Monthly Archives: October 2009

According to reports, Activision has laid-off approximately 30 staffers from newly acquired 7-Studios. Kotaku says that the 30 staffers let go make up half of the firm’s employees.

“Since the completion of its acquisition by Activision, 7 Studios has realigned its business to focus its development resources on the music genre,” said Activision in a statement. “As a part of this realignment, the studio is reducing its workforce to better reflect Activision’s upcoming slate of music-based games.”

Purchased by Activision in April for work on DJ Hero and to “bolster its development capabilities”, the purchase ultimately causing a lawsuit over the source code for Scratch: The Ultimate DJ

The lawsuit filed back in April claimed the publisher’s intention was to delay the creation of Scratch and gain access to it’s technology.

Sounds like a mess. More through the link.

Via GI.

According to his agent’s website, Billy Murray has been in LA reprising his role as Captain Price in Modern Warfare 2.

You just can’t keep a good soldier down, apparently, even after being severely wounded. Looks like that Russian medic saved him after all back in 2011 so he could live to fight another day in 2016 when MW2 takes place.

Guess we will just have to wait and see exactly what part he has to play come November.

NoA boss Reggie Fils-Aime’s told MSNBC that he’s not expecting any Wii or DS hardware shortages running into the end of 2009.

“From our stand-point, we’re prepared,” he said when asked if punters can expect to go begging this Christmas.

“We have a tremendous amount of product in inventory. We’re been flowing product into retail. We do not expect to have shortages on our products.”

The exec laid out the inevitable caveat.

“Now, if we do experience them, I’d love to have that problem,” he added, “but we’re not seeing that happening this year.”

Quick. Buy three Wiis. Who knows when they’ll run out again?

Thanks to the Beatles Rock Band, U2 may reconsider it’s position on appearing in the game.

Last year, the band was in talks with Harmonix about appearing in the series, but bowed out.

“We definitely would like to be in there, but we felt some of the compromises weren’t what we wanted,” bassist Adam Clayton told USA Today. “That could change. I love the idea that that’s where people are getting music, and we’d love to be in that world. We’ll figure something out.

“What The Beatles have done, where the animation is much more representative of them, is what we’re interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all animation. We didn’t want to be caricatured.”

Yes, Adam. We want your music in Rock Band. Anything done before 2005 will do.

More through the link.

Massively’s posted five new screens of Cryptic’s Star Trek Online, Borgs and all.

The MMO’s out next year, and is likely to cause one of the largest geekgasms in modern gaming history.

Hit the link to see why.

Mobigames’ EDGE is now available again on Apple’s App Store. Yours for £2.99.

The game fell victim to Tim Langdell and his amazing trademark squatting, and has been in limbo for months.

EA challenged Langdell recently, saying none of his claims to the “edge” name were valid as he wasn’t currently using it for commercial purposes.

Maybe he got the hint.

Thanks, EG.

Yakuza 4 will have dynamic in-game ads thanks to a Sega-Double Fusion Japan deal, Andriasang reports.

The PS3 game releases in Japan next spring, and will be awash with product tie-ins for its real-world setting, from the sound of it.

Awesome. Can you make it in English now, Sega?

The IMDB page for the upcoming World of Warcraft movie’s been updated: apparently, the Sam Raimi movie’s going to be called Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King.

As MTV points out, the interesting bit’s the fact that a World of Warcraft novel, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, was released in the US earlier this year.

The book follows Arthas Menethil, a once-noble prince who goes mental and becomes the Lich King.

Vrai ou faux? We’ll all know soon enough. The movie’s out in 2011.

Xbox boss Robbie Bach’s told an audience at a Microsoft’s Open House event in New York yesterday that Natal will get cheaper as it moves on in life.

“Relative to Natal, we’ll see how the pricing cost works out,” he said.

“But people should except that it will go through the usual price curve.”

In addition, Bach refused to be drawn on whether or not Natal will be the motion-sensing system’s final name.

Asked when we’ll be able to stop referring to the device by its code name, Bach said, “When we tell you to call it something else.”

Natal’s expected towards the end of next year. Thanks, Variety.

Microsoft said this morning that Forza 3 will get a “free Game Add-on car and track pack, available exclusively by way of a one-time-use token card included in every new copy” of the game.

The Turn 10 racer releases on October 27.

Your free cars are:

• ’65 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA
• ’64 Aston Martin DB5 Vantage
• ’81 BMW M1
• ’60 Chevrolet Corvette
• ’69 Dodge Charger
• ’57 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa
• ’80 Fiat 131 Abarth
• ’67 Lamborghini Miura P400
• ’71 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R
• ’65 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe

PR after the break.

