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Former NEC employees tell the ballad of the TurboGrafx-16
NEC was poised to capture a significant share of the emerging North American video game market with the release of the TurboGrafx-16, but corporate indifference doomed the console to obscurity, an interview feature posted at Gamasutra today reveals. Released alongside the Sega Genesis in 1989, the TurboGrafx-16 hosted a number of exceptional games during its short lifespan, and was the first home console to boast a CD-ROM add-on. While standout games like Bonk's Revenge, Blazing Lazers, and Ys Book 1 & 2 earned it a contingent of devoted fans, many of the console's greatest efforts -- including acclaimed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night predecessor Dracula X -- languished in Japan, leaving its North American branch to suffer a slow death.
Watch some footage of the canceled Bonk game
Bonk, Hudson Software's headstrong caveman that made his gaming debut on the TurboGrafx-16, was set to make a Stateside comeback in Bonk: Brink of Extinction on WiiWare, PSN and XBLA. Unfortunately, Hudson Software shut down before the game was released, leaving Brink of Extinction in an uncompleted state. Judging by a trio of videos posted by YouTube user "Bonk Brink" though, who appears to be running the game on a PS3 development kit, a decent amount of progress was made on Brink of Extinction before Hudson closed up shop. One of the three videos gives a brief overview of apparent features planned for the title, including online play, downloadable content, a Horde mode and a secondary "Dactyl" story, which follows Bonk retrieving his dinner from a thieving pterodactyl. The other videos are more focused on pure gameplay, one of which is embedded above. Amassing points from collectible vegetables, head butting enemies out of this plane of existence ... yup, looks like Bonk! [Image: YouTube user Bonk Brink]
Hudson Booksellers opens online store, expands beyond overpriced sundries
Is it not enough to make a killing selling $5 bottles of Dasani and two-pill packs of Tylenol? Hudson Booksellers, from the folks behind those fine Hudson News airport establishments, has begun peddling e-books and book books online. The site, which appears to be (at least partially) powered by Kobo, offers a wide variety of titles, and some are even free. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is the current pro-bono selection -- a click to download will bring you to a loosely branded Hudson page on Kobo's site, though you can score other titles without hopping over to a partner. Who wouldn't want to purchase prose from an online store that lists "Copywrite © Hudson Booksellers" at the bottom of the page, you say? We're nearly sold, but it wouldn't hurt to throw in a cross-platform incentive; a coupon for $4 off a 16-ounce bottle of purified water at any US airport or train station might just do the trick.
PSA: Forza 4 July Car Pack now available
The latest round of fuel-injected and/or naturally aspirated DLC has hit Forza 4, bringing with it a swatch of blacktop devouring beasts from modern times and days gone by.The aptly named July Car Pack, available today for 560 MS Points, features the following sick whips (in chronological order): The 1952 Hudson Hornet, 1954 Jaguar XK120, 1956 Lotus Eleven, 1973 AMC Gremlin X, 1995 RUF CTR2, 1998 Aston Martin V8 Vantage V600, 2011 McLaren 59 GT MP4-12C GT3, 2012 Spyker C8 Aileron, 2012 Ascari KZ1R and 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLK55 AMG, all of which can be seen in the trailer above and gallery below.%Gallery-159677%
Hudson name will live on after Konami takeover
We're still not sure if Konami will take the Hudson bee out back and put two tiny bullets into its brain, Old Yeller style, but Konami at least plans to keep the Hudson name around. According to a notice spotted on the company's site by Andriasang, Hudson branded products and services will continue to be developed post-acquisition.The Hudson website will also stay open after Konami takes over the company on March 1. And while the last few years haven't given us much cause to celebrate Hudson, we're sure there are a few people out there who'd like to see the bee stick around -- one of them is a person we actually know!
Bloody Roar announcement was a fake
Turns out that Bloody Roar announcement from the "Hudson" Twitter account last week was a fake. As GameSetWatch notes, the ruse was exposed when the account tweeted what was supposed to be the first image, but was actually an image stating "You all been trolled!" It turns out this fake Hudson Twitter account committed itself to a very long con for the purpose of messing with Bloody Roar fans. There is apparently a real Hudson Twitter account, but it hasn't been used since 2010. When we contacted Hudson parent company Konami for comment, the publisher simply told us it was "looking into this." Sorry, Bloody Roar fans.
