Gamernode: Latest Industry News

Kurt Wimmer to direct MGS movie?

Last we heard about the Metal Gear Solid movie was last year and even that didn't provide much information. Over on ComingSoon.net, they report on some conversation time with Michael De Luca, producer of over 50 films (according to IMDB), on how the MGS movie may have a director.

Columbia Pictures and De Luca are preparing to meet with director Kurt Wimmer during the next few weeks to talk about the possibility of writing the script and directing the MGS film.

Wimmer is known for directing 2006's Ultraviolet starring Milla Jovovich and 2002's Equilibrium starring Christian Bale but haven't met much financial success at the movie box office. Despite the less than stellar response with the movie audience, the gaming audience praised Wimmer's invention of fictional gun-fighting martial arts Gun...

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Sega and Obsidian announce Alpha Protocol

Sega and Obsidian Entertainment have joined forces to bring the world (well, America and Europe, officially) a new RPG next year.

Titled Alpha Protocol, the game will be an espionage-based RPG set in the modern world. "SEGA is very excited to be introducing a new type of gaming experience to next-gen consumers," stated Sean Ratcliffe, VP of marketing for Sega of America. Alpha Protocol will detail the story of Michael Thorton, a talented young agent cast out by his government. (Agent of what? Government of where? We'll find out later!)

Unfortunately for his nation (and I assume others in the world), Thorton is the only one with knowledge of an impending international catastrophe, and how to stop it. To do so he's forced to go rogue, and attempt to save the people he swore to protect while ...

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The CPL is no more! It has ceased to be!

A few days ago, the CPL (that's Cyberathlete Professional League for those of you who don't recall every acronym you've heard) announced that it will shut down effective immediately. This makes it the second recent gaming league to shut down, as the World Series of Video Games closed its doors last September.

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, CPL has been running since June 1997 and as of last year has given out more than $4 million in prizes at their various competitive gaming competitions. All tournaments scheduled for this year are also canceled. If you happened to win a CPL event before the shutdown of operations -- such as that $1 million Halo tourney -- you'll still be paid, so no worries there. (Maybe.)

According to the CPL, the reasons for shutting down are "...the current fragmentation...

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Console races: Wii comes in first. Who's second?

NPD Group has released figures for the top sellers for game consoles in the month of February and there were some surprises as to which game machines beat out the Xbox 360 and PS3 in sales.

Of course, you said the Wii and you'd be corret. But it also turns out that the PS3 pulled in more sales than the Xbox 360 too...along with another surprise. More about that later.

You might as well nickname the PS3 "Lazarus" because the once buried game console has come back from the dead and with a vengeance. It seems that everyone in the whole gaming world cried "foul!" when the price was first announced for the PS3. However, some very smart people at Sony finally decided to lower the prices of the once unattainable game machine and now it seems that the strategy has paid off.

It's amazing what can ha...

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Multiplayer mode details on GTA4. There are 15!

According to the latest PSM Magazine edition from Spain, it is reporting that there will be a huge number of multiplayer modes-- how does 15 sound?

The name of the game modes will be:

*Hangman's Noose*Car Jack City *Bomb da Base *Bomb da Base II *Mafia Work *Team Mafia Work *Death Match *Team Death Match *Turf War *Cops N Crooks *Race *GTA Race *Deal Breaker *Free Roam

Details are a little scarce but there is some info on a few of the game modes. In Cop's and Crooks players will take sides as either cops or the bad guys. The game plays sort of like hide and seek as the bad guys try to escape while the cops try to gun them down before they slip away. Fun.

Hangman's Noose is a co-op game where your friends try to protect a Mafia luminary while a SWAT team is trying to un-illuminate you and you...

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Introducing the newest Street Fighter, El Fuerte

Japanese print mag Famitsu recently revealed the newest member of the Street Fighter IV cast - a Mexican Lucha Libre wrestler known as El Fuerte.

This masked mystery man has since been described in greater detail on the official Capcom blog, and besides being a high-flying grappler and world-class street fighter, he apparently knows his way around a kitchen, too. He's a gourmet chef, to be precise. You know, the usual.

"Judging by his appearance and profile, it looks like he utilizes a pro wrestling style. In fact, his style is none other than Mexico's famous Lucha Libre brand of wrestling! Will we see that style's trademark aerial acrobatics at work? We can only hope and wait with baited breath...

This fiery fighter is a man who divides his professional life between Lucha Libre wrestling...

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Rock stars don't go to court, they settle out of c...

Well that was certainly fast. On Monday Viacom (owners of Harmonix) sued Activision for 14.5 million dollars in unpaid royalties. On Tuesday Viacom withdrew the suit because Activision agreed to settle this matter out of court.

