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Droid Charge shows its colors in Verizon training docs, Droid Bionic gets killed off?
Samsung gave us the basic specs on day one, but Verizon's sparing no detail this week, as it trains employees how to effectively sell the LTE-packed Droid Charge to those of us who live and die by how many devices we can connect to our hotspot (10) and size of our bundled microSD card (32GB). Droid-Life brings us those revelations, while Phone Arena has a rumor somewhat upsetting if true -- that site's anonymous tipsters claim that the Droid Bionic is no more. They say that the Atrix-alike's Tegra 2 processor wasn't playing nice with Verizon's LTE baseband chips and had overheating issues too, and rather than expend more effort to fix the incompatibilities, Motorola simply gave it the boot. However, Phone Arena's quick to mention that the "Droid Bionic" name may live on, as Moto will allegedly be grooming the top-shelf Targa to replace it. We're reaching out to Verizon right now, and expect we'll have an official "we do not comment on rumors and speculation" before long. Update: Motorola tells the Wall Street Journal that the Droid Bionic has been delayed.
E-Noa's Interpad Android tablet is nowhere to be found
It's been almost eight months since we introduced you to Interpad's Tegra 2-packing Android tablet, and now we're hearing rumors that the thing might never make it to market. The tablet was originally slated for a December 2010 debut, but in August the slab's maker, E-Noa, released a statement that said the tablet was on hold until January. Well, January's come and gone, and with a slew of Tegra 2 tablets getting ready to hit the market, it looks like the Interpad might get left behind. Aside from a lack of updates to the company's website, its Facebook page is devoid of any information, and according to the folks over at Tablet Guys, repeated calls to E-Noa's office have gone unanswered. Basically, the Interpad's nowhere to be found, and with Acer's Iconia Tab slated for an April 24th release and Motorola's Xoom already making the rounds, the Interpad's once impressive specs just don't seem so special anymore.
Just Add Water reveals screenshot of abandoned Paradroid remake
The Oddworld franchise isn't the only series developer Just Add Water had its sights on for a reboot -- the company recently tweeted a concept image of an abandoned remake of the Commodore 64 classic Paradroid. (That's Spanish for "for Droid," you know.)
Rare's canceled 'Perfect Dark Core' revealed in concept art and video
After Perfect Dark Zero, Rare had Chris Seavor and the Conker team at work on another Perfect Dark, also for Xbox, called Perfect Dark Core. Unseen64 has found concept art, 3D renders, and even video of this cancelled game -- and the other cancelled game it metamorphosed into. In this "more realistic" Perfect Dark game, players controlled a male character who accompanied a "smoking, flirting" Joanna Dark on her mission. By late 2008, Core had been taken out of the Perfect Dark universe, and its team (cut down to three people) turned it into a mech FPS before the project was killed. It might not have been Perfect Dark, but it was probably really dark inside those mechs.
Giant, game-cancelling boulder catches up to Gun Loco
We started to get suspicious after it missed its first listed release date, and now our fears have been confirmed: Square Enix's third-person arcade shooter, Gun Loco, has been canceled. The news came via the game's official site, though no more details were provided. We're sorry for rubbing salt in the wound, but here's what Gun Loco would have been: "Gun Loco is set on a prison planet (which, for some reason, has Earth-like ruins throughout) where the universe's worst criminals are left unsupervised. The prisoners have created different factions, and are locked in constant warfare." Frankly, video games, if you can't make that premise work, it might be time to take a long look in that deep, dark and truthful mirror and wonder if you wouldn't be happier making add-ons for Quicken.
