The Select and Start News Report: 12.22.08

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 12.22.2008

A next Metal Gear is for the iPhone, Take-Two and Rockstar stay together, companies left and right laying off employees, Nintendo is getting used multiple times, and...a new Duke Nukem Forever screenshot? But today isn't April 1st! Is it? All that and more.



At the school my mother works at, they have a tree in the office for Christmas. However, they were told that it can't be called a Christmas Tree, it had to be called a Holiday Tree. My mother in her infinite wisdom (and I also thought this when she was telling me this story) asked what other holiday is celebrated that has to do with a tree (aside from Arbor Day). She then decided that she was going to bring in all sorts of ornaments relating to other holidays like little Easter bunnies and fireworks since it was now a HOLIDAY Tree rather than just a Christmas Tree. The next day, the tree was back to being called a Christmas Tree.

Big News

NEXT METAL GEAR GAMES COMES TO XBOX 360 IPHONE?! [credit: 1UP, Gamasutra, CVG, GameDaily]

A couple weeks ago Kojima posted up a teaser picture for what the next Metal Gear game was going to be. A lot of people guessed it'd be MGS4 for the Xbox 360, with other guesses ranging from a third AC!D game to a debut appearance on another console. Turns out that's exactly what it was as Konami revealed that the new Metal Gear game is coming to the iPhone, entitled Metal Gear Solid Touch. The game will be based on MGS4 and have 8 levels available from the start, with more to be added later. Konami also stated that Dance Dance Revolution, Silent Hill The Escape, and Frogger are coming to the iPhone as well.

I remember an article from some time ago about how the iPhone could possibly compete against the DS and PSP on the game front. I laughed it off because the thought of a phone trying to compete with the big two would fail miserably. Hell it already happened back in 2003 when N-Gage failed to capture anybody's interest. But now here we have Konami deciding to release a Metal Gear Solid game on the iPhone. Perhaps gaming on the iPhone actually does have some legs to walk on, though it still won't make a noticable dent to the DS or PSP.

Also, I think this would have made a better teaser pic:



TAKE-TWO AND ROCKSTAR STAY TOGETHER; PLUS OTHER TAKE-TWO TIDBITS [credit: CVG, GameDaily, Gamasutra]

Take-Two has signed a new agreement with Rockstar which will have Rockstar stay with the company at least until January 31st, 2012. Additionally, the publisher announced long-term employment agreements with key members of Rockstar's creative team, including Sam Houser, Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies. Take-Two will also be funding for new IPs from the new company being formed by key Rockstar members and will be published by Take-Two.

With the way Take-Two has been performing over the years, they should count their lucky stars that Rockstar has decided to stay with them. Because as much trouble as Rockstar get themselves into to, they make a LOT of money for Take-Two. In fact they're probably the only part of Take-Two that makes money.

In other Take-Two news, while several companies are laying off people (see below for this week's layoffs) Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick says that the company is "selectively hiring" highly talented developers. Guess this means no one from Midway will be joining them.

Take-Two also seems to be doing well financially thanks largely to Grand Theft Auto 4. Overall fiscal year profits for the company was $97.1 million, a big improvement over their net loss of $138.4 million from last year. See, they made money because they published games people were willing to pay for. Now if other companies from other industries followed this method, maybe they wouldn't be in such an economic crisis.

LAYOFFS!

Since several companies are doing it these days, it now has it's own section.

-Free Radical Design, the publisher behind Haze and TimeSplitters, is on the verge of going out of business. With the failure of Haze and the deal with LucasArts to make the new Star Wars: Battlefront game falling through, the developer has not been able to fine someone to publish TimeSplitters 4, which may end up getting canceled if the company can't get any money fast. All employees have been paid for the month of December, but after that, it's very likely they'll be out of work. Of the approximate 180 people working for the company, about 20 remain as the "skeleton crew" remain as the company is getting put under "administration" to assess it's financial situation.[credit: Destructoid, GameSpot, Giant Bomb]

-Even more bad news for EA, they'll be laying off an additional 4% of their global workforce, bringing the total number of layoffs to 1,000 employees (10% of their global workforce. They'll also be consolidating their Vancouver studio Black Box, who makes the Need for Speed games. [credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra]

-Midway has now closed it's Austin studio, suspending development on several of their "non-core" projects and laying off 180 employees (25% of their workforce). Any day now... [credit: Gamasutra, GameDaily]

