Tomb Raider Expectations Laid Out In Square Enix Investor Meeting

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The resignation for Square Enix president Yoichi Wada was explained during a recent shareholder meeting. The company saw disappointing sales of certain titles in North America and Europe leading to total losses near $130 million. During the past fiscal year, Sleeping Dogs sold only 1.75 million with expectations of 2 to 2.5 million units, Hitman: Absolution sold 3.6 million units on expectations of 4.5 to 5 million units and Tomb Raider sold 3.4 million units when its month of availability was expected to move 5 to 6 million units.

“I, personally, would have liked to wait and hand over the firm when it is at its best, however the huge loss was like a voice from the heavens telling me it’s time to move on,” Wada said. “After given much thought, I have judged that it would be best to support the company in other ways as I hand over my roles and responsibilities. For this reason, I have decided to step down.”

Other setbacks included the closure of Japanese studios, leading to a loss of $40 million, and a U.S. division for casual smartphone games was shuttered, leading to a loss of $10 million.

Blizzard Buys IGN Pro League

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Blizzard has announced that it has acquired all assets and technology from IGN Pro League. The staff of the organization will be divided in two, with some employees joining Blizzard’s eSports team and others forming a new San Francisco studio that will produce content for web and mobile to support Blizzard.

“With the continuing evolution of the eSports space and the renewed focus on our core media brand, we made the decision to sell the IGN Pro League technology and assets and become agnostic in our competitive gaming coverage,” IGN executive vice president Peer Schneider. “Following Blizzard’s acquisition of IPL assets, IGN will partner with multiple organizations and cover their events.”

This move is not on the whole surprising; IGN recently canceled its Pro League 6 event in Las Vegas, citing competition making the independent event cost prohibitive.

Hardware Propels 2012 Japanese Gaming Market To Growth

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Sales reports from Enterbrain state that the Japanese game market grew 1.2 percent to $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2012. This modest growth is the first time in five years that the conventional gaming market has grown in Japan.

Hardware was responsible for the growth, increasing 5 percent to about $1.8 billion with the Wii U launch, the 3DS XL being introduced and Sony cutting the price of the PS Vita. Software contracted 1.2 percent to $2.8 billion in that time frame.

It’s worth noting that over this time, the online and social market for games in Japan grew by nearly 30 percent to $4.3 billion in 2012. This puts the nascent but growing sector of gaming roughly on par with traditional video games in Japan.

Source: TechinAsia.com

AMD Will Power The Next Xbox

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It is being reported that Microsoft’s next Xbox console will use a processor by AMD. The AMD system-on-a-chip system will reportedly combine powerful “Jaguar” central processing units with graphics chips.

This shift, likely due to cost saving measures, will push the console towards the x86 format of most modern PCs. This would also mean that the Power PC technology designed by IBM used to power the Xbox 360 won’t be compatible.

AMD’s stock surged at the news, which puts Microsoft’s technology on similar levels of approachability as the PS4 (which will also be powered by AMD). Microsoft clearly wants to make their technology as approachable as possible as game consoles face a crossroads in the coming generation.

“We’ll probably see many more titles because the console makers are saying the publishers are back in the driver’s seat,” said Richard Doherty, president of technology consulting firm Envisioneering Group. “[Developers won’t have to reinvent various features, such as] smoke, shading and reflections for each machine and can essentially create once and port once, and be done.”

Source: Bloomberg.com

Microsoft Sells Mediaroom To Ericsson

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Microsoft has announced that it has sold its TV solution Mediaroom business to Ericsson. This will make Ericsson a leading provider of IPTV and multi-screen solutions with a share of over 25 percent of a global market, which is estimated to reach 76 million subscribers in 2013 and 105 million subscribers in 2015.

“Ericsson”s vision of the Networked Society foresees 50 billion devices to be connected via broadband, mobility and cloud,” said Per Borgklint, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson. “Future video distribution will have a similar impact on consumer behavior and consumption as mobile voice has had. This acquisition contributes to a leading position for Ericsson with more than 40 customers, serving over 11 million subscriber households. In addition, Ericsson will be powered with senior competence and some of the most talented people within the field of IPTV distribution.”

“Mediaroom is the leading platform for video distribution deployed with the world’s largest IPTV operators. This strategic acquisition positions Ericsson as an industry leader thanks to the skills and experiences of the talented people of Mediaroom combined with Ericsson’s end to end service capabilities,” Borgklint concluded.

“We are proud of the number one IPTV market position that we have achieved with Mediaroom. Ericsson’s complementary portfolio of TV and networking services will help drive the future growth and development of Mediaroom,” said Tom Gibbons, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft. “Ericsson is positioned to be a valuable strategic partner for operators and TV service providers around the world as the IPTV market evolves.”

Kabam Sets Up Fund For Japanese Developers

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Kabam has announced that they have established a $50 million fund for Japanese developers. The Kingdoms of Camelot and The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age developer will use the money to help localize and market the games for North America and Europe.

