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Capcom Vancouver has two projects underway
Dee Jay Randall, of Capcom Vancouver (formerly Blue Castle Games), revealed during his GDC talk -- covering Dead Rising 2 multiplayer -- that two projects are currently underway at the studio. Without going into specifics about either project, Randall spoke at great length about Capcom Vancouver's efforts to improve the overall experience of co-op game design, including minimizing network workload. Wild guess: At least one of the new projects will feature co-op. [Image source: CapcomVancouver.com]
Obsidian working on XBLA title for Q1 2012 (and some other things)
Obsidian Entertainment is currently working on "an original IP XBLA game," which is being targeted for release in the first quarter of 2012. In a recent interview with Game Revolution, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart mentioned, "It'll be an action RPG that's focused on fun -- not Dungeon Siege; it's quite a bit different in a different genre with a different camera." "We also might throw our hat in the whole free-to-play thing," Urquhart added, before passively referencing another game -- based on a "licensed product" -- he'd be "killed" if he talked about in detail. In our own recent interview with him, Urquhart similarly hinted at a "once in a lifetime" licensed game that is "something we've been working on since the middle of last year; just with a small team -- it's only been five or ten people." This could be that Wheel of Time project, or something separate -- "I'm hoping that'll be announced around E3," Urquhart told GR of the mystery project. The studio has also pitched an Icewind Dale reboot to Atari, in addition to shopping around general pitches for a game based on "a new world" and a sort of "what if" Sauron won scenario for a Lord of the Rings title dubbed "Defiance." But first! Obsidian has to wrap up Dungeon Siege 3. Talk about keeping busy.
Conduit dev High Voltage making Kinect-enabled 'licensed' game for 2K
Though it may be best known for its Wii-exclusive sci-fi shooter The Conduit, and its upcoming, The-less sequel Conduit 2, High Voltage Software makes most of its scratch putting out licensed games. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for Wii and DS? Yup, that's High Voltage. Iron Man 2 ... for Wii and PSP? Also High Voltage. And now the Chicago-area developer is working on another licensed game due out this year -- but there's something unique about this one: it uses Kinect. "It's not announced yet," High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger told Eurogamer. "We're doing that with 2K. It's a licensed game. That's our bread and butter as a developer." Nofsinger added that this new game "works well with or without Kinect" and that, while it "works very well" with Kinect, "I don't think it's this brilliant, genius idea." As if intent on further lowering expectations for the Kinect functionality, Nofsinger said, "It works really well because it's a 360 game. I don't think it necessarily works really well because it's a Kinect game." Regardless of how tacked on the developer thinks this bit of Kinect functionality is, we'll find out more "around GDC" when the game is expected to be announced. High Voltage previously made a licensed Family Guy title for 2K in 2006 and Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue, based on the Nickelodeon series, for 2K Play in 2008.
