A lot of us are taking for granted the arrival of Sony and Microsoft’s new system, which are both presumedly coming out of the end of the year. And while Nintendo already released their next-generation system last year — with the Wii U — they haven’t lived up to their own sales expectations. But most of us figure that the PlayStation 4, along with the next Xbox, will sell a higher quantity of systems.
But if you were the CEO of the biggest game publisher on Earth, you would have your reservations about these new systems selling like hotcakes in the upcoming years. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that you been seeing a steady decline in sales, and that Nintendo couldn’t convince the number of customers they wish to see purchased their console and handhelds these last few years.
There’s definitely been a blow back in the video game industry, and Activision boss Bobby Kotick is worried that trend will continue in this upcoming generation. (more…)
Nintendo’s future is getting bleaker and bleaker by the minute. DICE’s technical director Johan Andersson has tweeted that next-generation games running the studio’s Frostbite 3 engine, will not be making an appearance on the Wii U console.
“[Frostbite 3] has never been running on WiiU,” EA DICE’s technical director Johan Andersson posted on Twitter. “We did some tests with not too promising results with [Frostbite 2] & chose not to go down that path.”
As of right now, Electronic Arts — owns the studio DICE — has only confirmed one video game in 2013 using the Frostbite 3 engine. Unfortunately for Nintendo, it’s the publishers most anticipated game, which is Battlefield 4. (more…)
The last few months, EA has had some problems. And I’m assuming they would just like to forget about, them but they can’t. Now the company has confirmed additional layoffs for an “organizational update.” On the company’s official website, they posted the following statement:
“In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile. This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees – those that are leaving EA will be missed by their colleagues and friends.”
“These are hard but essential changes as we focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us.”
A few weeks ago, the company reduced the workforce, and also released a small number of employees back in February. (more…)
If anybody really cares, EA has announced the cover athlete for Madden NFL 25. And for the first time it’s not going to be a current player, but a Hall of Famer, who Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders.
EA had an online poll tournament which consisted of retired players versus current roster player. Barry Sanders edged out current Minnesota Vikings superstar Adrian Peterson, who just last year almost beat the single season NFL rushing record.
According to ESPN, Sanders won with 58% of the votes, which totaled up to be about 700,000.
Just like every year, the cover athlete will no way affect the actual gameplay of Madden. Which means, if you bought Madden last year, don’t expect a whole lot different except a few small changes. But you’ll be suckered in to still buying it… I probably will too.
Madden 25 will be in stores on August 27 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. No word if EA plans on releasing it for the next-generation of system, but I suspect they will.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is undoubtedly the biggest annual event for video games. It’s where all the game publishers and hardware manufacturers unveil their new products of the future. So this next piece of news is a little bit of a shocker, and while it makes sense, the report came out of left field.
Nintendo, who’s been at the convention since the beginning, has decided to change it up a little bit when it comes to their E3 strategy. The Japanese-based company has determined that the press conference that happens before the show floor opens, isn’t the best way to market their products. So instead, they’re going to replace that with other smaller events throughout the year, along with their Nintendo Direct feeds. (more…)
An independently owned video game store called Game Underground, is just 20 mere miles away from where the Boston Marathon bombings occurred last week, which killed three while injuring hundreds
With Game Underground being in such a close proximity of the horrible tragedy that happened last week, the store felt the need to do their part in helping the victims and their families of the fatal bombings.
The store owner, Jamie York, came up with an idea called the “Marathon Stream to Help the Boston Marathon Victims.” (more…)
A few weeks ago, before Batman Origins was officially announced in Game Informer, a tipster contacted Kotaku and told them about the game. However the website couldn’t verify the information so they decided not to report it.
Now since the game has been unveiled, the tipster once again told them a juicy tidbit about Batman Origins, and the site felt the mole was creditable enough. And just to make sure, the website has confirmation from a second source. (more…)
A spokesman for Harmonix has confirmed to Polygon that the Boston-based studio has released a handful of employees.
“We can confirm that a small number of Harmonix employees were let go today,” the spokesperson said. “This decision was made due to shifting staffing priorities for Harmonix’s multiple future projects.”
