Gaming - Page 1195

Microsoft and Sony aren't saying much about the release dates for their next-gen consoles. Microsoft has let us know not to expect it at E3 this year, but that is about all they are saying. But thanks to the Activision lawsuit, some confidential agreements have been unsealed and given some possible launch time frames.

A little history behind this lawsuit: former Activision developers sued Activision saying they were owed royalties and bonus checks due to the massive success of the Call of Duty series. Activision countered the claims saying that the developers had breached the contract and thus not due any funds from Call of Duty.

The documents unsealed show a high-profile deal between Activision and Bungie, the developers behind Halo. The deal calls for four games to be developed and released starting in fall of 2013. Dudley, of the Seattle Times, has interpreted this information in an interesting way. The theory is somewhat likely. Here is what he said:

Blizzard community manager 'Nethaera' has posted on the official Diablo III forums, talking about some of the problems and concerns from the Diablo III community, and how the company plan to handle some of the post-launch issues so that players can continue slaying demons and more in Diablo III.

Blizzard have applied various hotfixes to Diablo III since the launch of the game that address gameplay issues, as well as tweaks to improve service stability, and performed occasionally server maintenance when necessary to ensure that in the long-term, players have the best gameplay experience possible. But, the fixes won't stop there, Nethaera has said that sometime next week we should expect a game update in the form of a patch that will address client issues, as well as additional bug fixes.

One of the big shockers from this post is the delay of the real-money auction house. It was previous delayed from May 22 to May 29, but has now been delayed beyond this date. Blizzard want to ensure that everyone has the "smoothest experience possible when the real-money auction house launches", citing that they need more time to iron out the existing general stability and gameplay issues before a feature like that goes live. Blizzard haven't given a date for this yet.

Ah, Bungie. Fresh from the Halo titles, their next game 'Destiny' is, er, destined, to launch next year initially on the Xbox 360, and the next-gen Xbox, according to the developer's contract with new publisher, Activision. The contract was made public as part of the lawsuit between Activision and Call of Duty creators, Jason West and Vince Zampella.

The contract unveils that Bungie are signed to make up to four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games" in the Destiny universe, every other year from autumn 2013 to 2019. Bungie won't stop there, they will also make four downloadable expansions packs codenamed Comet every other year from autumn 2014 up to 2020.

The document does reveal some very interesting information about, not only do we know how many Destiny titles are coming, but it states the next Xbox as "Xbox 720". This should be considered unofficial confirmation of Microsoft's next-generation console, and if I had to predict, it should be here next year. Destiny will be sold in shops, be boosted with DLC, subscriptions, and micro-transactions. Activision and Bungie are considering a PlayStation 3 port for 2014.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had some interesting comments during his speech on the company's fourth quarter earnings call yesterday, where he said that transitions to new a hardware cycle can create challenges for some publishers and opportunities for others. Zelnick expects to fall into the opportunity category.

Zelnick also said that those with strong technology, strong owned intellectual property and top talent thrive in a new console cycle, and he believes that is what Take-Two is made up of, but not many of its competitors, he says "we expect to be at the front of the line". Now, let's talk numbers, this was an earnings call after all.

The company saw a net revenue of $148.1 million this quarter, compared to $182.3 million to the same time last year, a drop of close to $34 million. For the entire year, Take-Two's net loss was $108.8 million, when compared to 2011, where they made a profit of $48 million. Zelnick says:

If a post on an Italian message board is to be believed, a developer from Ubisoft Milan has posted a bunch of Wii U-related information that almost sounds too good to be true. The poster says that the price will be between $350-$450, and that it will launch on November 23. But that's not even the best bit.

The Wii U, according to the post, supports DirectX 11, and is already running Unreal Engine 4, sports 2GB of RAM, and has an AMD Radeon HD 6770 GPU. It can run Assassin's Creed at 1080p at 60fps, compared to just 720p on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The report also states that Crytek, EA, and Valve are all working on the Wii U, and that Valve are working on a digital distribution platform and Portal ports for the Wii U. The full list of details:

Diablo III has been selling incredibly well. Sales numbers for the first week, let alone the first day, have been absolutely unbelievable. I'm sure part of that is due to the fact it has taken Blizzard so long to release this sequel. The other contributing factor would be the absolute quality of the game as seen in the demo.

Sales on the first day totaled 3.5 million copies. That yields about $210 million in revenue. That number doesn't include the 1.2 million players who received Diablo III as part of signing up for World of Warcraft for a year. In total, an incredible 4.7 million users purchased the game within the first 24 hours it was available.

By the end of the first week, Diablo III had sold 6.3 million copies yielding a rough revenue of $378 million. Wow. With incredible uptake numbers such as those, its clear why Blizzard's servers have been getting hammered and giving players trouble logging in. Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment:

There are some screenshots of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops II that have just hit the Internet, where they show off some crazy Los Angeles destruction. In the screenshot below, you can see two drones going nuts and firing all sorts of missiles down onto L.A.

