Riot Games Opens Sydney Studio

Riot Games has confirmed that it has opened a studio in Australia. The team will focus on supporting League of Legends in the Oceania region.

“Riot Games Sydney is official. Known for its beaches, opera house, sports scene and friendly-looking marsupials, we’re excited to introduce a little bit of riotousness to Australia’s biggest city,” announced Riot Games. “With teams in marketing, esports and community, Sydney Rioters will craft unique experiences on the web and on the ground to support the growing League of Legends community in the Oceania region.”

“The best part We’re just getting started. Riot Sydney will have much more to share soon,” Riot teased.

Source: RiotGames.com

Namco Bandai Does Right By Ni No Kuni Pre-Order Customers

Many people who pre-ordered Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch – Wizard’s Edition received order cancellation emails from Digital River, the people in charge of handling the pre-order for Namco Bandai. Many of the orders were canceled because Digital River was unable to process certain credit card transactions.

Namco Bandai has attempted to mend fences by sending out complimentary Collector’s Editions of the official Ni No Kuni Prima strategy guide to customers who had their orders canceled. The 400-page, hard-bound book includes a golden Hurly familiar DLC promo code, developer interviews, and concept art from Studio Ghibli.

Source: VentureBeat.com

Sony Sells Tokyo Office

Sony Corp. announced that it is selling its Sony City Osaki office building for roughly $1.2 billion to the Nippon Building Fund and an unnamed investor. Sony will be able to remain in the building for five years under a new lease agreement, with Sony gaining at net of $1.19 billion after the sale, with $442.4 million coming this fiscal year.

“Sony has identified certain assets for possible sale as part of an initiative to transform its business portfolio and reorganize its assets,” said Sony in a statement. “This sale was conducted as a part of that initiative. While this sale was anticipated and the potential gain on the sale was taken into account at the time of the forecast, Sony is currently reevaluating the aggregate impact of this sale and other factors on the forecast.”

Source: Sony.net

Sony Exec Talks Launch Line Up, ‘Doing the Right Thing’ With Used Games

Michael Denny, Sony’s VP of Worldwide Studios, says that his company is aware of concerns from both developers and consumers over used games in the PS4. “It’s a massively important issue and I understand why it’s one that keeps coming up and will keep coming up, because people want to know what the exact stance is,” he said.

“At this moment in time the announcements have been about our philosophy and vision for PlayStation 4, our motivation to put the gamer at the heart of it and why we’ve got the development community on it,” he continued, adding, “In relation to points like that, of course we’re mindful of what the game development community wants and what the wider industry issues are with those things. I think in good time that will become clearer.”

When pushed on the issue, Denny responded, “It’s not something that I feel I have any further announcement or comment to make on, other than to acknowledge with you that it’s a massively important issue and of course we are going to do the right thing.”

Turning to the launch of the PS4, Denny is excited over the strength of a launch lineup that includes Killzone: Shadow Fall, Drive Club Watch Dogs and Knack. “With PlayStation 4 what’s exciting is we can see the strength in depth of titles come through – not just in first party but third party, and I really believe PlayStation 4 will have the strongest launch line-up we’ve ever had,” said Denny.

“I think there are big genres that we want to cover but we want to innovate within them and move them on,” he explained. “What we wanted to do last night as well by giving a glimpse of games that aren’t in production – Media Molecule’s insight into their concepting process and prototype they came up with – is that we will take risks and do things that are surprising, a bit different and that will hopefully excite our fans.”

“This was the first announcement, it was an early announcement, and as I said this was really to set the agenda and to get it clear to everybody what those design pillars were for PlayStation 4, what the ethos is behind PS4, who it’s aimed at and getting the game development community on board,” he added.

Source: CVG

Eurogamer Network Rebrands As Gamer Network

Eurogamer Network has officially changed its name to Gamer Network. The change in name is a reflection of the company’s expansion outside of Europe and its large network of sites other than Eurogamer.

“We already have a base of readers, clients and employees in the US, as well as our first non-European licensee in Brazil, so this name change feels overdue,” commented Rupert Loman, CEO and founder of Gamer Network. “This move demonstrates how important our international aspirations are to us and gets us ready for our upcoming U.S. website launch.”

Eurogamer Events, the company’s events subsidiary, has been rechristened Gamer Events and the US subsidiary is now known as Gamer Network Inc. Gamer Network is looking to launch a North American version of USgamer imminently.