Monthly Archives: May 2009

Epic tech legend Tim Sweeney’s told Gama that absolute graphical realism is games is a mere decade away. Well, a decade and a bit.

“There are two parts to the graphical problem,” he said when asked if games would ever achieve a “100%” movie-like quality.

“Number one, there are all those problems that are just a matter of brute force computing power: so completely realistic lighting with real-time radiosity, perfectly anti-aliased graphics, and movie-quality static scenes and motion.

“We’re only about a factor of a thousand off from achieving all that in real-time without sacrifices. So we’ll certainly see that happen in our lifetimes; it’s just a result of Moore’s Law. Probably 10-15 years for that stuff, which isn’t far at all. Which is scary — we’ll be able to saturate our visual systems with realistic graphics at that point.”

The second issue, however, isn’t so easy to fix.

“But there’s another problem in graphics that’s not as easily solvable,” Sweeney added.

“It’s anything that requires simulating human intelligence or behavior: animation, character movement, interaction with characters, and conversations with characters. They’re really cheesy in games now.

“A state-of-the-art game like the latest Half-Life expansion from Valve, Gears of War, or Bungie’s stuff is extraordinarily unrealistic compared to a human actor in a human movie, just because of the really fine nuances of human behavior.”

More through there.

IGN’s Twitter‘s confirmed a Memorial Day reveal for High Voltage’s new game.

Looks like another Wii effort, assuming “Matt” is Herr Casamassina.

The developer’s post-Conduit project was supposed to be an E3 announcement, but you’d better get used to seeing everything first on IGN in the next few weeks. It’s the way of things.

We’ll drop you a line when it’s up.

More aural tat for Wii Rock Band this week, in the form of 25 tracks from the liks of The Police, Ministry, David Bowie and others.

Do you all actually buy any of this?

Some nice person’s written a press release including the list of songs. Read it after the break.

More »

Q’s Dylan Cuthbert just confirmed the name of PixelJunk 1-4 as PixelJunk Shooter.

The moniker’s the result of a naming competition that drew more than 10,000 entries.

A demo’s promised for E3, and Cuthbert’s confirmed co-op play in that post.

Have a read.

Seriously. While he may not be a real Major, Nelson’s off to Iraq for the stunningly-titled I-ROQ Baghdad event, the second RockBand 2 tournament being held at Victory Base in Baghdad, Iraq.

The contest’s been ongoing since May 17 for military personnel serving in the country.

We’re not lying. Click the link.

GSC’s Oleg Yavorsky has told RPS that STALKER followers can expect a full range of new environments in the next in the shooter series.

“We will present a complete set of new locations in Call of Pripyat,” said the developer.

“This includes the Pripyat river basin and its rusty fleet standing still for over 20 years now, the Kopachi village completely buried after the accident, Jupiter factory located on the outskirts of Pripyat, the railway station Yanov, and, to crown it all – an entire district of Pripyat, modeled in its real scope.

“Many players have repeatedly asked us to implement Pripyat in the game, so we decided to satisfy their wish.”

Yavorsky said the title will top both the vaunted original and battered sequel, Clear Sky.

“I think Call of Pripyat will be the most photo-realistic, and hence, atmospheric S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game of all three,” he said.

It’s out this autumn. There’s a full interview through there.

Capcom CFO Kazuhiko Abe revealed at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Tokyo last week that Resident Evil 5 has shipped 5 million units globally, Reuters reports.

Abe said that the action title sold 4.4 million units in March and in the “month of April, sales came to as many as 570,000 units.”

The Capcom chief financial officer also spoke of how the company is seeking growth overseas: “We aim to achieve 10 percent growth in sales and hit an operating margin of 15 percent each year. But acquisitions are not how we are going to do that, at least for now,” Abe said.

“We plan to strengthen our own business first, and only after completing that process, we will think about things like acquisitions.”

Following Abe’s comments, shares in Capcom closed up 4.1 percent at ¥1,774.

BioWare has just updated its twitter feed to announce that there will be a big pre E3 show on Spike TV this Thursday.

“Anyone who wants to see more on our games should check out Gametrailers on Spike TV, Thursday at 11pm. Will be a big pre E3 show – Matwood”

Hopefully we’ll get to know more about the “substantial” Mass Effect DLC that was revealed over the weekend.

We’ll bring you everything as it happens.

Eurogamer Italy staff revealed via its forum that all Eurogamer networks apart from EG.de will disclose two big, unannounced games later this week.

According to the forum posts by publishing director Alberto “Eldacar” Belli, the official reveal is set to take place at E3 but Eurogamer will publish two hands-on’s this Wednesday or Thursday.

How exciting!

Dead Space: Extraction executive producer, Steve Papoutsis, told VG247 that the team will not be taking advantage of the Wii SDHC storage solution meaning, that no downloadbale content is planned for the game.

“I don’t think we have any plans for that right now,” said Papoutsis. “It’s interesting but no.”

Papoutsis has also told us that Extraction won’t be “watered down” and is “confident” of success for the title in spite of the relative failure of other core Wii products.

EA’s Tom French, development lead on The Saboteur, has told VG247 that the game’s colour mechanic was heavily influenced by films like Amelie and Sin City.

“That [the colour scheme] was something that even before we began working on this engine I talked about wanting to do in our Mercs prototype,” he said.

“I was watching Amelie, that’s actually where I had that inspiration moment and I was like, ‘omg, just flip it over and make it black and white’ and then obviously looking at Sin City for reference really enchanced that and made it work better in the game,” French added.

The Saboteur is shaping up rather nicely and hopefully we’ll see more at… well, you know the rest by now.

Some of these are new, and some are old, but they all look lovely nonetheless.

