Star Wars: The Old Republic ‘Going Right At’ World Of Warcraft

Star Wars: The Old Republic is by far Electronic Arts’ largest attempt to ever to break into the MMO genre. While there have been concerns about its prospects from external sources and played down expectations from within, EA CEO John Riccitiello is serious about The Old Republicfacing off against World of Warcraft.

“We’re going right at it. We want share, we want leadership position here,” said Riccitiello. “I’m not expecting to sort of knock them over, but … we’re gonna get a big chunk of [their market].”

Riccitiello thinks the Star Wars universe and new technologies will be differentiators. “In a way, theirs is a silent movie and ours is the first talkie,” he said. “By and large, theirs is not a voiced MMO. Ours is a fully voiced MMO in multiple languages.”

Source: Gamasutra

Killzone 3 Gets Bundled

Sony today revealed that they will be launching a hardware bundle for Killzone 3. The Limited Edition PS3 160GB Killzone 3 Bundle, as the name implies, has a 160GB PS3 along with a copy of the game the console itself sadly has no unique designs on it.

A demo for Killzone 3‘s campaign mode is available now on PSN. The Limited Edition PS3 160GBKillzone 3 Bundle will launch for $299, along with the Helghast Edition of the game for $129 and the plain game for $59 on February 22, 2011.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Book Advert Features ‘Ruby’

Imagine if Monica Lewinsky did a TV ad during the impeachment of Bill Clinton. That’s essentially what has happened with Karima El Mahroug (aka Ruby) in Italy, who is currently embroiled in a court cast in which the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is accused of paying to have sex with her while she was a minor.

The Moroccan model appears in an ad for a book by former Member of the European Parliament Alfonso Luigi Marra called The Female Labyrinth which talks about social and economic issues in the EU while wearing her undergarments. She was apparently paid roughly $135,000 for the apperance in the advertisement.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

APB: Reloaded Gets Over 100k Beta Sign Ups

With the sign up for the closed beta of APB: Reloaded done, Beta Registration IDs have been sent out for players to officially become a part of the game’s relaunch. Gamersfirst indicates that well over a hundred thousand people have registered.

“The Beta will be geographically rolled out, with three different regions planned; US-West, US-East and Europe turned up at slightly different times,” writes Bjorn. “Tentatively we are aiming to turn up the first Closed Beta during the week of February 28. Given the million of infrastructure items and dependencies that we are handling in order to get this out the door, we reserve the right to delay the launch of the Beta for any reason if we think that the first launch needs additional infrastructure tweaks or if QA catches any last minute issues.”

Source: apbreloaded.blogspot.com

Batman: Arkham City Coming Without Multiplayer

Since before the game was officially announced, rumors had been circulating that the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum would feature some form of multiplayer. Rumors intensified with the revelation of Catwoman and speculation about co-op, but as it turns out the rumors were totally false.

“There have been a number of rumors circulating about a multiplayer mode in Batman: Arkham City so let me start by saying, once and for all, that Batman: Arkham City is a ‘single-player only’ experience,” said Rocksteady studio director Sefton Hill. “Our thought process behind this was fairly simple: when we investigated adding multiplayer we asked, ‘If we use all of the energy that is required to create multiplayer and instead focus this on the single player, would that deliver a better overall game?’ With the game now coming to the final stages, I can honestly say it would not have been possible to deliver Arkham City the way we wanted to if we’d have added multiplayer.”

“So it might not be the fashionable choice, it might not get us an extra tick on the box, but we are convinced, and we hope that gamers will agree when they get to play the finished game, that we have made the right decision,” he concluded.

Source: IGN

Pyongyang Express Coming To LA, San Fran

THQ has announced that they are re-launching their North Korean-inspired food truck, Pyongyang Express. They will operate in Los Angeles and San Francisco from February 22 to March 21 to support Homefront, which will launch on March 15.

“THQ is all about fun-filled entertainment and these trucks are the perfect embodiment of that spirit,” said Tyrone Miller, director public relations, THQ. “Angelenos couldn t get enough of the Pyongyang Express last year and we know they’ll be excited to see it return, while people in San Francisco have a real treat awaiting them. This is a fantastic franchise and will give people an excellent taste, both literally and figuratively, of what Homefront is about.”

“The trucks will provide subsidized food like tacos, burritos and rice bowls at discount prices, and also allow customers to play Homefront on certain days. The Pyongyang Express will be present at the Moscone Center in San Francisco during the Game Developers Conference from February 28 to March 4, and also for the grand opening of Truckit Fest at Union Station in Los Angeles on March 6.”

Apple May Be Readying Larger iPhone

Reports are that Apple is looking to expand the screen size of the iPhone to four inches in order to compete with various Android handsets. Currently, the only thing that Apple is producing that is tablet size is the iPad that is nearly 10 inches.

Notably, Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S and Google’s Nexus S, have 4-inch panels, while Sharp uses a 5.5-inch screen and Acer is planning at 4.8-inch smartphone. It seems the 4 to 5.5-inch screen market will be very crowded very quickly for smartphones.

Source: Digitimes

Tecmo Koei Talks Expanding The Franchise With Legends Of Troy

Tecmo Koei has managed to carve out a nice little niche for themselves with the Dynasty Warriors series, despite the lack of familiarity most Americans have with the Romance of Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. The company is hoping to expand their fanbase with a game based around Western history: Warriors: Legends of Troy based around the Trojan War.

“Our main goal with Legends of Troy is to use the Trojan War setting to push out beyond the coreWarriors fans and engage with action gamers that recognize the hallmarks of that war from history, film and TV,” said Tecmo Koei s VP of sales and marketing Will Curley. “The game allows those type of people to get under a legendary warrior’s skin in the thick of these famous and bloody battles. We think this will be very appealing and generate a high level of interest and great sell-through.”

While they’re launching the Troy game in March, they’re still going to keep at it with the Dyntasy Warriors series. Dynasty Warriors 7 is set to release in April.

“The Dynasty Warriors series has always been a million-seller in Japan but has been steadily growing in the UK and Europe over the past few years,” said Curley. Previous entries such as DW6 and DW: Strikeforce have shipped hundreds of thousands of units across Europe and continue to sell.

Source: MCV