Monthly Archives: July 2009

A developer diary for Red Steel 2 is posted after the jump, and if you are interested in slinging swords and shooting things in a wild-west setting,  you should have a watch.

The Wii exclusive will arrive on North American shores November 10, with a UK date to be announced.

Via GamingUnion.

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Ben Board, a developer account manager at Xbox Europe, has said that Microsoft respects publishers and developers creating games that will appear on its system as well as rival ones.

“We don’t make decisions about your game’s content,” said Board. “We’ll give you reasoned advice, but what you do with it is up to you.

“And we’re not so blinkered to ignore that you work on other platforms too – yes, we want the Xbox version to be the best, but we know that you take pride in the quality of all your SKUs, and we won’t give you advice that undermines that.”

Board is featured over on Develop talking about the advantages of working with a Microsoft development account manager.

Hit the link.

Tony Hawk wanted to shift towards a peripheral-based skate game with Ride because his series had become more like fighting than kissing the concrete lip.

“I felt like, over the last couple of years, we’d gone as far as we could with button-mashing and doing combos,” the legend told AusGamers.

“It was becoming more like Mortal Kombat than skating.”

Hawk said he always wanted to create a game like Ride, but circumstance conspired against him until now.

“I always wanted to do a skateboard controller-based game, but the technology and the public perception of peripherals just wasn’t there yet,” he added.

Ride’s out later this year. Thanks, GoNintendo.

Gamescom’s war on journalists’ laptop batteries continued today, with EA confirming its press conference will take place between 4.30pm and 5.30pm on August 18.

That means it finishes merely 30 minutes before Sony’s blockbusting three-hour conference.

Logistically, that’s “awkward”. Seeing as how about 50 million billion people will try to see both.

Liveblog or death. We’ll do our best, innit.

Activision’s plan to charge £55 for Modern Warfare 2 has precisely nothing to do with a weak UK currently, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter has told Eurogamer.

“The price increase is a business decision,” he said, noting that the pound is worth more today than when COD5 launched last year.

“Activision knows it has a ‘hot’ game, knows that the market will pay an additional 10 percent, and has decided to increase price accordingly.”

Activision had said previously it is to sell the game at a boosted price due to a weak pound.

Hit the link for more.

Sony dev boss Shuhei Yoshida’s admitted that twin thumb sticks were a “serious” consideration for PSP Go, although the feature didn’t make the cut due to compatibility issues.

“We also felt — like many users — that we wish we had a second analog on the PSP,” he said, talking in the latest issue of Game Informer.

“But we are talking about the mid-life cycle of this platform, and the PSPgo is designed to be perfectly compatible with the PSP-3000 and all the games that released before that.

“So we had a very serious discussion about this particular subject, but we decided not to add a second analog, and some of the developers are doing quite a nice job translating the second analog functionality to different buttons. We didn’t want to divert their efforts either.”

And that’s that. Via PSL, Kombo and Kotaku.

If you’re bored of waiting for news of Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, fret not – it’s going to be awesome.

“I want to tell all,” studio boss Randy Pitchford told CVG. “But I can’t.”

Goshdarnit. What can you say, Randy?

“I can say that we are working hard and that there are great things afoot and I know that when the time is right, Sega will be excited to share more details about the game,” he added.

“Until that time, I guess the only thing anyone can do is just keep pressuring Gearbox and Sega to spill more beans. Maybe one of us will eventually crack.”

The game was recently pushed into 2010. Hit the CVG link for more evasion.

Marketrap has blasted Take-Two head Strauss Zelnick’s handling of the company recently, essentially accusing the chairman of either lying to the market or simply being outrageously bad as his job.

“If you’re keeping score, in a two year period, Mr Zelnick managed to, on three occasions, make vital statements that were within a matter of weeks proven to be either fabricated or just incredibly incompetent (or worse),” says the piece.

“Mr Zelnick managed to resist and reject [an EA] buyout offer that was triple the company’s current share price while claiming other interested parties who never emerged.”

More hilarity through the link. Via GamePolitics and Kotaku.

Are you the “ultimate Madden fan”? Do you want to help EA “shape” the Madden Hall of Fame? Today, Ringo, is your lucky day.

EA’s offering two places on the newly-announced program’s select committee to those mental enough to send in a video explaining why they’re a Madden fan like no other. How can two people be the “ultimate” Madden fans? We shouldn’t split hairs.

The Hall of Fame’s being set up to “to celebrate and honor the individuals, features, playbooks, fans, and even glitches, that have all contributed to making Madden NFL one of the most popular video game franchises of all time.”

Fair enough. Apply here. PR after the break.

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Blizzard bigwigs Frank Pearce and J Allen Brack are to keynote GDC Austin on World of Warcraft this year, Blizzard said today.

The talk, entitled “The Universe of World of Warcraft,” will tackle the challenges faced in creating subs-based MMOs.

The event takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Texas from September 15-18.

PR after the break.

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Acti’s released a background dev trailer for Wolfenstein – as seen after the break – showing where the franchise came from, what’s going on with Raven’s imminent update and delivering the revelation that “Nazis” and “monsters” are “cool”.

Have a nose. The shooter’s out for PC, PS3 and 360 next month. Thanks, Joystiq.

