As of today, the new president of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) is Shuhei Yoshida. "Who?!", you might ask for various reasons, and I wouldn't blame you. For various reasons. Luckily, for all of us ignorants who haven't been following Sony's constant leadership changes over the past couple of years up close and personal, they provided us with a quick bio of Yoshida-san, which we're generously copy-pasting below.

"Yoshida joined SCEI in 1993, and was one of the initial members in establishing the PlayStation business. He was appointed Producer of the Product Development Department in April 1996, and joined Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. as Vice President of Product Development in April 2000, where he held various positions in product development, producing many global best selling franchise titles. In February 2007, Yoshida was promoted to Senior Vice President, US Studios, SCE WWS."

Commenting on the appointment, the group's CEO and president Kaz "Riiidge Racer" Hirai said that "SCE WWS will accelerate the software development for the PlayStation 3 and PSP platforms and vigorously expand the gaming market", under the leadership of Yoshida. Yeah, like, ganbatte!


Habemus President!

Take-Two are continuing to keep themselves busy these days... and so are Electronic Arts' bidding artificers. Clearly incapable of waiting until the agonizing (for them) release of GTA IV at the end of April, EA is making another move in the hopes of taking over Take-Two. Only, this time, they are trying to bypass the company's board and head straight for the shareholders, luring them with an offer of $26 per share in cash. Not that tempting, but who knows... Just to be on the safe side, Take-Two's board urged its shareholders to hold their horses, promising to properly advise them within 10 business days.

So while we wait for the next chapter of this bidding saga, let's get back to Take-Two's games for a bit. My personal most-wanted, Mafia 2 is now planned for release (...)

 Continue reading 'Take-Two About Dates, Max Payne 3, New EA Bid'...

You have to just love the guys and gals at Gamasutra. All the info they provide comes in such huge detail, that I seldomly forget to read some piece of news from top to bottom, either because I am in a middle of a wanking session, either because I get bored reading quotes from the developers.

Anyway, here is some interesting stuff. Dudes behind titles such as Fallout or Medal of Honor have teamed up in an attempt to show recent crappy developers ze finger, forming WhiteMoon Dreams, a new and, hopefully, stupendous studio, which focuses its interest on Wii, PS3, and X360. For starters, they work on a title for a certain Japanese publisher.

Great news, indeed! The guy pulling all the strings will be Jay Kootarappallil (pronounced “koeiwruweoiudiojfsod”), which, at some point, used to be a technical art director for EA. Now why does it seem familiar to me that EA dudes have all the money?

While Loli WhiteMoon Dreams wants to mainly focus on original, in-house, series, they do not bash the possibility of working alongside major publishers, in an attempt to boost some of their francizes. What can I say, good luck to them, and may your titles live long and prosper.

Gamasutra scoop.

Heh, I can't help but chuckle at the sight of this terminal update on Iron Lore's website, announcing that the studio is shutting down, and as of February 19 it has "ceased active game development", after failing to secure funding for its next project.

Aside from Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion, Iron Lore had recently finished developing another expansion, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm. Ironically, by the time this is released on March 4, Iron Lore will already be ancient history. Well, that's the way it goes in this industry, especially for companies who think they can get away with making mediocre Diablo clones.

We can all agree on the fact that Valve hit the Jackpot with its Steam service. Hell, even I use it sometimes, and I am certainly not a big fan of online distribution. I’d rather buy my games in their respective boxes, be it orange, pink, or be it the color of a big bad dump. But business is business, and it is going oh so well right now…

And since they have this area covered (I’m referring to game distribution), Valve decided to look further away. In an interview with Tom's Games, Valve’s badass Doug Lombardi confessed that they are looking to provide even more entertainment. Not just games, but music, movies, and anything that can be labeled as digital entertainment. According to his statement, before the end of the year, we’ll be seeing new stuff on Steam.

Destination Playstation is a nice and cozy meeting between Sony representatives, retailers and 3rd party developers, which takes place in Arizona, every year. If you are a console freak, then you probably know about all this bullshit, and even more, if you are a proud owner of a Playstation, be it a handheld, be it a PS3, or be it a PS2 for all those juicy bishojou games out there, you’ll be pretty interested in this.