TimeGate expanding publishing biz, also working on 'very big project' for another pub
Like many indie developers, TimeGate Studios' origins are humble. "We set up a card table and called it TimeGate. That was a little over 12 years ago," president and CEO Adel Chaveleh recalled during our recent meeting. "We knew the game we wanted before we knew how the hell to make a game," he added with a wide grin. That game was Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, which went on to earn an 87 Metacritic score and a handful of awards. Today, TimeGate isn't far from launching its first digital-only title, Section 8: Prejudice -- the sequel to 2009's Section 8 -- and Chaveleh is noticeably excited about the prospects of the company's future in publishing. "In the midst of a year, not only did we finish development of the whole sequel, but we've switched our whole business model, and we've built that internal publishing infrastructure," he beamed. "Now that we've got that pipeline established, we're looking at more content -- both internally, and we're starting to talk with some external developers, as well, about being a conduit for either their content or helping us develop content." Chaveleh wouldn't reveal any of these collaborators, but it's clear TimeGate understands that, whether physical or digital products, the publisher still holds all the cards. %Gallery-115412%
Sony poster at CES shows unannounced, extremely slim-looking phone (update: it's the Arc)
Sony's CES banners have been unfurled around the Las Vegas Convention Center here and one of them has a particularly alluring, and particularly skinny, phone to show us. The above image of half a touchscreen handset (more closeup photography of which you'll find in the gallery below) shows a Sony Ericsson brand and what looks like a 3.5mm headphone jack -- the latter of which would suggest that this phone is no more than six or seven millimeters thick. Even more enticing is the promise of "more entertainment at the touch of a button," suggesting some processing and graphics firepower contained within as well -- could it be SE's answer to the dual-core LG Optimus 2X? We get the feeling we'll love this thing whatever the hell's inside it. Update: Closer investigation of the imagery has led us to believe this is probably the Anzu / X12 that we first saw back in November. That device's claim to fame was a 4.3-inch display allied to a "very, very thin" profile. Update 2: The mysterious handset has now been revealed as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. %Gallery-112523%
HTC EVO Shift 4G headed for a January 9th launch at $150, according to RadioShack leak
HTC's worst kept secret (this side of the Thunderbolt) has popped up online again, this time as part of some RadioShack promo materials, which list its price, launch date, 4G capabilities, and screen size. Earlier indications had this Android slider launching on January 9th at a $150 price point with a two-year contract and now, lo and behold, both data points seem to have been confirmed. $450 is the price for the EVO Shift 4G sans any carrier obligations, though you'll probably want to stick with Sprint to make use of that WiMAX radio contained within. Bring on 2011 already!
Airtight Games working on multiplatform Unreal-based game, plus others
Dark Void and Crimson Skies developer Airtight Games is nose down on "several new AAA titles for a variety of markets," and a job listing on Gamasutra indicates that at least one is headed for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. The developer is seeking "an experienced Senior Environment Artist" for work on the unannounced title, with an "excellent understanding of art production for next-gen games" and is "highly skilled in Maya and/or XSI, Photoshop, Mudbox, and the Unreal 3 Engine." Otherwise, the listing provides little in the way of hints as to what the unannounced game could be. With ex-Portal lead Kim Swift on board, though, we're expecting greatness. But no pressure!
Bright Light teases unannounced XBLA/PSN game from Spare Parts team, explains internal dev culture
Bright Light, EA's Guildford-based (UK) studio, is hard at work on at least four titles: Create, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Episode 1, Spare Parts and a fourth, "secret [downloadable] project." At an EA press event last week, we spoke with Bright Light senior international PR manager Deborah Coster, who teased the "secret project" and explained the studio's dedication to fostering creativity and its at least partial focus on smaller, polished titles. "The team's actually been doing the equivalent of 'iron man development,' so they're making two games," Coster told Joystiq. "And they've been making a secret game, which we haven't announced yet, but they've been making it at the same time as Spare Parts. So they've been basically doing week one: Spare Parts; week two: secret game; week three: Spare Parts; week four: secret game -- literally back-to-back." Coster confirmed our suspicion that the Spare Parts/secret project team is focusing solely on digitally distributed titles. "Yeah, this is a group that's been looking at 'What can we do digitally? We don't really wanna be making packaged goods, so what can we do?' And XBLA and PSN: the numbers are getting bigger and bigger and bigger," Coster reasoned.
Pentax K-5 DSLR leaks out, leaves us guessing at the specs
Quite appropriately for a camera, all we have in this here leak is the one image above. It shows a purported K-5 DSLR from Pentax, whose body looks almost a carbon copy of the well loved, but now aging, K-7. The biggest (only?) difference we've been able to spot between the two is in the jog dial on its top left shoulder, which now looks quite a bit taller. Also making the transition from the K-7 is the 18-55mm Weather Resistant lens, which should make the K-5 another well fortified shooter from Pentax. Now if we could only know what's inside the shell as well, we'd be as happy as our jaded souls can be.
