Monthly Archives: October 2009

Ubisoft’s Murray Pannel has told GI.biz that in the future, platforms will be “irrelevant to how you deliver” content to the customer.

Having a chat with the site about the Assassin’s Creed Lineage film released on YouTube today, Pannel said that the company is focused more on getting content to the public, instead of how it’s delivered.

“Content is moving forward – in the future it will be king – and the platforms almost become irrelevant to how you deliver that,” he explained. “It could be through Xbox, it could be a movie, or a book, or maybe even a card game. Ubisoft’s ambition is to be a 360-degree content provider rather than just a traditional games publisher – so looking at entertainment in a much broader sense than games development, or just movie production.

“The truth of the matter is that we’re not ‘making movies’ now – [Lineage] is an experiment, a bridge that we’re building to see how convergence works in terms of content and IP. I’m certainly not suggesting we’re going to start making feature-length films off the back of this.

“I suppose at the moment what our creative studios are working out and looking to deliver are ways of storytelling beyond just the traditional videogame format.”

Assassin’s Creed II’s out November 20, and part one in the Lineage series is posted past the break.

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James Stevenson, senior community manager for Insomniac, has predicted that it could take up to three years before developers max out PS3.

“There’s always ways we can become more efficient. The PlayStation platforms are built with a very high ceiling and I think that’s part of the success Sony has had in creating these platforms with really long life spans,” Stevenson told CVG.

“The PS3 still feels like a young system and I feel like it’s finally hitting its prime. You’ve got the Slim, it’s at a good price point now and sales are really picking up.

“I still think you’re not going to see the PS3 really maxed out for another two to three years. We’re using all of the PS3 right now, but you can always be more efficient in the way you use it.”

Full thing through the link.

Revolution Software’s Charles Cecil has told GI.biz that the iPhone version of Beneath a Steel Sky is expected to hit the 20,000 units sold during its first month of release.

The game is expected to sell 70,000 copies during its first year and 100,000 during its lifetime.

“As a small developer it’s an opportunity we’ve been able to grasp and it’s made possible because of the advent of digital distribution and of Apple who have reached out to people to buy music and games rather than download it from pirate sites,” Cecil told the site during today’s Eurogamer Expo. “The great thing about the Apple system is that it’s so easy to use, it’s easier to buy it [than resort to piracy] and it’s cheap.

“It’s so exciting that we can take something that was released so long ago and put it on the iPhone. We’re in a wonderful position where we can exploit our own games in a way that you could never do at a mainstream publisher.”

More through the link.

Surely you saw the post on this yesterday, but just in case you didn’t or should you need reminded – Dead Space and DiRT hit Microsoft’s Games on Demand service today for Xbox 360.

Granted, you can probably find the games cheaper than the £19.99/$29.99 price tags, but maybe you’re just lazy and don’t wanna drive to the shops, or maybe you are under house arrest with an ankle bracelet that shocks you when you step out the door.

Whatever your situation, both are at your disposal should the need strike you.

The Leeds leg of EG Expo 2009 is now open, with over 1,000 gamers having queued through the morning outside the Armouries in the city’s centre.

It’s completely sold out for both today and tomorrow, so don’t turn up if you don’t have a ticket: you won’t get it.

Hit the link for pics from the queue and showfloor. It’s proper bonkers in here. For the rest of our EG Expo coverage, hit this.

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Hit the link for a five-minute movie of the Hassan’s Shop section of Heavy Rain. This is shot off-screen from the GamesCom build at today’s Eurogamer Expo in Leeds.

The section sees an investigator, Shelby, going into a shop, talking to the shopkeeper and… well, take a look.

The PS3 exclusive’s out early next year. For all the rest of the news from the EG Expo today, hit this.

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Ubi’s put up the first part of its Assassin’s Creed II Lineage series: all 14 minutes of it.

This was teased last week. It’s basically game-world background. Very nice it is too.

The game’s out on November 20 for PS3 and 360.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter’s claimed that the just-announced PS3 Netflix deal has had to be tweaked to ensure it’s within terms of the firm’s exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and that a similar Wii deal isn’t far behind.

“We anticipate that a similar arrangement will be announced for the Wii in the next 12 months”, he said.

The analyst added: “We believe that the exclusive arrangement limits Netflix’s ability to appear on the ‘dashboard’ for the PS3 or the Wii, but because both devices have open architecture Internet browsers built-in, the solution proposed for the PS3 would likely not violate the terms of Microsoft’s exclusivity.”

Naughty. More on GI.

Hit the link for a video of Eurogamer’s Craig Munro killing the shit out of the Dante’s Inferno Limbo boss. This is shot off-screen from the E3 build set up at today’s Eurogamer Expo in Leeds.

The game’s out early next year. To be honest, it really does look fucking hot in the flesh.

Check it out.

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Microsoft’s released its UK 360 Sky package today – the basic banana’s going to cost £15 per month, and you’ll need a Gold Live sub to see it.