The company did not indulged when they said “shifting” “priorities.” Clearly the company is changing it up.
But their excuse is kinda lame, right? I’m pretty sire anytime there are cuts to any workforce, that generally means a company is shifting priorities. (more…)
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has announced a new Batman: Arkhamvideo game, which was revealed by Game Informer. Officially titled Batman: Arkham Origins, the game will follow a younger and inexperience Cape Crusader, as he encounters many of the familiar, yet infamous villains for the very first time. So far, the systems announced for the prequel are the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U and the PC. As of now, the company has yet to confirm if we’ll see the game on the next-generation of systems. Although, I have a hard time believing that it won’t happen at some point down the line.
The publisher has chosen to elected a new team to develop Batman: Arkham Origins, which is Warner Bros. Games Montréal. And Eric Holmes has been signed to helm the project. Holmes has been a lead for many other ‘blockbuster titles,’ including Gears of War 3, Prototype and even another comic book character turned into a video game which was The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. (more…)
The video game that had everyone talking at E3 in 2012 was probably Ubisoft’s surprise tease of the sandbox title Watch Dogs. The title is by far one of the most graphically impressive games ever shown during the convention’s history, and much of the press was speculating that Watch Dogs was being developed for the next-generation of systems.
While we still don’t know if Ubisoft plans on releasing the anticipated game on the new Sony and Microsoft systems, we do know the title will ship for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
But today Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, all suggest that Watch Dogs will also be released on Nintendo’s newest platform the Wii U.(more…)
Activision has confirmed that they are laying off 30 full-time employees, and they plan on launching fewer license based games, the publisher told Kotaku.
“In 2013, we expect to release fewer games based on license properties and as a result are realigning our structure to better reflect the market opportunities and our slate,” the company told the gaming website. “Approximately, 30 full-time employees have been impacted globally, which represents approximately one half of one percent of Activision Blizzard’s employee population.”
Activision did reveal a portion of the layoffs came from Treyarch, but it wouldn’t affect any of the planned downloadable content for Call of Duty: Black Ops II because the cuts at the studio were “minimal reduction.” (more…)
Disney Interactive, the mega-company’s video game division, posted $291 million of revenue during last quarter, which ended on December 31, 2012. It was a small increase of four precent, when compared to the same time last year.
But better news comes from the $9 million in net-profit the company saw during the holiday quarter. Last year, Disney was $28 million in the red during the ever important holiday season. That made Disney restructure the division, which just recently had layoffs, including shutting down the Epic Mickey 2 developer Junction Point. (more…)
Last week, we talked about J.J. Abrams, directer of Star Trek and Gabe Newell, cofounder of Valve, would have a discussion during the gaming developer conference D.I.C.E.. Today that conversation, with no moderator, has just ended.
The exchange between the two iconic creators, was about how their two industries approach to storytelling, and how that narrative is told to their audience, and which way is ultimately more meaningful. While there will be a video shortly about their heart-to-heart, there was some interesting news about the two possibly working together in the future. (more…)
Canadian retailer Future Shop has leaked details of a possible new Wii U bundle, which includes the Deluxe Set 32GB system, and the mature-rated first-person shooter, ZombiU, which was published by Ubisoft. While no official announcement has been made by Nintendo about this bundle, I have to think this is probably real, considering it’s a credible retailer that already has box art. I have a hard time believing they’ve been punk’ed by some Internet rumor.
There hasn’t been any information about a possible American version, but because Nintendo thinks Canada and the US as the North American region, I have to believe we are also getting this same bundle.
James Farr mashed-up Ghostbusters and Super Mario Brothers and what you get is something that all ADHD children will love, along with fans of both franchises. The story loosely follows the original Ghostbusters but obviously replaces Bill Murray and company with Luigi, Mario, Princess Peach and the always worthless Toad.
I do love some of the easter-eggs Mr. Farr used in his animation, which include Mario and Luigi using the Super Nintendo Super Scope zapper; instead of the Proton Pack, the Yoshi eggs bursting out of the package, the NES Advantage controller as the shift stick in the Ecto-1 and the ‘dogs’ of Ghostbusters were represented by the Chain Chomps.
