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Former Sony boss Jack Tretton covering E3 for Spike TV
Jack Tretton, former president of Sony Computer Entertainment America and man who literally dropped the mic at E3 2013, will be back for E3 2014. Instead of operating under Sony's banner however, Tretton will join forces with Spike TV's Geoff Keighley as a "special correspondent" during Spike's "All Access" program, weighing in with his thoughts about the various announcements, reveals and news coming out of E3 2014's press conferences. "Since I dropped the mic last year on Spike I thought it was only appropriate to pick it back up for E3 this year," Tretton said in a statement to Kotaku. "I've been to every E3 but this year I'm excited to see the show through a different lens with the team at Spike. I'll be watching the news and announcements unfold alongside the fans and the rest of the industry, and I can't wait to see the new games that everyone is bringing to the table." In light of his employment history, it'll be interesting to see if Tretton takes Stephen Colbert's approach to his analysis, i.e. "Sony's press conference: great conference, or greatest conference?" [Image: Joystiq]
Tomb Raider next-gen reveal teased, ports classified
A VGX reveal of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 ports for Tomb Raider is on the cards, after Square Enix responded teasingly to rumors this week. The Crystal Dynamics game cropped up on Brazil's ratings board with PS4 and Xbox One versions listed, while an Amazon Italy page (now removed) pointed to a PS4 port titled Tomb Raider: Definitive Version. "It's so hard to keep a secret these days!" a Square Enix representative told IGN when approached. "We appreciate all of the enthusiasm, however we don't have any details to share just yet. That said, we highly recommend you keep an eye on any major gaming events happening in early December." Given Square Enix's fondness for not responding to "rumor and speculation," we'd say it's time to raise some eyebrows. We can't say it doesn't make sense either: Lara's gritty reboot sold 4 million copies across five months on the current generation, and a next-gen port would help to stir interest in the already announced next-gen sequel. Or, Square Enix could just be being coy about revealing that sequel rather than any ports, regardless of any classifications or listings. We don't know what to read into the publisher's playful winks and knowing smiles, but it seems likely we'll get some Tomb Raider news in a couple of weeks, when Spike TV's VGX awards show hits our screens on December 7.
Mario, BioShock, GTA headline Spike's VGX nominees
Spike TV puts this year's Game of the Year argument to public vote, asking players to pick their favorite nominees in the network's upcoming VGX awards. BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Super Mario 3D World are in the running for the VGX Game of the Year award. Winners will be announced when the VGX broadcasts on December 7. Users can also vote in individual categories, which range from Best Shooter to Best DLC. Competition is especially fierce in the Best Voice Actor category, which pits Troy Baker up against himself thanks to his nominated performances as BioShock Infinite's Booker DeWitt and Joel from The Last of Us.
Xbox One launch event to be streamed on Spike TV, Xbox channels
Not to be outdone, Microsoft is hosting its own Spike TV-aired launch event for the Xbox One next week, and it'll air at 8PM PT/11PM ET on Thursday, November 21. You'll also be able to watch the live show on Xbox.com and Xbox Live, which will showcase launch events taking place across the globe, as well as the "ultimate midnight celebration" taking place in New York City. "Today we invite millions of Xbox fans around the world to join us for the launch of Xbox One, beginning on Nov. 21 as we count down the final hours to the launch of Xbox One," Corporate VP of Marketing & Strategy Yusuf Mehdi proclaimed. "Xbox One will be the biggest launch in the history of Xbox and we can't wait to celebrate with our fans." There's no word if Microsoft's shindig will match the "exclusive world premieres and announcements" of tomorrow's PS4 event - whatever they may be - but the apparent "pinnacle of the evening" is Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performing outside the Best Buy Theater in in Times Square. Make of that what you will. In case you've got this far and are still wondering what the hubbub's about, we better remind you the Xbox One launches in nine days time on November 22, priced $500.
Sony, Spike TV 'PS4 All Access' event promises 'exclusive world premieres' [update]
Sony and Spike TV are teaming up for the PS4 All Access: Greatness Awaits launch event, which will air on Spike TV, DirecTV and stream online November 14 at 11pm ET. The PS4 launch celebration takes place in New York, where Sony promises "exclusive world premieres and announcements about the PS4 games that will define 2014 and beyond." We expect we'll see the launch lineup, but also Driveclub, Infamous: Second Son, Watch Dogs and perhaps some unannounced games. The PS4 launches in North America on November 15 for $399. Sony's next-gen console features a new DualShock 4 controller, optional PS4 Eye camera, but will not support DLNA for media streaming over networks, nor will it allow .mp3 file playback and external USB storage at launch. Update: This post originally stated that DLNA would be available on the PS4 at launch, which is incorrect. We apologize for the error and have updated the text above accordingly.