The hopes are that Japanese developers can double their revenue and it was suggested that the revenue sharing was more generous than GREE or DeNA. “We’re putting our money where our mouth is,” said Kabam CEO Kevin Chou.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Aliens: Colonial Marines For Wii U Cancelled

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It’s “game over” for the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Sega today confirmed the port of Gearbox Software’s Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC shooter is no longer in development.

 

Aliens was hammered by critics when it debuted in February, with all three versions receiving sub-50 Metacritic averages and even worse average user scores. The Wii U version had been scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2013, but Sega and Demiurge Studios (the developer in charge of porting the game) were quiet on a new release window when it became clear that Colonial Marines would not make it to Wii U in that time frame.

“We are constantly looking at all areas of our business and in this case have made the decision to not continue development of the Wii U version,” a Sega representative told Polygon. “Rest assured that we have some fantastic developments for Wii U in the pipeline which we will announce at a later date.”

As for Demiurge, studio CEO Albert Reed told the site it wasn’t his company’s decision to cancel the project.

“We’re proud of the work we did there and sad the world won’t get to see it,” Reed said. “It’s the game industry and this sort of thing, sadly, happens all the time. We just roll with it and move on.”

Source: Polygon

Exclusive: Larry Laffer’s Love Lessons

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In this candid conversation with [a]list daily, Paul Trowe talks about the ups and downs of his Kickstarter for Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded.  He says it may be the last crowd funded game for his company Replay Games.

Replay is going to be remembered as one of the first game developers to turn to crowd funding.  Just as the buzz was building around Kickstarter as a means of funding serious games, coming after high profile multi-million dollar raises by Tim Schafer and Brian Fargo last spring, Replay jumped in with a modest ask of $500,000 to remake Leisure Suit Larry.  Trowe says that wanting to bring back the franchise, an IP he claims to have “loved” since his days as an underage tester for Sierra, didn’t give him many options besides turning to crowd funding.

“In our case we had to because none of the investment groups, whether it be VC, angel or individual investors, wanted to invest in a game which they thought was about sex,” says Trowe.

So Trowe talked with Fargo, and Fargo told him Kickstarter is more than a fundraiser, it’s a way to discover if there’s even demand for your game.

Replay succeeded, raising more than $655,000 during the Kickstarter drive and nearly $90,000 in additional money since.  The experience was a bumby one.  Fans lobbied for an entirely new Leisure Suit Larry game, not the remake of the original Replay intended. The game then hit a snag when Replay was forced to hand development to N-Fusion Interactive and replace AdventureMob, which made the demo that helped build fan interest on Kickstarter but ultimately misled Replay about development capabilities.  Even as they prepare to release the game next month, Trowe says the experience has left him and his team so exhausted they may never turn back to crowd funding.

We caught up with Trowe for this interview at Game Developers Conference.

 

Microsoft Dev Defends Always-Online

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Microsoft hasn’t even announced its next console yet, but gamers are already up in arms over reports that it will require a constant online connection to play games. Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth poured fuel on that particular fire yesterday with a cavalier tweet dismissing people’s concerns.

“Sorry, I don’t get the drama around having an ‘always on’ console,” he tweeted. “Every device is now ‘always on.’ That’s the world we live in. #dealwithit”

His tweet drew plenty of criticism, and the developer set his account to protected in the aftermath. However, it was not before he reiterated his position a number of times, saying he wants all his devices to be constantly online. He also mocked those who would make purchasing decisions based on that fact, saying, “The mobile reception in the area I live in is spotty and unreliable. I will not buy a mobile phone,” as well as, “Sometimes the electricity goes out. I will not purchase a vacuum cleaner.”

In an Evil Avatar forum thread discussing the reports of an always-online Xbox 360 successor, another developer strongly implied that they were accurate, saying, “all I can say is be sure to pay your ISP bills.”

Microsoft later issued an apology for the remarks, but did not retract the statement that “always online” will be a requirement for the next Xbox. “We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday,” the company said. “This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter.”

Source: NeoGAF {link no longer active}, Evil Avatar

Sega Shutting Down Medieval II: Total War Studio

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The Australian development scene is about to take another hit, as Sega has confirmed it will shutter the Brisbane-based Sega Studios Australia later this year.

Founded in 2002 as Creative Assembly Australia, the studio began initially worked on the Creative Assembly’s Total War series, releasing Medieval II: Total War and the Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms expansion pack. However, it switched gears for 2009’s Stormrise, a critically panned real-time strategy game designed from the ground up for consoles instead of PCs.

After that, the studio changed its name and began working outside the Creative Assembly’s favored genre of strategy games. Its most recent release was last year’s London 2012 Olympics tie-in, which received Metacritic scores between 64 and 66, depending on the platform.

Sega Studios Australia joins Team Bondi, THQ Studios Australia, Transmission Games, as developers down under who have closed in recent years.