You know how we, human beings, love to estimate stuff? It's natural. Most of us will try to assume just how many Laetitia Castas we will have sex with until the end of the year, other will estimate the time it takes them to rule the world and make this shitty planet a better place. Yeah, right.

Capcom does not aim that high (neither when it comes to fucking Laetitia Casta, nor when it comes to take over the world), they just like to think in advance and bask in the glory of what their future titles might be. Or better yet, how they will sell.

So, let's see... Their very own Nostradamus thinks that, for starters, Resident Evil 5 will total a 3.2 million copies sold when the game finally reaches the open market (March, 2009), while Street Fighter 4, a game which we await with extreme and dedicated interest, will sell about 1.7 million units. Bionic Commando is last in place, with only 1.5 million units sold.

Nice estimations. I personally hope they come true, since I am a Capcom fan myself. Ooops, I said it.

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We will not tell you if this game is worth it or not as a game, but we WILL tell you that it sucks as a Fallout game. But hey, if money-hungry Bethesda wouldn't have stamped that “Fallout” thing in the title, it wouldn't have sold so much, that's for sure. A recent press release from the company reveals that this Action/FPS title, that some people wrongfully call a “RPG”, has so far been doing pretty good on the market (as expected), with over 4.7 million units shipped worldwide.



That is, for all platforms it has been released for. PC, X360 and PS3. Not bad, actually. But, as I said, expected. Ah well, blame the new “casual” generation, I'm pretty sure that most hardcore Fallout fans are now extremely pissed off. I know I am. Not at the game itself, because it looks good, moves good, it IS a good action game, but just seeing it being called Fallout for absolutely no reason makes me sad.

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It seems that enthusiasts all over the world have to wait just a little bit more for Halo Wars, since Ensemble's X360 strategy game will be hitting the shelves in February 2009, according to Microsoft. Both in regular size and in enhanced, erected, Collector's Edition.



For those of you interested, the Collector's Edition will be, as usual, full of all kinds of stuff, both useful and useless, ranging from a Halo Wars: Genesis comic book from Graeme Devine, the game's lead designer, up until exclusive in-game shit, like a unique vehicle and a patch that allows you to start the game as a member of SOF. All this for “only” 79.99 USD.

Ensemble Studios, who are also responsible for that time consuming, brain eating and friend bashing Age of Empire series, will sadly be closing its gates after Halo Wars is up and running. I have no idea why, and I also already miss them, since they were a nice bunch of geeks.

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In what we may call “the smartest move they have made in the recent years”, Ubisoft decided to cancel the production of its video game based on Heroes, NBC Universal's television series featuring several retards with super-powers, running mindlessly and lacking any acting capabilities.



According to the big-time publisher, the rights for the game, which was announced last summer for PC and next gen consoles, are now safely back in the hands of NBC, hopefully never to return to our poor and innocent gaming universe. Ubisoft's ex-big plans regarding this also included Tim Kring, the TV series' creator, and Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer. Sadly for poor ol' Jess, he recently got fired from the show, because he probably sucks big time.

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Since Blizzard said a bing no-no to the idea of creating (or porting) a MMO to consoles, Turbine took up the flag and announced, recently, its intentions to explore this yet... unexplored market, to establish a stronghold in this virgin land, where the hands of human beings have yet to set foot on. Turbine has a fair and decent history regarding MMOs, with its Lord of the Rings Online still living and breathing (and, in my humble opinion, the second best MMO out there), so chances are that they will not screw things up.

More details about this are said to come early next year, but do remember that Turbine has the license to create Tolkien-based MMOs until 2012, with the possibility of extending this deadline until 2017. If this was not enough (and we all know nothing is ever enough, except maybe the beating we took when we were kids), Turbine is working on a technology that allows players to create self evolving worlds, as in self-made content. Interesting concept for a MMO, we are eager to see how well it is implemented without completely ruining the game balance.

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MMO players can be divided into two categories: the ones who play World of Warcraft and the ones who WILL play World of Warcraft sooner or later. A sad fact it may be, but it seems that the only way to actually quit playing Blizzard's massive milk cow is to quit playing MMOs alltogether. Just like I did.


During a recent earnings report, Blizzard's president Mike Morhaime has shown us a few very uninteresting numbers, also mentioning that, unlike some enthusiasts may have predicted, large numbers of players that have “quit” WoW recently, in the light of would-be competitors like Age of Conan and Worhammer Online, are slowly, but steadily, renewing their WoW subscriptions. Because the other games just plain ol' suck.

