Monthly Archives: February 2009

A February release date for Puzzle Quest: Galactrix on DS was confirmed today, along with the confirmation that a PC version would arrive simultaneously.

An XBLA version isn’t 100 percent confirmed yet. February 24 lands on a Tuesday, which would mess up “the whole Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday thing” we have come to expect, says Joystiq.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter has told VG247 he believes EA CEO John Riccitiello is the right person to lead the firm, through its current economic quagmire, but only on his earnings call performance last night.

“I think that the John Riccitiello who spoke last night is definitely the right person,” said the analyst.

“The Riccitiello who was aloof and unconcerned on prior earnings calls was the wrong person.”

EA announced a shocking $641 million loss for the three months ending December 31 yesterday, but Pachter told us today that Riccitiello’s admission of failure – as well as the fact he’s a “bright guy” – means he’s got what it takes to stay on top.

“In my view, he’s a bright guy with a ton of experience and is sufficiently conscientious to lead the company,” he said.

“All that was lacking was the desire to balance between future growth and current success (requiring recognition that the prior strategy was misguided), and the man who spoke yesterday sounded self-aware, accountable, and determined to get the job done.”

For all the news from the financial release, hit this.

Codemasters has launched a “Refer a Friend” programme for Lord of the Rings Online, giving you Amazon vouchers if you press gang people you know into spending what remains of their sorry lives in a virtual Middle Earth.

Visit this page and enter your friends’ email addresses to send them a personal invitation to a 14-day free trial and a 25 percent discount off the game.

If they go on to create a full acount, you get either a a £5 or €5 Amazon voucher.

Astonishing. Press release after the break.

More »

MMOs will now be classified in Australia in the same manner as single-player games, the Sydney Morning Herald’s reported this morning, and retailers will no longer be able to sell online games that haven’t been rated by the OFLC.

The move directly affects sales of the likes of World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, which never applied for OFLC classification as they don’t contain a single-player element.

Just ban everything, Australia. It’d be easier.

More on IGN.

Yours for a mere 1,200 MS Points.

Blurb:

The coin-op classics, R-Type & R-Type II, are together at last! Fight through all 14 Bydo-infested stages in original 2D or all-new 3D graphics – and swap back and forth on-the-fly. Both Classic and Infinite modes can be played as single player or multiplayer missions; either locally or over Xbox LIVE. Power up and strike down the evil Bydo Empire!!

Go shoot something.

Whoops. EA said yesterday that Warhammer Online subscriptions fell to 300,000 in the quarter ending December 31.

The news came as part of the company’s third quarter financial release.

Mythic claimed the MMO had 750,000 registered players in October last year.

Thanks, Massively.

According to the latest Famitsu, Atlus is working on he verge of releasing a tremake of the original Persona for PSP.

Persona is a “complete remake” of the 13 year-old PlayStation game. It has more save points, difficulty options and new cutscenes.

It’s out in Japan on April 29.

More on Kotaku.

Former Haze creative lead Derek Littlewood has told VG247 this morning that a now-confirmed sale of Free Radical to Crytek has brought “relief” to the UK firm.

“It’s clearly a really, really good thing,” he said.

“More than anything else I think everyone is relieved that we can now get back to concentrating on making games.”

A Crytek sale was rumoured last night and confirmed by Free Radical administrator ReSolve Partners this morning.

Free Radical entered administration at the end of last year, shedding 100 jobs over Christmas.

A formal announcement of the sale is expected later today.

Administrator ReSolve Partners has confirmed last night’s rumoured sale of Free Radical to Crytek.

“We are pleased to announce that a sale completed to Crytek late last night thus preserving over 40 jobs,” said a spokesperson.

A formal announcement is expected later today.

Thanks, GI.

It’s the third quarter financial release that keeps on giving. EA showed off market share for the US and Europe as part of its figures statement yesterday, revealing its slice of the European games pie dropped to 16 percent in the three months ending December 31, compared to 19 percent in the previous year.

American share as up slightly, however, to 20 percent from 18 percent previously.

Full thing on Kotaku.

EA announced a shellshock $641 million loss for the third quarter yesterday, and the redundancies of 1,100 staff. All news from the release here.

