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July 21, 2011

Prototype 2 release date announced

Alex Mercer's return was announced in December, but publisher Activision waited until this week's Comic-Con to confirm its release date. Ken Rosman, studio head at developer Radical, said: "We're thrilled to be at the point where we can show the game directly to our fans. It's always rewarding to see those first-time reactions to what we've been working on for the past couple [of] years." Prototype 2 will be released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on April 24, 2012.
http://www.prototypegame.com/
Activision


Inafune apologises for Mega Man cancellation

The Mega Man creator left Capcom long before the publisher announced the cancelllation of 3DS title Mega Man Legend 3, but it's perhaps a measure of the man that he felt compelled to apologise to fans and staff anyway. Writing on his blog - translated by Andriasang - he said: "The decision for the cancellation was out of my sphere, but as someone who took part in development, I'd like to convey something to the staff: I'm sorry that I couldn't be of assistance." To the fans, he said: "I'm truly sorry I couldn't take part through to the end." Capcom has cancelled two games starring Inafune's creation - Legends 3 and downloadable title Mega Man Universe - so far this year, and the character is conspicuous by his absence from the list of 25 Capcom characters in the newly announced Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/21/inafune_mega_man_apology/
Andriasang


Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 announced

At a Comic-Con preview event last night Capcom announced a revision of Marvel Vs Capcom 3 which adds 12 new characters and a host of balance changes to the existing cast. Bêtes noires Dark Phoenix, Wolverine and the X-Factor mechanic have been toned down, and a glitch affecting combo damage scaling has been removed. While only four new characters - Ghost Rider, Strider Hiryu, Hawkeye and Firebrand - were announced, the remaining eight were reportedly outed by listings quickly removed from Capcom's own website. On the Capcom side, the new fighters are Vergil, Frank West, Phoenix Wright and Nemesis; the new Marvel characters are Dr Strange, Nova, Rocket Raccoon and Iron Fist. Now sporting a roster of 50 characters, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 will be released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 15.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=437950
NeoGaf


Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online release date

At Comic-Con, Capcom has at last revealed a release date for the downloadable remake of its 1999 classic Street Fighter III: Third Strike it announced at the same event last year. With an array of graphical options, trials and challenges, GGPO's peerless netcode and the ability to upload match replays to YouTube, it's a fitting tribute to a game that was only released in the UK for Dreamcast and as part of the Xbox's Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. Street Fighter III Online Edition will be released on August 23 on Xbox Live Arcade, and on PlayStation Network a day later.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/312428/street-fighter-3-third-strike-online-release-date-trailer
CVG


No Respawn game until 2015

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton yesterday Iain McCaig, a noted concept artist who has worked on the Harry Potter and Star Wars films, revealed that those waiting for the first game from Respawn Entertainment - the studio founded by deposed Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vincent Zampella - may be waiting for some time. "I'm having the most fun working with Respawn Entertainment right now," he said, "and I hate that I can't show you guys what I'm doing there until 2015."
http://www.develop-online.net/news/38287/McCaig-First-Respawn-game-set-for-2015
Develop


July 20, 2011

Gaikai secures $30 million investment

Cloud gaming service Gaikai has received new financial backing to the tune of $30 million following a Series C funding round led by venture capital firm NEA. Founder Dave Perry said the cash injection - which will also see investors Qualcomm, Benchmark Capital, Rustic Canyon and Intel Capital join its board - will be used to accelerate the rollout of the company’s cloud gaming network. "We have all become used to accessing every song ever made, every book ever written, every movie in every genre through cloud-based services. Gaikai is bringing this same functionality to videogames and other interactive software. Over the last few years we have quietly designed and assembled a custom high-speed interactive network, purpose built to realise this vision. The Gaikai network enables publishers to deliver a full experience within 30 seconds in any leading web browser, on all operating systems, on all devices, even running inside platforms like Facebook. Many leading companies are already our partners in this vision, including video game publisher Electronic Arts and Walmart, the largest retailer in the world.”
http://www.gaikai.com/
Gaikai


Ubisoft’s “biggest brands” headed to tablets

Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft is committed to bringing its major franchises to tablet devices, CEO Yves Guillemot said in an earnings call this afternoon. “The tablet market is growing fast. We have Apple and lots of other players with tablets," he said, according to CVG. "We are developing a few products around our brands. You will see games in the next few years from all of our biggest brands like Assassin's. They will be different games. They will be adapted from games in the past or specifically developed for those platforms."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/312437/assassins-creed-coming-to-tablets-in-a-few-years-ubisoft/
CVG


Ubisoft Q1 sales decline 36.3 per cent

Quarterly financial results beat prior guidance thanks to the "solid performance" of back-catalogue titles and online sales.

