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Ceton Echo Windows Media Center extender won't support Android after all
Around nine months ago Ceton unexpectedly announced plans to support the Android operating system and apps on its $179 Echo Windows Media Center extender, but now that's not happening. According to the company, Android is "up and running" on Echo hardware in its labs -- we saw screenshots back in February -- but early beta tests with home users showed a problem with an internal component. That flaw apparently causes a failure to update in some cases, and since efforts to find a workaround have been so far unsuccessful Ceton is shelving the project (presumably alongside its Q DVR). There's no question this is disappointing for Echo users that expected the feature, but the possibility of a bricked box seem worth avoiding. We haven't talked about the Echo much since it came out of beta with a fix for 1080i output issues -- if you're an owner then let us know if you were (still) waiting for Android, or if you've moved onto another solution like Roku, Ouya or Chromecast.
Fez 2 canceled [Update]
Development on Fez 2 has ceased. The announcement was made earlier today by a tweet on the official Polytron account, which we then corroborated and verified with creator Phil Fish. "It's true," Fish told Joystiq in an email. Fez 2 was originally announced during last month's E3-concurrent Horizon conference, where it was the surprise, show-ending reveal of the event, following a cavalcade of other new indie developments from different developers. Beyond the fact that it existed, however, and that Fez composer Disasterpiece was also involved in production, nothing specific was known about the project. Update: The official Polytron Corporation website has been updated with a short, candid message reiterating the game's cancellation.
Heavy Gear Assault Kickstarter canceled, continues crowdfunding on its own
The Kickstarter campaign for mech fighter Heavy Gear Assault was recently canceled. While an update post regarding the project's cancellation is locked to those that backed the project, developer Stompy Bot Productions provided a statement via the Kickstarter comment section. The developer is "currently evaluating other strategies to raise awareness regarding Heavy Gear and looking at multiple means to get the Heavy Gear name out there." Stompy Bot is continuing its crowdfunding aspirations on the game's official site. The Kickstarter campaign began on May 20 and was scheduled to run 40 days, through June 29. Up to the point of its cancellation, the developer raised $44,981 of its $800,000 goal, thanks to 879 total backers. [Thanks, Peter!]
Armature Studio worked on an unreleased Mega Man X FPS, 'Maverick Hunter'
Armature Studio, the Austin-based developer formed from Retro Studios talent, was working with Capcom to create a new Mega Man X FPS, Polygon reports. Maverick Hunter would have kept X's weapon stealing ability and the platforming from the side-scrolling games, and added a deeper story and a new look, including armor by Adi Granov, who designed the armor for the Iron Man movie.Capcom canceled the project, like other recent Mega Man games including Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Legends 3, likely coinciding with the departure of series producer Keiji Inafune. Armature prototyped it in early 2010, Polygon's sources said. The site has five videos of the unreleased game, along with several gameplay details.Perhaps Mega Man didn't need this "gritty" reboot treatment, but on the other hand, it would have been a game, which is an increasingly rare thing to happen in that series.
Microsoft cancels Gore Verbinski's 'Matter' for Kinect
Matter, a Kinect game expected to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in 2013, has been cancelled by Microsoft. It was to be the first game developed in partnership with film director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Rango) and Blind Wink Games."Microsoft Studios is no longer pursuing this title," says a company representative. "We have no further details to share at this time."Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, told Joystiq in June last year that Verbinski had pitched Matter as a means to instill and demonstrate emotion in typically motionless game players. A futuristic metal sphere, seen moving through a futuristic landscape in the game's E3 2012 trailer, represented an active control surface implemented through Kinect."To a lot of people who haven't played games for a long time, somebody standing completely stationary with a controller in their hands kind of seems emotionless, even though we know that we'll be sweating or twitching," Spencer said. "And [it was] his feeling, that with motion and movement, that the connection of the emotion that's happening on screen and how the player feels would be more natural."Blind Wink, which is attached to a film production company partnered with Universal Pictures, has not responded to requests for comment.
