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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle It’s been said a million times before, but bears repeating. Numbers. Are. Fun. And few numbers are as fun as those which allow us to pit the industry’s publishers against one another in a struggle for financial supremacy. Edge have put together an exhaustive feature outlining who they believe the industry’s top 20 publishers are, and while the bulk of the piece is given over to their own rankings based on their own opinion, we prefer these hard numbers. Above, you can see the world’s top publishers ranked according to their global revenue, while after the jump, they’re ranked on their profit/loss margins, which makes for a very different chart.
We’re excited about LittleBigPlanet. And maybe you are, too. LBP-centric site LittleBigPlanet Central is obviously jazzed as well and got a total of one hour and thirty minutes hands on with the game at this year’s Comic Con, taking copious notes of things it noticed. Let’s dive in:
Character Customisation • There is a Tron suit you can wear in the game, along with a killzone helmet and mask. • Not only that, but there are about 25 different materials and designs that you can choose to have your sackboy made out of, including 3 types of camo. • There are held items that you can choose from, such as a wooden sword and a magic wand (a stick with a star on the top). You can’t use them as weapons, but when you slap while holding an item you hit them with said item.
There’s more after the jump. Lots more.
Europe’s Rock Band pricing didn’t go down too well, but at least they’ve got Rock Band pricing. Australia have so far been left out altogether, with only a “later this year” release timeframe hinted at. Well, according to a number of sources across the local retail sector, that timeframe is going to be October. You know, a month after Rock Band 2 is released in the US. But wait! That’s bad, but things get worse. Employees at a couple of the nation’s largest specialist games retailers have tipped us off as to what the game’s going to cost would-be Aussie rock fiends, and the news is not good.
Nintendo has just announced that it and 54 game software companies are filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that import “R4 Revolution for DS”-type devices, using the Unfair Competition Prevention Law as the legal grounding. Nintendo is asking for the cease of marketing, sales and importation of these Chinese-made devices. The R4 allows easy software piracy by fitting right into the DS’s cartridge slot. Data is stored on a Micro SD and downloaded from websites via a flash drive, and the R4 has a small slot that the Micro SD card goes into. In a statement released today, Nintendo announced that these R4 devices “allow illegal uploading from the internet”, adding that “it is causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook”. In conclusion, Nintendo adds that such devices hurts the growth of the entire game industry and steps must be taken regarding the legality of R4 carts. It’s important to note that this legal injunction is for Japan only.
Back in November 2007, Nintendo announced that it was “keeping a close eye on the products and studying them”. Earlier this spring, Nintendo apparently pressured Akihabara retailers to stop carrying the popular R4 carts.
Hit the jump for a list of some of the companies who along with Nintendo have filed in this suit.
Reggie wants it. You (maybe) want it. Take-Two shareholders most certainly want it. So Grand Theft Auto on the Wii’s a no-brainer, right? Sure looks that way to us, but we’re not Take-Two. Our names aren’t anything cool like Strauss. Take-Two themselves are being awful suggestive on the subject, with Ben Feder responding to the “GTA on Wii?” question with:
I can’t comment on it, but obviously we have one of the best selling third -party games on the Wii in Carnival Games from 2K Play, so we know the Wii pretty well. We’re building up assets to develop for the Wii and we’re excited about its growth. I can’t comment on GTA specifically on the Wii…
Read into that what you will, but we read a man saying those words with a smirk on his face and his right hand patting his wallet ever so softly.
Interview: Take-Two’s Ben Feder Talks GTA, Wii, MMOs and More [GameDaily]
Why’s Portal being released on Xbox Live Arcade? Valve say it’s to give people who otherwise missed it a chance to catch up, see what all the fuss is about. When asked by OXM whether that meant other Valve games might be seeing a similar release, Doug Lombardi responded: We’ll certainly consider it. If you look at what we’ve done on Steam, we try to make all our games available and we’re always reviewing the prices to keep them current. We’d love to do that, but Portal: Still Alive is our first step at doing that beyond the PC.
First step, but probably not the last. Valve love money as much as the rest of us.
Counter-Strike on XBLA? [OXM, via CVG]
Announced on Friday, unveiled today is the character art for the Joker, as he’ll appear in the upcoming Mortal Kombat v DC fighter from Midway. As great as the most recent silver screen portrayal of the character may be, it’s nice to see the team showing a little restraint and going for the “classic” joker, even if he looks a little more top-heavy than we remember.
So yeah, Metal Gear Solid 4 closes the chapter on Solid Snake. And Kojima Productions have confirmed that MGS4 will be the last canonical game to feature Snake. But does that mean there won’t be another Snake in the future? Game creator Hideo Kojima explains:
For the privileged few, a Red Alert 3 beta test is about to kick off. And in order to get those testers sorted, EA needed to let them know the game’s minimum system specs. Now granted, this being a beta, and with the game a whiles off, things are subject to change. But if they do change, they probably won’t change much. Click through for the full run-down, but if you need a summary first, know that thing’s are looking surprisingly generous.
We’d have thrown in some quip about this being the 1,174th time Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway has been delayed, but since that cut a little too close to the bone we let it slide. This one’s not too bad, however: the “glass is half full” brigade can console themselves with the fact it’s only for a month, with the game’s original August release pushed back to September. To tide you over while you wait, the first details on the game’s collector’s edition have been revealed on GameStop, showing that for an extra $US 10 you’ll get a US Airborne figure, a comic book and a map of the upper Rhine, should you ever be bicycling around the area with the missus and wondering about the position of German Panzer divisions.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway Suffers Delay, Limited Edition Revealed [Shacknews]