More »

EA RTS BattleForge has become the first title to “leverage Microsoft’s DirectX 11 and AMD’s new ATI graphic processor chipset,” the publisher said this morning.

This is a “significant first for the title,” according to EA. You can play the game for free right here.

Total War’s Warpath expansion is now available on Steam. More detail here.

For £5.99, you get to unlock a new campaign and all five new American Indian factions. These factions can be played in single player and multiplayer games.

Get to it, ludicrously-detailed RTS fans.

Here we go. As noticed by GoNintendo and Wired, Game Informer has altered its Epic Mickey teaser page to remove a claim that the game is a Wii exclusive.

The original claim of Wii exclusivity for the Junction Point project raised more than a few eyebrows, especially given the incoming spring release of Sony’s PS3 motion tech and the game’s “artwork” nature.

There’s the dream: cling on to it. A press event’s being held for the game in London on October 28, so we should know more then.

SCEA’s Jack Tretton’s told Forbes that Sony’s PS3 Slim gamble has paid off, with the console revamp resulting in “sky-rocketing sales… We couldn’t be happier with the numbers we’re seeing.”

Tretton added that he sees Sony as a greater risk-taker than Nintendo.

“We don’t have unlimited money, we cater to a more mass market audience, we’re willing to take a little bit more risk than a competitor like Nintendo,” he added.

Sony. Risk-taker. Rule-breaker. Watch the full thing through the link.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has said that a decision on whether or not an Australia-specific cut of Left 4 Dead 2 has passed OFLC regulations as a 15+ rated game is expected any day now.

The company has submitted a new build of the shooter, Newell said, in an effort to ensure the game gets released on time.

“We may actually here about that version today,” he said in a Gamespot-published presentation dated October 6.

“The goal is to guarantee that something’s available on November 17 in Australia, while at the same time pushing to get approval for that to be the full version of the game.”

Left 4 Dead 2 was refused classification in Australia last month.

Newell said that it was Valve’s “very strong preference” to see the full game released in Australia without alterations, but that a now-engaged appeal process is “slow” and may mean the title misses its November 17 ship date if fully pursued.

Newell was speaking at a presentation in Australia. Watch it after the break.

More »

Tale of Tales has released Fatale, as promised. Get it here for $7.

If previous effort The Path was anything to go by, you’ll need to be the sort of person that at least believes they’re the sort of person that should be wearing a smoking jacket and propping up a large mantelpiece to enjoy it, but don’t let us stop you.

The Path was great, by the way. Where’s that blasted pipe?

Visceral’s newly-revealed Jack the Ripper game will put players in Jack’s shoes, according to Destructoid sources.

But slow down there, horsey. You may think of Mr Ripper as a medically-skilled whore-killer. Not so. Apparently, he’s a supernatural force for good. Who knew?

If that piece is correct, Jack spends his time protecting people from demons, vampires and such. OTT weapons and a time-slowing ability are being mooted.

Which is great, but we really were looking forward to getting stuck into some hookers with a bagful of surgical equipment. As were you all, right guys? Guys?

No date. The game hasn’t even been announced yet.

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Oh dear. The MD of Chips, UK’s largest independent games chain, has told GI he expects the PSPgo to “fail miserably”.

Don McCabe said: “My own personal opinion is that it’s a no-go. I’ve been to a number of presentations to see if there’s anything there and I don’t feel it’ll go anywhere to be honest.

“I’m 99.9 per cent sure it’s going to fail miserably, in which case it’s going to put back other potential people coming into that digital space.”

More joy through there. The handheld released last week.

FIFA 10 is the fastest selling sports game of all time and EA’s biggest ever European launch, the publisher said this morning, with 1.7 million Euro units sold in just one week.

Mr Moore, understandably, is quite pleased.

“We were confident that FIFA 10 would be a hit, and this week fans across Europe have shown just how much they love this game,” he said.

“We are incredibly proud of FIFA 10 and this kick-off for great, authentic football competition.”

More than 10 million gaming sessions have now been played online, with over 155,000 gamers playing online simultaneously during peak playing hours.

FIFA was branded the second biggest UK launch of all time on Monday, only being bested by GTA IV.

The game launches in the US on October 20.

Another day, another developer CV spilling a bean. This time is looks to be the name of Starbreeze’s EA Bourne title – according to Starbreeze audio director Carl Vikman, it’s called “Bourne Ascendancy”.

Starbreeze was announced as the developer of the next Bourne game in February this year, with a rep to the Ludlum estate even going so far as to say the property was now being handled by “grown-ups”. The previous Bourne game was developed by High Moon and published by Sierra.

The Riddick team is known to be working on the game. There’s no date on it.

Thanks, superannuation.