Monthly Archives: July 2009

Comic-Con is seriously looking like the place to be next week, what with LucasArts announcing that it will be there showing off loads of stuff along with “several world exclusive announcements at the Star Wars Spectacular keynote on Friday”.

Those in attendance can expect: Hands-on time with Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes and LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, an Old Republic mini-comic and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition signings, trailer showings, and The Old Republic Panel.

We will be covering this from our comfy desk chairs at home, damn it, so be sure check in with us while it’s on-going.

Full thing through the jump.

More »

YouTube has a video posted by Fass Extra has posted footage of of Gran Turismo on PSPgo.

Notice the Ferrari Enzo in action.

Looks rather nice, and it’s after the break.

The link also has video of LBP on PSPgo.

More »

Capcom has revealed that it will release Marvel vs. Capcom 2 via PSN August 13 for $15, two weeks after the Xbox Live version which releases July 29.

The release is expected to go along with the rumored PS3 retail pack ($20) whihc supposedly includes: a DVD with exclusive wallpapers, an 8-page manual, one month of free access to Marvel Digital Comics and 2,000 Capcom Unity points.

Via Joystiq.

SEGA’s Iron Man 2 will debut at Comic-Con next week.

This lovely tidbit was hidden away in the Bayonetta press release issued earlier.

SEGA Studios San Francisco is in charge of the sequel, which is expected to launch tangent to the film next summer.

The film stars Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Mickey Rourke (Whiplash), Robert Downey Jr., and Gwyneth Paltrow.

SEGA will be showing off Bayonetta during Comic-Con July 23-26, and producer Yusuke Hashimoto and lead character designer Mari Shimazaki will host a panel titled “The Making of Bayonetta” on July 24.

That’s not all, either.

A live-action model will be present and to top things off, a Bayonetta coslpay contest will be taking place.

Should be interesting to see those pictures.

Full details are in the press release after the break.

More »

Thanks to Dragon Quest IX, Nintendo sold more than twice as many DS units  last week in Japan compared to the previous week.

For the week ending July 12, figures state that 126,786 DS handhelds were sold, up from 51,601 units the previous week and exceeding the 100,000-unit mark for the first time in a year and a half.

Debuting July 11, it was reported Monday that Dragon Quest IX sold 2.32 million units during its first two days on the market.

Via Reuters.

Resident Evil 5 will hit PC in North America and Europe on September 14 and 18, respectively.

As reported, it will support Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision hardware, higher resolutions, new costumes and include “new and improved mercenaries mode with three times as many enemies.”

The cutscenes will support 3D as well as gameplay.

More over on Shack.

Cryptic’s Jack Emmert has said that there is a distinct possibility of a a sequel to Champions Online should the MMO go over well.

It would run in a vein similar to  City of Villains, and possibly be called Nemesis Online.

“Look, if Champions is successful and people want that, heck yea. But, I think that I already have a very different idea in mind for that,” Emmert told G4. “I think in City of Villains, we were asked to make the game in about a year, and so we were kind of focused on “We gotta get this done.” So, we just took the template of City of Heroes and copied it.

“If I were to do it over again, I would create a very different type of gameplay for villain worlds.”

Everyone likes to be the bad guy once in a while.

EA apparently has no plans for more DLC for Mirror’s Edge.

According to its senior PR manager, it just ain’t gonna happen folks – at least “immediately”.

“There are no immediate plans for future DLC for Mirror’s Edge,” Kelly Ekins told That Videogame Blog.

More through the link.

Some of the innards, as it were, that are included with Natal are already present in PSEye, according to Sony.

Facial recognition software for PSEye has been developed after experiments by both the SCEE R&D team and other developers.

“We’ve got a wealth of libraries available,” said Kish Hirani while admitting that thanks to extensive testing, it has been “a lot of fun in the office”.

The facial tech understands the position and direction of a player’s head, can recognize gender and age, detects parts of the face including eyes, eyebrows, glasses, mouth, nose, ans the shape of the mouth.

No word on whether it detects moles, warts or ugly.

Via Develop.

Crackdown may have been a huge hit with gamers, but apparently the game only broke even money-wise for the developers and Microsoft.

“With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even,” Dave Jones told Gamasutra. “It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop’s amazing used-game sales.

“We know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it’s likely there were 2.5 – 3 million sold when you include used.”

Wow. Sorry ’bout that.

Via IndustryGamers.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has said that Project Natal is just one of many hardware innovations underway at the Seattle giant.

Hardware, that could eventually replace or usher in a new era for the Xbox console.

“It’s not about trying to sell consumers a new piece of hardware at the wrong time, it’s about evolving the platform continuously,” he told MCV. “And we are going to find things, like Natal, that are hardware related to also do that.”

The full interview is expected to go up later, meanwhile, hit up OXM for more.