Torchlight XBLA cancelled in Japan due to text bug [update: It actually never existed]
Torchlight was set to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in Japan today, but it won't make its appointed release date, or any release date. In a brief statement on Xbox.com, Microsoft announced that the Japanese release of the dungeon crawler has been canned as a result of a bug in the Japanese language text display. due to difficulty of localization (see below for statements from Runic and Microsoft about exactly what happened). Either that's one serious bug, or Microsoft decided the cost of the QA wouldn't be worth it for a game that already faced two strikes -- being a downloadable game in Japan, and being an Xbox 360 game in Japan. The Torchlight avatar cap and other accessories are still available. Update: Runic president Travis Baldree sent the following statement over to Joystiq: "We're not privy to the decision making process in providing the game in Japan - but it was not due to bugs in the translation because the game has never been translated to Japanese. Since there was no existing Japanese version of the game, the complexity of a new translation combined with the randomly generated naming scheme for Torchlight made it beyond the scope of the project." In other words, this is much weirder than just a bug that killed the whole project -- the Japanese version never existed, and the "cancellation" announcement came on the projected release date. Update 2: And Microsoft has sent along the following: " "We made the decision to not launch "Torchlight" on Xbox LIVE Arcade in Japan due to localization complexities; not due to bugs. We apologize for any inconvenience."
Report: Mirror's Edge 2 rejected by EA (oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!)
In late 2008, EA released two new intellectual properties; while both failed to break sales records the world over, they went a long way towards proving to the world that EA was serious about changing its image. The more successful of the two games just saw a sequel released: Dead Space 2 opened to strong reviews and is outselling its predecessor two to one. The other game, however, hasn't had such an easy time of things. According to a Press 2 Play TV report – translated by Eurogamer – "EA was shown a prototype" of a Mirror's Edge sequel but "declined" to pursue it, ostensibly opting to focus all of developer DICE's efforts on the upcoming Battlefield 3, as previously reported. Nearly two years ago, EA's Patrick Soderlund said, "You will see another Mirror's Edge for sure. It's just a matter of when that time is and what we do with it. We have a small team on it and I'm excited about what we do." While Soderlund could have been talking about EA Mobile's better-than-it-should-be Mirror's Edge for iOS, the name Mirror's Edge 2 popped up on a DICE lighting artist's portfolio a few month's later. EA CEO John Riccitiello even said "it's a game that deserves to come back," and we don't think he was referring to mobile. So has Mirror's Edge 2 been rejected by EA? We'll have to wait for EA to get back to us before we know anything for sure but, if it has, we just wanted to say thanks, EA. For breaking our hearts. On Valentine's Day. [Update 3:05pm:An EA spokesperson got back to us with this: "Mirror's Edge is an important franchise built by the DICE studio in Stockholm. DICE is currently producing Battlefield 3. Nothing further to announce." With just one full title under that name, and the aforementioned mobile game, franchise sounds like an awfully strong word for Mirror's Edge. With that in mind, we'll try to keep our hopes up.]
Marvelous cancels multiplatform RPG nobody knew existed
No More Heroes and Harvest Moon publisher Marvelous Entertainment's latest financial report includes the sad news that the company has decided to cancel an "epic RPG" that was in development for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The loss of the title comes as a surprise to us, because Marvelous never told anyone about it in the first place. Marvelous hinted at an original IP for "new hardware" back in 2010. Marvelous reported ¥245 million ($2.9 million) in losses from the development of this title, which is especially impressive in proportion to the company's operating profit of ¥409 million ($4.9 million), of which the digital contents division (the part that makes games) brought in ¥89 million. That operating profit, by the way, is a great improvement over last year's ¥1,208 million ($14.6 million) loss.
CLIQ XT won't get Android 2.1 upgrade, Motorola's word as good as dirt
Motorola's dangled an Android 2.1 upgrade in front of CLIQ XT users for what seems like forever -- now it's putting away the bait indefinitely. In a statement released this morning, the company said that despite months of rigorous testing, the phone will remain on Android 1.5. We first heard promises of an update in June last year, but Motorola quickly reneged. In November, its predecessor got an upgrade, but the CLIQ XT was left hanging. Then in December, the company announced a delay, citing "additional testing," and when those tests failed to bear fruit, it just plain gave up. Now CLIQ XT users are stuck with a phone indefinitely sporting an OS that's three steps behind the most up-to-date competition, and unfortunately, that's all she wrote -- Motorola shows no signs of pursuing another upgrade anytime soon. And that, friends, is your cue to pick up a handset made by HTC and situated on Verizon Wireless. [Thanks, Josh]
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs live forever?
