galactic-reign
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Galactic Reign leaving Windows Store, servers going dark end of year
Galactic Reign by Slant Six Games will be taken down from the Windows Store on August 15, a post on the official Xbox forum reads. The turn-based tactical game's servers will be retired on December 31, 2013, at which point Galactic Reign will be shuttered forever. Slant Six Games, whose last major game prior to Galactic Reign was the poorly received Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, instituted a round of "temporary" layoffs back in April with the intent to rehire those affected employees once the Canadian studio had secured new projects. The Twitter and Facebook accounts for Slant Six haven't been active since June, however, portending a more dire situation than we've been lead to believe. Joystiq has contacted both Microsoft and Slant Six Games to confirm the news. Calling the latter's offices yielded no answer.
Microsoft showcases Windows Phone middleware partnerships at GDC, we go hands-on (video)
Building on yesterday's announcement that Temple Run and several other games are coming to Windows Phone, Microsoft's been actively courting developers at GDC 2013. To that end, the company's booth showcases several games that highlight cross-platform development and middleware. Now that WP8 and Windows 8 share the same NT kernel, DirectX APIs and tools, it's easier than ever to write games that use the same code base for both platforms. Microsoft is sweetening the deal with a few significant middleware partnerships -- Unity, Marmalade and Havok, to be specific. We talked with Larry Lieberman, Senior Product Manager for Windows Phone development, who was kind enough to explain what these partnerships mean for developers and to give us a tour of the games. Hit the break for our hands-on video. %Gallery-184180%
Microsoft files trademark for 'Galactic Reign'
Microsoft filed a trademark last week for something called "Galactic Reign," specifically in the categories of "video game software," as well as "entertainment services, namely, providing online video games." This could indicate an unannounced game, but Microsoft isn't sharing any other comments on what Galactic Reign might be. Microsoft has a number of in-process deals with various developers, so this could be anything.Companies and publishers will often file trademarks on potential or even hypothetical projects, and then change titles or cancel the games entirely before the public ever sees them. When Microsoft finally announces something called Universal Umbrella, then, we'll know what happened.
