Monthly Archives: August 2009

Steam will be offline for up to three hours on Thursday night, from 6.00-9.00pm PST.

Affected will be the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers and making purchases from the Steam store.

The announcement’s here.

There’s some new footage of Halo ODST gameplay after the break, shot off-screen at a Microsoft event in Paris.

Looks very Haloey. An interview with Bungie lead designer Lars Bakken’s edited into it as well, the second part of this morning’s Halo-based movie double whammy.

It’s out later this year.

More »

Sega’s confirmed Aliens Vs Predator for a February release, as you can see from the official site.

Everything we’ve seen on this so far looks good and promising, so cross everything. It’s getting a full showing at GamesCom later this month.

PC, PS3 and 360 all get versions. Thanks, monkey_man.

A Wii version of Modern Warfare will release this November, Kotaku reckons.

The announcement is expected today.

Treyarch’s developed it, apparently, and it’s a port of the 360, PS3 and PC title released in 2007.

Hit the link for more.

Once upon a time, there was a next gen Indy game Staff of Kings was scheduled for PS3 and 360. It never made it. Hit the link for a concept video of what it might have looked like.

Looks good, doesn’t it? Keep dreaming, ageing children of the world.

Thanks UnSeen64, Joystiq and Kotaku.

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Did you miss it? Of course you did. You don’t have the stamina, the unswerving dedication to the news cause, that separates snivelling boys from towering men.

Fortunately, we do. Which is why you’ll find all of the news from EA’s Q1 release below.

• EA slashes Q1 costs as losses widen
• EA Q1 financials – full earnings call transcript
• EA Q1 earnings call – full audio
• EA Sports Active sells 1.8 million copies
• EA Sports Active Wii expansion delays 360 and PS3 Grand Slam Tennis
• Sims 3 sells 3.7 million units
• Riccitiello: EA to support both Natal and PS3 motion tech, plans coming “early- to mid-2010″
• Riccitiello confirms ongoing Medal of Honor work
• Madden Arcade coming just in time for the holidays
• Madden 10 pre-orders up on last year

Following the thrill of last night’s EA Q1 earnings release, tonight sees Acti Blizz get in on the action with its Q2 figures announcement and earnings call.

These are numbers for the second quarter of the company’s fiscal 2009. We’ll get the results after NYSE market close tonight.

The call’s scheduled for 1.30pm PST (866-921-6496 or at www.activisionblizzard.com).

That’s 9.30pm BST.

Don’t miss it. Bosses Bobby Kotick and Mike Morhaime are kings of the conference call showboat. Or something,

Don’t like reading? Can’t read? We got your ass covered, hotshot. Below you’ll find a link to the full audio of last night’s EA Q1 investor call. Hit it, or download it, and listen to John Riccitiello and Peter Moore say things like “going forward”. A lot.

You’ll hear a lot of yawning and typing. They’re by-products of tirelessly serving the news community in the middle of the night.

EA Q1 earnings call audio

For all the major headlines from the call and all related figures, hit this.

EA Sports boss Peter Moore said last night that pre-orders for Madden’s 2010 version were ahead of those the firm saw for the franchise in 2008.

“We’re now marginally ahead year-on-year with about ten days to go,” said Moore, speaking in EA’s Q1 investor call.

“Last year on this call we talked about pre-sales and whether they were really a key indicator anymore for what the strength of the title is going to be out of the blocks… but we’re marginally ahead.”

Moore didn’t give specific figures. The game releases on August 14.

For all the major headlines from the call and all related figures, hit this.

Seeking Alpha’s posted the entire transcript of last night’s hour-long EA Q1 investor call. There’s some good stuff in there, newshounds.

For all the major headlines from the call and all related figures, hit this.

Namco Bandai has hired on Jonathan Kromrey to develop iPhone games for the company.

Speaking with Kotaku, Kromrey has told  the site that every week, a new iPhone game will be announced by the publisher as the format is a “gold rush” that Namco needs to be a part of.

“My charge is to make games that are the best for the iPod Touch and iPhone,” he said. “There is a gold rush to do Apps for the App store, and Namco is at the forefront of that movement.

“In the past Namco’s been known for its depth of arcade experience, games like Pac-Man, Galaga, SoulCalibur and Tekken. I’m excited to be here and see a lot of those franchises come out on the iPhone. I’m here to champion new things, new IP, to discover what the new Pac-Man is for the iPhone.”

Kromrey said games like Soul Calibur and Tekken would be great additions, but the controls would be a bit tricky.

More through the link.

Rumor going round the net states that Apple’s new tablet (MacBook Touch) is an actual gaming system.

The netbook, according to an analyst who claims to have seen it, is a 10-incher that will sync, Wi-Fi stream from home devices, has a touch screen, and was designed for gaming.

Currently awaiting the “go head” from Steve Jobs, the device will run somewhere in the $699-$799 range. Supposedly it is on for a September reveal and could start hitting stores as early as November.

