The Select and Start News Report: 05.21.07
Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 05.21.2007
Metal Gear Solid 4 gets delayed, Halo 3 beta had some problems, Starcraft 2 is here, and more in the 1 and only Select and Start news
Welcome to the Select and Start News Report, where Frank O'Conner says he's going to start a news report of his own about games due to some Halo comments I made.
Big News
BLIZZARD SURPRISES US WITH STARCRAFT 2 [credit: Gametrailers.com]
I find it amazing that the biggest news of the week comes during the Weekend, where the news is usually either slow or non-existant. Blizzard finally announced their new game that people knew one way or another that it would have the word "Starcraft" in it. Well here it is everyone: Starcraft 2.
Even though we've got images and trailers galore, one thing was missing from all this...A RELEASE DATE! I have a feeling this will be released in early 2008.
Metal Gear Solid 4, one of the major titles for the PS3 coming out this year...isn't coming out this year. According to a GameStop release date e-mail, the game has been pushed back to March 1st, 2008.
As if the PS3 wasn't having enough problems, this fall season almost looks bleak for them. Xbox 360 is going to have Halo 3, Wii is going to have either Mario Galaxy/Metroid/Smash Bros. (I have a feeling one of those three isn't coming out this year), and what does the PS3 have? A quick glance at the September calendar shows Ratchet and Clank, Medal of Honor, and Eye of Judgement. Doesn't sound like an all-star lineup. For October they've got Grand Theft Auto 4, but that's also coming out on the Xbox 360. So unless Sony suddenly decides to drop the price of that PS3 already, then the future looks bleak for them.
HALO 3 BETA IS NOT WORKING [credit: GameSpot, GameDaily, CVG]
You know what sucks about doing a weekly news report? It's that so many things can happen in a week that changes everything. This week's news story that's been changing was the Halo 3 beta. So the beta that a lot of Xbox 360 fans were finally going to get their hands on gets released, and for those who bought Crackdown just to get into that beta were screwed over.
So here I am, ready to laugh about how once again a delay was involved in the Halo universe, but then the very next day the beta is now up and working for Crackdown users. They've also extended the end of the beta period to 11:59 p.m. PDT on June 10th. The news goes by too quick damn it.
But in other Halo news, Tor Books announced that the next novel in the Halo book series, "Halo: Contact Harvest", is going to be released October 2nd. The novel details the beginning of the Human-Covenant war. Meanwhile, Ensemble studios have begun the multiplayer testing for "Halo Wars", the RTS spinoff, so more news about that game should be coming out soon.
A BLACK BOX THAT DOESN'T SURVIVE THE CRASH [credit: bluesnews.com, Kotaku, Voodoo Extreme]
Valve recently announced that the Black Box release of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (which would contain HL2E2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2) has been cancelled. Now the company is sticking with just the Orange Box release (which also includes Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One). If you already own HL2 and HL2E1, you can give the unused codes to your friend on Steam. No explanation was given to this decision.
At first I thought it was stupid of them to cancel the cheaper version, but at least if you already have the games you can give your friend the best gift ever: free Half-Life 2.