Ex-Bungie devs at Moonshot cancel Fallen Frontier, intro Third Eye Crime
Yesterday we mentioned the PAX East Indie Showcase lineup includes Third Eye Crime from Moonshot Games, an indie studio composed of former Bungie developers. As we know, with each new game announcement comes an equal and opposite game cancellation, and Moonshot's PAX East 2011 Indie Showcase game, Fallen Frontier, is dead and gone."I'll be writing a post on FF in the coming weeks, but the short answer is, FF is not going to happen," Moonshot co-founder Damián Isla wrote in response to comments on the Third Eye Crime announcement. "We're pretty bummed, of course. We'll tell as much of that story as we can at some point."Fallen Frontier was a co-op, 2D romp with grappling hooks that Moonshot was pretty excited about in 2011. We thought it warranted attention, as well. We've contacted Moonshot for more information on Fallen Frontier's cancellation.Third Eye Crime, Moonshot's new, stealth-puzzle game, is scheduled to launch on iPad in the spring. Third Eye Crime tells the tale of an art thief with telepathic abilities, set in a noir enviornment, and it will be featured in the PAX East 2013 Indie Showcase from March 22 - 24 in Boston.
Terry Cavanagh halts development on Nexus City and Selma's Story
Terry Cavanagh, the developer behind VVVVVV and Super Hexagon, has scrapped two projects he's been working on for two years, Nexus City and its spin-off, Selma's Story. Cavanagh began working Nexus City with writer Jonas Kyratzes in 2010, and from humble beginnings it spun out of control, until it began getting in the way of other projects, Cavanagh writes."Promising games would come along, and I'd stop myself from getting too deep into them, because I had to finish Nexus City first," he says. "Everything became a big ordered list of what I could work on and when, how long I could spend on it. It's only when a project like Super Hexagon came along, and forced itself on me – became too much to ignore, that I was able to turn that part of my head off. And I could do it, but even then I constantly had that pressure – when this is done, I need to get back to Nexus City."I don't think that's creatively healthy."With the weight of Nexus City and Selma's Story off his mind and a fairly successful year of development under his belt, Cavanagh plans to start 2013 with some time off. He's "very excited" about that, and we plan to live vicariously through him as he walks the beaches of Waikiki, plays the slots, or whatever people do while on vacation.
Primal Rage 2 footage surfaces, breaks our heart
Primal Rage 2 is one of the more mythical cancelled games of yore. Plenty of rumors and legends surround its life and death, but there's very little in the way of concrete, verifiable information when it comes to what the game was actually like. Now though, thanks to some new off-screen footage captured from a working prototype version, we have a slightly better idea of what could have been.As shown in the video above, Primal Rage 2 maintained the claymation aesthetic found in the original game, though the character models and their various animations look much more fluid than Primal Rage's Harryhausen-esque staccato jitters. Furthermore, the combo system appears to have been improved and expanded, though to what extent is difficult to ascertain.Essentially, it looks like everything we ever could have wanted. Finding absolute proof that we're not living in the best of all possible universes wasn't really on our "To Do:" list today, but here we are. Someday we'll open a worm hole to the bubble universe where Primal Rage 2 was released, and it'll be so great. Provided everyone in that universe breathes oxygen, of course; alternate universes can get complicated.