DirecTV vs. Viacom squabble could see MTV, Comedy Central and 16 others go dark at midnight
The latest participants in the carriage dispute dance are DirecTV and Viacom, with the two companies attempting to reach a new agreement before their existing one expires tonight. If they don't, the network's 26 channels (MTV, BET, VH1, Spike TV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon etc.) could be cut off at midnight. As usual, each has its own side of the argument with Viacom claiming DirecTV has been underpaying for years, while DirecTV accuses Viacom of seeking an increase that will add up to a billion dollars in a year and is responsible for pulling the channels while negotiations continue. We're not particularly sympathetic to the plight of either corporate behemoth (or optimistic that any savings will ever reach customer's pockets) but if you must support one over the other then there's plenty of propaganda to be found at the links below. This may not be as crucial as Dish Network's (potentially) Breaking Bad-interrupting tiff with AMC, but if we have to miss an episode of Workaholics or Awkward it's going to be bad for everyone. Update: We've revised the total channel count from 26 as Viacom stated to 18 -- as much as we like HD feeds, we don't usually count them twice. [Thanks, AJ]
'Project P-100,' a Wii U launch title from Platinum Games
It seems the folks at Platinum Games have enough bandwidth for something beyond Metal Gear Rising: Reveangence. Following Nintendo's E3 press conference, we saw mentions on Twitter of Project P-100, a Platinum Games title destined for the Wii U's launch window, yet oddly absent from Nintendo's press conference.The art style is highly reminiscent of Viewtiful Joe, but the gameplay looks to be inspired by Pikmin – players find citizens in distress on the stage then recruit them to grow in power.%Gallery-157137%
Nintendo plans virtual wall of E3 coverage, wants no eyeball left behind
With E3 2012 right around the corner, Reggie and co. want to make sure your oft-distracted eyes catch every drip drop of the impending Wii U news flood. Much like it did last year, Nintendo's yet again taking to media outlets old and new for coverage of its All-Access Presentation, scheduled for June 5th at 9AM PST, that should prove an unavoidable must-see for any gamer bred on the house that Mario built. Whether you take your news via flat-screen or monitor, the gaming giant's got a solution to sate your preferred means of consumption, making its press conference available ad-free on Spike TV and MTV2, or online with a Facebook-hosted live stream. Of course, you can always set your browser to the Big N's own dedicated site on the big day to keep abreast of its next planned dive into the deep Blue Ocean. Check out the presser after the break for all the necessary informational bits.
Microsoft's E3 presser to stream through Xbox Live, Spike TV
Are you hoping to experience the thrill and excitement of a game manufacturer E3 press conference, but lacking the credentials to attend? Microsoft thinks that's just the dumbest, so the company's blowing the doors off of its upcoming E3 presser – at least virtually – with both Spike TV and Xbox Live streaming the event for all to see. Democracy!Spike and Xbox Live's coverage begins one day ahead of the big show on Monday, June 4 – Microsoft likes to kick things off before anyone else at E3, you see. Interested parties can tune in at 12:30PM ET/ 9:30AM PT to catch the whole thing live. Keep an eye out for us in the crowd! You can tell us apart from everyone else because we're all 11 feet tall, by the way.
Bellator MMA Onslaught brings arcade-style grappling to XBLA and PSN
During GDC, Deadliest Warrior publisher 345 Games showed off its latest licensed project, a mixed martial arts game based on the "Bellator" MMA organization, which can be seen on 345 partner Spike TV. 345 informed me that the major hook of Bellator is that fighters advance through single-elimination tournaments rather than having bouts chosen.In general, however, the idea is that you don't have to be a person who knows the nuances of MMA organizations, or an armchair MMA strategist, to understand the gameplay of Bellator MMA Onslaught, as it's designed with simplicity and pick-up-and-play qualities in mind.In the demo I saw, punches and kicks were mapped to one button each (left and right punch, left and right kick), and grappling maneuvers are mapped to the right stick, allowing you to reach out and then push the right stick in different directions to perform different holds, attempt to get out from a hold, etc. -- the technical stuff of MMA fighting, turned into a simple mechanic.The version I played was considered early -- the TV-style UI was not yet present, and developer Kung Fu Factory and 345 had yet to even decide on all the mechanics to be included. The final game is due this summer.%Gallery-150468%
PS3 exclusive 'The Last of Us' to debut at Spike VGAs
Over the last couple of years, Spike TV's annual Video Game Awards ceremony has become a launching pad for more than teleprompter dialogue and stilted celebrity sight reads. Publishers are utilizing the exceedingly televised event as an opportunity to reveal new titles and IPs; take The Last of Us, for example. Beyond the fact that it's a PS3 exclusive and will have something to do with ants, rioting and/or the apocalypse, The Last of Us is as much of a mystery to us as it is to everyone else. Glean what you can from the teaser above, and visit the official site for a short clip of an ant licking its butt.