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Konami’s announced changes to Pro Evolution Soccer’s Master League for the 2010 version, saying today the mode will feature Club House, Stadium Walk, and Office elements.

Club House is used for tactical and match day options, Stadium Walk for main game settings, and Office for scouting and player acquisitions.

Thrills. It’s out later this year. PR and new shots after the break.

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Blizzard and Legendary Pictures announced today that Sam Raimi has signed on to direct the motion picture based on the Warcraft universe.

“At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story,” said Raimi. “I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen.”

Charles Roven (The Dark Knight, Batman Begins) is set to produce, and Blizzard senior VP of creative development, Chris Metzen, will co-produce.

“Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures have a shared vision for this film and we searched at length to find the very best director to bring that vision to life,” said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard.

“From our first conversation with Sam, we could tell he was the perfect choice. Sam knows how to simultaneously satisfy the enthusiasts and the mainstream audience that might be experiencing that content for the first time. We’re looking forward to working with him to achieve that here.”

Further details about the upcoming Warcraft movie, including cast and targeted release date, will be revealed as development progresses.

With Sam directing, Bruce Campbell will be thrown in there somewhere, we reckon.

Press release through the break.

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Apple has announced that 5.2 million iPhones were sold during Q 2 this year, which compared to last year, shows an increase of 626 percent year-over-year, when only 717,000 were sold during the same 2008 time frame.

Also, 10.2 million iPods were sold in Q2, which includes all models of the MP3 player. Compared to Q2 2008,  sales were down 7 percent.

Over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches have been sold to date and the App Store just passed the 1.5 billion download mark.

On the Mac front, 2.6 million were sold which is up 4 percent from a year ago.

Apple reported $8.34 billion in revenue with a net profit of $1.23 billion for the quarter as well.

Steve Jobs is one happy man, we reckon.

Full thing after the break courtesy of Reuters.

Thanks, PocketGamer.

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Nintendo of America’s senior director of product development, Tom Prata, revealed that according to Nintendo research, that the gaming market could grow as much as 50 percent.

Speaking at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, Prata stated that during the past two-and-a-half years, 30 million new gamers came into the fold in North America alone. This has brought the current player base to 143.7 million.

According to company research, the active market size of console and handheld gamers sits at 295 million and could grow by 150 million “if the right game came along.”

We’re just wondering which company will be the first to accomplish such a massive goal.

Via Edge, GoNintendo.

GameStop COO Paul Raines sees Hispanics as a key demographic for growth in the gaming industry.

Currently, over 45 million Hispanics live in the US and according to a recent report from Hispanic Market Weekly, GameStop’s growth in recent years owes much to the Latin market, especially the stores that border Texas and Mexico.

Because of this, GameStop is considering expanding into Mexico thanks to two border stores reporting annual sales in excess of $4 million.

“We’ve gained considerable knowledge of the Hispanic consumer from our stores in California, Texas and Florida,” said Raines. “We have between 600 and 800 stores that are in areas where the Hispanic population is greater than 40 percent.”

Raines also went on to say that gaming companies are just now starting to realize this is a lucrative area of the market, even though the Hispanic marketing front “is really a nascent category.”

More over on GameDaily.

Raiden IV has a limited edition in store for gamers should they pre-order from GameStop.

One includes a pre-order bonus soundtrack CD and a secret file containing concept art, boss and enemy data, game strategies, and other cool things.

The other limited edition will just contain the the soundtrack CD.

Tommo’s shooter will run you $39.99 when released September 8 and it’s an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Via Joystiq.

Microsoft’s Stephen Tolouse has said that his main goal as the boss of Xbox Live is to keep the service safe for everyone who has an account, and educate parents about the service.

“We work very closely with the community of gamers and people using this system to identify and resolve issues from gameplay problems, to cheating and inappropriate behavior,” he said. “We are out there playing every day. In the U.S., Europe, Asia.”

Around 60 to 80 people are actively looking for “bad session” he explained, and once an investigation is completed, the team takes appropriate action by muting a person and can even temporarily or permanently block their access to Live.

Tolouse said the team has been working to try and better educate people new the Xbox 360 about ways they can protect their children and Microsoft recently launched a site to educate parents called Get Game Smart.

“The idea was to help identify the steps needed to ensure that people use video games safer, more balanced,” he said.

There are videos parents and their children have posted on the site detailing to other parents how they have set limits with their children when it comes to game time.

Guess this means Tolouse does more than keep and eye on name calling.

Via Kotaku.

Microsoft has revealed that the long in the making South Park Xbox Live Arcade title is called: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play.

As the name suggests, it’s a tower defense game and Xbox 360 owners will be able to head on down to South Park come October 7.

The game premieres this week at Comic-Con via a panel called “Save South Park One Snowball at a Time.”

More through Joystiq.

Activision and Twistory Studios along with Image Publishing plan to release a graphic novel for Singularity.

David Atchinson of the Occult Times Taskforce, Davide Fabbri (Heavy Metal and Dark Horse’s Star Wars), Christopher “mink” Morrison(Dust, 13 Chambers and Dark Horse’s upcoming Shinjuku) and Yoshitaka Amano, and Tom Mandrake(Batman, The Punisher) are teaming up to bring the story to life.

The single issue graphic novel will be available following the launch of Singularity the game in early 2010.

Big news day for Comics apparently. Press release through the break.

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