Hudson: New Bloody Roar title 'in production'
The fighting game renaissance is in full swing, with massively successful titles still in the rear-view mirror, and highly anticipated fighters coming strong and steady in the near future and beyond. The soul still burns, or something, so it makes perfect sense for Hudson to announce the production of a new Bloody Roar title via Twitter. No other concrete information is available as of yet, but the #BloodyRoarProject2012 and #BloodyRoar5 hashtags used in the tweet are implicit enough to get the rumor mill running at full till. Bloody Roar, if you'll recall, is the Tekken-esque 3D fighting series characterized by its transforming, anthropomorphized animal fighters, which has been dormant since 2003's Bloody Roar 4. Also dormant? Our ability to see, thanks to Hudson's blinding font colors. [Thanks, Dean!]
Full Driver: San Francisco car list has two Spiders, two Beetles and a Hornet
After the break, you can find the full list of 125 cars in the upcoming Driver: San Francisco, from the classic 1951 Hudson Hornet to the Pagani Zonda Cinque. Above, you can watch a few of those cars flinging themselves around at speeds that seem inappropriate for crowded cities.
Toshiyuki Takahashi (aka Master Higgins) to leave Hudson
Few single-studio careers in the gaming industry have been as lengthy or illustrious as that of Hudson's Toshiyuki Takahashi. He's something of a folk hero at the company, having appeared in the classic Adventure Island series as Master Higgins, and having become known for his uncanny ability to hit an NES button 16 times per second. He's accumulated no small amount of prestige while working at Hudson -- but in a recent post on his personal blog (as translated by Andriasang), he announced he's leaving the company at the end of this month, ending his 26-year tenure with Hudson. Takahashi didn't explain his reasons for leaving the company, or where he'd end up at next. Considering his announcement's proximity to Konami's acquisition and trimming of Hudson, we'd wager that has something to do with it. Then again, we shouldn't jump to conclusions. He might just be taking some time off to focus on his other interests, like skateboarding on clouds while collecting floating fruit, or rescuing princesses from nefarious, reptilian foes.
Hudson's 'Nightmare Dinosaur' found on ratings database
The total absorption of Hudson into Konami hasn't stopped the company from embarking on new projects with awesome titles. A new rating has popped up on the Australian classification database for something called Nightmare Dinosaur, developed by Hudson Soft in Japan and published by Konami. Hudson hasn't released anything under this name in Japan -- or, as far as we can tell, anything for which this name could be used. And since the classification board doesn't list a platform, basically all we know about this game at this point is that it's called Nightmare Dinosaur. Which is kind of enough.
Hideo Kojima becomes VP of Konami Digital Entertainment
Kojima Productions head and, of course, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has been promoted to a vice president and corporate officer role for Konami Digital Entertainment (the game development and publishing division of Konami Corporation), effective April 1 -- while maintaining his more prestigious title of "Hideo Kojima." The other Konami producer whose games actually sell, Pro Evolution Soccer's Shinji Enomoto, has been promoted to the same position, as well. The new appointments come as part of a wave of executive shuffling, likely predicated by Konami's absorption of Hudson Soft. In fact, Konami's Kazuhiko Uehara is taking over the presidency of Hudson during this round of corporate musical chairs. [Image source: Mega64 (screencap)]
Hudson 3DS titles listed as canceled in latest Famitsu
This week's Famitsu notes that several Hudson 3DS titles have been canned, according to Andriasang. The current list includes some of the planned 3DS titles like Bomberman, Bonk and Omega Five, which were all announced last October. Hudson has gone through a serious shift since the Konami takeover earlier this year. Konami is set to take full control of the company and replace Hudson's CEO with its own next week. Update: A Konami spokesperson tells Wired the publisher hasn't "distributed any official list of Hudson products yet."
Hudson's final years detailed by insider
In about a month, Hudson will likely be nothing more than a brand name, having been fully absorbed by Konami. In a post on The Kartel, John "Master" Lee, who wore a couple of hats at US-based Hudson Entertainment -- including former VP of sales and marketing, and general manager of games publishing -- explains in his own words the "downfall" of the company. Lee, who was employed at Hudson Entertainment from 2006 until 2009, and continued working with the company after he left, gives a detailed account of Hudson's US division's rise and fall. He explains how the disaster of Bomberman: Act Zero came to be, why the US division started making good money for the company and how that attention eventually led Konami to make its final takeover. It's a good human account of the big business of gaming and cross-Pacific relations.