Aero Cross release plans crossed out
Aero Cross, the XBLA and PSN reimagining of bizarre footracing game Metro-Cross, has officially been canceled, following two years of total silence. Namco cited "various" non-specific reasons for the curtailment of the project.Taken with the cancellation of Dancing Eyes and the total lack of other series announcements, this looks like the inauspicious end of the Namco Generations retro revival series. We can probably expect more ports of the Pac-Man Championship Edition games, at least.http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/19/dancing-eyes-and-the-death-of-a-generation/
NBA Live 13 canceled by EA
EA Sports has canceled NBA Live 13. The company plans on taking a full year off to work on the next game in the series."But making great games is not easy, and we're just not there yet on NBA LIVE 13. Having continued to look at the game over the past few days, it's clear that we won't be ready in October," EA Sports Executive Vice President Andrew Wilson wrote in a news release today. "And rather than launch midway through the season, we're going to sit out the full year and stay focused on making next year's game great."The news comes after an announcement on the game's delay and its absence from EA Sports' E3 showing. More notably, the cancellation of NBA Elite 11 makes this the third year in a row that EA's simulation basketball series has failed to see publication."We're committed to delivering new innovation in online, and our progress in the visual presentation of the game continues to take big strides. We also know that a great game starts with great gameplay, and this remains a huge priority for us," Wilson wrote.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's Xbox 360 version cancelled in Japan
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is now PS3-only in Japan following the Xbox 360 version's cancellation. Kojima Productions announced the news today via its website. There the company apologized for the cancellation but didn't give any reasons for it. The 360 version, as Konami confirmed to Eurogamer, remains scheduled for release outside of Japan.It's odd to reflect on a game being cancelled for the platform it was first announced on, but the news isn't surprising given the 360's poor sales in Japan since then. As our latest Stiq Figures show, the console only shifted 875 copies last week compared to the PS3's 12,433. Also, while the PS3 version of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection entered Japanese charts in fifth last November, the Xbox 360 version didn't even register in the top 20. While we understand where Konami's coming from, the cancellation of such a high-profile game can't help the console's chances in Japan one bit.
Mega Man MMO might be canned
With dozens of games and collections, Mega Man has had quite the prolific run as a console game, and NeoWiz has been working on turning Mega Man into a MMORPG called Rockman Online (after the Japanese name for Mega Man). However, although there is no official word it appears that the project may have been shelved after internal restructuring in the company. Environments artist Kang Dong Hwa blogged that his current project was dropped and he is looking for other work. He also posted various concept art pieces that he'd been working on for Rockman Online over the years, usually a no-no for games currently under development.
Star Trek: Infinite Space canned
Sorry Trekkies, but if you were hoping for a second Star Trek MMO, you're going to be waiting for some time. Gameforge announced that it is cancelling Star Trek: Infinite Space effective immediately. This doesn't come as a complete surprise, as the publisher put the beta on hold last year in a desperate search for a co-publishing partnership. Gameforge explained the decision in a statement: "Since autumn 2011 we made many efforts to find a publishing and marketing partner for Star Trek: Infinite Space. Unfortunately, our efforts were not successful. So we have decided with a heavy heart to finally abandon the project Star Trek: Infinite Space." Infinite Space was to be a browser-based title set in the war-torn Deep Space Nine era of Star Trek. The publisher had obtained the assistance of Trek staples such as Nana Visitor, René Auberjonois, and Denise and Michael Okuda.
Former 38 Studios Creative Director provides context for leaked trailer
Steve Danuser is the ex-Creative Director at the shuttered 38 Studios, and in light of that leaked trailer seen earlier today he's posted a few bits of context for the video. As you might have guessed, the posted trailer was entirely a work in progress, with most assets and even the script likely set to be replaced before it appeared before the public.The trailer itself would have been a launch trailer, likely also released with some in-game or hands-on footage, and the illustrated look seen in the trailer was planned to be a characteristic of the game itself, used to introduce the game's various races and factions.As for the tri-circle logo, which seems very similar to the recently revealed Elder Scrolls Online logo: Danuser says the design is coincidental, and that the two MMOs were using the same themes. 38 Studios' logo was put together before anyone from the team saw what Zenimax Online was working on. "That's what you get," says Danuser, who fondly remembers working on putting the trailer together, "for basing your IP on classic themes."
Nokia axes Skype client on Lumia 610, claims user experience wasn't 'up to par'
It took nearly a full month, but Nokia has finally been convinced that Skype is indeed incompatible with low-memory Windows Phones. In reaching out to a spokesperson, the company confirmed to us that it has decided to yank the official client from the Marketplace on the Lumia 610. The device -- which utilizes a scant 256MB of RAM -- originally allowed the service to be downloaded despite Skype's claims that 512MB was the minimum amount of memory required for the app to function properly. The internet phone service, as it turns out, was correct: Nokia, stating that the user experience is "workable" but not "up to par with Nokia's and Skype's expectation," has pulled the plug on any future downloads. Users who managed to snag the app before it disappeared can still enjoy (or hate, depending on your experience) it on their Lumia 610, but until Skype is able to lower the memory restrictions, it looks like everyone else is out of luck. Head below for the full translated statement.
