Monthly Archives: May 2009

Sales data released from the NPD Group shows that videogames with film tie-ins saw a dramatic sales decrease this year in the US.

According to an article in the L.A. Times, the downward slope for the top franchises for the year had varying factors leading to underwhelming retail performance.

• Activision and DreamWork’s Monsters vs. Aliens has sold just 161,000 units since March 2.

• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, while critically acclaimed, sold around 100,000 units and the less than stellar performance can be blamed being bounced around during the Activision Vivendi merger.

• Disney’s Hannah Montana: The Movie sold just 65,000 units during it’s first three weeks. The article notes that “inexpensive video games aimed at girls, traditionally the foundation of Disney Interactive’s strategy, aren’t consistently hits.”

• Grin’s Wanted: Weapons of Fate has sold only 100,000 units since its launch on March 24 and NPD says that delaying the game for quality reasons, putting it being released much later than the film, had loads to do with the poor sales.

• The Godfather II has sold 241,000 units with the Xbox 360 version taking the fifth spot on the April top ten, but compared to the original game selling 4 million units worldwide, the figures are undesirable.

NPD says that movie tie-ins  have always been a reliable form of sales for publishers, and while Europe has also seen a decline in the sales for the niche, the firm’s unsure if this is a trend or just current market fluctuations.

Thanks, GI.biz.

The Halo Wars: Strategic Options Add-on Pack is now available on Xbox Live.

It contains the three new game modes:  Keepaway which is a capture the flag game; Tug of War sees who can field and maintain the strongest army; and Reinforcements allows you to adapt your tactics with waves of troops.

The add-on will run you 800 MS Points ($10).

More from The Major here.

All Fallout 3 DLC is to be released for PS3, Bethesda said today, including the three previously released episodes and two more upcoming chapters.

“Operation: Anchorage will be released for PS3 in June, followed by the release of The Pitt and Broken Steel 4-6 weeks apart,” said the company in a statement.

“Release dates will be forthcoming.”

Bethesda announced “substantial” DLC exclusively for 360 at E3 last year.

In a subsequent interview, the publisher’s comms boss, Peter Hines, told VG247 that keeping the content away from other consoles “was the right thing to do for Fallout 3.”

The two new episodes announced today are called Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Both will release on PS3, 360 and PC.

Point Lookout features a “massive new swampland area filled with new quests and content,” and will be available in late June for Xbox 360 and PC for 800 MS Points. The PS3 version will release after Broken Steel hits the console.

Mothership Zeta allows you to “experience an alien abduction first hand and find out if you’re tough enough to survive.” Xbox 360 an PC users get it in late July for 800 Points. PS3 gamers will see it after Point Lookout releases.

In addition, three new Fallout 3 products will release on disc over the next six months.

From the press release:

• Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #1 includes The Pitt and Operation: Anchorage on a disc and will be available for Xbox 360 and PC on June 12th across Europe.
• Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #2 includes Broken Steel and Point Lookout on a disc and will be available for Xbox 360 and PC in August across Europe.
• A Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition will be available in October. It will include the original game plus all five add-ons for £39.99 / €59.99 for Xbox 360 and PS3, and £29.99 / €49.99 for PC.

Consider that well and truly milked, then.

Zoe Mode has found space in San Francisco and is expected to open the new office next month with former Sony staff comprised of Mark Danks and Sarah Stocker.

The arm of Kuju’s social games studio, Zoe Mode plans to act as a liaison for North America, and is set to hire an additional 20 staff members by the end of the year.

The firm plans to become a full-time development studio and work on music-based games as well as other genres.

“In addition to the increasingly crowded singing and dancing, peripheral-based music games, we are interested in exploring some new territory,” Zoe’s general manager Ed Daly told GI.biz.

“We have various IPs in development, new IPs that we’re working on at the studio which we’re talking to publishers about and getting into production. They’re still games aimed at a mainstream audience or new type of gamer, but they’re not the in-the-room party games which are becoming more commonplace.”

