Gamernode: Latest Industry News

Paramount Pictures to publish games

Like Warner Brothers before it, Paramount Pictures has decided to soak its feet in that jam packed pool commonly referred to as the video game industry. Despite the fact that it’s backed by one of the largest media corporations on the planet (Viacom), is it capable of standing up to the likes of veteran publishers such as EA and Activision?

According to a report by Gamasutra, the newly formed interactive division is just as interested in competing for the cash of consumers by investing money into self published titles as it is in working with publishers with a bit more experience in bringing games to the marketplace.

Don’t expect Paramount to begin releasing games possessing the highest production values possible, though. The company intends on playing it safe by releasing casual...

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Square Enix taking a break on the RPGs?

Forever Fantasy has made an interesting observation. They call out Square Enix's habit of milking their two prized franchises, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and what seems like an inabilty to produce anything new or unique (hey calm down, guys--their words, not mine).

However, ever since last year, SE has been taking more and more risks and as a result have been churning out more original titles for various consoles and handhelds. The most recent example of this is The World Ends With You which was a smashing hit in Japan despite its unorthodox gameplay and story. In fact, the game was so well-received that fans are now rabidly requesting a sequel.

That's not all though. SE has announced several games that step outside the company's comfort zone, including Sigma Harmonics for the Nintendo...

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1.3 million play CoD4 mulitplayer on Live each day...

A few months ago there was a popular game called Halo 3. Anybody remember that game?  You know, the game that was marketed everywhere until you got sick of looking at the ads on television, burger joints, and the Internet.

But an odd thing happened recently. When you logged onto Xbox Live, it seems that all your friends were missing from Halo 3. 

There was a reason for this and its name was Call of Duty 4.

Mark Rubin, the producer of CoD 4 at Infinity Ward, released the figures of just how popular CoD4 has become. According to him the game is reaching numbers of "between 1.2 and 1.3 million users every day."

Rubin underscored the success of CoD4 by pointing out that these figures are only the numbers for Xbox Live.

"That's just 360. There's even more on the other platforms [PS3 and PC], but we...

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Gears of War movie update, summer 2010 date?

Despite a few months of silence, an update to the upcoming Gears of War movie was made today from producer Wyck Godfrey. Regarding the movie, Godfrey said, "We've got our script on and a director we're about to attach. We'll hopefully make that early next year for the summer of 2010."

So there we go folks, if things are looking good, the movie will hit theaters in about two years. There were some initial reports of budget problems a few months ago but it looks like they've been worked out.

Announced in March 2007 after acquiring the film rights from Epic Games, New Line Cinema is pushing all of its guns forward for the film. The script was written by Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Derailed, Australia).

Returning this coming November will be Gears of War 2 so by then, we'll see if there are tie-i...

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Prediction: Video game consoles dead in 5-10 years...

Thatvideogameblog.com is currently running an interview with the CEO of YoYo Games, and formerly of Microsoft Europe, Sandy Duncan. The interview shows Duncan's feelings on the videogame market's current direction, and more specifically, his belief that videogame consoles will die out within 5 to 10 years.

"The industry is fundamentally driven by technology. I think dedicated games devices i.e. consoles (and handhelds) will die [out] in the next 5 to 10 years," said Duncan. "The business model is very risky and the costs associated with creating new hardware are incredibly high."

Duncan later commented, "There is a definite "convergence" of other devices such as set top boxes. There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360 for example...

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Will Jade Raymond return for Assassin's Creed 2?

In the final months leading up to the release of Assassin's Creed, there was as much publicity surrounding the game's producer, Jade Raymond, as there was for the game itself. The AC sequel was announced shortly after its success; it was no surprise for anyone who finished the game.

Will Raymond serve as the producer for AC2, though? Recently Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, said that Raymond was working on a new project (which he didn't elaborate on). He said: "I view Jade as a very skilled and creative producer, the success of Assassin's Creed leaves no doubt about that and the attention she received from the media is due to the anticipation, buzz and quality of the game. She's currently working on a new project but it's a little too early to share more about it."

So we do know is that Jad...

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Byron Review surprisingly rational

Six months ago, the Prime Minister of England commissioned Dr. Tanya Byron (no relation to Simon Byron from One Life Left) to review the awareness and classification of videogames and how they can affect children. An awfully large undertaking for one person, if you ask me.

To complete this study, Dr. Byron did not wear a white coat, sit some kids down in office and watch them play a series of games she selected. That's uncomfortable and would have yielded completely different results. Instead she played games with her kids, she played games with her friends and she talked to people. Sounds like something normal people who have children and buy video games would do, right?

Well, the report is out and, as my title might suggest, it is surprisingly rational. Dr. Byron is a clinical psycho...

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Atari plays "Pong" with Nasdaq and is losing

The Atari saga continues as it fights to survive and live on as a game company.

Previously, NASDAQ informed Atari in December of last year that if it didn't maintain a certain market value for 10 straight consecutive business days, $15 million to be specific, it would be delisted from the rosters of the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Delistings often mean the company backing the stocks is on their way down or is going out of business.

In the meantime, Atari is asking for a hearing before the NASDAQ Qualifications Panel to appeal its move to drop Atari because of the recent proposal by Infogrames to buy up all of Atari's shares.

Atari has a faltering lineup of games in its library with the Dragonball Z franchise shoring up the sagging Atari brand while the rest of its portfolio being average at best. ...

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The "Rockstar Social Club" wants you!

Want to go to a place where everybody knows your name? No, we're not talking about "Cheers." What we are talking about Is Rockstar Games' new website-- The Rockstar Social Club. 

This new virtual gathering place for gamers will open on April 15 and anyone can sign up with their PlayStation Network ID or Xbox gamertag. The new site will offer an expanded experience for your video games by posting up leaderboards, competitions, and awards.

The first candidate for The Rockstar Social Club is Grand Theft Auto IV and you'll see features such as the LCPD Police Blotter, The Story Gang, The Hall of Fame, Liberty City Marathon and more.

The sections deal with the public rankings for GTA IV players, personal statistics, and various high game accomplishments that separate you from the rest of the riff ...

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Expert says 'good pirates' help to sell more items...

The conventional wisdom is that all software pirates are 'bad'. However, an Oxford economist by the name of Karen Croxson spoke at the Annual Conference of the Royal Economic Society and said that when pirates download software, music, movies, or games, it may actually help the producer.

She elaborated by saying that many pirates download their stuff without the intention of ever buying the media they're downloading. According to Ms. Croxson, you might be a 'good pirate' if you fit that description.

Croxson goes on to say that these particular pirates spread the word about the media they download and the people they tell go on to buy the products for themselves. Then they tell their friends, and so on and the word gets around that the product is really great.

The argument, from her logic, ...

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Sell your name for $95 million to Ubisoft

Of course, your name would have to be Tom Clancy to do so.

Last week, news of Tom Clancy selling the rights of his name to Ubisoft for any and all future game projects was reported. What we didn't know was how much Clancy cashed in on his name.

According to Wedbush Morgan, an industry analyst firm, good old Tom made out like a bandit and received an estimated $95 million from Ubisoft.

I'd sell half my name for half the price, but then again, my name isn't Tom Clancy.

Ubisoft will use Clancy's name on upcoming video games and related projects. The deal will save Ubisoft an estimated $7.9 million a year in royalties that would have gone to the writer turned game producer. Evidently, we'll see quite a few games in the future with Tom Clancy's name on it if Ubisoft has any say in the matter, a...

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David Gibson says: "Gamers need to grow up"

In light of what Tyra said in her critically acclaimed show, it appears more people think that gamers really need to grow up, and that men over the age of 20 who play video games are more harmful to our nation than terrorists.

But don't take my word for it, listen to what David Gibson, American Chronicle writer has to say about it.

"A society whose grown men seem to be more interested in the latest video game, rather than the survival of their nation or even of their own family--is doomed to failure," says Gibson.

"Three years ago, as the latest Star Wars movie opened, local television stations sent out camera crews to film the throngs camped-out all night for tickets. In every city (including my own), all I saw were grown men ranging in age from their late 20's well into their 40's. The co...

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Will the next gen change everything?

IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon recently spoke with Next-Gen about the next generation of videogames and videogame consoles. Pidgeon asserts that the PlayStation 3 may in fact be the last home console to be marketed as a leading-edge machine. This strategy, he says, will be replaced by the low-cost, high-accessibility model practiced by Nintendo with consoles such as the DS and Wii.

"I think the results of this cycle will have a strong influence on the next cycle, in that cheaper consoles will be expected. Microsoft and Sony will attain successful business on this generation, but catering to the early adopter hardcore gamers with a technology leader strategy will be difficult in 2011.

...I would have dismissed this idea as unachievable last cycle when only Xbox could provide a promising connec...

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Morgan Webb and Tyra Banks explain why you play ga...

What would we do without Tyra Banks? I sure wouldn't have anything to watch while I bake muffins and water my flowers, that's for sure. Along with her ever-present ability to entertain and define who we are as people, Tyra now wants to get to the bottom of an issue very serious for about 40% of her core audience: why boyfriends play videogames. The boyfriend (who is 23, not 13, as Tyra brilliantly points out) plays games. His girlfriend wants to know why, and what they mean. Rather than sit down and talk to him face to face like an adult, she brought him on Tyra Banks' show. And rather than ask the man to explain himself, Tyra instead makes fun of the fact that he plays games at his age, talks to his bosses about games they're playing, and generally comes off like an ass. But don't worry, ...

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Another Thompson speaks out -- he's pro education

Being rational when it comes to discussing the government's part in the regulation of videogames is beyond me. Neil Thompson is the head of sales and marketing for the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft (which includes Xbox, Zune and PC games) and he must be drinking some kind of magic calming juice.

Mr. Thompson wants parents, the government, and the games industry to sit in a room together and have a chat about videogames ratings. Seriously, this is what he wants.

"Government has a role to play here, industry has a role to play here, and parents have an incredibly important role to play here. We did some work on being safe online, where Microsoft as a company put a lot of employees out to schools, to talk to children and teachers, and parents if they would come along and expl...

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Is 50 Cent 2 going to be worth 2 cents?

When the game 50 Cent: Bulletproof was released several years ago, the game received a universal "yawn" from gaming sites and reader reviews.

The best that could be said about the scores was that the game reached the level of the rapper's namesake and scored an un-impressive score of 50 out of 100. But apparently the game scored enough sales to merit a sequel--50 Cent 2.

The news was spilled from the latest upcoming issue of EGM magazine, which shows the second installment of the game on the front cover.

At the time of the original release of 50 Cent: Bulletproof, the rapper, aka Curtis Jackson, decided to do some promotion of his own by advising parents to let their children play the ultraviolet game in order to understand what the real world was about.

Whether this tactic helped to improv...

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Sega wants to be a leader again. Can they do it?

When people talk about the leading game publishers, rarely does the name Sega pop up. With the exception of the hit title, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, released for the Wii, it's hard to think of any other titles that have been successful for Sega in the last few years.

But Sega plans to change all of this by aggressively releasing 16 different console games in just the first three months of 2008. To put this in perspective this means that Sega will actually be releasing more games during this period of time than Activision, Electronic Arts or Ubisoft.

The most surprising thing from this development is that out of the 16 titles that Sega will be releasing, half of them will be entirely brand-new intellectual properties-- in other words, no sequels or franchises but brand new games ...

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Electronic Arts' CFO bites the dust

When EA lost its long coveted title as the number one third-party game publisher of the world last year, the giant game monolith awakened from its lethargic slumber of complacency and set the fires going in trying to make some needed changes.

It hired Microsoft's Peter Moore to head up EA's sports division and now word has come from Mount EA that CFO, Warren Jenson has been given the boot.

Jensen formerly worked as a senior vice president and chief financial officer for Amazon.com and jumped aboard EA in June of 2002. Jensen will continue his role till the end of March and will stay on in order to train his replacement. He didn't divulge any information as to his future plans but he did say, "It's time for me to write the next chapter in my career."

Electronic Arts apparently already has a c...

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Blu-ray headed for patent infringment lawsuit?

The victory party for the Blu-ray camp over rival HD DVD may have started a little prematurely as word has come in that the US International Trade Commission is starting an investigation on the companies that were involved in the development of the Blu-ray technology. 

Gertrude Neumark Rothschild says she holds the patents on "certain [blue and violet] short-wavelength light emitting diodes, laser diodes, and products containing same."

While this may seem like another attempt to stake a claim on another companies success, Sony is no stranger to lawsuits brought against it for patent infringement. It recently lost a lawsuit to Immersion Corp. for lifting the rumble technology for the PlayStation Dual Shock 2 controllers.

If the ITC believes the claims by Rothschild have merit, the lawsuit may...

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Midway CEO resigns, impending trouble?

Despite some less than enthusiastic responses to a few of their games last year, Midway's CEO David Zucker remained optimistic once the new year began. For 2008, Zucker discussed that Midway would focus on "fewer, bigger, better" titles along with more video game tie-ins with Hollywood films.

But today, things look pretty grim because Midway parted ways with Zucker after his five-year stint with the company. In the meantime, senior vice president Matthew V. Booty, who joined Midway in 1991, would act as his interim replacement till a suitable CEO is found.

Shari Redstone, Midway chairwoman, said, "Dynamic new leadership is needed to bring Midway to its full potential. I believe that Midway has the resources and creative capability to once again be competitive with the best in the videogame b...

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