IGN reports that Haden Blackman -- executive producer and writer on The Force Unleashed 2 -- has left LucasArts after 13 years at the company. Specifics aren't clear, but LucasArts says development on FU2 won't be affected.

Political correctness will be the end of us, British public health minister Anne Milton believes, at least as regards the obesity epidemic that is sweeping over the world and leading the NHS in the UK to financial ruin. One way to end it and make those who need help just how bad a state they’re in to speak the truth to their face. This w...

After the success of the other titles in Nexon America’s library, the idea of developing and publishing a 2D side scrolling brawler seems a little strange. But when it still contained the same qualities that made Nexon America’s other titles addicting, Dungeon Fighter Online is another great addition to the library and another step [...]

In part, anyway. Chapter One is Go (albeit one or two tiny bugs and spelingz). The rest of the package arrives early next week. Keep your eyes peeled for one or two cheeky chappies you may or may not recognise...

After nearly four years of profits, the Mario Factory posts a rare $288.3 million loss; Wii sales near 74 million, DS tops 132 million; Super Mario Galaxy 2 goes quadruple platinum.

Ever since the Wii launched in November 2006, Nintendo has posted quarterly profit after quarterly profit.

No longer.

For the three months ending June 30, 2010, the company reported a rare loss of 25.2 billion yen ($288.3 million), versus a profit of 42.3 billion yen ($484.8 million) the year prior. Net revenues were 188.6 billion yen ($2.16 billion), a 25.6 percent decrease from the year before.

In a supplemental statement, Nintendo said that the reason for the decrease was falling sales of DS hardware and DS and Wii software. The strengthening yen was also a major factor, since it decreased the value of the Kyoto, Japan-based game giant's prodigious overseas income, which accounts for 86.5 percent of its overall sales. As a result, the company estimated its foreign exchange losses were 70.5 billion yen ($808 million), eating up most of its profits and pushing its ledgers into the red.

Contrary to many analyst reports, the company said global sales of its Wii hardware actually increased during the three-month period to 3.04 million, with 28.17 million Wii games purchased. The console has now sold 73.97 million units worldwide, far ahead of its rivals the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with some 165 million Wii games sold as of June 30, 2010.

The DS has now eclipsed 132 million units of hardware sold, with a whopping 740.93 DS games sold internationally as of the end of June. However, Nintendo said "fewer new software titles contributed to driving hardware sales," so just 3.15 million members of the DS suite of portables were sold April-June period, along with 22.42 million games.

Nintendo also offered updates on some of its latest software releases. Super Mario Galaxy 2, which launched in North America on May 23, has now sold over 4.09 million units. The game was enthusiastically embraced by review outlets, including GameSpot, which gave the game a perfect score of 10.

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The Alien Arena Website now offers a new version 7.45 of Alien Arena 2010, the freeware first-person shooter, for Windows and Linux. Word is: "The latest edition of this open sourced, freeware FPS...

Nintendo has confirmed that the 3DS will be available in Japan in the next three months; date and price promised on September 29.

Nintendo has confirmed to Bloomberg Japan that the 3DS is coming out in the island nation this quarter and that pricing and an exact release date will be revealed on September 29. Nintendo had previously announced that the handheld would be out in America some time in 2011 after confirming at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo it would be out this fiscal year. No dates for other regions have been confirmed.

The Nintendo 3DS will allow games to be played with a 3D effect without the need for glasses and was debuted at this year's E3 in Los Angeles last month. The company also confirmed a wealth of first-party titles were in development for the handheld, as well as significant third-party support from the likes of Konami, Capcom, and Activision.

The 3DS is to be the fifth iteration of Nintendo's latest handheld. The original DS was released in 2004 in the USA and Japan, with a European release following in 2005. In 2006, the DS Lite was launched across the world, and in 2008, Nintendo launched the DSi. In 2009, this was followed up with the DSi LL (DSi XL outside of Japan), a larger version of the DSi. After years of runaway success, the handheld's fortunes seem to be slipping, with Nintendo blaming poor DS hardware and software sales for its recent quarterly loss.

Recently, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter suggested that the 3DS could retail in the US for in excess of $250--$100 more than the original DS did on its US debut. He went on to say that he felt Nintendo could still sell "millions of units" at that price point as he branded the 3DS a "revolutionary device" that would spur hardware and software sales alike.

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Street Fighter house sees massive quarterly profit drop alongside small sales decline; poor Lost Planet 2 sales, strong yen, and weak global economies blamed.