-Factor 5 laid off over 35 staff members (50% of workforce). Many of the remaining developers have taken pay cuts to allow them to continue working at the studio as it searches for new game deals. An animator for Factor 5 posted in his blog about the financial problems the company was having before the layoffs came and that the company hadn't paid employees in a month. Factor 5 is now considering taking legal action against the animator. Yeah, because not paying him wasn't bad enough. [credit: Gamasutra, GameSpot]

-Massively multiplayer online game developer Turbine at its Massachusetts headquarters and Redwood City, California studio. The exact number of people laid off was not given. [credit: GameSpot, Gamasutra]

NEW DUKE NUKEM FOREVER SCREENSHOT. NO, REALLY. [credit: Joystiq, CVG, ShackNews]

You know that game 3D Realms has been making for over 11 years now and never finished, so we all thought it was canceled until they said they would release the game when it's finished, and so we took that as further proof that the game was still canceled, but then out of nowhere we suddenly get a new screenshot and even a trailer "confirming" that 3D Realms will actually release the game? Well this week's update for the game is that there is yet ANOTHER screenshot! The shot above is supposedly a real time one too.



...



...



Nope, I still don't think this game is actually ever going to come out. You know, with so many companies suffering money problems and possibly going out of business, how is 3D Realms still around anyway?

[credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra, 1UP]

This week Nintendo Nintendo of America has settled an infringement lawsuit against third-party accessory company Nyko, which alleged patent and trademark infringement relating to Nintendo's Nunchuk controller. Nyko was making wireless Nunchuk controllers that looked too much like Nintendo's, but now because of the agreement, Nyko will be redesigning their wireless Nunchuk controllers.

Well, it's a good thing Nintendo resolved that dispute and everything is back to...what? Nintendo is being sued again? Yep, this time over those damn Wii Remote Straps that apparently isn't enough to stop retarded people from flinging the remote right at their expensive widescreen TVs. Colorado resident Molly Elvig is alleging that everything Nintendo has done to review the Wii Remote strap has been insufficient. Additionally, the suit is accusing Nintendo of covering up evidence from the Consumer Product Safety Commission with which it created the Wii Strap replacement program. Lady, LEARN HOW TO USE THE FREAKING CONTROLLER PROPERLY!

But at least Nintendo isn't getting sued over something that causes fires. That would be...oh crap, they are?! Apparently their DS power adapter caused a fire to a residency in Kentucky. Liberty Mutual is suing Nintendo for $236,304 citing that it was the adapter that caused the fire, notes that prior to the time of the fire, Nintendo issued a recall of some DS adapters due to overheating, though that had to do with DS Lites in Japan. Unfortunately I have a feeling Nintendo will lose this one. But at least it's not going to be in the millions like those fuckers at Anascape got. Does anybody know a way of contacting that company?

Tidbit News

-In what I will no doubt be seeing more of in 2009, Time Warner bought another 10 million shares of Eidos, giving Time Warner about 20% ownership of the company. Recently word of Eidos being bought out as been making the rounds, with potential buyers being Time Warner, Ubisoft, and Square-Enix. [credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra]

-Eidos announced that Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy will both be lending their voices to Batman: Arkham Asylum. Hamill had previously voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and Conroy has voiced Batman in just about every Batman cartoon since the 90's. [credit: GameDaily]

-David Jaffe, creator of the God of War series, has said that the footage of the game shown at the Spike VGA's looked "meh" compared to the footage he's actually seen in internal Sony meetings. He also believes the game looks much better then Gears of War 2. Didn't Midway claim to have been working on a game like that? I wonder how that's turning out for them. [credit: GameDaily]

-After being available for download for about a month, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix has been downloaded 250,000 times on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, breaking one-day and one-week download records, and may break the one-month record as well. According to Capcom's John Diamonon, SSF2THDR is likely to become Capcom's highest-grossing digital title ever. [credit: GameSpot, Gamasutra, GameDaily]

-Back in June, Ready At Dawn were going to quit developing games for the PSP despite being one of the handhelds biggest supporters. However, upon realizing that two of their PSP games, Daxter and God of War: Chains of Olympus, were amongst the top five best selling PSP games on Amazon, the company is now reconsidering developing games for the PSP again. If they were so good at making PSP games, why the hell did they decide to quit in the first place? They haven't even done anything since saying they wouldn't do anymore PSP games. [credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra]

-The organizers of the Child's Play Charity announced that the fifth annual Child's Play Charity dinner auction received over $200,000 in contributions. The proceeds from the event pushes the 2008 total for Child's Play to $1.07 million, surpassing the charity's goal of reaching $750,000. Harmonix donated $30,000 from the money made off the Rock Band PAX Pack. That pack is still available to download and proceeds will continue to go to Child's Play. [credit: Gamasutra, GameDaily]

