind of fan desire to work on this franchise."
The publisher's European head Kunio Neo has said that the UK market will struggle unless retailers stop the aggressive price cutting of recent releases. "UK games pricing is very poor," he told MCV. "Retailers are always reducing prices and the profits for publishers are getting smaller. The UK is really suffering." Konami's European GM of sales, marketing and products, Martin Schneider, gave a rather blunt assessment: "Tell the UK shops to stop the price war."
4Corpse Party was originally an amateur project developed in RPG Maker, but it was picked up by 5pb and subsequently remade for PSP. Its 16-bit, anime-styled visuals conceal what appears to be a thoroughly unsettling adventure game, set in "a haunted elementary school filled with the decaying corpses and tormented souls of countless children who'd mysteriously vanished from the Japanese countryside years, months or sometimes only days prior." The below trailer is mostly text, but still manages to shock, and be warned: there's the occasional disturbing image that might not be especially suitable for the workplace. Xseed will release Corpse Party through PSN this autumn.
Martin Edmonson, founder of Driver San Francisco developer Ubisoft Reflections, has thrown his weight behind the publisher's controversial always-on DRM that has been a constant source of frustration among PC gamers since its debut last year. "You have to do something," he told Eurogamer. "It's just, simply, PC piracy is at the most incredible rates. This game cost a huge amount of money to develop, and it has to be, quite rightly, quite morally correctly, protected. If there was very little trouble with piracy then we wouldn't need it." Edmonson also defended the recently introduced Uplay Passport, saying: "If people don't buy the game when it first comes out and wait and pay for rental or for second-hand usage, then the publisher sees absolutely nothing of that. [The online pass is] just one of those things we have to get used to. It's going to happen."
3Zynga announced its latest Facebook game, the Indiana Jones-inspired Adventure World, earlier this week, and has gone into more detail on the title in an interview with Gamasutra. Promising greater emphasis on puzzle-solving and storytelling than in previous Zynga games, lead game designer Seth Sivak said: "We love the action-adventure genre, we love games like The Legend Of Zelda, and we want to find a way to make that for everybody." There will also be reduced emphasis on base-building in Adventure World, to encourage players to spend more time exploring the large game world. No firm release date was set, with Zynga only saying it would launch "in the coming weeks."
Square Enix plans to grow the staff count at Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Thief 4 developer Eidos Montreal from 330 to 680 over the next three years, La Presse Affaires reported Thursday (via Montreal Gazette). It said the publisher intends to add 100 new employees by the end of 2012 and the remainder by 2015, making it the city’s third largest studio behind Ubisoft Montreal and Electronic Arts Montreal. Following negotiations with the Quebec government, Square Enix has reportedly been assured a $2 million subsidy from Investissement Québec to facilitate the growth. The news comes a week after the publisher launched the critically acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which debuted atop the UK all formats chart on Tuesday.
Activision has reported a significant increase in digital revenues for the 12 months ended June 2012, driven in part by the increasingly popular Call Of Duty franchise. Speaking during a conference call with analysts today, which was listened in on by Gamasutra, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirschberg said the firm’s online revenues reached $1.7 billion during the period. The figure represents a 22 per cent year-over-year increase from $1.4 billion, and a 41 per cent rise from the $1.2 billion generated during the year ended June 2009. Hirschberg said the publisher has sold 18 million $15 Black Ops map packs to a still growing base of 23 million Black Ops owners. In comparison, Activision shifted 11 million $15 map packs to Modern Warfare 2’s 19 million owners, and nine million $10 map packs to World at War’s nine million owners.
Taking place on November 1 and 2 at the Hilton Bonaventure, the conference will bring together over 80 internationally esteemed industry figures, including Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on the future of the videogame industry, art game maker Jason Rohrer on interactive storytelling and Naughty Dog lead game designer Richard Lemarchand on the making of the Uncharted series. Look out also for Rocksteady's David Hego and Eidos Montreal's David Anfossi on what happens when your studio's debut game is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Click the source link below for the full schedule and registration info.
More users, more purchases and "aggressive expansion" put Howard Stringer in confident, Shakespeare-mangling mood.
5Human Revolution, published in the Nordic territories by Namco Bandai, takes top spot in its first week on shelves.
Tiny RPGs, comedy Fallout and Umbrella on a recruitment drive.