Capcom today announced its net income for the first quarter of this year was ¥216 million ($2.4 million), 90 percent lower than the same period in 2009. This poor performance was due to the poor sales performance of Lost Planet 2 and the lack of headline releases during the quarter compared to the same period last year.

The Japanese development house branded the results for the quarter ending June 30, 2010, as "sluggish." It specifically called out Lost Planet 2 as the reason the profits in its games division had fallen, saying it "underperformed its projection substantially." Overall sales "remained stagnant" thanks to lower-than-expected growth for Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii and the fact that Ghost Trick on the DS "struggled." This was moderated by continued "steady growth" for both Super Street Fighter IV and Monster Hunter Online. Compounding sales-related problems were the "stagnating economy" in Europe and the US and a significant exchange loss, thanks to the strong Japanese yen, the firm said.

The Mobile Devices division was a bright spot for Capcom, however, with the newly formed division reporting ¥680 million ($7.8 million) in sales and ¥97 million ($1.1 million) net income. Net sales in Capcom's Arcade Operations division fell 10 percent to ¥2.6 billion ($30 million), but operating income for the division was up 56 percent to ¥178 million ($2 million), thanks to the success of the firm's "profitability improvement strategy."

This drop in profits was foreshadowed by reports earlier this week that the company was planning to cut development time for its flagship titles in an effort to stabilise its earnings. Capcom has reiterated its forecasts for the rest of this fiscal year, where it expects net income of ¥8 billion ($91 million) with ¥2.9 billion($33 million) coming in the first half of the year.

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Relive the greatest art styles of the past while mowing down villagers with a giant boulder!

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Check out this awesome new trailer for Trine 2.

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Sony has revealed a special edition of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for PSP. Presumably it's just for the PSP-3000, since the PSPgo is all-digital and never gets anything, ever. 

As well as a neat little box, fans will be able to get their hands on two art prints, along with a 48-page art book. Fans of spiky-haired children who say the words "heart" and "darkness" over and over again will be foolish to pass it up!

So far, the special edition has only been announced for Europe, but hopefully a North American equivalent will be revealed soon. Hopefully. 

Capcom's income is down 90 percent in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the same time last year.

Sports Interactive is to launch into Asia with a new MMOG, the firm confirmed today.

A new football management massively multiplayer online game from Sports Interactive is to launch in the Asian market, the British developer confirmed today. Football Manager Online will be a separate product to Football Manager Live, the company's traditional Western MMOG.

Football Manager Online is to be developed in partnership with KTH Allstar, a Korean Internet portal company. FMO will be a "very different" game to FML, according to Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive's studio director. Talking to GameSpot, he confirmed FMO will be microtransaction based and is being specifically tailored for Asian consumers and "the way that they like to experience online games." It will be designed for regular play from home and also at PC bangs, LAN gaming centres popular in South Korea, which is the first market that will be targeted.

The game will be codeveloped in Sports Interactive's London studio and KTH's offices in Seoul, with some of the KTH team moving to London for a large part of the development cycle. This could potentially impact other titles with Jacobson making it clear that KTH's experience and expertise with server-based technology for games is likely to impact positively on other Sports Interactive titles.

Unlike previous Football Manager titles, Football Manager Online will be published by Sports Interactive rather than Sega. SI also confirmed today it will be taking over publishing duties for Football Manager Online, albeit with continued support from the Japanese firm.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

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Split-screen and online FPS-playing Wii owners - if Conduit 2 is as cool as its box art, you're going to be happy.

Get a first glimpse at Shogun 2 in action in this awesome new gameplay trailer.

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11 new shots posted.

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10 new shots posted.

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If you are a Trials HD fan, then you’ll want to check out the Big Thrills Contest. It’s pretty simple…design a track and if you get chosen you’ll win cash and your track will be included in the Big Thrills expansion pack coming later this year.

 

 

 

Sound interesting? Head over to www.BigThrillsContest.com for details and instructions.

 

French casual games publisher sees sales rise 15% to $44 million thanks to 113% growth on Apple's handheld devices.

Apple has ridden the launch of the iPad and iPhone 4 to substantial success over the past few months, but it isn't the only tech company benefiting from the new hardware. Reporting on its second-quarter earnings this week, casual gamemaker Gameloft reported sales of €33.6 million ($43.9 million), up 15 percent from the year prior. At the half-year mark, Gameloft sales have reached €66.6 million ($87.2 million), up 11 percent year-over-year.

Gameloft did not report net income for the period. However, the France-based publisher did note that it will release its full half-year earnings report on August 31.

While Gameloft attributed its mounting success to a growing global proliferation of smartphones, it said the bulk of its success came from Apple's devices. During the April-June period, App Store sales for games released on the iPhone and iPad grew 113 percent. Gameloft also attributed its sales growth to an increased share in Java- and Brew-based phones.

