Microsoft Responds To Reports Of Xbox Live Account 'Jacking' 
GAME Australia Lays Off 281 Employees, Closes 60 Stores 
How Diablo III's Always-On Internet Requirement Makes It A Better Game GAME: No Buyers Yet, Crisis To Drag On For Another Month 
Have Your Say On Video Game Pricing 
35,000 Telstra Passwords Reset After Games Services Hacked I loved Oblivion. Loved it. Lucky for me I was playing it on PC, though, because if I’d had to wait over a year for it on PS3, I’d have been pissed. That won’t be happening a second time around, though, as Bethesda have indicated that when Fallout 3 is released later this year – the second time they’ve tried an RPG on current-gen consoles – they’re hoping to release on all three platforms simultaneously. Course, that’s just a “plan” at the moment. There’s plenty of time for the PS3 version to be delayed yet! Fallout 3 versions “should all be the same date”, says Bethesda [VG247]
Just when you all are starting to get GDC fever, Japan comes along to steal its thunder and announces the theme for this year’s Tokyo Game Show. Are you ready for that excitement? Here goes: Theme: “Ready for GAME Time!”
Let both experienced players and first-time users get even more enjoyment from games — the aspiration has led to creation of a variety of new content and driven astonishing growth of the computer entertainment industry. Zzzzzzzzz… More like “Ready for LAME Time!” We really ought to cut them some slack. Last year’s TGS theme wasn’t announced until late May. Perhaps, TGS organisers could’ve used a few more months so that, you know, that didn’t turned in something so bad. Hit the jump for the full press release.
Rumor: Microsoft are going to buy Gears of War creators Epic for $US 1 billion. Rumour response: Epic VP Mark Rein, while refusing to rule the possibility out, gets his not-really-serious bargaining boots on and says $US 1 billion is totally unacceptable: I have not seen the actual GamePro article but if they’re going to make predictions about us selling Epic we would prefer if they started at $US 2 billion. Because we don’t want anyone thinking that we’re cheap.
I dunno Mark…that brown suit…you might want to kick it up to $US 3 billion, just to be sure. Rein: “$US 1bn? We’re not that cheap” [Develop]
Apparently, MMORPG Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa bombed. And when games bomb, heads roll. If true, it’s at NCSoft’s Austin Studio! The Korea Times reports that the Austin subsidiary “has proven to be a financial disaster.” Making Tabula Rasa was no cake walk, with rattailed Richard Garriott restarting the project several times, costing NCSoft added expenses. In a conference call, NCSofts chief financial officer Lee Jae-ho said: Because of this disappointing result, some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. We are going to revamp our Austin development organisation… I should admit that the actual result of Tabula Rasa has been disappointing… If you talk about our development cost we spent in the past several years, probably we are not making any money from this Tabula Rasa project. That should be the reality.
Hrm. Two Brain Trainings and a Maths training? Two Turoks? Midway’s Game Party for the Wii? No no no no no no no. Britain, go off and buy a week’s worth of games again, and this time, do it properly. OK, while they’re gone, EA, a moment please. Where’s your sense of decency? As you can no doubt see, the UK is suffering from a lack of Rock Band. Do the humane thing, and get with shipping the game to Europe.
1) Mario & Sonic At The Olympics (DS) 2) Devil May Cry 4 (360) 3) Wii Play 4) Brain Training 5) Turok (360) 6) Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) 7) Maths Training (DS) 8) More Brain Training 9) Turok (PS3) 10) Game Party (Wii)
[charts courtesy of ChartTrack][Image]
David Gardner’s the new boss of walking corpse-publisher Atari. And what’s near the top of his to-do list? Slagging off EA and Activision, of course. My goal is not to go head on with EA and Activision Blizzard – we’re the terrorist organisation here. We’re going to go much faster into the future than anyone else because we’re small.
That’s where the big guys are sleeping because they can’t move fast enough – they’re too busy on the treadmill trying to get to their next billion dollars.
Of course they have to do that and that’s great. But that’s why we have new companies coming into the market all the time with a new focus and a new drive. Shhhhhh. Don’t tell Gardner that calling Atari a terrorist organisation is what those in the business call “bad PR”. Or that Atari aren’t a new company, and have yet to show us they possess focus or drive. He needs to figure those things out for himself! Gardner slams ‘treadmill’ publishing [MCV]
One thing about Peter Molyneux: We just wish he’d let his games do the talking after they’re released, instead of letting his mouth ruin them before their release. No need to over-hype, Peter! Now, he says what his team that worked on the original Black & White is up to: In the six years since Black & White [was released]they have been working improving the great things that underpinned that game, and now they are getting pretty close to something that is very significant. It’s a very big thing. A new franchise and as close to something revolutionary as I have ever seen. And we’re close to announcing it… If you think back to the one thing about Black & White that was most fascinating, you’d have to say it was that creature that learned behaviour and seemed, for a certain glimpse, to be alive. Imagine if you could take that and multiply it by a billion…
Imagine if Peter Molyneux never said this and then showed something that delivered on this promise. Well, that’d be pretty revolutionary, wouldn’t it? Lionhead Boss Talks New AI [Next Generation]
This is the Helios, a rock-climbing radio-controlled car by Pro-Line. Now, I don’t want to go sullying the good name of Pro-Line’s art and design departments, but that’s no homage. That’s straight-up design thievery. And we’re all the better for it! Bungie and Microsoft haven’t gotten around to plugging this obvious gap in the Halo merch market, so it’s good to see Pro-Line picking up the slack. Oh, and yes. At over 12″ long you can probably fit your Halo figures in the seats. Proline – Helios [RCasy, via Hobby Blog]
Gaming’s biggest diversion of the last year has finally come to an end. Today, after the stock markets in Tokyo and Osaka closed, Toshiba announced that HD DVD was no more. The company will cease developing, manufacturing and marketing HD DVD players and recorders. Yes, the format war is finally over, and Sony’s Blu-ray has emerged victorious. From the press release: Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organisation with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries. Hit the jump for the full press release:
Microsoft kicked off GDC with red! Here, the BBC spotted this Xbox 360 demo kiosk that has been RRoD’d. No way to know if this console was made before things were “bad” or after things got “good.” But think about it this way: All those other GDC Xbox 360s are working fine! So now all that there’s left for you to do is go check your Xbox 360, make sure it still works and pray.
Red ring of death returns [BBC via N4G.com Thanks, Michael!]
