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June 10, 2011

LA Noire still on top of Nordic chart

Team Bondi's detective adventure on top for a third successive week.

LA Noire is the number one in the Nordic chart - which collates sales data from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland - for a third consecutive week.

In second spot is a re-entry, The Sims 3: Generations, which knocks Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean down into third place.

There's just one new entry in this week's top 20 - Bethesda's Hunted: The Demon's Forge, which makes its debut in a lowly 14th place.

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Runic CEO happy with Torchlight piracy

At E3, Max Schaefer tells PC Gamer that today's pirate is tomorrow's paying customer: "Millions and millions of copies of Torchlight downloaded from the illicit market in certain Asian territories. And that’s fine with us. We knew it was gonna happen. We’re building an audience. We’ve long since announced that we’re going to be doing an MMOG, and we kind of view it as a marketing tool for us. We’re going to have millions of people who are familiar with our franchise, familiar with our style, and who are going to be ready customers when we do a global MMOG."
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/09/e3-2011-torchlight-pirated-over-5-million-times-in-china-runic-ceo-thats-fine-with-us/
PC Gamer


XCOM gallery

E3 may technically be over, but no-one told 2K Games, who released the below screenshots overnight. 2K Marin's tactical shooter, the series' first instalment since 2001's X-COM: Enforcer, will be released for Xbox 360, PC and PS3 next March.
http://www.xcom.com/
2K Games


The art of CG cinematics

Movies based on games are rubbish. Movies based in games are incredible. Realtime UK explains how it creates the magic.

It stands to reason that as games approach realtime parity with cartoons, live action drama and Hollywood special effects, the job of the CG video maker might diminish. Why sacrifice a consistent look and a degree of creative control when you can keep it all 'in-engine'? But of course it's not that simple. So long as there are genres that can't emulate cinematic storytelling - the RTS, rhythm action game or gawky deathmatch shooter, for instance - the need for pre-rendered video remains. 

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Microsoft: All our games will use Kinect

"It's not a mandate that everything we do in firstparty has to support Kinect right now," said Phil Spencer of Microsoft Games Studios. "But I will say, specifically with voice, that there are some things that just seem to make navigating and playing games so much easier, that I would guess the answer will be yes in the end, that you'll see all firstparty games using some form of Kinect functionality."
http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6318951/e3-2011-microsoft-incorporating-kinect-into-all-first-party-games
GameSpot


Hunted: The Demon's Forge review

A cloud of bugs and sycophantic obsession with a certain Epic title can't spoil this high-fantasy romp.

Do-it-yourself conspiracy theory, step 1: write the word ‘Wargar’ – the name of the orc-like race at the centre of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge – down on a sheet of paper. We’ll wait here while you find a pen. Step 2: splice the word in half at the syllable break. Finished? Step 3: swap the order of these two words. If you’ve followed instructions properly, you should have arrived at the nonsensical phrase ‘gar War.’ Step 4: sandwich the preposition ‘of’ between the two words to get ‘gar of War’.

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Square Enix: our E3 lineup was "almost humiliating"

Koji Taguchi, senior executive officer, said on Twitter: "Because we merged with Eidos and had games like Tomb Raider, Deus [Ex] and Hitman, as a company we were able to keep face. But the decline in Japanese titles was almost humiliating. This has been a week where I worried daily about how we can fix this." Square Enix's Japanese E3 line-up: Final Fantasy XIII-2.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/06/10/square_enix_japanese_showing/
Andriasang


E3 2011 attracted 46,800 visitors

Attendance was up by a thousand on last year's 45,600. Organiser and owner the ESA confirms next year's E3 will take place June 5-7 at the same venue, the Los Angeles Convention Center.
http://www.theesa.com/newsroom/release_detail.asp?releaseID=148
ESA


The Friday Game: Grave Robbers

In Canabalt maker Adam Saltsman's dungeon crawler, you'll find the dungeon finally fighting back.

Ludlum Dare’s 20th competition – the theme was “It’s Dangerous to go Alone – Take This!” - has thrown out some fascinating games. Last week, I took a look at Drum Hammer Dig, Steven Burgess’ sweaty-palmed trip into monster-laden candy mines.

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DOA Dimensions removed from sale in Australia

Classifications board revokes PG rating following media outcry.

Tecmo Koei's 3DS title Dead Or Alive Dimensions has been effectively banned from sale in Australia after having its age rating revoked.

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DOA Dimensions removed from sale in Australia

Classifications board revokes PG rating following media outcry.

Tecmo Koei's 3DS title Dead Or Alive Dimensions has been effectively banned from sale in Australia after having its age rating revoked.

