Activision has announced that the long rumored Call of Duty Online is indeed in development after months of denials. Under development for the past year under the name Project Beachhead, very few other details were revealed save that it is only scheduled for release in China for the moment.
“The platform will support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together for the first time,” stated Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg.
Source: MCV
Estimates by RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky point to the Verizon iPhone selling 1 million in the first week. The first quarter of availability for the Verizon iPhone might see total sales between 3 and 4 million, which still isn’t as high as the 5 million activations AT&T got with the first quarter of the iPhone 4.
For the calendar year 2011, the analyst estimates that that there will be between 9 and 10 million Verizon iPhones sold, raising Verizon’s smartphone customer base from 26 percent in 2010 to 40 percent in 2011, and lifting the percentage of iPhone sales above Android for Verizon. He anticipates 75 million iPhones sales 2011, a greater than 50 percent increase over 2010.
Source: Apple Insider
Very little information about Mass Effect 3 has come out yet, save for the fact that it will deal with saving Earth from an army of ancient machines. It has come out, though, that Clint Mansell will be scoring the third entry in the epic sci-fi shooter/RPG series.
“I’m doing a video game this year actually,” said Mansell casually. “Mass Effect 3.”
Previous scores for the Mass Effect series were done by Jack Wall, a veteran game composer who had also worked on Dungeon Siege II, Jade Empire, Unreal II, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Myst III and IV. Mansell is, by contrast, a veteran movie composer having worked on Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Moon and (most recently) Black Swan.
“As I was saying about Public Enemy and re-working old hip-hop tunes for Requiem, and kind of re-working old ballet tunes for Black Swan, with something like Mass Effect you’re more like a DJ, with all these elements,” detailed Mansell. “You’ve got the holding pattern, then the big explosion where you need the score to kick in. Then you need to take it off on a tangent. You’ve got all these different elements that change depending on what the player does. You have to figure out an overall symphony, but be able to break it down into component parts. You can bring the pain when required.”
Source: The Quietus
Activision has finally announced the the first piece of Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC will release on PS3. The map pack came to Xbox 360 on February 1, but won’t hit PS3 until sometime in March.
Microsoft signed an agreement with Activision that secured timed exclusivity of all Call of DutyDLC for the Xbox 360 until 2012. First Strike set records on Xbox Live, netting 1.4 million downloads in its first 24 hours of availability.
The PS3 version of Black Ops has suffered from connectivity issues and rampant cheating since the release of PS3’s internal security codes.
Universal Pictures International has announced that it has partnered up with Spil Games to expose ther trailer for the upcoming film Hop. The two-and-a-half-minute trailer will run across Spil Games’ www.GirlsgoGames.com, www.Agame.com, and www.Gamesgames.com in 22 countries, with expected exposure to 30 million visitors.
“We identified Spil Games audience as a match for our target market in our Despicable Me campaign, and they delivered a more deeply engaging relationship with our core kids audience than traditional forms of online media could,” said Neil Wirasinha, Vice President of International Media, Universal Pictures International. Spil’s gaming platforms represent a unique opportunity to connect more intimately with our target audiences, especially kids and parents, and we’re excited to work with them again on this exclusive Hop campaign.”
“We’re thrilled to be working with Universal Pictures International again,” said Nick Boulstridge, International Sales Director of Spil Games. “Our integrated Despicable Me campaign proved our value in reaching targeted, engaged audiences globally, and this new campaign demonstrates that we re a force to be reckoned with in attracting major mainstream brands.”
Sony recently called upon Noa Torigoe to promote Killzone 3 in Japan. While using attractive ladies to promote games is nothing new in Japan, Noa is an, er, adult film actress by trade with movies that have titles we won’t repeat here.
It’s not completely disingenuous though, since Torigoe is a hardcore gamer who likes Western games like Fable II, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. The virtual web campaign {link no longer active} sees her leading the Helghast faction, while the ISA is led by comedian Terence Lee.
While the Xbox 360 is Torigoe’s console of choice, she’s a good pick for the FPS title. It also shows the level of mainstream acceptance that games and adult films have over in Japan that they could come together for a campaign like this.
Source: Kotaku
EA and Gameloft recently dropped the prices of many of their iPhone games to $.99 and Capcom, Sega and Namco have followed suit. The Capcom catalog of titles like Dead Rising Mobile, Street Fighter, Phoenix Wright and Resident Evil 4 have all gone below $1.
Sega has dropped the prices of Ecco the Dolphin, Virtua Fighter 2, Super Monkey Ball and more to $.99. Gameloft had dropped 13 titles to $.99 just a day after EA had done so to 27 of its titles for a limited time.