-EA has announced a new action-adventure game called Dante's Inferno, based on the famous 14th Century poem "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri. The ones developing the game will be the people behind Dead Space. An action-adventure title based on a poem mostly consisting of Dante observing the things he sees in hell? Yeah, they're DEFINITELY going to tale liberties on this one. [credit: Gamasutra, GameDaily]

-Grand Theft Auto IV was voted as the best game of 2008 by Spike's Video Game Awards. Not that that award is actually worth something. [credit: GameDaily]

-Remember the news that Michael Phelps was going to have a video game with his name on it? It's been confirmed that the game will be made by 505 Games and will be released sometime in Spring 2010 on the home consoles and iPhone. [credit: GameDaiily, Gamasutra, GameSpot]

Guitar Hero:

-In an interview with USA Today, lead designer Alan Flores mentioned that Guitar Hero: Metallica is going to be a lot harder then the previous Guitar Hero games, especially with the drums. Please, I bet it's still nothing compared to Raining Blood on Hard. Man I still hate that song. [credit: GameDaily]

Rock Band:

-Harmonix confirmed Pearl Jam's debut album "Ten" will be a downloadable album coming to the Rock Band Music Store the same day it gets re-issued to stores on March 24th, 2009. The album will contain the following songs:
Ten
Once
Even Flow
Why Go
Black
Jeremy
Oceans
Porch
Garden
Deep
Release
(Alive, also on the album, is already in Rock Band 2)
[credit: GameDaily, GameSpot]

Gaming Calendar

December 22nd - Rock Band 2 ported to PS2 and Wii

January 6th, 2009 - Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP)

January 13th, 2009 - Lord of the Rings: Conquest (X360, PS3, PC, DS)

January 21st, 2009 - Skate 2 (X360, PS3)

February 3rd, 2009:
-Rygar: The Battle of Argus (Wii)
-My World, My Way (DS)

February 10th, 2009 - Legacy of Ys: Books I & II (DS)

February 16th, 2009 - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS)

February 17th, 2009:
-Street Fighter IV (X360, PS3)
-Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
-Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (X360)

February 28th, 2009 - Tabula Rasa to be shut down

March 3rd, 2009 - Star Ocean: The Last Hope (X360)

March 13th, 2009 - Resident Evil 5 (X360)

March 17th, 2009:
-Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS)
-GTA: Chinatown Wars (DS)
-Trackmania DS
-Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball (Wii)

March 22nd, 2009 - Pokemon Platinum (DS)

Videos of the Day

I have found the solution to piracy:


Voldo shows off a different kind of soul:


These guys are SUCKERS~!

News Reports:

Derek Robbins' B3yond The Report

Chris Vicari's PC Spotlight

Theo Fraser's Nintendophiles

Joe Roche's The Full Circle 360

John De Large's Once In A Lifetime Games News Report (Welcome to the team John!)

Columns:

Over in Japan, they have a Wii game where you put the remote on a piece of cardboard and play by tapping the cardboard. WHY DO WE NOT HAVE THAT HERE?! Find out more in Tommy Coloma's The Release List

Forget about asking whether or not the PlayStation 3 should be considered a failure...the REAL important question is what if Duke Nukem became a born-again Christian? Greg Bruno brings back the What If? column, and you'll be glad he did.

Who the hell could ever like a crappy FMV game like Corpse Killer? Mark Salmela, that's who.

Have a girlfriend that you want to game with, but not quite sure as to get her to game? Greg Bruno and his girlfriend are here to help!

Jordan Williams presents the nominees for The 2nd Annual Workies

Derek Robbins remembers the 10 Worst Games he got for Christmas. Just smile and nod Derek, smile and nod.

Rod Oracheski starts playing his backlog of games.

John Curry and Rod Oracheski in this week's (month's?) Fact or Fiction by Tommy Coloma

Trace Aber debuts his new column Living LIVE, a look at what's currently going on in the world of Xbox Live.

Reviews:

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (XBLA, PSN) by Armando Rodriguez

Blitz: The League II (Xbox 360, PS3) by John Curry

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough (PC) by Armando Rodriguez

Far Cry 2 (PS3) by Armando Rodriguez

Unsolved Crimes (DS) by Drew Robbins

Sam & Max Season One (Wii) by Ramon Aranda

Features:

Eye on The Future: A Look Into 2009 - Xbox Games To Watch by Todd Vote

Happy Holidays everyone. Well, except you. And you. Oh, and especially YOU! You all know who you are.