Gameloft said that the bulk of its sales came in the West, with Europe and North America both accounting for 34 percent of the company's revenues during the period. All other regions contributed to the remaining 32 percent of quarterly sales.

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Gameloft bringing updated version of Shiny's classic action platformer to Sony's online store August 3 for $10.

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10 new shots posted.

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5 new shots posted.

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Despite having released two weeks ago, Christopher Nolan's Inception is still on the tip of everyone's tongue. Hell, it's still a trending topic on Twitter, one of the most fleeting portals of pop culture in the world. And what did one of its main stars have to say when he appeared on Jimmy Fallon last week? That he thinks Street Fighter II is every bit as strategic as chess, and that he spent his first round of hard-earned commercial money on his own arcade machine.

Full video (and Mortal Kombat/Tekken trash talk) inside! ...

I play a lot of video games. But someday, will I be just like Andrew Leonard, a man whose life no longer has room for the leading medium of 30-hour masterpieces? That is what I fear. More »

Industry trade body pours $1.1 million into Washington efforts during April-June quarter, adds attention to privacy, consumer protection.

With 11 states now supporting California's appeal to the US Supreme Court over violent video game legislation, the Entertainment Software Association has quite the fight on its hands. However, that legal wrangling hasn't given the ESA cause to increase its spending on lobbying efforts in Washington. In fact, during the April-June quarter, the industry's representative body actually curtailed spending.

According to a filing with the Office of the Clerk to the US House of Representatives, the ESA spent $1.1 million on swaying the opinion of lawmakers during the three-month period. That figure marks a 5 percent decline from the $1.2 million the ESA has spent on industry issues during each quarter since April 2009.

The ESA largely stuck to the same issues it traditionally advocates. These topics include constitutional issues, copyright law (piracy, intellectual property, and patent modernization), trade concerns, Internet governance, and access to H1-B visas for highly skilled workers. The industry body also addressed telecommunication issues--broadband policy, in particular--and attempted to sway lawmakers on the Energy Star standards.

Despite spending less on lobbying, the ESA actually added new issues to its dossier during the quarter. These included the Consumer Product Improvement Safety Act and various privacy-related topics.

Known primarily among gamers as the organizer behind the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the ESA also runs the Video Game Voters Network. Additionally, the ESA plays a large role in opposing restrictive game legislation, touting last year a 43-0 record. Members of the organization range from first-party publishers Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to third-party outfits of various sizes, including EA, Ubisoft, Epic Games, and 505 Games.

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Neversoft enlists rock legend Gene Simmons to lend his talents for the upcoming Music game.

In the holy crap how did we miss this, and the but wait there's more categories an article (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nintendo-3DS-Will-Get-Enhanced-Ports-of-Classic-NES-and-SNES-Games-145100.shtml) citing a Kotaku interview with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime is stating that:...

4 new shots posted.

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	Written 2010-07-29 15:00:00 by Brian Murphy 2 likes

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Second Life is going through strange days. Well, stranger than usual. Second Life’s neo-Utopian post-hippie prefix-spawning founder, Philip Rosedale, apparently got tired of the grinding whining that accompanies pretty much every online game product ever, and stepped aside so that he could work on cool stuff and not have all those suits harsh his buzz, [...]

Creative Assembly has released a new trailer for its next installment in the Total War franchise, Shogun 2: Total War. This new footage is meant to show off the developer's latest graphic engine, as it acts like cinematic trailer, but it was achieved in using the in-game visuals. If the game does look like this when it is released, it will sure...

 

In this special edition of Fresh Ink Online, Blair Butler reports from her hotel room at San Diego Comic-Con and shows off some shirts and art she picked up on the floor. She also reviews new issues of The Walking Dead, Axe Cop, Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom, and the very large graphic novel Rocketeer: Artist’s Edition. Come back tomorrow for a brand new webisode with even more reviews.

Make sure to visit us on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Subscribe to G4's WEB SHOWS Video Podcast:

 

When you have Michael Jordan on your cover, you have to have something as good, if not better to usher him in, pushing through your speakers. So as 2K Sports announced this afternoon their track list for their upcoming NBA 2K11, the artists on the list should be enough to make MJ proud. With Snoop [...]

Not long ago, several British beauty publications were saying Sharon Osbourne was the one celebrity who could boast of being the perfect example of good plastic surgery. She never made a secret of the interventions she underwent throughout the years but she always knew when to stop, before becoming “too plastic.” Until just recently, the...

