Monthly Archives: April 2009

Blizzard’s released another Starcraft II Battle Report. We’ve it posted below.

It’s over 20 minutes long, and shows the Zerg and the Terrans going at it while the developers tell you what you’re watching.

Long video. You may wanna go grab a snack.

Via Kotaku.

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Kevin Bachus, former head of Xbox and CEO of Infinium Labs – maker of the highly-panned Phantom console – has had a chat with Gamsutra regarding the ill-fated system and how Infinium is trying to bring it back to life.

Bachus is no longer with Infinium, but still has an “empty place in his heart” for the console-that-never-was, and wishes the company all the best in trying to finally bring Phantom to the market.

“I wish them nothing but success,” he said. “I think that for me, there’s kind of an empty place in our heart where Phantom should be because there was tremendous skepticism about the system and a lot of joke-telling and a lot of criticism.

“In some cases, there was also some bitterness and nastiness that was directed at the product, which is unfortunate because for those who actually spent the time to get to understand what we were doing and looked at it, I think they saw something that probably was pretty cool.

“Maybe in a way, it was a little bit ahead of its time because it was attempting to make the whole process of accessing games easier and therefore more accessible to a broader audience.”

He went on to say that he thought the idea of the system is “still very sound”.

More through the link.

SCEA hardware marketing boss John Koller is expecting this year’s E3 to be one of the most significant for the company in the last 11 years.

“It’s going to be a big E3,” Koller told VG247, talking at GDC.

“We’ve just started planning what the announcements will be, but I’ve been here for 11 years: this will be one of the larger E3s in terms of software and just discussions about where we’re going from a brand perspective and where each of the platforms is headed.”

It’s widely rumoured that PlayStation’s biggest brands are going to be megatonning Sony’s E3 press conference in June, and Koller did nothing to dampen expectation.

“I think some of the big announcements are going to come of the software side. We talked a bit at Destination PlayStation, and came out with about half of the PSP line-up, maybe even less, and the balance we’re going to be talking about in the months leading up to e3 and at E3,” he said.

“The same goes for PS3. There’s a really strong line-up of games that’s going to help drive a lot of business.”

Bring. It. On. E3 takes place in LA in the first week of June.

Sega’s MadWorld managed a paltry 66,000 units in the US last month, according to this Gama report.

The Wii game has been well-received in general, hitting 82 percent on Metacritic.

Rockstar’s GTA Chinatown Wars, the big “core” DS game of last month, only managed 89,000 units in the US.

More through there. Thanks, Blerk.

Wolfenstein’s multiplayer is to include Veil powers, Eric Biessman, the game’s creative director at Raven, has told VG247, and if you were a fan of online play in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you’re going to be happy in the new game.

Details have so far been light on the shooter’s online aspects, but we did get the following info.

We asked: You’ve got Endrant working on the game’s multiplayer aspects. How “full” a multiplayer component can players expect? Will the game have any unique multiplay features?

Eric said: At the moment we’re talking about single player and not going too deep into the multiplayer side of things. As we get closer to finishing the game you can expect more information on multiplayer. Until then we can let you know that if you liked the multiplayer in Return to Castle Wolfenstein you will appreciate the multiplayer in Wolfenstein. On top of that, we’re opening up a new game play addition from single-player – the Veil. In single-player, the Veil is this alternate dimension that rests upon reality.

As players progress through the game, they will find a strange artifact that lets B.J., the heroic OSA agent from the previous Wolfenstein games and our main character, step in and out of the Veil. While B.J. is in the Veil he’ll move a little faster, see weak spots on enemies and also be able to find sections of the world that are solid walls in reality but insubstantial while in the Veil. On top of that, B.J. will find several powers in the game that can be used to gain an advantage in combat or make his way around an obstacle. One of the powers we’re talking about is called “Mire.” When B.J. uses Mire he forces the world around him to slow down, getting the drop on unsuspecting enemies, dodging attacks and threading his way through dangerous world events.

And there you have it. The game’s out for PC, 360 and PS3 this summer.

However you dress it up, the 17 percent year-over-year revenue drop for the US games industry announced yesterday is “wince-worthy,” to put it mildly. Worse, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter said today that he expects the gloomy weather to stay with us for “months”.

He said in a note:

We believe investor concern may be heightened, with double-digit negative sell-through implying that the video game consumer has “rolled over”. The weak March results follow strong sales in prior months with last month’s +9%, January’s +10%, December’s +16%, November’s +11% and October’s +35%. In addition, combined next generation console and handheld hardware unit sales were down 19% year-over-year with 2.0 million hardware units sold in the month, giving us less confidence about the a reversal in software sales over the near term, especially given tough comps for the next four months.

And added:

We expect negative market reaction to the sales data. Overall sales were down double-digits for the first time since May 2006, and the year-to-date trend of –2% gives credence to conservative publisher views about the year. We expect investors to trim positions in most video game publisher and retail stocks, and think that lingering concerns about the economy will limit share price appreciation until we see a reversal to positive sales growth. We think that negative sentiment could provide an opportunity, as solid hardware sales over the last several months imply continued software sales strength later in 2009. We expect the negative sales trend to reverse by May, and continue to believe that the video game software sector remains highly recession-resistant.

Got a hat? Hold onto it.

