Category: Industry News
Macworld 2009 Live-Blogging
We’re not an Apple fanboy-site, but these bloody Macworld things always cause the Internet to grind to a halt as everyone fawns over the latest Apple consumer-good-with-built-in-obsolescence.
Who knows, there may even by some Apple gaming news of note, but I wouldn’t hold your breath – Macs are too cool for gaming!
GDGT has a live blog going down that updates every 30 seconds.
Oh, and any reports of Steve Jobs dying have been greatly exaggerated ! … Read More…
The Sims 3 System Requirements
EA have released the official minimum requirements for running The Sims 3.
As per usual, they dredge the lowest of low, but it’s good too see some attempt has been made to require a computer manufactured this side of the great computing big-bang of the year of our lord ( Horace the Endless Bear ) 1876.
Skip the jump to see whether that sun-bleached beige laptop your grandparents dug out of the attic for a Christmas present will cope…… Read More…
Steam Holiday Sale
Valve have just started their not-quite-January-but-close-enough Sale on Steam, located here for browser-philes or on the Store homepage for people who would rather use the app.… Read More…
Zavvi console sale – update
Destructoid is reporting that Virgin Megastores Zavvi is now pumping out Xbox 360 Arcade SKUs in its retail outlets for a Sainsbury’s equalling £99 . The more attractive/feature-complete Premium SKUs are going for £149 & l33t Elites for a snip under £200 too.
The rival PS3 is also coasting at £269.99, which means it’s still cheaper than a standalone Blu-Ray player…
As they have the commercial popularity & rarity of gold-dust, the Wii seems to (unsurprisingly) be holding it’s price.
BREAKING – Following the collapse of Woolworths and their distribution arm, Entertainment UK , Zavvi have now themselves gone into … Read More…
Free Radical closing
Gotta love recessions…
There’s been no official word yet, but it seems the economic downturn has hit another developer.
Free Radical , developers of the Timesplitters series, the brilliant Second Sight and the (unfortunately) thoroughly mediocre Haze, have apparantly been taken too the wall .
Sad too see people go, but after Haze’s frosty critical reception, i’m actually surprised they weren’t disbanded earlier.
Update -
Seems to be official now. Tiga have issued a statement…
“On behalf of all Tiga members, I would like to say how sorry the whole industry is to hear of the fate of Free Radical
Kikizo interviews Terminal Reality on Ghostbusters
As the title suggests, Kikizo have interviewed Terminal Reality (unsurprisingly) about their Ghostbusters game that was recently saved from the chasm of oblivion by (of all people) Atari.
They touch upon (amongst other things) the multi-player mode, the boss fights, the original premise of the game being an official ‘Ghostbusters 3′ and anticipation about being picked up by someone when Activision bought into the MMO cash cow that was WoW merged with Vivendi, coupled with damning indication that their reason for being dropped was because Activision couldn’t make a yearly franchise out of the license…
Kikizo: There’s a story going
ZOMG! Atari News
In what i’m hoping will become a fairly irregular occurance (because supporting them is just not cricket), we’ve got some Atari news and it’s good news too!.
Firstly, MCV are reporting that Ghostbusters , the recently-saved highly-anticipated stream crossing simulator which was dropped in the messy amalgamation of Activision & Vivendi, will hit retail around the middle of next year for all the formats under the sun (apart from Sony’s red-headed stepchild, the PSP).
Secondly, Eurogamer are reporting that Atari are planning to excavate a bunch of their old D&D properties (among others), but won’t be doing this until late … Read More…
Dungeon Keeper MMO announced – NetDragon at helm.
Yep, you read that right – EA, those ever lovable masters of needless license-squatting, are farming out the Dungeon Keeper I.P. to one of the many MMO factories that populate the far east (presumably on the same reclaimed landmass as that huge Nike factory and the place where your iPod was built).
NetDragon WebSoft Inc. is the name and money-driven online orgys for the crazy obsessive MMO market is their game (purveyor of many a licensed massively multiplayer game as they are, including the HOMM effort ).
Nothing is really known about the game yet, so I’ll let the press … Read More…
Tabula Rasa going offline
Destination Games Tabula Rasa , brainchild of Richard ‘Lord/General/Insert-Title-Here British’ Garriott, is to shut down after just over a year of fairly poor performance in MMO circles.
The servers are due to get a tabula rasa of their own at the end of February next year, but from the 10th January, the entire game will be 100% free.
The official press-release and a link for existing subscribers is after the jump…… Read More…
Gearbox layoffs – Colonial Marines unaffected
Following the fairly lukewarm reception of Brothers in Arms : Hell’s Highway (a game that was much delayed, pretty seriously bugged for more than one platform and set in a period which we’ve all shot our way through at least 4-5 times), Shacknews reports that Gearbox have laid off between 15 and 26 employees.
Originally it was suspected that the Aliens : Colonial Marines game had also disappeared down the gaming toilet, but Randy Pitchford has since gone on record to confirm the game is still alive and kicking, as is Borderlands…
But, relax, guys – Aliens isn’t canned. Also,