This move has come to the chagrin of indie developers, who have long differentiated themselves on the App Store with cheaper prices. EA pulled a similar tactic over Christmas and took seven of the top 10 spots on the App Store, causing XMG Studio founder Ray Sharma to say “I think Electronic Arts really screwed the industry at Christmas time, and it’s unfortunate, because of what Apple did to support them.”
Source: Develop
Sony recently announced a plethora of mobile technology announcements, including the PlayStation Suite (PSS). While this is confirmed to be bringing games to Android, SCEI President and CEO Kaz Hirai explained exactly what it means for Sony and Android devices.
“The PSS enables [gamers] to comfortably play ‘PlayStation-quality (PS-quality)’ games and check their operations. I think this is a big difference,” said Hirai. “Basically, games provided through the PSS operate on any Android-based device. However, depending on device, their operations might become slow or it might become difficult to control them. Therefore, we will start providing a licensing program called ‘PlayStation Certified’ to mobile device makers in the aim of guaranteeing that PlayStation-quality games can be played on Android-based devices.”
“As for game software, for example, it is possible to eliminate games with too much violence and games that are offensive to public order and morals. We will examine games provided through the PSS as strictly as existing PlayStation games,” Hirai continued. “We can provide only those that passed the examination to our users as PS-quality games. In other words, the appeal of the PSS is the fact that SCE guarantees the quality of games. This makes a difference from the world of games for PCs and mobile phones where anything is permitted.”
“When asked whether games from the PS2 or even PS3 will become available on PSS or if PS3 games will come to NGP,” Hirai responded, “We will first provide games developed for the first-generation PS. But, basically, we hope that game makers will develop new games for the PSS,” said Hirai. “In addition, it’s not that any game can be played on Android-based devices. For example, there is a big difference between the hardware of the NGP and the hardware of Android-based devices. Furthermore, while games can be played on Android-based smartphones and tablet PCs, they are not dedicated to gaming. To play games thoroughly, hardware and expressive power like those of the NGP are necessary. So, it’s not that all games will be absorbed by smartphones and other mobile devices.”
When asked about how Sony will compete with smartophones and the 3DS, he said, “The PSS is the answer to the question, ‘How do you respond to games for smartphones?’ Against those games, we chose a strategy of entering the market instead of winning or losing. On the other hand, some people talk about the competition with game consoles like the Nintendo 3DS. But I think that it’s too narrow-minded to discuss the competition among game platforms such as Wii versus PS3 and Xbox versus PS3. Game is an entertainment. In other words, any kinds of entertainments can be its rivals. So, movie, TV and even drinking party can be its rivals. There is no point in being happy about winning or losing in the competition with the 3DS if other kinds of entertainments are booming in the world and no one plays games any more. Anyway, we consider it important to provide games and their platforms that users can enjoy.”
Source: Tech-On {link no longer active}
David O. Russell is working on his Oscar campaign for The Fighter right now, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t still excited about the Uncharted movie. He gave some hints as to what he’s imaginging with the movie and it doesn’t sound too much like the game series and the tale of misfit fortune hunters for hire.
“I think if we take that family dynamic that we have in The Fighter, and put that in terms of a grander stage, with a crime family that metes out justice in the world of art and antiquities. If you’re the head of a museum, or head of state, you’ve got to deal with them, and they’re badass,” described Russell. “They’re like the Sopranos in some ways, but they have great taste, and they have a sense of justice. I would love to do that with Mark [Wahlberg], Robert De Niro, and a couple of hot women, it could be very thrilling.”
When asked about pleasing gamers, Russell responded, “I don’t think that you can please everybody, but I will tell you this – I won’t make it unless I can make a great movie. I don’t think there are too many games you can play through that make you go – ‘Well that’ll make a great movie.’ There’s not a lot of references on it, so I don’t think there’s a blueprint that says you must directly translate the game to the screen. Games are awesome because you’re playing them, so that’s just a whole other thing. I’m shooting things down and climbing over cliffs, climbing through rooms, of course you have that in an action picture, but if you don’t have the characters, and the whole world that’s really bizarre, I don’t think you have a movie that really grabs you by the throat.”
“I want the gamers to be happy. I have total respect for the game. My kid loves playing it, I love playing it, he added. I just want to create a world that takes it to another level, that’s another amazing world that’s more cinematic.”
When asked why Uncharted was the game movie for him, he responded, “Because it’s centered around a family, and I like the combination of criminals and truth. These guys they’re tough but they’re working on this crazy case, and they can’t do it without truth. I think that’s cool.”
Source: IGN
L.A. Noire trailers so far have been heavy on the technology and story of the game, but light on gameplay. As this trailer shows us, the game is shaping up nicely now.
