Monthly Archives: July 2009

Empire has them. They feature Jake Gyllenhaal and pro-pouter Gemma Arterton looking serious and wet with their mouths slightly open.

Still. Should give a little variation to your daily “release”. The movie’s out next May.

MTV’s reporting that it got to see a build of Borderlands recently that contained a database of more than 3 million weapon combinations.

In fact, 3,166,880 were included.

Gearbox has banged on about the game’s extensive weapons options for a long time now. Let’s hope they enhance rather than “break”.

The game’s out later this year for PC, PS3 and 360.

THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell confirmed today during a call to investors that future iterations of the UFC franchise would expand onto Wii and handhelds.

“Over time, we plan to build our UFC franchise by expanding international sales and by developing games on new platforms such as handhelds and Nintendo Wii,” he said.

No details were provided regarding the next entry into the market, but Farrell confirmed that the game would become an annual release.

Earlier today, THQ reported UFC Undisputed had shipped 2.9 million units.

EA has refused comment on Variety’s story yesterday, regarding Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 titles.

“The only Dead Space game announced and in development at this time is Dead Space Extraction,” an EA spokesperson told G4.

The team behind Dead Space Extraction hinted during Comic-Con that a Dead Space 2 reveal would not be too far off, but also did not comment on the Variety report.

While it is probably safe to bet that a sequel is in the works, don’t visit the bookie over Dead Space 3 just yet. You may end up with some busted knee-caps in the end.

More through the links.

Steam and Direct2Drive released last week’s sales for the week, and looking it over, you will notice that The Sims 3 and Monkey Island were very popular, still.

Also, ArmA II was up there, along with preorders for that lovely looking MMO, Aion: The Tower of Eternity.

Read on, courtesy of Shack:

Direct2Drive’s Top Ten

1. The Sims 3
2. ARMA 2
3. Dawn of Discovery (ANNO 1404)
4. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II
5. The Sims 3 (Mac)
6. Civilization IV: The Complete Edition
7. Supreme Commander Gold
8. Aion (Pre-order)
9. Fallout 3
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Steam’s Top Ten

1. Aion Collector’s Edition (Pre-order)
2. Left 4 Dead
3. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
4. Counter-Strike: Source
5. ARMA 2
6. Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack
7. Dawn of Discovery (ANNO 1404)
8. Street Fighter IV
9. Team Fortress 2
10. Killing Floor

David Perry has said that should servers for Gaikai reach maximum capacity, more will be waiting in the wings just in case.

This would help keep costs down, bypass the need to create more servers in a rush, and forgo being swamped with backlog.

“We only buy them based on demand. Why does that work? Because it keeps the cost down for everybody. We have no servers running, and I didn’t spend $150 million, with the interest on $150 million burning away as I hope people are going to show up.

“That’s basically the model – every time we hit maximum capacity, we order more servers.

“I’ve already been in discussions with companies that can build our hardware for us and scale almost immediately,” he told GI.biz. “They’ll have servers ready to go. We have two choices – either they build everything, or we build everything, and I kinda like that they build everything

“We’re just trying to work out what that cost will be, but because it’s a service to me I can then say I need another thousand servers and they can take care of that problem.

“But put it this way – it’s like a wet dream for investors. To come to them with a problem like that – we can’t scale fast enough – trust me, I can line them up. If I go to an investor with that problem, they’ll help me solve it.”

More through the link.

THQ boss Brian Farrell expects price cuts in hardware this year by at least two of the three console manufacturers.

While refusing to go into detail on which ones will drop in price, he mentioned that THQ has taken these price cuts into consideration with future fiscal planning.

Farrell thinks that along with price cuts, no new consoles will be introduced for quite some time, as “peripherals will be released to keep consoles fresh for the next 4-5 years.”

The news came from tonight’s Q1 THQ earnings call.

