Monthly Archives: August 2009

EA has announced that it will add convicted animal abuser and football player Michael Vick to the Philly Eagles roster upon the next Madden 10 update.

Granted, Vick is not eligible to play until week six of the NFL season, per the readmission rules, but it looks like his likeness will grace all versions of the game eventually.

“Michael Vick will be added to the Philadelphia Eagles roster in the next Madden NFL 10 roster update, pending NFLPA and NFL approvals,” said EA’s Rob Semsey.

“The next roster update will go live approximately on August 19th for Xbox 360 and PS3, with additional platforms to follow shortly thereafter.”

Via Joystiq.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter has weighed in on yesterday’s NPD results for July, and has pointed out that Wii hardware sales are the lowest ever since its launch in November 2006.

To counter this, Schachter says Wii needs a price cut, and it is expected soon.

“Although Wii Sports Resort sold well, it appears to have offered little lift to Wii hardware sales, increasing the probability in our view that Nintendo must lower the price soon (we expect a September cut),” stated Schachter.

According to the NPD figures, Wii sold 252,000 units in the US during July.

More through IndustryGamers.

Ubisoft production manager Andréane Meunier has told Eurogamer that Assassin’s Creed bought Splinter Cell: Conviction more time to get things right.

“Because actually we felt that the game wasn’t well received [at Ubidays] and some of the critics were actually saying that we were missing the gameplay, when we started having maybe a bit of trouble bringing back the core gameplay, and we saw the success that Assassin’s was going to have, Ubisoft made the decision to say, ‘look guys, take the time you need to do this game, we’ve got someone bringing in the money for the next year so we’re okay, we won’t ship a game that’s not good, so go ahead and take the time to do it’.

“That took the pressure off us and allowed us to rework the core values that we wanted to bring out.”

As far as the Krav-Maga self-defense Sam pulls of in this iteration, Meunier said that the development team brought in people trained in the art used by the Israeli secret service.

“We realized that in the previous Splinter Cell it was mentioned that Sam had a training in that, and that was part of the back story he had, and we started looking into it in Montreal and the type of moves that it involves, and when we did that we found that a couple of well-known actors in Montreal were trained in Krav-Maga, so we brought them in and we mocapped them.

“So we were lucky to find both Krav-Maga and acting in the same persons.”

Next weekend, Crytek’s holding another free weekend for Crysis Wars.

Come August 28, players can play the full version of the game online for no cost. Players who have logged online into the game before, will get their CD Keys reactivated for the next free trial.

Crytek has promised more information next week before the weekend trial starts, so in the meantime visit the official site for extra details.

SouthPeak Interactive has been accused of not paying of debtors as it agreed upon during its purchase of Gamecock in 2008.

According to a former producer for Gamecock, SouthPeak promised former contract employees that their money was “in the mail”, but checks have yet to arrive.

“I can think of no reason why my four work-for-hires would not be paid, especially once SouthPeak’s lawyer contacted them early on and acknowledged that their invoices were good and would be honored and paid in full,” he told Joystiq. “Ever since then, for nearly a year, they have been told a check would be sent very soon. At one point, approximately 8 months ago, they were even told that their checks were in the mail.”

Outstanding debuts claimed by individual vendors are various in size, running from $320 to over $3000 and former co-owner of Gamecock, Mike Wilson, says there’s no excuse for SouthPeak to be holding out.

“These [invoices] ranged from our testing house, Cyan Worlds, who ended up doing huge layoffs because of non-payment, to the big magazine and website publishers, to the smallest of companies and individuals hired for webwork, video production, packaging, you name it,” he said. “800 dollars to 800,000 dollars, they were all given essentially the same treatment.

“All moneys owed and receivables booked were disclosed in detail before the transaction could close, with us and our investors having to sign declaring that this was ‘everything’,” he said.

SouthPeak’s purchase of Gamecock supposedly placed the company financially in the red, and claims state that payments to vendors would prove financially difficult, if not unlikely.

There’s loads more over on Joystiq, and it is a rather good read. You should go have a look.

During Edinburgh’s Interactive Conference this morning, Peter Cowley, the digital media MD of Endemol, told attendees that due to the success of 1 vs. 100, the company is looking at bringing more TV-to-Game branding to Xbox 360.

“Microsoft approached us for a show for new service called Primetime. It has a live show with a host avatar and a voice over live, contestants can line up in a lobby in the game and could be picked, 100 are people picked to be an audience and the rest can play along,” said Cowley. “The game can take quite a long time and it has traditional ad breaks like TV, plus you have to be a gold member of Xbox.

