Gaming News Highlights: June
June 21st 2007 13:04
Being my 1st real blog posting, I’ll start it off with a bang, a list of the major gaming news that has occurred this June!
Chosen news highlight of the month: Unreal tournament 3 lead designer Steven Polge describes the game as Gears of Wars on crack.
19/6
- Unsurprisingly, Manhunt 2 has been banned in the UK.
- Valve signs up bizarre creations to bring geometry wars to steam.
- Warner Bros Interactive set to expand to Europe.
- Playstation’s favourite hype-machine, Ken Kutaragi, has retired from Sony. I’ll miss does outrageous promises he makes at Playstation Launches.
18/6
- Dorito’s wants to hear your video game ideas! Register at http://www.unlockxbox.com/ and your gaming idea might land you a home entertainment system including a 360 Elite console!
- Microsoft sues Immersion Corporation for not adhering to a licensing agreement made after Immersion sued Sony and Microsoft, which Microsoft adhered to in 2003.
- Tomb Raider Anniversary heads to the 360 as an ‘episodic’ download in parts.
16/6
- 5 Psone games are up to be bought at the Sony online shop: Crash Bandicoot, Wipeout, Medievil, Jumping Flash, and Syphon Filter.
15/6
- Interesting note: Bungie.net has a strange countdown on their website
- Sony cuts staff in their music departments. Important note: Not just in their games sector.
- Half life 2: Episode 2 to be released October 9! Ps3 version to be made in the UK
- Quantic Dream, the creators of the awesome Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy in America), has plans to expand their motion capture facilities with new equipment that might make their games that extra bit MORE real.
Ubisoft aims to grow their Casablanca studio by 2010.
During May: Wii sold 338,000 consoles, then the 360 with 155,000 and ps3 coming last selling only 82,000 consoles.
- Sony apologies for offending the church.
- Wii Blaster to be launched June 27 (much like the gun for the old NES system)
14/6
- 360 plans for a better cooling system is underway to tackle the “red ring of death”
- Publisher Gamecock to host ‘E3 Alternative’ event in July at Santa Monica’s Hotel, California.
- The Media Development Authority in Singapore is funds 10 casual game prototypes for $350,000 US.
- Codemasters secured $100 million US in financing for future growth.
- Game Australia will open 25 stores by the end of this year.
- The 3rd installment to the Katamari series, Beautiful Katamari, might become an X-box exclusive
- Swat coming to the PSP
- Atari facing possible 17.2 million loss in profit after the end of the fiscal year on march 31st.
13/6
- No plans for downloadable content for the PS3 version of GTA4, but the 360 gets to.
- Avartar: The Burning Earth is scheduled for a Fall release
- City of Hero/villains fans hear the big news! Episode 10: Invasion is coming!
- Warhammer fans not only play on the table-terrain, but also online! In ten days, the sign up sheet to play Warhammer: Age of Reckoning beta has topped 200,000 registrants. It is described as the fastest growing beta sign-up in all of MMORPG history. The legions are coming… online!
- Courtesy of Vgchartz.com, the Wii has already sold 8.17 million consoles worldwide. Catching up to 360 worldwide sales of 10 million sold.
12/6
- Gamestop releases Halo 3 controllers.
- Bioware, creators of Never Winter Nights 2, are creating a MMORPG.
- Soul Calibur 4 lives as teaser trailer is released.
- Telltale to make more Sam and Max episode games with a $6 million contribution from San Francisco-based Granite Ventures and IDG Ventures SF.
- Bugbear to create Sega Rally for the PSP.
11/6
- The writer’s guild of Great Britain has added a videogames aware for best storyline as part of their awards line up. The awards are set to be held on the 17th of November at King’s Cross, Great Britain.
- Lego’s Universe set date is December 2008, so don’t hold your breath.
- New York Times writes Nintendo is being friendly to 3rd party developers by heading to their offices and demonstrating how the wii would help profit the organisation. Good on Ninty!
- 3styles games signed with red bull. Means Red bull ad’s in games.
- Sony responds with a proposal to talk with the Church of England over the use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man
- The $250,000 games development grant messaged by the Texas governor on the 8/6 will have the power to choose which projects they deem are appropriate to fund.
- Mac fans hear are EA games coming to you! Whats the big deal? Its coming sooner than most windows to mac conversions. Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
10/6
- Nintendo did a pokemon version of the game boy, and now they will release a yellow pikachu version of the DS lite!
- Parappa 3 heading to the PS3!
- Attention Eurogamers! Eurogamer.net has released information on upcoming titles to Europe.
