Author Archives: Naren Hooson

Hisashi Koinuma, the producer of many Omega Force games such as Samurai Warrior, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage, One Piece: Pirate Warriors and Pokemon Conquest has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Tecmo Koei Games.

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An infographic depicting many statistics from Diablo III in the last year has been posted on the Battle.net site in celebration of the first anniversary of the game.

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Patch 5.3, or Escalation, for World of Warcraft is available today delivering many additions. A new Battleground called Deepwind Gorge as well as a new Arena, The Tiger’s Peak, are included along with new scenarios Battle on the High Seas, Blood in the Snow, Dark Heart of Pandaria and The Secrets of Ragefire.
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Ben Kilgore, corporate vice president of interactive entertainment business has confirmed that the next-gen Kinect will be available on Windows PC at some stage.
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Microsoft’s Studios corporate vice president Phil Harrison has stated that there will be no separation between game distribution channels with Xbox One.
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As more and more details are released and clarified by Microsoft regarding the specification of the Xbox One features and functionality, it has been revealed that the microphone for Xbox One’s Kinect will always be on.
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The US PlayStation store has posted a rather larger update, listing full games, ultimate editions, a preorder, some savings and bundles.
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The organisers of GDC Europe have announced more talks for the event in August. As part of the design and business tracks, the new talks will take place from Monday 19 August through to Wednesday 21 August. These additions will be talks from Steven Masters on Assassin’s Creed III’s design, Don Daglow on the ‘treasures and traps’ of next-gen and Epic’s James Brown on empowering the player in storytelling.
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Following the recent online discussion regarding the technical side of Xbox One, Major Nelson has announced he will be taking some questions in a live Yahoo! chat. Details can be found on Majornelson.com.

The chat will use Covert It Live and will automatically go live on his site. It will start on Wednesday at 4p ET/ 1p PT/ 9p UK time.

Adding to the big announcements, information for Call of Duty’s next-gen installment in the franchise has started to emerge today. Following leaks of the name and a teaser trailer in the past weeks, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Ghosts is developed on a new engine which will add features such as exponential polygons and mocapped dogs.
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Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer has announced that historic IP from veteran developer Rare Ltd. may make an appearance at E3 this year.
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In the wake of Microsoft’s Xbox One announcement, a group of technical specialists, hosted by Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb, dissected the hardware and software capabilities of the upcoming console.
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With Microsoft’s Xbox One now unveiled, many are thinking they have taken on more than they can handle and are heading in a direction that could estrange the gamers. Several leading games analysts are now commenting, with varied opinions.
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Although perhaps somewhat overshadowed by the Xbox One announcement, Sony’s PS4 presentation combined with the response to the Xbox One has sent Sony’s share price up.
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20 May 2013 marked the 30th anniversary of the first games EA ever shipped. In a San Francisco warehouse back in 1983, all of the then EA employees, including programmers and the marketing department, all came together to pack the first five EA games to be released and ship them off to stores selling Commodore 64 games.
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John Riccitiello, former EA boss believes that PS4 and Xbox One will both be successful, saying, “I believe that console gaming is going to explode on the scene of consumer electronics with this next generation of consoles.”
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The EA Partners label, the contract-based publishing service for independent developers, is said to be closing.

Game Informer has apparently received “word from multiple anonymous sources close to the matter” regarding the closure. The Partners label is responsible for bringing the Crysis series, Shadows of the Damned, Alice: Madness Returns, Bulletstorm, Brutal Legend, the Rock Band series and more.

The news follows the departure of CEO John Riccitiello, recent layoffs around the world and the abandoning of relatively new Facebook titles from a studio that was acquired for $300 million.

Miiverse can now be accessed via computer or smartphone. Wii U’s social network has now launched on browsers in its beta phase to see what all your friends are up.

The browser version allows users to view their Activity Feed, friends list, notifications and more but not make new posts and new accounts. To use the Miiverse outside of a Wii U a Nintendo Network ID still needs to be setup on a Wii U. Thanks Joystiq.

There is still no word of when Miiverse will hit 3DS.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced in a financial results presentation that the company is not planning on holding a large presentation at E3 this year.
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For those who haven’t already purchased Snail Game’s Age of Wushu but are wanting to, now there is even more reason to grab it. A special retail version of the game, available online for $19.99, features training and a special adventure with Hero star Jet Li.
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