FIFA 09 has sold 7.8 million copies to date, EA CFO Eric Brown said in the firm’s Q3 conference call last night, conflicting an NPD joint-report on global sales last year.

The stats group claimed the top five sellers in the UK, US and Japan didn’t include the game, instead pointing to Mario Kart, Wii Fit, GTA IV, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and CoD: World at War as the main titles in 2008.

Brown also claimed that Need for Speed Undercover had sold 5.2 million copies.

More on Edge.

EA had a rare old time yesterday, confirming a giant Q3 loss, the dropping of 1,100 staff and plenty more to boot. Videogames news gold, it was.

There’s no need to trudge through your newsreader or read “other sites,” to be honest. It’s all below.

• EA posts $641 million Q3 loss, will close 12 facilities
• EA’s Q3 earnings call – the full transcript posted
• Riccitiello: Wii to get “half our emphasis”
• Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge hit 1 million mark
• Godfather II pushed into fiscal 2010
• Battlefield Heroes to release before April 2009
• Left 4 Dead rakes in 1.8 million in retail
• EA: Sequels will be 2010’s big hitters, says JR
• Dead Space confirmed for Wii
• New Battlefield and multi-format Mass Effect 2 for 2010
• Sims 3 suffers four-month delay
• Dragon Age pushed back to “last half of 2009″

On Seeking Alpha. There’s plenty of good stuff in there, if you were “in bed” when this happened last night, so you could do worse than pick over the bones with your coffee.

Find all our news from the call here.

Speaking in EA’s Q3 earnings call last night, CEO John Riccitiello confirmed a heavy switch towards publishing Wii games in the coming year.

EA’s goal, he said, is to “rival Nintendo on their own platform” and “get noticed [on Wii] in ways that no other third party will.”

JR added: “Nintendo is the leader; they’re getting half our emphasis in terms of title counts.”

Riccitiello confirmed a Dead Space SKU for Wii in the call, as well as describing the games industry as three “buckets”: online games, Wii games, and Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games.

The EA CEO says he places the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in the same “bucket” because “the lion’s share of titles developed for those platforms are common.”

More on Gamasutra.

US site Shacknews has been bought by GameFly, as confirmed here.

Fileshack’s gone with it. The outlet was formed in 1995. No financials terms were disclosed.

“GameFly has demonstrated a true understanding of and commitment to Shacknews’ gaming culture,” said Shacknews founder Steve Gibson.

“We are confident GameFly will protect the legacy and community we’ve established, while at the same time providing much needed resources to expand into new and exciting areas that would not otherwise be possible.”

Full details through there.

Haze writer Rob Yescombe has apparently confirmed to 1UP that Free Radical is to be bought by Crytek.

Free Rad hit trouble just before Christmas last year, laying off 100 employees over the break.

The fate of the company is to be announced this week. Sounds as though it already has.

Thanks, Johnny Cullen.

EA CFO Eric Brown confirmed in the publisher’s Q3 earnings conference call today that Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge both sold over 1 million copies each in 2008.

The figure includes sales for each port of both games, excluding the PC version of Mirror’s Edge, as it was only recently released.

No mention was made on the rumored sequels for each game, but EA bossman John Riccitiello did state that “games with a two on them sell better”.

Slated to be released February 24 for PC, PS3 and 360, The Godfather II will instead be hitting retail shelves sometime during the 2010 fiscal year.

EA stated during its Q3 conference call today that it wanted to release the game at a later date to build more excitement around the title.

No exact release date was given in the call.

According to financial statements released by EA tonight, free-to-play DICE shooter Battlefield Heroes will release before the end of the company’s financial year in April.

The game has bee delayed several times, and recently entered yet another beta phase.

The news arrives on the back of Q3 losses to the tune of $641 million.

Thanks, Shacknews.

People love to shoot zombies – 1.8 million of them do, anyway.

Valve’s Left 4 Dead has made significant sales at retail since launching last year, EA said in its Q3 2009 earnings call today.

The number is a total for 360 and PC versions. No figures were divulged copies sold through Steam.

But then, why would they? Dur.