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Battlefield Heroes Not Coming This Winter
Posted by Luke Plunkett at 11:20 PM on July 30, 2008
EA's gritty, nay, visceral take on free-to-play modern combat - Battlefield Heroes - was originally slated to appear over the winter. Thing is, winter's already here, so what gives EA, you holding out on us? Oh, it's been delayed? Right. Noted. The announcement came during EA's conference call yesterday, with the promised addition of new "social networking features" meaning it's being held back until the end of the year. In the mean time, we've never seen this screen before, showing the game's "bad guys". Cartoon Nazis or the Max Headroom Army? You be the judge.
Some people really hated on E3 2008. Said it was boring or there weren't big announcements or whatever. Scott Alexander from Playboy has a nice look back at this year's E3 and what it all means in the big picture. He writes:
Capcom released its financial statement today, revealing a 14.5 percent increase in net sales and a 110.8 percent increase in net income with compared to Q1 last year. According to the release, the weaker yen meant a foreign exchange gain of ¥840 million — "a significant boost to ordinary income". Net sales for home console games were up 31.5 percent in comparison to the previous year's Q1. Game sales were powered by the Monster Hunter Freedom 2ndG phenomenon, which has shipped 2.48 million units as of July 2008 in Japan and Asia.
Nintendo, Wii, DS, Wii, DS, Nintendo, DS, Wii, Nintendo. That's all last week was to you, Britain. A chance for Nintendo games to parade up and down the high street, flaunting their money-printing wares while your little sisters run shrieking into the streets to buy yet another copy of Big Beach Sports and Guitar Hero DS. Indeed, so entrenched was Nintendo's dominance in the UK last week that 29 of the top 40-selling titles were for either the Wii or DS, including the entire top 10.
Above we have two backcover magazine ads. One is for Soulcalibur IV, and the other one is for Moe Sta. You remember 
Yeah, Weta are a special effects house (Lord of the Rings, etc), but they're also in the business of selling merch. And when Weta sell merch, they don't do lunchboxes and cheap action figures. They do expensive stuff. This is their upcoming Halo 3 collection, featuring five statues that vary in not only size, but tackiness as well, as they range from the classy to the, well. Tacky. No word on price yet, but here's a hint: they won't be cheap.
As 
The Game Boy Advance and GameCube. Relics of Nintendo's early 21st century efforts. Purple, plastic-looking consoles that, for all their strengths, were the company's flagship devices during the "dark days". With the Wii and DS on the scene nowadays, and printing all kinds of cash money, they're dead machines, yes? Gone, no further need for them, thanks for the memories, right? WRONG. They LIVE. 
In 2006, the DS ruled Japan. (Heck, in 2007, too.) The hardware was hard to come by, and things got so back in 2006 that American DSes were re-imported into Japan to satisfy the demand. Things have tailed off considerably. According to Nintendo's Q1 FY3/09 statement, DS hardware sales dwindled, moving 580,000 units in Q1 this year. In last year's Q1, Nintendo moved a staggering 2 million plus DSes. Hardware isn't the only thing that suffered; DS software sales are down as well. Last year's Q1, 979,000 units of DS software were sold, compared to this part quarter's 493,000 units of DS software.
As part of their freshly-dropped quarterly financials, Nintendo have decided to lavish special attention upon two of its titles. While neglecting to provide us with individual sales data for all their first-party games, which they've sometimes done in the past, they would like us to know how many copies of Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii they've sold. And the totals may surprise you! Because while Wii Fit's been a media darling, and has captured Nintendo a ton of good press with morning television crowd, it's sold "only" 3.42 million units worldwide since launch. That's a little over half of what Mario Kart Wii's managed, with the plastic-wheel-packing GameCube update managing to sell 6.42 million units worldwide.
Nintendo also announced its software sales data in its Q1 FY3/09 statement. In Q1, Nintendo DS software sales were 36.59 million, up 2.33 million units from Q1 last year. Standout titles for the DS include the international release of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness/Explorers of Time. Wii software sales reached 40.41 million units, a 24.42 million increase from Q1 last year. Titles like Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Wii Play and Wii Sports in Japan led the charge.
Nintendo just released their financial results for Q1 2009, and as part of that have revealed not only how much hardware they've shifted between April and June 2008, but how much they've managed to shift over each of their console's lifespans. And it's interesting reading, because while the Wii continues to go from strength to strength, the DS is showing a sales downturn (albeit a minor one). Could we finally be seeing the handheld's high-water mark?
Nintendo Co., Ltd. has just released its financial statement for Q1 FY3/09. And yes, Nintendo still prints money. Oh yes. Lots. In fact, both sales and profits are up from last year's numbers Nintendo states. Net sales were ¥423,380,000,000 (US$US 3.9 billion) for the quarter with a net income of ¥107,000,000,000 ($US 992 million). Compare to last year's Q1 figures: ¥340,439,000,000 ($US 3.2 billion) in net sales and ¥80,251,000,000 ($US 744 million) in net income. Looking towards the future, Nintendo expects a 7.6 percent increase in net sales and a 26.3 percent jump in net income by March 2009.
EA's Command & Conquer-based squad shooter, Tiberium, was 
Dragon Quest is popular stuff! Take the DS Dragon Quest V remake , which went on sale July 17th in Japan. Square Enix announced that the game has shipped over a million copies in Japan. It's interesting to note that Dragon Quest IV also moved a million copies (rather quickly, apparently!) when it went on sale last November. So pencil in all future DQ remakes at a million copies shipped, then!