“Having been in the games industry for so long we have a really good network of people that we’ve always wanted to bring in and work together with,” added Stocker.

“It’s going to be a full-on development studio with its own development staff but one of the things that will work is that we’ll be able to have a real presence for Zoe Mode in San Francisco and on the West Coast to meet with publishing partners as well.”

Former Sony staffer Danks previously held senior positions at Electronic Arts and Stormfront Studios, and while at Sony, Stocker was responsible for bringing SingStar to the US.

More through the link.

Bizzare boss Martyn Chudley said today that upcoming Bizarre racer Blur is to put fun back into the genre.

“We did our homework and saw a huge opportunity to move beyond traditional racers and create a game completely focused on making racing ‘fun’ again,” said Chudley.

“Blur delivers a new style of racing experience for all gamers, regardless of their experience, skill or genre preferences. Everything the player does, both in their cars and with their cars, is a dramatic adrenaline rush; it’s a real blast!”

The game will feature 20 cars replete with offensive and defensive attacks set in real-world locations ranging from LA and San Francisco to Hackney, UK and Barcelona, Spain.

The game also supports four-player split-screen play.

Hackney? It’s out for PC, PS3 and 360 later this year.

Press release after the break.

More »

The Royalty Network has made first mention of something called “Lips Uno”.

The site catalogues licensing and royalty deals in the world of music.

There’s not further information at all. Microsoft has mail. Thanks, Kotaku.

If it’s fanboy action you want today, be watching at 3.00pm BST. We just got an embargoed press release through that’s going to provoke quite a nasty reaction, unless we’re very much mistaken.

We say nothing. Watch the mountains.

Sucker Punch has apparently confirmed on its forum that the French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch versions of inFamous will feature no English language option.

The English version will only have Portuguese and Russian language settings.

This is unlikely to go down well, as you can see from the responses to the mod post, especially with the Dutch. English is spoken very widely in the Netherlands, a factor the drives a highly buoyant games market in the nation.

The decision to split out languages in this way was made after a Sony request, according to that note.

Asking SCEE for comment on this now. The game’s out at the end of May.

Thanks, TheDutchSlayer.

We’re so pumped. ESA’s released the floorplans for E3 this year, showing a streamlined show, but one at least reminiscent of the “glory” days.

The South and West Halls are looking pretty much full up, with Microsoft in the former and Sony and Nintendo taking pride of place in the latter.

On a scale of one to ten, how psyched are you? We’re at fucking 16. The name-taking and gum-chewing starts on June 1.

Thanks, Xboxygen.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival just confirmed its main keynote as Peter Moore.

Said the EA Sports boss: “I am honoured to be invited to deliver the opening keynote at the Edinburgh Games Festival. This event is a milestone on the interactive entertainment industry’s calendar, and I look forward to contributing to this year’s discussions.”

EIF chairman Chris Deering’s quite pleased about it, too: “We are delighted Peter has agreed to give this year’s Keynote. He is one of the industry’s global leaders and his presence at Edinburgh is an indicator of the importance and influence of the Festival.”

The show runs the week of August 10. Press release after the break.

More »

The Assassin’s Creed 2 team stands at around 450 people, producer Sebastien Puel has told NowGamer.

“The team’s size for the second title of Assassin’s Creed 2 is about three times the size of the team of the first game,” said Puel.

“Making [Assassin's Creed] from A to Z took around four years… It’s a very good thing we are keeping most of the core members who envisioned the first Assassin’s Creed. They know the project very well.”

Apparently, “thousands of ideas” not implemented in the first game are making their way to the sequel.

Watch for more from E3.

The swine flu fear that kept Keiji Inafune away from Nordic Game this week may also affect the firm’s showing at E3, according to this Develop report.

“I can’t tell you right now who from Capcom Japan is attending E3,” said a rep. “A decision on who from Japan is coming will be made nearer the time.”

It was confirmed yesterday that the developer was to stay in Japan this week through fears he may catch pig fever… and die.

Not really. Cross your fingers for LA.