According to the Telegraph, computer manufacturers have slowed production on tablet gizmos to wait and see what Apple is bringing to the fold.

Loads of links to read through: MCV, Engadget, Telegraph.

An ex-Midway Newcastle GUI artist named Steven Pick has detailed the studio’s closure over on his personal blog, stating that work was going on as usual before the doors officially shut.

Pick details how Necessary Force was still being pitched to publishers right up to the last day in hopes of saving it,stating that the rush to provide a complete demo for investors was to help save jobs – which, alas, did not work.

“One thing is for sure – the threat of losing your job is a strong motivator,” he wrote. “We had expected that the closure would be on Friday, and everyone was working to that point. A week after we were told of the failure of the ‘big pitch’, Tuesday July 14 would be a day I will never forget.

“As lunch neared, our secretary noted on the security cameras that Matt Booty – the bigwig Midway CEO at the time – was outside the studio ‘with a bunch of people’. The news filtered through the studio like wildfire accompanied by assorted reactions – mostly of the ‘oh f***’ variety.

Apparently, the studio closed on pay-day, but no redundancy or holiday pay was forthcoming.

“Some of us asked why we were not getting paid when the London office was reportedly cash-rich. After all the work, the praise, the highs and lows of it all… it came down to this. It was heartbreaking seeing everyone slowly filter away from there… wondering what would become of us as individuals now that our team, which was such a solid and incredible machine, had been disassembled like a piece of flat-pack furniture.”

Ouch. Read the rest through the link.

Via GI.biz.

When Netflix gets updated on Xbox Live August 11, users will have to add new movies to the queue via their PC and do it manually.

Granted, the change will happen momentarily on the dashboard, but apparently users will only be able to choose the 50 most recent titles added to a each category. If they want something more arcane or less popular, of to the PC they will have to go.

Ben Smith, director of program management for Xbox Live, lead the team that designed the new Netflix update and says the “Netflix lite” approach was created to give a more “video rental store” experience to customers.

“I think when people come to Xbox they’re not really looking so much for functional, they really want to have fun, they want to be wowed,” he told MTV Multiplayer. “If we find out that people really think it’s hard and they really want to find all movies that begin with “B” or something like that, we’ll definitely go down that path. With Marketplace we did that…there was kind of a compromise.”

More through the link.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Nintendo has released 32 screens for Metroid Prime Trilogy, which hits September 4.

All three games will be included in the Wii title, and tweaks to use the Nunchuk and Remote for the first two have been implemented.

CVG has all the pretty pictures. Go have a look.

Peter Moore announced during EA’s financial call today that an arcade version of Madden NFL will be released just in time for the holidays.

Madden Arcade will be reminiscent of 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and is to be made available for PSN and XBL.

Moore never said if the footballers will look like bobble heads or not, but if it is anything like 3 on 3, expect it.

Extra details were promised at a later date.

EA boss John Riccitiello has made first official mention of ongoing work on Medal of Honor, speaking tonight in the company’s Q1 earnings call.

“Somewhere out there is Medal of Honor,” said the exec.

“We’re not yet in a position to discuss specific plans, but we will do so in due course.”

As far as we’re aware, this is the first time the company has ever officially mentioned new Medal of Honor projects passed 2007′s Medal of Honor: Airborne and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2.

The series was rumoured last year to be heading to Afghanistan, and various job postings potentially related to the series have been spotted recently.

But there you go. Official.

Crytek’s Cevat Yerli has stated that if Germany bans action games, the company will be forced to relocate to another country.

“A ban on action games in Germany is concerning us because it is essentially like banning the German artists that create them,” he stated. “If the German creative community can’t effectively participate in one of the most important cultural mediums of our future, we will be forced to relocate to other countries.

“The current political discussion will deprive German talent of its place on the global game development stage, and deprive German consumers of entertainment that is considered safe and fun around the world.”

German legislators are contemplating a ban on action games due to the inherent violence contained in them.

This would mean that not only would retailers be prohibited from selling titles of this genre, but companies could no longer manufacture or develop action titles either.

More over on PC Games Germany.

EA boss John Riccitiello said tonight that EA is “positive” on the opportunities afforded by both Natal and PS3′s upcoming motion controller, saying the company will support both and announce its plans for the new peripherals next year.

“We’re really positive on both,” said the exec, speaking in the firm’s Q1 investor call.

“Our view is that motion-based gaming is something that is both going to drive install base, drive interest and drive growth. We’re positive overall.”

He added: “We’re planning to support both. We haven’t yet announced our plans to do so, but we shall do so in the right time-frame for that, which is likely to be early- to mid-2010.”

Natal and the PS3 motion-tech are dateless at the moment, although Natal is expected towards the end of 2010.

The EA financial call is still ongoing and in it the company revealed that The Sims 3 has sold 3.7 million copies.

Sims 3 was the top selling title in North America and Europe for the quarter, it was revealed.

There’s loads of Sims fans out there, apparently.

Full financials can been read here.