So, according to him, 68% of those dumb enough to think Age of Conan will be a big hit are coming back to WoW with their tail between their legs, while 48% of those who listed Warhammer Online as reason for cancellation... are doing the same. See any pattern here? Because there is only one pattern. There is no way in Hell a MMO game can challenge WoW at this moment, and win.

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There are only two options here: Either you are a Mortal Kombat insane individual, who still knows all the fatalities, animalities, brutalities and whateverities from Mortal Kombat 3, either you are one of those guys who dream about Cat Woman every night (and, strangely, wake up in the morning with this sticky fluid all over the place). There is no gray here. Just this, or that.



Fans of both universes will be happy to know that Midway's Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe has gone Gold today, as the game is all wrapped up and sent to manufacturers to do the job they are being payed for. Meaning, put the game in a box. Or various kinds of boxes. For once, here is a game that will actually be released as stated, on November 16 in the US of A, and November 21 in Europe.

Time to teach those gay superheroes a lesson. Thanks, Teh Shack.

If you happen to be playing MMOs, then you also live in fear of the constant General spam, Whisper spam, Mail spam and various other kinds of spam regarding in-game money selling. I am (but, hopefully, used to be) a World of Warcraft player myself, and if I were to count all those messages I've got involving “PLX BUY OUR GOLDZ!” or “WWW.GAYSITE.COM SELLZ BEST!”, I would probably be losing (another) 4 years of my life.

And we also know that most gold farmers are “Chinese”. So we gank them. A lot. Well, the Chinese government has actually found a way to gang them in real life also, by collecting a 20% tax on all revenues from the redistribution of online, virtual currency. And why not? The market so far is growing, has still great potential, it it suffers from no taxes (until now) and it is a pain in the large asses of decent players who try to play a game without suffering insane, buffed, AH prices.

The Wall Street Journal has more on this.

Either I’m spending too much time in-house, getting out of reach with people and understanding them less and less as they evolve (and I don’t), either some people have certain issues that need to be solved. Right away.

GenCon has a lot of cash, and, in the memory of Gary Gygax, the almighty ruler, creator, god and pretty much everything that involves Dungeons & Dragons, they wanted to donate some of it to Christian Children's Fund (which, it seems, it was his favorite charity dump pool). You know, that sort of non-profit organization that tends to children welfare.

All nice and dandy, a great gesture that shows respect to our little ones and for their future, only that… CCF refused the said donations in a blink of an eye. Reason? Because GenCon’s money (well, at least some of it) comes from gaming sales, especially D&D related sales.

This would, according to them, make CCF look like

“an endorser or supporter of a gaming convention, which CCF was not...we cannot lend our name to an event for which we have no involvement. This decision should in no way be interpreted as CCF holding an opinion on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeons and Dragons."

Now please excuse me for saying this, but… what the fuck has saving children anything to do with Dungeons & Dragons? Hell, if Hitler would come offering me one million dollars that he made from selling Jewish-made soap, I would take it. And then spend it well. And please notice that my needs are nowhere compared to the needs of the 3rd world children. I don’t really know, to laugh, or to cry. Ah, well, I’d better wait for Hitler, maybe he will show up with my money.

Scoop tiem!

The ladies at Capcom are calmly wrapping up their files with this new release schedule, published on MCV, pointing out to some of their most anticipated franchises and their new “dates of birth”. Surprisingly, but not equally that certainly, it seems that Resident Evil 5 has somehow, through mischievous and dark rituals, found a way to the PC platform along side its console little sisters, and will be released in the same day, March, 13, 2009. I personally doubt this, or at least, I hope that they will give the eventual PC release more time for… polish. Remember the disaster called Resident Evil 4 on the PC? I bet you do.

In other news, and from the same press thing, the “next winter” release for Street Fighter 4 (PS3, X360) has magically become 27 February. Oh boy, I can’t wait for this one, really. The full release list is as follows:

Neopets Puzzle Adventure – Wii, DS, PC – January 23rd
Bionic Commando – PS3, 360, PC – February 13th
MotoGP Wii – Wii – February 20th
Street Fighter IV – PS3, 360, PC – February 20th
Dead Rising - Wii – February 27th
Resident Evil 5 – PS3, 360, PC – March 13th

I would like to note that Capcom previously denied rumors about a PC version of Street Fighter 4, although this list… lists it.