Is Hitman's Next Target Assassin's Creed? 
Why Kotaku Australia Should Never Work With Children... Or Robots 
Three Words I Said To The Man I Defeated In Gears Of War That I'll Never Say Again 
New Doom 3 For Xbox 360 And PlayStation 3 Supports Head-Mounted Displays 
Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land 
Why Robin Makes Batman Better Chris Satchell is heading up Microsoft’s XNA plans, and he has big ideas for the service. He’s not content with people just being able to design and build games using XNA. No, he and everyone else at Microsoft also want a top-shelf online service which can host, display and share people’s creations. We use a music analogy – you know, it’s like we’ve given the instruments so they can go and play music now, but what’s the radio station where they can reach everyone? It’s cool that they can invite people around and play in front of them, which is sort of the Creators Club, but hey, they want to play to the world.
To this end they’re working on a Youtube-esque service, which they’re unwilling to show off just now but are claiming is the “next really big step” towards making games development more accessible for regular Joe Schmos. Still sounds awfully complicated to me, though. XNAbling everyone: Part 1 [Develop]
After months of chatter, Nintendo of America’s marketing chief George Harrison has confirmed that he will be leaving the company. Nintendo has decided to relocate its sales and marketing sales from Redmond to San Francisco and New York. Many top employees are apparently unhappy with this decision and have decided to resign rather than relocate. According to Harrison:
I have confirmed to all employees that I will be leaving at the end of December and not making the move to California.
Harrison has been with Nintendo since 1992. No word on what his future plans entail. So, wonder who’s next… Harrison is gone [Reuters via eXophase Games Network, Thanks shadow!]
The Xbox Live Video Marketplace is doin’ alright for Microsoft. People like the convenience, they like the easy access to stuff in HD. You’d think Sony would be right on top of a similar setup for the PS3, and would have been there since launch, but they’re not. They are working on it, though, and Jack Tretton has been out speculating on what the service might look like: Everybody in the world has rightly pointed out that Sony is uniquely positioned with having a great heritage in hardware, and a great heritage in software – they own a music business, they own a successful movie studio and a successful gaming division. So just based on our internal resources alone we should be able to take advantage of synergies. We’re working closely together to come up with a service that we think will be of benefit to the consumer as well as not just the PlayStation brand but potentially across all Sony properties.
It’s a grand vision, one with not just Microsoft but also iTunes firmly in their sights. Thing is, it’s not even close to being ready. Tretton says it’s definitely not 2007, and sets the goalposts even further back by confirming it will be “within this platform lifecycle”. That’s anytime within the next, what, at least five years, so don’t hold your breath. You might pass out and smack your head as you fall, leaving a nasty bruise and a silly explanation for how you got it. Jack Tretton Talks PlayStation Network, Video Downloads [Gamedaily.biz]
In Activision employee James Portnow’s weekly column, he justifiably calls out the gaming industry for creating stereotypes where they mean to create archetypes. we tend to end up with stereotypes when what we’re looking for is archetypes. If you look at almost all of the most memorable videogame characters…they are all archetypical. The problem is that the line between an archetype and a stereotype is very subtle and, as established above, conveying that subtlety in the limited context of a videogame is often too much to ask.
That’s right. The EU isn’t just lending money to developers. It’s giving it to them. Giving them millions. It’s been announced that the European Commission have created a kitty of around €1,500,000 which is to be handed out to European developers to help spur the industry on. Individual developers can claim up to €100,000 to start a new project, while games already under development can claim between €10,000 and €60,000. Only catch? 60% of the fund is being reserved for games that “focus on the cultural heritage and diversity of Europe”. I read that to mean “obscure medieval German trading simulators”. That or Singstar: Eurovision. European Commission creates €1.5m game fund [Develop]
Unlike our colonial forebears, Australian gamers have resisted the urge to drop BioShock from the #1 spot and have instead…kept it there. That’s the 360 version, the PC one’s long gone. Also busting into the top 10 is, surprisingly, Two Worlds, making this the first time two 360 games have been in the top 10 since, oh, a very long time ago.
1. BioShock (360) 2. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage 3. SingStar ’90s 4. Mario Party 8 5. Pokémon Diamond 6. New Super Mario Bros 7. Two Worlds 8. Pokémon Pearl 9. Ratatouille (PS2) 10. Boogie
[charts courtesy of GfK]
