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Three new Harry Potter videos apparate onto the web
Don't worry, Hogwarts devotees, you won't need a Marauder's Map to find these new Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince videos. First, direct your gaze to the launch trailer above. Once finished, point your wand to the break and two more videos will magically appear. Said videos are "making of" featurettes that discuss, unsurprisingly, the making of the game, including the new dueling, Quidditch and potion-making features. You'll also get to see Tom "Draco Malfoy" Felton working his best PR / Marketing schtick.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ships for every platform under the sun this week.
Latest Harry Potter game pushed back to coincide with movie, will cost EA $120 million
The new video game based on the movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, won't be meeting the public this year and is instead set to play in your living room and on the big screen at your local theater during the summer of 2009. This could be a good thing for fans, as it will give developers plenty of time to add some polish to the title. And from what we've already heard, some things were shaping up nicely, so we're extra excited that the game will get some more TLC before it hits retail shelves everywhere.But, as good as this sounds to us (more time spent creating a game makes for a better game), it's not all peaches and creme for EA. The company projected that the game would bring in $120 million within its 2008 fiscal forecast. With the game being bumped back to 2009, it looks like EA will be relying on your future Boom Blox money a bit more.%Gallery-27617%Source - Harry Potter game gets delayedSource - Delay will cost EA quite a bit of money[Via Joystiq]
Harry Potter delay cost EA $120m this year
Profitus Reducto! In an SEC filing yesterday, Electronic Arts revealed exactly how much stock it put in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game, which was delayed until Summer 2009 alongside the movie (both were originally slated for November 2008): The publishing giant was expecting the Boy Wizard to pull in $120 million in revenue for this fiscal year. The filing offers no indication as to its new fiscal forecast for this year nor how much it now plans to profit from the game in its new release window of next Summer. As to the latter, we're guessing oodles of monies is still a proper metric.[Via Edge]
E308: Half-Blood Prince goodies obliviate memories of the previous Harry Potter
We're absolute suckers. We'll be the first ones to admit it. After Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was, well, pretty terrible, we thought we'd shy away from the next game in the series. License-based drivel isn't exactly our favorite genre of video game, after all. Seeing video action (and screens) of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though, is just too much for fans like us to ignore. Especially since the books are over and done with (sniff sniff), we have to find something longer than a movie to hold onto the magic.What say you? Are we complete fools, or are you hoping for some improvements in Half-Blood Prince as well? (On second thought, maybe you shouldn't answer that one.) %Gallery-27617%
Harry Potter paves the way for bartending on the Wii
Who would ever think of Hogwarts as a glorified bartending school? Well, Jason Cipriano from MTV Multiplayer, for one. After getting his hands on the Wii's upcoming Harry Potter title, he was impressed with the potion-mixing minigame portion of the demo. The game works as you might imagine; simply enough, you tilt the Wiimote downward as if you were pouring liquids. The key is in applying the right amount of force to the motion, otherwise your potion might explode (making the new Potions teacher, Horace Slughorn, none too happy). There are some other motion-controlled mixing actions you have to perform as well, to keep the minigame from feeling too basic.Harry Potter aside, though, Cipriano points out that this type of liquid mixing gameplay could work well in a title like Cooking Mama, where Mama kicks back with a few G & Ts, or perhaps even an original bartending title. Imagine a game like Order Up!, only instead of pleasing customers in a restaurant, you had to serve your patrons drinks. We think we could dig it, though we're not sure Nintendo would be so keen. Then again, we are seeing a Beer Pong game come to WiiWare sometime in the future, so you never know.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is summoned to the Wii
You probably won't be stupefied to know that EA announced the next video game in the Harry Potter series, based on the sixth novel by J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will come out later this year, so that it coincides with the movie's release.In case you are unfamiliar with the games, though, the series puts you in a GTA/Bully-esque sandbox-style world, only you're spending your time at Hogwarts and aren't issuing magical commands to give people wedgies (accio underpants!). When Order of the Phoenix was announced for the Wii way back when, Potterheads everywhere salivated over using the Wiimote as a wand. Upon playing the game, though, it turned out the controls weren't very well-executed. We're too jaded to get our hopes up again, but EA made mention of the company's focus on waggle this time around. If there's any license-based series that we want to like, it's this one, so hopefully EA can deliver.[Via press release]
Upcoming Harry Potter film gets games for all platforms
EA have announced that the next film in the Harry Potter series will be getting an army of new games to coincide with its release. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the overarching Potter world will get games on all platforms; more interesting to PS Fanboys, the titles will be on the PS3 and PSP. Details on the Half-Blood Prince games were scarce; all that's really known right now is that they will follow the events of the upcoming movie. Speaking of which, the film is expected for a November 21, 2008 release. It follows that the games should be ready by November as well.[Via press release]
