Tuesday, June 17, 2008
News
No End In Sight: EA Extends Take-Two Offer Again
11:20PM Leigh Alexander | Electronic Arts has announced this morning it has extended the deadline for its acquisition of Take-Two until July 18th, after the previous deadline expired at market close yesterday. The publisher has not, however, raised its offer above $US 2 billion, or $US 25.74 per share, as the FTC’s investigation process continues. Take-Two was recently asked to explain to the U.S. district court of Washington, D.C why it is refusing to fully comply with the commission’s information request. Take-Two risks an injunction if it doesn’t provide the full scope of info, which has been speculated to pertain to portions of its sports portfolio. EA senior VP of corporate development Owen Mahoney congratulated Rockstar on Grand Theft Auto IV’s successful launch, but maintained that despite the title’s success, EA’s offer “reflects a full and fair price based on the long-term value of Take-Two’s entire operation”.
Square Enix’s New Japanese Arcade Game
11:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Bust out the fancy hats! Square Enix honcho Yoichi Wada held the opening ceremony for card-based arcade game Lord of Vermilion at Shinjuku Taito Station. The game isn’t Square Enix’s first entry into card-based arcade games, which are very popular in Japan, as previously the company released a slapped Dragon Quest on a kiddy card game. In LoV and other similar card-based games, players moved cards around on a sensor field, which corresponds to their on-screen movement in real time. These arcade games are a tad on the pricey side, forcing players to not only pay-per-play but also for the actual cards themselves. It goes without saying that the cards are collector’s items themselves! Lord of Vermilion Launches [Game Watch Impress] More »10:30PM Luke Plunkett | This May Or May Not Be The Gears 2 Cover Art – Microsoft Europe just sent this along. Say it’s a “temporary packshot” for Gears of War 2. Sure hope it stays temporary. You can’t even see the 2! Customers will be confused. Wrong copies of the game will be bought. Christmas mornings will be ruined. More »
Nintendo: ‘We’re Working On’ A Wii Storage Solution
10:20PM Luke Plunkett | The Wii just isn’t big enough for all the stuff it offers. That’s not conjecture, that’s fact. So what are Nintendo doing about? Well, when Nintendo’s Laurent Fischer isn’t pissing you all off by calling you names, he’s promising that – snide comments aside – Nintendo know there’s something wrong, and are working on it. More »NECA’s Gears Of War: Series 2
10:00PM Luke Plunkett | You’ve seen series 1. Both here and, now, in stores. So time for all you toy adult collectible collectors to start psyching yourself for series two of NECA’s Gears of War line. Pictured here are the four figures that’ll comprise the batch: Dom, Baird and two variants of the Theron Guards, one with helmet, one sans helmet but with his best ANGRY FACE.New SCE Boss (ie Phil v2.0) Speaks
9:30PM Luke Plunkett | While I’m sure they do loads of important meeting-and-paperwork-related stuff in the office, from where we’re sitting, the job of a corporate exec is simple: act as a corporate figurehead. Give us an idea of how your company’s feeling, and where it’s headed, from a bunch of quotes you deliver in an interview. So when new SCE boss Shuhei Yoshida – Phil Harrison’s replacement atop Sony Computer Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios – gave his first real interview, it was time to listen! Listen to him talk about getting SCE Japan, America and Europe on the same page, about how developers underestimated the PS3’s multi-core architecture. More »2 Girls, 1 Cup (And A Witty Japanese Pun)
9:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Not only is pantsu flashing fighter Ikkitousen hitting the PSP, but it’s also rolling out the limited edition goods! Ikkitousen is inspired on Chinese epic Romance of Three Kingdoms and is set against a backdrop of warring high school students. The PSP version, called Ikkitousen Eloquent Fist, is getting a figure set that features Hakufu and Hakufu’s flirty, booze drinkin’ mum Goei. While Westerners will be quick to see the (unintentional?) 2-girls-1-cup joke, the actual Japanese joke is a pun and has quite a different meaning! This is an “oyako donburi figure” set: “Oyakodon” literally means “parent-and-child donburi” and refers to a dish that consists of egg, chicken and rice. And “Donburi” is a “rice bowl dish”. Geddit? HILARIOUS. Hit the jump for another pic of this limited edition oyako don figure set. More »Aaron Greenberg: Ladies Man
8:30PM Luke Plunkett | It’s Kotaku After Dark. Time to set the mood. This should about do it! You may normally know him as Microsoft’s Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, but tonight (well, at GDC, but oldies can still be goodies), no. No, tonight, Aaron Greenberg’s playing the P.I.M.P. with a couple of Penthouse Pets, discussing the kinda shit he likes to get up to in the hot-tub. Yes, really. Sadly the vid’s not embeddable, so you’ll have to hit the link. In Bed With The Pets: Aaron Greenberg, Part II [Das Gamer] More »Rolling Stone Movie Critic Calls GTAIV ‘Best Popcorn Movie’
8:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Some movie critics hate video games so hard. They fart in their general direction! But Rolling Stone magazine movie critic Peter Travers? He seems to like them! Disappointed at the recent spate of crap Hollywood summer popcorn movies, Travers writes: Time to go interactive. That’s right, me the movie critic is actually telling you to switch to video games until Hollywood makes more exciting movies… [Grand Theft Auto IV is] a hell of a game (maybe not the Citizen Kane of the form, like many game reviews claim), and in terms of action, thrills, imagination and innovation, GTA IV has it all over the pablum currently passing for ingenuity at the multiplex… And let’s keep my game skills out of this as well. This is a review of Grand Theft Auto IV the M-O-V-I-E. And I have to say, it’s better than anything I’ve seen at the multiplex so far this summer, except maybe Iron Man. There’s plot development, character depth and moral ambiguity, stuff you don’t find in Speed Racer… It’s a rare video game that enters territory marked by Scorsese and Tarantino. But writers Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries have created the vid version of film noir with dialogue that crackles even in the film’s darkest shadows. And they take every shot they can at social satire. That’s some big time movie critic praise! Nice to see that Travers is open to other (more interactive) forms of story telling. Is Grand Theft Auto IV Actually the Best Popcorn Movie of the Summer? [Rolling Stone via The Chaos Fold] More »
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