Way way back in the day Harmonix was just a small company making a game with a guitar controller. RedOctane was just a small publisher taking a chance on a game with a guitar controller. Since then RedOctane has been purchased by Activision and Harmonix was eaten by media giant Viacom.

After Harmoinx was purchased by Viacom, they sold the rights to the Guitar Hero franchise to Activision so long as certain royalties were paid. It is a two tier royalty system. The first says, any game in the Guitar Hero franchise published by RedOctane/Activision without Harmonix ...

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God of War director talks new Mad Max game

Remember when Cory Barlog, game director of the God of War series, left SCEA? We all wondered what he's going to do and if the God of War series will remain intact.

Over on Level Up, Newsweek's editor N'Gai Croal revealed that Barlog will be collaborating with Mad Max creator, writer and film director George Miller on a new Mad Max action/adventure game, which will coincide (hopefully) with the long awaited fourth Mad Max film; Mad Max: Fury Road.

Miller talked about how both video games and movies, as an entertainment medium, are being blurred together to provide an excellent experience. For example, the director talked about his experience with Team Ico's action/adventure game Ico.

"So what I'm saying is, just as movies are moving towards games, games are going to be moving towards movies,...

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The ballad of EA and T2

One of the best feelings is finishing an article about something I feel strongly about. One of the worst feelings is waking up the next morning to find that everything you wrote is no longer relevant. Such is the case with Electronic Arts and Take Two Interactive.

Some interesting facts have been placed in front of the world wide web lately. After plucking BioWare and Pandemic from their tiny little houses Electronic Arts tried to scoop up Take Two Interactive, publishers of the child favorite Grand Theft Auto.

Since Take Two said "hell no" two weeks ago, everyone from the employees to the shareholders have expressed their concern, worried that EA will make an offer T2 can't refuse. On Tuesday the two largest shareholders (Oppenheimer Funds and FMR LLC) sold off a combined 10% of the compa...

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Atari not dead, playing with Steam

Atari, recent owner of a certain Phil Harrison, has just joined the ranks of the Steam army. Steam (for those living under rocks) is an online distribution outlet for PC games. Rather than purchasing a game from the store, Steam offers a legal way for you to download it directly to your computer.

Atari is the latest publisher to start distributing their games via Steam following Activision, Take-Two, and a ton of independents just trying to get their games in the hands of anyone who will buy.

Nine Atari games launched yesterday on the service including Indigo Prophecy, a game that sits on my shelf next to Psychonauts and Crimson Skies, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and Atari 80 Classics in 1, because what would an Atari release be without cashing in on their glory days. You can also look forew...

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Everyone wants to touch Apple's SDK

As I mentioned a few days ago, everyone can expect big things from the release of Apple's Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. Well, perhaps the word big was lost on some of you.

Apple is reporting that over 100,000 developers have downloaded the iPhone and iPod Touch SDK beta. In four days. Four. And that number is only going to get bigger when the Apps Store opens later this year. If it takes only two weeks to make a program, iPhone owners are going to be flooded with games and applications and stuff they don't even want or need.

My guess is there are two major factors drawing developers to download the SDK software. The first is Apple's ease of use claim. If I'm Joe Developer, and I know a little about programming I can make a game on the iPhone and get it out to millio...

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Infinity Ward just as sick of WWII as you

Apprently gamers and critics aren't the only ones who are sick of World War II re-enactments. Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward, whose most recent project was a turn-tail-and-run departure from that particular subject matter, aren't exactly big fans anymore, either. Speaking to Developer magazine, they said:

"Call of Duty 4 was Infinity Ward's third Call of Duty game, and as such we approached it knowing we needed to do something fresh. We don't want to pigeonhole ourselves any more than we have to, and many members of the team came off Call of Duty 2 promising never to work on another WWII game.

Coming off Call of Duty 2, we knew we wanted to do something different for our next game. We don't agree with some critics who say that WWII as a genre is dead, but we couldn't muster the same...

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Hardcore gamers buy more CDs/DVDs than games

The NPD Group has released a new study today that shows some seemingly rather bizarre results. Among other things, the study shows that young males who are classified in the "hardcore gamer" demographic, are less likely to buy a videogame than other types of media.

The CD and DVD industries, despite taking a hit overall, are still more popular with hardcore gamers than ever. "We have this perception of hard-core gamers glued to their consoles, and immersed in virtual worlds," said entertainment industry analyst Russell Crupnick. "When in fact, they are still spending a lot of time with, and money on, music, movies, and other pastimes."