The second screenshot, below, shows off a soldier and his gun, as well as some drones in the background. The first screenshot actually doesn't look too bad, but it looks like it's running a very, very high-res, with some crazy amounts of anti-aliasing applied.

The second screenshot shows off the detail of the human characters, which doesn't look too bad. If this has filled in your COD: Black Ops II fix, then I've done my job. Are you looking forward to this? Or do you feel it's 'yet another COD title'?

Here we are, folks. The beginning of next-gen gaming, hopefully. Epic have taken the curtains down from the first screenshots of the upcoming Unreal Engine 4, and boy do they look freakin' insane. Epic have also spoke of their "responsibility" to make sure next-gen consoles from both Microsoft and Sony can support the kind of eye candy that UE4 can push out.

Epic ran the Unreal Engine 4 demo on a PC, cough, with a single NVIDIA Kepler-based GEFORCE GTX 680. Epic design director Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski has said:

DICE's Frostbite 2 is still to this day one of the best game engines on the market, but it looks like the developer is ready to amp things up a bit. DICE posted a tweet earlier today where they've teased that they will have Frostbite-powered games in 2013 that will only work on a 64-bit operating system.

DICE rendering architect Johan Andersson is the man behind the tweet, and has recommended that Windows 8 would be a great upgrade when it arrives if they're still running a 32-bit version of Windows. This is only for those who have a 64-bit CPU, some people rock a 32-bit OS with a 64-bit CPU, which of course you'd need both a 64-bit OS and CPU to run the 64-bit-only Frostbite games.

At the moment, it's hard to know which upcoming game could use the 64-bit-only Frostbite engine. Could it be Battlefield 4? Mirror's Edge 2? Battlefield: Bad Company 3? It could be any of those games. Right now, the only 2013 Frostbite title confirmed is Command & Conquer: Generals 2.

The upcoming Nintendo WiiU will feature an innovative tablet controller as the primary input for the gaming console. A picture has surfaced of a new revision of the controller and shows some tweaks from previous versions. The picture is courtesy of a QA tester at gaming firm Traveller's Tales who Tweeted the picture.

The picture and Twitter account have since been removed, and I imagine the Tweeter has received quite the reprimand from his boss(es). What the picture shows is that the overall device form remains the same as previously seen. However, now the device features full analog sticks similar to a PS3 or Xbox controller as opposed to the flattened circle present on the 3DS. The new picture is above with the older released picture below.

Additionally, the start and select buttons have been relocated to the right-hand side and a new button appears to have shown up next to the power button. Another button appears to be present under the D-pad. They are unlabeled and there use is not apparent at this time. The picture also shows that the tablet has the WiiU logo on it, which should confirm Nintento's name along with the logo. The device is expected to be featured at E3 where we will get the full scoop.

Nearly a year ago, EA Games President, Frank Gibeau, teased that EA were "actively looking at how to bring [Mirror's Edge] back in the right way", this was in a discussion with GameTrailers. But, now there's some more concrete, well, kinda, information available on this news.

GamerZines reports that judging from two former EA employee's LinkedIn profiles tease they've worked on a Mirror's Edge sequel. According to GamerZines, the profile of an ex-EA Software Engineer has said that he's worked on Mirror's Edge 2 between July and August of 2009, where he was implementing "the wandering of crowd system within Unreal3 engine".

Another ex-employee had a different task, where was implementing "new gadgets and interactive features" into Mirror's Edge 2, including "leaderboards" and a mini-game embedded into Mirror's Edge game story". If development started on Unreal Engine 3, EA must've switches engines mid-development to Frostbite 2, the engine that powers the beautiful first-person shooter that is Battlefield 3.

Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have announced that their reboot of Tomb Raider has been delayed until 2013. Head of Crystal Dynamics, Darrell Gallagher, said that the studio had two aims when it decided to make a new Lara Croft title, firstly to create a "modern" Tomb Raider, and secondly, to make the "best game of our careers".

It's the second goal that has caused them to delay the reboot, from its original Autumn release date, to sometime in Q1 of 2013. This delay will fly right past the lucrative Christmas shopping season. Gallagher adds:

One of my favorite series ever is Max Payne, and the third outing, this time by Rockstar, is nearly here. The game releases later this week on the consoles, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with the PC release slated for two weeks from now.

Whilst that's bad news for PC gamers, the game itself seems to be getting quite positive reviews. Ranging from 90- to 100-percent. There's a few niggly reviews where they've reviewed them at lower scores, but the positive reviews far outweigh the negative ones. G4TV smashes out of the gate with a 5/5 review, so I'm guessing they loved it.

G4TV's final words:

We here at TweakTown hope to really embrace Diablo III, so you should see some more Diablo III-related content over the coming months, and more. But for now, you should be preparing for the release, if you haven't already purchased it!

If you haven't, then head down to your local retailer now, or if you're like me and love digital games, then you should scoop up the game directly from Blizzard as a digital pre-sale. Next up, you will need to create your BattleTag. This is a requirement of Diablo III, and displays both in-game and on the website, so choose wisely.