Ubisoft has posted sales of €103 million for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, down 36.3 per cent year-over-year but ahead of company expectations of €90 million.

New Xbox 360 games Child Of Eden and Michael Jackson: The Experience seemingly failed to live up to multiplatform releases like Splinter Cell Conviction and Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands which launched during the same quarter a year ago, but the company highlighted “solid” performances in other areas of its business.

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Weekly 3DS sales double in Japan

Spike in sales coincides with the launch of a new hardware colour and Star Fox 3D.

3DS sales doubled in Japan during the week ended July 17, propelling the portable to the top of the hardware rankings.

Nintendo’s latest handheld shifted 46,637 units compared to second-placed PSP’s 26,551 sales, a figure that was flat week-over-week, Andriasang reports. 

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Braben: Disneyland Adventures is "a triple-A game"

Elite creator insists his new Kinect game is far more than a kid-friendly marketing tool.

In his keynote address at Develop In Brighton today, development legend David Braben insisted that Disneyland Adventures, his Kinect-powered Xbox 360 game unveiled at E3 last month, is no kid-friendly cash-in based on an enormously popular licence. Instead, he said, it's a "top-notch game for a broad audience."

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Bastion review

Summer of Arcade kicks off with an RPG defined by its dazzling narration.

Bastion is a game about rebuilding a world, a game in which every step you take sees a lost landscape flinging itself back together around you, as fragments of paving tile and shards of scenery spin upwards to meet your passing feet. It feels like a magic trick, but it’s not. The real magic trick lies with the other defining feature: narration. 

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Suda51 details Lollipop Chainsaw

The head of Grasshopper Manufacture, Goichi "Suda51" Suda, has told Famitsu what to expect from his next project, Lollipop Chainsaw, first revealed earlier this year. True to Grasshopper form, it's a melée combat game for PS3 and Xbox 360 which casts players as Juliet Starling, a skimpily clad cheerleader tasked with ridding a west coast high school of a zombie infestation using a chainsaw. "Instead of sprays of blood, we have zombies emitting bursts of pink light," explained Suda, who already claims to have found a publisher to release the game in the west. "When it comes to gore, we can certainly go that way if we want, but we wanted to give the game more of a 'pop' feel." Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka is working on the game's soundtrack, with Suda teasing: "Part of the gameplay might involve sound as well, although exactly how we're still keeping secret."
http://www.1up.com/news/suda51-talks-lollipop-chainsaw
1UP


GoldenEye: 007 Reloaded announced

Activision has confirmed that GoldenEye 007, Eurocom's loose reimagining of the N64 classic that was released for Wii last year, is headed to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this autumn. Eurocom has again been tasked with development, and Activision promises HD visuals, 60 fps action and 16-player online battles, with the PS3 version supporting PlayStation Move and its Sharpshooter attachment.
http://www.goldeneyegame.com
Activision


Vita is Sony's "most developer-friendly hardware yet"

New handheld has been built "by developers, for developers" and not "in a bunker somewhere in Japan," says SCEE at Develop.

With PlayStation Vita, Sony believes it has learned from its past hardware's reputation for being difficult to develop for and, thanks to feedback from first and thirdparty studios, has produced its "most developer-friendly hardware yet."

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Media Molecule: Pitching LittleBigPlanet and the future

Sony studio reveals that its initial demo came up short and how it went about fixing it.

Though it’s hard to picture Media Molecule’s all-conquering LittleBigPlanet as anything other than the assuredly solid package that it became, a keynote discussion with studio founders - chaired by Phil Harrison - at the Develop conference in Brighton this morning revealed its inception was far from smooth.

