Monthly Archives: February 2009

Sega’s posted a teaser site for something called Project Ringo, as you can see here.

“Ringo” is Japanese for “apple,” apparently.

More info’s promised on February 24.

Square’s finally released its latest set of financials, cutting its full-year income forecast by 62.5 percent.

Sales will come in at 16.9 percent lower than previously thought, the company said.

Net sales for the nine months ending December 31 were 103,488 million yen, with net income at 5,259 million yen.

The firm also confirmed a significant slip for Dragon Quest IX this morning.

Thanks, Kotaku and GoNintendo.

Square’s officially delayed Dragon Quest IX.

Confirmed by a statement on its site, the slip will see the DS game moved from its March 28 date in Japan to July 11.

A major game slip was rumoured when the company delayed the reporting of its financials last week.

The next Wolfenstein game will release this summer, Acti Blizz confirmed last night.

The Raven shooter will release for PC, PS3 and 360.

Again following the adventures of B.J. Blazkowicz, the shooter combines all the Nazi horror stuff the series is famed for. Only a good thing.

For the rest of the new from last night’s Q4 earnings call, hit this.

Square Enix has made official an £84.3 million bid for Eidos.

The Eidos board has agreed to recommend the offer to shareholders, which is worth 32 pence per share.

The price represents a premium of 258 per cent over the price at the time the offer was made, January 14, and a premium of 91 per cent over the price average of the last three months.

Said Square boss Yoichi Wada: “Eidos is a talented developer and publisher of interactive entertainment products with a broad portfolio of highly successful mass market franchises, led by Tomb Raider, one of the most successful videogame franchises of all time.

“Eidos maintains a strong reputation for high quality development and proven expertise in creating characters and storylines that appeal to consumers. Eidos’ products are highly complementary to our business and will accelerate our aggressive expansion into Western markets.

“We believe that wide range of both companies’ quality products encompassing major genres will enable us to meet diversified customers’ expectations upon a global basis.”

This is all part of Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada’s push to go “global”.

More on GI.

It’s a jungle out there, Ringo. Thousands of stories. So little time. Let us ease your pain by telling you what happened in Activision Blizzard’s financial call last night in one easy list.

Read the below. Now you know everything. That was simple, wasn’t it?

• Acti Blizz revenues up 26% for 2008, income up 21%
• Acti Blizz – Wii to sell 16 million next year, 360 and PS3 8 million each
• Acti Blizz earnings call – full transcript posted
• Blizzard: StarCraft II beta launching in “the coming months”
• Bizarre racer confirmed for Q4 launch
• Acti Blizz Q4: Music games are huge, new Guitar Hero for DS and consoles in 2009
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 confirmed for Q4
• Racing game and “the next Bond” both in dev at Bizarre Creations
• Kotick: A disciplined strategy won’t include “wholesale layoffs” in 2009
• Acti delays Bond to avoid competition with new Call of Duty

New Wolfenstein to release this summer

Activision president Mike Griffith last night said the firm expects big increased in console sales next year, with large sales rises for both under-the-TV and handheld hardware.

“For calendar year 2009, we expect the installed base of hardware in North America and Europe will be up 8 million units for the PS3 and up 8 million units for the Xbox 360,” he said.

“We expect the Wii to add more than 16 million units.”

DS and PSP will show huge growth, said the exec.

“We expect handhelds will grow in excess of 21 million units.”

The company last night reported revenues of $5 billion for 2008, up 26 percent on the previous year.

Seeking Alpha’s posted up the entire transcript from last night’s Activision Blizzard Q4 earnings call, which should come in handy if you’re confused about the fact that Bizarre Creations is working on two games, and not just a racer.

There’s plenty of stuff in there. Get all our coverage from last night here.

Konami’s confirmed that Suikoden: Tierkreis, the latest iteration of the Suikoden series, will “expand the bounds of the handheld RPG” when it is released for DS in the US on March 17.

Players will be able to send their character to another player’s parallel world through WiFi and be hired to complete quests.

When the quest is complete or time is up, the original player will receive the outcome with their character.

Sounds different.

More details below.

More »

Talismoon has announced a new guitar controller, shaped like the Gibson Flying V, called the “Rock Thunder Guitar.”

What’s cool about it is its compatibility with all versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band for Wii. And it’s wireless, has a five position switch for choosing guitar effects, and a tactile feedback strum bar.

The best part? It has its very own motion sensor which means that you do NOT have to insert your Wiimote into the guitar when playing Rock Band (sorry Guitar Hero).

Rock on.

More pics and info through the link at top.

(Thanks, Joystiq)

505 Games and FilePlanet are joining forces on the multiplayer beta for Men of War.

Registered users at FilePlanet are now able to download the WWII RTS’s beta before anyone else.

Once in, players can challenge others to 16-player multiplayer matches in four different modes, including Battle Zones, Capture the Flag, Combat and Combat FFA.

