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Sunday Comics: Dead Island According to an official statement, Grasshopper Manufacture, the studio behind No More Heroes, raised $US80,000 for quake relief via a fundraising event, a charity app and auctions.
Japanese games impresario Goichi Suda – “Suda 51″ (pictured) – the creator of No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, will bring a title exclusively to the Xbox 360, titled “Codename D.”
This is Shadows of the Damned, a new game from No More Heroes’ Goichi Suda and former Capcom mastermind Shinji Mikami. It’s rock n’ roll meets Resident Evil.
These “erotic portraits” of Sylvia Christel are part of a Japanese pre-order bonus for upcoming title No More Heroes: Paradise.
What’s this then? Another glimpse of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle? And right before E3? Does that mean we’re about to learn much more about the game?
Gamasutra has a nice five page interview up with David DeMartini of EA Partners, the Electronic Arts division that has released games like Rock Band, Crysis, The Orange Box, and, uh, Hellgate: London in the past year. It’s a pretty wide ranging chat, from discussions of the challenges the come with working with Japanese studios, to acquiring new titles, to the relative disaster of Hellgate:
We’re certainly sad with the results for Flagship and what’s happened with Hellgate, because at the time we signed it, we were trying to get involved in a very complicated relationship between Namco and Flagship. We were coming late to the party, and trying to do whatever we could to sprinkle the game magic on the project and get it headed in the right direction.
I think that’s an example where all three parties had the best interest of the game in mind, and sometimes the game doesn’t work out. Hellgate is still an incredible concept. The guys who worked on it spent thousands of hours trying to make that concept work, and sometimes we just don’t see something. Sometimes, we just didn’t take enough time. Sometimes, things don’t work out the way you expect.
It’s kind of like a film with all big stars — on the script, it should be successful, but the movie doesn’t turn out as good as everybody hoped. That’s why EAP takes a portfolio approach with its games. You have to place a lot of bets, and hope for a lot of hits.
Certainly worth a read through — I always enjoy reading interviews that cover a lot of ground, and this certainly satisfies in that respect.
David DeMartini on the Renaissance of EA Partners [Gamasutra]
This week’s Famitsu has a look at the Nintendo published surivival horror Zero ~Tsukihami no Kamen~ AKA Fatal Frame IV. The Wii game is being directed by Tecmo’s Makoto Shibata and Grasshopper’s Goichi Suda. While Shibata worked on the previous Fatal Frame games, Suda was roped in to work on Fatal Frame IV. Hit the jump for another look at the game.
Word has it that No More Heroes creator Goichi Suda and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami have joined forces for a yet unannounced project. (Previously, the duo worked together on Killer7.) We’ve been hearing rumblings about this for a while, as has game magazine GamesTM. The latest issue dishes: UNTITLED PLATINUM GAMES PROJECT One of our spies informs us that Grasshopper is currently discussing a new game with the ex-Clover studio.
Perhaps it’s this, perhaps not. If true, we approve. We very much approve of this. Carry on!
Marvellous Interactive have published some worldwide shipping/sales figures for Suda’s No More Heroes. In Japan, homeland of all parties involved? It’s done terribly. Only 40,000 copies have shipped since launch. Ouch. How about America, then? Little better: they’ve shipped around 200,000 copies, and have sold just over 100,000 since launch. Not bad! Finally, however, they announce some European numbers. And while the game’s not even out there yet (it’s shipping late Feb/early March across all PAL territories), they’re expecting to sell 160,000 units across the continent at launch. Could something finally be coming up roses for Suda? Let’s hope so! NO MORE HEROES打上げ [Marvellous, via Alkaline @ NeoGAF]
