Remedy Entertainment has finally confirmed that Alan Wake will release on PC. The early 2012 release will include the DLC The Signal and The Writer.
”Release window sound familiar That’s because Alan Wake’s American Nightmare for Xbox Live Arcade will also be available in the first quarter of 2012!” reads the official release. ”For more information and updates, please visit Facebook www.facebook.com/alanwake and Twitter @Remedygames.”
It has been stated that Retro Studios helped create some content for Mario Kart 7. Shigeru Miyamoto, the senior managing director and general manager of Nintendo’s Entertainment Analysis and Development, says that the studio was able to properly collaborate with Nintendo’s Japanese developers and might get a chance to work on The Legend of Zelda.
“Mario Kart, I believe, was good in order to express that kind of different taste because we have many kinds of different courses for the karts to run and race around,” he continued. “So for each of the different courses, we could identify: Retro is supposed to take care of this course, and EAD is going to do that, and such and such. Then, we were able to join forces in order to realize a variety of different courses, a variety of different tastes. I think that’s one reason how it worked out well between a Japanese development team and a Western development team.”
“As you know, we have already collaborated with Retro for the Metroid Prime series in the past,” said Miyamoto. “And I think when we talk about any other franchise, Zelda might be a possible franchise for that collaboration.”
Source: Wired
Ubisoft has announced a new downloadable track for Just Dance 3 that will feature Mario. The track will be available for 250 Wii Points, exclusively on Wii.
To celebrate this new release, Ubisoft will be holding a “Dance Like Mario” contest in the U.S. from December 19, 2011 to January 5, 2012. Those wishing to enter should send an interpretation of the Mario DLC and to justdancegame@ubisoft.com between December 19 and December 28.
Three finalists will move on to the “Dance Off” on the Just Dance Facebook page, where fans will vote for the winner from December 29 through January 5. The winner will receive a Just Dance Holiday Prize Pack including a Wii console, Wii Points card and some copies of Just Dance releases.
Nexon recently launched its IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange at $16.65 per share, saw the stock initially sell slightly higher at $16.74 before it fell to $16.00 the next day. Still, the online company raised $1.17 billion after selling more than 70 million shares, which the publisher plans to use for expansion into new regions and acquiring other companies.
“We’ve got pretty broad sales growth across the world,” said Nexon CFO Owen Mahoney. “We’re really excited about China. Some people debate whether China’s got a lot of growth in it. We think China is very early days. We want to have currency and cash on hand to be able to move aggressively if and when opportunities come up. We like to buy teams and properties early in their life. We can really bring a lot to the table. We know how to tune a game so that people will play it for months on end.”
Some wonder if Nexon came out at the right time, given that they’re more predisposed to social games rather than more popular mobile games in Japan. Their results may effect Zynga, which operates using a similar model. “The stock price might have been higher if it was listed when social games were hotter,” said Yoshihiro Okumura at Chiba-Gin Asset Management Company in Tokyo. “The social games theme seems to be cooling down.”
“It may be difficult for Nexon to win in Japan,” said Cosmo Securities senior analyst Tomoaki Kawasaki. “The Japan market is all about mobile, and Nexon is a bit of a laggard in that area. A user has only 24 hours a day. For a game company in general, what’s important is how much of that time they can capture.”
Source: Bloomberg {link no longer active}
Zynga will probably be the final big tech IPO of the year, with 2011 seeing a mixed bag of success in that market. While LinkedIn, Zillow, and Groupon were all up by double-digit percentages over their launch day prices, Pandora, Zipcar, and Demand Media were far under their IPO listings.
Despite the rocky conditions this summer, David Menlow, president of IPOfinancial.com, said, “I think the mood is upbeat.”
Others think that the rockiness of certain tech IPO trends and instability of the market have made some more cautious, something they expect through 2012. “This summer . . . the valuations people were talking about were preposterous,” said Anupam Palit, an analyst with GreenCrest Capital.
Palit acknowledges that the IPO for Facebook would be something completely different “[That’s] the seminal moment in the history of social media,” he said. “We tend not to overhype the sector. . . . But they’re a special company.”
Source: AdWeek
Hooked Media has announced the launch of “Get Discovered!” a worldwide competition for Android game developers to get exposure. The winner will receive an online advertisement package from VentureBeat, will have wide scale distribution through Best Buy’s App Discovery Center and seed funding from Trinity Ventures.
“The Android Marketplace has a wide array of undiscovered content and we are proud to team with Best Buy, Trinity Venture and VentureBeat to provide developers with a new way of reaching a wider audience,” said Prita Uppal, CEO of Hooked Media Group. “Every developer that enters the contest will have their games integrated into our platform, which will allow consumers to more easily find their content, so every developer that enters will gain exposure and potential installs.”
Find out more at www.hookedmediagroup.com/contest {link no longer active}.
Elfster has announced that they have launched a Christmas surprise with Google Chrome. The free online Secret Santa organizer will offer users of the Elfster App for Chrome a code fragment secretly hidden inside to unlock one of three special Angry Bird holiday levels.
“Elfster has always been a whimsical-yet-functional app, so we’re thrilled to be connecting with a fellow fun-filled phenomenon like Angry Birds!” said Peter Imburg, CEO at Elfster. “We’re excited to be partnering with Google for the holidays and look forward to seeing our fans enjoy the secret Angry Birds holiday level you can only unlock by using Elfster’s Chrome App.”
Find out more at www.elfster.com or on the Google Chrome store.
This latest fan created trailer for Angry Birds is the largest departure from the original game for a movie mockup yet. Here some “birds” tries to steal some Faberge eggs, but some “swine” get to the prize first, meaning they’re going to have to track them down.
LittleBigPlanet: World is Yours isn’t just a portable version of the franchise, it’s been fully built for the PS Vita. Come check out the new features in this trailer.
This latest trailer Hitman Absolution doesn’t explain much of what’s going on in the latest game. However, it does clearly show that Agent 47 has returned and he’s more action-oriented than ever.