Uncharted 3 gets its own Spike TV special, contestants needed
Do you take breaks from long sessions with Uncharted 2 to wonder why you're so, so good at it? Perhaps your other hobbies include "being an on-air presence" and "having perfectly coiffed hair?" Then you're a shoo-in to participate in Spike TV's upcoming television "special" dedicated to this November's Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. According to a listing that seeks show participants, you must be available in early October for taping, be a fan of adventure, or a "video game enthusiast," a "puzzle solver," or a "risk taker." Presumably, risk-taking adventurers with a taste for video games will be given first priority. In order to prove your worthiness for inclusion, shoot an email to Spike with a "link to a video, picture or paragraph explaining why you are the ultimate Uncharted fan who deserves to be featured on the show." And no, scaling the Spike TV corporate building and making your way to the company head's office undetected is not a good way to prove yourself, regardless of the theme.
Deadliest Warrior: Legends to pulverize PSN on July 26
Deadliest Warrior: Legends may be old (spiked) hat for Xbox 360 owners, but for those of us with access only to a PS3, the game has yet to arrive. That's all about to change, as 345 Games tells Joystiq that its latest release will head to the PlayStation Network Store on July 26, pointy blade-equipped staff and all. Like its XBLA launch, Deadliest Warrior: Legends will run you $10 when it arrives in the coming weeks. No explanation was offered for the disparity in launch between 360 and PS3, but we're told Sun Tzu sends his sincerest apologies.
Say hello to nine surly fighters in Deadliest Warrior: Legends
Gone are the ambiguous archetypes of Pirates, Vikings and Centurions -- Deadliest Warrior: Legends will feature nine real-ass soldiers pulled from history, Bill and Ted-style. Check out the list of fighters, as well as some concept art for their inevitably brutalized character models, after the break.
Microsoft's E3 briefing will air on Spike, Facebook and in HD VOD on Xbox Live
A few years ago we were happy just to get a few trailers in high definition from the E3 videogames conference on our Xbox 360s, but this year Microsoft and Spike TV have teamed up to bring the company's entire briefing in HD (via video on-demand) to the console. It will air live on Spike TV June 6th at 12:30 p.m. ET, with streams also available on GameTrailers.com (in high definition), Facebook, MTV.com, Spike.com and Xbox.com as well as being broadcast in Times Square. You can bet we'll be back to liveblog the proceedings yet again but if you want to get your own eyeful of Xbox 360: The Future Revealed (hint: Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4 and Kinect) there will be plenty of ways to do it.
Time Warner Cable takes Viacom to court over its TWCable TV iPad app; Viacom responds
While there's been a lot of talk about whether or not Time Warner has the right to include feeds of cable channels it carries in the new TWCable TV app, besides the company's voluntary removal of several networks there's been very little action until now. Time Warner Cable announced this afternoon it has filed a request in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for a declaratory judgement regarding Viacom's cable networks. Time Warner continues to maintain its carriage agreements give it the right to allow subscribers access on any screen in their home, not just the TV and is apparently ready to prove that in court -- or at least drive Viacom, Discovery, Fox and other complaining networks towards more favorable negotiations. The app added seven more channels earlier today, while we wait for Viacom's side of the story you can check out the press release after the break or Time Warner's official blog to understand its stance in full. Update: Viacom has responded, saying Time Warner "blatantly grabbed the rights that their competitors have negotiated in good faith to obtain" forcing it to file a lawsuit of its own. The gloves are officially off -- check the full text after the break, or a PDF of Viacom's complaint linked below.
New Deadliest Warrior and Ugly Americans titles coming to XBLA and PSN under 345 Games
Emboldened by the success of last year's anachronistic fighter Deadliest Warrior: The Game (which has sold over 400,000 downloads to date across XBLA and PSN), MTV Networks Entertainment has announced the opening of a new development studio called 345 Games. We spoke with Dan Yang and Prithvi Virasinghe from the newly incorporated studio about its plans to create game adaptations of Spike TV and Comedy Central programming. They revealed that they're starting with one distinct project from each network: Deadliest Warrior: Legends and Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon. The first, a follow-up to last year's Deadliest title, will feature all new fighters pulled from across the fullness of time, and more than twice as many arenas as the series' first installment. Each warrior type will be represented by titular legends such as William Wallace or Shaka Zulu, who can lead their armies in the new "Generals" campaign mode. Skirmishes between factions in this mode are carried out using the same battle simulator used in the show, and players can affect their troops with certain "X-Factors," such as training exercises, or unique General strategies.