Grasshopper’s redesigned its site to include first mention of a partnership with Square Enix, Siliconera reports.

That’s it, pretty much. Here’s a list of Mr 51′s business relations at the moment:

• ASCII CORPORATION -> The Silver Case
• CAPCOM CO.,LTD. -> killer7
• ELECTRONIC ARTS INC. -> Untitled horror game
• MARVELOUS INTERACTIVE INC. -> Contact / No More Heroes
• NAMCO BANDAI Holdings inc. -> Samurai Champloo / Blood+ One Night Kiss
• Q ENTERTAINMENT INC. -> Untitled horror game
• SEGA CORPORATION -> Shining Soul II
• SPIKE CO.,LTD., -> Michigan: Report from Hell
• SQUARE ENIX CO.,LTD. -> ???
• TECMO,LTD -> Fatal Frame IV
• UBISOFT ENTERTAINMENT -> No More Heroes

APB-Evolved has posted a new screen of Realtime Worlds MMO APB, along with apparent confirmation that we’re going to see the game at E3.

The site’s received a note from community manager Ulric, reading thus:

“Hi everyone at APB-Evolved, we just wanted to quickly say thanks for all your patience recently whilst we’ve been quietly pushing forward with the development of APB.

We know this can be frustrating for fans, so to show our appreciation we have decided to inform you guys that yes we WILL be at E3 this year and this will mark the start of lots more news, activities and information coming out about APB: All Points Bulletin.

Here is a brand new screenshot made especially for you guys to give you another look at the awesome character customizations that will make up a large part of APB.

See you all at E3.

Microsoft press conference for the win. Hopefully. We’ll check with Realtime this morning.

Sony may have settled its patent case with Immersion of DualShock rumble, but it’s not out of the woods yet. Craig Thorner, an engineer who held a few patents related to the firm’s rumble tech, is now suing Sony, claiming the PlayStation-maker colluded with another firm to make him accept “unfavourable terms” in the Immersion case, one he appeared in as a witness.

The Immersion case dragged to a close in 2007, but Thorner claims he was hoodwinked by a group of lawyers who were acting for Sony at the time.

There’s a summary on Patent Arcade. Thanks, Kotaku.

Sony’s to add PlayStation Eye and Cloud saving support to the PS3 version of Echochrome, according to Siliconera.

The game now allows players to use PS Eye to film themselves in-game. Replays with the picture-in-picture window can be saved to your hard drive or uploaded directly to YouTube.

The update’s happening on Thursday in Japan. No word on a western version yet.

A Chinese firm is sending out cease and desist letters to sites in an effort to get “slim PS3″ shots removed from the intertubes.

Kotaku, Engadget and Spong all got them.

The firm’s looking for removal of “some confidential document and photos, which were highly possibly illegally released and posted”.

Good luck with that, Chinese firm.

Valve’s posted up a bunch of new Spy Achievements for Team Fortress 2, following the accidental release of the “Meet the Spy” video over the weekend.

Looks as though someone got donkey-punched over that. Look at the bottom of that page:

“UNLOCKED – Welcome to the internets: Fail to understand what ‘Private’ means on YouTube.”

Rock band Wii gets 25 new tracks today, just in case you were running out of steam with the other 58 billion.

My Sharona and Ever Fallen in Love are in there, which is nice.

They’re $2 each. Get the full list after the break.

More »

3D Realms has just issued a statement saying the firm is an ongoing concern and has not closed.

It was widely reported that the developer bit the dust earlier in May thanks to a lack of funding.

“Despite rumors and statements to the contrary, 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing,” said the firm.

“3DR retains ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th, while we regroup as a company.

“While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise.”

3DR has also responded to a lawsuit filed against it by Take-Two, which said the publisher was out of pocket to the tune of $12 million over Forever.

“Take-Two never paid 3DR advances or any signing bonus or any other funds related to DNF, up until July 2008, at which time they paid $2.5m in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game,” the statement read.

“This is the sum total Take-Two has paid 3DR in connection with DNF.”

The full thing’s on Shacknews.