Starhawk Gets A Sweet Tooth

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Eat Sleep Play and Sony Santa Monica have a shared history with David Jaffe spent time at both studios. Appropriately, there will be a bonus for everyone who purchases Twisted Metal that will apply to Starhawk.

“Our friends over at LightBox Interactive have been cooking up something really amazing, and I’m excited to show it to you all today” the Sweet Tooth Outcast Multiplayer skin for Starhawk, coming May 8! Every copy of Twisted Metal will include a voucher for this awesome skin,” wrote Chad Cox – Producer of Twisted Metal. “On top of that, if you pre-order Twisted Metal you’ll get early access to Axel and a free upgrade to the Limited Edition that comes with a code to download Twisted Metal: Black.”

Source: PlayStation Blog

Mario Deals With Indie Cred, Or Lack Thereof

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Braid is a game that’s so indie in its construction and execution it hurts, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t inspired by other games. Here, we see the hipster hero of Braid shown just how close to other games his is.

Deus Ex – Extraction Protocol Short Film

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a game with a very distinctive look and style. While this short film Extraction Protocol by Hit Film’s director Simon K. Jones doesn’t quite have the budget to replicate cybernetic limbs, it gets most of the game elements pretty well.

 

Darksiders Creator Would Love To Do Legend Of Zelda Comic

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Joe Madureira has worked on notable comics like Uncanny X-Men, Deadpool and The Ultimates. Now as the creative director of Darksiders he’s helping to finish up the sequel, but there’s another project he’d like to do.

“I’m a big fan of Legend of Zelda, so I would probably like to work on a comic book based on that,” he said before adding. “We do have a Darksiders comic book in development that hopefully will come out at some point! Right now all our energy is on completing Darksiders II.”

Source: MCV

RIM’s New CEO Meets Skepticism In Appointment

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RIM recently replaced co-Chief Executive Officers Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis with Thorsten Heins. Director Barbara Stymiest will take over as chairman, as the two also cede their co-chairmen positions; Lazaridis will become vice chairman while Balsillie will remain a board member without any operational role.

The stock dropped and there were concerns when Heins said there is no drastic change needed in the company struggling to compete with Google and Apple. “Heins is a product execution guy, he’s not a visionary,” said Ehud Gelblum, a New York-based analyst at Morgan Stanley. “Heins has to give people a reason why they need a BlackBerry. It’s going to be very difficult for him.”

RIM has lost 89 percent of its value since its peak in 2008 of more than $80 billion. Last quarter, sales fell about 6 percent to $5.17 billion and their global smartphone market share sank to 11 percent in the third quarter from 15 percent a year earlier.

“RIM had its era, but now it seems very hard to gain back market share in the smartphone market even if the top managers are changed,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees about $600 million at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. “The iPhone and Android are well established in the market.”

A problem is that RIM concentrated on the international market while the U.S. market evolved. “The biggest dilemma was the U.S. market went down the path of mobile high-end computing on a 4G platform, and our products were suited for a global marketplace,” Balsillie said. “The greatest dilemma was resources and capacities, where do you put them. We couldn’t do both.”

“They’re going to have to run fast,” said Rene Schuster, CEO of Telefonica SA’s German unit. “They have a good brand. The question is: are they now able to bring new innovation to the market so that when a consumer looks at the choice they’re going to pick RIM It’s going to be a challenge for them.”

Heins will be seeking a new marketing chief for the company, which is a role that Balsillie had been filling since RIM’s first marketing chief, Keith Pardy, left in March. “We are in a competitive world, but we believe in our own strength,” Heins said. “I’m here to fight.”

Source: Bloomberg

Heroes And Survivors Wanted

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Soon to be in theaters, The Grey is the story of an oil drilling team in Alaska struggle to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wild. A pack of wolves are hunting the humans who see them as intruders. Several Facebook destination apps have been rallying fans on Facebook with various engagements and sweepstakes. An app called The Grey contains trailers and links to social media (including Google+). Fans can register to win a trip to the Daytona 500, text to win a trip to Alaska or check out a PDF and learn more about the gray wolf or pick up some survival tactics. The app also contains a link to the film’s Tumblr which contains stills from the film and a link to the official website. Fans can also win a poster signed by Liam Neeson after uploading a photo of themselves with a poster, standee or billboard for The Grey. Another app called “Local Heroes Sweeps” asks fans to tell their story about how they have acted as a hero to win free movie tickets for a year. At the top of the app, a box containing stories from different heroes in the news is followed by user submitted stories which fans can read and vote on in order to determine the winner.

Darksiders II: Death Lives

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Darksiders II will mark a significant departure from the first game in both gameplay and tone, with the focus being on the Rider on a Pale Horse . . . Death.  Come see the developers talk about it, and some new gameplay.

Sony Says It’s Invested More First-Party Than Nintendo/Microsoft Combined

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One of the criticism early on in the lifetime of the PS3 was that it did not have the competitive first party offerings to compete with what the Xbox 360 had. However, that concern has fallen away as games from Sony have come out more frequently, to the point where Sony Computer Entertainment’s Director of PlayStation Home and Sony PlayStation Network Jack Buser thinks they produce more that their competitors.

“We have a 15 year heritage of investing very, very heavily in the PlayStation platform. We have actually invested more in our first-party studios than Nintendo and Microsoft combined,” said Buser. “We have a tremendous catalog of game titles that are second to none out there, and now with PlayStation Suite and PlayStation Network the ability to deliver those experiences across so many devices and even potentially across third-party devices is an incredible competitive advantage.”

While Buser was it it, he also trumpeted Sony’s relationships with third parties, as well. “The PlayStation philosophy has always been about our third-party partners and our ability as a games industry to raise all boats together as partners,” said Buser. “We’re not like some other game platforms that say ‘Hey! Put your game out here on the App Store and maybe you’ll be one of these 10 featured apps if we feel like it right now, and then the rest of you guys can all go out of business.’”

“Or some other platform owners who are saying, ‘Look, we’re gonna make all the great games and if you guys can maybe make a great game on our platform, good luck but we’re not going to help you much.’ Or some other guys who say ‘Hey, we hand-picked you and we’re gonna shove a bunch of money in your pocket and the rest of you guys can all dial the 800 number and try to dial through to the front desk,” he asserted. “We’re all about our partners, our publishing partners, we always have been. If you talk to any game publisher out there, and you mention the word PlayStation, they are going to be very, very loyal to our brand.”

Source: IndustryGamers

PS Vita Getting Flickr Support

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Sony has added support for Flickr for the PS Vita via a new app. The app allows users to share photos to Flickr and also post comments on the web service.

Access to the app is only available in English, despite the announcement coming from Japan. This means the PS Vita has support for Nico Nico Video and Twitter and will eventually have apps for Foursquare, Facebook, Skype and Netflix.

Source: Andriasang.com