1The French mobile developer's financial results for the six months to June 30 showed profits of €5.3 million (£4.69 million), the same figure it reported this time last year. This comes despite an increase in sales revenue of 15.3 per cent, to €76.8 million (£68 million). Gameloft has chosen to pump an extra €5 million into R&D;, with administration costs also rising, but the firm says it is in a healthy financial position, claiming sales of smartphone and tablet games during the first six months of 2011 were up 55 per cent year on year.
With the recent rush of MMOGs switching to the free-to-play model it's little surprise that Star Trek Online is also getting in on the act: Chinese company The Perfect World, which acquired STO developer Cryptic Studios in May, is a free-to-play specialist. Kelvin Lau, CFO, said on an earnings call: "When Perfect World acquired Cryptic, one of our contributions was to share our free-to-play experience. Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online…to be launched by the end of this year."
Back in March, Ultima IP owner EA issued DMCA takedown orders against websites that were hosting downloads of Richard Garriott's 1985 classic Ultima IV. That fuelled speculation that EA was preparing to bring the series back, but we're yet to hear anything of the sort. Those waiting with bated breath are first advised to resume normal breathing, and then head over to Good Old Games, where Ultima IV is currently available for the princely sum of nothing.
Publisher insists it's business as usual despite laying off one quarter of staff at Mafia II developer.
Id Software's classic shooters have been unavailable in Germany since their release, with the country's Federal Department For Media Harmful To Young Persons putting both games in the same category as pornography. Bethesda Softworks recently appealed the ruling, and it has proven successful. "We are obviously very pleased with this decision," Bethesda's Pete Hines told Joystiq. "Can't give you details on when they will be available in Germany, [but] we'll let everyone know as soon as we know."
Shinrei Camera, a collaboration between Nintendo and Keisuke Kikuchi's team at Tecmo Koei, will make use of the 3DS's AR features in what sounds like a unique spin on the horror genre. The game will ship with an AR notebook, which while looking harmless enough in real life will reveal hidden messages, clues and the odd demonic enemy. "I wasn't all that interested in AR to start with," Kikuchi told Famitsu, "but as I explored the possibilities I really started to get into it. The result is this style of horror that does away with the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural. Compared to previous Fatal Frame titles, though, there isn't as much actual time spent with the game itself, because you'll also be spending time turning pages on the AR notebook and looking around in real life instead of moving your character around within the game." Nintendo is to publish Shinrei Camera in Japan, but there's no news on a release date.
Below is the first picture of the Ni No Kuni Magical Edition PlayStation 3, which will be released in Japan alongside the game itself on November 17. The 160GB console will include a copy of the game, a collaboration between Level 5 and revered Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, and retail for ¥33,780 (£270.60).
Given that Nintendo's share price rose by more than 8 per cent on the back of rumours that it was to host a 3DS trade show a few days before the Tokyo Game Show, it makes sense that the company is to stream the since-confirmed event live on the internet to ensure details spread as quickly as possible. Several new announcements are expected, as Nintendo seeks to capitalise on the momentum it has gathered since the global 3DS price drop came into effect last month. The event, dubbed the Nintendo 3DS Conference 2011, is scheduled for 12pm local time on September 13, and will be streamed through Ustream and Nico Nico video.
Sony has announced the lineup of games it will be showing at the Tokyo Game Show later this month. In addition to an extensive list of titles that have already been announced, the company says it will show three new PS3 games, one for PSP, and 18 for its upcoming handheld, PlayStation Vita, which is set for release in Japan before the end of the year.
In a press conference today following the announcements of Yakuza 5 for PS3, Yakuza Black Panther 2 for PSP and a dedicated internal Yakuza Studio, Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi said that he was planning some major changes in development of Yakuza 5. With the engine used in Yakuzas 3 and 4, and the spinoff Kenzan, showing its age, Nagoshi said that Yakuza 5 would see innovations in both technology and playstyle. As such, development may take some time, and Nagoshi said he hoped fans of the series wouldn't mind the wait. The game may be shown in some form at the Tokyo Game Show later this month, but Nagoshi admitted that he felt the announcement had been made a little early.
LA Noire studio now in external hands and facing a battle to stave off insolvency.
Ten free NES games available through the eShop now.
5