Sony Vaio M surfaces... unofficially
Well, what do we have here? It's the Sony Vaio M series netbook, as yet unannounced but sitting here getting detailed all the same. The 10.1-inch netbook, which looks, well, pretty much identical to the Sony Vaio W series, is apparently going to boast a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a 250GB hard drive, plus 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, and a built-in webcam. There's no pricing information or dates of availability for these bad boys yet, but there's one more shot after the break to gander at -- if you're so inclined.
Studio 1558 Touch sneaks into Dell catalog with Core i5
Well looky here: an unannounced Studio Touch laptop making its debut on page 5 of Dell's on-line catalog. The Studio 1558 Touch is flanked by the multitouch Studio 17 Touch. You won't find any details about the 1558 on Dell's website or retail channels so what you see above is what you get: Core i5 processor underpinning a Windows 7 Home Premium OS and 320GB hard disk for a $999 starting price. Expect this one to get official soon enough. [Thanks, Erik D.]
Ubisoft reports fiscal Q3 sales of $679 million, hints at unannounced titles
Sure, $679 million may sound like a lot of money (it sure does to us!), but when you're a company CEO reporting that number to investors and it's 2.7 percent lower than last year's equivalent time period ($697 million), it's not quite as impressive. And that's just what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had to do earlier today when the company reported its fiscal Q3 (October 1 through December 31) sales for 2009. Given the publisher's French HQ, we're not privy to the period's revenue until later this year. In discussing plans for the upcoming year, the company cited "at least seven franchise titles" being launched this year, calling out this morning's (finally) officially-announced Ghost Recon: Future Soldier among others, leaving one (presumably unannounced) title unmentioned. The publisher then indicates "at least two new brands (R.U.S.E. has already been announced)" will see the light of day in 2010 -- leaving one unannounced new brand. Getting murkier yet, it appears "at least 5 online games" will be heading to the information superhighway, though only three are mentioned (yep, you guessed it -- that means two have yet to be revealed). With GDC, PAX East, and E3 not too far off (already?!), there's still plenty of 2010 left for announcements.
Jaffe 'not showing anything' at E3, definitely next year
David Jaffe will be roaming the halls at next week's E3. His mysterious new project, however, "absolutely" won't make an appearance. In fact, the Twisted Metal creator noted on his latest video blog that he's "not showing anything" at the big show. Commented Jaffe, "Part of me would love to announce at E3, and so you walk into the Sony booth and bam -- there's our game." Next year, however, is another story. The Eat Sleep Play co-founder says that he "fully expects" the presumably car-heavy game to be on the show floor in 2010. Certainly no later than that.
The Queue: Better than Bejeweled
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, ladies and gents! Let's waste no time and jump right in today, shall we?Horris asked..."I have a question. What's with the sudden change from red to yellow sockets between T7 and T8 for warrior tanks?"Sockets have always been notorious for not being the optimal color for certain specs and classes. T7 seemed like the odd duck to me in that case, where the sockets were generally pretty good for most classes. Now they're back to being sort of weird like has almost always been the case.