Tidbit News
-Who do you think killed E3? According to this article from GamingNexus, more then one suspect were to blame. In fact, the article looks as if everybody is to blame. [credit: GamingNexus]
-Microsoft has released the student-made game Aegis Wing over XBLA. The game is currently free to download, and hopefully the dialouge won't be as bad as Zero Wing. [credit: Gamasutra, GameSpot]
-Transcending history and the world, Namco Bandai has announced the third-person action/adventure "Soul Calibur Legends" coming to the Wii. Does that mean that Link will make yet another SC cameo? [credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra]
-Activision has announced a new Tony Hawk game, "Tony Hawk's Proving Ground", coming this fall to just about every system. [credit: Gamespot]
-The ESA has named Michael D. Gallagher as their new president. Gallagher was formerly an assistant secretary of commerce for communications & information, serving as the chief telecommunications and policy advisor to the Bush administration. Gallagher will officially start working for the ESA later this month. [credit: GameDaily, Gamespot, Gamasutra]
-Sony has officially acquired Segil games, the company behind the MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Since the game is co-published with Sony it looked as if the game would see significant improvement, but now a rumor is going around saying that everyone from Sigil has been fired after this acquisition. [credit: Gamasutra, Kotaku]
-Yet another company has made a deal with Epic to use their Unreal Engine 3, as Sega will be using it for several North American projects. Just what the hell makes the Unreal Engine 3 so popular? [credit: GameDaily]
-The Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital has been using a Wii for brain rehabilitation. 34-year-old Albert Liaw had suffered a stroke from a blow to the head in a boxing match, which left him wheelchair-bound and barely able to move his left arm. But through playing the Wii, he started to get better to the point where he was able to get up and play Wii Boxing. PS3 to cure cancer, Wii to help brain rehabilitation...so what's Xbox 360 going to do? [credit: GameDaily]
-Good News: Bomberman is coming to Xbox 360. Better News: Instead of the atrocious "Halo-nized" version of Bomberman, it's back to the cartoonish TV-head version. "Bomberman Live", an XBLA game featuring character customization and eight-player matches, should be released around June. [credit: GameSpot]
-Nintendo has announced a contest for filmmakers to make a 5 minutes or less film that has something to do with Nintendo's characters or systems from the past or present. The winner of the contest wins $10,000 and gets a trip to New York City to meet with Craig Hatkoff, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. Their movie will also be showcased at the Rock Center's annual summer film showcase, from June 19 - 22. For details go to nintendoshortcuts.com. [credit: GameDaily]
-Square-Enix had a great week in Japan, as the top two selling games of the week were both from them. Debuting at #1 was the PSP remake of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, selling over 154,000 copies. #2 was FF12: Revenant Wings for the DS, selling 38,000 copies. [credit: GamaSutra]
-Delta Airlines and Nintendo announced a partnership where certain Delta teriminals will offer free DS demos to download. [credit: GameDaily]
-A sequel to Dr.Kawashima's Brain Age is coming to America. The exact title American title isn't known, but it's European title is called "More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?" [credit: Gamasutra]
-The Smash Bros. website has been doing a countdown that should be ending by the time you read this. What is the site counting down too? Hopefully to the information we've all been wanting to hear about Smash Bros. Brawl already. Click here to see what's going on.
Profits and Losses
Who's gaining profits and who's losing money? Here are the latest numbers:
SONY: For the year ending March 31st operating profits dropped by 68.3 percent to ¥71.8 billion ($595.3m). Net profit however was up by 2.2 percent to ¥126.3 billion ($1.05bn), and sales saw an increase of 10.5 percent to ¥8.30 trillion ($68.82bn). Despite the mixed results, Sony is forecasting a 513 percent increase in operating profit to ¥440 billion ($3.66bn) for the next financial year. [credit: Gamasutra]
CAPCOM: Overall sales were up 6 percent to 74.5 billion yen ($615 million), besting the 68.4 billion yen ($564.7 million) the publisher had anticipated in its last annual report. And while the company's net profits slid 16 percent to 5.8 billion yen ($47.9 million), it had expected a more precipitous drop to 3.9 billion yen ($32.2. million) in net income for the year. [credit: GameSpot]
SEGA-SAMMY: Full year net sales put at ¥528.23 billion ($4.39bn), down 4.5 percent on the previous year. Operating income was down 35.8 percent to ¥76.53 billion ($635.8m) and net income down 34.4 percent to ¥43.46 billion ($361.1m). The main reason for the losses was for the low demand of Sammy's Pachinko machines. In the home market, net sales increased by 32.1 percent to ¥119.83 billion ($1.0bn), although again operating income dropped by 11.5 percent to ¥1.75 billion ($14.5m). Software sales, primarily published using the Sega brand name, saw 21.2 million copies sold – an increase on the previous year of 4.8 million. [credit: Gamasutra, GameDaily]
VIVENDI: Revenues at its games division skyrocketed 117 percent to 291 million euros ($396 million). Profit at Vivendi Games also increased more than fourfold to 107 million euros from 23 million euros a year earlier. This was pretty much due thanks to the success of World of Warcraft. [credit: GameDaily]
The Other Crap
OTHERLY GAME REVIEWS
Remember about a month ago I talked about Bloons? Well guess what: there's More Bloons!