Michael Pachter has said that gamers can expect GTA V next year.

According to the analyst, Rockstar has been working on it for quite some time, but declined to tell Wedbush Morgan Securities  when it will be released.

“Management declined to state when the game will launch, but has confirmed to us that the game is in development, has been for over a year, and is using the same game ‘engines’ as the last version.” he said.

“Management also told us that the team at Rockstar North is highly motivated to get the game out, and that the team understands that its highest payday will come from working on GTA instead of any other game.

“When we do the simple math, we conclude that the next installment is likely to be completed by some time in 2010, although given the frequency of game delays, it is not clear that it will necessarily come before October 31, 2010.”

More over on CVG.

With Activision pricing Modern Warfare 2 at £/$54.99, retailers have been informed that other publishers are likely to raise princes as well, thanks to sinking pound and US dollar values.

“Exchange rates between the Euro and the pound are making it very difficult for publishers to show an acceptable operating margin in the UK,” THQ’s Ian Curran told MCV. “You can’t continue to trade as normal when the biggest territory in Europe has seen cost of goods increase by 30 percent due to the strengthening of the Euro.

“Publishers somehow need to offset this drastic increase in costs. I’m not surprised to see the [Modern Warfare 2] SRP go up and I feel this will continue across more key titles.

“Also, development costs for next gen software has increased at a time when the take-up on these machines is slower than expected and therefore the opportunity to sell more units is limited. The increase in cost of goods due to the weak pound has added to this burden, and therefore something has to happen to ensure publishers’ return on their investment.”

In response, a games buyer at one of the UK’s largest retailers told MCV that because of the climbing Euro, publishers were having to raise prices.

“A couple of months ago a few publishers mentioned that they were being hammered because of the Euro. To combat this they decided that certain titles would have a higher RRP,” said the unnamed source. “You can guess the reception this got from retail.

“The fundamental problem is that the customer will feel conned that the latest triple triple-A is £50 at retail when last year it was only £40.”

More through the link.

FIFA 11 could  end up using Natal and Sony’s motion controller, says series producer David Rutter, but not because people think it should be used.

“It’s funny. He (Peter Moore) said that and John Riccitiello said you’d never want Natal to control FIFA,” Rutter told Videogamer. “There are a few things we could do, which we’re thinking about doing at the moment. But it’s not something that’s suddenly going to manifest itself in FIFA 10.”

FIFA 11 then becomes a distinct possibility.

“I’m a big fan of, and I’ve said it a number of times and I’ll say it again, if it’s not good enough it won’t make it in,” he continued. “Don’t just want to put something in because it’s something we’re asked to do or it’s something people think we should.

“If it doesn’t add to the overall thing, then it’s pointless. I don’t want it to be just this distraction, to be quite honest. There are a few things we can do, definitely, but we’ve not really started on it yet.”

Guitar Hero 5 has a new drum kit, and that’s it pictured above.

The difference between this set and the ones included with World Tour are the cymbals, which these look more like “real” cymbals.

Activison also saw fit to release another list of tracks for the game.

We have covered these already, but just in case you missed the list, it’s after the break courtesy of Kotaku.

What we are wondering is if the track” Du Hast” will be the German version or the translated version.

It  loses its effect when translated, ya know.

More »

Robobmodo’s Josh Tsui has said that the new peripheral for Tony Hawk: Ride will up the ante in the game peripheral market.

Speaking with GI.biz, Tsui told the site that the final design of the skateboard peripheral will be consumer friendly with a white finish and will be worth the higher price compared to standard software.

“It’s a very enhanced piece of machinery,” he said. “This is the most advanced peripheral on the market. It really is going to usher a next generation of controllers for games.

“The other thing is that this is an advanced piece of software and hardware put together – this is a full package – and when people see how tightly integrated it is, what a great experience it is, people will pay the right price for it.”

Tsui said that Activision plans to use the board for multiple new titles, and not just for sports.

More through the link.

Nintendo has given Wii a firmware update.

Update 4.1 fixes a bug in Wii Sports Resort, that way it will be playable when it lands in stores July 26.

That’s pretty much it. Plug up your Wii and see for yourself.

Via Kotaku.

Codemasters said today that DiRT 2 will release on September 8 in the US, September 10 in non-Brit Europe and September 11 in the UK.

The McRae racer’s out for 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP, with a DirectX 11-enabled version coming later in the year.

PR after the break.

More »

Speaking at Develop today, Silicon Knights’ Denis Dyack reiterated his claim that a single-format future is the way forward for the games industry.

Questioned if a sole platform industry could ever become a reality, Dyack said it is “inevitable”.

“The value of technology is becoming less and less significant compared to the games that are on it. It’s costing hardware manufacturers more and more to do research and development. Video game publishers are having a harder and harder time making money,” he said.

Lots more on VG.