Scientists have for a long time considered the Internet to be a place where limitless possibilities can come true. In a recent study, experts from the Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) decided to take on a unique task – that of building a cyber crowd. The goal of their research, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (NS...

New content includes new map, weapons and a reward rich recruitment program. Combat Arms, an online free-to-play first person shooter published by Nexon America, has released a new block of content this week. The new update, called Operation: Sector 25, adds a new set of deadly weapons to its industry-leading armory as well as a [...]

Tokyo - Nintendo reported a net loss of about $289 million for its fiscal first quarter, compared to a profit of $487 million in the same period a year ago, citing a strong yen and weaker sales of its hardware.

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Announced today via the medium of media is that Worms is returning. Ten years on from Worms Armageddon – which makes me feel terribly old, as I remember it being played in the office when I joined PC Gamer – it’s back and it’s on Steam. Well, it will be on Steam, upon its release [...]

Gamers with a sense of history and a taste for text should check out Get Lamp, a new documentary about old adventure games.

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A flaw in Michigan's tax credits for videogame developers has landed the state in some legal hot water.

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There are quite a few sniper games knocking about on iTunes, and here's one that ain't too bad. In Distant Assassin Reload: Sniper Trainer, you have to pick out specific targets from a crowd of people, shooting the correct one based on a random combination of head-type, shirt color and pants color. It's been called a cross between a sniper trainer and Where's Waldo?, and I kind of like that. 

Unlike other sniper games, it doesn't rely on tilt controls, mostly because you need to be quite precise. You also need to shoot ahead of the targets, accounting for the distance between you and the target. It's a simple game, but you'll get at least ten free minutes out of it, and that's what matters. 

[Got a Free App suggestion? Hitting me up on Twitter is the fastest way! Be sure to get me before 9am Central though!]

Activision announced that it'll be shipping iCarly 2: iJoin The Click! to stores this fall. It'll be available for the Wii and the Nintendo DS, of which you'll want to buy the game for both platforms.

There's nothing else to say here about this, really. I'm just really, really excited about it.

Following Nintendo's disappointing financial results, Capcom have also reported "sluggish" results, with a 90% decrease in profit down from the same time last year --though the company still managed a profit; admittedly a mere 213 million yen, or roughly 2.4 million dollars.

As with Nintendo, Capcom blamed an unfavourable exchange rate, particularly as a result of "US and European markets ? shrinking under the stagnating economy." However, the poor results may have some wide-ranging results for Capcom's future release schedule. The company recently announced that they intend to increase the output of releases in their most popular franchises, and their financial report squarely places the "drastic decline" in profitability on the "increase of new flagship titles release from the same term of the previous year, when most sales were made of repeat titles." This "resulted in higher game development costs."

 

Santa's bag of toys will be a little bit lighter than expected this year, as one of the most hotly anticipated games scheduled for a holiday release has been relegated to a much less exciting early 2011 launch.

Breaking the hearts of PlayStation FPS fans all across the country, the game's developer Zipper has announced that development of Socom 4 is taking a little bit longer than expected. According to an official blog post... ...

Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS), in conjunction with Learning Port Strategies, is gearing up to roll out a new learning tool for students, one that will combine “serious game technology with training.”

Dubbed Learning in a Virtual Environment (L.i.V.E.), the program will consist, at first, of two components: a “repository” for virtual games created around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) called the Virtual High School, and a challenge for students to create a pitch for a STEM-based videogame, which is entitled The Contest.

Two additional aspects of the program are planned as well—Gamification Boot Camp, in which teachers are instructed on gaming vocabulary and technology and how to implement it alongside traditional teaching strategies, and the LPS Loft, billed as “a group of gaming professionals and tech-minded individuals who will join teachers in reviewing student story pitches and developing the first level of a game, based on the winning Contest pitches.”
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To us, there is a specific circle of Hell reserved for people who talk during movies, use cell phones in gyms, and consciously under-use their turn signal. After reading this eBay posting from seller “modzkingdante,” you will think that some people deserve a far worse punishment... ...

Attention trademark buffs! "Wii" is now a registered trademark. Nintendo filed the trademark in 2006 but only got it registered by the U.S. Government on Tuesday. So now if you infringe, they can go after you with even more weight. More »

Broken Hearted is a new machinima released by RomireVids. It's a story-driven machinima about a draenei, an evening of adventure, and the ramifications of what happens. As a note, Romire does say that he made the death scenes grayscale for the sake of effect, not as an accident.I'm glad to see RomireVids continuing to expand. It's important to embrace new machinimators..

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Reader Jake discovers why the StarCraft II laser drill is taking so long. More »