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Remedy recoups iOS dev costs in three days

MD Matias Myllyrinne says at E3 that costs of iOS title Death Rally's eight-month development were recouped in just three days: "A lot of the credit goes to Mountain Sheep for developing a great fun game. We produced it, took it forward and helped - but the heavy lifting is with the dev team as always. There are awesome things happening with digital stuff like XBLA, Steam, iPhones etc, where you can build a killer value and fun at a low price point and still make money."
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/09/death-rally-recouped-remedys-dev-costs-in-three-days/
Joystiq


Sony Online Entertainment cuts fees

Station Access, which gives access to all SOE titles - including DC Universe Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard and EverQuest II - reduced from $29.99 to $19.99 a month.
http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/06/09/soe-lowers-subscription-fee-for-its-games/
PlayStation Lifestyle


Rage delayed

Id's new shooter was originally set for a European debut on September 16; the game's official site now lists its release date as October 7.
http://rage.com/en
Rage


Iwata baffled by falling Nintendo stock

"It's very strange," Nintendo president admits of 10 per cent drop in stock price following Wii U announcement.

Satoru Iwata is as confused as the rest of us at the investor reaction to the Wii U announcement which has seen Nintendo's stock fall by some ten per cent in two days.

Speaking to Reuters, Iwata expressed surprise at Nintendo's falling share price, but pointed out that the Wii announcement in 2006 was met with a similarly lukewarm response - and that he was confident that would change once people got their hands on the innovative new controller.

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June 09, 2011

THQ: "We will continue selling uDraw"

Publisher unperturbed by Nintendo's new controller.

Speaking to us at E3, THQ's executive vice president of kids, family, casual games & global online services Martin Good has dispelled any notion that Nintendo's recently unveiled Wii U controller treads on the toes of his company's uDraw peripheral.

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ArmA 2 goes free-to-play

Developer Bohemia Interactive announces the release later this month of ArmA 2 Free, a free-to-play multiplayer version of its 2009 tactical shooter, with nary a microtransaction in sight. No mod support, sadly, but the game does allow for user-created missions and scenarios to be played with up to 50 team-mates.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/09/arma-2-free-announced-multiplayer-free-and-released-in-june/
PC Gamer


Street Fighter X Tekken trailer

Capcom's take on its collaboration with Namco is shaping up nicely, and keeps the spirit of both franchises with Tekken's juggle-heavy combat added to Street Fighter IV mechanics. While the newly announced Sagat and Hwaorang are welcome additions to the cast, Capcom's hitherto insistence on pairing up characters from the same game has us aching to mix it up a bit.
http://www.streetfighter.com/sfxtk/
Capcom


Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer

We're still without a release date for BioWare's Star Wars MMOG. At E3 John Riccitiello said: "Putting a window out there creates a window of opportunity for our principal competitor to put out an expansion pack or an ad campaign etcetera around out launch window. Bad move at this point in time." In the meantime BioWare has released the below trailer, Operation: Eternity Vault.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/306422/ea-revealing-the-old-republic-release-date-would-play-into-blizzards-hands
CVG


Telltale in fresh funding round

Studio raises $7 million from venture capitalists and its original investors; CEO Dan Connors says funds will help support upcoming releases. "We now find ourselves extremely well positioned with the Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead franchises to reach a very large audience," he said. "This financing will allow us to aggressively launch these franchises worldwide on multiple platforms simultaneously."
http://gamepolitics.com/2011/06/07/telltale-games-raises-7-million-investments
GamePolitics


Skyrim on Id Tech 5 would be "completely unacceptable"

Id co-founder John Carmack explains that his firm's new engine is ill-suited to open worlds: "The megatexture direction [in Id Tech 5] has some big wins, but it's also fairly restrictive on certain types of games. It would be a completely unacceptable engine to do Skyrim in, where you've got the whole world, walking across these huge areas."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35125/E3_ids_Carmack_Willits_Happy_To_Be_Done_With_Engine_Licensing_.php
Gamasutra


Resident Evil tops Japanese chart

Mercenaries 3D sells more than three times as much as any other game on its way to the top.

Capcom's Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is the new number one in the Media Create Japanese chart, dominating an otherwise slow week of sales with 58,792 units sold.

The rest of the games on the chart came nowhere near to that volume of sales: in second place is another 3DS title, Namco Bandai's One Piece Unlimited Cruise Special, which sold just 16,753 units.

There's just one other new entry this week, and it's an Xbox 360 game: 5pb's Phantom Breaker, which enters the chart at number six with just shy of 10,000 sales.

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Carrier Command: Gaea Mission trailer

Operation Flashpoint developer Bohemia Interactive has unveiled a new trailer at E3 for Carrier Command: Gaea Mission, its remake of the classic Amiga strategy game. Fans of Walruses and Mantas rejoice.
http://www.carriercommand.com/
Bohemia Interactive


Hirai defends response to PSN hack

"I think we were very aggressive in the way we tried to get the information out to consumers as quickly as possible," PlayStation boss explains in an extensive interview. "You need to do your due diligence before you make a statement. We also wanted to try and garner as much information as possible before making any announcements. So I don't think we 'waited' a week. I think it took a week to make sure that we had enough information that was credible."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/08/e3-2011-sony-psn?INTCMP=SRCH
The Guardian


Apple eases up on in-app subscriptions

Firm quietly relaxes policy that insisted subscriptions were not offered at a lower price outside the App Store. Developers are now free to set prices as they see fit, as long as apps do not contain a link to a better offer elsewhere.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/09/apple-reverses-course-on-in-app-subscriptions/
MacRumors


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