We’re expecting to see more media from this PS3 exclusive hack’n'slaher at E3 next week, but these high res shots should do for now.

Take a look below.

More »

According to the AP, Sony has said it will be halving the number of parts suppliers it uses in order to reduce overheads.

It aims to lower buying costs by 20 percent, or 500 billion yen ($5.3b/£3.4b) throughout the year.

In order to achieve this goal, Sony will limit the number of parts suppliers it uses about 2,500 now to about 1,200.

Earlier this year, research firm iSuppli said that although Sony cut the cost of PS3 hardware from $690.23 to $448.73 due to a general decline in component costs, console production was still operating at a loss. This new move is likely to affect the gaming division and bring costs down even further.

“We are fundamentally transforming Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer said.

Thanks, Edge.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Gareth Wilson, Bizarre Creation’s lead designer on new racer Blur, has said that online leaderboards are a bit of a red herring and that he doesn’t think many people care about being number one in the world.

“I think the whole leaderboard thing is a bit of a red herring,” he said. “I don’t think the majority of people really care that much about being number one in the world. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still going to have leaderboards of who’s the best on certain tracks.

“But PGR3 was a good example of this, you could download the world’s best ghost, and you could race against it and at the first corner, it’s gone. Mere mortals such as me couldn’t keep up with that sort of thing.”

How will this be rectified in Blur? Read on.

“What’s going to be much more interesting is in time attack, if you’re in my friends list and you do a best lap, the social network will inform me that you’ve just done a fastest lap on this particular track,” explains Wilson.

“You can send that ghost to me and go, beat that bitch, and then I’ll race it, and then I’m actually playing against someone, probably of comparable difficulty who I’ll actually care about beating.

“You can start trading lap times, and you can have a great big leaderboard of all your friends, all with ghosts that you can play against. You can actually go and select all the people that you want to race against even though they’re not online. That’s so much more inclusive than just downloading the world’s best ghost.”

Full interview through the link.

When Shigeru Miyamoto eventually leaves Nintendo, how will the company cope? Well, in a Q&A session on Nintendo’s Japanese site, president Satoru Iwata explains that although it will be a big loss and that only a handful of people can succeed him.

Certainly, when it comes to identifying and verbalizing some of the important major findings, few people can easily succeed him. For example, few people other than Shigeru Miyamoto can declare that weighing yourself everyday must be fun for everyone. However, the fact that Nintendo software is always full of unique and fun ideas attest to the fact that there are many good game creators at Nintendo. Together with Shigeru Miyamoto, all of them have been making what are called Nintendo software. So, I have never thought that we have not fostered game creators at the company.

Thanks, Siliconera.

The Capcom Unity twitter page, @Capcom_Unity, has said that the second of it’s mystery E3 reveals will not be Devil May Cry 5.

“Hot rumor bust of the day: Capcom E3 Mystery Title #2 is not — repeat, NOT — Devil May Cry 5. Now, what do you think it is?” said the tweet.

Cubed3 has listed all the the hints so far:

• Capcom fact # 1: It’s NOT Devil May Cry 5
• Capcom fact # 2: It’s an action game
• Capcom fact # 3: It’s from an established Capcom franchise
• Capcom fact # 4: It’s not a remake
• Capcom fact # 5: It’s being developed by Capcom Japan

Only a week to go until we find out. We can hardly wait.

In an interview with the Major, Infinity Ward’s Rob “FourZeroTwo” Bowling has said that there are currently 13 million unique Xbox Live users that have sampled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s multiplayer modes.

“The thing we learned the most [from Modern Warfare 1] was how much focus goes into multiplayer,” said Rob when asked about what the team has learned from the first game and will be carrying through to Modern Warfare 2.

“I mean, Call of Duty 4 on Xbox Live just exploded. Right now we’re at 13 million unique users on 360 and that’s insane.

“The focus that goes into multiplayer…and that’s why community specifically, is such a tent pole for Modern Warfare 2.”

Earlier this month, Act-Blizz said in its Q1 earnings call that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare had sold 13 million worldwide across all platforms.

A deluge of new Modern Warfare 2 media was released overnight, including a mouth-watering new trailer. Take a look.

In Joon Wang, brand manager for the Tekken franchise, has told Xbox Live’s Major Nelson that Tekken 6 will have “ground-breaking online modes.”

Unfortunately, all he could reveal at this time was the global online versus mode, but promised more will be revealed at E3 next week.

Tekken 6 will is set for a Q4 release on PS3 and for the first time ever on Xbox 360.

Radio 1 games chap Johnny Minkley’s claimed the old stereotype of gaming as the preserve of apathetic children could obscure the truth that the medium can be a “force for social good”.

“As long as we think of gamers as spotty, slack-jawed boys in dark rooms, then we’ll be blind to what gaming can be – a force for social good, a tool of self-expression, a medium through which people can reach out across barriers of age, sex and culture to cooperate, share, express themselves and, yes, have fun,” he said on the UK radio station.

Minkley cited eye-tracking tech for paraplegics, among other pieces of research, as proof games can be a benefit.

“What if you can’t even hold a joypad? One of the most amazing things that I’ve come across this year is the chairty Special Effect, set up to help kids with disabilities enjoy gaming just like anyone else,” said the presenter.

“Through the use of cutting-edge, eye-reading techniology, even those paralysed from the neck-down are able to play games with their friends as equals.

“The freedom, independence, boost to self-esteem and, above all, fun this brings is priceless.”

Hit this for the full thing. Listen from about 1.26.

Amazon.co.uk has a listing for this rather neat-looking inFamous bundle.

The pack will contain a shiny new 80Gb PS3, the game and will cost a mere £279.99.

You can have it in your hands as early as Friday May 29 so get your pre-orders in now.

Cheers, Joystiq.