THQ boss Brian Farrell just called Natal a “platform addition” and said the 360 motion-sensing unit will launch “late next year”.

The exec’s comments came as part of a broad answer in the firm’s Q1 earnings call regarding the general state of the industry and console price-cutting.

Microsoft has never officially dated Natal’s launch, although company boss Steve Ballmer did say in June after E3 that a “natural interface” 360 will be out next year.

Ballmer quickly apologised for the remarks. Guess Mr Farrell didn’t get the memo.

China’s Ministry of Culture has banned websites that feature online mafia-styled games, due to its threat to Chinese culture and it being a “bad influence on the nation’s youth.”

The Ministry said that these social games “encourage people to deceive, loot and kill, and glorify gangster life. They are a bad influence on youngsters.”

Godfather, Jianghu (“Gangster Community”), and Guhuozai (“young and dangerous guys”) are games that hae so far been taken offline.

The government plans to dole out “severe punishment” if sites run, publish, or link to online games with a mafia theme.

No word on what the consequences will entail.

More over on Gamasutra.

The THQ financial call to investors is ongoing, during which it was announced that the company plans to release 1-2 titles each year for a core audience.

These games are titles the company plans to expand into best-selling franchises.

No word on what these titles are, but expect to see new franchises from the publisher every year from here on out.

THQ boss Brian Farrell just confirmed that Red Faction: Guerrilla has now sold more than 1 million units.

The news came as part of the firm’s Q1 earnings conference call.

Farrell held the game up as an example of the company’s commitment to quality: the firm’s games are achieving an MC average rating of 84 percent this year, compared to a 80 percent last year.

Swings and roundabouts. THQ’s reported a profit for its second quarter, showing a net income of $6.4 million, or 9 cents a share, compared to a loss of $27.2 million, or 41 cents a share, for the same period the previous year.

UFC Undisputed was tagged for the increase.

Revenue rose 77 percent to $243.5 million.

Consensus estimates had pegged the publisher’s quarter at a 8 cents-per-share loss.

More here.

Sony has confirmed that PlayStation Eye game, EyePet, will land in the US just in time for the holiday shopping extravaganza.

The game will release as a stand-alone title as well as via a bundle with the camera.

No exact date was forthcoming, but Cologne is right around the corner, so hopefully things will be firmed up for both sides of the pond come next month.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Bungie’s Lars Bakken and Microsoft Game Studios’ Ryan Crosby sat down and chatted a bit about Halo 3: ODST, and promise that the game takes the franchise to a whole new level.

According to the interview, the game will maintain the Halo feel even with the omission of Master Chief and stays fresh despite the abundance of FPS games on the market

“I don’t think we’re bored of Master Chief at all, it was just something that we wanted to do for a long time, which was tell something in the Halo universe from a different perspective,” Lars Bakken told Guardian UK. “ODST seemed like a prime candidate for that because we could basically tell a different kind of story.

“I think Joe Staten – who is the writer at Bungie – was really itching to tell the story from a different perspective, but then also change up the way we tell the stories because they’ve always been very linearly told in Halo 1, 2 and 3. This really allowed us to stretch our legs and try something different.

“I think when you play ODST, you’ll see that it actually plays pretty differently than other Halo titles, so I don’t know, I don’t think FPS games are dried up in any respect. Obviously, there are a lot of them out there, there’s a lot of competition, but I don’t think they’re going away any time soon.

“People seem to really enjoy playing them from that perspective.”

More through the link.

Shareholders are apparently a bit worried that Activision Blizzard may face some financial obstacles by the end of the year, what with shares in the company falling 14 percent in the past month.

The main concern, reports MarketWatch, is ActiBlizz’s current release schedule, shifting Singularity into 2010, and the growing assumption that StarCraft 2 may miss it’s release date.

“The beta testing for StarCraft 2 hasn’t started yet,” said analyst Jess Lubert of Brean Murray.”If it starts in August and takes 5-6 months, then launching the game this year is next to impossible.”