“I’ve been playing against 84,000 people simultaneously. I’ve seen the beginnings of convergence from TV ideas to new ideas on a platform. It’s still unproven but I’m excited and can excite the TV guys about an Xbox game where they may have previously thought about it as a shoot up platform.”

Cowley also stated that one idea the company had was a “poker-type experience” that could be played “along to a TV show or a mix of video-based content and gameplay. ”

More over on Guardian UK.

Madden 10 was just released, and some copies did not include the downloadable code for the game’s Online Franchise Mode.

Apparently, though, this only applies specifically Australia, UK and “other regions” outside the US where the code was supposed to be printed on the back of the manual, but a printing error caused the snafu.

EA has provided a fix though, an here is part of it:

• Go to http://help.easports.com.
• Select: Email Us.
• You’ll be prompted to login with your EA Account. If you have none, create one. It’s free.
• Choose platform, game and category. In this case, your platform is PS3/360; your game is Madden NFL, Madden NFL 2010; and your category is Registration/Product Activation.

According to Kotaku, continue either via email or through customer service chat support and provide your Xbox Live Gamertag or PlayStation Network ID.

The Online Franchise Mode is already up on XBL and PSN, so it sounds like EA is going to give you a new code to download it.

More through the link.

The latest trailer for Aion: The Tower of Eternity tells the MMO’s backstory for the game.

It’s posted after the jump courtesy of Kotaku.

As per all Aion videos, it’s drop-dead gorgeous.

It releases on September 22 in the US and September 25 in Europe.

More »

Steam’s weekend deal is a dozy, featuring everything Half-Life for 66 percent off.

Also, the Valve Complete Pack is 10 percent off. Normally $99.99, you can get the full bit for $89.99.

Here’s the full thing: Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Ricochet, Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead.

Massive bunch of games, there. Hit this link for the rest.

Ubisoft production manager Andréane Meunier has sat down with Eurogamer to discuss the stealth genre along with Splinter Cell: Conviction.

According to Meunier, stealth appeals to people in everyday life.

“It appeals to everybody. We’ve all had sneaking around as kids and surprising somebody. Stealth is something I think people enjoy, and even if you watch movies about spies and infiltration or whatever, it’s interesting that people like stealth,” said Meunier. “The way the gameplay was done, it was really constraining, and it was really hardcore: you do this or not, I’m going to slap your wrist if you do it that way. Maybe that’s not the way people feel they should play stealth.

“Some people just say, ‘oh, the stealth genre is dead’ or is too hardcore, but we’re saying no, there is a feeling that people want to play stealth, we just need to give them a way to play with it.

Meunier feels that despite the fact that stealth is present in many other action games, Ubisoft tries to remain one step ahead.

“Obviously if something works you try to copy and take advantage of it, but we’re questioning ourselves and saying let’s push this a bit further.”

More through the link.

The US PS movie store update this week has loads of HD movies added to the service.

Highlights include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Mystery Men, Big Trouble In Little China, and Clerks II.

HD TV shows are the usual fare. Same old thing basically.

The full list of HD films are below the break, the rest can be found over on the US PS Blog.

More »

Sony has announced that MAG will hit North American retailers on January 26, 2010.

Zipper and SCEA will be holding an event during PAX on September 4 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM PST and 200 PS Blog readers are invited to attend the 256-person function and get hands-on with a new MAG map.

All you need to do is RSVP over on the US PS Blog.

Hit the link for the rest.

Harmonix’s John Drake has told Joystiq that side projects done by members of The Beatles will not be included in the Rock Band game for the band.

However, that doesn’t mean songs created during the solo careers won’t be featured as DLC for the original game.

“The design team really focused on The Beatles: Rock Band being about the four guys,” he told the site. “It’s about the lives and times of these four individuals playing together and the joy that came from the music they made.

“So you won’t see session players, you won’t see the families because it was hard to see where the line would be drawn. I know our creative and executive team spent a lot of time with Apple trying to say, “Do you include Eric Clapton’s solo, or Billy Preston’s keyboard stuff?” So instead, we just made it about those four guys.

“But it is about the defined part of their career, so you probably won’t see Ringo’s solo career, or Wings, or John Lennon’s or George’s songs. It’s going to be just the four Beatles playing together. It doesn’t mean we won’t see any of those songs in Rock Band, or something along those lines.”

