New Games |
- Data obtained from Capcom's survey deemed 'very telling'
- D-Arts Charizard figure now up for pre-order
- Lend an ear to the music of Ni no Kuni in this dev diary
- Take a look at Defiance the game and the TV show
- There's a TON of Pokemon X and Y fan art already
- Custom Guts Man's Operation mod can be yours for $225
- Brian Fargo reveals new Torment title plans
- Here's the SimCity opening intro
- SkiFree and Rodent's Revenge out now for iOS devices!
- GameStop braving the digital renaissance
- Pokemon X & Y Legendary names are Xerneas & Yveltal
- Dungeonland taking pre-orders ahead of launch this month
| Data obtained from Capcom's survey deemed 'very telling' Posted: 09 Jan 2013 03:00 PM PST Based on the response to our coverage of Capcom's survey on digital distribution, a good number of you likely took the requisite time to fill the darn thing out. And you were hardly alone. Calling the breadth of feedback received "fantastic" in a forum post, Capcom senior VP Christian Svensson revealed that an impressive 60,000+ people responded. He was smartly hesitant to remark about individual titles or series because sometimes plans don't work out as originally anticipated. "The data collected was very telling and in my opinion easily gives a prioritized list of things I think we should do (conveniently enough, many of them are things we've been pushing for for a while)," Svensson wrote. "My next task is to convince the gatekeepers in Japan with the data (which they have in their possession) and ensure what we're working on fits with the complete digital strategy for the company." Keeping expectations in check, he continued: "Games of this sort take a couple months to greenlight and usually a year or more to make, so again, to set expectations, please don't expect any new news being driven from this survey in the short term. That said, we do have games already in development in this segment, some of which you'll hear about a bit later in the year." Capcom Senior Vice President: Capcom Survey Data Was “Very Telling” [Siliconera] |
| D-Arts Charizard figure now up for pre-order Posted: 09 Jan 2013 02:00 PM PST Bandai D-Arts Charizard figure is now open for pre-orders. This is the second Pokemon figure from the company, following the equally amazing Mewtwo toy. Charizard features many points of articulation, from his head, neck, arms, necks, legs, and tail. Usually when I post about toys they tend to be on the pricy side. Thankfully, Charizard is less than $45 depending on where you pre-order from based on the options presented by Tomopop. Not a bad price at all for this badass looking figure. D-Arts Charizard's status has evolved to pre-order [Tomopop] |
| Lend an ear to the music of Ni no Kuni in this dev diary Posted: 09 Jan 2013 01:00 PM PST Now that Ni no Kuni is just weeks away from release, Level-5 is back with the third in its series of behind-the-scenes developer diaries. This time around they've sat down with composer Joe Hisaishi to discuss the game's soundtrack. It sounds like Hisaishi had a pretty fantastic time working on the game. In the video he discusses his inspirations and how the different aspects of the game all seem to seamlessly mesh together and create a very harmonious final product. Ni no Kuni is set to hit PlayStation 3 in North America on January 22, with a February 1 European release to follow. |
| Take a look at Defiance the game and the TV show Posted: 09 Jan 2013 12:00 PM PST Trion Worlds has released a little look at the massively mutiplayer co-op action of Defiance. Expect large scale battles, vehicles, and lots of guns in this MMO that also doubles as a TV show. Yes, SyFy is making a TV show that's connected to the game world. It's a first of its kind, and it will be interesting to see how the series and game evolve over the years. You can learn more about how the two worlds are connected from our visit to the TV set last year. And speaking of the show, you can see a trailer for how it's shaping up below. |
| There's a TON of Pokemon X and Y fan art already Posted: 09 Jan 2013 11:00 AM PST Pokemon X and Y were just announced yesterday and in that time there's already a TON of fan art on the new Legendary monsters and the three starter Pokemon: Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie. People are even imagining what their evolutions will look like. Someone even made a Fennekin plus toy already! Pokemon fans are insane, but in a good way. Below is a sampling of some of the awesome art pieces I found on Reddit, deviantART, Tumblr, and Pixiv today. There's way more out there, so share your favorites in the comments!