• Adventures of Lolo (Wii Virtual Console)
• Balloon Fight (Wii Virtual Console)
• Brothers in Arms (DS)
• Dead Moon (Wii Virtual Console)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360)
• Halo 2 Vista (PC)
• Hospital Tycoon (PC)
• Marvel Trading Card Game (PC, PSP, DS)
• Mercury Meltdown Revolution (Wii)
• Mortal Kombat II (PS3 Store)
• Pac-Man: Championship Edition (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Pangya! Golf With Style (Wii)
• The History Channel Presents Great Battles of Rome (PS2, PC)
• Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PSP)
• Trioncube (DS)
• Wartech Senko no Ronde (Xbox 360)
- Disney announces they will spend triple the money they usually spend on games development with $130 million set to be spent this year.
- Sony’s use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man has raised hell with the Church of England for using it as a war field.
- Sony Rumors: slimmer version of the PSP might be revealed at E3!
9/6
- Harvest Moon fans will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of Harvest Moon games announced at E3: SEVEN!
Harvest Moon 2 (DS)
Harvest Moon DS Cute (DS)
Harvest Moon Wii (Wii)
Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl (PSP)
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Special Edition (PS2)
Puzzle de Harvest Moon (DS)
Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (DS)
- Calling to all Civilization modders, Gameflood has announced a mod and mapmaking contest with highest prize $25,000. Voting periods will end July16th so get cracking! Details at: Really Long Link
8/6
- Myst fans can look forward to a DS version due in November.
- Sony confirms 1 million PS3’s have been sold in Europe and Australia.
- News – Paris Hilton plays WoW 8 hours a day! (This might be credible concerns that video games does turn you dumb)
-Texas governor Rick Perry has signed into law a $250,000 grant incentive for state-funded video game projects. Happy times for Texan game developers!
- Gamersreports.com reports Sony has cut a deal, with Gamestops store managers, in each district to sell as many of their ps3’s as much as they can, with the highest seller given Gamestops reward points of 20,000.( Sony showing signs of desperate need to sell their console.)
- Anyone remember Thundercats? Well a CGI movie is in development. The main plot surrounds the origins of Lion-O.
- Courtersy from developmag.com, the finalists in creativity of the Develop Indusry Excellence awards!
New Console/PC IP
Just Cause (Avalanche)
Crackdown (Realtime Worlds)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (GSC Game World)
Viva Pinata (Rare)
MotorStorm (Evolution, SCEE External Development)
Red Steel (Ubisoft France)
- Transformer and X-men producer, Tom DeSanto, has taken into consideration to turn City of Heroes into a movie!
- Halo 2 Tourny - is it too late? You got till the 25th of July to get to the top 64 ranked players with the top winners getting an Xbox 360 Elite game console!
- God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP is set to be released in November.
- War Hammer Online: Age of Reckoning screen shots have surfaced.
- Nintendo has announced new offices in New York and San Francisco
- Assassin Creed’s producer Jade Raymond expresses interest in the handheld market
- Walt Disney Studio has signed up Stan Lee (creator of Spider-man, Hulk, Daredevil among heaps more) to create “original IP” (or simply “game concepts”). This might mean we will see much higher quality Walt Disney products in the future. Disney firmly believes Stan’s the Man.
- First week in the Japan charts and Resident Evil 4 missed top spot, coming second.
- A spokesperson from Sony says Japan employees are safe from job cuts.
7/6
- Rockstar reassures GTA IV is coming out around 16th of October in America and 19th in Europe.
- Square-Enix says no to a remake of Final Fantasy 7 =(
- Xbox 360 boos Peter Moore says that future 360 might incorporate motion capture features, Bill Gates concurs at the All Things D conference.
- Sony price cut being considered…
6/6
- 80-100 American’s at SCEA were laid off due to ‘division restructuring”. The poor sales of the Playstation 3 might be part of the reason.
- Creators of Knight of Honor announce their new title: Worldshift. An alien rakehell- bent to destroy the world and its up to you to kick their ass RTS style! 3 Screens have been released of the title on the 14tth of June.
- Research by the NPD group has concluded the average of children playing video games is 6.7 years old. 2005 average was 8.1 years old.
- Former Human Head (Prey) CEO Timothy Gerritsen try’s to form a new development studio in Madison, Wisconsin. Current name - Big Rooster
5/6/07
- Bill Gates describes the future of gaming involves a new control system that isn't the Wii-mote. Gates describes it as actually carrying a tennis racket instead of the screen tricking you as if it were (like the Wii-mote). Hmmmm
4/6
- Smoking Guns Interactive has just been conceived by the creator of Company of Heroes from Relic Entertainment. Watch out for them!