Closing Time: Ensemble's unannounced titles revealed
Cue the Semisonic, folks. After nearly 15 years, Dallas-based strategy developer Ensemble Studios has closed its doors for good. While its library of classic releases are well known to gamers worldwide, a host of concept images for unannounced games were spotted during a recent studio tour by Gamasutra. Among the titles left to collect dust with so many cardboard boxes are a fantasy-adventure RPG called Sorcerer, a platformer called Bam and a game described as "Diablo in space," called Nova. Also revealed in the tour was a concept for a game named Phoenix, which would eventually become the upcoming RTS Halo Wars. Fun fact: Phoenix is a regularly used codename by Bungie Studios according to its official podcast, but Ensemble's use of the name was purely coincidental. It isn't completely bad news for some of Ensemble's former staff, as many will help establish a new studio headed by Ensemble co-founder Tony Goodman. As big fans of the Age of Empires series, we here at Joystiq wish everyone leaving Ensemble Studios the very best of luck and continued success with future projects. [Via BigDownload]
2K Boston job listings hint at multiplayer FPS
Every day is opposite day at BioShock dev 2K Boston. Amidst gray skies and industry layoffs, multiple job postings indicate that the studio is looking to bring a handful of new talent on board, with some or all to lend a hand developing what the company describes as an "action-packed AAA multiplayer title" for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Nothing else is known of the mystery project other than it will be driven by Unreal Engine 3 -- but these days, what isn't? With multiplayer sorely absent from the original BioShock, and development reins on its sequel in the hands of newly opened 2K Marin, we're now left wondering just what exactly Big Daddy Ken Levine and his followers are up to.[Via V4VG]
The mystery of Sony's 'unannounced' TGS games
Remember all of those unannounced TGS games? That's a rhetorical question. We know full well that you remember them, because many of you won't stop harping on about them in our comments section. Let's get one thing clear, in releasing that press release Sony was revealing a portion of its TGS show floor offerings. The rest were left as a surprise. They were "unannounced."Many of these games were titles that we'd seen before, such as Killzone 2, Nobi Nobi Boy and White Knight Chronicles, however there were some games that were revealed for the first time during the show. Titles such as Demon's Souls (which was actually technically announced just prior to the show, via Famitsu) and Quantum Theory. Sony's lineup was strong but, sadly, there were no megaton game announcements. So now you know the mystery of the "unannounced" games, can we get back to looking forward to all the awesome games we do know about?Check after the break for the list of "unannounced" TGS games.
11 unannounced PS3 titles being shown at TGS
TGS is going to be a pretty big show for Sony. The PS3 has gone from strength to strength this year, with great showings at E3 and Leipzig, but it looks like the best might be yet to come. Sony Japan has sent out a press release detailing its show floor lineup for the Japanese event, which takes place between the 9th and the 12th of October. In addition to this year's big releases, such as LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2 and Home, Sony are listing 11 unannounced games.Nine of these are being published by SCEJ, one is by Irem (R-Type developers) and one is from Konami. While we suspect some of these games will be ones we've heard of before (White Knight Story and some PSN titles, for example), there's little doubt that there will be new games being announced at the show. Maybe Team ICO will finally reveal what they've been working on? As for Konami, we've no idea what they've got planned -- it could be a DDR title, it could be Metal Gear Solid Existence. We'll be there to let you know as soon as we find out. Check out Sony's full exhibition list after the break.[Via Siliconera]
Blizzard's "Next-Gen MMO" is not the project codenamed "Hydra"
We've been speculating about Blizzard's next MMO for quite a long time. We're not just talking about the splash screen from last week (which panned out to be Diablo III, a non-massive game). There have been job postings on the company's website advertising various positions in a team working on a "Next-Gen MMO," which is confirmed as a totally new title, not an expansion for World of Warcraft. There have also been murmurs of a project codenamed "Hydra." We've always wondered -- are Hydra and the Next-Gen MMO one and the same?Now we have our answer: no. A reader of our sister site WoW Insider noticed a caption that read "Hydra" on an image (above) in Blizzard's Diablo III gallery. Yep, Diablo III is Hydra. So if your sole interest is Galaxy of Starcraft, move along now. Hydra is not the savior you've been waiting for. And as WoW Insider noted, Blizzard is working on three different projects at once. That's a lot on its plate. Now that Diablo III has been announced, we're not expecting any news about the Next-Gen MMO anytime soon.[Via WoW Insider]
EBGames has fun with WotLK listing
Reader Kevin G (thanks!) sent along a tip about EBGames having some fun on their listing for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. As you can see (we've saved the listing for posterity above), the entry jokes about the listed 11/03/08 release date being unofficial, and determined by overpowered warlocks rolling 20 sided dice. The price, listed at $40, is also made up, and they say that if the price jumps by more than $1,000, they're all headed off to the Caribbean. Considering how many copies Burning Crusade sold this year, yeah, no kidding.It's nice to see that EB is up for having a little fun with an unannounced release date. Good for them.