By suikuzu
By ココロコ
By DrawerElma
By Wonderbolt
By redeidolon
By Sandra Rivas
By きこり
By 猫鴉
By まゆ＠お仕事募集中
By シネカ
By SpaceVoyager
By 葬蟻
By Turtle-Arts |
| Custom Guts Man's Operation mod can be yours for $225 Posted: 09 Jan 2013 10:00 AM PST
Kodykoala is a name you all should be familiar with as we've featured his custom toy creations time and time again. He keeps raising the bar on his creations, none more evident than with his Operation mod where he turned the game into Guts Man. Well Kodykoala is selling his one-of-a-kind creation for $225 over on his Etsy store. It's a fully playable game too, as it includes cards, money, little pieces and a custom box to keep it altogether. You should check out the rest of his store while you're at it. He's selling other custom works, including the badass custom Gutsdozer. Guts Man Operation: It Takes a Very Steady Hand! [Technabob] |
| Brian Fargo reveals new Torment title plans Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:30 AM PST Fans of the beloved classic PC RPG Planescape: Torment have longed for a sequel for years but now we may all get our wish. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, former Interplay head Brian Fargo revealed plans for a new Torment game have been in the works for a few years and that the game already has a setting. This new title will not be set in the Planescape world, instead it will be located in a newly created RPG universe called Numenera created by designer Monte Cook who worked on the original Planescape. Despite the new setting, Fargo promises the same thematic ties as Planescape, with "memorable companions ... heavy reactivity (and) an intense, personal story." It'll be interesting to see how this new Torment title turns out. Brian Fargo is currently at inXile helming their Kickstarted Wasteland 2 RPG but work has already begun on Numenera. I'm excited to see a sequel to Planescape: Torment actually happen after all these year and I'm not bothered at all by the new setting. If another Torment RPG turned up with the same quality of characters, writing and setting as the original, then I am all for it. Post Planescape: Fargo Reveals The Future of Torment [Rock Paper Shotgun] |
| Here's the SimCity opening intro Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:00 AM PST SimCity is just a couple of months away and EA has released the opening intro to hold us over until the release. Granted, it's not much and you can learn a hell of a lot more about the game by watching one of the walkthrough videos instead. I haven't really played a Sim City game since Sim City 2000 so I'm really looking forward to SimCity, despite the DRM issues. In fact, I'm attending a preview event for SimCity later this month and now is a good time to leave me some questions to ask the development team. |
| SkiFree and Rodent's Revenge out now for iOS devices! Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:30 AM PST The last thing I was expecting during CES week is that I'd be so excited over two retro re-releases of some classic Windows games from 1991 on the Apple App Store. Go figure. Yup, SkiFree and Rodent's Revenge have just been released for $0.99 each. SkiFree can be considered the first "runner" style game, where you have to race down a slope, avoiding obstacles and the most evil creature in all of gaming. Rodent's Revenge sees you playing as a mouse having to solve puzzles and avoiding cats. I spoke with Tommy Tornroos of GearSprout, the company responsible for re-releasing both these games. He informed me that they reached out to Chris Pirih -- the original creator of SkiFree -- about creating the iOS versions. Eventually they were directed to Microsoft, and were told that the company was "no longer claiming rights" to the games, giving GearSprout the all clear to move ahead. Unfortunately, the name SkiFree was reserved so the company released SkeeFree for the time being. The rights to the name eventually expired as nothing was created by whoever was holding onto it, thus giving GearSprout the chance to properly re-release the classic now. Tommy also informed me that they're talking with Apple about merging both versions. GearSprout is currently working on an original game that will be released this February. After that you can expect some more Microsoft Entertainment packs in the near future as they've "been receiving many requests" for other classic games. Fingers crossed for Chip's Challenge! If you're excited as I am then that means you're really old. Rodent's Revenge [iTunes] |
| GameStop braving the digital renaissance Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST If my obsession with Lumines: Electronic Symphony has taught me anything, it’s that the future of the future will still contain the past (and that time goes slow, time goes fast). I didn’t buy Electronic Symphony at a GameStop, GameStop-owned EB Games, or any other brick and mortar storefront. Like a civilized man of the 21st century, I downloaded it straight to my Vita -- at a mildly reduced price and sans San Francisco’s ten percent sales tax. I embraced the future and sucked all of its bytes through my internet tubes so it could be forever emblazoned on my Vita. Restaurants still deliver, you can buy groceries on Amazon, and we can make videogames magically arrive in our homes. Every day there are less and less reasons to bother leaving the house or putting pants on.