1/6
- Unreal tournament 3 set for release around October, including player co-op, 18 new vehicles, and hover boards!
Chosen news highlight of the month: Unreal tournament 3 lead designer Steven Polge describes the game as Gears of Wars on crack.
19/6
- Unsurprisingly, Manhunt 2 has been banned in the UK.
- Valve signs up bizarre creations to bring geometry wars to steam.
- Warner Bros Interactive set to expand to Europe.
- Playstation’s favourite hype-machine, Ken Kutaragi, has retired from Sony. I’ll miss does outrageous promises he makes at Playstation Launches.
18/6
- Dorito’s wants to hear your video game ideas! Register at http://www.unlockxbox.com/ and your gaming idea might land you a home entertainment system including a 360 Elite console!
- Microsoft sues Immersion Corporation for not adhering to a licensing agreement made after Immersion sued Sony and Microsoft, which Microsoft adhered to in 2003.
- Tomb Raider Anniversary heads to the 360 as an ‘episodic’ download in parts.
16/6
- 5 Psone games are up to be bought at the Sony online shop: Crash Bandicoot, Wipeout, Medievil, Jumping Flash, and Syphon Filter.
15/6
- Interesting note: Bungie.net has a strange countdown on their website
- Sony cuts staff in their music departments. Important note: Not just in their games sector.
- Half life 2: Episode 2 to be released October 9! Ps3 version to be made in the UK
- Quantic Dream, the creators of the awesome Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy in America), has plans to expand their motion capture facilities with new equipment that might make their games that extra bit MORE real.
Ubisoft aims to grow their Casablanca studio by 2010.
During May: Wii sold 338,000 consoles, then the 360 with 155,000 and ps3 coming last selling only 82,000 consoles.
- Sony apologies for offending the church.
- Wii Blaster to be launched June 27 (much like the gun for the old NES system)
14/6
- 360 plans for a better cooling system is underway to tackle the “red ring of death”
- Publisher Gamecock to host ‘E3 Alternative’ event in July at Santa Monica’s Hotel, California.
- The Media Development Authority in Singapore is funds 10 casual game prototypes for $350,000 US.
- Codemasters secured $100 million US in financing for future growth.
- Game Australia will open 25 stores by the end of this year.
- The 3rd installment to the Katamari series, Beautiful Katamari, might become an X-box exclusive
- Swat coming to the PSP
- Atari facing possible 17.2 million loss in profit after the end of the fiscal year on march 31st.
13/6
- No plans for downloadable content for the PS3 version of GTA4, but the 360 gets to.
- Avartar: The Burning Earth is scheduled for a Fall release
- City of Hero/villains fans hear the big news! Episode 10: Invasion is coming!
- Warhammer fans not only play on the table-terrain, but also online! In ten days, the sign up sheet to play Warhammer: Age of Reckoning beta has topped 200,000 registrants. It is described as the fastest growing beta sign-up in all of MMORPG history. The legions are coming… online!
- Courtesy of Vgchartz.com, the Wii has already sold 8.17 million consoles worldwide. Catching up to 360 worldwide sales of 10 million sold.
12/6
- Gamestop releases Halo 3 controllers.
- Bioware, creators of Never Winter Nights 2, are creating a MMORPG.
- Soul Calibur 4 lives as teaser trailer is released.
- Telltale to make more Sam and Max episode games with a $6 million contribution from San Francisco-based Granite Ventures and IDG Ventures SF.
- Bugbear to create Sega Rally for the PSP.
11/6
- The writer’s guild of Great Britain has added a videogames aware for best storyline as part of their awards line up. The awards are set to be held on the 17th of November at King’s Cross, Great Britain.
- Lego’s Universe set date is December 2008, so don’t hold your breath.
- New York Times writes Nintendo is being friendly to 3rd party developers by heading to their offices and demonstrating how the wii would help profit the organisation. Good on Ninty!
- 3styles games signed with red bull. Means Red bull ad’s in games.
- Sony responds with a proposal to talk with the Church of England over the use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man
- The $250,000 games development grant messaged by the Texas governor on the 8/6 will have the power to choose which projects they deem are appropriate to fund.
- Mac fans hear are EA games coming to you! Whats the big deal? Its coming sooner than most windows to mac conversions. Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
10/6
- Nintendo did a pokemon version of the game boy, and now they will release a yellow pikachu version of the DS lite!
- Parappa 3 heading to the PS3!
- Attention Eurogamers! Eurogamer.net has released information on upcoming titles to Europe.