AT&T cancels plans to release Samsung Skyrocket HD, likely setting sights on Galaxy S III
Remember the Samsung Skyrocket HD for AT&T? Great, now forget it. According to Sammy, the largest GSM carrier has decided to forego the mysteriously absent device, announced all the way back at January's AT&T Developer Summit, in order to focus on other products. This move adds credence to our suspicions that this particular handset wouldn't have a distinct place in the lineup alongside the carrier's version of the Galaxy S III, which hasn't been officially announced for US availability yet. We reached out to Samsung, and here's the company's official statement on the matter: "AT&T and Samsung have agreed to cancel plans to offer the Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD. We are concentrating resources on other products to bring exciting experiences to consumers." Not too much of a surprise, but those eagerly awaiting this device shouldn't get too frazzled -- if you can't wait for Samsung's newest flagship, at least we're hopeful that a few carrier-branded prototypes will leak out on eBay to whet your appetite.
Police Warfare Kickstarter suddenly and mysteriously canceled
The Kickstarter for Police Warfare, the proof-of-concept-turned-real-project from ex-Ubisoft/EA/Activision/Epic employee-driven Elastic Games has been cancelled by the studio, roughly two hours ago as of press time. As of its cancellation, the project had raised $25,025 of its sought-after total of $325,000 from 784 different backers."Thank you so much for the incredible response to the game," reads an update on the Kickstarter. "We're shutting down the kickstarter account but this is by no means the end of Police Warfare. News will be coming." Joystiq is digging around for more information and will update as soon as we have additional details.
Replica portal gun orders canceled by some retailers [update: still coming, says NECA]
Update: NECA claims that the Portal gun is still being prepared, but fell victim to uncontrolled numbers of pre-orders. After slamming on the brakes with certain retailers, the association aims to deliver the replica between May and June in an "organized and fair manner."Original story: NECA -- National Entertainment Collectibles Association -- was set to create a line of replica portal guns for public purchase in May or June this year, but it has stopped production on the piece, citing "issues" and "no longer planning on making it for the foreseeable future," according to information shared via email by distributor Entertainment Earth. "The item was never produced, and to the best of our knowledge will not be delivered to any retailer at this time."Entertainment Earth has logged a protest with NECA, but for now it seems we'll all be $130 richer and a million-fold more heartbroken.[Thanks, Matthew.]
RIM reportedly scraps the Colt and Milan, leaving London as sole BlackBerry 10 device?
And then there was... one? BGR is reporting that the folks at Research in Motion have not only scrapped plans for the BlackBerry Colt, originally expected to be the first BlackBerry 10 superphone out of the gate, but the rumored Milan as well (which was also reported by N4BB). If true, this would leave the BlackBerry London as the one and only QNX-based device in the works, suggesting RIM is taking a huge gamble by putting all of its eggs in one basket when it launches the new OS later this year. Additionally, the site reports that the London will have a slightly different design from the prototype leaked a couple months ago, and that the Milan wasn't actually a BlackBerry 10 device at all, but instead was supposed to run OS 7. Remember this is all according to "people familiar with the matter," which means the rumor is completely unconfirmed at this time.
Buffy and Firefly MMO dev studio closes
It was a foregone conclusion that we'd never play the announced Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer MMOs from developer Multiverse, but the closure of the studio makes that all but certain. The company actually ceased operations in early December, with a post on its website noting the studio closed due to a lack of funding after it was unable to achieve profitability with the Multiverse platform. The Multiverse platform was used as "proof of concept" for Facebook titles Battle, Team Battle and Battle: Realms at War. The platform was also used for McDonalds and Coca-Cola web games. Our condolences go out to Browncoats and followers of the Scooby Gang.