GameStop is showing no signs of resting on its laurels. Working with Microsoft in 2012, the retailer now offers an alternate delivery method for redeeming Xbox Live codes. You can have the code emailed to you with a direct link to the XBL redemption page, at which point your content is only a copy and paste away. Mind you, this isn’t a revolution as much as it’s a solution to the first worldiest of problems -- typing out the entire code from a printed receipt (of course, you can also buy DLC, for all systems, through the retailer’s website). It’s just a small example of how the retailer is playing catch up with the digital market, but it becomes more significant when you realize just how much digital business GameStop is doing through its brick and mortar storefronts. In polling its Power Up Rewards members some time ago, the company found only half of the respondents had purchased DLC and only 75 percent knew about it. Potentially shocking numbers to the hip and savvy person reading an article about a retailer on a games blog, but not all that remarkable. Many of those who had purchased DLC did so at the recommendation of a sales associate. For publishers, it’s tantamount to free soliciting to an untapped market, the swaths of individuals still trudging down to GameStop’s to pick up games who are potentially less aware of DLC. I met with Schliesser, a salesman in his own right, in a GameStop. There’s a newly opened one in a hot location in downtown San Francisco, a few feet away from Powell Street BART and across from the lively Westfield Mall. There are nine GameStop’s within nine miles of where I live, but the last purchase I’ve made from the chain came in fall of 2011 and it was conducted online. As I escaped a dull, grey San Francisco afternoon into the repository walled with games, I couldn’t help scanning the shelves out of habit before retreating to the quieter downstairs area for our chat. It all started with Gears of War 3, Schliesser explained to me. In conjunction with Microsoft, the DLC was marketed immediately, along with pre-order conditional beta access -- maybe you remember all of the commercials. GameStop was able to attach Gears 3 DLC to 10 percent of units sold, a marked increase from the two-percent attach rate on prior releases. Attach rates have only gone up, which has also led to much more day-one DLC, to the chagrin of the entire population of the world if internet comments are to be believed. Call of Duty Elite attached at 17 percent, Mass Effect 3’s “From Ashes” launch DLC attached at 30 percent, and so on. GameStop has put itself into this position knowingly. 2011 saw store closures and more capital set aside for expanding the digital market than openings and renovations. 65-70 percent of DLC is paid for either by cash or trade-in credit, neatly folding itself into the existing, cyclical economy the company bred with its sale of used games (the PowerUp Rewards program hit 20 million members in fall of last year; the company clearly wants to keep its community intact). The ability to buy DLC with cash (or stop in to buy PlayStation Network cards or Microsoft Bux) is also an important sales factor, especially in light of various hacks and security scares over the years. Still, most important is the chain’s ability to actively peddle DLC to people already in a spending mood. “Downloadable content is easier for us to sell compared to strategy guides or accessories. They’re games and our sales associates are gamers,” Schliesser explains. Being able to sell a concrete, albeit digital, product is an easier sell to average consumers than getting them to buy PSN gift cards or Microsoft money and explaining there are more things to buy on those digital storefronts. That salesmanship, however much of a nuisance it might be to savvy customers not wanting to pre-order all of the things, is an important commodity the still-heavily trafficked stores have to offer. Most people who buy games and game related content aren’t avidly reading Destructoid et al. Having GameStop sales associates actively peddling DLC is enticing for publishers, who are quite happy to work with the company in order to maximize sales. “The perception of GameStop is one guy in a three-piece suit walks into a publisher’s office and says, ‘Give us content,’” Schliesser candidly offered regarding retail exclusive pre-order bonuses. In reality, publishers come in with all of their pre-order bonuses in mind; GameStop just organizes and markets them. For all the doom and gloom that is associated with used-games sales, publishers work with the biggest used-games seller quite happily, in a mutually beneficial way. Digital sales are growing by 50 percent year over year. You can now buy and download PC games directly from GameStop’s site, a boon for those in the cult of PowerUp Rewards or with those gift cards that seem to linger forever. The company is trying all sorts of things. It bought Kongregate a couple of years ago and in my preview of the Wikipad, an incredibly cool, gaming-oriented tablet sold exclusively through GameStop, I got a look at the mobile digital storefront. It remains to be seen if the company will persevere in the fascinating world we live in which seems at the whim of volatile change at any moment, but, at the very least, you can download your DLC a little bit easier. |
| Pokemon X & Y Legendary names are Xerneas & Yveltal Posted: 09 Jan 2013 07:30 AM PST Did you see the Pokemon X and Y 3DS announcement? Three new starter Pokemon, a fully 3D world, around 700 Pokemon to catch, and of course, new Legendary creatures. We got a quick look at the two Legendary Pokemon at the end of the trailer, but were left clueless as to their names Not anymore! The one that looks like a space deer is called Xerneas (ZURR-nee-us), and the red bird is called Yveltal (ee-VELL-tall). Videogame news, y'all.
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| Dungeonland taking pre-orders ahead of launch this month Posted: 09 Jan 2013 07:00 AM PST Critical Studio and Paradox Interactive are now accepting pre-orders for their cooperative hack'n'slash Dungeonland. Taking on hordes of monsters with a solid team should prove to be fun, but it's the role of the Dungeon Maestro, the player who attempts to thwart the heroes, that I'm most interested in. As a bonus for chipping in $9.99 before the game releases on January 22, 2013 across various digital distribution outlets, you'll receive the Grimoire Pack. This contains five spells, three traits, and another possession ability for the Dungeon Maestro. And, strangely enough, five extra achievements. I don't recall ever seeing that as a pre-purchase bonus. |
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