As we learned in the 1990s, just as Full House had an unholy beginning, so too it had to have an unholy finish. Life begets death, launches beget cancellations, and official MMO forums beget the end of a civilized community. So while we play our MMOs under the illusion that these persistent worlds will, well, persist forever, the truth is that one day the curtain will come down and our characters' journeys will come to a screeching halt. Generally, MMOs will continue as long as the companies running them find them profitable -- running online games isn't a charity, after all. Sometimes a flagging title will receive new life through a F2P transition, via a makeover, or by being lumped in with a group discount package. Our question today is a rather broad one: Should MMOs live forever, and if so, how do you propose they keep on running when the subscriber base no longer generates enough income to cover the costs? Are you OK with MMOs bowing out of the market once their numbers dip below a certain point, or should companies do everything they can to keep them afloat, including handing the title off to private server operators? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
WSJ: Nokia X7 canceled for AT&T, but at Espoo's behest
Our subsidized Symbian superphone dreams remain squashed, but it looks like we might have a different party to blame -- the Wall Street Journal's anonymous sources say it was Nokia itself who decided to pull plans to launch the X7 exclusively on AT&T. Originally, the phone would have waved the white globe banner at Mobile World Congress next month, but Nokia reportedly decided that AT&T didn't have its back, and wouldn't provide sufficient marketing support -- and cheap enough subsidized prices -- to make it worth the company's while. If you simply must have the handset and live in the US, though, we're sure you'll still find a way. It's only a matter of time before Nokia launches in countries more willing to play ball... and unlocked models appear on eBay.
US opts to derez virtual fence along Mexico border, replacing it with more affordable measures
Remember that hugely ambitious "virtual fence" that the US Homeland Security department was so keen on blowing a few billion dollars on? Well, following a bunch of setbacks and delays in its development, it's now been determined to be too darn expensive and is being scrapped. That's not without splashing some cash, however, as it's estimated that a billion dollars has already been spent on installing sensor towers along a 53-mile stretch of the Arizona border with Mexico. The plan now is to redirect funds to more conventional (and commercially available) surveillance measures, such as thermal imaging and unmanned aerial drones, which is estimated to cost $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona's border. Whatever happens, keeping illegal immigration and contraband smuggling to a minimum isn't going to be a cheap task. Almost makes you wonder if this isn't a problem better solved by non-technological means.
Canceled 'Day to Night' Midway game unearthed in concept art
Former Midway background artist Brian Beppu was at one point drawing up concepts for a PlayStation 2-era game named Day to Night. As the title suggests, Day to Night looks like it was going to be some type of zombie game -- as seen in the concept panels above, a hobbled humanoid approaches a gentleman who appears to be a cowboy in snowy woods. A handful of environments are also on display, varying from a cheap roadside motel to a graveyard overtaken by jungle brush. Given the fact that this art is now nearly a decade old, Day to Night likely lost its shot at becoming a finished product before Midway's less than successful final years. Little else is known about the title, in fact, so feel free to shoot us a tip if you know more.%Gallery-112471%
Artwork surfaces from canned Midway game, 'Hero'
Concept illustrator Stephan Martiniere worked at Midway Chicago until August of 2008. Some time before he left the company to work at id Software, he inked concept art for a game titled "Hero," spotted by Siliconera on Mr. Martiniere's website. Midway, as you likely know, went bust over the last few years, with some titles being picked up by other publishers and some games in-development being put on permahold. Only one image of Hero is in the portfolio, but it indicates possible characters Hero might've explored -- an adult figure holds a sword in one hand and a child's hand in the other, while an ethereal being floats above both figures in a ruined Chicago (as indicated by the Chicago Transit Authority sign). That sounds an awful lot like the plot of Lone Wolf and Cub to us (minus the whole Chicago thing), so we're clearly sad to hear it never came to be.%Gallery-112362%[Image credit: Stephan Martiniere]
Let's say goodbye to 2010's dearly departed
Is there anything sadder than a canceled video game? Years of man hours, creativity, blood, sweat and tears down the drain without a single player ever being able to appreciate the effort. Are we better without the This Is Vegases (Vegi?) of the world littering the shelves? Perhaps. But shouldn't we be allowed to find that out for ourselves? But you know what? Let's not mope. Let's start 2011 off right. Let's go over to 1UP and feel sad about all of 2010's canceled games all at once so we can move forward with a full heart. Which do you wish you'd gotten to know before it passed on?