Konami taking full control of Hudson
Konami is in the process of making Hudson a wholly-owned subsidiary through a stock swap. The Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania publisher currently owns a little over 50 percent of the company Bomberman built. Hudson's stock will be delisted and its CEO replaced at the end of Konami's fiscal year on March 31. Konami reportedly wants to absorb Hudson's know-how in the mobile space and its IP. There's also the expectation of name changes and a likelihood of redundancies as the business operations are combined.
Tetris Axis, other 3DS titles revealed in Japanese release schedule
Last night's announcement of the 3DS' software release schedule brought a number of surprises, including the reveal of titles such as BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2, Tales of the Abyss and Raving Rabbids Travel in Time. However, hidden deeper in the folds of that manifest are a few more heretofore unannounced games -- though only one of them rings our proverbial bell: Tetris Axis, a Hudson-developed installment in the brick-laying series due out in Japan this summer. We can only imagine exactly what twists on the franchise's tried-and-true gameplay this new installment will incorporate -- considering the availability of an extra dimension, we wouldn't be surprised if players now had to stack bricks up, down, left, right, in and out.
'TurboGrafx Classics' to crush PSN this month
Last month, Neo Geo games arrived on North America's PlayStation Store (now available in a single, $80 bundle). This month, as announced last year, PSN will host games from another vintage, relatively obscure console: the Turbografx-16. Hudson has listed a series of downloadable TG16 "Classics" -- currently available on Wii's Virtual Console service -- to be released throughout January on the Store, including Bonk's Adventure, New Adventure Island and the wonderful sci-fi pinball game Alien Crush. Ten titles in all have been announced, with the full list posted after the break. No particular dates or prices have been revealed, but there are only three more Tuesdays, and therefore three more PSN updates, left this month. We'll ask Hudson if it would be more specific.
Lost in Shadow review: Succumbing to the dark side
Lost in Shadow isn't a bad game. At times, it soars. But it doesn't know when to quit. It begins as a cerebral platformer with an inspired gimmick, then keeps adding ill-advised play mechanics and new story beats when the main narrative thread has frayed. Like a stand-up comedian who lingers onstage long after the audience has stopped laughing, Lost in Shadow's greatest achievement turns out to be how thoroughly it squanders its goodwill. It's a shame, because things start so well. A brief introductory sequence shows a boy's shadow severed from his body, and dumped from the top of a high tower. When the game begins, you find yourself controlling not the boy, but the shadow. This takes a bigger mental adjustment than you'd expect. Robust, three-dimensional objects float uselessly by in the foreground, while the real action is projected in two dimensions against the rear walls, deep in your field of vision. A simple enough idea, but powerful. You find yourself leaning forward in your seat, almost feeling your brain rewiring itself as you try to make sense of this dangerous world.%Gallery-105078%
TurboGrafx-16 emulation app coming to iPhone
And now, some news that is simultaneously awesome and depressing. Hudson is (officially) bringing Turbografx-16 games to iPhone and iPod Touch "this winter" in a free TurboGrafx Gamebox app. It'll launch with a library of $3.99 games, and will include one, the Olympic-style World Sports Competition, for free. Each day, Hudson will select one game from the library and make it available through the app for a free three-minute trial. Hudson didn't announce the initial lineup, but we're going to go out on a limb and guess it'll include Bonk's Adventure and Military Madness. And knowing that many people missed out on the TurboGrafx-16, we're happy to see the games being brought to such a popular platform. And there's the terrible part. Last time we checked, the iPhone continued not to have buttons. So that's $4 each for a potentially great game to be rendered totally unplayable.
Pioneer teams with Microvision on laser heads-up display, next-gen pico projector tech
Remember when Pioneer's Android minions shot laser beams from their eyes and created an awesome prototype heads-up display? It turns out those lasers came from a Microbision PicoP projector, and that prototype is inching towards reality. You see, Pioneer's partnered with Microvision to build a brand-new laser module for the commercial version -- which is set to debut in 2012 -- using a brand-new display engine and the actual green laser that's been missing from the formula up until now. We can't wait to burn driving directions into our collective retina, so we'll be watching this one closely from now on. PR and video after the break.
Bomberman Live: Battlefest blows up XBLA on December 8
Next Wednesday, December 8, Hudson will launch Bomberman Live: Battlefest on Xbox Live Arcade. It follows the original Bomberman Live, which has dished out more than 500,000 copies since launching in 2007, and sports multiplayer for up to eight players, four new game modes and five new power-ups.
