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Play. Die. Respawn
King's Bounty: Princess
An expansion to bury Heroes V deeper still
An expansion to bury Heroes V deeper still
    | What do you do when you make a console - let's call it "PS3" - that's so expensive, and requires such huge game development investments, that most studios would spit you in the face and go back to making silly Wii games? Easy: you spit them back and make your own games! That's what Sony plans on doing, even more than before (except for the spitting part). Together with fellow Japanese powerhouse Namco Bandai, they are forming a new studio called Cellius, catchingly named after the PlayStation 3's Cell chip. According to a report on Bloomberg, Namco Bandai will own 51% of Cellius, with Sony holding the other 49%, and Joystiq also says that the initial investment jointly made by the two companies is valued at approximately $824,000. The date that Cellius opens for business is currently planned for March 6 of this year. At that time, the studio is expected to start working not only on PS3 games, but also on content for mobile phones and personal computers, as well as "interactive entertainment" and "business contents", making full use of the Cell chip - which has cost Sony and its partners (IBM and Toshiba) some $1.65 billion to develop. The Cell chip - and now by extension Cellius - should help Sony combat its rivals Microsoft and Apple in more than just video games. The report also mentions the so-called "digital home", a future network linking televisions, music players, game consoles and other appliances to the Internet, something that all three companies are currently striving to control. That will be Sony's job. Namco Bandai's job, on the other hand, will be to be bring in the games. They already hold last year's best-selling PS3 games in Japan (Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam), as well as other big franchises such as Tekken and Ace Combat, so we're instinctively curious to see what this deal will bring us gamers. Last, but not least, the new company's chairman will be none other than Ken Kutaragi, "the father of the PlayStation", who stopped acting as president of Sony Computer Entertainment after the whole Sony management reshuffling from last November. A-ha! So there really was something big going on behind the scenes, after all. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Jan 25, 2007 You can imagine my amusement when I saw this story on some guy's Raph's website, about Korean gold farmers banding together, just as I was listening to "Africa Unite". But of course, unlike Bob Marley's song, there's absolutely nothing commendable about the gold farmers' solely monetary motives for uniting. As if it wasn't bad enough that their massively-multiplayer online exploits are typically ruining the game experience for millions of (more) honest players, they now have the nerve to stand up against the Korean government's recent anti-gold-farming initiative. Raph's story is based on a report from the Korean ETNews website (paid registration required), titled "Game Item Trading Sites Form Pressure Group against Govt. Moves", which begins with the following paragraph:
The companies refered in the article include ItemBay and Item PlayForum, and the Digital Asset Distribution Promotion Association will be headed by ItemBay's CEO. Although this move is specifically targeted at the local situation in Korea, and admitedly Korean gold farmers aren't as despised in the West as Chinese farmers (for instance), it still gives me the chills. Let's say that they do manage to accomplish something for themselves in Korea. And let's say that their actions would inspire their "co-workers" from around the world to form bigger and bigger unions. Call me paranoid, but that's a scenarion I would really hate to see unfolding. If you never had problems with gold farmers, don't worry. You will! (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Sony Delays EU PS3 Launch... Details, Confirms March 23 Launch! Scared you there for a moment, eh? Well, don't worry, they haven't delayed the European launch of the PlayStation 3 any more. But they did postpone their announcement that was supposed to give us all the juicy - and, best of all, official - PS3 launch details for PAL territories a bit earlier this week. By now, however, it's official: "Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced that PlayStation 3 will be launched in the PAL territories of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australasia on 23rd March 2007 at a price of EURO 599 (GBP 425, AUD 999.95, NZ 1199.95)" (update: replaced with data from the latest press release we received, with prices for all PAL territories). Sony expects to have 1 million PS3 units available in Europe during the initial launch period (i.e. NOT from day-one) and they also confirmed that initially only the 60GB model will be available - with the 20GB model to follow later in the year "dependent on demand". £425? As in €645? As in $836?! And no 20GB PS3? For their own good, I really hope this announcement only refers to the United Kingdom, and not the rest of Europe, where we were expecting the price to be more like €600 for the 60GB model (which is still a lot more than $600). We'll look for more info on this, and will return with an update to clarify the price and model availability in Continental Europe. In the meantime, there are over 30 games confirmed for the European PS3 launch line-up (scroll down for the usual suspects), including fully-featured downloadable games available on the PlayStation Network (Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Gran Turismo HD Concept), as well as a few "brainteasers" such as Go! Sudoku, Go! Puzzle, Blast Factor and flOw. And finally, "concurrent with the European launch, a new System Update to further enhance the entertainment potential of PS3 will be issued". The PS3 peripherals available at launch will be as follows:
Oh, and if you're hoping for a price cut in the near future, Joystiq says too bad: it's not gonna happen until Summer 2008, at the very least. You'd think that with all these delays, and the unlikely price cut, Sony would be at a serious disadvantage in the next-gen race. And you'd probably be right in thinking so, like many of us. But that's not what certain market analysts believe. On the contrary! Research and Markets recently published a report in which they predict that Sony's PlayStation 3 will eventually win the console war, "with an install base of around 75 million globally by 2010". Although other "specialists" also share this opinion, it still sounds like pure science-fiction to me. But, then again, I was never too good at science. And I totally sucked at fiction. So what do I know! UPDATE: The latest press release we got from Sony clarifies the prices for all PAL territories (see first paragraph), but it still says that the 60GB model will be the only one initially available. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Warcraft Patches, WoW Update, Next Blizzard MMORPG In even more Blizzard news this week, we can now report the release of not only a new World of Warcraft update last night (v2.0.6), but also new patches for the original Warcraft III and for The Frozen Throne expansion - both of which have been advanced to version 1.21. And to top it all off, Blizzard slipped word of a new MMORPG they'll be announcing at some point in the future. Though probably a very distant future, as long as World of Warcraft continues to break record after record. The first set of patches were released for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (download v1.21) and for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (download v1.21), introducing two new maps - (2)SecretValley and (6)BomberCommand - while changing others, and applying a couple of new features and some fixes. You can find the full patch notes here, valid for both ROC and TFT. The World of Warcraft / Burning Crusade update released last night, on the other hand, did more than just tweak a few classes and fix several issues. At least in Europe, it proved that Blizzard was not keeping its promise of having less maintenance (and to have it "live"), as the game servers were all brought down for the usual five-hour weekly maintenance. Bah! Oh well, I for one can still put up with that. Besides, there's one more thing left to say, and it sounds great!