The basic package gives you the “Base Entertainment Pack,” which includes GOLD, Sky Real Lives, Sky Arts 1, MTV One, Sky Sports News, British Eurosport, ESPN Classic, Sky News, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, History, Eden, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Nick Jr.

You can add Sky Sports, Sky Movies and other channels for an additional fee.

If you’ve got a Sky sub already, you won’t have to pay twice – you’ll be able to see the channels you already pay for, on-demand, through your 360.

Eurogamer Expo’s on in Leeds today, and we’re here in the drizzle. We’ll be updating all day with videos, images and news, and all articles will be linked here.

The show’s a sell-out. It’s on at the Royal Armouries in Leeds and is home to playable versions of God of War III, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age and loads more. Check the movies of the showfloor to see what people are playing today.

For everything we’ve written on the Expo in the run-up to today, hit this.

• Brink boss – PC-only sales cannot “justify” triple-A budgets
• EG Expo – Split/Second video does the proper awesome
• EG Expo – God of War III, eight minutes of gameplay video
• Brink single-player to “compete” with “Halo, Call of Duty, Gears”
• Brink to have dedicated servers
• Pics – EG Expo kicks off, over 1,000 through doors in an hour
• EG Expo – Full Dante’s Inferno boss battle video, Limbo level
• EG Expo – Pre-opening movies from the showfloor
• EG Expo set-up in photos

Hit the link for videos of EG Expo Leeds’ two halls. See the play stations for God of War III, Mass Effect 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and more.

The show’s on today. It’s a sell-out. Here are some shots we took of the set-up last night. We’ll show you what it looks like covered in “kids” later on.

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Nintendo’s double-whammied talk of a large-screen DSi, with the company’s Japanese arm branding the original Nikkei article “speculative”.

“Our company isn’t doing any interviews [about this],” a rep told Famitsu.

“We think it’s a speculative article.”

Nintendo US has already called the piece “rumor”.

Confirmed. Thanks, Kotaku.

According to a Today’s Gamers’ survey of 13,000 people from Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Belgium and the US, more Americans play games as a percentage than all the rest.

Of those questioned, 87 percent of American males said they play games, versus 74 percent in the UK, 67 percent in Germany, and 66 percent in France.

Hit Joystiq for a précis.

Here’s a shock for you – almost a third of all Guitar Hero players are female.

“A very large group really wants great guitar music, and they don’t want us to confuse that,” Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig told Gamepro.

“And there’s another group of people who love that, but also love to have more current music, more family music, music more popular for girls – 30 percent of our players are already girls, and we want that to grow.

“One of the great things about having a franchise like this is you can really meet all kinds of consumer demand.”

Place your bets on sex split for DJ Hero now.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

Rockstar’s released yet more screens of the imminent Gay Tony, this time showing the eponymous club owner doing some kind of funky chicken in front of a TV. They’re on Kotaku.

The GTA IV 360 DLC is actually out this week. Buy it. Relive the dream.

Valve put out a first Left 4 Dead 2 GameStop commercial last night. Get it after the break.

The movie’s all about knocking seven bells out of zombies in a baseball stadium, tying in with the fact that you can only get the game’s baseball bat by pre-ordering through the retailer.

The shooter’s playable on 360 at the EG Expo in Leeds today. Expect queues.

It’s out on November 17. Thanks, Joystiq.

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IGN’s posted movies, screens and a hands-on taken from Madden NFL Arcade.

The EA game was first mentioned yonks ago, but got a formal announcement earlier this month.

It’s easy Madden, basically. It’s out in December for 1,200 MS Points.

If you’re wondering why the site hasn’t been updated much since the early evening yesterday, it’s because I was travelling up to the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds, which opens today. Get some pics of the unopened show and the Eurogamer crew setting it up after the break.

As you can see, some of the industry’s biggest upcoming games are going to be playable at the event today, including Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2 and God of War III.

We’ll be there all day, covering panels on games like Brink, and hopefully grabbing some videos of the bigger stuff for you as we go along.

And remember – the show’s completely sold out, as is its London leg later this week. There are no tickets on the door, either, so if you didn’t buy one you’ll have to wait until next year.

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Speaking with Kotaku, Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling became the first person to confirm the inclusion of a third-person mode in Modern Warfare 2.

“3rd Person is a new playlist mode in Multiplayer,” he said. “So you can play your favorite playlists [or] game types, like Team Deathmatch just standard, or in Hardcore mode ([with] limited HUD and increased bullet damage) or in the new 3rd Person mode, which means you and everyone in the game is in 3rd person.”

“When you’re in a 3rd Person playlist you can’t toggle in and out, you’re always in 3rd person,” he says, adding “You can’t toggle 3rd person view on or off in a standard game type either, people in 3rd person can’t play with people in 1st person, they’re entirely different game modes. This is just another way to play the game.”

See? When it comes to war, everybody wins!

Wait.