It's not just reshaping their products that the team of developers at
EA Redwood Shores are looking into. Head honcho Glenn Schofield disclosed in an interview with Variety that yes, they are indeed looking into the legal matter of changing their name.
But before you all go thinking that EA will no longer be EA, hear the explanation first. According to reports, it's not exactly the whole EA offices that will be getting a new identity. Rather, it will just be the developers who are working on
Dead Space and specialize in third person action adventures. So you see, it's not a blanket makeover after all.
We're not hearing of any "Give-our-company-a-new-name" contest, but if you had your way, what would you like it to be?
We have more details about the AC/DC track pack that
Harmonix,
MTV Games, and Electronic Arts are releasing for
Rock Band (
Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3,
Wii, PS2) and
Rock Band 2 (
Xbox 360,
PS3,
Wii, PS2).
It pretty much confirms everything we've heard about it so far. All eighteen tracks are straight off of AC/DC's Live at Donington release. There's no mention of Wal-Mart exclusivity, but apparently that's just for the U.S. It'll be available at most major retail outlets in
Europe,
Australia, and
New Zealand.
Anyway, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2 versions of the
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack will hit North American retail outlets in November 2. Wii owners will get theirs on November 16. Europe, Australia, and New Zealand will get it in early December. Pricing for the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii versions are as follows:
- US - US 39.88
- UK - GBP 29.99 (US 53.38)
- EU - 39.99 (US 56.44)
- Australia - AU 49.99 (US 39.73)
Related articles:
This here is the
Trojan Wii v1.1 created by Jon Conrad. It is a Trojan LCD game simulator, and it runs on PC, OSX, NDS, Wii and the original Xbox. That's multifunctional for you.
He wrote this brew using SDL so that it can be ported easily. According to him, OSX was the easiest to port, while the PC and Visual Studio were the most difficult to deal with. And as he was only interested in the gameplay element, he did not bother simulating the date or time function anymore. Do enjoy!
Download:
Trojan Wii v1.1
It's been a full year since we heard anything about
Namco Bandai's stretchy title for the PS3,
Nobi Nobi Boy. I say "stretchy" because not only does the character literally stretches his body at will, the developers also obviously had to stretch their imaginations quite a bit to come up with another strange goodness after
Katamari Damacy.
And now after a long bout of silence, Namco Bandai has announced that it will finally be making a public appearance at the Tokyo Game Show 2008, albeit in video form only. At least we know the project is still alive.
Anyway, we're betting that this is sure to make headlines in the TGS, but that doesn't mean this is the only title from Namco Bandai's booth that will be worth checking out. Here's the list of games to be showcased, with those with asterisk to be playable:
PS3
XBOX 360
- Galaga Legions (Out)
- Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
WII
- One Piece Unlimited Cruise Episode 1 (Out)
- Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces
- Daikaiju Battle Ultra Coliseum
- Pro Golfer Saru
- Happy Dance Collection
- Family Ski World Ski & Snowboard
- Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan Wii Deluxe (Puzzle of Words Mojipittan Wii Deluxe)
- Fragile: Farewell, Ruins of the Moon
DS
- Dragon Ball: Origins (Out)
- Soul Eater: Medusa s Conspiracy
- Yes! Pre Cure 5 GO GO! Zenin Shuu Go! Dream Carnival
- Dr. Slump Arale Chan
- Tamagatchi no Kira Kira Omisecchi
- Tales of Hearts Anime Movie Edition
- Tales of Hearts CG Movie Edition
- Anpanman to Touch de Waku Waku Training (temporary title)
PSP
- Macross Ace Frontier
- Mobile Suit Gundam Vs. Gundam
- Idolmaster SP Perfect Sun
- Idolmaster SP Wandering Star
- Idolmaster SP Missing Moon
- Tales of the World Radiant Mythology 2
PC
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes
PS2
- Super Robot Taisen Z (Out)
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Gudam Meisers
- Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World
- Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
What happens after a development team gets dissolved? Sometimes they get shuttled off to other projects. Sometimes they get together, come up with a cool name and logo, and go independent.