After the break. It’s got all the occult magic, things blowing up and guns you could wish for. We won’t spoil it for you if you don’t want to watch.

If you do, off you go. The shooter’s out for PC, 360 and PS3 this summer. Thanks, Blerk.

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Eurogamer Expo 2009′s shown its face today, promising to announce details of venue, and so on, on May 8.

The event will take place from October 27-31 this year.

The show now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

Go be its “friend”.

Eurogamer’s giving away 2,000 copies of Lord of the Rings Online as part of a two-year birthday promo for the game.

Just hit the link for details. Looks as though it’s going to be a first come, first served thing.

The giveaway’s happening on April 24.

An XBLA version of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is looking pretty much certain after Achievements for the title popped up here and ShopTo starting offering tournament sticks yesterday.

Capcom hasn’t confirmed the game as yet, but has already said there’ll be more 2D fighter reboots to come from the publisher following the release of the HD version of Street Fighter II.

More soon, hopefully. Thanks Gamerbytes and Blerk.

Yet another Batman: Arkham Asylum trailer for you this morning, this one showing off the voluptuous Harley Quinn’s barely-encased waps.

She’s mad, she’s bad, she’s quite fit in a really sad “look at her tits” sort of way.

Looks very good though, innit? After the break. Thanks, Blerk.

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The Pirate Bay’s founders – Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde – have been found guilty of breaking copyright law and sent to prison for a year by a Swedish court.

The site is the biggest file-sharing destination on the internet, and features a huge games section.

In response, Sunde said in a Twitter posting that, “Nothing will happen to TPB, this is just theatre for the media.”

More on the BBC.

The IGA has claimed today that 36 percent of gamers that see an in-game advert go on to seek information about the related product.

The nugget comes from a new promo vid from the agency, viewable here.

The movie also claims that 90 percent of gamers recall brands they’ve seen through in-game adverts.

We’re not lying. Watch and see.

Wii has spent a yet another week below PS3 in terms of Japanese unit sales, and now apears to be in danger of being overrun by Xbox 360. PSP rules the roost this week.

Last week’s chart here. Data for the week ending April 12.

• PSP – 40,886
• DSi – 40,673
• PS3 – 16,701
• Wii – 13,349
• Xbox 360 – 10,134
• DS Lite – 6,869
• PS2 – 4,531

This has got to go down as one of the biggest “whoopses” in recent memory. Cowan analyst Doug Creutz has predicted GTA: Chinatown Wars will only be “marginally” profitable, after the game – the highest rated in GTA’s history – managed to secure only a woeful 89,000 sales in the US last month.

“We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two, and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so),” he said.

“However, the disappointing first month sales reinforce our view that achieving meaningful success on Nintendo platforms remains a very difficult proposition for third party publishers.”

Creutz added that the game had heavily failed to meet expectation.

“Despite a strong critical reception, Take-Two’s GTA: Chinatown Wars sold a very disappointing 89,000 units in March, well below our more recent 200-250,000 estimate and far below the 400-450,000 we thought the title might sell upon its release,” he said.

“Take-Two exported their most valuable IP onto the most widely distributed gaming platform, and created the most highly-rated title in the history of that platform. We knew there were some uphill challenges due to the demographics of the platform, but believed there were enough core gamers/adults owning a DS that the title could still perform very well.

“However, either the demographics are more challenging than we thought, or core gamers did not view the title as an essential purchase due to the nature of the platform.

It’s almost as if all that growth came from “non-gamers,” or something.

Thanks, GI.

Australian politicians have failed to reach a conclusive agreement on whether or not an 18+ rating should be introduced for games in the country, meaning the debate will now be opened to the public.

The move comes after a meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys General (SCAG) in Canberra today.

A paper is to ask Australians to voice opinions on whether or not an R18+ games classification should be introduced.

Once the consultation period expires, it will be up to the Censorship Ministers to decide whether or not to go ahead. Their decision must be unanimous before any changes to Australia’s current classification system can be made.

Come on, Australian people. Just do it. Everyone knows drugs and violence are awesome.

More on Gamespot.

The latest X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer’s after the break, talking through the inclusion of Sabre Tooth in the game and showing the Blob, one of the boss battles.

There’s tons of gameplay in there. You probably know by now whether or not you care.

It’s out for all formats on May 1.

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A “brand new Activision property” is to be revealed in the 202nd issue of Edge, as you can see at the bottom of this piece.

What is it? Let’s guess. DJ Hero? Probably. It’s either that or the Bizarre racer.

AB’s got three new IPs releasing this year: Prototype, Singularity and the Mario Karty thing from Bizarre.

Thanks, DarkZero.

Nintendo’s shares dropped 6.6 percent to close at 26,180 yen yesterday off the back of weak March NPDs, according to this Bloomberg report.

It’s the stock’s biggest drop since February 2.

“The severe sales result in the US prompted disappointment among investors,” said Takagi Securities analyst Shigeo Kikuchi.

“Nintendo had been perceived as one of the winners.”

March Wii sales dropped 17 percent from a year earlier to 601,000, according to last night’s figures.

Criterion’s released another video showing some of the police cars included in Burnout Paradise’s Cops and Robbers update.

Watch the 15 new black and whites screech through the streets below.

Still no word on a release date.

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