This is one of those things, that sounds strange at first, but when you actually think about it, is perfectly logical. How much does a videogame cost? $60

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T2 goes nice. Casual games division going strong

When you think of Take-Two, (the parent of Rockstar Games), the first things that come into many minds about the company are games such as Grand Theft Auto, ManHunt, or Bully--all M-rated games.

But the hard exterior of Take-Two also has a fuzzy warm underside in the form of its casual game division, 2K Play.

It turns out that its Carnival Games franchise has shipped more than a million units worldwide and took the number five spot in January for Wii games according to NPD Group. To capitalize on the success on the Carnival Games, Take-Two Interactive has announced that it will be releasing Carnival Games for the DS and the new Carnival Games: Mini-Golf for the Wii this summer.

Steve Lux, vice president of business development for the 2K Play label said:

"The consumer response to Carnival G...

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Microsoft confirms Blu-ray support for Windows

Microsoft had high hopes for its HD DVD player but later lost out to Sony's rival Blu-ray format. Things have changed dramatically over the past month and Microsoft is taking steps to go with the flow.

Microsoft now says it will develop compatibility software that will allow native support for Blu-ray drives on Windows.

Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer said, "We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like." He then continued and cryptically said that Microsoft was "going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important."

Could his remarks be the first signs that Microsoft is finally admitting that Blu-ray support for the Xbox 360 is near? Up till now, Microsoft has denied all reports of ever doing such a thing.

"I think the world move...

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Molyneux makes lofty claims about "Dimitri"

Peter Molyneux is once again making the lofty claims that have become his trademark. This time around, Gamers Global got the Molyneux treatment, as the veteran designer expressed his excitement about an apparently revolutionary discovery his team made while working on a project called Dimitri. I love the way he begins:

"I’m saying absolutely nothing. I’ve been sat down in a room by the head of PR and been told to not talk about it.

Since Black&White, we’ve been thinking a lot about AI, Lionhead was founded with that thought of AI in mind. In terms of the core or the theory of the AI, we’ve moved from Black&White onto a project called Dimitri, which I’ve been tantalizing you about for a long time. And that team kept on researching. Dimitri was always an experim...

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Square Enix hoping to shorten localization delays

Square Enix is notorious for subjecting western gamers to excruciatingly long periods of Japanese exclusivity for most of the company's top titles. The problem is that the games are first written and developed in Japanese, and then localized for other markets.

Examples of Square Enix's long localization delays include more than six-month gaps between Japanese and U.S. releases for Final Fantasy XII, Crisis Core, and Kingdom Hearts, among others.

That may all change soon, however, as Square Enix has told Japan's Nikkei Net that in order to boost non-Japanese sales of their products, they will be working towards simultaneous worldwide game releases in the future. Wooooo!!!

[via Nikkei]

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Valve: fun with numbers

2007 was dominated by some pretty big franchises Halo, *Shock, Call of Duty etc. In the midst of all this a teeny tiny publisher came out with a little thing called The Orange Box. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Well, the little box that could ended up winning a whole crapload of awards last year. Valve has the count currently at 113 awards, 53 of them for Game of the Year. If those figures weren't astonishing enough, chew on this; of those 53, Portal took 31.

That's 58% of their game of the year awards going to what is essentially a puzzle adventure game made by a bunch of recent college grads. And one that you could blow through in one sitting.

Portal also walked away with 45 other awards (75% of the 'other' awards handed over to Valve) including Outstanding Achievement in Game Design and G...

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M-rated games pull in the big bucks for industry

M-rated games have actually seen a decline in production since 2007. But the odd thing about this is that regardless of the reduction in the number of M-rated titles being made, these types of games have turned out to be the big money makers of ESRB rated titles.

So what happened to the casual gamer? This demographic has been held in awe recently as Nintendo has proven that the hard-core gamer isn't necessarily where all the profits are. But according to NPD Group, the figures show that not only are M-rated games one of the most popular classifications, they also bring in a good deal of money for game publishers.

Why is this? It just could be a matter of demographics. Consumers who buy a lot of video games fall into the category of the ages between 18-34--a demographic that has a good deal ...

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Elebits 2 coming this year but not on the Wii

Anyone remember the game Elebits? It was one of the launch titles for the Wii. The game was interesting and had to do with catching these little electrical aliens. The game received mixed reviews but was an underground hit with kids and some of the casual gaming community. 

Elebits may have not been a blockbuster hit but it seems that its performance may have merited enough of a following to produce a sequel -- Elebits 2. But the shocking, (pun intended) is that the game will be released for the Nintendo DS with no Wii version announced so far.

You can expect the small-multicolored aliens to show up sometime on store shelves at the end of August and hopefully, Nintendo will  also have a Wii version out too.

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