Halo: Combat Evolved Might Get Remake

According to reports, 343 Industries is working on a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. This updated version could be made on the Halo: Reach engine and arrive by Fall of 2011.

UK Xbox head Stephen McGill seemed up for the idea, saying, “I imagine it’s a good idea. I think some people want to go back to older games and see them revisited and I think a lot of developers want to see that too.”

Source: CVG

Sony Engineer Bags On Kinect

The Kinect motion-sensing camera has been both praised for its hands-free innovation and criticized for under-performing its initial promises. To Sony Computer Entertainment software engineer Anton Mikhailov, the issues with Kinect are more than skin deep.

“We’re not necessarily against Kinect or against depth cameras, it’s just we feel like Move has more applicability across more genres so it fits better with what we try to do,” said Mikhailov. “Also I think the tech is a bit, not so much immature, but not quite up to spec in what we think. Like the PlayStation Eye camera runs at 60 frames per second so it can track you very quickly whereas the Kinect and other depth camera are only 30 frames per second. So they are more suited for slower motions. Dancing is still kind of okay and then the yoga stuff that they were doing, it fits that very well, whereas if you want to do quick punches it’s harder to do that just because you can’t see the player as quickly. And there’s also more latency, things like that. So you know, it’s not a particularly sexy result, it’s just mostly technological problems.”

“We thought that they were just minor, well not so much minor. Marketing-wise they’re minor tech problems, technologically-wise they’re quite big,” he explained. “The fact that it runs at 30 frames per second instead of 60, that’s a common problem with all those cameras. It’s actually hard to fix because you have a lot of data to transport. Sort of working with that image is expensive computationally-wise. I think they quoted something like 10-15 percent of the Xbox resources, plus like 50 megs of memory or something like that. The Move takes less than one percent, and like one megabyte. So, you know, that’s just a bunch of numbers but to developers that means like Killzone 3 can just put in Move and not have to worry about it, whereas something like Kinect you have to make significant game changes to actually fit that into your game. So that’s a big plus for Move I think ’cause a lot of people can just try it out and put it in.

He also noted that much of what is done on Kinect is possible with the PlayStation Eye. “Kinect can sense the distance to an object whereas the [PlayStation] Eye has to do that through – Kinect kind of gets that for free, that’s part of its output, whereas with the Eye we have to do vision algorithms to get that,” he explained. “So something like Kung Fu Live, so that does background subtraction, so Kinect again gets that for free whereas with the Eye we have to do some algorithms. It’s always more robust when you get it in the hardware but the reality is we can still do a lot of these features with just the Eye and if the users are happy with both then we’re equivalent in that sense.”

Source: Videogamer

EA Partners With Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Electronic Arts announced that they have become the Vancouver Whitecaps FC s Official Videogame Partner. This puts the future MLS team alongside European clubs like Chelsea FC, Arsenal FC, and Real Madrid as partners with EA Sports.

“We’re thrilled to join Whitecaps FC as a Founding Partner, as they enter into their inaugural season in MLS,” said EA Sports Vice President and General Manager of Soccer, Matt Bilbey. “EA Sports has a long history of supporting soccer clubs internationally, and with the success of MLS, it s the perfect time to bring this support to North America at the club level. British Columbia has been home to the FIFA Soccer franchise for 18 years, and now more than 1,200 EA employees at our Burnaby studio, so we pledge our support to work with Whitecaps FC to develop soccer here in the province and inspire the youth that play this game.”

This partnership will see EA Sports’ FIFA video game advertised using Whitecaps FC, with signage, broadcast, and game applications. They will also look to make the soccer experience in the FIFA games better and to create youth development programs for soccer in Canada.

“Through innovative and interactive technology, EA Sports will bring football fans closer to the game than ever before,” said Paul Barber, chief executive officer, Whitecaps FC. “We are very pleased to welcome a global company with local roots on board especially one of EA s caliber and we look forward to working together to build excitement for the launch of Major League Soccer in Vancouver.”

Move Moves 4.1 Million Worldwide

Not to be outdone by Microsoft and its sales announcements for Kinect, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that the PlayStation Move has sold 4.1 million units worldwide. This mark has been reached in little over two months.

Currently, over 30 titles have support for the PlayStation Move. According to Sony, the sales amount, not only shows clear success of the launch of the new motion sensing controller but also indicates positive momentum going in to the holiday season and to the year 2011.