That, my dear Horde / Alliance gankers, is what Blizzard's vice-president of development Itzik Ben Bassat stated at the end of an interview with Empire. Now doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Ritual Entertainment Acquired By Casual Games Developer In a surprising and ironic announcement today, it was revealed that veteran PC developer Ritual Entertainment was acquired by a casual games developer. Ritual's new owner is MumboJumbo, a company that was founded by former Ritual CEO Ron Dimant, who left the studio back in 2001 (hence the irony of it all). The move comes after a growing Ritual exodus over the past few months, when several key members left the studio - including its previous CEO Steve Nix, QA Manager Michael Russell, and vice-president and co-founder Tom Mustaine. What's left now is described in today's announcement as a team of over 30 employees, with high-end, multi-platform expertise in game design and artistic quality, that perfectly complement "MumboJumbo's mass market approach to casual game development and gives [Ritual] a true competitive advantage". In reality, we'd rather think of it as a step backwards for Ritual, whose latest games (including SiN Episodes: Emergence) enjoyed only limited success, and who are now lowering themselves to making "premium casual games". Of course, calling them "premium" doesn't make them any less "casual". So much for hardcore gaming, Ritual! Anyway, here are Ron Dimant's thoughts on the deal:
Another one bites the dust, then. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) By the end of February, the PlayStation 3 will get another "temporary exclusive" title, this time from SEGA, when their traditional Virtua Fighter series will be unleashed in next-gen format. Having already debuted in Japan at the arcades last year, Virtua Fighter 5 has gone gold just this week for the PS3, and it's still very far away from completion on Microsoft's Xbox 360. Unless you're paranoid enough to think that they're holding it back on purpose - something that has never, ever been attested in the history of gaming (*cough* not since the last Zelda game came out on the GameCube one month ago). SEGA's announcement confirms that Virtua Fighter 5 will be released on the PlayStation 3 as intended, in the US, on February 20. Prior to this, the last release in the series dates back to August 2003, when Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution ironically marked the end of the series' evolution, for the following three and a half years. The new VF5 was developed by SEGA's internal studio AM2, and promises to deliver fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping action as players head into battle, taking on a host of popular characters. The game will introduce two new dynamic characters - El Blaze and Eileen - complete with new fighting techniques and from completely different backgrounds. Players will be able to modify their characters by selecting from four base costumes and then decorate them by attaching a wide range of unlockable and earnable items. Players will not only achieve victory by defeating highly-skilled opponents, but also by competing for prizes and earning in-game money allowing them to buy many items at an in-game shop. Further building upon the depth of the series, players will now be able to move around their opponent using an "Offensive Move" technique, adding a new strategic element to their battles. End quote... Amazing as it may sound, despite the console's place of birth - and thus inherent affinity to fighting games - we have yet to witness a true invasion of butt-kicking, limbs-breaking, head-banging, chicks-screaming fighting games on the PlayStation 3. After all, Fight Night Round 3 can hardly be considered a representative of the genre, but that's about all there is right now on the PS3. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Expanding a bit on the above abbreviations, there was something very dubious about Ubisoft's latest financial report they issued yesterday. While mentioning the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 sequel and how it's supposed to be released during the last quarter of their 2006-2007 fiscal year (this March, in real-life terms), they somehow failed to include the game's PlayStation 3 version in that list. The PC, Xbox 360 and PSP versions are all there, alright, and it seems that the PS3's absence is no coincidence at all. That's not to say that GRAW 2 has been cancelled on the PS3, either, because 1UP managed to get a confirmation from Ubi that the game is still on track to be released on Sony's next-gen console. But it's just a matter of "when". For now, all we know is that "it will just release later than the Xbox 360 version of the game" - which could mean anything from Spring 2007 to Summer 2007 and beyond, if things continue to go wrong with the PS3 version (I imagine they didn't delay it just for laughs). Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 version looks to be right on schedule, and to prove it, Ubisoft will release a GRAW 2 demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace in the very near future. Perhaps even by the end of this month, if the fans' prayers are answered. The exact date is thus unknown for the time being, and so is the demo's content: could be single-player, could be multiplayer.... We'll see. If you got nothing better to do while waiting, you can always watch the four GRAW 2 gameplay trailers released earlier this month, available locally for streaming / downloading here, here, here and here. They're quite revealing actually, and they're probably the closest thing to a demo PC gamers will get for a while. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Granado Espada, Top Korean MMORPG Coming To US And Europe Not long after Gravity announced plans to bring Ragnarok Online 2 one step closer to the West, another top Korean MMORPG now sets out on the international path of glory. Granado Espada, as it's known in Korea, will also be released in North America and Europe this summer by K2 Network, who came up with the not-so-brilliant idea of renaming it as Sword of the New World. This won't be the only difference between K2's version and the Korean version, but before we get there, there are a few things we should mention about the original first. As proclaimed by K2 in their announcement, Granado Espada is "Korea's most popular and highly decorated" MMORPG, and the winner of the 2006 Grand Award for Best Game in Korea. Even more convincing is that the game is developed by Hakkyu Kim's imcGAMES studio - Kim being none other than the creator of Ragnarok Online (which once again claims to have 25 million subscribers worldwide)! Shortly put, the game is a fantasy MMO whose story is modeled after Europe's exploration of the New World in the 17th century, and it's set on the newly discovered continent of Granado Espada. Its most striking gameplay innovation is that it allows players to create - and simultaneously control - not only one, but a family of characters, utilizing the exclusive Multiple Character Control (MCC) system. All that will also hold true for Sword of the New World, but K2's westernized version will offer a new character customization feature with hundreds of costume options, while an improved control scheme and in-game tutorial will make controlling multiple characters familiar and comfortable for MMO players. In addition, Sword of the New World promises to include an all-new story with hundreds of new quests. Right now we only have a single Sword of the New World screenshot in our newly opened gallery, but more are on the way. In the meantime, the official website offers a few more screenshots at very low resolution (and not at all impressive I might add), and aside from some brief info about the game, it also lets you register for future announcements related to the upcoming beta testing phase. Of course there's going to be one! (N.B. Archive text, links removed) WoW: The Burning Crusade Is Fastest-Selling PC Game Ever Over 2 million fans were prepared for the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion, from the very first day it was released one week ago. After checking their internal company records and consulting with their key distribution partners, Blizzard announced today that The Burning Crusade has broken the day-one sales record to become the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America and Europe, with a worldwide total of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of availability. The day-one buyers were split evenly between Europe and North America, as each of these territories had around 1.1 million and 1.2 million copies, respectively, sold within the first 24 hours of launch. But aside from these, the first World of Warcraft expansion also debuted in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia on 16 January, and numbers from these territories could drive the final count even higher. Not to mention that Australia and New Zealand joined the party one day later. In the UK, The Burning Crusade blinked straight to the top of the game-charts last week, and as Gamasutra reports, "it narrowly missed out (by under one thousand units) on beating the record for the fastest ever selling PC title in the UK, currently held by Eidos' Championship Manager 04". Also, it seems that "the expansion outsold the original World of WarCraft's launch week by a factor of almost 4 to 1, a unique feat for any expansion", Gamasutra added. From the 2.4 million packs that were initially sold in the US & EU, Blizzard says that over 1.7 million players had already upgraded their WoW account and logged in to play The Burning Crusade, by the end of the first day of availability. However, despite the fact that Blizzard supplied more than 4 million game boxes to retailers worldwide, many of them were sold out pretty fast, and even now the demand continues to dwarf availability in many countries (here in Romania, for instance, we're only getting a meagre 500 extra copies this week, whoopty-doo...). So if you're still looking to buy yours, well, what ca I say. Look harder! And next time pre-order. (N.B. Archive text, links removed) Inuyasha (DS) And Legend Of Heroes III (PSP) Released As we promised earlier, today brings yet another RPG news, with Namco Bandai's announcement that two of their portable role-playing games are now available at retail across North America. These are Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel for the Nintendo DS, and The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean for the PlayStation Portable - the latest installment of the popular Legend of Heroes series, bringing an all-new adventure to first-time players and long-time fans alike. A new batch of Legend of Heroes III screenshots was added in our local gallery, and here is a brief description for the PSP game provided by Namco Bandai:
Likewise, we now have several new Inuyasha DS screenshots up for viewing, with the corresponding synopsis for Secret of the Divine Jewel below:
And hopefully that wraps it up for today's RPG updates... Now let's see about those MMORPGs! (N.B. Archive text, links removed) | Top stories Filter news Search news Latest comments
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Sony + Namco Bandai = Cellius PS3 Studio
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