More through the link.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

Turbine’s VP of corporate affairs, Nathan Jones, provided his views on the future of MMOs to attendees at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival today.

The creation of new social networks is key factor for continued success in MMOs and a move onto consoles is inevitable.

“MMOs offer the best of social networks, virtual worlds, and games,” he said citing My LOTRO, the company’s social networking site for Lord of the Rings Online.

The lack of MMOs on consoles was also mentioned in his speech.

“Companies are increasingly looking to the console platform…whether that’s an extension to an existing game or a new one,” he said. “Once there, it opens up a whole other category of opportunities,” he said.

More through Gamestop.

Bohemia Interactive has released its set of Mod Tools for ArmA II

ArmA II version 1.03 is required to use the tools, which consist of:

• Oxygen 2 Personal Edition for ARMA II – model editing and animation package
• Visitor 3 Personal Edition for ARMA II – terrain and map editing
• TexView 2 – texture convertor and viewer
• BinPBO Personal Edition – packer
• Sound Tools – sound and lipsync utilities
• FSM Editor – tool to edit and compile fsms used in ARMA II
• BinMake – conversion tool
• Tools Drive – main working directory for tools with mandatory data files

Full details are posted in the press release below.

More »

At the Edinburgh Interactive Conference, BMO Capital Markets’ Edward Williams told attendees that the gaming market has suffered “significant disruption” to its business model.

“For Western publishers, profitability hasn’t grown at all in the past few years and that’s before we take 2009 into account,” he said while stating that the opposite could be claimed from the Chinese sector.

Chinese firms were seeing improved profits due to the PC market and direct download methods rather than the traditional way used by Western firms releasing titles on DVD per retail outlets. Developers in China also do not have to pay as much in royalties to console makers because of the low number of console users.

Three factors, Williams explained, are causing the Western games market to decline:

• Games are getting larger, which meant longer development time and larger staff costs.
• In the 1990s the PlayStation accounted for 80% of the market, today the console space is very fragmented, so developers have to work on many platforms at any one time.
• The cost of licensing intellectual property or gaining official sports body endorsement (such as FIFA or FIA) has gone up.

Speaking to the BBC, Peter Moore agreed that while there’s a difference in the markets, Westerner will start warming up to digital distribution soon.

“In China, PC and mobile platforms will continue to dominate,” he said. “There isn’t the necessity to buy other pieces of hardware and it is our job to service that. In Europe we are going to see more content that’s delivered electronically, be that through Steam, Xbox Live or whatever.”

“The release of Tiger Woods online as a free to play experience will be the real test of the Western consumer’s appetite for digital downloading.”

The price of PSP games for the rumored PSN App Store were “leaked” today and according to a source for Pocket Gamer, some will be priced at 1, 2 and 5 Euros, which is the equivalent of games available on Apple’s App Store.

In addition, reports stating that Sony has been actively sourcing iPhone developers in order to bring existing titles to PSN.

To get games on the store, developers will still have to go through the TRC along with the required two week quality assurance testing, with Sony controlling the release date.

Over 50 developers signed up to produce content for PSP and new PSPgo via PSN channel, and PSPgo is expected to release on October 1.

More through the link.

Konami has discounted Metal Gear Solid Touch on the App Store and from now until August 15, you can get it for $2.99.

After that it will run you $7.99.

Designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch, Metal Gear Solid Touch has five chapters over a span of 20 stages with familiar enemies attempting to keep Old Snake from accomplishing his mission.

Groovy.

Full press release is after the break.

More »

Ubisoft has released a couple of new videos for Rabbids Go Home.

We have posted both past the break.

The game is expected to hit DS and Wii November 3.

More »

Ubisoft has announced that Jenny McCarthy will be featured in its new fitness game, Your Shape.

Scheduled to be released worldwide this Holiday 2009, Your Shape is the first fitness video game that enables people to work-out controller-free with a camera peripheral utilizing motion tracking technology.

“I am thrilled to be working with Ubisoft on Your Shape,” said Jenny. “The features in the game are incredible, and you have to see the technology to believe it. I was blown away. I truly believe in the importance of fitness, and [the game] is the perfect way to get a truly interactive, personalized workout on Wii.

“Given how busy we all are these days, especially once you have kids, it is important to find the most effective way to keep fit from the comfort of home.”

Jenny will host the game and be your pal during the workouts.

There goes most women’s sense of body image down the toilet.

A video is posted after the break.

More »