Some analysts have moved the game out of the ActiBlizz estimates for the year, some citing the potential delay of the RTS along with Singularity being moved and the possibility of Guitar Hero: Van Halen being pushed back as well.

China holding back a full release of World of Warcraft while Blizzard gets the server situation worked out between NetEase and The9 has also been taken into account by investors and analysts.

ActiBlizz has scheduled its Q2 earnings call for August 5, but a StarCraft 2 date is not expected to be announced – however, some analysts feel that Modern Warfare 2 will swoop in and save the day, with some estimating that it will sell up to 8.5 million units, and surpass 10 million units lifetime.

“Even without StarCraft, I think Activision should be able to get to their current guidance for the year. But without StarCraft, getting an upside to that number might be challenging,” Lubert contniued.

“I just think investors need that certainty of when it will ship, and it will remove this overhang.”

More through the link.

Square Enix has announced the games it will have on had at GamesCom next month.

Looks like attendees can look forward to seeing Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts 385/2, Nier, and Supreme Commander 2, among others.

Here’s the full list:

• Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Dissidia Final Fantasy (PSP)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Final Fantasy XIV (PS3, PC)
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (Wii)
• Front Mission Evolved (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS)
• Mini Ninjas (Wii, DS, PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Nier (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Order of War (PC)
• Pony Friends 2 (Wii, DS, PC)
• Supreme Commander 2 (Xbox 360, PC)

We will be on hand during the event, so hopefully we will have some decent stuff to tell you about.

Full press release through the link.

More »

Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra has just tweeted that Uncharted 2 does not require an install on PS3.

Here’s the full tweet:

“Uncharted 2 does not require any install.”

This was apparently an attempt to clear up any confusion over the game’s boxart, which included a typo claiming that a mandatory 1.7Gb install was required to play the game.

Glad that’s been cleared up.

Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford kept his lip zipped during an interview with Eurogamer, regarding rumors that the firm is working on Halo 4 for Microsoft.

When asked, he skirted around stating that there are things in development that have yet to be announced.

“Well, I’ll tell you, there’s a couple of games that Gearbox has announced,” he said. “We’ve announced Borderlands, and we’ve announced Aliens Colonial Marines with SEGA and Fox, and it’s no secret that we have some other things in development.

“[Halo] Haha! We’re not going to talk about anything…”

“We can’t talk about that,” stated the PR person present at the time, who apparently ended the interview on that note.

The full thing can be viewed over on EGTV.

Bionic Commando has arrived on Steam.

The PC version will run you $39.99 and there is also a bundle up for grabs which includes the game plus Bionic Commando: Rearmed for $44.99.

More details are through the link.

Matt Toschlog, president of Reactor Zero, Rick White, producer at Volition, and physics programmer Eric Arnold answered questions posed by PC Games Hardware regarding whether Red Faction: Guerrilla would support versions DirectX beyond DirectX 10 – namely 10.1 or 11.

Reagrding this, Toschlog said that the reason the PC version is being released later than the console versions was so extra work on supporting DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 could be accomplished. Also, the developers wanted to add some extra graphical features such as Sun Shafts (God Rays) and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion.

“We’re supporting Direct X 9 and Direct X 10,” Toschlog told the site. “Since we’re supporting both DX 9 and DX 10, the PC code was actually more complicated than if we’d just supported one API.

“That said, some things were easier under DX 10. In particular, we know that all DX 10 devices will support features such as hardware PCF shadow mapping.

“The graphics are largely the same under DX 9 and DX 10. A few advanced features – such as Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion – only work under DX 10. As for speed, there isn’t a big difference between the two APIs.

“It’s true that most features can be done with both DX 9 and DX 10. Since Direct X is the dominant API on the PC, we expect to be using whatever new versions are available for years to come.”

Just not with this title, apparently.

Game’s out for PC September 15 in the US.