VGA ratings fall for fourth year, but rise among younger and male viewers
The Spike VGAs may have put on a brave front this year, but the ratings have once again shown a decline, reports Variety. 627,000 people tuned in on Saturday night, a three percent drop from last year -- about 20,000 viewers. To help put that figure into context, the show's debut in 2007 enjoyed a much more substantial 921,000 viewers. It wasn't all a total downer, though (unless you actually watched the show, we guess). The VGAs actually saw a rise in viewers within key demographics. The Neil Patrick Harris-hosted show received a 12 percent boost in adult viewers aged 18 to 49, from 370,000 last year to 450,000, while 18- to 34-year-old viewers increased in number by five percent, from 278,000 viewers last year to 292,000 this year. Men aged 18 to 34 showed the most significant rise -- 15 percent over last year, from 281,000 viewers to 251,000.
Neil Patrick Harris to host VGAs, hopefully in a legen- (wait for it) dary manner
There are few people on this planet we admire more than one Mr. Neil Patrick Harris, the length of whose name is matched only by the depth of his comedic talent -- which is to say that there's a lot of it. However, we're of two minds about how to react to the announcement that NPH would be fulfilling hosting duties for the 2010 Spike VGAs, which, once again, we have been dragooned into watching and reporting on this year. (Man, this job sometimes, we swear.) Again, we're big, big fans of Neil (who provided one of the four Spider-voices in Shattered Dimensions), and his bit during last year's VGA ceremony was one of the highlights -- but the first time he busts out some unconvincing nerd-speak, or gets danced all-up-on by models with award winners' names painted on their torsos, we're going to have a full-on panic attack. We've got all our fingers crossed that those won't occur, though leaving our fingers in that position might make it a little difficult to type snarky comments about the rest of the show. Hmmm.
BioWare revealing new project at VGAs on December 11 [Update: clues coming in!]
BioWare will reveal its next game at Spike's Video Game Awards on Saturday, December 11. From the one screen we received from EA and the teaser (posted after the break), we suspect it might be called Mass of Honor: Dragunov Age. Yeah, let's go with that for now. Along with the BioWare reveal, VGA emcee Geoff Keighley also tweeted that the event would feature a new trailer for Batman: Arkham City. The show should also reveal the Guillermo Del Toro project over at THQ and maybe, just maybe, something involving Gears of War and Kinect. Update: The sharp eyes of commenter Arth Vader picked up that the gun in the pic is either the M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle from the Mass Effect 2 Aegis Pack DLC or a reused asset. If it is the M-29, it would imply the game will be Mass Effect related. Update 2: Recall that EA said last February that something "far-reaching" was coming to Mass Effect during the fourth quarter of the publisher's current fiscal year -- or in layman's terms: January 1 – March 31, 2011. Update 3: Okay, now things are just getting nerdy. BioWare blasted out the adjacent QR code on Twitter which, when decoded, spits out a string of 1s and 0s. When you convert this binary code (we told you: nerdy), it reads: 55.845. Of course, as everyone knows, 55.845 is the atomic mass of iron. Maybe the presence of the word "mass" in our findings isn't quite enough to go on, but we're sure you'll agree that the presence of the word "mass" coupled with a piece of fan fiction titled Mass Effect: Iron Rebirth is practically a smoking M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle. Update 4: And another QR code has been loosed upon the unsuspecting people of Twitter. This one is again some binary that translates into: -128.5°F. Converted to Celsius, that becomes -89.16666666666667°C. "The coldest temperature ever recorded on earth is -89.2 degrees Celsius (-128.5 degrees Fahrenheit) at Vostok, Antarctica on July 21, 1983," says Wikipedia; and this Mass Effect wiki page describes the Vostok solar system as "a medium system with four planets and an asteroid belt," itself named after the Soviet "Vostok Program" that resulted in the first manned space flight. Oh, and that asteroid belt that was mentioned? The wiki page calls it a "metal-rich asteroid." You know what else is metal? That's right, iron! Update 5: A few folks have also written in about the planet Aequitas, which is also from the Mass Effect universe. Logic train: 1st QR code = 55.845, the atomic mass of iron. 2nd QR code = 128.5. -128.5 deg F = Vostok, Antarctica record-breaking temperature. -128.5 deg F ~= -89 deg C = surface temperature of Aequitas, a planet known for its "famous Iron Canyons." Update 6 11/19/10 5:30pm ET: It's been a couple of days, but BioWare is back at it dropping yet another QR code into the webosphere, this time using Facebook. When read and converted out of binary, this QR reads: "http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html" which, evidently, is the official site for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service or, as it's also known, MI6. Beyond the two-letter acronym beginning with 'M' and followed by a number format it shares with a would-be ME3, we've got no idea what this means.