More Reich footage surfaces, from TGS '09
We've seen footage of Ignition's canceled FPS Reich before -- remember those videos from back in November? -- but what about the 2009 demo reel, set to erratic German metal, shown at Tokyo Game Show? Thanks to YouTube user "JanusTheChosen" (a reference to the game) the lengthy clip is now available for the world to see, showcasing the canned title's destructible environments and Psi-Ops-style telekinesis gameplay. Additionally, Reich's apparent subtitle, "Downfall," is revealed, positioning the game one step closer to an internet meme. Head past the break to get a look at this most "up-to-date" footage.
Square Enix confirms cancellation of Highlander game we forgot existed
It's usually bad news bears for the fate of a particular game when we go nearly three years without hearing so much as a peep about it from its creators -- hence our general lack of surprise at Square Enix's recent revelation that Highlander: The Game's development has been halted. The project was nearly as old as Mr. MacLeod himself, having been in development since 2005 for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC under the wing of publisher Eidos and French developer WideScreen Games. Though Square confirmed the canning to IGN, it would not share details as to exactly why the project went south. We heard that it was due to the development team's proclivity for decapitating one another with giant broadswords, citing "research," but keep in mind that we just totally made that up.
Lorne Lanning laments 'The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot' that never was
Game Informer has posted its recent print interview with Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning, a (five-years-later) followup to the magazine's April 2005 announcement of The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot, OWI's would-be effort to delve further into the "more hardcore" elements of the Oddworld ... world. After finding the situation with EA (which published OWI's Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on Xbox in 2005) "unworkable," Lanning recounted, OWI turned to Majesco to fund and publish the Fangus project, another Xbox game built on Stranger's core framework. But only a month after the game's announcement, "the shenanigans started" and OWI shut down its development studio. "Sometimes developers get fired by publishers and sometimes developers fire publishers," Lanning said coyly, "and that's probably all I should say about it." Publisher "incompetence" aside, Fangus did sound like an odd pitch: A "close to the Earth" dog-man herdsman turned "pit fighting" slave -- to the Russian-like cat mafia -- who escapes his years-long imprisonment a hardened killer dead set on vengeance and the liberation of his people ("the timeless mythical battle between cats and dogs," in other words). Also, Fangus has terminal rabies and "would control a flock of ravenous sheep-like creatures to take down enemies and solve puzzles," according to GI's description. "We wanted it to be really hardcore," Lanning concluded.
Warrior Epic closes its doors
After a year and a half in service, Warrior Epic looks to be destitute. The free-to-play MMO had its service shut off on Friday by ijji, which posted the following announcement in the company's forums: "As of November 12th, 2010, Warrior Epic will no longer be serviced through ijji.com. The ijji Warrior Epic team would like to thank you for your support during this journey. As a token of our gratitude for your loyalty, we would like to reward you an ijji loyalty package. If you had registered for an ijji Warrior Epic account, you will receive an email with full details on this loyalty package. Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to seeing you in our other exciting games!" Details of the loyalty package can be found on this thread, where ijji promises to hand out items for former Warrior Epic players if they register for GunZ or Lunia. Warrior Epic was developed by UTV True Games, the same studio behind Mytheon and Faxion Online.
UI Centric cancels Macallan UI project for Windows 7 tablet
Waiting for a Windows 7 tablet PC with the page-turning Macallan UI on board? Don't hold your breath, because UI Centric tells us the project has been canceled and isn't talking details. Though a July press release claimed the touchscreen interface was slated for an undisclosed tablet in Q3 of this year, that document has since been pulled, so it's probably safe to say that deal fell through. Still, the company informs us that there's a new announcement on the way, and we hate to dismiss vaporware out of hand -- if you've got a spare diving-class oxygen tank or three, perhaps you can afford to breathe in. [Thanks, Brian]
