Monthly Archives: May 2009

Codemasters has released screens from Superstars V8 Racing.

Eurogamer Portugal has posted 10 of ‘em.

The official car simulation of the Italian championship, developed by Milestone, has vehicles involved in the championship like Audi, BMW, Jaguar, and others.

It’s out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in June.

When Tim Schafer first started pitching Brutal Legend to publishing executives, most asked him to change the heavy-metal themes in it to country or hip-hop, but thanks to the success of Guitar Hero, it didn’t happen.

“When we were first pitching Brütal Legend, it was before the first Guitar Hero game was announced and we were like, ‘There’s this game in a heavy metal world’, [and they said], ‘We like the game, but could we change it to be a hip-hop game, or maybe country music?’,” Schafer told Eurogamer.

“There’s nothing against that music, but it doesn’t have a lore of heavy metal, in terms of a certain kind of mythology that leads to epic, medieval battles.After Guitar Hero came out and [Black Sabbath's] Iron Man was one of the first songs on it, it seemed to expose a whole new generation to that kind of music.

“So by the time we were pitching the game for a second time there was a lot more interest in it being exactly what it is, which is a brutal heavy metal action-adventure.”

You can’t kill the metal. The metal will live on.

More through the link.

It’s the stuff of news dreams. Not only is Richard Garriott suing NCsoft for $24 million, but he’s also claiming he was fired while still in “quarantine from his space flight,” according to this GamePolitics report.

From Garriott’s complaint, filed with a US court yesterday:

In… November 2008, Chris Chung, President of NCSoft’s North American operations, informed Mr. Garriott that NCSoft has decided to “part company.” Although Mr. Garriott objected to his dismissal, Mr. Chung insisted that the decision was final – Mr. Garriott had to go.

As Mr. Garriott prepared to leave NCSoft, however, Mr. Garriott learned that NCsoft had internally re-characterized his termination by Mr. Chung as a “voluntary” resignation from the company. This mischaracterization had profound and detrimental effects on Mr. Garriott’s stock options: if NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott’s employment (which it did) then the options – worth tens of millions of dollars – would remain in effect until 2011; but if Mr. Garriott resigned voluntarily (which he did not), then NCsoft might have terminated those options… within ninety days of his departure…

NCsoft forced Mr. Garriott into a Hobson’s choice of exercising his options… and forced him to sell into one of the worst equity markets in modern history…

More through there. Lesson learned: don’t play cosmonauts if you want to keep your job.

Prototype exec producer Tim Bennison’s told VG247 that the game’s slip to 2009 means gamers will get the project’s original vision.

“Prototype came with a really big original vision and scope,” he said. “That meant we really needed a decent amount of time to pack this game with content, missions, powers, enemies, and polish that it deserved, so the move to 2009 has helped make that a reality.”

Bennison said that Prototype faces stiff competition this summer, but that his now polished title will stand out against the crowd.

“There are many great games coming out in 2009, in both the action categories and the open world categories, though we’ve also got competition from Hollywood this summer as well,” he added.

“As long as we do our job correctly by showing the game to the public as much as possible, and highlighting all of the cool unique powers, upgrades, and challenges, then we’ll feel great about standing-out amongst the competition this summer.”

Good job it didn’t come out last year, innit? It releases for PS3 and 360 on June 12.

Konami is to add Race Mission and Patriot modes to Metal Gear Online this month, both for free.

Race Mission will arrive on May 12, and involved escorting targets.

The Patriot feature arrives on May 26, and selects players to be given rifles with unlimited ammo.

Check the PS Blog for more details on that.

Rockstar just sent out some new shots of Red Dead Redemption ahead of the release of the game’s first movie tomorrow.

The western’s looking fantastic. High hopes for this one.

After the break. It’s out this autumn for PS3 and 360.

More »

Disney Interactive announced a dreary set of Q2 financials yesterday, showing a 17 percent year-on-year revenue drop to $129 million.

Losses held steady at $61 million for the period, down 2 percent from $60 million the previous year.

More on Gama.

Kotaku’s running some screens of the upcoming new 2v2 maps in Dawn of War II.

The first, Medean Cliff Mines, is built around a central hub. The second, Ruins of Argus, is an urban map offering lots house-to-house fighting.

Take a look. They’re out imminently.

Sony just confirmed by press release that it’s to publish the PlayStation platform versions of Ghostbusters in PAL territories.

The PS3 and PS2 SKUs will hit in June. The PSP outing will follow in the “autumn”.

Atari told us this morning that the DS, Wii and 360 versions will follow later in the year.

Get the full thing after the break.

More »

Gears of War movie screenwriter Chris Morgan reckons his film’s looking awesome. We’re shocked.

“A draft went in and we’re talking about it now and we’re budgeting it out,” Morgan told MTV. “It’s looking incredibly good.”

Morgan added: “I think the gamer side is going to be thrilled with it. All the stuff you want to see, we put that in there and then we blow it out a little more, even. Now it’s just a matter of honing in on all of the character arcs and determining production types of things.”

