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High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle Saints Row, for all its problems, still did OK business for THQ on the 360. And it was supposed to come out for the PS3 as well, but hey, it never did. Why not? Yes, you guessed it. Problems with the Cell. Producer Dan Sutton:
In Saints Row 1 we got about half way through the process and then we realised that we just couldn’t get our heads around Cell. It’s just really complicated and I’m sure you noticed other games like Stranglehold push their dates up.
A sad, if familiar tale. But that begs the question: what about Saints Row 2? Don’t lose any sleep over it, PS3 owners. Sutton goes on to say that thanks to increased assistance from Sony with some of the trickier aspects of the Cell, Saints Row 2 is coming along just nicely.
Those Halo wheels are still turning. And from what a Gamasutra job announcement seems to hit at, Peter Jackson’s Halo game is moving forward. The Microsoft Game Studios job listing is for “Creative Director – building a new Halo universe” and says this under responsibilities:
Direct the tone and timber of the project with an eye towards compelling character development, visionary narrative progression, and addictive gameplay Partner with key Hollywood talent to collaboratively craft a masterful game experience Bridge the gap between storytelling and the interactive experience while delivering on the Halo soul. Collaborate with game play designers, story writers, game writers, and said external luminary to deliver on a unique game in the Halo universe…
So that might be Peter Jackson — unless Microsoft has roped in other “key Hollywood talent” and not told anyone. Microsoft’s been pretty bad about not telling us what’s going on with the new Halo games.
Job Listing [Gamasutra via 1Up]
So Flagship (and Hellgate) are sunk, and Mythos has been canned along with them, right? Not necessarily! According to some job postings over on Gamasutra and DICE.com, Korean publisher T3 is opening a development studio in San Francisco, and will continue work on both titles. Seems random, but T3 own a controlling stake in HanbitSoft, Hellgate’s Korean publisher, and the company at the centre of a tussle over ownership of the game as Flagship was going down. A tussle they seem to be well on the way to winning. The news probably won’t matter to Hellgate players since, outside of Korea, there really aren’t any left, but it’s good news for Mythos fans.
Report: T3 To Continue Hellgate, Mythos Development In SF Office [Gamasutra]
That Fat Princess controversy is hitting mainstream news, apparently. Fox News has taken note, too. Its chatty Fox & Friends did some short commentary on it. Insights include:
“She just happens to be. She’s a fat princess. It happens”.
“She can have cake, but not Carl’s Jr. Back away from the fastfood princess”.
Thanks DavidXSee for the tip!
So far this generation, Microsoft’s first-party lineup has done a pretty good job! Gears of War, Project Gotham Racing 3, Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4, Forza 2, Ninja Gaiden 2…all big sellers, all great games. Thing is, aside from Gears, those are all sequels! And Microsoft’s two biggest games in 2008 are more sequels, one for Gears, one for Fable. Perhaps sensing an impending onset of acute sequelitis, Microsoft’s Shane Kim wants you to know that new stuff is on the way:
We’re just at a point in the cycle where you’re seeing more sequels. I can tell you we have other new properties that are unannounced that we feel very good and are very confident about. We will continue to have new IPs alongside the franchises in our portfolio, no question.
In 2007 we’d have made a joke about their “new” men-with-guns game, but we’re now looking forward to a “new” family quiz game instead!
Part Two of Inside Xbox Live [Edge]
*SPOILER ALERT* (Well, that is, if you don’t think the Resident Evil movies spoiled RE.) Anyway! Remember the end of the third movie, Resident Evil: Extinction? Sure ya, there was an army of Alice clones. Sister site io9 cornered the movie’s director Paul W.S. Anderson about the possibility of putting that army of cloned Alices in a future Resident Evil sequel if one ends up actually happening. Here’s the exchange:
Tales of Vesperia is launching in Japan soon. August 7th, actually. And some people seem pretty excited. It’s the tenth entry in the Tales series. The Namco Bandai title is an Xbox 360 exclusive, so that just might mean that Microsoft will move more than it’s standard 3,000 Xbox 360s a week in Japan. Or not.
As of posting, Amazon Japan is sold out of new HDMI Xbox 360s (but does have Elites). HAPPINET, one of the major Xbox 360 distributors in Japan, are sold out of everything but the Elite. According to game store clerk threads on 2ch, the Xbox 360 will be restocked after Tales of Vesperia is released. What’s more, the Tales of Versperia bundle is apparently limited to something like 7,000.
The reason for the shortages?
Almost a decade and a couple platforms later, Microsoft has announced that, yes, Too Human‘s gone gold. There’s even a demo of Denis Dyack’s game up on LIVE to prove it. It’s apparently been downloaded more than another action demo on LIVE Marketplace in its first week. That’s what Microsoft says! Feel free to download it. Or not. It’s your choice.
Hit the jump for the full press release with pre-order info:
Yeah, The Last Guy is already out on the PSN in Japan, but for us English-speakers, ehhh, not yet. To help give us a taste of the game, however, Sony have released a flash demo. Of sorts. If you visit the game’s official site, you can enter any URL on the net and – after a short wait – have it rendered and playable as a level from the The Last Guy. Our first choice was obvious, and also misguided, as our site design creates a level that is…challenging. You might want to start on Google (or even a 404 error) first, build up your people-saving chops. The Last Guy
Not only is Nintendo’s legal action against R4 cart spiking the sales, it’s also spiking the prices. Check out this Akihabara retailer on July 29th when the news was first announced. R4s were going for ¥2,980 (US$US 28). The following day, the price jumped to ¥4,980 at the same retailer. And today? This shop’s price hit ¥5,980 ($US 55). Pics of that after jump.