The beta includes nine maps spanning Europe and North Africa, and you can choose to fight for four different nations (Britain, Soviet Union, America, and Germany) each with its own unique units, vehicles and missions.

The Men of War beta is available to download now. The full game will be released exclusively on PC by 505 Games under the 1C Label in February.

Blockbuster is to add game rentals to its Total Access online service.

The service will be in testing until it goes live sometime in July, although this all may be too little too late: competitor Netflix gained 718,000 subscribers in the last quarter alone.

More through here.

The British Conservative Party’s issued a withering attack on Gordon Brown’s cabinet for failing the UK games industry after the WTO failed to uphold claims of unfair business practices by the Canadian Government.

“The Government’s strategy for videogames has been shown to be nothing more than a sham,” said Ed Vaizey MP, shadow videogames spokesman. “For months, whenever we have pressed the Government for action, they have used the excuse that the issue had been referred to the WTO. Now they no longer have this excuse.

“As the games industry itself says, the Government now ‘stands naked, bereft of a credible fiscal policy with which to support the sector,’” he added.

Canadian tax breaks are at the root of all the bother, incentives, the UK games trade says, that are causing a decline in the British industry.

“The Government must act now to support an industry that is world-beating, job-creating and at the heart of our creative industries,” continued Vaizey.

“After nine reviews of the creative industries, and eight more in the pipeline, the Government’s dithering has now been exposed as causing real damage.”

Genco Interactive announced today new songs for Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, a 7 Studios rhythm-action title expected for summer release.

The setlist will have 60 different tracks. Some of the announced include:

• Kanye West – Flashing Lights
• Beastie Boys – Intergalactic
• The Black Eyed Peas – Let’s Get it Started
• Tech N9ne- Slacker
• Eric B. and Rakim – Don’t Sweat the Technique

Other artists will include: Deltron 3030, Nelly, Run DMC, and The Gorillaz.

The devs have received creative and technical input from Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys, who will also provide tracks from his upcoming solo project for the game.

Scratch will feature urban environments, customizable DJ personalities and a turntable style controller created by DJ equipment manufacturer Numark.

Press release after the jump.

More »

Title says it all, really.

Blizzard COO Paul Sams just said the StarCraft II beta will take place in “the coming months.”

“The beta will be played on a basic version of our new Battle.net architecture, which will give us the opportunity to test the game and the service in a live environment. Over time, we’ll be adding features to deliver a second-generation Battle.net experience.”

Also, more World of Warcraft content is expected for the year, with test realms and updates still using actual players.

Mention was also made of “unannounced MMO” which is still in the “no comment” area.

The news came as part of Activision’s fourth quarter earnings call.

Good stuff there.

Acti Blizz has confirmed that Bizarre Creation’s secret racing game – reportedly a James Bond title – will release in the fourth quarter of 2009.

No details were given for competitive reasons.

The news came as part of Activision’s fourth quarter earnings call.

A new Guitar Hero DS game is to be expected in 2009, along with another Guitar Hero game for consoles, which Activision said will be announced at a later date.

Guitar Hero as a franchise will receive a "major re-staging" in the fourth quarter of 2009, the company said.

Guitar Hero has an install base of 32 million worldwide, the firm said, and outsold Rock Band four-to-one in the US despite supply constraints.

GH was the number one selling franchise in Europe with a 122 percent increase in holiday sales.

Activison said the genre is generally robust, and consumers will be accommodated by the release of different music genres to its games.

The company expects the music kit game install base to grow by 53 million units in the coming year, and new users to franchise have broadened the demographic and want more variety.

To help the company accomplish their growth in the Guitar Hero franchise, in Europe it will include more Euro bands.

The company said the release of DJ Hero will be innovative and take franchise in new direction.

In addition, a greatest hits compilation will be released, and with Metallica being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this will help the sales of the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica, which is set for a March release. The PS2 version will arrive a bit later on.

Acti Blizz just confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will release in the fourth quarter of this year.

No details on the Infinity Ward title were given, but an exec said he believed the game will be the most anticipated for the end of 2009.

The news came as part of Activision’s fourth quarter earnings call.

Activision Blizzard just confirmed that both a racing game “and the next Bond” are in development at Bizarre Creations in the UK.

A company exec said the racing game, reportedly another James Bond title, will release in 2009.

The news came as part of Activision’s fourth quarter earnings call.

Activision Q4 2008 numbers are rolling in. Here’s what we know so far.

• Reported a net loss of $72 million, or 5 cents a share.

• Adjusted revenue was $2.3 billion which was much more than they predicted, and more than $2.15 billion which Wall Street estimated.

• Forecasting  a 2009 adjusted profit of 61 cents per share for adjusted revenue of $4.7 billion for 2009 (includes negative impact of $400 million from a stronger US  dollar).

• Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War games were the No. 1 and No. 2 console games, respectively, in North America and Europe in the fourth quarter, according to NPD.

• World of Warcraft was the top-selling PC game in those regions 2008.

Call is still on going so more will be announced soon, so stick with us.

(Reuters)