No date on it yet. We will see this film.

An Atari rep has told VG247 that non-PlayStation Ghostbusters SKUs will definitely release later this year.

“We’re still waiting on official dates,” we were told this morning.

It was confirmed earlier that Sony is to publish the PS3, PS2 and PSP versions of the game, and, according to conversations we’ve just had, has a period of exclusivity over the other versions.

It’s worth noting that Ghostbusters is a Columbia IP. Which is owned by Sony. Which is publishing a Blu-ray anniversary version of the movie along with the PS3 and PS2 versions on June 19.

News that the DS, Wii and 360 versions will hit in 2009 will come as relief to many.

A Sony press release is expected this lunchtime BST.

SCEE just confirmed VidZone’s to launch on PS3 this summer.

We did tell you this back in January, but there we are.

The “interactive music TV” service allows you to watch music videos on demand on both PS3 and PSP.

“Several Major record labels as well as thousands of Independent labels” are involved, said Sony today.

VidZone was first announced at Games Convention last year, where it was pegged for a Q1 2009 launch.

Press release after the break.

More »

A SCEE rep’s confirmed to VG247 that the firm is to publish Ghostbusters, as rumoured earlier.

A press release is expected around lunchtime today.

We’re waiting on comment from Atari.

The move likely means that non-PlayStation versions of the Terminal Reality title will struggle to find release, although it was reported earlier that Atari may publish the 360 version itself.

There’s no official reason for the swap to Sony as yet, although this probably isn’t the sunniest thing to have ever happened to Atari on a Wednesday morning.

GI’s reporting that Sony’s picked up Ghostbusters from Atari.

The game is set for a June 19 release, but now only on the PS3 and PS2. A PSP version will come months later.

Apparently the 360 version may be released by Atari later on, but there appears to be some uncertainty about what’s going on with that.

Should have more on this soon.

Richard Garriott’s suing NCsoft for $24 million, according to this Kotaku report.

The ex-Tabula Rasa frontman filed his action with a Texas court yesterday, apparently.

Garriott’s claiming fraud. However it falls, this is unlikely to be pleasant.

More through there.

Missed this one. EA said in its full-year earnings call last night that its going to launch two new online subs services in the coming year.

“On PC, our subscription revenue streams continue to grow with our Pogo and Warhammer businesses,” said CEO John Riccitiello.

“We also plan to introduce two additional online subscription services later in the fiscal year.”

Riccitiello expanded slightly in response to a question by Lazard’s Colin Sebastian.

“We think they’re consumer propositions first, and we want to use the best possible public relations to bring those to market in a way that will benefit the titles,” he said.

“We’ll certainly be communicating what they are on or around the next call.”

Get the rest of the news from the call here. Thanks, GI.

Seeking Alpha’s done its usual thang, posting the entire transcript from EA’s full-year and fourth quarter earnings call last night.

Get all the news from it here. There were some choice quotes in that call, so if you were too busy last night watching Arsenal getting humiliated to listen to John and the gang wax lyrical about the future, now’s your chance to catch up.

What do you call a company that bins $1 billion in a year, trims its Q4 losses, takes 15 percent more revenue than the previous year and makes the entire thing genuinely sound good on the telephone? Electronic Arts! We love you, John. You’re the greatest.

EA announced full-year figures last night while you were watching the football/wanking/staring at the wall. Here’s what happened:

• EA loses over $1 billion in fiscal 2009, cuts Q4 loss
• EA full-year earnings call – the full transcript
• EA: Two new online subs services this year
• Riccitiello – Negative comps to continue until June
• Riccitiello: Current hardware cycle to be “very extended”
• Warhammer Online ended March with 300,000 subs
• EA released more PC games than anything else last year
• EA: Mobile revenues rose 24% last year
• EA: The PC is “rapidly becoming the largest gaming platform in the world”
• EA’s Wii revenue nearly doubles to 14% compared to last year
• EA to release 30 games on iPhone this year
• Spore sells 2 million copies
• FIFA 09, Madden NFL 09, Need for Speed Undercover each sell 5 million copies

EA showed it released more games for PC than for any other platform last year, with 360 leading the company’s focus for console hardware.

Releases for fiscal 2009, ending March this year:

• PC: 32
• Xbox 360: 26 games
• PS3: 23 games
• DS: 22
• Wii: 21
• PS2: 14 games
• PSP: 8
• Xbox: 1

Good for you, PC. You’re going to be “the largest gaming platform in the world,” don’t you know.

EA posted a $1 billion loss yesterday.

EA said in its full-year earnings yesterday that its mobile revenues rose 24 percent year-over-year in the period, up to $189 million.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, EA Mobile recorded $48 million in revenues, up 14 percent over the previous year.

The company said it plans to release 30 iPhone games in the coming year.

EA recorded a $1 billion loss in total for fiscal 2009.