Square Enix and Eidos Interactive have announced that the reorganisation of the two companies' operations has been completed following the Japanese firm’s acquisition of the Tomb Raider publisher.
Numerous EA studios will be affected by the publisher’s plan to cut 1,500 jobs, with reports suggesting that staff at Madden house EA Tiburon, Warhammer Online developer Mythic Entertainment and Need For Speed studio Black Box have already been axed.
Research firm EEDAR expects New Super Mario Bros. Wii to “easily become the best selling title released in 2009”, ahead of the Xbox 360 version of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
“EEDAR feels comfortable to make the prediction that the New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii will be one of the top titles this holiday season,” analyst Jesse Divnich said in a research note.
Natal for Xbox 360 is reportedly set to launch worldwide in November 2010.
According to details leaked from a Microsoft tour, the platform holder plans to sell its motion sensing camera for under £50 as it looks to target the non videogame playing market.
The company will manufacture five million units for the product’s release and 14 launch titles will be available, reports MCV.
John Teti thought I was nuts. He didn’t say it, but I could tell: here I was, a game journo who lived just an hour away from Funspot, and I’d never been there once.
Cost-per-action advertising, which contributes up to a third of the FarmVille and Mafia Wars maker's revenues, removed until Zynga can control its implementation itself.
CEO Riccitiello says that job cuts are "essential to transforming our company" as losses widen.
With its Q2 fiscal report, which records increased losses, the publisher announced that it would be laying off 1500 jobs and closing several facilities. 1300 will be included as part of a restructuring plan. The majority of action will be completed by March 31 2010.
EA announced in its preliminary financial results for for the three months that ended September 30 that its gross profit has fallen 42 per cent year on year from US$337m to US$195m , with net losses rising from US$310m to US$391m in the period.
A highlight from our community-written blogs, featuring the big debate over the future of interactive storytelling.
Verbal _Oz responds to our Death Of The Author article and shows the incredible challenge that lies ahead for game makers. Like many, he pushes at the limits of a game, shooting NPCs and getting frustrated when they shrug away his bullets because the story can't take into account their deaths.
TIGA survey suggests 50 per cent of UK developers are looking to new practices, but only 10 per cent view actual threat to their businesses as high.
60 per cent of respondents, each a member of the UK trade association, see piracy as a problem for their businesses, and 90 per cent see it as a rising issue. But 60 per cent regard the actual threat of piracy – in the form of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing – to their businesses as low, with just 20 per cent assessing it as medium and 10 per cent as high.
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Sean Murray I just said that Mario Galaxy was my game of the year. Why does it feel like I said my favourite book is The Da Vinci Code?
Electronic Arts has confirmed October rumours by announcing that it has acquired leading social gaming company Playfish.
The deal is valued at approximately $275 million in cash and $25 million in equity retention arrangements. "In addition, the sellers are entitled to additional variable cash consideration, up to a maximum of $100 million, contingent upon the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31, 2011."
iPhone developer Storm8 is facing a lawsuit for allegedly stealing the phone numbers of gamers playing its titles.
Seeking injunctive relief and damages, the data harvesting suit alleges that the iMobsters and Vampires Live studio exploited an "electronic backdoor" to learn players’ numbers, reports Boing Boing.
Leading US retailer GameStop began selling copies of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 this weekend ahead of the highly anticipated shooter’s official release on November 10.
The company’s management said that it had authorised select stores to begin selling reserved copies of the game in order to counter a loss of sales to other retailers who had broken the title's street date.
Tekken publisher Namco Bandai has posted a net loss and reduced sales for the first half of its business year.
Sales for the six month period ended September 30 fell 9.5 per cent year-on-year to 172.73 billion yen ($1.9b/£1.14b), while the company swung from a profit of 1.28 billion yen ($14.2m/£8.4m) to a loss of 6.04 billion yen ($67.1m/£39.9m).
If you want to play Radiant Silvergun – and in a few hundred words you may – you’ll need two things: a Japanese Saturn and a spare £100. Everyone has tales to tell of the arms and legs they’ve paid for a longed-for game, whether it was stomaching £65 for Mario 64 or handing over £90 to an unscrupulous indie for a ‘rare’ copy of Super Street Fighter II.
Nintendo’s Wii Fit Plus climbed one place to take the top spot on the UK all formats chart as Wii hardware sales rocketed during the week ended November 7.
South Korea-based NCsoft has reported giant leaps in third quarter profit and revenue on the back of the western release of its latest MMORPG, Aion.
Third quarter revenues rose 112 per cent year-on-year to KRW 116.3 billion ($100m/£60m), while net income soared 836 per cent to KRW 46.9 billion ($40.5m/£24.1m).
As expected, Konami has reported sharp revenue and profit declines for the six months ended September 30, 2009.
Company wide revenues fell 22.5 per cent year-on-year to 114 billion yen ($1.27b/£757m), operating income declined 79.8 per cent to 4.6 billion yen ($51.1m/£30.6m), and net income fell 81.3 per cent to 2.2 billion yen ($24.4m/£14.6m).
PSP was the bestselling hardware platform in Japan during the week ended November 1.
Including first day sales of PSPgo, which launched in the country on the final day of Media Create’s weekly tracking period, PSP hardware sales topped 64,000 units.
Nintendo’s DSi remained the most popular individual system, ahead of PS3, while Wii slipped to fifth place thanks to PSPgo’s debut.
Weekly hardware sales (previous week):
DSi - 37,517 (42,199)
PS3 - 36,061 (29,977)
PSP - 34,911 (32,865)
Leading Nintendo figures have sent out mixed messages concerning the company's high definition strategy.
During the firm's recent financial results briefing, Genyo Takeda, general manager of Nintendo’s Integrated R&D Division, said that the industry’s shift to high definition “appears a natural flow", although he stopped short of confirming HD support for future products.
Sky Player on Xbox 360 is now available to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers in the UK and Ireland, Microsoft has confirmed.
Every week, the Edge Games Index, produced in association with Brandwatch, rates games according to the volume of positive and negative buzz they're inspiring on the web.
Format: Wii
Release: Out now
Publisher: Majesco
Developer: WayForward
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Activision president Mike Griffith claims removing support for dedicated servers will lead to improved "consumer experience".