• Adventures of Lolo (Wii Virtual Console)
• Balloon Fight (Wii Virtual Console)
• Brothers in Arms (DS)
• Dead Moon (Wii Virtual Console)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360)
• Halo 2 Vista (PC)
• Hospital Tycoon (PC)
• Marvel Trading Card Game (PC, PSP, DS)
• Mercury Meltdown Revolution (Wii)
• Mortal Kombat II (PS3 Store)
• Pac-Man: Championship Edition (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Pangya! Golf With Style (Wii)
• The History Channel Presents Great Battles of Rome (PS2, PC)
• Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PSP)
• Trioncube (DS)
• Wartech Senko no Ronde (Xbox 360)
- Disney announces they will spend triple the money they usually spend on games development with $130 million set to be spent this year.
- Sony’s use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man has raised hell with the Church of England for using it as a war field.
- Sony Rumors: slimmer version of the PSP might be revealed at E3!
9/6
- Harvest Moon fans will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of Harvest Moon games announced at E3: SEVEN!
Harvest Moon 2 (DS)
Harvest Moon DS Cute (DS)
Harvest Moon Wii (Wii)
Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl (PSP)
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Special Edition (PS2)
Puzzle de Harvest Moon (DS)
Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (DS)
- Calling to all Civilization modders, Gameflood has announced a mod and mapmaking contest with highest prize $25,000. Voting periods will end July16th so get cracking! Details at: Really Long Link
8/6
- Myst fans can look forward to a DS version due in November.
- Sony confirms 1 million PS3’s have been sold in Europe and Australia.
- News – Paris Hilton plays WoW 8 hours a day! (This might be credible concerns that video games does turn you dumb)
-Texas governor Rick Perry has signed into law a $250,000 grant incentive for state-funded video game projects. Happy times for Texan game developers!
- Gamersreports.com reports Sony has cut a deal, with Gamestops store managers, in each district to sell as many of their ps3’s as much as they can, with the highest seller given Gamestops reward points of 20,000.( Sony showing signs of desperate need to sell their console.)
- Anyone remember Thundercats? Well a CGI movie is in development. The main plot surrounds the origins of Lion-O.
- Courtersy from developmag.com, the finalists in creativity of the Develop Indusry Excellence awards!
New Console/PC IP
Just Cause (Avalanche)
Crackdown (Realtime Worlds)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (GSC Game World)
Viva Pinata (Rare)
MotorStorm (Evolution, SCEE External Development)
Red Steel (Ubisoft France)
- Transformer and X-men producer, Tom DeSanto, has taken into consideration to turn City of Heroes into a movie!
- Halo 2 Tourny - is it too late? You got till the 25th of July to get to the top 64 ranked players with the top winners getting an Xbox 360 Elite game console!
- God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP is set to be released in November.
- War Hammer Online: Age of Reckoning screen shots have surfaced.
- Nintendo has announced new offices in New York and San Francisco
- Assassin Creed’s producer Jade Raymond expresses interest in the handheld market
- Walt Disney Studio has signed up Stan Lee (creator of Spider-man, Hulk, Daredevil among heaps more) to create “original IP” (or simply “game concepts”). This might mean we will see much higher quality Walt Disney products in the future. Disney firmly believes Stan’s the Man.
- First week in the Japan charts and Resident Evil 4 missed top spot, coming second.
- A spokesperson from Sony says Japan employees are safe from job cuts.
7/6
- Rockstar reassures GTA IV is coming out around 16th of October in America and 19th in Europe.
- Square-Enix says no to a remake of Final Fantasy 7 =(
- Xbox 360 boos Peter Moore says that future 360 might incorporate motion capture features, Bill Gates concurs at the All Things D conference.
- Sony price cut being considered…
6/6
- 80-100 American’s at SCEA were laid off due to ‘division restructuring”. The poor sales of the Playstation 3 might be part of the reason.
- Creators of Knight of Honor announce their new title: Worldshift. An alien rakehell- bent to destroy the world and its up to you to kick their ass RTS style! 3 Screens have been released of the title on the 14tth of June.
- Research by the NPD group has concluded the average of children playing video games is 6.7 years old. 2005 average was 8.1 years old.
- Former Human Head (Prey) CEO Timothy Gerritsen try’s to form a new development studio in Madison, Wisconsin. Current name - Big Rooster
5/6/07
- Bill Gates describes the future of gaming involves a new control system that isn't the Wii-mote. Gates describes it as actually carrying a tennis racket instead of the screen tricking you as if it were (like the Wii-mote). Hmmmm
4/6
- Smoking Guns Interactive has just been conceived by the creator of Company of Heroes from Relic Entertainment. Watch out for them!
1/6
- Unreal tournament 3 set for release around October, including player co-op, 18 new vehicles, and hover boards!
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