The people behind Robomodo chose the second option. The company is made up of 27 industry veterans from the now-dissolved EA
Chicago, majority of whom worked on
Fight Night Round 3 (
Xbox360,
PSP,
PS3). That's what Robomodo president John Tsui revealed to Gamasutra.
What Tsui didn't reveal was the game Robomodo is currently working on. The studio's site says that it's working on "a high-profile extreme sports title for
Activision Blizzard". Now what does that make me think of?
Skateboards.
There were rumblings a few months ago that
Neversoft wasn't going to be attached to the next game in the franchise, which has so far been tentatively known as
Tony Hawk's Adrenaline. Nobody's confirmed this yet, but it's a pretty good bet that the next
Tony Hawk game will have that cool robot logo on its cover somewhere. We'll just have to wait and see.
Related articles:
Many personalities in the video game industry have expressed their views on the future of gaming. Some say PC gaming is doomed, some say consoles will someday merge into one, some say there's
a 20 chance that we are computer simulations.
Ok, that last one didn't have anything to do with the subject, but anyway. This new insight comes from John Welch, CEO of PlayFirst, the studio that made
Diner Dash.
Welch is of the opinion that PC gaming isn't doomed - rather, it's the consoles that have something to worry about:
I think the console is going to be over as we knew it previously. They re expensive to make, there is no real need for them.
[...] I think the biggest proof point in the death of consoles in my thesis is the Wii. The most successful, most difficult to acquire console in this generation is at least a generation old in hardware.
The advances are in software and peripherals. Why do you need a box for that? If the real expansion is occurring because of what Nintendo has done, why do we even need a console?
He argues, though, that it doesn't mean consoles will disappear altogether, since the PC is mostly a computing device, while consoles are successful because they are easy to use, so kids "can't break them easily."
While he has a point, it sounds like he just reworded the "one-console" future theory.
Related Articles:
New numbers from
Chart Track show that the current installed base for console and handheld gamers in the
UK have doubled since last year.
So which console has the largest installed base? Three guesses. Well, three's all you get since there are only that many consoles.
It's the Wii! What a surprise. The Nintendo miracle boomed from 1.1 million units from September last year, to 3.6 million last count. The DS dominates the handheld scene as well, growing from 3.8 million to 7.1 million units.
As of September 2008, there are 1.4 million PlayStation 3 units in the UK (last year, it was only 0.4 million), and 2.3 million Xbox 360 units (last year saw 1.3 million). The PSP currently totals at 2.9 million units. The UK doesn't seem all that attached to the
Sony handheld, as its number didn't grow much from last year's 2.2 million.
All in all, the installed base for all five grew from 8.8 million from last year, to 17.3 million. Way to go, UK. Anyway you slice it, doubled numbers mean good news for devs who want to sell more games, which is good news for gamers who want to see them make more games.
Related Articles:
Painting the town red, blue, or any other color is a lot of fun in this charming Wii platformer.
EA, Activision, THQ, Ubisoft, Sony, and Microsoft partially recover from yesterday's fiscal boot party on Wall Street.
Benyboybob (aka Ben Lloyd) has released the Wii
ISO Patcher, a simple GUI he made for
waninkoko's classic IOS Version Patcher.
Instead of dealing with command lines, you now simply have to browse for your ISO. As the author said, it's nothing ground-breaking, but it will make your life a little easier.
The Wii ISO Patcher lets you skip typing out a number for your preferred IOS. This GUI copies the common-key file to the ISO directory automatically.
The download file will ask for a password file to unzip. Don't panic, it's "tehparadox.com." Here are the features of this program:
- Automatically copies the common-key file to the ISO directory
- Can be ran from anywhere
- Full ISO Conversion without once needing to type anything
Download:
Wii ISO Patcher Simple GUI
Thanks to Ben Lloyd for giving us the heads up on his release!
Related Articles:
