News
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Acclaimed Japanese developer’s studio acquired by Bethesda’s parent company.US-based publisher, marketer and distributor ZeniMax Media has announced the purchase of Shinji Mikami’s Tokyo-based developer Tango Gameworks. Mikami will develop titles for ZeniMax subsidiary Bethesda Softworks.
Mikami is famed for directing titles such as Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4. His latest project is a collaboration under the EA Partners label with Suda 51, Shadows Of The Damned.
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Cryptic’s MMO revamp idea two.
Cryptic Studios is trying new things to bolster the popularity of MMOs Star Trek Online and Champions Online. Its newest invention? Player-made missions. And Star Trek Online will integrate them first.
Dubbed The Foundry, the toolset allows anyone to make a story, fill it with encounters and play around with the scenery. You can either start a world from scratch or tinker with pre-made templates – Cryptic even allows existing STO areas to be used.
But The Foundry is not a modding tool.
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Pokemon: Black/White not far behind.
Wonderful Wii platformer Super Mario Galaxy 2 has sold a whopping 5.1 million units worldwide, Nintendo has announced.
Mario’s latest deserves its sales success: we awarded it 10/10 in our June review.
Phenomenon Pokémon: Black & White, though, will no doubt top it as Nintendo’s best-selling game of 2010: the DS game is already on 4.07 million units having only gone on sale in Japan last month.
The sales stats are buried within Nintendo’s latest financial report. -
US-based publisher and developer says job losses following game launches are “vital to maintaining a healthy business”.EA has today confirmed that “seasonal roll-offs” have affected an undisclosed number of jobs at the company.
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Microsoft veteran takes the reins on the UK developer with a commitment to Kinect titles.Scott Henson, former product unit manager at Microsoft’s game technology group, has been made studio manager of first-party developer and subsidiary Rare.
Henson will replace Mark Betteridge, who will continue to work at the company in a more creative role. We interviewed Betteridge as part of our celebration of the studio which you can read here.
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Microsoft veteran takes the reins on the UK developer with a commitment to Kinect titles.Scott Henson, former product unit manager at Microsoft’s game technology group, has been made studio manager of first-party developer and subsidiary Rare.
Henson will replace Mark Betteridge, who will continue to work at the company in a more creative role. We interviewed Betteridge as part of our celebration of the studio which you can read here.
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Veteran players get early start.
FIFA 11 Ultimate Team will launch on 3rd November as a free download from the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, EA has announced.
If you’re already a FIFA Ultimate Team player you can start early by logging on to the official site from 27th October. Wait, that was yesterday!
Returning players will be rewarded with two free gold packs to help build their team ahead of launch.
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Did someone say 3DS?
Nintendo DS and Wii sales dropped significantly in the six months leading up to September 2010.
Nintendo sold 11.7 million DS units worldwide in the six months leading up to 30th September 2009. In the same period this year, it sold 6.69 million units a drop of nearly a half.
The Wii suffered a less dramatic drop – sales were down from 5.75 million to 4.97.
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Is codenamed Zeus, reports say.
The PlayStation Phone that was called “definitely fake” yesterday is actually “definitely real”, new reports suggest.
Leaping to its defence was – no surprise here – publisher of the original gallery and report, Endgadget. What’s interesting this time is that blog VG247 backed the news with a “watertight” source.
Endgadget argued that the PS Phone story had been verified by “multiple, trusted sources”, and that more loose-lippers had come forward since the original story was published. Fresh information revealed the internal codename for the device as Zeus.
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Plus Custom Games Editor and other tweaks.
Call of Duty: Black Ops will include split-screen options for online multiplayer, a custom game mode editor and sharing facility, and a range of other interface tweaks to make your time being shot in the face by teenagers in Utah more agreeable, Treyarch has revealed.
Writing on the official US PlayStation Blog, Treyarch’s Josh Olin explained that a second player can plug in another controller to join your online battle and that guests can even rank up and earn unlocks, although guest progress is forgotten when they sign out again.
The Custom Games Editor, meanwhile, will allow players to “structure their games at all new levels of granularity”. You can set variables like time limit and score limit, but also specify which weapons, perks and gear can be used, among other things, so in theory you can do whatever you want. “You want a Pistols Only match? Make one!” wrote Olin. “No longer do custom game modes rely on the honour system.”