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UK chart get: Wii Sports Resort soars
Nintendo's latest flagship title continues to dominate the UK sales charts. According to Chart Track, Wii Sports Resort is the top-selling title for the second week in a row. After two weeks at fourth place, Wii Fit returns to second -- we guess people were just in a mood to buy things with Wii in the title last week. We suspect the top two will look much like this for a while -- Resort may just be starting an extended period of Wii Fit-like success.If they weren't buying games labeled Wii, they were buying things with the EA logo. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is at the number three spot, followed by Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince and Fight Night Round 4.
UK chart get: Harry Potter and the EA Games of Popularity
EA has dominated the UK charts once again, as the publisher saw three of its titles grace the top five spots in the All Formats category last week. Chart-Track data shows that the one-two punch of a new Harry Potter movie in cinemas and a new game on store shelves was too potent a potion for UK customers to ignore, with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince shooting to the top spot.Harry and his Gryffindor chums were joined by Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, which dropped from the second spot all the way to third, and Fight Night Round 4, a previous top spotter that has plummeted to fifth place. Rounding out the remainder of the top five were Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which rested comfortably in second, and Wii Fit, which has dropped down to fourth.
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.
Feigned shock: New Harry Potter game released alongside movie
It surely comes as a shock to us all that the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince games will be available beginning June 30 for almost every gaming device in our sad muggle world! The game is releasing as an amuse-bouche (apéritif, for the drinkers) to the movie's staggered global release in July.The games will do what they can with the technology available to their respective systems. This includes wizard duels, taking potion classes, playing Quidditch, getting stud-muffin Ron some nookie and making Harry survive until the next movie tie-in game.
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]
Next Harry Potter game pushed back to coincide with film
Much like taking a swim with a block of concrete tied to your feet, developing a video game that's inseparably linked to an impending blockbuster film can often lead to less than satisfactory results. Not only do creators face the challenge of converting two hours of overproduced non-interactivity into a considerably more engaging experience, they have to do it within a time limit that's much more conducive to synergy than quality. So, here comes your silver lining, Harry Potter fans.EA has confirmed that the delay of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince applies to the coinciding video game as well, leading us to imagine the developers reveling in the gift of several more calendar pages, raining down upon them like confetti. "We're excited about the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game in development and its high level of authenticity and playability," says EA Casual Studios vice president Robert Nashak. A high level of playability? Boy, they really are going all out with this one.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which, much like every other movie in the franchise is sure to be the darkest one yet, is out in Summer 2009.
Analyst: Potter movie delay could push back release of EA's game
Fans of J.K. Rowling's uber-successful series of wizardly novels received some heartbreaking news Friday -- the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been delayed from its initial release date of November 21, 2008 to a distant July 17, 2009. Electronic Arts has yet to announce how this major delay will affect the release window of their similarly titled video game adaptation of the film/book, though many gaming industry analysts, such as Signal Hill's Todd Greenwald, are predicting that EA will follow suit, with hopes that the film will whip up a Half-Blood frenzy that will boost sales of the game.The repercussions of a Potter game delay could be bad for Electronic Arts, as both their holiday profits and fiscal 2009 revenue could take a hit without the title -- however, it could mean good news for those waiting on a truly stellar Harry Potter video game. Greenwald claims the title is "pretty much done and ready", meaning a delay would give EA an extra eight months to perfect the movie tie-in. We'll let you know what EA decides to do once they make an official statement.
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 and the Half-Blood Prince and the debut trailer
We would love to get excited for the upcoming video game adaptation of the sixth installment in J.K. Rowling's wildly successful series of books -- unfortunately, our ambitions of striding through Hogwarts' hallowed halls have been sullied by previous lackluster Harry Potter titles from Electronic Arts. To make sure Half Blood Prince is as faithful and entertaining as it can possibly be, we've written up a quick cheat sheet for the game's developers to inform them which elements from the source material should be included when the game hits store shelves in November. Epic wizard duels -- Awesome. Magical puzzles -- Entertaining. Exciting quidditch matches -- Compelling, if handled properly. Collecting "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans", "Chocolate Frogs", "Fizzing Whizbees", or any other form of magical confection -- About as enjoyable as catching a faceful of Avada Kedavra.
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]