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PopCap unveils Pig Up

The earnings targets laid out in EA's proposed acquisition highlight PopCap's need to expand. The first effort in its attempt to drive the final purchase price to $1.3 billion is Pig Up, a Facebook game which sees players make pigs fly by eating apples - sorry, "flapples" - and avoiding bees. The studio points out that the game is still in early development, but it is available to try on Facebook for a limited time.
http://apps.facebook.com/pigupgame/
Pig Up


Microsoft updates Azure for social devs

Microsoft is to release an updated toolkit for its cloud development platform, Windows Azure, later this week, promising to make it easier to develop, launch and support social games. Based on HTML5, the updated development kit will have built-in support for authentication, achievements, leaderboards and microtransactions. Azure marketing director David Appel told VentureBeat: "If you just want to concentrate on the game and don't want to deal with hosting or rebuilding your game for a lot of formats, then this is for you. We've got a platform that is cost-effective for startups."
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/19/microsoft-tailors-windows-azure-for-social-game-developers/
VentureBeat


Dota 2 confirmed for Gamescom

Fansite Dota-Two has been passed a letter purportedly sent out to high-profile Defense Of The Ancients players inviting them to next month's Gamescom event in Cologne, Germany, where the game's long-awaited sequel will be unveiled. It reads: "Valve is developing and publishing Dota 2, and the event at Gamescom will mark the first public presentation of Dota 2."
http://www.dota-two.com/dota2-presentation-countdown
Dota-Two


Jon Chey quits Irrational

Jon Chey, co-founder of Bioshock developer Irrational Games, has quit the studio and struck out on his own, Gamasutra reports. His new venture, Blue Manchu Games, will focus on "niche" games, and his first project is Card Hunter, a Flash-based game supported by microtransactions. "There are just so many other platforms," he explained of his return to PC development. "It's opening up space for genres and niches that might have been moribund."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6434/making_the_games_he_wants_to_make_.php
Gamasutra


The Darkness II delayed

Originally set for release this October, Digital Extremes' sequel will now be released on February 7 2012 in North America and three days later in Europe, publisher 2K Games has confirmed. In a sensible move given its source material, The Darkness II will have quite a presence at this week's Comic-Con, with a playable demo and a panel featuring developers, the comic book's co-creator Marc Silvestri, and Faith No More's Mike Patton, who voices the titular Darkness.
http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1586615&highlight=
2K Games


Ms 'Splosion Man review

Can Twisted Pixel maintain the frenetic pace in this explosive sequel?

"Your move, Unreal” chirps a hirsute Twisted 
Pixel staffer during an opening splash sequence advertising the studio’s engine, Beard. It’s easily the funniest moment in the game, but he could just as easily be offering the challenge to Duke Nukem, given the rampant, though daft, sexism prevalent throughout the game.

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Don't copy Zynga, Facebook tells developers

Sean Ryan, director of game partnerships at Facebook, has dismissed suggestions that Zynga has gaming on the social network all to itself. "It's not a market where ten apps get all the users," he said at Seattle's Casual Connect event yesterday. "The market is growing like crazy and you can participate in it." While Zynga has the world-building social genre locked up, Ryan pointed to the relative lack of romance, hunting, fishing, and fighting games, as well as FPSs and RPGs on Facebook, and said: "It's easy to forget that this market is less than four years old. It's too late to clone a game that is a clone of another game, but there is plenty of opportunity."
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/19/facebook-is-missing-these-big-game-categories/
VentureBeat


PopCap announces Sony Ericsson agreement

Global deal will see Plants Vs Zombies, Peggle and Chuzzle pre-loaded on Xperia mini smartphones.

PopCap has announced a global agreement with Sony Ericsson that will see its games pre-loaded on the Xperia mini range of smartphones and "officially mark the arrival of PopCap’s game titles on Android devices in Europe."

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Apple makes $7 billion profit in three months

Beats its own forecasts by 14 per cent as iPad sales rocket and revenue climbs to $28.57 billion.

Apple made a staggering $7.31 billion profit in the three months to June 25, more than double the $3.2 billion it made over the same period last year, according to its latest financial results.

Sales revenue rose almost 82 per cent to $28.57 billion, driven by an 183 per cent increase in iPad sales, with the company selling 9.25 million tablets during the quarter. Sales of iPhones also sharply increased, with 20.34 million units sold, a rise of 142 per cent year on year.

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Zeboyd exceeds XBLIG revenue in a week on Steam

In a damning indictment of the viability of Xbox Live Indie Games as a publishing solution for independent developers, Robert Boyd of Zeboyd Games has announced that, after just one week on Steam, his RPGs Breath Of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World have grossed more revenue than in over a year and a half on the Xbox 360 download service. Boyd said: "Thank you again to everyone that made this huge success possible."
http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/18/zeboyd-games-revenue-from-steam-exceeds-1yr-xblig-revenue/
Zeboyd Games


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