First off, we’ll get a Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 Bundle in Q2 2008, which will include a nice 80 GB Playstation 3, a retail version of Solid Snake’s upcoming adventure, plus a Dualshock 3 controller, all for only 499.99 USD. The price is good, I must say, the only thing that I do not know for sure is the presence (or absence) of the dreaded backwards compatibility.

Secondly, PSP owners will get a huge boner when this pretty God of War PSP Entertainment Pack hits the shelves, for a mere 199.99 USD. The bundle will include a nice custom red PSP, with Kratos’ face forever carved into the handheld’s back, the upcoming God of War: Chains of Olympus, plus the voucher to freely download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops from the Playstation Store.

Last, but certainly not least, the much awaited Dualshock 3 will finally get its ass on the North American market, starting with April, 2008. It will be charged with no less than 54.99 USD, and it is said to be compatible with over 100 PS3 games. Frankly, I still think Sony lost a LOT with delaying this launch, but, hey, better late than never.

While some companies have such a massive income that they can afford to purchase almost anything, others are, like... dying. Literally. And this seems to be the case of Perpetual Entertainment, also known as P2 Entertainment, the San Francisco based game developer that used to work on the already canceled Gods and Heroes.

Well, we all knew they had problems. Big ones. The said MMORPG got trashed like hell, in favor of some sort of Star Trek Online game. Then, in January, Perpetual announced that it will sell all their Star Trek things, including the last remains of Jean Luc Piccard’s hair, to another company, only to focus on it’s MMO software, called Perpetual Platform.

If this is true, companies like BioWare, that licensed this product, will probably be affected in one way or the other.

Warcry scoop.

Two fucking billion dollars. That’s like… holy shit, so many manga volumes that even I cannot handle them. Just think about all the booze you can buy with it. All the whores you can LEGALLY rape with it. Every spermatozoon I can possibly produce in a wanking session will have a bright future with this kind of money.

…And EA seems to have this kind of spendola, ready to roll. Target? None other than Take Two, the owners of the Grand Gay Theft Auto franchise. After all, why should only Activision be able to suck Vivendi’s extremely enlarged penis, getting a share of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft while they are at it? We know that EA means business. As in… the whole fucking gaming business. Good for them. If Take Two accepts the deal, Viacom (MTV owners who were actually trying to buy Take Two before EA started negotiations) will get owned. Big time.

Let the purchase begin!

As you may (or may not) know, Gas Powered Games is the company responsible for pretty well marketed titles, such as Dungeon Siege or Supreme Commander. Just by playing 10 minutes of the latter, you’ll know that it is not your average, casual strategy – on the contrary, it’s more like a worthy successor for Total Annihilation. So it’s pretty much hardcore stuff.

Sadly, events such as GDC tend to reveal a lot of things from behind the scene, things like “hi, we are money hungry bitches that will suck it up from any type of gamer just to get a few bucks”. The dude in charge of Gas Powered Games, Chris Tayor, held a select meeting at the Convention, in which he revealed that his studio is currently targeting the more casual population of the gaming phenomenon, such as people playing the likes of Peggle, and that his employees are working like slaves to provide us with such kind of games.

"I'm curious about how to get a game out to the 200 million people that have been downloading Peggle and all of these 'match three' games. That's what I'm going after. I've been cooking something up,"

While I do understand that there are more retarded and narrow minded people out there than smart ones, and while I also understand that a marketing target of 200 million is a dream came true for any respected developer, casual gaming is pretty much starting to fuck up the whole industry. For any gender. We’ll end up playing titles with absolutely no real depth in no time at all, if more and more developers start to hug casual gaming like this. At least hug your fucking little sister, it’s more… worthwhile.

GamesIndustry scoop.

Any aspiring young talent out there will have a shot at this year's GDC to join the ranks of BioWare, since the company recently announced they are searching for fresh cannon fodder. If you are a skilled 3D graphics programmer, technical artist, or maybe a talented writer, pay their stand a visit during the Conference in San Francisco, and you may just find a cozy spot along one of the best RPG developers out there. Derek Sidebottom, Bioware's Human Resources dude, had this to say regarding the generous offer:

"We're looking for people with a passion for excellence in video game development. Our core values are Quality in our Products and Quality in our Workplace, and these have been recognized by countless product-specific awards, as well as BioWare being named amongst Canada's Top 100 Employers for 4 years and Financial Post's 10 Best Companies to Work For."