Next up we have launch times! The launch time of Diablo III has had Blizzard break down the launch time of the game per region. The Americas (US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia) servers all open at 12:01am PDT, May 15.

Let's talk some Call of Duty numbers, shall we? The first-person shooter launched its Elite service to mixed opinions, but it now sports over 10 million registered users, with two million of these paid-up premium subscribers.

As of March 31, COD has 40 million monthly active users, with players logging in a total of 1.6 billion hours of online gameplay in Modern Warfare 3 alone. These numbers were released alongside Activision's quarterly financial report. On top of this Elite news, there's also talk that the COD: Modern Warfare 3 sales have been quite a bit lower than the Black Ops at equivalent times in their respective life cycles.

But, Infinity Ward's Mark Rubin has told Eurogamer that the way people are buying COD is changing. MW3 has a shorter tale than its predecessors because sales of new COD launches are now more front-loaded than ever. He explains:

Activision are already enjoying the (probably) comfortable seats in court with ex-Infinity Ward's Jason West and Vince Zampella over their dismissal from Infinity Ward back in 2009, but, a clause in a Memorandum of Understanding filed with the lost wages and royalties suit in 2010 could shake up the recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

According to Game Informer, Activision still holds the rights to the Call of Duty franchise, but any Call of Duty games set in "modern day (post-Vietnam), the near future or distant future" would be retained by Infinity Ward. Considering that the upcoming Black Ops 2 is based in 2025, Treyarch have put a fair amount of thought into their futuristic setting. One would think Activision would know this, too.

An intellectual property attorney has said that if West and Zampella win their suit, Activision could be forced to pull the game. Yes, not release it, period. But, we're most likely going to see a fair amount of $$$ enter the bank accounts of West and Zampella in damages if the court awards them so. But, there's always a but, remember. Clause 4(D) at the end of the memorandum specifically states that if Infinity Ward management, Ward and Zampella in this case, are no longer employed by Activision, then the terms of the memorandum are no longer in effect.

I don't have the spare time these days to really sit down and finish games, but one series I've thoroughly loved is the Dead Space series. The third outing is currently being worked on and IGN is reporting that Dead Space 3 will feature drop-in, drop-out co-op!

In Dead Space 3 you play as Isaac Clarke, just like the previous two games, and if players choose, you can fight alongside a man with a scar on his face, an engineering RIG of his own, and glowing red eyes glaring at you from his helmet. Oh yeah. During the single-player campaign this character acts as Isaac's guide.

Do you think it sounds like a simple tack-on? Nope. The cooperative mode mirrors the single-player campaign, but Isaac's story changes to accommodate it. In one sequence within Dead Space 3, Isaac and this new character stumble, wounded, bloody, and missing chunks of armor, out of burnt wreckage together. If you were playing by yourself, this scene happens the same, but without the other character there.

If you were waiting for the upcoming BioShock Ininite, I have some bad news: it won't be available this year. A blog post on the official Irrational Games website confirms that the ship date has been pushed back from this year in order to give them more time for tweaks. The new ship date is set at February 26, 2013.

So, why the delay? After all, it's original release date was set over two months ago. This might sound like its spun, and I'm sure it is, but I can't fault the company if they are indeed taking the time to polish and tweak the game like they say they are. After all, a better polished game is more fun to play, right?

I've got to say this first: I played Carmageddon for over one hundred hours, easy. My brother and I spent countless hours within the amazing world of this game, and I'm excited to see what they can do with today's technology. But, news is coming through that Stainless' Carmageddon reboot, Carmageddon Reincarnation, has begun development.

Stainless had funding, but have reached out to the wonderful world of the Internet, and in particular, Kickstarter, to get additional funds. This is what seems to make the most sense as the company seemed to have funding, but now they're looking at Kickstarter. We should have more concrete info on this soon. But, the game is already at $78,000 of its $400,000 goal. One contribution was $10,000 in a single hit. This backer will be flown to the UK and have their likeness applied as an in-game character - very cool.

Stainless have been quoted:

Blizzard are set to throw some improvements and long-awaited new features into StarCraft II, all before the release of their first expansion, Heart of the Swarm which is coming later this year. One of the best additions to the game will be the ability to resume multiplayer games from a replay file.

StarCraft II requires the Internet to plan, and there have been many games lost due to connections dropping from Battle.net. It may not seem like a big issue, but when there's money involved with tournaments, this can be quite a big deal. Players have been dealing with this issue from day-one, so a resume feature is going to be big, big news for SCII players.

The new replay system has another ace up its sleeve, where it has the feature to allow more than one person to view the same file, a feature that the original StarCraft has, and until now is still missing from its sequel. StarCraft II, like Diablo III, is set to receive Global Play. At the moment, users are restricted to their region which prevents them from playing with friends across the pond. Alternatively, you have to purchase another copy of the game. After the new patch, you won't need to do that anymore.