Yesterday, 
It was mentioned only briefly during EA's conference call today, but it was enough to get us interested. While speaking of some more pie-in-the-sky plans EA have for the future of their sports brand, label boss Peter Moore said they were looking at instituting "subscription programs" for their titles, in order to "take advantage" of customer loyalty. Granted, that could be anything, but when you consider Moore 
There's no word yet on 
This December, Medicom Toys is releasing a 12" Chun-Li in Japan as part of the 
Aside from some stragglers picking up a PS2 for the first time, the console transition period is most definitely over. What was "next gen" a year or two ago is now "current gen". Which means it's time to appreciate what we've got, right? NO. No, it means it's time to start looking again towards the future. Forbes writer Chris Morris 
Sony's put out a ninja firmware update, 2.42. It took eons to download, and it seems to be a meaty update. We can't yet decipher what exactly it does (wasn't the XMB's "Turn-Off System" button there since 2.40), so we imagine it's loads of back-end stuff. And according to the 
What a difference a year makes. This time last year, sales of PS3 games accounted for only $US 13 million of EA's total net revenue. But this time this year? PS3 games account for $US 139 million in sales. Which is a 969% increase, and is miles ahead of 360 sales, which "only" made the company $US 81 million. Don't bother asking us how this happened, we have no idea. As for the other systems, the PC was the second-biggest earner at $US 86 million (perhaps 
This is going off the testament of a single man on the internet, so it's far from confirmed, but it's convincing enough to warrant a closer look: seems Microsoft's long-rumoured "Opus" chipsets may have begun shipping. Featuring a 65nm CPU and 90nm GPU, 
Street Fighter IV is just hitting Japanese arcades, and the sequel questions are starting to pop up. When will we see Street Fighter V? Says SFIV producer Yoshinori Ono:
Publisher Ubisoft may be taking a chance on another Japanese niche title, as its future publishing schedule lists the terribly named Armored Core: for Answer for a release this year. As part of its second financial quarter, which runs July to September, Ubi plans to bring the sequel to Armored Core 4 — published outside of Japan by Sega — to Western markets.
Soul Calibur IV is due out tomorrow (if it hasn't already made its way to shelves on the sly), and if the idea of paying $100+ for this gorgeous fighting title makes you want to cry or throw pieces of chair at your dad, 
Peter Moore 
Want the skinny on all of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune's PlayStation Trophies? All 48 of them? I do. Mostly because I'll be quite comfortable restarting the game in order to secure them, having not yet beat Naughty Dog's PlayStation 3 adventure. Arne Meyer at Naughty Dog spills the beans on all the virtual prizes one can secure in the game, just as soon as that patch arrives. Oh, there aren't details details, more like a high level briefing.
Electronics Arts pulled in a cool $US 90 million in its first quarter, strictly from the digital distribution business. While the company saw a net loss of $US 95 million, as previously reported, bypassing retail channels to the tune of close to a hundred million must warm the cockles of John Riccitiello's heart, while sending waves of nausea through the guts of brick and mortar game shop types.
That 
When Boom Blox didn't explode at retail during its first month on the market — selling some 60,000 copies in the United States in May — 
Preorders are down for EA Sports titles, the company said during its quarterly call to investors. CEO John Riccitiello and EA Sports honcho Peter Moore were discussing how they expected Electronic Arts' sports portfolio to perform in the year, and both seemed to say that prejudging a game's performance by the number of its preorders might be a relic of another time.
Mike Capps, el presidente of Epic Games, recently spoke at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, saying that his company had lost some of its "nimbleness" as a blockbuster producing studio. With massive titles like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament on its plate, its looking to explore new franchises on the cheap, specifically through comic books.
Electronic Arts more than doubled its year-over-year net sales in the fiscal first quarter, the company announced today. Battlefield: Bad Company, which sold 1.6 million copies, played a key role, and UEFA Euro 2008 and the continuing popularity of Rock Band also pitched in, EA said.
The announcement that Legacy Interactive and Paramount would be collaborating on 
Thanks to improved PS3 sales, Sony's games biz reported a profit on their first fiscal quarter, with sales up 16.8 percent over last year. Net sales for the devision were ¥5.4 billion ($US 51 million), whereas the company lost ¥29.2 billion ($US 273 million) in the same period last year.
Rockstar today launched the official site for upcoming 
Buried within the latest blog update from God of War and Twisted Metal producer David Jaffe is mention that at one point, someone, somewhere thought a Twisted Metal arcade game was a good idea and that there were hazy plans for Midway and Sony to collaborate on such a product. While that obviously never bore fruit — and more than likely never, ever will — to know that vehicular combat could have come to a Midway arcade cabinet is morbidly fascinating.
Activision Blizzard is the result of a merger between two large companies, each with several studios, projects and different teams. So a merger between the two means some things are going to get shuffled around. Jobs will very likely be lost, and projects might get shifted.
Sega is giving shmup fans one more reason to import a Japanese PlayStation 2 this fall with the release of the Sega Ages 2500: Fantasy Zone Complete Collection. Like the recently announced Thunderforce VI, classic side scrolling action will be hitting PS2's on the other side of the Pacific courtesy of Sega in September. Unlike Thunderforce, however, the Fantasy Zone Collection will be p